At Sea - 10. AS Chapter 10

Sam and Marcus set to work to do the cleaning up after dinner, and Amanda and I retreated to my cabin to play some video games and listen to some music.

Sometime later, “Attention all crew, prepare for night shift” Aunty Jacq’s voice came over the PA system, and Amanda looked at me. “That means, close down for the night and head to bed, and I have to start my shift on watch” I said to her as I stood up and stretched. “Goodnight, see you in the morning” I said to Amanda as I left the cabin and entered the bridge area, where both the skipper and Aunty Jacq stood.

“I will relieve you at midnight” Aunty Jacq said to me as she kissed me on the cheek, and I nodded my understanding as Uncle Jay and Aunty Jacq retired to their cabin, and soon after Amanda appeared from my cabin, and she too said goodnight to me and headed to her cabin.

I opened the log book, looked at the clock and made my entry, “2100hrs, Navigator C.M Henderson on first night watch, anchored in upper Arthur River, West Tasmania, All Is Well”, and I closed the log book, retrieved the night vision binoculars, and scanned the area around the boat, and saw nothing except a few birds on the water.

Just as I finished scanning the surrounds, Amanda appeared with two cups of tea, “I can’t settle at the moment, thought I would bring you up a brew” she said with a smile, “Thanks, I was just thinking I would have to wait till midnight for a drink” I replied.

Amanda left about twenty minutes later with empty cups in hand, and I settled down to a quiet remainder of the shift, stepping out onto the back balcony a few times to scan the back of the boat, to make sure everything was ok.

The following morning, I didn’t wake up until after 7.30, and I had a quick shower and dressed into my uniform, before heading down stairs, where some of the guests were already having breakfast, with Sam and Marcus ensuring they had everything.

Walking into the galley, I found Aunty Jacq at the stove cooking breakfasts for the guests, while Uncle Jay and Amanda were seated at the bench eating. “Good morning all” I said as I sat down next to Amanda, and a plate of cooked breakfast was placed in front of me.

As I began to eat, I saw Uncle Jay look up at Amanda, who smiled and nodded, “We approve of Amanda’s idea of her sharing a cabin with you, so as to make her cabin available as a guest double cabin” Uncle Jay said to me, and I looked at Amanda, then to Aunty Jacq before I sighed, “I’m not really sure about it, I said I would give it a trial” I said before continuing eating and the galley fell silent again, until Marcus entered with another two orders for cooked breakfast.

Once Uncle Jay had finished eating, he set off up to the bridge, and I heard the engines start up, so I headed for the main deck to help raise the anchors, and soon we continued our journey up stream. I made my way up to the bridge, where I was informed that we only had an hour before we reached the junction of the two rivers.

I was asked to go forward and be lookout for any underwater snags or sandbars, and so I headed downstairs to the main deck. When we arrived at the junction, I set the anchors, before Uncle Jay shut off the engines, and I joined him on the bridge deck balcony, too lower both of the dinghy’s, and to secure them both at the aft of the boat.

Each of the dinghy’s can seat 8 people, plus the driver, so there would be plenty of room for the guests and some of the crew. Aunty Jacq asked me to take her out on one of the dinghies to take some photos of the boat at different angles, as well as some of the river junction, before collecting the guests.

Amanda had decided to remain on the boat to start preparations for morning tea when we return, and so with 5 guests, Aunty Jacq and Sam in our Dinghy, and the remaining 7 guests, and Marcus with uncle Jay, we set off up the Franklin River.

When we reached a sandbank that covered the whole width of the now narrowing river, we stopped and stepped onto the sandbank, Aunty Jacq continued to take lots of photos, and after a short walk around we headed back to the junction, and once there we headed further up the Arthur River.

We came across some rapids about twenty minutes later, so we stopped to look around and to take some more photos, before we set off back to the boat. While the guests enjoyed some morning tea, Sam and Marcus packed away the life jackets, while Uncle Jay and I reloaded the two dinghies, back onto the boat and secured them into their positions on the bridge deck.

We had been lucky with the weather so far for the river journey, but as we began the return trip to town, a light drizzle began, so I put a movie on in the theatre lounge, to keep the guests entertained during the 2 ½ hour journey back.

We arrived back at the town jetty shortly after 12.30 and by then the weather had cleared a little, as the guests gathered their overnight bags, the crew gathered on the main deck, and as they stepped off the boat, Uncle Jay and Aunty Jacq each thanked them for their stay on board, and once they were all gone, we had a quick lunch, before Amanda and the lads got to work to do the laundry, and to clean all the used guest cabins.

While they were doing that, Aunty Jacq and I went for a drive around town, to see if there were any new properties available for sale, as the real estate agency was closed with it being a Sunday afternoon. As we crossed the bridge to see on the western side of the river, we came across a property on the edge of town, about 800 metres upstream from the town jetty.

The “For Sale” sign says that it was 15 acres of land, with a small jetty, a boat ramp and a large shed, which was only big enough to hold half of the Catamaran for storage or maintenance, behind the large boat shed was a small machinery shed and near the middle of the property was a small stone and iron cottage, with plenty of trees and shrubs around it for shade and wind shelter.

There were a number of small tree groves scattered around the property, making it an ideal property, as our base for the business, as we made our way back into town, and to the jetty. Just before reaching the jetty, Aunty Jacq spotted Barry walking along the river foreshore and she stopped to speak to him while I remained in the car.

When she returned to the car, Aunty Jacq said that Barry knew the owner of the property that we had just been looking at, and that he would contact the owner as soon as he gets home, to let him know we were interested in buying the property.

Back at the catamaran, Amanda was vacuuming the lounge areas, while the lads were starting to fold the first batch of pillow cases and towels, that had finished being washed and dried, and we found Uncle Jay in one of the hulls, doing a check of the engine, to make sure everything was ok. I changed into some work pants and shirt and entered the hull to help, and to learn a bit about engine maintenance, while Aunty Jacq helped the lads with the folding.

By mid-afternoon all the chores had been completed, and having gotten grubby from crawling around in the hull, I went to have a shower, to get rid of all the grease and grime. Marcus and Sam decided to go and walk around the town a little, to explore and see is in the small community, and once he had showered and changed, Uncle Jay and Aunty Jacq settled in the theatre lounge to watch an old-time movie, “Gone with the Breeze” or something like that.

When I exited my bathroom, I saw that Amanda was sitting on the lounge with headphones on, listening to some music. I grabbed some clothes, before retreating back into the bathroom to change, before re-entering the cabin and grabbing a book from the shelf, I lay on the bed and started to read.

About an hour later, Amanda took the headphones off and turned the music off, before facing me, “Anything special you want for dinner?” she asked me, I thought for a moment before answering her, “How about we get the barbeque out onto the deck, that way there is not so much to prepare” I suggested, smiling Amanda nodded her head before leaving the cabin, and after a few minutes more of reading, I put the book down and headed down to the galley to help Amanda.

As I was helping prepare the salads, I was thinking of what to do for the rest of the long weekend, “In the morning, how about we ask the skipper to take us out to sea a couple of kilometres and we try out the scuba gear” I suggested to Amanda, “That sounds like a great idea, I’m in on that” Sam said as he and Marcus walked in, “Yep count me in too” Marcus added.

About an hour later as we all gathered around the barbeque on the main deck, watching our dinner cooking, Marcus mentioned the idea of scuba diving in the morning. “Actually, there is a shipwreck not far off the coast, a barque named “Rebecca”, which sunk in 1853, that would be an extra item to add to our charters, if we can get a precise location of it.

There is also the schooner called “Alert”, which ran aground further down the coast in 1854, and the remains can be seen from the beach” Uncle Jay said to us, and we talked some more about the scuba dive in the morning as we ate our dinner.

The next morning after a late breakfast, Uncle Jay headed to the bridge, while I went down to untie the mooring ropes, and we set off down the river and into the Southern Ocean, where the seas were fairly mild, with a light wind creating a little bit of chop in the seas.

When we were just 400 metres out from the river mouth, we set the anchors in 35-metre-deep waters, as Amanda, Sam, Marcus and I did our final checks of our scuba gear. Once we were set, Marcus and Sam went first, and we waited a few minutes before Amanda and I entered the water, although it was choppy on the surface, it was fairly calm underneath, with a slight ocean current going from south to north.

We let the current float us northwards, as we remained at a depth of 15 metres, and after twenty minutes, I signalled to Amanda to start heading up to the surface, when she indicated that she saw something, as she shone the torch directly onto the spot, and I too could see some shape that could be a ship.

We slowly made our way back to the surface, directly above what we saw and as I spat out the mouth piece and leaned back to avoid getting seawater in my mouth, I looked around, and saw that we were almost out of sight of the catamaran, with the sea being a lot rougher than when we started. I held my hand up high and waved it from side to side, as Amanda appeared beside me, and we remained floating at the spot where we surfaced as we saw the catamaran begin to approach our location.

“Mark this spot on the navigation, I think Amanda may have found the ship wreck, it’s hard to tell as it was at least another ten metres below us” I shouted to Marcus and Sam, as we swam around to the back of the boat, where the platform had been lowered, to allow easier access back on board. Sam headed off inside, to pass on the information to the bridge, and Marcus helped us with getting our gear off us and put to one side to be checked, before being refilled when we get back to town.

As we headed back to shore, all the scuba gear was checked, washed down with fresh water, and put to one side, ready to be refilled, using the outdoor shower on the main deck, we washed way the salt water, and Sam returned with fresh towels for us to dry off. Aunty Jacq appeared with a tray of hot tea and biscuits, were devoured within minutes, and we headed indoors to shower and change.

From the bridge, we went over the area a few times, watching the sonar closely each time we passed over, and Uncle Jay agreed that we had definitely found something, but it is hard to tell for certain. “A remote sonar sensor, would be ideal for this sort of thing, we have one at the university, which we have learnt to use last semester, but they are extremely expensive” I commented to the skipper.

After a final sweep of the area, we headed back the town jetty, where we moored the catamaran once again, and just relaxed for the remainder of the morning, with a light lunch served in the dining mess. After lunch, Marcus, Sam, Amanda and I packed our bags, and Aunty Jacq drove us back to Launceston, so as to return to our university studies.

After dropping the lads off at their accommodation, Aunty Jacq took Amanda and I to our new rented apartment, which had comfortable furniture, and the décor was not bad. Aunty Jacq gave us some money to cover food purchases for a week, and she said goodbye, saying she had some shopping to do before returning to Arthur River.

With it now being spring, the weather has improved dramatically, and it made life a lot easier at university, and for the remainder of the semester Amanda and I were kept very busy with our studies.