Photo above is the northern point at Browns Bay on the northern beaches of East Coast Bays in New Zealand. Tangaroa is the Maori god of the sea.
Dedicated to Craig Bowden 1960 ~ 2021
He loved to cast a line and lay crab pots off the rocks down the bay. I would tag along for the ride and hope Tangaroa bless the tide givin’ up its catch of the day So the fish whisperer did call on the sea god for a good haul. But would say at fishin’ I suck and complain I brought him bad luck cos we always caught sweet f-all He said to me “Skeet, have no fear and I’ll catch one for you I swear”. Out of his tackle box he took his line and his bait and his hook but what I needed was a beer We cast our lines over the side and waited there for a wild ride. Bites were few yet fewer than some but our whisperin’ catch had come with the wind and gone with the tide Turnin’ he snarled at me and said “catchin’ fish ain’t the point, dickhead”. Well bugger me! I thought it was and cracked another cold one cos we showed up but the fish had fled He’d feel the spindrift on his face and away it would his blues chase. Pulled by the tides of time and sea it was all just a lark to me but for him was a sacred place There’d be no fish or crab or cray or tales of ones that got away. Instead in our fishermen’s curse we’d contemplate the megaverse by the sandstone cliffs of Browns Bay He had fished up and down this coast but this old haunt he fished the most. At ebb and flow without a care I could see what pull drew him here but in his haunt now haunts his ghost Written: May 2025
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