The 2008 Season Finale had let us on edge with half the cast trapped in the burning hall where the formal was being held; everyone eventually survived. However Kane turning up as he had left Kirsty with decisions to make. Miles after a visit with Kane, told Kirsty to go with Kane, but Miles changed his mind and ran after Kirsty, but she was already gone.
Jack had been absent from the formal rescue and uncontactable by phone, Tony went searching for Jack. He eventually found Jack in a bad way (read dead) at the construction site. The search for Jack's killer was now on and Charlie soon uncovered that it was Angelo. At the funeralthe terrible truth was revealed and after a scuffle Angelo was taken into custody. Arriving at the funeral were the Austin's, reuniting Xavier and Ruby. However it got off to a rocky start at Xavier's-ex Freya and started causing trouble with generally everyone. She eventually left the bay after getting in too deep with her drug dealing. Hugo had a bit of a stillborn relationship with Charlie, before he and Martha got together around mid-year. During the second half of the year Martha stood as councillor against John Palmer. Palmer won.
Belle also had trouble with drugs early in the year. Unable to cope with the pressurse of work and continuous hospitalisations, she became addicted and eventually went into rehab where rock star Liam Murphy was also rehabilitating. Belle eventually recovered from her addiction and soon got her relationship with Aden back on track. However she then suffered the devestating news that she was suffering from cancer. Realising she didn't have long left, she asked Aden to marry her and they did a few weeks later. However, among probably the shortest lived of any of Home and Away's marriages, Belle died in her bed a few weeks, leaving Aden to grieve. Liam returned to the bay after Belle's funeral and he had a relationship with Nicole. However, Nicole and Aden began growing closer as the year progressed and were last seen in a custody after stealing a car, a relationship Belle had given her blessing too.
Bridget continued to try and con Alf out of his money. However, Rachel soon discovered Bridget's lies about her cancer treatment and began to force Rachel to leave. VJ was kidnapped by her accomplice, Brian, in an attempt to get the money out of Leah. However VJ was saved and Rachel forced Bridget to reveal the truth to Alf.
Melody was soon found to be blame for the formal disaster and was expelled from Summer Bay High. She spent a few weeks driving Miles to the edge with her antics, before then ran away to Melbourne where she spent a disastrous few days on the street. Miles and Charlie left for Melbourne to look and shared a kiss in a motel. They found Melody pretty quickly and took her back to Summer Bay. Realising how lucky she was to have Miles putting a roof over her head, Melody's attitude improved. After meeting her grandmother and mother again after a chance encounter, her grandmother died and Melody and Christine decided to leave for a new life in New Zealand.
Leah celebrated her 30th birthday in early 2009, eight and half years after celebrating her 21st, and the result was the same, a drunken Leah after hearing Freya talk about what a boring party it was, making a spectacle of herself, falling off a table into the arms of Roman below. Of more importance though, was the fact that her parents were near to splitting up after the failure of her dad's restuarant and Theo decided to stay in Summer Bay, driving VJ and Leah mad. Leah decided to give her parents a loan from the damages she had received from Dan's death.
Trey Palmer was introduced as a Year 12 studentwho came up with the best proposal of how to use the money the school had been given. However Trey's soon went about making everyone's life hell; he falsely accused Kirsty of coming onto him while she tutored him before filming her vulnerable Nicole in bed with him and broadcasting it at the Summer Bay Film Festival. How by far the most dangerous occurred when he fitted a bomb to the underside of the bus and it was left to Hugo and Martha to save the day.
Angelo returned to the bay as a sea cop, with some of the Bay still not having forgave him for his part in Jack's death. Tony, for one, struggled to control his grief and at one point it looked as if he might kill Angelo.
Roman made an exit from the bay in the middle of the year. Blinded by a catapult by Brendan, it was revealed there was actually no optic damage and it turned out he was having psychological problems for a situation in Afghanistan where he had killed a fellow soldier in some friendly fire. Roman's old mate Gardy and using some different techniques to say the least, Roman eventually regained his sight. However he wasn't out of the woods yet as Gardy got him to take part in some robberies with him and Roman ended up in jail and Nicole moved in with Miles. Brendan eventually left to live at some kind of school with his friend Ruby later in the year.
After a few weeks with Kane, Kirsty returned to Summer Bay and they split up for good. Kirsty eventually got back together with Miles and towards the middle of the year, Kirsty fell pregnant. Whilst Miles was over the moon, Kirsty, however, didn't want the baby and then miscarried towards the end of the year. Miles rang Shelley after this, in an attempt to help Kirsty through. Kirsty however ran away from the Bay with her mum and Ollie. Miles then slumped into depression after the loss of his "new family" and things got worse when he was beat up whilst having a shower after trying to protect VJ from some bullies. After going to confront the parents of those he felt responsible, Miles manandled a kid and after trashing a classroom, Gina, who replaced Bartlett as headmaster.
Having slighlty more luck on the relationship front were Rachel and Tony. They married in a ceremony at Martha's farm and Rachel gave birth to a boy, Harry, later in the year. It wasn't entirely pure sailing as Harry was kidnapped by a couple who blamed Rachel for the death of their baby and then Rachel rolled over on top of Harry in bed one night, as she struggled with post natal depression.
The first half of 2009 was comparatively busy for Irene before she slipped into doing nothing again in the second half. Finding love with fishing magnate Lou de Bono, she set sail on his yacht for panto in England. However Lou's body was found and Irene was arrested for his murder seeing as she had been on board with Lou. Whilst in prison someone kept slipping alcohol into her cell and Irene returned to some of her old habits. When it was discovered that someone else had been on the boat, Irene was released and her alcoholism cleared up after one AA meeting. Donna de Bono was the next person to be charged and arrested for Lou's murder, however she too was released towards the end of the year.
The Buckton family also went through their share of dramas. Charlie started the year off having a lesbian fling with trawlerwoman, Joey Collins. Joey had been raped on the boat and ended up being kicked out her home. Charlie inititally offered her a place at Leah's for her, but a relationship grew. However, when the revelations began getting out, Charlie slept with Hugo and hurt by this, Joey left for a Marlene Kratz-like jaunt on the high seas. With Ruby wanting to take her relationship with Xavier to the next level, Charlie began getting protective and it eventually got out that Ruby was Charlie's daughter, a product of a teenage rape. Ruby moved out to Irene's after this news and set about looking for her father. When she brought her dad, Grant Bledcoe, back to Summer Bay, it brought terrible memories back for Charlie. Then one night Alf discovered Grant dead on the beach. After an investigation, it was discovered an Alzheimer's ridden Ross had killed Grant. After this, Ruby discovered she had diabetes.
Geoff met an old friend, Clauda, who started working at Martha's farm. Claudia began by pretending the child she was carrying was Geoff's, however it was in fact ex-boyfriend Lachie's (not the dead one that went out with Chloe though). Geoff decided to quit school at this point and began working on charters with Aden. The other Campbell sibling continued growing up as she occasionally struggled to juggle her beliefs with her growing attraction to boys. She split up with Jai during the year, went out with Dexter Walker, before beginning to fall for Romeo. She left on a school trip to Japan with Jai during the late part of the year. The Walker family were in the bay for the middle part of the year. Dexter, didn't do much accept fall for Annie, Indigo became friends with Nicole, before her partying caught up with her and she fell through a glass table. Sid had a short relationship with the much younger Nicole whilst in the bay, before they all left as soon as they had arrived.
However, 2009 will be the year remembered for the year long mystery and summing it up in a paragraph is quite hard. The first sign of some strange going on was when Nicole and Geoff met some guy named Derrick on an island talking about losing his cargo. In the middle of the year, there was a storyline about abalone smuggling involving Aden's boss Gibbsy where Hugo helped the police catch the culprits. Derrick then reappeared after an absence of six months and got into a fight with Hugo at his boat shed. Xavier tried to break this up and was knocked against a pole and fell unconcious into the ocean, but was rescued by Brendan. When keeping watch down near a port; Angelo, Charlie and Robert Robertson, a quirky cop brought into solve the Bledcoe murder, two Asians were spotted, including Wayan, who had been hospitalised early in the year. When looking for a place for their Halloween party, Romeo and Xavier discovered the Indonesian kid, Bambang, and took him to the police. Bambang took a liking to Martha. Then Suzi turned up, telling Martha she was Hugo's wife and the year finished leaving asking the question. Just how were Derrick, Suzi and Hugo, perhaps amongst others involved in this people smuggling?