Ocean Research - 19. IOR Chapter 19

In the passageway on the other end of the barge, there are just two large rooms, with small signs on the doors saying that they are Research Laboratories one and two. Looking into one of them, we found a huge area, that has workbenches along two main walls, and a work table in the centre, with some laboratory equipment, already installed.

“Do you know what all this stuff does?” Flynn asked me, “Yep I sure do, I did learn a thing or two from all the years of study at university, you know,” I replied smiling, and Flynn laughed. “Smart arse, if you weren’t injured, I would thump you one for that comment,” Flynn said as he exited the lab, and I followed.

I stopped when I reached the passageway, as something on the opposite side of the barge caught my attention, there was a vessel moored to it. “What the…?” I said as I approached, “That is part of the whole gift from Mr Lloyd,” Flynn announced, as I stood at the door and looked out towards the moored Swath Catamaran, identical to the one at the Abrolhos Islands, except this one has “Ashburton Marine Research Facility” clearly marked on it, with “MV Warambie” written below it.

Flynn held out the set of keys that were in the envelope, which I head left in the vehicle, which I now know are the keys for the Swath Catamaran. Taking the keys, I opened the door and stepped out of the building and onto the deck of my new vessel, named after the family cattle station.

Like the other Swath Cat, this vessel also has storage shelves and brackets for holding six scuba tanks on the aft deck, and two aluminium storage containers, as I took the steps up and opened the door, stepping into the corridor, which as the change lockers, two cabins, and bathroom.

Looking into one of the cabins, I saw that they had been altered to accommodate just one crew member, with king single beds, instead of the standard narrow single bunk beds. Taking two more steps up and opening the next door, I found that the layout was completely different, with a deep workbench along the front, with cupboards in one corner both underneath and above the bench, and in the other corner there is a small sink and below it is a small fridge.

On the bench, there are two computers, a printer/scanner, a fax machine, and two office chairs, plus a marine radio and a UHF radio. Instead of front windows, there is a wall that has a large whiteboard that covers a third of the space on one side and a pin-up board that has a large map on it on the other side.

The navigational map was of the coastal region of the Pilbara, from West Intercourse Island just west of Dampier, to just east of Whim Creek, and the map also has the coastal boundary of the three pastoral stations along that area east of Roebourne, and it clearly shows that the East Harding and the Sherlock Rivers as the western and eastern boundaries of the families property.

On each side of the room, there are three comfortable chairs and a large central table is an additional workspace. Leaving this room, we headed upstairs to the bridge, where everything is identical to the other Swath Catamaran, including a sheltered outdoor area behind the bridge.

Once back on the aft deck, I looked along the side of the barge, and I smiled as I turned to face my brother. “Change of plans, come with me and I will show you what I want to be done,” I said to Flynn, who looked at me in a worried way, “This isn’t dangerous or illegal is it?” Flynn asked, and I smiled, trying not to laugh as it hurts too much, with my ribs.

“Not at all, quite legal and not dangerous at all,” I replied, as we stepped back onto the barge, and on the outer deck at one end, I headed to the vehicle access ramps that are strapped to the end railing of the barge. “Go and grab the ute, we are going to load it onto the barge, then we will tow the barge up the coast to the East Harding River,” I announced to my brother.

“Bloody hell, and how long is it going to take us to get there?” Flynn asked me, “Depending on a few things like the tide, the ocean swell, the winds, and how heavy the barge is, we will be there in about two hours,” I replied. “Oh, that all, well let’s get cracking then,” Flynn said as he set off to get the vehicle, while I carefully dragged the two-vehicle ramps over to the edge of the barge.

When Flynn arrived, I asked him to put the ramps into position, as my ribs were preventing me from lifting them, with just the dragging of them causing a lot of pain to my ribs.

Once the ramps were in place, I directed Flynn as he carefully drove the ute up the ramp and onto the barge, stopping in the centre, to even out the weight. Next, I showed Flynn where there are chains and shackles, in the storage lockers on the vessel, so that he could secure the ute to the deck, just in case the sea gets a bit rough.

While he was doing that, I released the ropes on the vessel and headed up to the bridge, starting up the motors, and as I looked at all of the gauges, I was pleased to see that the fuel tanks are full. I steered the vessel forward and then reversed it to in front of the barge, and putting it on idle, I dashed down the stairs, and grabbing the mooring ropes, I secured them to the front of the barge, with just a four-metre spacing between the two vessels.

“What now bro, oh wow, you did all of that on your own when injured? You should have waited till I was available,” Flynn said to me. “Yeah true, but I want to get out of here while it is still high tide, and I was only shifting and tying up ropes that’s all. Is the ute secured, and have you brought the ramps back onto the barge and secured them?” I asked, “Eye- eye, Captain,” Flynn said as he saluted.

“Right, I am heading back up to the bridge, release the mooring ropes between the wharf and the barge, and while I am pulling out, can you coil up and store away the ropes please,” I asked before heading back upstairs. Once the mooring ropes were released and pulled in, I pushed the throttle forward gently until the ropes were tight again.

Once taunt, I pushed it further forward to give the engines a good workout, pulling the barge, which is three times wider than the catamaran, and slowly we made our way out of Cossack Harbour, and once clear of the last sandy island, I turned right to head up the coast, sticking within 500 metres of shore, to avoid too many waves.

Flynn entered the bridge and looked around the bridge, this looks very fancy, are you sure you can drive this thing?” Flynn asked me, “Yes little brother, I have both the qualifications and the experience to skipper this catamaran, now grab that handheld radio on the deck, turn it on and make sure it is on channel three, and be a good brother and go out onto the deck on this level and keep a close eye on the barge for me please, as I don’t want it to be drifting sideways too much,” I replied.

Nearly two hours later, we came up to a river mouth, and around a small point was a second river mouth, which was the one I was looking for, and on the eastern side of the river was a small rock pile, which is the marker for our station boundary, as I did a wide turn, slowing down from 8 to 5 knots.

“Flynn, I am going to slow right down, so the barge drifts towards us, when it does, I want you to shorten the mooring ropes on both corners, so the cushion tyres are rubbing against the back of the vessel,” I said to my brother over the radio, and moments later he entered the bridge.

I need to have more control of manoeuvring the barge, and so I need to be right against it to do that,” I explained before Flynn headed downstairs. Once the barge was secured to the vessel, I swung it around, to the barge would go down the river first, changing the vessel from pulling to pushing but with the vessel in reverse.

I was not sure how deep the East Harding River is, and I didn’t want to get the vessel stuck behind the barge, so this was my best option, especially with the tide now on its way down, with an average tide difference of 4 metres from high tide to low tide, I was not sure how far down the river we would get.

“Now go around to the other end of the barge and direct me, as I cannot see where I am going,” I said to Flynn, who jumped onto the barge, and headed inside. “Hey bro, we forgot to check out the upper level of this research barge, there are two enormous suites up here, and I am on the balcony of one of them, which has a better view,” Flynn said to me over the radio.

“Remind me to check it out, once we have moved this as far in as we can,” I replied, and over the next two hours, we very slowly headed downstream and even from my place on the bride, I could see that the river was getting awfully narrow, with an estimated width of just 40 metres, leaving only about 5 metres on each side of the barge, so I decided to stop and inspect the river from Flynn’s vantage point with the binocular’s, and I let Flynn know that I was heading in his direction.

I decided to shut down the motors, to give them a good rest, as they had been working hard for the past four or so hours, and I let us slowly drift downwards, which only lasted a few minutes as we hit the side of the river on a bend and came to a complete stop.

“Do you know how far we have come?” Flynn asked me as soon as I arrived, taking a quick scan of the huge suite, as I passed through it to get to the outside balcony, that faces the end of the barge. “Yes, according to the navigation gear on the catamaran, we have travelled just over 2.3 kilometres downstream from the boundary marker,” I replied.

“You mean we are at the station already?” Flynn asked in surprise, “Yes, as soon as we turned into the river, everything to the east of it is our station,” I replied, as I looked at the other branch of the river, to the left, with both of them being about the same width. “I think we should look at another river further up the coast, this one is no good, do you want to camp here the night or should we push on while we still have plenty of daylight left?” I asked my brother.

“Well I brought the car fridge with me, so we have meat and veg for dinner, plus Mum and Dad know about this little surprise, so they are half expecting us to do something like this, and I sent them a text before we left Cossack to let them know we are heading up the coast towards Warambie,” Flynn announced.

“Ok, well it is nearly 1 pm, let’s stop for some lunch, and set off again in about half an hour, I also want to study the navigation map some more, to find a better location,” I said, and we headed indoors and we checked out all of the upstairs areas of the barge, which has two executive suites, with a private lounge, a recreation lounge, a huge conference boardroom, a research workroom and two research offices.

As we entered the kitchen, we discovered that the fridge had been stocked up with some basics, like fruit and vegetables, like tomatoes, celery, lettuce, cucumber, capsicum and carrots, plus butter, UHT milk & fruit juices, while in the freezer there was bread, some packets of steaks, sausages and chops. Looking in the pantry, there is a variety of dried herbs and spices, olive oil, containers of rice, cans of soup, some potatoes, garlic, onions and pumpkin.

“Looks like someone did a surprise food supply run for you bro, as we have everything here to keep us going for a week,” Flynn commented. “Sure, looks that way, go and grab the car fridge from the ute, and we will empty it all into the kitchen, and I will put together a salad to keep us going,” I replied.

After Flynn had headed outside, and on seeing a microwave, I pulled out the sausages, and put them on defrost, before I started searching the cupboards, and I located an electric frying pan, which I pulled out and plugged in. Grabbing an onion, I sliced it up and pouring some oil into the pan, I put the onions in before having to wash my face from the onion juices making my eyes water.

Next, I cut up some capsicum, and tomatoes and added them to the pan, and stirred them for a while till they were partly soft, and finding a plate, I emptied the pan’s contents onto the plate, just as the microwave finished.

Turning the pan down and adding a little more oil, I cut the sausages into thirds, before adding them to the pan, and I added some curry powder and a little water to the pan, and stirred this till the meat was nearly cooked, before adding the contents of the plate into the pan and closing the lid, to let it simmer.

“Yum, something smells nice, I thought we were just having a simple salad?” Flynn said as he entered the kitchen and placed the fridge on the floor and began unpacking it and putting all the cold items in the fridge, which was virtually everything.

“Changed my mind, we are having mild curry sausages with capsicum, onions and tomatoes,” I replied, “sounds good bro, you know I will eat anything that you or mum cook,” Flynn replied.

After lunch, we set off upstream, back towards the coast, but now that I can see where I was going, I was able to pick up the speed more, from 2 knots to 6 knots, so we were back on the coast in less than an hour, where we adjusted the length of the mooring ropes to just two metres distance, between the barge and we set off further up the coast, with Flynn outside on the bridge deck, watching the barge carefully.

It is about 16 nautical miles to the eastern coastal boundary of the station, where I decided it would be best to go, as the small river just west of there, is wide enough to get down the river as far as our families favourite camping and fishing spot, located just 1.8 kilometres inside the boundary.

There is one spot just 700 metres further downstream from the camping spot, and just 200 metres off the main access track, that leads 35 kilometres roughly south to the main highway, near the Little Sherwood Bridge, and from there it is just 22 or 28 kms to home at Warambie homestead, depending on which way you go.

The wind turned just half an hour after we started up the coast, and now with a headwind, progress was very slow, with what was to be just a two hour trip, would now take closer to 3 ½ hours, but we reached the river mouth without any troubles and we were glad to be in the shelter of the river as the swell on the ocean had also picked up.

As we approached the popular family camping spot, I was not too happy to see a group of five vehicles with tents, camper trailers and boat trailers for aluminium dinghies parked all over the place, with a large campfire set up in the centre, ready to be lit at dusk. The campsite was empty except for two dogs, which started barking as the vessel and barge slowly passed them.

“Hey bro, are you getting the rego plates of those vehicles, they are not allowed to camp there, this is our land,” I called out to Flynn. “Yep, I am on it, I tried calling home, but no one is picking up the phone,” Flynn replied. “Call our neighbours at Sherlock, and see if they know anything about it?” I asked as I picked up the radio mic for the UHF.

“Ashburton Marine Facility to Warambie station, over,” I said into the mic, but there was no answer so I called again, and still there was no answer, which had me worried. “Ashburton Marine, this is Pyramid Station, over,” a voice came over the radio, “Pyramid, this is Kipling speaking, is that you Warren, over?” I replied.

“Yes boss, I heard your radio call, Frank and Juliette have gone into town for a medical check-up, and to do some shopping, and I think your mum went with them. Your Dad is probably out doing a water run in the south-west corner, and is out of radio range, over,” Warren replied.

“Ok, thanks for that update, we were not informed of that, do you know anything about campers at the Sherlock River campsite on our property, over?” I asked, “No boss I don’t, do you want me to go up there and kick them off, over?” Warren replied, “No mate I am on the Sherlock now, in my new research vessel, I have my brother with me, and we have tried calling Sherlock station and there is no reply there either, we will handle this on our own, over and out,” I said, and I placed the mic back into its slot.

“No luck with contacting Sherlock by phone or radio, so I guess it is up to us,” Flynn said as he entered the bridge, and I just nodded my head in agreement, as we rounded the slow bend, as the new location for the barge came into sight, and I smiled. “Prepare to set some anchors for the barge on the mainland, until we get something more permanent set up, you will find some steel pickets in one of the storage lockers on the main deck of this vessel,” I said to Flynn who headed downstairs.

Half an hour later, we had total of six mooring ropes set on the land, to secure the barge up against the shore, allowing a little bit of slack to allow for the tides. Once that was completed, I repositioned the MV Warambie to the side of the barge, in the middle of the river.