Chapter 1
After dinner, the red wine and a couple of Martini Café’s I wasn’t
feeling the cold as I walked towards my black Audi A6 after leaving Sass Café Monte
Carlo around two am on a chilly Wednesday morning. I climbing into the drivers
seat and while I fumbled with the keys there was a knock on the window.
Finally finding the ignition and lowering the electric window
a very serious sounding Monaco policeman ordered “Pour license de conduite s”il
vous plait”.
“Oui bien sûr ” I replied in slightly slurred French.
I pulled an Australian drivers license and Monaco residence
card out of my Gucci wallet and handed them over “une moment” he replied
returning to his car.
Five minute later the policeman returned, speaking in
heavily accented English now “So Captain Mark, are you staying at home tonight
or on the Yacht?”
More than a little surprised I answered “going home tonight
sir”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea you drive tonight Captain,
why don’t you leave the car here and I’ll drive you home” he replied. “Ok sure” I hurriedly agreed and followed him
to the police car, getting into the passenger seat for the two kilometer drive
back to my Rue Plati apartment with views over old Monaco and the Monarch’s
palace or “the Rock” as we called it.
Getting out of the car the now friendly policeman handed me
his name card and said “Captain I’m working until 10am give me a call when you
wake and I’ll come and get you to pickup your car”. Being one of only 35,000 Monaco Residents and
the Captain to a high profile local family really had its advantages, although
I reminded myself “I really must be more careful”.
A few hours earlier I had been at the Sass Café Monte Carlo
having a quiet dinner with some Yachting friends when halfway through the meal
the waiter arrived at the table with a bottle of 1988 Brunello di Montalcino “Monsieur
Mark, a gift from the gentleman in the corner table” he pronounced.
Looking over I see Dean Lawson, an extremely dedicated,
middle aged Super Yacht broker raising his glass in a long distance toast. I
had met him a couple of times before although we’d hardly spoken more than a
dozen words.
Recently my employer for the previous 8 years had started
looking for a suitable upgrade to his twenty two million Euro Super Yacht and
the sharks were circling! Dean must have been doing his homework – he knew my
weaknesses!
Chapter 2
When I was five years old my parents decided to sell their
urban sprawl Perth house and move near the ocean for a better lifestyle.
In 1978 my father packed our blue EH Holden and trailer with
all our possessions that would not fit into the removal’s truck, with my Mother
and younger brother Dale we drove to Safety Bay, a small coastal town about
30km south of Fremantle in Western Australia.
Safety Bay at that time was not much more than a small Cray
fishing town with pristine beaches and a large bay protected by small offshore
islands.
A few months later my father bought a 14ft Quintrex boat
with a 9.9 horsepower Mercury outboard engine and as a family we started
spending our weekend mornings exploring the offshore islands, fishing and
snorkeling, quickly returning to shore once the Fremantle Doctor started to
blow.
The Fremantle Doctor is a local term given to the strong
afternoon onshore winds during the summer months, caused by the rising air from
the extremely hot inland desserts. During the night we would experience the
opposite affect and offshore winds as the desserts cooled much faster than the
sea water, in general a strong offshore wind in the morning would mean a late
onshore Fremantle Doctor and a much longer day of boating, fishing, diving and
surfing.
The name Fremantle Doctor came from the cooling affect of
the onshore winds have on the coastal towns and the relief this created during
the hot West Australian summer months.
We lived this lifestyle for the following six years, Dale
and I attending Safety Bay primary school, Dad working as a building materials
salesman and Mum between raising us, keeping house working part time as a
secretary and baby sitter. Towards the
end of this period my parents were growing restless and wanting a more simple
and self-sufficient lifestyle started looking for a property to buy in South
Western Australia.
In 1982 my Parents purchased 25acres of natural Karri tree
forest with a small paddock, water filled dam and bordered by running creek in
Karri Valley near Pemberton South Western Australia. We then spend many
weekends and all of our holidays camping on the property and planning our future.
In 1884 after leaving his job as salesman Dad spend some
weeks with his Father on the property building a small wooden 2 bedroom, no
bathroom, electricity or telephone shack in the property.
At the end of the school year we had sold the Safety Bay property,
loaded all our possessions into our brown Valiant Ranger station wagon and
trailer, after a four-hour drive we arrived at our new home.
Karri Valley was not really a town only having three families
living on properties in the area, the closest town Pemberton about 45minutes away
was where Dale and I started school the following year.
Karri Valley did have a small resort with lodge
accommodation, restaurant, large fishing dam and surrounding bungalows, at the
time it was closed due to financial problems although this resort would become
the center of worldwide controversy very shortly after our arrival.
Daily life on the property consisted of bucketing water from
the creek for drinking and washing, lighting our wood fire BBQ for cooking and
water boiling, showering in our outdoor camp shower and using our outdoor bush
toilet, doing school homework under kerosene lanterns, growing our own fruit, vegetables
and generally trying to become self sufficient.
One Saturday in April we noticed a new family had arrived in
our small community, the two parents and a daughter were moving into the
resort. We mostly noticed the strange way they were dressed, brightly colored
robes with necklaces of wooden beads and a large wooden pendant.
Monday morning while Dale and I were waiting for the school
bus the family arrived and introduced them selves, the parents dressed in the
same brightly colored robes and their daughter Joanne dressed normally.
Being the only other kid in the area Dale, Joanne and I
would spend our weekends hanging out, riding bikes, playing in the bush and
creeks.
Then one weekend campervans and cars started arriving at the
resort with more people in the brightly colored robes and beaded necklaces,
this continued throughout the following weeks as did the stories and hysteria
in Pemberton.
Millionaire Jay Harman, who, in 1984, as co-founder of the Perth
based Energy Research Group (ERG) and became an instant millionaire after
developing a type of electronic sign.
As a Rajneesh sympathizer and principal shareholder of Annacherra
Pty Ltd, a company linked to ERG, had bought the Karri Valley resort, with the
view to opening a Rajneesh school.
The Rajneesh religious cult was well known for taking over
the town of Antelope in Oregon USA and fears were they had the same plans for
Karri Valley and Pemberton Western Australia as Fremantle also was known to
have a growing population of the religious cult followers.
The Australian Media descended on Pemberton/Karri Valley,
reporting the strange lifestyle/beliefs of the Rajneesh or “orange people” and
their intentions of taking over the town.
I don’t remember the reason however the Orange people seemed
to just leave as mysteriously and quickly as they had arrived.
Our time in Karri Valley was also over as Mum and Dad
patiently explained to Dale and I they had had enough of living on the
property, once again we packed up the Valiant and headed back to Safety Bay to
live in an old rental house near the sea.
Chapter 3
The rental house was actually next door to our previous
Safety Bay house and had been derelict for many years. Our parents had worked
out a deal with the owners for us to renovate their house as rental payment.
Dad had returned to work selling building materials, Mum had
found a data entry job in Fremantle although she had to work night shift, Dale
was at Safety Bay primary school and I had started Safety Bay high school.
One weekend I was riding my bike past a house down the road,
which had a small wooden sailing yacht in need of more than a little TLC for
sale for $150. I quickly proposed a 50/50 deal with Dale as I didn’t have
enough pocket money saved up and it was ours, we had a boat again. After many weekends of painting, varnishing,
repairing rigging and fittings our weekends were filled with sailing and
exploring the bay and islands once more.
Our neighbors living in our old house, the parents and two
boys around Dale and my age became good friends as did the family over the road
also with two boys around our age.
Weekends were filled with sailing, diving, fishing
adventures and evening BBQ’s and parties with the neighbors.
Although my memories of this time are good ones my parent’s
marriage was over, one Sunday morning I woke to Mum and Dale coming into my
bedroom crying, Mum patiently explained she was leaving my Father and their
marriage was over.
She moved out the following week to a small duplex house
nearby, after a couple of weeks of arguing with my Father I found myself
packing my bags and moving in with her while Dale stayed living with Dad.
My enthusiasm for High School was leaving me and my grades
slipping, from straight A’s in year 8 to barely passing throughout year 10, I
had had enough and dreamt of adventures on the ocean when I decided to leave Safety
Bay High at the completion of year 10.
I signed up for a nine-month Tafe course “Certificate of
Nautical Fishing” at Fremantle Maritime College and moved with Dad to an
apartment in East Fremantle.
My enthusiasm was back I found the Navigation, Engineering,
Maritime and Professional fishing courses invigorating.
After the course I found a deckhand’s job on a prawn trawler
called the Seapearl II, it was in Fremantle harbor during a refit period and
was based in Carnarvon in the North West, trawling for prawns and scallops in
Shark Bay.
Chapter 4
We departed Fremantle for Carnarvon in April 1990, my Dad’s
departing gift of $20 in my otherwise empty wallet. As a professional fisherman you are only paid
a percentage share of the catch, any refit or preparation works are unpaid and
after the two-month refit I was flat broke.
The three-day voyage to Carnarvon gave me the sensation of
real adventure and with a following sea my fears of seasickness disappeared,
although the dreaded affliction would soon reappear with a vengeance.
We were only in port for a couple for a couple of days in
Carnarvon to load some provisions and bunker some fuel.
The first evening the much older crew took me to a pub for
the first time, although actually only 17 years of age nobody seemed to notice,
my $20 managed to buy one round after which I declared I would walk back to the
trawler. The first mate Manuel was having none of it and putting a $50 note
into my hand declaring “don’t worry mate money won’t be a problem once we start
fishing”.
The season opened about the same time as the wind started
blowing and fishing the deep water off Point Quobba my stomach was doing
backflips as we plowed into the two-meter plus seas. The eighteen hour days,
continuous hauling of the nets, sorting the catch, grading, washing, boxing,
freezing prawns, continuously throwing up and not eating was taking its toll on
me big time!
However I wasn’t the only one and after four days two of the
other deckhands had quit and asked to be taken into port. I decided to quit
myself and went to the wheelhouse to tell Damien the skipper “I want out of
here” however instead I mumbled something like “could I get some more seasick
tablets in town “ and before I knew it we were back out plowing into the
two-meter swells catching prawns again.
By the time we filled the freezer and came back to Carnarvon
to unload the catch I had finally kicked the seasickness and looked forward to
my first paycheck and three night off.
We trawled at night for the prawns, from sunset till dawn
and during the Australian winter months April until October when the nights
were the longest. Shark Bay being at around 25 degrees Latitude we missed out
on most of the winter cold fronts however consistent southerly winds, short, sharp
chop and the occasional cyclone kept us on our toes.
We would work every night during the season except over the
full moon phase each month when we would come into Carnarvon for 3 nights off.
The reason was actually because of the life cycle of the
prawns we were catching, not because we were werewolves or worse things that
the Carnarvon locals might have called us.
As prawns are prey for many fish they are very wary of light
and as soon as the sun and even the moon rises they would bury under the sand,
safe from predators and our trawl nets.
Towards the end of my first prawning season we noticed
something strange, throughout the bay small scallops about the size of a
twenty-cent piece were in plague proportion. When trawling through the heart of
the scallop grounds we actually filled our nets to breaking point with these
tiny scallops, this is something that had never been seen before in the history
of the fishery.
Chapter 5
The Carnarvon Prawn trawling industry had 27 licensed
trawlers who were allowed to fish commercially for prawns and scallops and 12
licensed trawlers who could fish for only scallops. The average price each
trawler was paid for prawns was around $3.75 per kilo, the average price each
trawler was paid for scallop meat was around $8.00 per kilo.
Trawling for prawns and catching well was a talent and the
top skippers almost worshipped in the industry. Trawling for scallops also
depended on the crew’s ability to process the scallops, what we called
“shucking”. Shucking a scallop is the process of removing the circular meat,
which is the only part of the smooth scallop that is kept. A modified table
knife in which each deckhand will take a great deal of pride constructing is used
and the process is in three motions, first taking off the top shell, second
removing the “guts and eyes” from around the meat and thirdly flicking the meat
off the bottom shell into a meat tub, a good deckhand could shuck 100kg of
scallop meat in a16hour shift.
In 1991 the owner decided to changed Skipper on the Seapearl
II, the new skipper Sean a legend of the industry, from an Italian father and
Russian mother Sean was a world class fisherman, drinker, fighter and Casanova,
this season was going to be fun!
We started the 1991 season with the usual bunch of misfits
aboard. First mate Jimmy a lean wide shouldered country boy who’s education was
from some of the country’s worst juvenile detention centers. Engineer Charlie
the oldest aboard, a Vietnam Veteran and part time sheep shearer, a compulsive
liar and when caught out his eyes would roll back and he would go into attack
mode. Cook Kylie a Hippy from Denmark in the southwest. She drove an old green
Mazda station wagon with flowers painted all over, which I would sometime in
the future get into trouble from her for driving from Carnarvon to Perth and
back again (a twenty hour round trip) on a promise from a girl.
Then Skipper Sean with deckhands The Dude, Mike and Myself.
This was years before the Big Lebowski was produced however
Dude definitely could have been subject matter “even if there is a lazy man and
the Dude was certainly that, quite possibly the laziest man of Western
Australia”.
Mike Fitzpatrick had a mix of Italian and Irish heritage
with a South Fremantle upbringing, on/off heroin habit and a few years spent in
Fremantle prison he was always fun, however there was always an ulterior motive
which involved some very seedy characters.
The season started as normal in the deep water off Point
Quobba with average catches and us the
crew finding our sea legs.
The Shark Bay prawning season starts about six weeks before
the scallop season, prawn boats will still catch scallops however are not
allowed to process or keep them.
After the deep water catches were dropping off we started
heading south looking for prawns. As I was always interested in the navigation
and learning the fishing grounds, I was in the wheelhouse with Sean when we
started heading for the scallop grounds where we caught all the small scallops
at the end of the previous season. We
hauled our nets after the first shot only to find shreds of net material
hanging off the head and foot rope and the rest of the net gone of our two
eight fathom $4000 trawl nets. I started
telling Sean of the masses of twenty cent piece size scallops of the previous
season only to be told “that’s ridiculous I’ve been fishing this Bay for 20
years”.
We fitted 2 more brand new $4000 nets and shot the gear away
once more, after the traditionally “short shot” of 30 minutes we once again
found our nets totally destroyed.
Scallop industries worldwide are known for their boom/bust
cycles, after years of consistency they can just breed to plague proportions or
die out completely with little or no warning. With scallop meat after many poor
seasons at a premium price of $8 per kg paid to the fisherman we were in for a
boom that the Australian fishing industry had never known before!
After once again changing nets and a very cautious
five-minute shot which totally filled our nets and we were still very much on
the edge of the scallop grounds we realized this was going to be a crazy
season. With scallops at over double the price of prawns this made fishing for
scallops much more profitable if we could process enough.
Chapter 6
The 1991 and 1992 Shark Bay prawn and scallop season would
compete with some of the worlds greatest gold rushes, bringing with it all the
unsavory elements that fast money, a wild west town, dangerous working
condition, little or no regulation, crazy working hours, escalating drug
problems and greedy fishing company owners can bring.
Within days of scallop season opening trawlers were
returning to Carnarvon with freezers full, crew totally burnt out. Skippers
were scouring the pubs and backpackers for fresh deckhands to process the
valuable scallop meat.
The word was out and fishermen, cab drivers, backpackers and
truck drivers around Australia were broadcasting the word – Big money for hard
work in Carnarvon Western Australia.
The town was booming, pubs were full, accommodation was
overflowing, money was everywhere as were the drug dealers and scum that it
attracted, the quiet town people were distraught.
Aboard the Seapearl II our season was taking it’s toll, the
Dude leaving after his feet swelled up like footballs, we replaced him with
Russell a Fremantle semi professional boxer who also didn’t last very long.
This season was going to need some strategic planning to survive.
The trawler owners being traditionally greedy by creating
competition between the fleet skippers to keep their jobs now anticipating the
boom catches and creating extra pressure.
Some pirate skippers encouraging drug use to keep their crew
working longer, others sneaking extra crew aboard and “hot bunking” which is
when one smelly deckhand gets out of his bunk another gets in to keep the
processing of the scallop meat going.
We used an extra deckhand to rotate time off to recover
which seemed to work well although our catches were never quite as much as the
pirate crews.
A night spend prawn trawling consisted of continuous sixty
minutes shots, sorting and processing the catch between hauls, if we were able
to sort and process the catch between this time we had earned to right to relax
for a few minutes before the next haul.
A night now spend scalloping consisted of doing a few five minute shots
bag and fill the boat with scallops then dropping anchor and spending the next
sixteen hours shucking, boxing and freezing the scallop meat.
Shucking scallops for more than a couple of hours must be
the most brain numbing exercises ever experienced combined with heavy lifting
required to bag and fill the boat it was a deckhand burning exercise, only the
heavy pay checks making it all worthwhile.
Unloading a full freezer involved working a full night
processing scallops then steaming for Carnarvon in the morning.
Arriving at Carnarvon port was like arriving in a pirate
cove with trawlers tied up along side five boats deep fighting for a space to
unload their catch, trucks with freezer trailers fighting to take a position to
unload their designated trawler, fuel hoses and water going in every direction,
food stores being loaded, drug deals going on in public and smelly tired and
drunk/drugged up crew everywhere. The only place more crazy would be the local
pubs where thirsty crew after a long trip were quenching their thirsts most of
then due to return to sea in a few hours with little or no sleep in the past
thirty hours.
At around 3pm if the crew had not returned to the boat the
skippers would drag them from the bar and if not them anyone who seemed to
agree to a ten day trip of shucking scallops.
I couldn’t even remember how many times a drunk deckhand
find himself dragged from the bar to find himself on a trawler heading out to
the scallop grounds with only the clothes he was wearing only to return ten
days later returning to port, a lot more smelly and tired with a large pay
check in his hands.
After surviving the 1991 season only the battle scared and
shell shocked came back for the 1992 season.
Our crew was still mostly together as Sean, Jimmy, Charlie,
Mike, Kylie, Myself a friend of Jimmy’s David as new deckhand. The scallops
were still in plague proportions although they were facing a plague of their
own as a small work that would infest the meat and require us cutting out and
removing before sending to market. Also
prices were starting drop, we found ourselves working at the same impossible
pace for less money and for some crew that just wasn’t enough.
While on my rotation off I was kicking the footy around with
Peter an old school friend who had also become a fisherman although not in
Carnarvon, we had some mutual friends in the industry one of which was Dave
Handlebar who Peter had worked for, now a Carnarvon scallop trawler skipper.
Peter and I went back to his parent’s place where he still
lived when his father George said in a sympathetic voice “boys you better come
in here and see the news”. A Shark Bay scallop trawler the Santa Madelena had
turned over in heavy weather in with many of the crew missing and feared dead,
the helicopter footage was not pretty with only the upturned bow still afloat,
really bad weather conditions, other trawlers circling the area and reports of
bodies being recovered.
We both had friends aboard and Peter had worked for Dave
previously, we were both totally devastated!
As it turned out Dave Handlebar was not aboard as he was
attending some personal issues and it was a relief skipper driving the boat who
was killed along with four of the crew, a couple of our friends included.
The relief skipper was turning the boat around in heavy
weather with the full cod ends or catch bags suspended in the rigging, a big
mistake as this weight suspended from that height dragged the vessel over and
to it and it’s crews death.
Dave Handlebar would a few years later skipper another
trawler for the same company, which sank in a cyclone off Point Sampson Western
Australia loosing his own and the whole crew’s lives.
The 1992 season was also taking its toll on many of the crew
with drug use at epidemic levels with heroin, speed (a weaker version of the
now famous Ice) and weed the main culprits.
Heroin overdose deaths were nearly monthly happening aboard
trawlers, planes, busses, taxis, pubs, phone booths and often people I least
expected to be using.
The West Australian media was reporting us as anything from the
Mafia to the Clu-Clux-Clan claiming the fishing industry is just a drug
delivery network up and down the West Australian coastline, Mum was getting
very worried!
At the end of the 1992 season we returned to Fremantle a
very burnt out and shell shocked crew, the old Sicilian Italian owner met us at
Fremantle fishing boat harbor with a stern look on his face.
He and Sean when for a coffee, Sean returned to tell us the
owner was disappointed with our catch compared to some of the more “Pirate”
crew sand he would no longer be the Skipper of the Seapearl II.
I completed another two seasons on the Seapearl II now as
first mate for the new Skipper Dashing Darryl in his early fifties Darryl had
spent most of his career fishing the Gulf of Carpentaria for banana and tiger
prawns. Although fishing the Gulf has
its own challenges we always considered Carnarvon to be tougher especially
after the scallop boom of 1991 and 1992.
By 1993 the scallop boom was over and we were once again
normal prawn fishermen catching a few scallops as a byproduct. I was excited
about my promotion as first mate, I had completed both my Engineering ENG2 and
Skippers Master Class Five during the offseason.
On return to Fremantle fishing boat harbor after the season
I once again met Sean who was refitting two very run down trawlers the Repulse
and the Neutron. They had been out of commission for some years and needed a
lot of work of which the new Italian owner wanted done at the lowest possible
cost.
In 1995 I was working as first mate on the Repulse and would
be relief Skipper for Sean and the Skipper of the Neutron Dean, both boats
still needed a lot of work and the closer we got to the start of the season the
more problems we found. While bunkering fuel 2 days before our planned
departure I found diesel leaking out the top of a lower steel fuel tank, with
no other option we worked all night fiber glassing the tank top and we were on
our way.
The Carnarvon prawning fleet had twenty seven licensed
trawlers, fifteen of which were owned by the company Norwest Seafoods,
previously Norwest Whaling company.
Norwest Seafoods was owned for some thirty years by a
wealthy family without any interest in the industry. They pulled out all the
profits, their trawlers were badly maintained and crews paid the absolute
minimum.
By the big scallop boom some of their trawlers had
definitely gone “Pirate” with drugs being a huge problem as was large
percentages of the catch being stolen and sold Skippers and Crews instead of
being unloaded to the company for their low prices.
In 1994 the Company was bought by a wealthy man from
Geraldton Western Australia and the new management given the job of cleaning up
their fleet.
This was achieved by changing five of the fifteen Skippers
each year three years, then a continuing policy of changing the bottom three
catching Skippers each years thereafter. To ensure competition was kept high
large bonuses were paid to the top three catching skippers also.
As a Fishing boat Skipper you sign a contract with the owner
of the boat called a Share Fishing Agreement rather than a work contact. This
agreement means the Skipper pays for 21% of the normal running expenses such as
fuel, nets, consumables and are paid 21% of the beach price of sale of the
catch. The beach price is the price the owner sells the catch to the wholesaler
for and is always an area of argument.
The Skipper then pays the crew as a percentage of the gross amount he
receives deducting supplies such as food, which are paid for in total by the
skipper and crew.
The maintenance of the boat is paid for by the owner however
the Skipper must operate and keep the maintenance schedule correctly or there
can be penalties.
Chapter 7
In 1996 at the age of twenty two I signed a Share Fishing
Agreement with Norwest Seafoods and took charge of the NW Roland a twenty two
meter Prawn trawler, the smallest in the fleet.
A had assembled a crew during the offseason consisting of
Barney as first mate, I didn’t know Barney personally he had called my up and
sold me after listing off a string of references, later during a phone call
with the fleet master I remember him groaning as I said I’d employed Barney.
Deckhands - Gus a friend from home with no experience - Adam
who had completed the same Certificate of Nautical Fishing where I started who
also had no experience.
Then Donna who I had worked with previously aboard the
Seapearl II, before she left her home in country NSW she managed to talk me
into hiring her younger sister also.
With myself the youngest Skipper in the fleet by at least
five years, two girls aboard, Barney a supposedly “ex” pirate and two
inexperienced deckhands we were the talk of the town while in Carnarvon
preparing the NW Roland for the season.
Our first ten day trip consisted of numerous breakdowns with
the boat and crew, Gus and Adam had decided they didn’t want to be fishermen, I
had arranged for other deckhand Keno who I had worked with before and would see
many more times across the other side of the world to meet us for our first
scheduled unload day.
Our first unload day was a day I’d rather forget, as soon as
the ropes went ashore so did my inexperienced crew at speed! Barney found a
drinking partner on another trawler, while the unloading team found that two
hundred Kingfish we had caught as a byproduct had been frozen together in a
solid block instead of being individually frozen then stacked in a pile. Now
Barney was in a drunken rage swinging an axe in the freezer trying to break it
up, I was called into the office by the fleet master with a few concerns, I
assured him it was all under control and I had new deckhands arriving.
We once again headed out of port with the deck covered in
mutilated Kingfish, Keno aboard and Barney drunk in the galley where I’d
managed to hide him. About half way to the prawning grounds I heard a loud slam
and Barney yelling, I looked down the wheelhouse steps to see him looking up
with blood running down his face. He had been going down a hatch (probably
looking for more alcohol), without latching off the hatch properly it had
crashed down on his head splitting his scalp at least 10cm across.
I was not going back to port and explained to Barney if we
did his career would probably be over at Norwest. I snapped on some gloves and
with scissors cut off most of his long hair, then disinfecting and taping the
cut closed with a beanie taped to his head for extra protection I suggested he
go lie down.
Skippers often work with other Skippers to cover more ground
however with the stakes at place trust was a big issue, it also had its
disadvantages once other Skippers see a trawler leave an area to join another
area it’s a pretty good indication the catch is better over there. Working
alone also has its advantages and thinking back I believe I would have caught
more by working alone as I did my first season on the NW Roland.
Our second trip coincided with what we called the peak of
the season, when the season first opens only the most Northern grounds are open
and trawlers are not allowed to go into certain closures. This is policed by
the fisheries department and later by satellite GPS tracking of all the
Trawlers.
The first few days of the closure being opened is generally
when the biggest catches of the season are recorded. In 1996 this opening or
peak was fairly disappointing with only average catches recorded across the
fleet.
After being discouraged by the opening I made a move twenty
nautical miles to the south east where we remained without seeing or having any
contact with another trawler for the next 2 weeks. Without any indication I didn’t know if our
catches were good or bad although I was definitely catching more than I had during
the first few days of the opening.
We would have a morning “Sched” radio call with the fleet
master each morning to check we are ok and if we need any parts or assistance,
also to book unloads when our freezers were full.
I still remember the surprise in the fleet masters voice “are
you sure” shortly followed by the sarcastic “your freezer’s not full off
Kingfish again is it?” when I called to schedule an unload.
The NW Roland the smallest trawler in the fleet and would be
very bow heavy when the freezer was full and fuel tanks empty.
We entered port the following morning with the bow so low
our anchors were dragging in the water, Barney was standing on the bow when the
Skipper of another trawler called out
“your boats full of water” Barney replied “no way mate, this is all
prawns”. The fleet master came running down and once tied up climbed aboard and
asked me to lift the freezer hatch. Still very surprised and by the look on his
face I realized catches for the rest of the fleet had not been good, we were
once again the talk of the town.
I had started seeing Donna’s sister Amy during this trip and
we had become a couple now, the crew was not exactly harmonious but working.
One calm night during hauling the nets I had taken the boat
out of gear and when going back into gear the net became caught in the
propeller. Upset with myself for making the mistake and not wanting to lose
catching time I decided I would dive on it and cut it out. I have a couple of
sets of Scuba gear aboard and quickly rigged one and went down. I was down for
maybe twenty minutes and when I returned to the surface I could hear the crew
talking hysterically.
I called out to see Amy’s face with tears in her eyes look
over the side, the look of relief in her face made me ask what’s going on. She
replied “after you went down a dolphin had stuck its head out of the water and
started squeaking at us, we thought it was trying to tell us you were in
trouble”, the rest of the crew were trying to put together the other set of
gear and decide who was going to go down.
At the end of the season the company offered me a larger
trawler for the following season, I returned in 1997 to Skipper the NW Ord with
a totally new crew, my relationship with Amy had not survived the offseason.
Chapter 8
Being a fisherman I was able to earn and save money easily
and had bought a three bedroom house on a quarter acre block of land in Warnbro
close to Safety Bay for $90,000, after a couple of good seasons it was just
about paid off. However I still craved adventure and dreamt of sailing off into
the unknown in my own cruising yacht.
After the 1997 season I bought Whimbrel III a steel hull,
John Pugh design cruising ketch I had seen at the Rockingham cruising yacht
club and sold my house.
After another successful prawning season I became the
Skipper of the NW Cape Grafton a twenty-six meter trawler and one of the
largest in the fleet.
I would spend the offseason working on my yacht, preparing
it for an offshore sailing adventure and spent most Christmas holidays sailing
around Rottnest Island off Fremantle.
My Mum had been in a relationship with Ian since her breakup
with my Father and had bought a house in Warnbro also, they also had a small
sailing yacht which Ian had lovingly built from scratch and kept it on a
mooring in Mangles Bay Rockingham. I kept my Whimbrel III on a mooring very
close by and many summer days were spent working on and sailing our yachts.
Chapter 9
At about 4pm on the third day of the 2000 prawning season on
the NW Cape Grafton I was having a coffee with the first mate Dave in the crew
mess, little did I know this would soon turn into the worst day of our lives.
The weather was terrible with a thirty-knot plus south-westerly
blowing and it was very uncomfortable on the anchor. The rest of the crew, most
of which had been working with me for a few years now were still asleep.
I decided we would lift the anchor and travel north with the
seas while we made some adjustments to a stabilizer that hadn’t been working
properly as it would be more comfortable, while I set course Dave woke the crew
and started work on the stabilizer.
Ben was a thirty four year old Carnarvon local, he had been
working as a fisherman for most of his life and had worked with us the previous
season.
While Dave prepared the chain that connected the stabilizer
to the end of one our trawl booms from the upper deck Ben was on the lower deck
cutting a section of rudder off the stabilizer on the lower deck with an angle
grinder.
I heard blood chilling screaming from the lower deck and ran
to the back of the wheel house where I saw Dave trying to look down to the
lower deck, I yelled “what’s happening down there”? Dave couldn’t see and we
both climbed down the ladder to see Ben rolling around on the deck hugging the
still spinning angle grinder to his chest. As I went to help him another
deckhand Cam pulled out the power cord leading to the grinder.
I turned Ben seeing cuts to his hands, face and chests
however I realized it was the electricity that had got him, he wasn’t
breathing.
As a Skipper and Scuba diving instructor I had trained in
CPR many times, I rolled him onto his back and started CPR, I couldn’t believe
this was happening! After a few breaths then chest compressions he started to
breath again, we rolled him into recovery position and I instructed Dave and
the crew to stay with him while I called for help.
I called the fleet master on the phone who told me to
standby while he contacted a doctor, while this was going on Cam yelled out
“Mark quick he’s stopped breathing again”.
I raced down the stairs and started CPR again, however after
what felt like a lifetime there was still no response, Dave and Cam jumped into
help me as I was getting exhausted now. I left them giving Brad two person CPR
and returned to the wheelhouse to find the radio blaring with people trying to
call me, I was put in touch with a doctor and explained what was happening.
We were six hours from port and weather conditions were terrible,
many trawlers were near but unable to do anything, the doctor told me we were
doing the right thing and to keep going with the CPR.
After nearly an hour of CPR it became obvious he wasn’t
coming back.
The doctor patiently explained the situation to me “Mark you
have to keep going with the CPR until I get there”, the fleet master explained
they would meet us at the entrance to the port and transfer the doctor aboard
from the work boat, it was the best they could do.
After six hours of rotating two person CPR we finally met
the work boat and got the doctor aboard who shortly after pronounced Ben dead.
In a daze we winched the fishing gear aboard, booms in and
docked in the harbor, the ambulance was waiting and took Ben away, we were
devastated.
The next few days were a blur of police reports meeting with
friends and Ben’s family who I had become close with over the past years. The
funeral was held a few days later with all the trawlers were in port for the
occasion.
We completed the season however my enthusiasm was gone, we
finished bottom-catching boat, I announced my resignation and never fished
commercially again.
The inquiry into Ben’s death found the trawlers electrical
system to be incorrectly earthed leading to the continuing electrocution
instead of tripping as it should have done.
Chapter 10
I spent the 2000/01 Australian summer living with mates
Brock, Pat and Benny in a house near Rockingham beach, I had decided now was
the time for the big sailing adventure and had Whimbrel III out of the water
for her final preparations.
It was a summer filled with parties, good friends and good times,
I was starting to feel better about life again after the previous year’s tragedy
and looking forward to some real adventure.
The works on Whimbrell were turning out to be more extensive
than I first planned. After finding a great deal of rust under the sealed
bathroom floor and other places I decided to sand blast the entire lower
section of the hull interior and change the engine from a 30hp 2 cylinder Volvo
to a rebuilt 40hp 4 cylinder Mercedes engine. I also installed a compressor to
fill scuba diving tanks, water-maker and portable petrol generator to power it.
I had two good friends wanting to come along for the trip.
Bruce a mate I’d known most of my life, a local big wave surfer who spent his
time between working in the oil and gas industry and travelling to hard to
reach Indonesian islands looks for the perfect wave. Hugo was another local
friend who I’d known for some years was always seeking excitement, either
surfing, kite-boarding, fishing or wakeboarding behind his own boat.
On a beautiful Saturday afternoon in May 2001 we had
Whimbrell tied up alongside the Rockingham Cruising Yacht Club jetty, with
hundreds of friends and family drinking beer and eating BBQ to see the three
adventures off.
With twelve surfboards, six diving tanks, fishing gear and
numerous other equipment and supplies that had been hurriedly packed aboard we
cast of the lines and were on our way to adventure.
Mum and Ian followed us out in their yacht and with tears in
her eyes Mum waved goodbye, shouted out “please be careful Mark” and they
headed back to their mooring.
We finished our celebration beers then started organizing
our gear and equipment, which there seemed to be so much more of than we
originally planned. I set our first night of navigation watches and a few
minutes after settling Hugo into his first watch the boat stopped dead in the
water.
The wind was very light and we had caught a crayfish pot
rope between the rudder and keel. After looking into the deep blue water with
torches and numerous failed attempts to cut the rope with a knife attached to a
boat hook, we decided to wait until morning to dive down and cut it off as not
one of us could get the courage up to jump in during the night. Our first day and
we only managed twelve miles.
As we got into the rhythm of sailing life we started to
catch fish on the constantly towed lures we had towed on our fishing rods, fish
would become our steady diet for the following months.
We stopped briefly in Geralton for some small
repairs then headed to the Abrolhos islands. A chain of 122 islands fifty miles
west of Geralton, which has only a seasonal population of cray fishermen.
It is well known as the
site of numerous shipwrecks, the most famous being the Dutch ships Batavia, which was wrecked in
1629, and Zeewijk, wrecked in 1727.
This was our first real fishing, diving, surfing adventure
and our small Engle freezer was in no time filled with fish and crayfish.
We had our first experience diving with sharks while in the
Abrolhos, I was with Bruce when two six foot bronze whaler sharks became very
interested in us. I had dived with sharks before and showed Bruce that making a
stabbing move towards them, usually with our spear guns that we always carried
would be enough to scare them away until they worked up enough courage to get
close again. This would be the first of hundreds of encounters while in North
Western Australia.
One beautiful sunny afternoon while chasing and casting
lures into schools of shark mackerel I turned on the SSB radio for the daily
weather report. The forecast was reporting predictions of Gail force winds, I
looked to the horizon to see distant storm clouds. A few years before sailing
friends of Mum and Ian had been sailing in the same area and lost their lives
in a big May storm, my Mother’s words “look out for the May storm” went through
my mind.
I looked at the chart and decided to anchor off Big Rat
Island (endearingly named after the marsupial Quokkas who early explorers
assumed were large rats), the fishermen’s sheds and small jetties looked very
much like some kind of shanty town, we anchored close in and dropped 100mtrs of
anchor chain.
The storm hit as we played cards in the deckhouse and
listened to the offshore Tuna fishing boats on the SSB radio calling fifty knot
winds and huge seas, we seemed to be in the best spot and found ourselves
surrounded by fishing boats in the morning.
We sailed on and up to Shark Bay, this is a very rugged and
dangerous part of the West Australian coastline with no protection and nearly
nowhere to seek shelter. After three days sailing in large swells we rounding
Steep point and were exhausted. We anchored in South Passage only to find with
the strong currents and southerly wind Whimbrel kept spinning in circles
twisting up the anchor chain, we lifted the anchor and kept sailing to Peron
Point.
The next morning as we started to sail up the bay I saw the
NW Cape Grafton and came up behind to saw hello. My old first mate Dave was
still aboard and caught our rope, we climbed aboard and had morning beers with
the crew after their night’s fishing. The afternoon was spent sailing through
the old fishing grounds, talking to old friends on the VHF radio and eating
fresh prawns.
