I find myself sprawled out over a vibrant blue couch, slightly damp and salty. The blue couch bobbing energetically, moves with the teak deck it is nailed to below, and in turn, the teak deck moves with the ancient Turkish Gullet below it. The old boat trudges east through collapsing white caps, making once again, the scenic trip around the Turkish riviera. She is laden with a full cargo of beautiful young Australians; Normally bright eyed and experience hungry, their eyelids cling tightly closed and their hands cling tight to the duvets sheltering them from the fragrant sea wind. The young captain squints over the sea of wrapped bodies onto the turquoise sea beyond the bow spar. He and I are the only two to share this hour awake at opposite ends of the wooden vessel. It's work time: He has the longest stretch of the voyage ahead of him. An early start to get the handsome guests safely through the ever increasing waves to shelter at the next attraction. And I work also. In a strange twist of life, I'm here to point a little black box at curiosities and record the light that is reflected from them, they call that a photographer, but I am hesitant to call myself one. At this hour of morning, the tranquil pink light made by the early sun makes my job easier and probably better. In addition, due to the cynicism of experience, I prefer to work at this hour because it's lonely.

Time and time again the phrase “dream job” is laid over me: and in most regards it is totally true. I love the moving ocean, I love people that move me, I love the quirky kindly Turks and I quite like photography. Personally i like the free reign to climb everything in sight, in the name of art. That sums up the kind of job you could dream about.

Sitting here alone on the vibrant blue throne, I look around at this spectacular landscape around me. I see its beauty but it doesn't lift me to elation; Something lingers heavy within. It has been a full 20 months that I have turned my back on my old life and profession.

 I am aware that a new page is turning. A mighty heavy page of an old dusty book, rolling over ever so slowly. Even as the corner of it lifts, i'm craning to see the new type under and what comes next, but I can't read it yet. The ink is smeared, or invisible, the language is not my own? Maybe its will just state:

 “ this page has intentionally been left blank”.

Based on the narrative so far, I can only assume this: I'm changing.

Up until now, the world was big, but I was bigger than it. Suddenly I find myself having drunken Alice's magic potion in the bottom of the rabbit hole and i'm shrinking smaller and smaller. I'm lost. I'm unsure. Which fold should a speck of dust like me settle onto this giant world map?

 The life in Australia was good. Work was hard and rewarding, People were attractive and friends were many. But I don't fit that mould so well now. Peoples' views and philosophies in Australia all sounded the same, and didn't align with my own.

And what of the Alternative? Stay on in your dream job. Well I'm starting to realise that it's a dream job, and maybe not my dream any more. The vast majority of eager faces that come through each week are an evolution of that classic traveling Australian psyche. They're more worldly, they're traveling after all. It's lovely to see people learn and grow, but spare a thought for all those around, that work in tourism. They see each of those expanding personalities for only a short time, and the net effect is not change, but constance. The young passers through speak with loud voices and high opinions of themselves and their views, but as permanent bystanders, we float like a tumbling cork on a river wave. The traveler flows on with his story, the local rides the flow of many, without ever moving himself. It is after all, what they call a standing wave. 

The honest reality, is that these marvellous, wild, beautiful, worldly and open minded travellers are boring. The same shared mentality across the whole of homogenous Australia has reared its ugly head here in Turkey in a mutated and wholly arrogant way. The mentality might be different to back home, but it is same across so many backpackers.

Of course there are many exceptions and I have made beautiful meaningful relationships of which make my world more colourful and I should like to call on again. Those people are in fact the greatest virtue of this job. Maybe my filtration process is tougher now. Maybe I expect more from people. I really hope they expect more from me.

At this very strange moment, I am not sad. I'll admit I'm lonely and I'm lost but there is some perverse comfort in those emotions. Any minute now, the sun will lift its head over the Baba Bagi mountain to the north of me; Warm and sure. Like it, I hope I can find a definite and meaningful direction for my rambling life.

The sun hasn't risen yet and right now I'm enjoying the pink uncertain twilight of early dawn. The diesel motor noisily chatters away downstairs, the waves break against the bow and somewhere to the stern the captain is squinting out to sea. These things I can be sure of. Everything else is beautiful uncertainty and terrifying possibility.