SEIZE THE MOMENT
Readers may recall last week I was planning a marine session for some South Hedland school students who have been having a tough time of late. I won’t go into the details, but needless to say any little glimmer of joy in their day at school is a bonus for them. I was conscious of trying to keep them as busy as possible, but it took a little while to win them over. They especially enjoyed identifying many species of fish, whales and sharks from my photos as well as seeing some classic boat incident photos including a boat in mid air about to capsize and another showing a car and boat launched at the same time. We then proceeded to tie some fishing rigs, followed by roping work, but the teacher was keen to get us out of the classroom, down to the port and on the water while the students were still engaged. I took the hint and so packed up quick smart, kids piled in the bus and down we went to the boat ramp.
Being on the full moon cycle the tides we big and we timed it perfectly to be there at the top of the tide. This meant that there were about three outgoing iron ore carriers for the time we were on the water. The kids were in awe of these large vessels which look that much larger when you are about 100 metres away in a 4.2 metre boat. One of the youngest boys, Gordon, could not wipe the smile off his face when I asked him if he would like to drive the boat under supervision for a while. Being 14 years old, he was old enough to legally do this and I will never forget the look in his eyes, seizing the moment as a skipper. He was so keen that I got him to manoeuvre all around the port, staying well clear of the main berthing areas and then guided him to bring the vessel back alongside the jetty. It was smiles all round as we waved goodbye. My only regret was that they left when they did, because soon after one of FMG’s super iron ore carriers was making it’s way into the channel and a tug boat put on an amazing water spray display before it entered port. I immediately grabbed my camera from out the back of the truck and snapped a few photos, one of which has the tug boat totally obscured and looks like a mysterious sea creature reaching out of the ocean. It’s now goodbye to Port Hedland and hello to Broome for the next instalment of Northern Sojourn 2017.
To answer last week’s question, ‘PLB’ stands for Personal Locator Beacon, which is a pocket sized land based distress beacon that pinpoints your position in the event of an emergency. This week’s question is, ‘Where did a 22 metre vessel recently run aground in WA?”
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