In the sunlight of the morning Jay and Harvey had already cleaned up and got breakfast on the go before the others had surfaced. Baz said he’d seen the fish come up to eat Will’s shit from the toilet. When Harvey went, they peered over the side and, sure enough, the fish rose up and, to much jeering, swallowed it all. That made them all feel a little disgusted. By ten they had made their first chatty radio call in to the boat hire company, giving location and possible destination for the day, and were on the go, crossing the open water towards anchorage on the south of Hook Island – their target for a good late afternoon anchoring before it filled with other boats bobbing about here and there. Halfway across one of their navigation instruments beeped furiously: Barry looked up and saw the depth indicator at 1.5 metres drop to 1 and then instantly to .5 after which the boat noisily sloughed to a hissing stop against the top of a sand bar. He put the engine into reverse, gave it throttle and on the crest of a wave the boat was freed and gently drifted backwards. Will, who had been forward catching the sun, came down to see what could be done.
“Jeezus, Will, can’t you see where we’re fuckin’ goin’?
“You’re the skipper – s’up to you, fuck muppet! And you’re not even pissed yet.”
“You’ve got eyes, ain’t ya? You’ve all got fuckin’ eyes. You see something coming, you fuckin’ shout.”
By this time Harvey and Jay had got to the fly bridge to see them argue. “Yeah but you’re the skipper. Christ! B’sides, you got a whole lot of expensive fuckin’ instruments here designed all nice and precise to stop us running aground and hitting things – look!” He pointed at the full colour screen of the GPS plotter that beamed innocently before them. “Why don’t you use them? And we got a great big map here, why not use the damn, fucking thing?”
“Know what? You’re all a bunch of fuckin’ knockers – why don’tcha give it a go? Be my guest.” and with that Baz lifted his hands away from the wheel and stomped off.
Will agreed and effortlessly tootled the catamaran to the destination: Nara Inlet. Barry didn’t volunteer to drive again for the rest of the trip.
The island slopes were wooded and wild and totally devoid of human life and activity, save for a piece of grafitti –‘Piggy’ scoured halfway up a rock face. Their anchor dropped, they took to their dinghy and for about half an hour hopped over rocks and see what was there. Will wanted to climb the hill, but after about 10 minutes of scrambling through woods, scrub and spinifex after the path ran out even he decided to call it quits. Turning round they had a great view of the natural harbour that was their anchoring inlet and noticed another boat had anchored nearby in the time they’d been larking about.
On returning to the cat, they saw the newbies were a late middle-aged couple on their boat, Adventure Before Dementia who gave a friendly wave. They privately discussed whether to move because of the kids on the boat: doubtless their night would be a noisy one. She was against it, being tired – besides, she argued, what would be the harm in a few boys having a drink or two?
As it happened, they were all tired. The cloud came in and the wind picked up a little making the cat pitch a little on its anchor. They were glad they decided on a natural harbour as that obviously protected them from the breeze that was clearly racing across the tops of the trees on the hills. The struck up the barbie again, but the temperature dropped and as darkness descended a little light rain also began to fall. Overall, the evening was spent unsuccessfully trying to pick up a TV signal, lazily opening a few more tins and generally sitting around inside saying nothing too important.
An hour or so after they’d turned in, a claxon loudly sounded very close to the unlit catamaran. Instantly roused, they came outside to see that Adventure Before Dementia was very close; they were about to tell the man on deck in no uncertain terms to move his boat when he called over to them.
“You’re drifting. Dragging your anchor – didn’t put down enough chain. And you’ve got no nav lights on.”
They all apologised like schoolchildren for their forgetfulness, put on the lights, started the engine and moved back to their prior spot, this time putting down all the chain.
“What a fuckwit!” Barry whispered to Jay, seeking approval.
“Nah! He’s right.” he answered, “We were wrong – drifting with the tide. We’ve got to make sure we put down enough chain. Always.” It felt to Barry like a classroom put-down, but they were tired and humourless and just went straight back to their bedrooms without another word.
The next morning they were sat on deck halfway through their second bowlfuls of Honey Puffs, the sole packet Baz had thrown into the shopping trolley, when Will glanced over to the retirees boat and saw last night’s man’s wife pull back the curtains on the long chest-height cabin window. She obviously didn’t or couldn’t see out, but in the low morning sun they could see into the cabin and her sunlit naked torso in detail as she walked around to and from the en-suite. Jay nudged Will, who saw, stopped eating and nudged Baz. Last to see was Harvey who had his back to the scene of the naked fifty-something towelling off and applying lotion to her curvaceous body. All of them were transfixed as, using the window’s full sunlight, she tweezered-off one or two little hairs from around her nipples. Baz thought it was the biggest gross-out he’d seen in years. They all stopped eating.
Within a minute she opened the canopy and came out on deck in a baggy t-shirt to brush her hair in the morning breeze and sunshine. Turning around, she caught the four staring at her.
“Morning, boys!” They responded likewise, with reservation. “Did you all sleep well?” They murmured something in return, still staring. She finished her brushing and returned downstairs for the cardigan she’d left under the long window only to glance up and see the four faces staring directly at her through the window: even from their 40 metres distance they couldn’t have helped seeing her morning ablutions in detail. She stayed below deck.
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