From the early sixties, my father and mother led an expedition of family and friends to a remote island in Bass Strait, called Erith, one of three main islands in the Kent Group, halfway between the mainland and Tasmania and only accessible by fishing boat. Across from Erith is Deal Island, which for most of my life was inhabited by two lighthouse families who endured the volatile weather of Bass Strait all year. From our island each summer, we could look across the dangerous stretch of water to Deal and human habitation. At night, the triple beam of the lighthouse was our comfort against the darkness and loneliness of the strait.

It’s impossible to feel proprietorial about Bass Strait—in its weather and its rugged grandeur, it defies ownership, seems so unarguably more powerful than anyone who might lay claim to it. But I see myself belonging to the strait in a way that I do not see myself belonging to anything else. The Bass Strait islands rise out of the sea like sleeping, prehistoric animals. The lichen-striped cliffs conjure craggy granite faces that stretch up into turbulent sky. The islands are lined in golden beaches, covered in groves of eucalypts and tea-tree and she-oak. The seas are treacherous, not only for their size but also for the speed with which they change with the winds.