As a kid I used to save bits of plastic to throw onto our backyard garbage fires to produce unusual green flames. In Indonesia, where...

My daughter called me from Byron Bay to ask about the bushfires at Bendalong. She’d been evacuated from the fireground on New Year’s Eve...

Today is the one-year anniversary of the day I stopped work, the end of my self-imposed period of transition from worker bee to dazzling...

The weather has halted our progress south. We’re holed up behind a small sand cay looking across to the fishermen’s shambolic township on...

We reach our anchorage at East Wallabi Island with a collective sigh of relief about 4:30 PM. The Abrolhos group is famous for two...

Scooting along Dirk Hartog island to our next anchorage, then further into the vast inland sea of Shark Bay, the swell abating slowly as...

That afternoon I picked up the other guys from the airport and straight away there’s the dynamic of a new crew, another bunch of...

Oh, what a change it’s been, from working that nine to five Oh, how strange it’s been, at last I get the feeling that I’m really alive So...

On the map the Montebellos look like a delicate lacework. The ancient coral structure has been uplifted or the sea level has dropped,...

Today we were taken to some Montebello fishing hotspots by Nick, who works on a fishing charter boat moored permanently in the bay where...

We’re running along the first of the Montebello Islands, Australia’s own Bikini Atoll. Three atomic bombs were detonated here in the...

We drove out through the channel of the atoll as the afternoon tide fleshed out the passage and before the setting sun made it impossible...

We’re driving away from Rowley Shoals, back to the Australian mainland from this bolthole of marine perfection. At 220 kilometres from...

There comes a point where you stop wondering ‘what will I do with my life’ and start wondering ‘what did I do with my life?’ It’s not so...

The mid-point of my first year of non-work has slipped by with nary an eye-blink. I guess I'm really the only one counting the days, and...

Images of coral with surface refraction. Montgomery Reef, WA.

My phone has read ‘No service’ for almost three weeks. I’ve shaved once. I damaged my index finger too badly to play guitar, but it’s had...

The second proper fish I caught was a 78 cm barramundi. He jumped a couple of times when he first swallowed the lure but was almost...

On Thursday we swapped two of our crew: John’s wife Jane and youngest son Hugh were helicoptered in to a remote beach and Steve and...

I’m incredibly lucky to be here, I know that. John’s generosity is almost herculean. Sure he needs to get his boat to Perth and he can’t...