Today is the 1st of August 2003.Cold morning but a beautiful day to follow.Port Phillip Bay was so calm and serene and it was hard to imagine that no more than 1/2 kilometre away there was a traffic snarl on Westgate Bridge which on a Friday is the norm.The bay had low dark grey fog hovering above the water line,no not cloud but pollution.there was no wind to take it out to sea.I often wonder when looking at the bay on a heavy pollution day that large sailing ship will somehow come through the haze as if frozen in time and sail into and along the channel to tie up at the pier or wharf.A ship from long ago that sailed in these waters some 150 years ago from parts unknown ..A ship that time forgot ,a ship that had vanished without trace and now had come home to its destination.
We no longer see very many mastered ships in the bay except those on special expiditions or for training young would be lads and lasses..
The ships of today could hardly be called romantic in design,they are functional square ordinary looking able to carry thousands of passengers and some carry motor vehicles.They are tall but not in the sense of the mastered vessels of old.We can only glance at the past in photos and prints enlarged for us to frame and hang on our walls to remind us of a bygone era,perhaps a less safe era but none the less those who sailed the seas were brave never knowing if they would arrive at their chosen destination.
We can look at the land and see history through the eyes of the pioneers but the history of the sea is easier to imagine if one can sit on the shore and look out to sea and wonder,dream and marvel at the journey of those on board..