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Mason Bay is a lovely bay part way between Hopetoun and Esperance: clear waters, inshore reefs for interesting fishing and eagle rays hoovering and cleaning up the shallow sandy shoreline. Plus wind. Really strong, blowing a persistent hooley and a make-you-walk-at-a-45⁰-angle sort of wind. We had washed up at Mason Bay in an attempt to ride out the stormy weather that was hammering the coast. We weren’t the only things washed up on the beach: a hexagon encrusted cowfish, a mounded swirl of amber sun-lit seaweed, a blue-grey algal ‘mop head’ standing out from the crowd of beach wrack and the tangled curls of auburn sea ‘hair’ had all been dumped on the beach from the wild waves. A big consolation of Mason Bay—apart from the back- strengthening beach walks—was the tasty flathead Rick ‘rescued’ from the boiling bay.