Free Right to the Edge: Sydney to Tokyo By Any Means by Charley Boorman Page A

Charley, doesn’t she?’ He scratched his shaven head under his baseball cap. ‘I suppose they could’ve tipped over, hit something maybe. You have to watch it, there’re plenty of rocks under the water.’ He looked at me briefly. ‘A couple of years ago I was fishing for turtle with a few mates. Being locals we’re allowed to fish for the turtles. Anyway, we caught this big old boy and it took the four of us to haul him over the side. Trouble was we were all on the one side of the boat when a wave hit and we capsized.’
    I was staring at him.
    ‘You don’t really want to do that out there, you don’t want to do it in any of the waters round here - you’ve got sharks and sea wasps, you bloody name it.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Anyway we lost the turtle and we were four hours in the water before we could right the boat and get her going again. By then we’d drifted for miles, could’ve been in real trouble now I come to think about it.’ He showed me the chips in his teeth. ‘No worries, though, Brett knows what he’s doing. I’m sure they’ll be just fine.’
    But an hour later there was still no sign of Brett, so after a discussion with Claudio, I decided to get hold of the coastguard. The local commander arrived and we gave him the description of the boat and who was on board. He went to fetch one of the volunteers, explaining that when he got back they would go out and look for the missing boat. We stayed on the beach, watching the horizon and waiting. And of course, just as the coastguard got back, Brett came rattling into the bay.
    ‘Sorry about that, Charley,’ he said when he got to the beach, ‘engine trouble again, I’m afraid. The bloody thing keeps packing up.’
    ‘It’s all right,’ I told him. ‘Don’t worry, Brett, it’s my fault: I call it the Charley Factor.’
    We just about made it to Horn Island. When the engine was working we were zipping along, slapping through the whitecaps and getting thoroughly soaked by the spray. But as I was on board, it was no surprise when the outboard conked out again, and again, and again. It was the contact points on the spark plugs, they just kept failing.
    ‘Tell you what,’ Brett said when we had got it going for the fourth time. ‘We’ll get to Horn Island and see if we can’t find another boat to take you across to Thursday. I don’t want to risk it in this thing, not with the engine playing up.’
    ‘Sounds good to me,’ I told him. I was gazing across the bay now and there seemed to be quite a few small boats dotted here and there. We were bound to find something.
    As it turned out there was this one large, flat-bottomed boat that looked quite official. Two young guys wearing coveralls were on board, Ben and Rob. They came alongside and we asked them if we could hitch a ride. They thought about it for a moment then Ben nodded.
    ‘Yeah, all right, mate,’ he said. ‘Where do you want to go?’
    ‘Thursday Island,’ I told him. ‘We’re on our way to Papua New Guinea.’
    The plan was to fly out the day after tomorrow, although it wasn’t yet cast in stone. We had hoped to find a small boat to make the crossing but it is so cheap to fly these days that the small boats are no longer allowed to clear customs.
    Perhaps it was just as well. Given my reputation.
     
     
    Ben and Rob were operating what they termed a ‘standby-vessel’, which would attend the scene if any marine traffic ran aground, like a sort of first responder. There were reefs all over this area and we had to skirt them, crossing the strait in a zigzag to get to Thursday Island. The water was clear and blue, the sun high and the boat big enough so your bum didn’t feel as though you’d been given six of the best by some Victorian schoolteacher. Ben explained that with so much ‘hard stuff’ under the water, the area was notorious for boats running aground.
    ‘We hang around in case we’re needed,’ he said. ‘In the meantime we act as a lighthouse