Coasts of Cape York

by Christopher Cummings

  “What do you mean?” Julia asked.

  Andrew gestured outside and then pointed aft across the port quarter. “This wind, it is part of the cyclone. They are gigantic revolving storms. But they don’t just suddenly arrive and then go away. They are not like tornados. A tornado might last a few hours and cause great damage, but it is very small. When a tornado blows through a city it can take out one side of the street and leave the other quite untouched, and it is gone in minutes. I have seen pictures where a tornado has blown a house to bits while the houses on either side were hardly touched. Cyclones are massive. They aren’t a hundred metres across, they are hundreds of kilometres across.”

  He paused to see if Julia understood. But she still looked puzzled so he said, “This wind here just gets stronger towards the centre. Didn’t you hear the weather report? They are warning places up to five hundred kilometres south of here. The dangerous winds on this one must be three hundred kilometres wide.”

  Carmen had been listening and she pointed to the chart. “Cyclones rotate in a clockwise direction in the southern hemisphere. The most dangerous sector is the left forward quadrant, the quarter on its left front as it advances. That is where the strongest winds are and where most of the rain falls. The radio just said they are getting gale force winds and flood rains in Cooktown and all the way south to Cairns.”

  “But it’s not raining here,” Julia objected.

  Carmen looked exasperated. “No. That’s because this wind has already crossed the coast somewhere down near Cairns, dropping most of its rain, then done a big circle inland and then come back. That is why we are facing South West but the cyclone is approaching us from the port side. We are luckily in the dry quadrant of the cyclone.”

  “But… but.. I mean, how long do they last?” Julia asked anxiously.

  “Days,” Andrew said. “This started hours ago and could go on till tomorrow afternoon. It just depends on which way the cyclone goes.”

  That sent Julie below to join her mother and brother looking very thoughtful. Capt Proctor, who had been listening to all this said, “You kids seem well informed about cyclones. Have you been in one before?”

  The others nodded and Willy shook his head. Graham said, “Only on land, last January in the Mulgrave Valley.”

  “Ah! The famous gold mine expedition!” Mr Marshall put in.

  Capt Proctor turned to Andrew. “What about you two navy cadets?”

  Andrew nodded. “Yes sir. Same cyclone but Carmen and I were on a small boat to begin with and then got marooned on Cape Bowling Green.”

  “Ah. I think I heard about that. That was when those fishing trawlers were sunk or washed ashore wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  Capt Proctor peered closely at Andrew. “Are you scared?” he asked.

  Andrew swallowed and nodded. “Yes sir. Terrified!”

  “Good! Sensible man! You might survive in that case,” Capt Proctor said. He then slapped Andrew on the back in a friendly gesture and said, “You lot had better go below and have a hot meal and a hot drink. It might be your last chance for a good while and you will need all the energy you can get. Off you go.”

  Willy did as he was told but within minutes knew he was going to find it harder to cope with than he thought. While going down the steps and along the companionway he experienced a wave of fear that he suspected might be some sort of claustrophobia. He broke into a cold sweat and found he badly needed to be able to see out. It took him an effort to seat himself in the saloon. ‘But I have to. I must eat. I might need the energy,’ he told himself.

  For half an hour he stayed down in the saloon, perspiring and almost screaming with fear. He managed to hide this and tried hard to act normally. As soon as he had eaten he made his way back up to the wheelhouse. For him just being able to see out and to think that he might have a chance of getting out if the ship rolled over made the fear easier to bear.

  The others came up as well and stood looking anxiously out. Once again the conversation returned to cyclones. Capt Proctor did not help Willy when he gestured aft with his pipe and said, “This is Bathurst Bay we are in. It is the site of the worst cyclone disaster in Australia’s history; Cyclone ‘Wahine’. Back in the 1890s that was. I don’t remember the details but I seem to remember that about a hundred schooners and luggers were sunk or smashed onto the beaches and hundreds of people drowned.”

  “Were you there Skipper?” Mr Marshall asked with a grin.

  “Humpff! Don’t you get cheeky Mister Mate!” Capt Proctor replied, but he then grinned.

  Willy managed a sickly grin but then returned to staring out. To his concern the weather was obviously deteriorating. More and more dark clouds came scudding over and the first real showers of rain began blotting out the view.

  “Can’t we go somewhere safer?” Julia asked.

  Capt Proctor shook his head. “Not with the barge in tow. This is as good a spot as we can find. At least here we have some shelter from the mountains.”

  “But aren’t the mountains dangerous to be near?” Julia asked.

  Capt Proctor nodded, “Yes, but only when we can’t see them. As long as the weather stays clear or the radar works we know where we are. If we left this area and tried to reach the open ocean we would be in among the coral reefs and that would be deadly. We would not see them until much too late.”

  Willy saw Andrew shudder. Andrew said, “That’s what happened to the Merinda, the ship my grandad died diving on. She must have struck the reef with almost no warning and been forced under. She was about the same size as this ship.”

  “Steady Andrew,” Carmen said, touching his arm. Willy saw that Andrew was sweating and looking very pale. ‘How I feel,’ Willy thought. Andrew shook his head. “But we are trapped here, embayed.”

  “Yes, embayed,” Capt Proctor agreed, studying Andrew with worried eyes. “But that ain’t such a bad thing to my way of thinking. Whichever way the wind blows we run the risk of being blown ashore if we have engine failure. But at least most of the shore is sandy beaches. If we get blown onto one of them we stand a very good chance of surviving. The ship is unlikely to break up. Even on the rocks I reckon we should be safe enough. So relax.”

  Willy saw Andrew swallow and nod. “Yes sir,” he croaked.

  But it was still small comfort to Willy. He moved to stare out through the stern windows to try to hide his fear. As he stood there his eyes focused on the barge, which was wallowing at the end of its tow line. Every wave was breaking against the barge, throwing up huge sheets of spray and making it look like a rock in the surf. Then an odd flickering caught his eye.

  ‘What is that?’ he wondered. He stared and this time distinctly saw a small black object detach itself from the top of the pile of empty oil drums and go flying off onto the sea. Another followed it. “Captain, something is happening to your barge,” he called.

  Capt Proctor moved to look, then raised binoculars to study the barge. “Damn and blast!” he swore. “One of the lashings has come adrift. Drums are falling off.”

  “Can we pick them up?” Willy asked, seeing another three drums topple off the huge stack.

  Capt Proctor shook his head. “No chance. Too dangerous and not worth the effort. Damn! This is going to be costly.”

  “Why sir?”

  “Because each drum is worth a few dollars and because under the environmental laws Capt Kirk will have to pay to have them all collected and the environment cleaned up.”

  That hadn’t occurred to Willy and as he watched another stack of drums slip and tumble into the sea he felt really sorry for Graham and his father. “Are they insured?” he asked.

  “The cargo is, but it will still cost a lot of money because we will be busy here cleaning up instead of carrying paying cargo up and down the coast,” Capt Proctor replied.

  All they could do was stand and watch as drum after drum fell off. Then the next row came loose and also began falling off. Willy saw that the drums were piled on their
sides in a gigantic stack and were held on by steel wire ropes tightened with bottle screws. It was quickly obvious that the entire stack would go over the side. Only the drums actually inside the hull of the barge were likely to remain.

  “How many drums are there sir?” he asked.

  “Five thousand, and probably four thousand are going to be lost,” Capt Proctor answered.

  It only took about twenty minutes for all the drums above the hull of the barge to go over the side. By then the surface of the sea for many kilometres was dotted with floating 44 gallon drums. Willy found it an amazing sight. But it only lasted a quarter of an hour as the gale quickly drove the drums downwind and out of sight across Bathurst Bay.

  Watching the lightened barge bobbing and yawing on the huge waves made Willy feel sick with fear. The 6:00pm weather report did nothing to ease his anxiety. By then the eye of the cyclone was near Cape Flattery. The wind speed in Bathurst Bay had increased to 70 knots and was now howling so loudly that normal conversation was impossible. There was also a steady shift in wind direction so that it was coming almost from the west. Watching radar images of the monster on the computer was no help. That seemed to just increase the tension.

  ‘We are in real trouble alright!’ Willy thought, swallowing and feeling nauseous.

  Darkness began to set in early, the clouds blocking out the sunlight. As it did driving rain began blotting out the view ahead. Willy moved to look out of the port side windows and also astern. He found he was gripped by chilling, paralysing dread. He also found he was gripping the edge of the chart table so hard that his hands hurt. ‘White knuckle terror,’ he chided himself.

  Looking through the rear windows of the wheelhouse was no more reassuring. The stern was rising and falling sharply. Water was sloshing around on the aft deck and every time the stern rose it hauled the tow line clear of the water for 50 metres or so, white streamers of spray blowing off it. Then the tow line would snub at the ship and jerk the stern round. The distant barge was just a dimly seen, dark blob barely visible in a welter of spray and driving rain. Willy began to get tired of standing and of bracing his muscles to keep his balance and to hang on.

  By 7:00pm it was fully dark and for Willy everything became more terrifying. The wind speed kept increasing until it was 90 knots and howling so hard and at so high a pitch that it set Willy’s nerves on edge. Capt Proctor suggested they all just go down to the cabins and go to sleep but Willy could not do that. The van der Heydens did and so did Carmen but Andrew remained in the wheelhouse with Willy.

  The hours dragged by with no let up. In fact the weather grew worse as the cyclone moved closer. Vicious cross winds buffeted the ship and rain lashed the windows so hard that even the ‘clear view’ screens were of little use. Outside was just a terrifying maelstrom of white spray and flecks amid the blackness.

  After three hours Willy had to go below to the heads. This merely confirmed what he knew- that he could not be cooped up where he felt trapped and where he could not see out. ‘Even if all I can see is the radar screen,’ he thought.

  The cook offered him hot chocolate from a thermos flask and Willy accepted that. That helped but he made his way back to the bridge as quickly as he could. Even moving about inside the superstructure was now both difficult and dangerous. He had to press his hands against the bulkheads on both side and going up the steps was like climbing a cliff. It was worse than being buffeted by turbulence in an aeroplane. As the ship rose his muscles all tensed and he felt very heavy. Then it would drop away and leave him with a horrible weightless sensation.

  Several times Willy lost his balance and was slammed against the bulkheads or objects on them like the coiled fire hoses. Feeling sick at heart from fear he struggled back into the wheelhouse- to find that things were now even worse. The bow was pitching up and down twenty metres every few seconds and waves were breaking onboard. What appeared to be massive deluges of water were constantly dashing against the windows and everyone had to wedge themselves against the fittings and cling on.

  The anxious, fixed looks on the faces of Capt Proctor and Mr Marshall did not help. ‘They are worried,’ Willy thought.

  Midnight crept by amid howling wind and crashing waves which deluged the decks so that the after part of the ship looked like a submerged rock. Driving rain lashed the ship and lightning began to flicker and flash. Outside on the deck something began to bang with a metallic ‘Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting!’

  The weather report for 24:00hrs was even more worrying. The eye of the storm was now over land and estimated to be only 80km south of them. It had turned towards them and the wind speed was now reaching 120 knots. Worse still the wind direction had continued to shift so that it was starting to come in from slightly north of west.

  Capt Proctor shook his head and shouted into Mr Marshall’s ear. “We will have to shift soon or we will be right on a lee shore. I think we had better move now.”

  Mr Marshall agreed but looked grim as he wrestled with the steering. Capt Proctor moved to the chart table to confirm the course he had already worked out. Andrew watched him work and then asked, “What are we going to do sir?”

  “Move over behind Blackwood Island,” Capt Proctor shouted back.

  Willy saw that to do so they had to edge out from behind the protection of Bathurst Point and then push forward against the storm until they were under the lee of the island. “Denham Island is closer,” he observed.

  “It is,” Capt Proctor agreed, “But to get there we would have to move crabwise across the wind and once there we have these shoals and rocks directly downwind of us.” He then peered closely at Willy. “Are you alright son?”

  Willy shook his head. He felt so sick in the stomach that he had to swallow before answering. “No sir. I am scared,” he croaked.

  “I think we all are,” Capt Proctor answered. He then moved to stand where he could see the radar screen and pass orders to Mr Marshall. The engine revolutions were slowly increased and the ship began to yaw and pitch ever more alarmingly as it moved out of the shelter of the mountain.

  By 0100 the ship was out in the Rattlesnake Channel and was plunging violently. Willy was appalled. The ship pitched so steeply and violently he felt sure it would drive its bow under one of the huge waves that were piling in from Princess Charlotte Bay. ‘We will just go under,’ he thought, the anxiety making his heart palpitate and his body tremble. He had often thought about what it might be like to die when an aircraft suffered structural failure during a storm- those seconds or minutes of terror while he knew he was going to die- but he had reconciled himself to that. But the thought of the ship rolling over and of him being trapped and drowned in the darkness, and of his body then rotting and being eaten by fish and things filled him with a horror that almost reduced him to a trembling wreck.

  He gripped the fittings near the radar screen and peered through the front windows, wishing it was all over and praying for them to be safe. Suddenly the whole ship dropped and then slammed into a huge wave with such force that Willy was almost driven to his knees. The whole bow section of the ship vanished under white water and Willy felt sure this was it. He saw Capt Proctor fall and strike his head, then claw his way back up.

  Just as Willy was sure the ship would never rise she began to come up. But too late to avoid the next hammer blows by another huge wave. There was a horrible, heart-stopping crash and wind and water whistled into the wheelhouse. Willy looked up aghast as icy cold water drenched him. He saw that two of the front windows had been smashed. Wind and spray filled the wheelhouse. Papers, pens and small loose objects flew in all directions.

  Mr Marshall wrestled with the wheel as the ship yawed and pitched. Capt Proctor wiped blood off his left temple. The ship gave an awful yaw and then Willy experienced a peculiar sliding sensation. More water poured through the nearest broken window, and swilled back and forth.

  Mr Marshall let go of the wheel with one hand to point over his shoulder. “I think we have lost the tow skipper,�
�� he shouted.

  Capt Proctor struggled over to the wheel. “You go and look, but make sure you have the bosun with you and have a lifeline on. If the tow has broken then for Christ’s sake winch that line in so it doesn’t get wrapped around our screw. And get everyone below to put on lifejackets.”

  “Aye, aye skipper,” Mr Marshall replied. Capt Proctor took the wheel and yelled at Willy and Andrew, “You two put on your lifejackets too.”

  That sent another tremor of terror through Willy. ‘He must think we are going to sink,’ he thought. Then the ship was lifted up and dropped with the speed of a crashing plane. ‘Oh my God!’ Willy thought as the bow slammed into the next wave with a massive shudder.

  The ship struck the wave so hard that Willy was almost thrown off his feet. For a moment he thought they had struck a rock and he felt the fear surge and bile rose in his throat. Then he saw that Capt Proctor has fallen, although he was still hanging on to the steering wheel. The bow lifted and then swung to port.

  In a flash Andrew sprang into action. He dashed over to the wheel and grabbed it, then began to heave it round. Carmen came from below and grabbed Capt Proctor and hauled him upright. Capt Proctor was ashen faced and obviously shaken. “The wheel!” he cried. “I must get her under control or we will broach!”

  ‘Broach!’ Willy thought with a stab of terror. He knew that meant turn side on to the waves and that the ship could then capsize and be rolled over. The fear of drowning in such horrible circumstances froze him and made him tremble.

  Andrew was wrestling with the steering by then and Willy felt the ship turn and rise to the next wave. Andrew called, “I’ve got her sir. Give me the bearing please.”

  Capt Proctor tried to shake Carmen off and grabbed at the spokes but she helped him to get to his feet and held him against the radar screen. “No sir. Let Andrew do it. You get your balance,” she said.

  To Willy’s relief Andrew appeared to have the ship under control. Capt Proctor saw this and steadied himself. “Steer three one five,” he croaked.