Uncertain times in an isolated city

In early 2020, I was in Sri Lanka with family enjoying all the comforts I can ask for. Not to say, while it was the west coast season, I also explored few shipwrecks in the coast of Colombo and Galle. One of the dive buddies I dived with in Colombo was Simon Lorenz; I only realized later that he is a renowned Underwater photographer. He was kind enough to give me some valuable advises during dives.

While I was in Sri Lanka, one of my friends back in Australia, Kin, called and asked me to bring some groceries like rice etc. on my way back. This was a complete joke for me. Who is going to bring such rations from Sri Lanka to Australia! Then I left to Perth in mid-March and realized how true the advice given. Australia was in complete jeopardy and super market aisles were just deserted. Nothing to buy! It was the time I realized the seriousness of Corona outbreak. Within a couple of days all the airports of Australia were shut, followed by Sri Lanka. Now I am stranded in Perth, most isolated city in the world!

Before leave Sri Lanka I promised my family that I would see them every other month and stop this nomadic life for good by end of the year. Fulfilling that promise was impossible with the Covid-19 restrictions around international flying throughout the globe. Especially, Australia enforced a law, restricting international travels, which was the only democratic country to impose such a law. My mind started to go a rollercoaster ride. One day I am good and next day I am so down, even the best coffee or beer couldn’t fix. 

Western Australia is not a good place for me to get stranded in many ways. I didn’t have many friends or family. It’s not a big city like Sydney (or even Melbourne), where you have many things to do, but beaches and outdoors. There is a sunny side of the story. Since it’s an isolated place, managing of virus spreading was quite successful (as this writing). This gave me enough freedom to go out. Most importantly, my client wanted my consulting service to continue. Therefore, income source was there, which is a great relief. 

I also thought of using the time wisely, even in tough circumstance. Therefore, I started learning everything I was curious about, from forex trading to Yoga and what not. Started reading all the books from the best seller list, those I could find from library. Visited museums again and again. 

I was tired of my own cooking some days and used to visit a Pasta place, ironically, ran by an Indian couple. They used to make especial one for me with many spices, a lot of them! Pasta – a south Asian style!

I became a frequent visitor in few coffee shops. In my local coffee shop I used to spend a lot of time, I met a mother and a son who became friends with me. Mothers’ name is Anna and son is Antonio. Antonio was my elder daughter’s age and he plays soccer. They usually visited the coffee shop on their way back from practices. He used to show me some pictures of his soccer moments and I showed my family photos back in Sri Lanka. Both mum and son was having an empathy on my situation. 

Beach became my other place of refuge in summer. Whether I plunge into water or just spend time onshore, salty air and easy going beach dwellers made me feel better. As I mentioned in my previous article in diving in cold waters, you cant just jump into the Indian ocean around Western Australia. Dangerous shark encounters were so frequent. Unfortunately, some were fatal. So its a matter of learning the shark sightings before heading to the beach if you wish to get wet.

Some evenings I spent hours and hours looking at the Sunset above the Indian Ocean from Hillarys Harbor. I was emotionally contemplating my home is just other side of this mass of water. Then I was thinking something crazy. Perhaps I can sail back to Sri Lanka in a boat! How much it will cost to jump into a team of adventurers who would sail towards south Asia. It shouldn’t be hard finding a gang with such a crazy plan in Western Australia. If I do that, I will be the first person to enter Sri Lanka illegally from Australia in a boat! In addition, J. P Obeysekera’s (Siva Obeysekera’s husband) adventurous flight came to my mind. When passenger flights came to halt due to outbreak of World War II, he did a solo flight from London to Sri Lanka. Then I realized I don’t have courage, grit, wealth and anything J P Obeysekera had in 1948, though we share the same surname for some stupid reason and I am nobody!

One guy I spent more time with is Murali who recently migrated to Perth and happened to work with me. Soon we became close friends. His sense of humor is remarkable. Most importantly his family, wife and son, too became close with me making it inviting to visit his place and have fun-filled time. They not only welcome me but soon considered me part of family. 

When his wife and son coming from India to join him, I asked you should be happy and excited to have them with you isn’t it.

Murali: Yep, Kind of..

Me: Isn’t it excited man. you were alone all this time

Murali: You should understand Sume… Not that exciting since its same wife and same son.. 

So, I am not telling he is full of humor without a reason.

Other one is Kuldeep, who is an Indian-Australian who is one of my flat mates. He is a good companion and got many stories to share with me. His biggest issue in the pandemic times too was the travel ban since he used to travel to Thailand a couple of times a year. That is his way of rejuvenation in life. He is passionate about perfumes! He knows a lot about it and maintain a massive collection of expensive perfumes. If he says about any interesting incident of his life, say dating a girl, he relates it with the perfume he was wearing. Quite unorthodox, isn’t it? Kuldeep’s passion actually infected to me too! Guess what, I ended up having few expensive perfumes from Giorgio Armani, Dolce and Gabbana etc. Perhaps, his passion flooded into me, but no other way around. He never join me in plunging into ocean!

I call my shared accommodation, a crazy place. People in this place belong to many different time zones. When I get up in the morning, I can see a guy just finishing his dinner after spending entire night playing computer games. There is another lady who wakes up at noon and start preparing the breakfast. I am actually thinking why I am not moving out of this mess.

Probably, part of me enjoyed the freedom came bundled with craziness. Rule of thumb in this house is, you don’t need to worry about others. No laws! Mates come at any time – go at any time – make noise even in the middle of the night – you hear others response saying f*ck off. Good thing about this place is I could wear my sarong and do whatever I want. Fry dry fish and make entire premises smelly. Thanks god – no law!

Anyway, this craziness wasn’t without any heaty situation in-between mates. One South American guy started to steal the stuff, actually beer, to be exact. First I ignored missing a beer or two occasionally. I learned this has been happening to others as well. One day, I came after something and really wanted to have a beer and found all in my shelf was gone. I was bloody angry and screamed at everybody in my best Mariyakade language (මරියකඩේ බාසාවෙන්), in English of course. Following day, as a revenge, Kuldeep had thrown some drinks from that South American bastard. Obviously, he thought its me. Then he got angry and openly threatened all. Anyway, it was evident, he was targeting me. What I learned later on was, he is highly addicted to alcohol and unpredictable once boozed. Then came the times I sleep, keeping my diving knife under my pillow. 

Now I am stranded in a faraway country; plus.. Got an in-house enemy to survive from!

Life at Harbone Street

In August 2019, I came to Perth. After spending first night in a hotel near the Airport I came to my next place where I planned to stay for next month.

That's how I ended up living with David and Kim. I already felt some character in their colonial and historical looking home. When I first came, slim old man, David, was there and he didnt talk much but gave me the keys. Kim had left a set of instructions written on paper, knowing her husband would not be of much help. Inside the home was dark and mysterious. My room was full of feminine character. Later on I came to know it was Miranda's room, kept as it was, to keep the memory of David's most loved daughter who met a tragic premature death. I liked this mysterious place and wanted to learn more of its past. It was my home anyway.

In my first week, once I was alone in a cloudy evening, having a great Ceylon tea in the kitchen while struggling with my lonely thoughts, all in a sudden a young girl appeared with a bottle of wine in her hand. She just smiled at me and said "Don't even say Hi till I get a sip of wine.. I had a crazy day. Trying to recover from it." Then she introduced herself as Emily who had been a guest in this place first and now a frequent visitor. She was friendly and open-hearted. I started to like her company and having a sip of wine when she was around.

Emily is Thermal Imaging specialist, Guitarist and Remedial therapist who works in both Sydney and Perth. She also said You know Sumedha, most people who come here as guests end-up being friends of Kim and David, just like what happened to me. Also she advised me of one thing. Please don't ask about Miranda from David. Yep, you are living in her room.. please don't move ornaments and stuff in it. Room you live in is like the living temple of David that reminds of Miranda.

David actually started to talk to me more and more by the time that realized me of his knowledge as a senior professor. He was sound in science, philosophy, arts and what not. He was born in Cap Town, South Africa and has gone to 26 schools in his life! He had been instrumental in activities of Green Party in Australia. He is ,by all means, a workaholic supervising many Phd students at that time.

Anyway, David's story had very sad chapters. Miranda has been Davids daughter from his first marriage. She was so pretty, attractive and loved his father very much. When she was 18, as many young girls of western cultures do, decided to move from parents. So she planned to move to a southern suburb. She had missed David so much, while on her way, she stopped in a coffee shop and text David telling how worried she was about Dad being a person who work long hours and etc. After receiving those emotional notes from daughter, next he received was a call from Police to inform a fatal accident!

After this fateful event, David was in isolation, suffering from depression and started living like a dead man. He didnt speak to any one; didnt answer any call.

Back in Vietnam, Kim heard the news, about the unfortunate plight of the college professor who helped her during her studies in Australia. One fateful day she called David and something forced David to answer the phone. Rest is history: Kim did a great job by talking to David and help heel the wounds. As many other stories, David married Kim.

Kim is a very pleasant lady with motherly qualities. She looked after David very well and also cared for their guests. Kim is handling the renting of rooms for travelers, to help her nephew to come to Australia for studies.

She was so kind to me. Once she realized I was alone in Perth, she took the responsibility of looking after me like a mum! Her biggest advise to me was, you are working too much, you need rest. There was a point in her advise, since it was the beginning of my official assignment in Perth, I was working late frequently. I presented Kim and David a big pack of high quality Ceylon tea, which they accepted very sincerely. David was a big time tea lover. If Kim is not around David would easily skip a meal and drink tea. When Kim do the grocery shopping, she used to bring me a small chocolate. As I realized, Kim was very comfortable talking to me since she can open up "very Asian" conversation with me when she was fed-up with western culture.

David's sad story had more darker side. Not only Miranda, but both his parents had died in motor accidents! It was a very tragic thing to hear. David has a son too, Nick, who was a nursing coordinator in a local hospital. David always called Nick in evenings, specially on Fridays and Saturdays, to find out if Nick was in a pub. If he was in a pub, David would go any far to give Nick a lift. David didnt want Nick to follow the same tragic end by driving after a drink. Luckily, Nick realized fathers' agony and gave up drinking alcohols of all sorts.

By the time goes, I was just like a family member. Kim sometimes offer me a dinner. I too sometimes cooked Sri Lankan food for them. Unfortunately, David couldnt bear hot and spicy Sri Lankan curries.

David and Kim's place was nice and cosmopolitan where a lot of intellectuals gather. I realized I shouldn't underestimate the visitors of this home by their appearances. Just like David, some one who come in a humble-looking jumper, would be one of the scholars with multiple patents under his/her belt. I always liked listening to conversations of these critical thinkers; very informative and interesting.

Just like Emily, there were a couple of young people I liked. One of them was Wahib, who was born in Afghanistan and adopted by a German family.

Anyway, even after moving from this place, I visited David and Kim again. They welcomed me and so happy to see that I was doing quite well. I promised them I would bring more Tea and Gingerly rolls once I go back to Sri Lanka.

Some pictures I captured from nearby suburbs;

What temperate waters offer

We always see great underwater photos with clear blue backgrounds and that’s like a dream for any diver or underwater enthusiast. Those are tropical waters. As Sri Lankans we are blessed with such beautiful warm waters around our island. Anyway, ocean gets different character in different regions. Once you pass the tropical belt, go further away from equator, you find temperate zone. Here I am documenting experience of my underwater excursions in temperate waters. It’s the journey of green waters than blue waters!

I dived in Great Barrier Reef for the first time in 2012 which was amazing. The experience itself was pretty much the same as diving in Sri Lanka since it offers tropical waters. Anyway, I was based in Sydney. So I thought of diving around the temperate waters around New South Whales because I cant afford to fly to Queensland frequently. This is where the real adventure started.

Once I learnt the conditions, I knew this is a different game. Need to wear thick wetsuit along with boots, hoodies and what not to stay warm in 19 – 22 degrees water. Water of Tasman sea is heavily influenced by sea currents of Antarctic ocean currents. In summer, land temperature may be reaching forties, yet sea water remains cold.

Plunging into cold water

My first dive was a disaster! I felt like I am diving in a green jelly: nor corals and much fishes. I thought, I would rather dive in Beira lake in central Colombo! One of the buddies I dived with was a tourist from Egypt called Ali. As soon as he surfaced, he asked Why the hell people dive here at all? I am not surprised since Red Sea, one of the most colorful seas, is in his doorstep. Anyway, my impression too wasn’t much different.

By the time goes, I read more, started to realize and appreciate the differences. When hiking, we never compare Singharaja Rain forest with Wilpattu. Though you don’t see tropical fish, you would find some other great fauna like Sharks, Seahorses, Rays, different kinds of fishes and slugs. Though you don’t see coral reefs, you find kelp forest which is another different experience. I started to like this underwater greenery.

Lack of fauna is not the biggest complain I had here, but the challenging conditions. Visibility was so poor and sea currents are a norm. When it comes together, each dive in temperate zone was throwing many more challenges at me. In fact, I felt great after each successful dive. I simply decided to obey the rules wisely. When Australians do two dives, I was satisfied with one because that seemed more than enough for me in terms of exhaustion. By the time goes by, Guys in Manly dive station knew me very well due to my significance; I was the only dark-skinned diver, I was skinny, and I was on my own. I had to catch the early morning ferry to get there. 

I can remember one experience explained by Tony Buxton, a pioneer diver lived in Sri Lanka, in his book Ecstasy of the Deep. Once he joined a team of adventurers in Sydney and started to sail around the world. As soon as they started sailing, they were hit by a gale that put Tony in to great panic. So, he was so concerned and started talking to others about the situation. Other Australian mates had told him that these are normal conditions, gales and hurricanes are yet to come. So this was the same experience I had in diving.

One of the favorite sites I dived was the Shelly beach (belongs to Cabbage tree bay aquatic reserve) in north of Sydney. It was close to famous Manly suburb. Usually, we walked to the shore and dived from there. One thing I enjoyed here was a friendly grouper named Harry. I always wanted to go and see it season by season. This fish usually preferred to swim along with me for a while.

I continued diving in summer and autumn though I was always adhering to my limitations as a skinny Sri Lankan boy, not as a giant AUSI bloke. 

Sharks at Nelsons Bay

One of the remarkable dives I did was in Nelsons Bay, which is more than 200 km drive from my home. I had to leave around 3 am to reach there and meet the buddies. Anyway, that’s where I saw many sharks in one place. I spotted around 10 Grey Nurse sharks in same dive.

I was watchfully resting in a small canal shaped naturally made set of boulders to photograph the passing sharks. Dive master was ahead of me. Dive master suddenly turned at me and started to stare at me seriously. I was puzzled and thinking what’s wrong with me. Then I realized he is not merely looking at me, but his eyes were focused on something behind. My instincts said not to turn around and Dive master signaled the same. In a fraction of second, about 2-meter-long shark quickly passed few inches away from my face. As I learned later, there had been a shark resting in the other end of the channel. One young diver had seen it there and started to swim away as fast as he could, disturbing the creature. Shark had no other way to escape but to come towards my end. On land or water, same theory applies; We should not make animals excited by our behavior. It’s their territory.

Once I came to the surface, dive master was laughing and told me..hey buddy you collected something to tell your grand kids.. didn’t you! Anyway, it was not that adventurous. I knew Grey Nurse sharks do not have a reputation of being aggressive. Still they are wild creatures; sharks. Mostly panicked ones.

Nelsons bay is a place where warm water meets cold water. Unfortunately, the water of Nelsons bay wasn’t good that day. Murky water doesn’t help photographers much. Though we saw many sharks, none of the images came out to be in the level of satisfactory.

As we were finishing the dive, I experienced the so-called Washing Machine effect of the currents for real for the first time. This is nothing but water was taking us in circles in a great force, just like you are in a washing machine. I was staying calm. My biggest worry was I could clash in to another diver resulting injury.

In search of Seahorses

In 2015 summer, I had a self-assignment to shoot a seahorse. In fact, I dived in few places, but my last dive planned to do in, more promising, Chowder bay. That day I was lucky to dive with a buddy who was very supportive and knew what my target was. This ended up being the pay off day! At last we found amazingly tiny seahorse. I was equipped with my macro lens and managed to click about 20 shots before I was forced to surface since air level had gone beyond 50 bars. One of these images are still one of my best photographs. I see this Seahorse everyday since this became my choice of wallpaper in my laptop.

In 2nd July 2019, a Shark attack was reported in Shelly beach, Manly where I was diving frequently. I read this while in in Sri Lanka. To my surprise, I learnt culprit was an "innocent” Gray Nurse Shark! This was an eye opener – any harmless looking creature can become aggressive in some point.

Other side of Indian Ocean

In late 2019, I arrived in Perth, WA. As usual, my hand luggage was nothing but underwater camera equipment. Once I got familiar with my official assignments, I started to learn more about diving.

Before I plunge into the WA dive sites, I had the opportunity of diving into the biggest man-made tank in AQWA aquarium in Perth. Though I had already dived in shark infested waters of NSW and QLD, this gave me the opportunity to have a decent closer look at few different shark species. Since I first went through basic diver training, long ago, in a swimming pool at Hikkaduwa, this is the first time I dived into a man-made tank. It was an interesting one.

One of the easily accessible dive sites I came across was Rottnest Island. Honestly speaking I expected much warmer and clam waters in this area, since photographs taken from surface showed amazingly great - peacock blue waters. Anyway, underwater currents were always a fact to consider. Not like in NSW, great thing in WA is it offers a subtropical fish. WA located in much warmer region of temperate zone resulting both corals as well as kelp forest, which is a rare combination. WA also offers you to see Indian Ocean in a different perspective.

Since all my dive gear was in Sri Lanka, this time I had to rent things from a diving company. Since I am a small-made guy (at least compared to Australians!), I always ended up wearing a loose wetsuit that exposed my body to cold waters. Once I had to postpone my second dive because I thought I would get hypothermia. By that time, I had a bitter experience with hypothermia, and I knew what it can do to an average human body. Overall, I wasn’t very happy with the poor equipment supplied by my diving operator. Anyway, I really liked the dive instructor, called Ian, who lead our team. He is friendly, talkative and knowledgeable person. He is a videographer and a photographer. He took photos of his team underwater and I also ended up being an “actor” in some of his underwater videos published in Aquatic Australia page.

 “Sharks” is a big subject in Western Australia. Threat was always there for spear-fishermen, surfers, ocean swimmers and for divers. I always believed, divers are the last in the list. Since divers stay underwater, sharks see the real size, much bigger thing once diving gear is attached, that makes divers not-an-easy prays. (Which proved to be wrong soon, when it comes to Great white sharks!) Ian had an electronic device to produce an electric field to distract the sharks if a life-threatening encounter occur. Anyway, we didn’t get a chance to check how effective that was. As an amateur photographer I was searching for sharks.

Rottnest island is a very beautiful island to explore on land as well. One of my colleagues, Neil once offered me to join their boat tour to the island and explore it on bicycles. It was a great experience. Neils’ family and his extended family members were planning their 2019 Xmas holiday in the island. Skipper of the boat was Neils brother-in-law, Dru, who was a very nice gentleman. Though I didn’t get to dive that day, managed to swim in many bays around the island. Anyway, Neil informed someone had seen two Bull sharks near Geordie bay, the same day.

Tragic death of a diver 

2020 started with a sad news. A diver was killed by a Great White Shark near Esperance, WA. Just like Nelsons bay in NSW, Esperance is also a place where warm water meets cold water resulting an abundance of sharks and different other fauna. While I am writing this, victims’ wife, who saw the horror of fatal shark attack is in hospital due to the shock and police is still unable to recover the body. This incident made me think, how badly I under estimated the threat of Sharks in WA. Biggest mistake I did was I measured it in terms of the threat level in NSW or QLD. I was disappointed about my maturity.

Temperate waters… mystery, beauty and a challenge

I don’t think, I could really understand the temperate waters within my limited dives but managed to grasp some decent experience in cold waters. To be honest, there were few dives I finished thinking I am not going to dive in this shit again! Yet, I plunged into the same water next summer. In a way, I am pretty proud of my grit. After all, I know water is not always blue, but can be green too!