Seaman Dan

At the Torres Hotel bar, self-described as the Top Bar in Australia (its location on Thursday Island places it  at the northernmost tip of this island continent), one of the oldest surviving native pearl divers -- 83 year old Seaman Dan -- holds court Sunday afternoons after church, playing an Ibanez electric jazz guitar and singing a mix of self-written and standard favorites.  His great-grandfather sailed here from Kingston, Jamaica, via Nuie, with the London Missionary Society, evangelizing these remote islands in the interests of Christianity.  In the late 1940s, at the age of 18,  he became a shell diver -- from the late 19th century the pearl shells were more valuable than the pearls, with the world demanding fancy buttons made from the iridescent oyster shells.  Divers would descend to depths of 60-180 feet in search of the increasingly rare shells, and Seaman Dan's on-and-off diving career lasted just 7 years before the combination of fewer shells, the introduction of plastic buttons, and a case of the bends convinced him to adopt a new vocation.

Songs of the sea and the girls left behind were important moral boosters at sea, and were always a part of his life back on the island.  Somewhere along the way, Seaman Dan learned to play the guitar.  During World War II, he was exposed to the Delta Blues from African-American soldiers stationed in Cairns.  His songs and his style also reminded us of Willie Nelson's Stardust album.

Today, Sunday, fueled by a steady supply of "firewater" (his word -- we watched the bartender pour generously from the vodka bottle), he regaled the locals with songs like Island Girl, TI Blues (TI being the local's term for Thursday Island) and old favorites like Summertime from Porgy and Bess.  Though he recorded his first CD at the age of 70, he is now considered an Australian musical treasure.  We took a video of one of his songs, and also recorded him sharing a story from his diving days.  Enjoy.

(Pardon the low quality image; the internet is REALLY slow here, and we compressed to minimize upload size.)