I remember one afternoon at Stradbroke when Pip decided that it was time to take his new “tinny” out for a spot of fishing. After hooking the boat and trailer up to Stretch’s Suzuki four wheel drive, Pip, Lindsey Stewart and I set off. After ploughing through the sand at Second Cylinder, we launched the boat into some rather rough seas late in the afternoon and prepared to launch into the deep blue sea. As we clambered into the boat, Pip looked at me and said “I think you should take the controls” – for no other good reason except I was the BIG Brother. I knew very little about boats with my only previous experience as captain of a small SABOT sailing craft when I was about 12 years old. Anyway we set off – with Tom steering a tiller-outboard, Pip sitting in the middle and Lindsey up the front looking out towards the daunting seas that awaited us. As we skipped over the first few waves, I began to realise that we were in for a bit of a rough ride through the breakers. The first really BIG wave started to mount up in front of us and I thought just gun it straight for it and hope for the best. Well, this seemed to work as the small 12′ tinny launched off the face of the wave and crashed down on the other side – we were away – or so I thought. Just when my heart was starting to settle again, a huge monster rose up from nowhere in front of us. Again, my instincts kicked in and I gunned the small aluminium craft at the face of the wave. As we neared the wave, I caught a glace of Lindsey from behind giving himself a ‘Hail Mary’ – don’t think Lindsey was even religious up to that point. Again the small craft launched off the top of the wave and crashed down the other side – we were alive and on our way to where the BIG ones are – Flat Rock. On arriving at Flat Rock – about a 15 minute trip through some rather swollen seas – Pip commanded “shut the motor down – we are doing some fishing here”. I though I might just cruise around for a bit before doing as I was told and it was then that I realised the seas were mountainous. On each trough of the swell, the land would completely disappear and we would be surrounded by water on all sides. “No way” I said and with Lindsey’s support we hightailed it back to Shag Rock – a hopeless fishing spot only a couple of hundred meters off the beach but one that Lindsey and I reckoned we could swim from in a pinch. At the end of the fishing trip we had caught nothing but I was glad to be back on dry land and learnt that fishermen are all mad
