CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER FIVE

On the thirteenth of December we made Cairns[1] to meet quite a few old pals from south who used to be on trawlers and had joined up the same way as us when their boats were taken. We seemed to bring the bad weather and rain. Four days we were in Cairns, and it never stopped raining all that time.

Here we got fuel and stores but no letters from home, I don’t think they worry about us too much for all the time we had been at sea but we had not letters at all.

We also met up with a couple of friends who were recovering from being wounded; one had a flesh wound across the groin, nicking his penis; what a horrible thing to have done to a person!

We got our final orders here. We were to go to New Guinea to Milne Bay, taking the Grafton passage, then an open sea trip to Milne Bay. I objected to this, arguing that the coast route was the wiser, jumping off from Thursday Island, to pick up Port Moresby for a small ship such as we with a tow nearly as big as ourselves it was madness. Also the weather was getting worse. In the end with the aid of our Navy, I had my way; my stubbornness probably saved our lives, ship and the tow.

The American Officer in charge of Cairns was quite a nice chap who saw finally as I did, better to take a little longer, than not at all. I also refused to have the ‘Destiny” in company with us, so he was sent to sea two days before us, he was a headache to me, for I had been in charge of him and responsible.

Throughout the whole trip we were treated with the utmost courtesy by the agents of the U.S.A.A. Small Ships section whom did all in their power to help and keep things running smoothly.

On the seventeenth we left Cairns wharf to push our head into the rising sea, and weather seeming to be bad raining like hell. The crew was for turning back but I pushed on. Travelling north with a dirty cross sea, visibility not so good.

When abreast of Double Island the engine started getting sick, the engine room filling with smoke and fumes. “You will have to stop skipper,” yelled Old Ben, “I will have to do something about this trouble.”

We limped to the shelter of Double Island and dropped anchor. We lay all night, beam on to a heavy ground swell, it rolled the milk out of our teas, well it would have that is if we had any milk. We could not get as close to the island as we would have liked, as the water was very shoaly; the formation of the mainland and the island being about a quarter mile off shore. This cause a tide rip and cross currents, it kept us rolling so much at times our rail was under water. What a night! We were glad when it ended and we could get underway. When we tried starting the deck motor to heave up anchor we found it would not start, the rain had filled up the exhaust pipe and then gone into the engine. It took some time to get the water out and the motor started, but after much work we succeeded and heaved our anchor on board. The main engine was getting worse with every beat and we each had one thought – if we had left via the Grafton passage to open sea what might have befallen us?

For although the seas were bad enough here, the reef broke the force and we could weather it even with a sick engine. The other way who knows?

We were only a short distance, eleven miles, to Port Douglas and so we decided to run for it. After many hours we made it arriving on the evening of the eighteenth. Getting a half flood tide we crossed the bar and into a sheltered mooring at the jetty. Notifying the army via telephone to Cairns we were told to go ahead with repairs, keeping in touch as to our progress and damage if any.

On lifting one of the cylinder heads we found a burnt out piston, further inspection revealed the gudgeon and liner wrecked. Old Ben seemed happy half buried in engine parts and as I had some knowledge of diesels, helped him. I told our Operational Officer and he made the round trip to Townsville for new parts, a piston, liner and gudgeon which we found would not fit and after enquiries we send them to the sugar mill at Mosman whose engineers ground them to fit. But all of this took some time, about ten days in all, during which we made quite a few friends in the town, had some good fishing trips.

The Harbour, if it could be called such was really a deep creek with a couple of wharfs at the mouth just inside the bar, nearly all the rest of the bay being shallow sand flats with a couple of coral reefs. Maybe a couple of dozen houses comprised the township, it being only a depot of late for the sugar mills inland. The people were most hospitable and friendly as indeed we found all these northern people to be, In a day we had them coming down with fruit and home made pickles and jam for us. I had some enjoyable fishing trips out to the neighbouring reefs with one chap in particular who later I found out to be the brother of a fish salesman I worked with at Red Funnel Trawlers in Sydney. He gave me the old history of Port Douglas when it was really something when the pearling luggers made it a base. I carry some happy memories from the little township and reckon it one of the happiest parts of our trip.

Here was also to be found an old woodworker, his work was truly a work of art, he was about 80 years old. Selected woods were inlaid to make cigarette boxes, vases, inlaid floors and boxes. I tried to buy some but they were ordered and he would not sell some of his work. The cook was lucky enough to buy an inlaid handkerchief box.

We went into one of the two hotels there for a cooler and we found earthen floor and was served by a woman, Mary, with no shoes on followed by a couple of goats. The other pub was more modern having a wooden floor.

We also went crabbing with some of the local chaps, fishing for gar fish and; crocodile hunting but we were fortunate not to catch any. The men showed me the slides made by crocs along the Daintree River which abounds with crocodiles.

I would also mention we found the ‘Destiny’ moored here, he was waiting for us. His crew came aboard and asked if they could accompany us to New Guinea. It seemed the skipper had never been a seaman; he didn’t like his chances of reaching New Guinea and intended to stay with us. After warning him of his habit of indiscriminate shooting and threatening him with dire consequences, we came to an agreement much to the relief of his crew who reckoned he would either lose them or shoot them. The engineer later became a very firm friend of ours.

One the twenty third, late at night the raid siren went but no hostile planes came over. Our friend the ‘Destiny’ was out fishing at the time and we wondered how he was. But little did we know that the skipper had got up to his pranks again and had fired his guns. The army watchers on seeing the tracers flying through the air had given the alarm not knowing what was going on. So the raid was really our nitwit friend!

This day we finished the engine and were ordered to sail, we had hopes to have Christmas dinner ashore with some of pour newly found friends but it was not to be. Reluctantly we said our good byes. Before we left we took on board some two hundred and fifty bottles of soft drink and lots of fruit,

Adios Port Douglas, Merry Christmas.