Artie has over two years of ‘at sea’ time up. He’d travelled to Cooktown to gain his remaining sea time for his Master V skipper’s licence. Cooktown is popularly known as ‘The End of The Road’ or, ‘The Greatest Unfenced Asylum in Far North Queensland’. It’s an alcoholic’s paradise, and it’s Artie’s last trip before sitting his Master V skipper’s exam.
His skipper and mentor, Luka ‘Lucky’ Fischer, anchors off C-Shape Reef because it’s fished-out forcing his crew to poach the nearby Green Zone. The Green Zone is illegal to fish, but it’s loaded with product.
Artie cuts a wiry figure with tiller-in-hand as he heads to the Green Zone in his five-metre fibreglass dory. His sea-drenched shorts dry in torrid tropical heat turning his boardies into chafing emery cloth. He idles back, then drops his irritating shorts preferring jocks alone.
Entering the waters around the Green Zone incurs hefty fines. Stock declines force Lucky’s crew take pecuniary risks fishing highly protected areas and it’s enough of a gamble with nautical elements, let alone dodging spotter plane cameras.
Artie slows to neutral and hurls the reef pick. Coils of rope catch his freshly discarded shorts dragging them into the depths below. Banana fish leap with a WOOSH. He chuckles as a quote from J.D. Salinger pops in his mind – “If coral trout feed on banana fish, what are the banana fish feeding on?”
He casts his bait. Facing northward, he sees a bird-like object high above Lizard Island. He sets his handheld radio to VHF band. Immediately, it blasts. “Ay, ay, ay,” Lucky barks, in his uncrackable code for ‘spotter plane’.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Artie articulates. He converts to plain speech.
Artie rips the outboard’s cowling off to feign he is working on a broken-down outboard. Frantically, he winds his line as a fresh southerly gust blows his cap off.
Immediately after, an albatross drops a large bomb on his head. In a fit of unrestrained lunacy, Artie strips his jocks off and shakes his bare buttocks at the approaching spotter plane, the low-flying southbound seabird, and God.
The Cessna dips its wings as the fisheries officer snaps photos. A gust blows Artie’s undies into the windswept ocean. His eyes darken, then he slices the anchor rope to hasten rescue of his far-flung briefs. Reaching out with a gaff hook he nearly retrieves his slowly sinking underwear.
Head bowed; he returns to the main boat naked where he’s greeted by Groove Armada’s song blasting from the deck speakers:
I see you baby
Shakin’ that ass
Shakin that ass
Lucky yells, “What a crack-up!”
Artie climbs aboard from his dory. A crewmate hands him a beer. He wipes his sunnies and replies with resigned humour, “Bottoms up,”
He wasn’t quite over the moon.