I have an embarrassing confession. Actually I have many I could offer up, but today you’ll only get the one.

A few weeks ago I was on my almost-daily pier walk.
As an aside… I live in Urangan and have long loved the pier (my love affair with the Urangan pier actually deserves its own separate post!). Indeed, I am able to ‘lose myself’ every time I navigate the old timber boards.

Anyhoo, I love that each walk will bring something new… a guy who caught some massive fish, wedding parties and photographers, or (as I saw last week) dolphins frolicking.

However… this tale of completely understandable confusion took place a few weeks ago.

As usual I was out on the pier and lost in my own little world when I saw a pink balloon drifting along the surface of the ocean.

I had to look twice, or perhaps more, to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me. I kept expecting it to burst or drift off, but it floated along the water as if being pulled along by something unseen beneath the ocean.

So taken was I with this innocent pink balloon that I stopped a passerby to point it out before it drifted from view. As this had required me to remove my headphones and garner the fellow walker’s attention (ie. involving much effort on my behalf), I was a bit shirty that he merely grimaced uncomfortably – as if he was being harassed by a lunatic – and continued walking.

I pondered on this pink balloon for a day or two.

Where had it come from?
Where did it go?

And then… on my next walk I saw this.

Oh. Dear.

So much for my balloon-from-nowhere-magically-drifting-about-the-ocean theory.

I asked a friend and was told that the balloon-on-fishing line trick is used to keep the hook floating near the surface of the water, ostensibly for a certain type of fish.

Shit.

No wonder the passerby looked at me as if I was a lunatic.

Note to self: Learn more about fishing before next commenting on anything involving the ocean!