Shrimpy by Shane Acton

Author:Shane Acton
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Travel, sailing
ISBN: 9780708911945
Published: 1984-09-14T23:00:00+00:00

12: Brisbane the Bountiful

6 October 1976–20 April 1977

The coast of Australia was just visible as the night closed in on us. The fact that we had no proper charts, just a sketch map, and that the coast is littered with islands and dangerous sandbars, dictated that we took the main channel route to the Brisbane river. This route is well marked by lights, but wiggles about so much that we had to steer all night. As dawn slowly lightened the sky, we could see the entrance to the Brisbane river before us. The water had become a dirty brown and was full of most revolting looking blue jellyfish which infest this area. We passed oil refineries, large tankers and busy tugs as we sailed up river towards the glistening tower blocks of the city of Brisbane – all the time wondering if ‘Nobby’ had managed to arrange anything for us. Nobby, or C. E. Clark to give him his proper name, was the man who had built Shrimpy in the Isle of Wight, England, many years ago. In fact, he had built hundreds of ‘Caprice’ Class yachts – of which Shrimpy is one and had first heard of our adventures through the ‘Caprice Owners Association’ bulletin. We had been in touch with each other by mail for quite a while as Nobby was naturally very interested in the wanderings of one of his tiny yachts. In our last letter to him, we had asked if he could try and dig up a bit of publicity for us – as we would be the smallest yacht to have sailed from England to Australia – in the hope that we could convert this into some cash. Little did we know what waves we had caused.

Before we got anywhere near the city we were hailed by loudspeaker from the customs post on the bank of the river and asked to come alongside their jetty for clearance. They must have been watching our progress for quite some time, as they were well prepared when we arrived. There was a message for me to telephone Nobby, a hot bath for Iris, and a bag of fresh milk, bread, cheese and fruit! (Would that all customs officers were as thoughtful and kind.)

On the phone Nobby told me that arrangements had been made for a mooring at Manly Yacht Harbour and a boat was on its way to give me a tow through the backwaters and that he – Nobby – would meet me there. Customs formalities completed, we returned to Shrimpy. There was the tow boat waiting for us but also about a dozen little power boats full of Press reporters, TV cameras and anxious interviewers! There was even one reporter – Phil Hammond – from my local Cambridge paper back in England.

We were overwhelmed but didn’t have time to catch our breath because the skipper of the towing boat explained that the tides demanded we leave immediately in order to reach Manly. So off we went at a speed unusual for Shrimpy, conducting interviews ‘en route’.

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