Oceania - 10. Oce Chapter 10

I informed him, that it would require permission from my father, and that I would contact him, straight after dinner. When I did speak to Dad, from the privacy of my office, he said that it was up to me to decide, but he was all for establishing a close business relationship with Alexander Devonport, because of his family connections.

When I relayed the news to Xander, he was very pleased, and he asked to have some work space, like a small office, which I was happy to provide for him, with the obvious space being the largest spare office adjoining the executive conference room on deck six.

When we arrived back in Whangarei, and the Naval personnel had all disembarked, I suggested to the captain, that the crew had been given a few days of shore leave, as I headed to my office to work on a plan for the next journey.

When I entered the reception office, Jocelyn smiled, “Can you ask Mr Devonport to join me in my office please” I asked as I headed towards my office. Once inside, I made a call to my father who was now back on Wake Island.

“Yes father, I think it would be good to build up a good business relationship with Mr Devonport…” I said on the phone, as I saw Xander arrive at the open doorway, as I had left it when I entered, and I motioned for him to enter and take a seat.

“Yes, he has just arrived, I will discuss it with him and let you know the outcome, thanks father, goodbye” I said at the end of the conversation.

“Xander, I have an idea to put to you, as you have probably gathered during the past few days that you have been with us, we spend a lot of time patrolling the ocean, and doing research, and with my father’s approval, we are happy to make a small diversion, to deliver you back to Fremantle, allowing you to spend another nine days with us, how would you like that?” I asked.

“That would be absolutely awesome, and I accept” Xander responded happily. “That is good, once the crew are all back from shore leave in two days, we will set off again, and it is a seven day voyage to Fremantle” I said.

“Wonderful, I can hardly wait, I have so much enjoyed this adventure, and the submarine is absolutely awesome. I have one question, do you think that the Aquaria, would be able to sail up the Swan River, as far as just before the East Fremantle Yacht Club? I have recently acquired the former HMAS Naval jetty and workshops, located 2.7 kilometres upstream on the Swan River, from the first jetty at Fremantle Harbour?” Xander asked me.

“Let me consult with the skipper, and I will let you know, if that is possible or not” I replied. Unfortunately we learnt that the Aquaria was just too big to get that far up the Swan River, so we would have to deliver Xander to the main passenger terminal in the main harbour.

When the time came for Xander to lave us, once we had arrived at Fremantle, he was very sad at having to leave, but he understood that we all have responsibilities to keep, and he thanked us for the most amazing adventure of a lifetime.

Two days later after resupplying with everything we need for the journey east, we left Fremantle harbour shortly after dark, and this time we set sail northwards, with our next port destination to be Darwin, a 4 ½ day journey away, where I would allow the crew to have some R & R time, before continuing on around the top of Australia and down the east coast, back towards New Zealand.

When we arrived in Darwin, we were directed to berthed at the Bladin Point Jetty , which is a secure location of the Port of Darwin, but it is located 42 kilometres by road to the centre of the Darwin city and about the same distance to the northern suburbs shopping district of Casuarina, but just 25 kilometres from the satellite city of Palmerston.

I was not too happy about us being located so far away from the main city, and I asked the Captain to hold off with berthing at the jetty, or allowing crew to have some leave, until I talk with the Port of Darwin myself.

After many hours of arguing with a number of different levels of the Port Authority and the Territory Government, I elected to not bother wit stopping in Darwin and continue on eastwards, which didn’t make me very popular with the crew, but we had plenty of provisions, so the Captain set sail once more, while I was having a telephone interview with the main territory newspaper.

“Territory government and the Port of Darwin say no to main port facilities” was the main headlines with “Aquaria was refuse adequate berth facilities for its 4 day stopover, to allow for crew to have R & R leave and do a provisions top up” was the subtitle.

“The refusal to negotiate to provide suitable berthing facilities with the owners of the MV Aquaria, the worlds biggest submarine, which patrols the worlds oceans, along with it’s sister sub – Oceania, has resulted in the research submarine continuing on with its journey.

This has stopped a sure cashflow for the City’s of Darwin and Palmerston, as a result of the estimated 200 plus crew not being able to spend some R & R time, and the submarine topping up supplies in the Top End city.

The opposition leader for the Northern Territory stated that this is disgraceful and that when her party is next in power anything like this will never happen. It is a disgrace and the current government should be allowed to let this happen, even after lengthy attempts by the owners representative, to convince them to change their minds.

This newspaper did a two hour street poll on this issue and 95% of those informed of the situation, agreed that this was s disgrace and should not have happened, and that they will vote against the current government in the next elections in two months time.”

When we arrived in Cairns, all the crew were given six days of R & R leave, before we began our journey towards our next scheduled stop of Auckland, New Zealand, which will take six days to reach, due to us having to go around the shallow reefs of the Coral Sea.

We were just two days out of and due south east of Cairns when I was summoned to the bridge by the captain. “Commander, we have a situation, we have just received a mayday call, from a catamaran that is stuck on a reef in the coral sea, but it is outside of the Australian Coral Sea Territory by about 160 kilometres or 86 nautical miles” I was informed by Derek, as soon as I arrived.

“So it is International waters then?” I asked, “Yes sir, that is correct, we have changed directions to due East, and we will be there in approximately 3 hours time” Derek informed me. “Very well keep me posted, and I will let my father know. Try and get as much information about the vessel as you can” I said before exiting the bridge.

Some after arriving back at my office, I received a call from the bridge. “Sir, this is first officer Arlington speaking, the stranded catamaran, is a 56 ½ metre, 96 ton passenger catamaran, on its way to Port Vila, in Vanuatu, from Townsville. There is a total of 14 crew and just 28 passengers onboard, with just 5 ton of freight cargo.

The crew and passengers are all fine, and they have enough food and water to last them for a few days, as their journey was supposed to take four days, so there is no real urgency.

The catamaran, which is 14 metres wide is stuck solid on a small island that is only triple the size of the catamaran, which is surrounded by a large reef, with its location at 19.96.87 by 158. 47.62, approximately 600 kilometres due west of northern New Caledonia and 1200 kilometres due east of Airlie Beach, Queensland.

According to the skipper, the catamaran was dealing with a storm system when a large wave carried the cat over the reef and dumped it onto the island, and shortly after the seas died down, leaving the cat high and dry,” the 1st officer explained.

“I see, that will be an interesting sight to see when we get there. Let me know when we are approaching the location” I responded. “Will do sir, eta is about 1 hour 10 minuets, bye” Daniel said before ending the call, and I stood up and waked into the front office.

“Jocelyn, we have some organising to do, we need to get housekeeping to have all the general guest accommodation prepared for 42 guests, that we will be picking up in a bit over an hours time. They have become stuck on a reef, enroute to Vanuatu, so we will have to take them the rest of the way.

Also we need to issue them with access cards for general areas of decks 3 to 6, and alert the galley that we have the guest arriving, and will be staying for approximately two days” I said to my administration manager. “Yes sir, right away” Jocelyn responded, before getting down to doing as requested.

I headed up to the bridge, to see if I could get some more information about this stranded passenger catamaran. “… Sir, I have Mr Blackthorn here now, he has just walked in, yes sir, here he is” I heard Mr Arlington say into the phone, which he handed over to me.

“Mr James Wallace, current owner of the stranded catamaran, which was on its way to be sold to the ferry company in Vanuatu” Derek explained, and I nodded my head in understanding.

“Mr Wallace, my name is Trenton Blackthorn, of Lloyd Family Corporation, I understand you are in a bit of a sticky situation, that we are attending to” I said into the phone, and I received a laugh in response.

“Yes Mr Blackthorn, I guess you could describe it like that, and I appreciate your assistance in rescuing the crew and passengers for me. I understand you are wanting to know a little bit more about this catamaran?” Mr Wallace said, and for the next twenty minutes we talked in great detail about the vessel itself, and ways of attempting to salvage it from the reef.

I learnt that the passengers are all immediate family members of the crew, and that they were going to have a holiday in Vanuatu, before returning to Australia. I informed Mr Wallace, that I would have our engineering crew, do a thorough inspection of the vessel, to check for any and all damage, and that I would contact him with a report of the inspection, once it is completed, which would probably take about a day.

Just twenty minutes after the call ended, I was informed that we were approaching the reef system, and I grabbed a pair of binoculars to see what there is. “Wow, she is well and truly stuck on that island. I estimated that it is nearly half a metre into the sand, and unless we get a super tide in the near future, she is well and truly stuck there for a while,” I commented to those on the bridge.

As we slowed down on approach from the north west, skirting about 50 metres from the reef, which is a arrow head shape, with the small island being about 75 metres in from the reef, with the island being about 400 metres long and about 170 metres wide, and the catamaran sitting about midway across ways on the island.

Derek called for all stop on the engines, so we were only about twenty metres from the reef. I headed down to deck 3 main entry foyer, where the deck crew were unlocking the outer hatches, after neutralising the airlock pressure.

Once the steps were lowered, we walked down to the external lockers, were the dinghies are kept, and two were retrieved, and lowered into the water. Luckily there was a good amount of water over the reef, so we were able to pass over it without damaging the dinghies, and we soon arrived on the island, where the crew and passengers of the catamaran were waiting for us.

“Welcome to Catamaran Island… well I’m not sure if it does have a name, I just thought of it just now” the mans said as he stepped forward to shake my hand. “Hello, I am Commander Blackthorn of Lloyd Family Corporation, and this is our engineering team, who will be inspecting any damage” I said introducing myself to the man. “I'm Peter O’Malley, skipper of this once wonderful cat, but not so much now, as she has a huge dent in the bottom of both hulls, around forward midships, just in front of the fuel tanks thankfully, when we landed on the island heavily, also both propellers are badly damaged, and she is about 400 centimetres deep in the sand” the man said.

“We have organised accommodation for you onboard the Aquaria, for your crew and passengers, we are having a small boat brought over to collect you all, so if you can ask your people to gather all of their belongings, and not to leave anything behind, and we will get you settled in. We will be here for about a day to do the damage survey, so you might as well all be very comfortable, and we have plenty of recreation and lounge facilities available” I stated.

“Thankyou Commander, I never thought I would ever get to see this famous research submarine up close, let alone get to go inside, we are very grateful for your assistance,” Mr Wallace stated, before going to speak to his crew and passengers.