My heart will go on?
The sun floats high overhead in a cloudless sky… a gentle breeze drifts in over Mt Oberon to the south and ripples across the sparkling waters of Corner Inlet as two fishermen slog through the knee deep mud of Foster Beach dragging their kayaks behind them.
“Good day for it, Millsy,” says Davo as they paddle away from shore.
“Yes,” replies the veteran of a thousand good days for it. “There’s a good strong run in the tide, not a lot of breeze… and a nice deep low.”
It’s a long pull to the fishing grounds and a while before we find the channel, but it’s not long before the fish are biting and we’re catching a few… including a big gummy I’ve nabbed with a speculative pilchard on a second rod out of the back of the boat.
We are out there in the inlet, bobbing up and down, catching the odd fish and generally enjoying the serenity, when I notice the kayak is wallowing a bit…despite the fact that the wind is still slight and the swell is almost motionless.
Within minutes it’s like riding a rolling log and it’s clear the kayak is sinking.
There are plenty of boaties who have experienced the sudden and dire consequences of ‘leaving the bung out’ and I’ve experienced the shock of discovering someone hasn’t replaced the drainage plug a few times now - once in a speedboat off the boat ramp at Port Welshpool and once in a dinghy right in front of the Sandringham Sailing Club clubrooms.
Like getting hit in the goolies by a cricket ball it’s hilarious when it happens to someone else but pretty distressing when it’s you frantically floundering about in a sinking vessel.
We were fishing a good kilometre offshore and by the halfway point on the way back, and despite thrashing about like a three legged dog in a bathtub, it was obvious I wasn’t going to make it. The nose of the kayak pointed higher and higher and forward progress became slower and slower… but a good captain never abandons his ship.
In desperation, I offloaded the gummy to Millsy’s kayak by whirling it around my head a few times and flinging it in his general direction. He took a cracker of a catch… a slick one hander back and to his left.
But that was all that could be saved. As I went under clutching my bag, I watched all my fish drift away on the tide…
