The Mudskipper Cup

by Christopher Cummings

  “You again?” the sergeant said. “What was that all about?”

  As the question was directed at him Graham stood up and explained what had happened. The sergeant scratched his chin. “Burford and his mates eh? Hmm. I might have a word to ‘Boating and Fisheries’.”

  “Do you know Burford sir?” Graham asked.

  “We’ve met them. His father owns a trawler,” the sergeant replied.

  The pimply constable then spoke. “Aren’t you the kid I spoke to near the cemetery on Saturday?”

  Graham’s heart jumped into his mouth. “Yes sir,” he replied in a very small voice.

  “And you?” He pointed at Peter.

  Peter nodded. The sergeant asked what it was about and gave Graham and Peter a calculating look. Then he nodded. “Are you kids alright? Do you need a hand?”

  “We’ll be right sir,” Peter replied. “We will just bail her out.” Even as he said this a wave sloshed and swilled clear across the Old Cat.

  The sergeant looked doubtful. “If you say so. She looks a bit of a tub to me. Where’d you get her?”

  “My grandad built it,” Peter replied.

  “What was his name? Noah?” the pimply constable asked. Both policemen laughed.

  To the boys’ relief the police launch started up and turned to head up the Inlet. Burford’s boat could just be seen in the distance before it rounded a bend. The boys set to work to bail.

  After a couple of minutes they stopped, puffing and sweating.

  “We aren’t winning,” Peter said.

  “We could ask the police to help when they come back,” Roger said.

  “No thanks,” Graham replied. He looked around to see if there was another boat they could ask. There wasn’t.

  “We will have to sail her full of water then,” Peter said.

  They resumed their normal places and trimmed the sails. The Cat began to move but very sluggishly. Even beam on and with the mainsail hauled as flat as possible she only crept along and the waterlogged hull did not lift at all. Instead the windward shrouds became bar taut and the mast and rigging groaned audibly. Graham splashed around checking it all.

  “If we aren’t careful we will break something,” he cautioned.

  “It’s either that or drift backwards into the mangroves,” Peter said.

  “We could paddle,” Roger suggested.

  “If we have to,” Peter replied. Then he laughed. “At least we know she doesn’t sink.”

  Fifteen wet minutes later they reached the lee of the mangroves on the far side of the Inlet. Out of the wind the waves were smaller. The boys tried to bail again.

  “No good,” Peter gasped after several minutes of solid effort.

  “Too much weight in her,” Graham said. He looked around for some dry land or a beach but it was high tide and all the mangroves stood in water. “We will have to lighten her.”

  “How?” Max asked.

  “To start with you can get over the side,” Graham replied firmly.

  Max shrugged and took a dive into the deep water. Graham stepped over and lowered himself in, his lifejacket holding him up.

  “Don’t be silly,” Roger cried in alarm. “There might be sharks or crocodiles.”

  Peter stood up. “There undoubtedly are Roger. Now you bail as hard as you can.” He also lowered himself into the water.

  Roger looked anxiously at the water, then began bailing frantically. The other three swam slowly in circles or trod water. Graham tried not to think about what might suddenly grab his feet.

  Max joked as he swam. “Remember the old saying: swim with a friend, it reduces the chance of shark attack by fifty percent.”

  “Thirty percent in this case,” Graham replied sourly. “Shut up Max.”

  “Thirty three point three recurring,” Peter corrected.

  The Old Cat, relieved of their weight, had risen a couple of centimetres so that the gunwales were mostly exposed. Roger’s efforts soon made a noticeable increase to the freeboard.

  “She’s coming up,” Peter observed.

  After a few minutes only an odd wave slopped aboard. The boys gripped the lee gunwale and helped raise the starboard hull. It soon floated high and dry and Roger shifted his efforts to the port hull. He was winded and tired but laboured mightily. “I’m pooped. Someone take over,” he gasped.

  “You go Pete,” Graham said. Peter slid aboard and took over bailing. Roger rested for a minute then joined in. Graham judged the Old Cat had enough freeboard and thankfully hauled himself aboard. He also started bailing. Max began swimming around the Old Cat.

  “Max, just hang on to the side and don’t splash,” Graham snapped. As usual Max wore only shorts and no lifejacket.

  After a couple more minutes the Old Cat was dry and Max clambered aboard. “I’ll get those bastards back!” he vowed.

  “Just leave it be Max. Don’t stir them up again,” Graham warned.

  “So what do we do now?” Max asked, ignoring Graham.

  “Go home?” Roger suggested. “I’m cold.”

  “I agree,” Peter said. “We’ve nearly used our time anyway. The tide is on the ebb.”

  As they skimmed rapidly homeward Graham looked around with regret. He had been looking forward to more sailing. “What about tomorrow?” he asked.

  “OK. When?” Roger asked.

  “High tide is about ten past nine,” Peter replied. “So we could go from about seven till about eleven.”

  So it was agreed. They returned the Old Cat to Peter’s, washed and cleaned it and stowed it away. Then the other three made their way home. At home Graham ate an enormous lunch and said nothing about their mishap to anyone. Then he worked on his model and read part of ‘Hornblower and the Hotspur’.

  On Wednesday morning the first thing Graham noted was the weather change. There were a few wispy clouds high up and the wind was quite fresh. He collected his haversack, hat and a cut lunch then waited for Max. Both of them rode in uneasy silence to Roger’s, then on to Peter’s.

  The Old Cat was wheeled to the beach and carried down to the water. The bay was already a mass of small whitecaps. The waves had churned up the mud so the water had the appearance of pea-soup.

  “Bit windy,” Peter said with a worried frown as they hoisted the mast.

  “Just a bit fresh,” Max said. “We should really scoot along.”

  “Hmm.”

  They finished rigging the Old Cat, stowed their belongings and set out. The Old Cat bucked and pitched on the waves but quickly picked up speed, throwing up showers of spray.

  “Where will we go today?” Roger asked, pulling on a raincoat with a hood at which Max, clad in shorts and T-shirt, sneered.

  “Out of the wind,” Peter said.

  Graham pointed. “Cross the Channel and coast along to Bessie Point.”

  Bessie Point was the other side of Trinity Bay, where the jungle-covered Nisbet Range ran down to the sea.

  “OK.” Peter adjusted their course.

  It was by far the most exciting ride they had yet experienced. The spray flew and the rigging hummed. Graham kept anxiously checking the stays but was really enjoying himself. He licked salt from his lips and felt like singing with joy. The speed was exhilarating. Even the sight of the distant destroyer, still berthed at the naval base, did not lower his spirits for more than a moment. He called to Peter, “How fast do you reckon we are going?”

  “Ten knots?” Peter replied with a shrug.

  “Oh, faster than that. Cats can do fifteen or twenty knots,” Max snorted.

  Peter shook his head. “Twelve then. We certainly aren’t doing twenty,” he replied.

  As they got closer to the mangroves the waves lessened but for a time they had the full force of the wind and they fairly zipped along. The upwind hull began to lift. This brought excited cries.

  “This is fun!” Roger cried.

  The mangroves then blanketed the wind. The Old Cat skimmed smoothly along in calm water and soon approached Bessie
Point.

  “How far have we come Graham?” Peter asked. He looked at his watch. “That only took us twelve minutes from when we decided.”

  Graham took his map out of the locker and measured the distance. “A bit over two nautical miles.”

  Peter thought for a moment. “There you are, between ten and twelve knots. That’s good! Well done Old Cat!” He patted the deck affectionately.

  “Where to now?” Roger asked.

  Graham pointed North East along the coast. “What about a run all the way to False Cape? We can keep in close to shore all the way.”

  Peter rubbed his chin and looked at his watch, then shrugged. “Why not? I haven’t been there for years. Not since that boat trip when we were Cubs.”

  So they coasted along a hundred metres offshore past Giangurra and across Sturt Cove to Lyons Point.

  “Lots of houses now,” Graham observed.

  “Yes. The old North Queensland’s not as good as she used to be. Getting overcrowded,” Peter replied.

  As they passed the valley between the Nisbet Range and Mount Yarrabah a fierce wind, funnelled down from the pass, struck them beam on. This gave them a few anxious minutes until they were close in under the lee of Lyons Point.

  For all that time they were passing houses and they saw cars zipping along the Yarrabah Road, Even with them Graham still thought it was a pretty coast - jungle, palm trees, white surf on golden beaches.

  As the Old Cat began to cross Browns Bay she was again assailed by strong winds sweeping down through the pass over which the road to Yarrabah climbed.

  Roger pointed ashore. “That’s where we had that Scout camp. Let’s pull in and have a picnic.”

  As it was not yet nine and the tide was still on the make this was agreed to. The Old Cat was conned in through a scatter of outlying black rocks and pulled up onto the beach. The boys secured the Old Cat and sat in the shade of a cottonwood tree. Cordial and soft drinks were shared around.

  “What a view!” Graham enthused. They could see across miles of tumbling green water to the northern beaches: Machans, Holloways, Yorkeys Knob, Trinity Beach, Clifton Beach to Palm Cove and Double Island. They could even see distant mountains which Graham knew to be north of Mossman. He took a swig of ‘Sunshine Pine’, sighed with content and licked his lips. It was good to be alive and to live in North Queensland!

  After about half an hour the Old Cat was turned and set afloat. The wind was offshore and the boys quickly sailed clear of the rocks off Koombal Park before turning to starboard to follow the coast further.

  The shoreline changed; less beach, more rocks until it was all just a jumble of boulders. The heavily forested ridge on their right ran down to end in a jagged pile of boulders on which waves could be seen bursting in showers of white spray. The Old Cat began to pitch sharply as she met large rollers which had swept in from the open sea - now half the boys’ horizon.

  Graham became uneasy about the rigging and moved around checking it.

  “I think this is far enough,” he said. “We should turn back.”

  “Not yet,” Max said. “Go all the way to False Cape. I want to see round it.”

  “No. Too rough,” Graham insisted.

  Peter agreed. “We will get swamped. Stand by to go about.”

  Even as he said it a wave burst on board deluging Roger and half filling the Old Cat.

  “Bloody hell!”

  “That was cold,” Roger observed as he snatched up a bailer.

  Peter picked his moment and put the Old Cat about. For an instant it looked as though they would broach and be swamped but the Old Cat made it around, pitching sharply.

  They set a course for home.

  CHAPTER 25

  TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

  As the Old Cat steadied on a reach Graham looked back at the rapidly receding mass of False Cape. His questing eyes searched for the regular shapes he knew were there: old gun positions built in the Second World War. He had never been there and wanted to have a look at them. Oh well! One day! He turned to study the sea.

  And cried out in fright.

  Not twenty-metres away was an enormous shark. Its fins and back were clearly visible as a wave passed over it. The creature was a light brown colour with a darker dapple pattern.

  Roger also saw it and gasped. “Holy Shit!” he cried in fright.

  “Bloody Hell!” Peter added. “The bloody thing looks as long as this boat.”

  Max turned to look. “What? A shark? Where?”

  Only the tip of its front fin showed by then. This vanished as well. The monster had been travelling on a parallel course to theirs. Not knowing where it had gone filled Graham with fear. He kept searching the waves and glancing into the water alongside. His imagination conjured up images of the terrible jaws rising from the water in a flurry of bubbles to grab him. He took his hands off the sides of the boat.

  “Go back inshore,” Roger said.

  They all looked anxiously at the waves except Max who sneered. “Inshore! Sharks don’t attack boats! They eat fish.”

  “They do!” Graham insisted. Then he was ashamed at the fear he knew his voice had betrayed.

  Peter kept looking uneasily behind but he held his course. No further sign of the shark was seen and as the minutes passed the boys began to relax. Their course was roughly parallel to the coast but after passing Koombal angled slowly out. The water was deep and an emerald to olive green, depending on which way they looked.

  They scudded across Browns Bay half a mile offshore. Once again the winds roaring down the valley buffeted them. The beam wind caused a very confused sea as the wind waves met the ocean waves in a tumbling cross-pattern. The Old Cat pitched and jerked and Graham was so constantly at work with the bailer he had no time to look for the shark. He thought of it though. If they foundered and were left floundering it would make them pretty vulnerable. The thought gave him strength and he bailed faster.

  After ten-minutes the wind steadied and the wave pattern became more regular. The Old Cat swooped and dipped and raced along. Graham cleared out the last of the water and looked over the side. Just eerie dark green depths. Roger cried out and pointed down between the hulls. “Look!”

  Graham turned in a flash. It was a sea snake. The reptile was about a metre long, banded black and white in colour. It was swimming in the same direction and was just below the surface. He stared at it with repelled fascination.

  “They are deadly aren’t they?” Roger asked.

  “Yes. Like taipans I believe. I’ve heard that if they bite you you’re done for,” Graham replied.

  They all edged back, fearful the snake might somehow rise up and strike. It kept on wriggling along with a fluid, rippling motion.

  “Rot!” Peter snorted. “You can survive. I’ve heard of people being bitten and living. Besides, they aren’t aggressive. They are curious and only bite in self-defence. I’ve read somewhere that while they are deadly they only have short fangs and short mouths so they have trouble making a good bite.”

  The boys kept watching as the Old Cat was lifted on a wave to slide its port hull up over the snake. It was lost to sight astern.

  “I wonder what he’s doing here?” Graham asked. “I thought they lived on coral reefs, not in mangrove inlets.”

  No-one answered. None knew enough about the creatures.

  By this time they were nearly halfway home. They were angling towards the line of pylons that marked the shipping channel. These went on out to sea in a double row seemingly to the horizon. By then the Old Cat was about two kilometres offshore.

  Graham noted a big ship coming out of the port. It was an oil tanker, deep laden. He watched with casual interest, pleased at the thought he would get a good view as it would pass close. Then the rigging again claimed his attention. They were encountering more large waves and pitching heavily. He scrambled around, nimbly hopping from stay to stay and feeling very much the ‘old salt’.

  Again Roger cried out. “Jellyfish!”


  They looked down. Large circular shapes, whitish or light brown in colour, were bobbing along with the waves just below the surface.

  “Strewth! Look at them all,” Max cried.

  There were hundreds of jellyfish, of all shapes and sizes. Graham pointed at one which slid between the twin hulls. “Look at that monster! It must be a metre across.” He was astonished.

  “Are they dangerous?” Roger asked nervously, tightening his grip on the port shroud.

  “Don’t think so,” Graham replied. “They aren’t Box Jellyfish. It’s the wrong time of year. And they aren’t Bluebottles or Irukanjis.”

  “Could they sting?” Peter asked.

  “Perhaps. Wouldn’t be fatal though- I don’t think,” Graham replied.

  Max picked up a paddle and thrust it at a large jellyfish. It merely pushed the creature down. “Humpf! Tougher than they look,” he grunted. Then he tried to scoop one up and managed to flick it onto the foredeck. It landed with a squelch, all quivering and wriggling tentacles, then plopped over the side.

  Roger cried out in dismay and sprang to his feet. “Stop it Max, you bugger!”

  Max grinned and tried again but without success. “Stop it Max!” Roger cried.

  Max then leaned over with a bailer and scooped up a small jellyfish. He went to throw it on Roger who cried out and danced about seeking escape. Graham gripped Max’s wrist. “No Max! Don’t! Let us have a look.”

  Max tried to wrench his arm free and the bailer slopped over, emptying the jellyfish back into the sea.

  “Stop it you two!” Peter snapped.

  Max sniffed and sat down. Graham moved to check the starboard shroud. He then stood admiring the tanker as it ploughed down channel.

  She was a big ship. Twenty or thirty thousand tons Graham estimated. Her hull was black, upper-works white, red funnel. Shell Company logo he noted. She was nearly awash and he admired the evident power which could thrust such a huge mass through the water at such a speed. He could clearly see how the pressure wave pushed out in front of her bow. It domed the sea up in a broad upwelling.

  The tanker surged past only about two or three hundred metres away. Graham read her name and gave a wistful sigh. If only!