A line of sunken wrecks off Tangalooma Resort was meant to be more than just “beautiful“. The ships were sunk to become a useful barrier for mariners visiting the holiday island.
Between 1963 and 1984, fifteen vessels were deliberately scuttled along the western shore of Moreton Island, inside Moreton Bay, Australia. The idea was simple enough: create a breakwater. Old, retired ships, barges, and dredges are aligned just offshore to blunt the westerlies and protect the anchorage in front of the resort. Rust for function. Steel for shelter.
On paper, it made perfect sense.
In practice, well, that was another thing.
I anchored there many times on Last Laugh, enjoying that familiar paradise, calm turquoise water, clear skies, and white sand from the shore to my boat’s keel. In easterlies or still air, it felt almost inland. Photographers swam the wrecks. Divers disappeared into the rib cages of steel. Fish threaded through collapsed decks like memories through bone. Unfortunately, the wrecks failed in their task of protecting mariners at anchor (but excelled at being something else).
As soon as the wind developed any amount of ‘W’ in its direction, that paradise feeling evaporated quickly. If you hadn’t raised the anchor and a sail within twenty minutes of the shift, you’d be forced to do so during the rodeo ride created shortly afterwards.
If you sail the northeastern areas of Moreton Bay frequently, you know the moment. The surface loses its softness. The lump arrives. It’s short, sharp, and relentless. That part of the Bay stops pretending it’s protected and behaves like open water, only angrier for the confinement.
The wrecks did nothing to protect. No shadow. No mercy.
Wave after wave stood up and slapped the hull, close-spaced and jarring, the kind that turns a peaceful anchorage into a test of rigging and patience. I’ve ridden proper ocean swell that felt kinder.
And yet — I loved Tangalooma. The wrecks have become famous despite the breakwall’s failure.
Those contradictions lodged themselves in my head and stayed there — it’s why the anchorage and the wrecks themselves found their way into SEETHINGS II (nearby Lucinda Bay is where a murder takes place). Readers who know the Bay will recognise it instantly. The mood. The shift. The lie of safety. The hidden bays that are just a horizon away from the mainland.
–Michael (Dark Fiction. Author of SEETHINGS (the first book), free for a limited time)
SEETHINGS II follows the return of the Storm Killer as a body on a secluded beach in Moreton Bay, igniting fear and denial. While police dismiss the link, the media doesn’t. Mitchell Felding forms a dangerous bond with a man who understands his darkest impulses. When Natasha enters his life, carrying love letters from her murdered mother, intimacy deepens, and truth closes in. Some futures are inherited. Some have escaped.
Discover more from Michael Forman – Author of Dark Fiction & Drama
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