For those who have gone the distance and have continued to camp alongside the great lagoon- like bay of Port Phillip until mid Autumn, the rewards are great. The summer crowds, the sun seekers, bathers and holiday makers have long left: a more mellow mood remains. Some old patterns and rituals continue as the season winds to a close. From 5 o’clock, the beach calls and it’s time for a Shirley. Folding chairs, chilled wine, cameras real and cloned are carted down to the shoreline just in time for the sunset show. The children run or cartwheel across the sand, dressed for an endless summer, too busy to ever get cold, while their elders swaddle in layers against the descending chill.
The sunsets of mid Autumn are incandescent and more evocative than their summer counterparts. No more lipstick sunsets, loud, adolescent and brash. The season brings out subtle colours, as softer tangerine mellows to russet, bronze and antique gold, like the waning of time and life. My mind wanders out to sea as ships come and go, with cargoes of cars and clutter. Melbourne’s shipping lane is busy in the evening. Ghost ships pass, container-less, skeletons of their former selves, story book ships, pirate fortune hunters in search of another raid.
Or human cargo ships pass by, cruise ships full of expectation, lit up like floating apartment blocks, as they ostentatiously glide into the setting sun and head towards their next fleeting appointment with another land.
As a Champagne stopper popped, landing a good distance away in the sand, a song came to mind, piercing my mental meanderings on ships and sunsets. An earworm of the evening, I firmly planted it in the minds and souls of my fellow drinkers. And now dear reader, I’m planting it in yours. Lyrics below seem more pertinent than ever.
Ship of Fools
We’re setting sail to the place on the map
from which no one has ever returned
Drawn by the promise of the joker and the fool
by the light of the crosses that burned.
Drawn by the promise of the women and the lace
and the gold and the cotton and pearls
It’s the place where they keep all the darkness you need.
You sail away from the light of the world on this trip, baby.
You will pay tomorrow
You’re gonna pay tomorrow
You will pay tomorrow
Save me. Save me from tomorrow
I don’t want to sail with this ship of fools. No, no
Oh, save me. Save me from tomorrow
I don’t want to sail with this ship of fools
I want to run and hide ……..right now
They will leave you drifting in the shallows
or drowning in the oceans of history
Traveling the world, you’re in search of no good
but I’m sure you’ll build your Sodom like you knew you would
Using all the good people for your galley slaves
as you’re little boat struggles through the warning waves, but you don’t pay
You’re gonna pay tomorrow
You’re gonna pay tomorrow
I don’t want to sail with this ship of fools
Save me. Save me from tomorrow
I don’t want to sail with this ship of fools
Where’s it comin’ from?
Where’s it goin’ to now?
It’s just a It’s just a ship of fools
ALMOST ITALIAN 
A beautiful tribute to the Bay, and a most appropriate song, Francesca. I hear there is a mass migration of spider crabs happening in the Bay at the moment. That would be a sight to see. But what I really want to see, swimming around the piers along the Bay, is a weedy sea dragon.
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Thanks anne, I love that Bay and now we have finally packed up and returned. I didn’t see any spider crabs – a weedy sea dragon would be amazing to see. We saw a giant black Ray swimming under the pier- majestic.
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Breathtaking!
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Thanks Maree. Now packed up and returned, I will miss those sunsets and that big lagoon.
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Stunning images. The colors are magnificent. Never thought of cruise ships as being human cargo ships, but that what they are. Keep those images coming and enjoy.
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Thanks Ron.. I have so many lovely pics of that bay, It’s hard to choose. The bay always puts on a good light show.
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I suppose we will not see many more of these glowing amber sunsets now that winter is on the way.
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Beautifully evocative Francesca and thats one of my favourite songs although I didn’t know they were the words
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The words are quite disturbing in a way.
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Lovely words Francesca. We had a brilliant weekend here, it was as if the weather forgot to be Autumn.
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It is an amazing Autumn indeed Lorraine.
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I’ve never heard this song before
Don’t really understand the words
They seem a bit silly
What on earth is he moaning about?
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The allegorical aspects of ‘ship of fools” in literature, art and also in this song is well explored in this extract. Have a read.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_fools
You might think of it as a metaphor to describe the madness in our world today.
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OK – it makes some sense now.
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Reblogged this on Think Green Series – Innovative, Rewardable Environmental Ideas and commented:
Beautiful pics of sunset with nice briefing
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Beautiful images dear Francesca …
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Thankyou Julie. Must catch up on some of your news soon. I am missing you.
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New post out any day now 😃
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