Storm Sounds, Storm Shapes

Extend the line of the west coast of Tasmania northwards and you strike the mainland of Australia at Cape Otway, on the Victorian coast. Midway along this line lies King Island, a substantial piece of land. It rises from the submarine shelf that connects Tasmania with mainland Australia, towards its outer, western edge. There is blue water round the island, hundreds of feet deep. But westwards, off this submarine shelf, the sea bottom slides down to ocean blackness.

If you were in a plane taking off from King Island on a really clear day, you would be able to see the Victorian coast by the time you reached cruising height, or going the other way, the north-west coast of Tasmania. But days so clear must be rare. And down at sea level you cannot see anything else from King Island. The effect is of remoteness. No other islands make an approach to it, the way they do with Flinders Island, two hundred miles to the east, at the other end of Bass Strait. No significant island stands…