Friday, January 30, 2009

By the power of greyskull.



Well now.
That was most excellent.
4 days on @ Tangalooma on Moreton Island with the Bobette & SWMBO.
Google Map. Click satellite & check out the wrecks to the north. I love that shit.
Instead of a fortieth birthday party a good mate rented 2 kickarse holiday houses on the hill behind the resort.
For the Oztraya Day long weekend we had 11 in residence. BBQs on the deck. Lots of laughs & beers. We have done similar several times so we do it pretty well.
Very very nice.
To today's business.
As part of our contribution to the gig, as something different for a family holiday, as a bit of a pressie for Comrade birthday boy and just because it was an option we hired a 6m alloy plate boat and steamed over & back instead of taking the barge / ferry options. We went fishing 'n skitubing 'n snorkeling on the wrecks. Double plus good.
I hired the boat, I hold the licence, I was "the man."
Today I'm talking about responsibility.
Pretty much every second day I go to work, I launch a boat and steam off to do my thing. I can't say that I don't think about it - of course I do. I'd be dead by now if I didn't think. I don't however, stress & strain about it. I'm in a boat I know & am comfortable with it's capacity & limitations. More importantly there is another bloke beside me who, at my office, without exception have at least 20 times the boat experience I have so I can defer to / learn from them.
On the holiday I was the holder of knowledge in all things nautical.
I was the one who would make the call, resolve the problem, hold the responsibility.
To add to this I had the 2 most important people in my life on board.
Man did I feel that. It weighed on me like something really really weighty.
I couldn't get to sleep second guessing how / were I'd anchored, would EPIRB/ Flares / radio / fishing gear be stolen off it, would the whole fucking boat be stolen, would it be OK on the trip home - round and fucking round my head. Up 3 or 4 times a night checking it was still there. My old Hilux turned out to tow it OK, but it was another stressor. *

Nothing went wrong.
The trip home was a bit lumpy with 18+/- knots of SouEaster, pushing up about half a meter of chop, across a 3/4 meter of Northerly swell. And one morning the anchor dragged a bit. Other than that it was all good. We are all home in one piece with happy memories.
Have you experienced this? When the buck stops with you, does it weigh like a yolk on your shoulders?
Comrade Moko posted the other day about a friend lost to Motor Vehicle Incident. Why do I not feel the same level of burden when driving with the fambly?
* Havoc I owe you & your caravan towing ilk something of an apology.
The old girl (hilux, not SWMBO) towed the boat up & down the Bruce Highway and maxed out @ 90 KPH. (110 zone) I thought of you & all the grey shuffling undead caravan towers I've cursed in my day. I mentally apologised to you, but not to the rest of them bastards.

7 comments:

  1. Sounds like a good holiday.

    Yeah ocassionally good that feeling when I have borrowed an expensive car from work or am driving a bunch of friends a long distance.

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  2. Looks like you and yours had a good time. I don't curse slow drivers ... until they fail to use slow turn outs or pull over once they're inconveniencing a lot of people.

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  3. Sounds like everything went well.

    I don't curse slowcoaches as long as they stay in the left lane. If not they're just target practive for the linked triple barelled gecal .50's..

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  4. Did you see me waving? You should have dropped in. I was only across the channel.

    Does that mean you are a fully fledged Pirate now?

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  5. Yeah it's the slow coaches who happily hold ten others up (w/o pulling over when there is opportunity) that bug me.

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  6. NBOB, no stress, I ONLY tow with 5Ltrs or better, but having said that, ya cannot always do 100 plus. its a bitch at times, but hye, ya plod along.

    On the boat issue, with ya all the way. Had the old mans Runabout, 5.2m it is ( I think). 75hp on the back off apollo bay, kids jacketed, epirb, flares , watching the weather and so fort. About 2 kay off shore fishing and BAM, wind change and it picked up. 4 in the boat ( me whole family). To get into the harbour you have to run with the swell and at the last minute do a HARD left turn in, and tiem it perfectly.

    Swell was for shit that day, so I ran to the beach into shallow water, about 100 yards off shore an then turned and steamed back into it . Much easy to do a slight right turn, even with all the grunt in the world we had some hairy moments and I have sopent me fair share of time on the water. Dropped off the tribe and the mate climbed in ( Fish were biting when we left ). Put the stormy seas jackets on and went back out, half way, I went FUCK THIS. Best decision I ever made.

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  7. Good call H man.
    I [trying hard not to use the word rescued]um helped out a bloke one time, smack dab in the middle of Moreton Bay. He's in a < 4m tinny with a 40Hp on the back with his 2 sons - approx 8 and 4 years old. 20+ knot howling soueaster, over a meter swell and he's blaming the BOM. I was driving a 10m cat and it was unpleasant, his 2 boys were terrified.
    No fish is worth it. I wonder how many punters are dead because they didn't think about the consequences.
    Rule 1 in boating - you can't walk home.

    Get your Stormy Seas jackets checked anually. For those looking blank they are heavy duty inflating life jackets. They are really good shit, because people actually wear them, not stow them under the floor-boards. However the little actuator that triggers the CO2 cannister has a nasty habit of corroding shut & you can't grease them as petro-chems eat the internal bladder. Lanoguard is good.

    RE: The tow, yeah I felt bad, but I garuntee my arse was welded to the slow lane & it's 2 lanes the whole way.
    Might be time to upgrade the old girl. (Hilux not SWMBO) (Hmm maybe a two for deal?)

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I was the proud recipient of the worlds first monkeys ass to human face transplant. Friends of the donor monkey says it took well, I'm not so sure.