After a series of early starts, ever since we left Kauri Creek really, I thought I deserved a lie-in today… However, “luck” would have it otherwise.
Around 7am there was a knocking on the hull. A person looking rather ‘the worse for wear’ peered at me over the transom, with his greeting followed immediately by “you wouldn’t happen to have a 16mm socket spanner, by any chance, would you?”
My first reaction was to deny ownership of any tools, because handing over my sole socket spanner, extension and 16mm socket could only have one outcome: loss of the tools. However, I took pity on my fellow mariner and handed him the wrench, but only after tying a lanyard on and encouraging him to tie the other end to himself. His response? “Ah, no worries mate, that won’t be necessary, I’m working in the boat’s engine room, not outside.” This did nothing for my fear that he was going to lose it out of the dinghy while paddling between his boat and mine, but hey, I tried…
Anyway, about an hour later my new friend returned, with wrench, restoring my faith in humanity. I invited him aboard for a coffee (“don’t mind if I do”) and gently prodded him for his story.
Appears he’s bought a (rather nice looking) 10m motor cruiser in the vicinity of Brisbane several weeks before, and was now trying to ferry it to his home base in Townsville. Along the way he managed to get washed up on the beach at the Wide Bay Bar when both engines failed as he was crossing the bar in the middle of the night. A long repair followed at Tin Can Bay. Subsequently he managed to lose a propellor on the way to Keppel Bay (another delay) and now he was stuck at Pearl Bay with a duff alternator (ergo the need to borrow the wrench).
He had engaged a commercial skipper who was now helping him, but still refused to motor at night because he knew that “there are people like myself who go fishing of a night without showing any lights…”.
The most priceless snippet was that his last name was “Luck”! “Just call me Lucky…” he said!
We had a lovely peaceful day at anchor, snorkelling, sunbathing and re-charging our batteries for the next leg.