owlrigh

Ben and I were on the wheelhouse of Trekker one night, finishing off our drinks outside of the view of the customers, when I looked over the aft. There was a dinghy not very far away, going with the tide.

"That's not our tender floating away, is it?" I asked.

We looked again, and hopped on down to deck level. I kept an eye on it the whole time, and that's when I noticed the red glow.

"Wait, Bob's --"

Ben jumped in after the tender before I could finish saying that Bob was smoking his cigarette in the dinghy. I could hear their voices after he finished swimming his way to the rescue.

"'I go off in the tender to smoke a durry in peace, and what do I get? A vigilant deckie,'" quoted Ben later.

I hadn't realised that Bob was smoking funny durries. I'd known that he was particular to them, but not on board -- or offboard on this case -- while on the job. I'd always put down the change in his personality from a taciturn sort to a relatively cheery fellow to a few drinks -- but no! His looking for a solitary section of the boat had entirely everything to do with his smoking a joint and not for the fewer company. My blindness of this is amazing.

Bob always mentions that the crew on board is what makes all the difference between a shitty trip and those which are bearable; I guess he's had more experience than I in this, but I shan't disagree. The last trip I went on had a bunch of quiet people and only Kris, the newest deckie, as the other crew.

It was all so quiet that when Ben went sailing past -- his days off! -- in his catamaran as we neared Nara, we kept an eye upon him. He tacked his way up the anchorage, past anchored boats and those motoring, with a few narrow misses on other people's behalf.

After we'd done our jobs, in cooking and washing up dishes, Kris and I packed the tender full of leftover foods and some booze, and off to party. We were only taking example off the captain; he usually goes off to visit yachtie friends of his, taking a carton of booze and returning with it safely within his belly.

"Go slowly," said Bob.

As soon as we rounded the boat we planed her all of the way down the inlet to where Ben's little Warrum catamaran could be found.

So little room is there upon his yacht that when I needed to urinate I had to do so by balancing myself off the netting in the bow. This was a feat of acrobatics too much for my inebriated state; I nearly fell in. At least nothing spilled upon the netting, as men are wont to do upon Trekker in their sojourns during the night.

The next day it was Kris's turn to nearly fall in -- in much more a spectacular way.

When I first met Bob he went on about how he would help me get my coxswain's ticket by going through the required book with me. This was before he got to know me, before he realised that I mess around a fair bit and am not strongly hearted towards the discipline he espouses. Since then he makes mention of every mistake I make, such as the first few times I dropped the lines into the water.

Dropping lines is an offence beyond par; in Shute Harbour especially, with this strong winds and tides, dropping a line may mean careening right into the vessel in front of you or any poor blighter happening to be in the way. He taught me the right way to throw them after a few bad attempts, and so now I have not dropped a line in a long time, including our arrival into Shute last week.

Kris, on the other hand, dropped the line on his first attempt. He reeled it back in for another go quick enough, but his throw missed again. This second time he had excuse.

When throwing the lines we stand upon the railing and balance ourselves using the lifelines. This is a bit tricky if there's a bit of movement, but on the other hand you can't do it if you are standing on deck. This was a tricky moment; the railing was wet and he slipped and fell overboard.

He held on with his feet -- just hanging by the line, face against the deck. Luckily we were far from the dock, for at times going in we have ground so hard against the jetty that it removed chunks from the boat.

Funny how Shute Harbour is becoming more exciting by the minute. Never a dull moment, not even in the middle of maintenance.

Thunder rolled off in the distance.

Next I knew my yacht was shaking so hard it felt like the hulls were made of floppy plastic and they were trying their best to meet. The wind was so hard the rain was horizontal, so I had my middle weatherboard out and peered out at the vessels around me.

The water was white and my dinghy looked like it was going to fly off. Looking around at other yachts took my mind off my own vessel's shaking, and it was then that I looked over to see a catamaran dragging onto Big Bandicoot.

My father was on deck, fending her away, a fender in one hand and trying to jam it in between the two. The other catamaran slid back, further away.

It was going so fast I couldn't believe it had any anchor down at all. They may as well not have bothered. What was down there? A rock with fishing line attached to it?

The catamaran narrowly missed a small Warrum and went past another catamaran, whose anxious owner fended her off. At the fourth one, the owners were on deck, but instead of fending her off they grabbed hold of it, tied it to their own boat, and spent the rest of the storm making sure she was okay.

My father had rescued their dog earlier when the thunder rolled around, for the silly thing had jumped in the water in fright.

I was so worried for this yacht, and even considered going over to see what I could do, but if I'd tried in my tender I would have ended up probably drowning; I have no confidence in my tender with that much rain and wind.

"Hey, that was a close call!" I said to my dad over the phone once the rain died down a bit.

"No close about it. Punched a hole in the side."

As easily as that, you have action in Shute. As easily as that, my boat could be sunk by the likes of Big Bandicoot dragging -- as she did in the same storm, but my father was on board and put the engines on to halt the progress, or they'd have mowed down three catamarans and a monohull in succession. Now I think nervously of how many people are going into Shute Harbour because of the weather in Airlie, including Ben himself soon enough. I am already seeing a lot of charter vessels ... hopefully more prepared than me, or the catamaran with a gobstopper for an anchor!