No, I want sky not sea, prefer the albatross to prawns.
And never dive so deep but that I get a glimpse
O’ the blue above, a breath of the air
– adapted from Fifine at the Fair by Robert Browning
In the early 1970s, at a young age, I sought escape, discovery and adventure by hitchhiking from Queensland to New South Wales and on to Tasmania. An albatross followed me for nearly two (2) days in the Tasman sea, I didn’t see its wings beat once … or more correctly, it followed the vessel I was on, the Australian Trader, in heavy seas and 70 knot winds from Hobart to Sydney. The albatross was surfing the updraft from the waves.
On seeing my observation on Facebook, a friend wrote back from a research vessel on the Equator saying: “They are truly incredible birds! I’ve seen them calmly navigate Antarctic waves gliding effortlessly over huge swells, through ferociously chilling winds, only centimetres off a bitterly cold ocean surface with the grace and confidence of an Albatross out on a Sunday afternoon cruise.”
–oOo–
From 1972 till 1975, I lived on an old sailing boat, the MV Careel, and used to attend classes at university nearby. I purchased the boat with an interest-free loan from the TALSA Credit Union. A friend, Jim Davie, put in the other half. Total cost = $3,000. That gave me a home while I finished my science degree. I sought no permission to camp on the Maiwar (Brisbane River) beside the university. I volunteered to look after the Eric Freeman Boathouse, and in return, the rowers provided me with access to showers and toilet.
Living on a boat was beautiful, peaceful, if sometimes a lonely place for a 23 year old … until the ‘Invasion Day’ flood of January 1974. Till then, there was little interference with my lifestyle of living on the river (1972-1975) and of working and studying at the University of Queensland. There were ferries operating at each end of the St Lucia reach that connected the university with West End and Dutton Park (Cemetery Reach). Many students and staff of the university lived around St Lucia, West End and Dutton Park in those days. They still do.
During the 1974 floods, a houseboat, belonging to Carden Wallace who worked in the Zoology Department of the University of Queensland, broke it’s moorings up-river in Chelmer, while she was on a trip to Fiji.
Through the rain, we saw the house boat shooting past amongst debris. Ed, the owner of the Phalarope, and I rowed ashore and ran down to Sir Fred Schonell drive. We hitched a ride. When we got around to the Regatta hotel on Coronation Drive at Toowong, we spotted the houseboat coming around the bend on the Kurilpa reach.
There was a guy in a small tinnie pilfering fridges that were floating on the surface of the river. We called out to him to take us out to the house boat. He seemed reluctant. We begged him. We had carried a big hemp rope and a smaller nylon rope with us. We lugged them onboard the 10 ft aluminium boat and set off. We reached the steel houseboat as it passed the Regatta hotel and jumped onboard. Ed tied one end of his rope onto a cleat and gave the other end to the tinnie skipper, instructing him to tow us to shore. We were travelling at about 15 knots downstream and about 3 or 4 knots sideways, steadily getting close to the bank on Coronation Drive.
However, the gunwhale on the loaded tinnie pulled down each time the driver accelerated the outboard motor. At one point, the gunwhale went under, and he shipped some water before he could slacken off the taut rope. Then he shook his head, untied the rope, and left us to our fate. We looked downstream to see the Grey Street bridge coming up. My younger sister calls it the humpty-dumpty bridge because of its shape. Its pylons widen as they come to the surface of the water.
With the floodwaters raging, a huge vortex formed around the base of each pylon. We were lining up to hit the northernmost pylon. Instead, we raced on the edge of the vortex with the house lurching to one side. We could smell scotch whiskey emanating from inside the cabin. We tried to break in to start the engine. To no avail. The cabin was locked.
Soon, the Victoria Bridge was upon us. Another vortex. We got lucky again. But as we could see the Captain Cook Bridge loom up, Ed tied off the nylon rope and took one end in his mouth and dived overboard. Mr America had deserted me in the hope that he would navigate the 15 knot currents safely to shore and find an anchor point. I followed with my own hemp rope.
The houseboat appeared to be veering toward the southern end of the Captain Cook bridge, so we swam towards that shore. As we approached the bridge, we could make out a rusty boiler that stood on old wharves submerged below. Ed swam around one end, and I swam around the other. We tied each end of our ropes together, and the houseboat swung in the lea of the boiler. We had saved the boat. On the river bank people clapped as we swam onshore.
There were two police nearby who told us that we had to report the runaway boat to the Port Office on the other side of the river near the Botanic Gardens. They told us to jump in the back of the police car. We were all soaked, and one of the coppers asked me to hold his cap.
There we were, two yachties sitting in the back of a police car wearing stubbies and singlets with our feet in water. We came up along the Kangaroo Point cliffs and over the Storey Bridge. We looked down to see the Robert E. Miller, the largest ship ever built in the Brisbane River, break its steel rope moorings. The ship swung out into the centre of the river, moving sideways downstream from Evans Deakin shipyard near the bridge.
From our vantage point, it looked like the ship would hit an apartment block in New Farm. If the Miller foundered or ran aground, then who knows what chaos would befall the people downstream. Two tug boats appeared from under the bridge, and rope and chain was being fastened to a stantion on the bow of the Miller. A bolt was being used to fasten the shank to the pole. The men appeared desperate. However the Robert E. Miller was steadied fore to aft midstream in the flood waters with the tugs holding the bow toward the current. Onwards to the port office.
When we arrived in Alice Street near the Botanic gardens, chaos reigned. The Harbour master stood outside the port office, shaking his head. Before him, wooden pylons were oscillating crazily in the current. Yachts were tied to pylons fore and aft. When the pylons movement got out of synch the ropes were breaking and the $100K yachts (half share in the MV Careel cost me $1500) were spinning out into the current running into each other and sinking before our eyes.
We told the port master our story, which he duly noted. We took his leave, eager to return to our own vessels. The coppers obliged taking us via Storey Bridge out to Tennyson and the Indooroopilly Bridge. From that bridge, we could see houses going under. People were trying to salvage household items using rowboats and tinnies. We arrived back to find our boats safe, but my old 1951 Morris Tourer with a leaky soft-top roof was concertinaed up against a tree in the flood. A write off.
Three days of continuous rain had fallen. Twenty-five inches (656 mm) of rain fell over four days in Brisbane, on Thursday alone 12 inches (305 mm) fell. The Maiwar was flooding 7.5 metres above sea level. The UQ sports ground was flooded, and the Eric Freeman Rowing Shed was partly under water. The current was flowing at 15 knots (28 kms/hr) downstream. Ed had a friend and a black Labrador we called Nelson on board with him.
The Phalarope was moving side on to the current and heeled over. Ed had two lines to shore one aft and the other foreward. The Careel was just downstream with its stern facing upstream toward the Phalarope. The Careel’s rudder had been taken out by a big log, but we were sitting pretty well in the water with no reason to move. Besides we had no way to steer. But the Phalarope was threatening to the come down on top of us, and if either hull was breached, one or both boats would sink. The Phalarope was listing dangerously to one side with the force of the current pushing against its keel. The Phalarope’s keel drew about 6ft 6inches of water. As it tilted, the boat began taking on water in the rear cockpit.
Ed had started his Lister diesel with his friend at the tiller. The Phalarope was a canoe stern 30-footer with a sloop rig. Ed pulled up both anchors fore and aft, then ran forward with an axe cleanly cutting the line he had to shore.
The Phalarope righted itself and swung our into the current. Ed ran to the back of the vessel, axed the stern line, and gunned the engine. The Phalarope was nearly on us. However, Ed expertly shot past our starboard side with feet to spare.
The Phalarope was travelling at about 20 knots (38 kms/hr) as it careered past the Careel. Ed leant hard on the tiller, and the boat shot past our prow to where the rowing pontoon had been and into a mill pond in the lee of the Eric Freeman Rowing Shed. All this happened in seconds.
As the river subsided with the aid of ropes provided by the State Emergency Service we strengthened the moorings of both the Phalarope and the Careel in the river and some weeks later when I returned from Tasmania we repaired the rudder.
In 1974 we survived flooding after cyclones Zoe and Wanda. In the years that have passed since, we survived Bjelke-Petersen, Magistrate William Joseph Mackay, Richard Nixon, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Task Force, Ronald Reagan, special branch, the Clintons, the Public Service, Geroge W Bush, the catholic church, Doggo Road Jail, Stuart Creek Prison, the 2011 and 2022 floods, the murder of Mulrunji Doomagee, and genocide Joe Biden.
It was ‘they’ that shot the Albatross with their cross-bow.
The souls did from their bodies fly,—
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul, it passed me by,
Like the whizz of their cross-bow!*
In 2025, we are surviving cyclone Alfred, but will we survive cyclone Trump?
Ian Curr
9 March 2025
Featured image by Lachlan Hurse, a view of Brisbane Magan-djin and the Maiwar river from Mount Cootha.
* adapted from the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge
