High adventure and near-death in North Queensland

Ian writes: It took me a while to enjoy Parched Seas. Half way through the first chapter, I doubted this would be a favourable review, for reasons I'll try to explain.

But when author Ian Sharp gets into full swing with this account of a memorable four months in 1962, his adventures in North Queensland swimming among sharks – mainly of the human variety – provide an engrossing yarn.

In his introduction, Sharp says of his book: “It is as factual as I can remember it. So let’s say 95% is exactly as it happened.”

But early on – after I'd read well into the opening chapter – I found myself thinking, “Oh, c'mon, Ian Sharp, you're just having me on. This can't be true.”

That, too, is what Sharp's acquaintances had said: “Don’t be silly mate that sort of thing doesn’t happen these days.” Or, “This is the twentieth century, pull the other one.”

After reading the book to the end, I now believe it is true – or at least, most of it, although an estimate of 95 per cent may be rather optimistic. When you accept it's true, Sharp's yarn becomes much more compelling.

It all began when Sharp, then just in his early twenties, clipped out a newspaper advertisement:

MEN WANTED. TWO HUNDRED POUNDS OR MORE PER MONTH to crew fishing boat, working in Northern Queensland and Torres Strait waters. Some crocodile hunting . . . NO PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE NEEDED. Two hundred and fifty pounds fidelity bond required. Contact Captain J. McKenna, Greyhound Hotel, North Quay

The hotel turns out to be the roughest bloodhouse pub on the Sydney docks, and when Sharp asks for Capt. McKenna, the barman points to a rum-sodden alcoholic working his way through glasses of neat spirits. Later, John McKenna introduces his “first mate”, the mean and nasty Leo.

At this point, it's not giving much away to suggest McKenna and Leo are spivs more interested in netting those fidelity bonds than actually catching fish. But Sharp – who doesn't have all the money anyway – also has some flair at their game. He persuades McKenna he would be valuable as a radio operator and bookkeeper, and that he'll pay his bond money when he sees the boat and a catch.

McKenna and Leo continue to sign up their crew – as rough a group of misfits and no-hopers as one could imagine, and Sharp describes them pitilessly. Indeed, his depiction of these men, their women, and their sordid lives became so depressing I almost abandoned Parched Seas.

Only Sharp is spared this bleak depiction. He writes: “Leo Delmont was also considering the new crews before him. He did not like the look of Ian Sharp on first sight; he never had liked his type: open faced, square shouldered with a youthful face; calculating, thinking and balancing.”

However, a strange camaraderie develops between Sharp and McKenna as they pub-crawl their way around Sydney while also investigating markets for their planned catch.

Eventually, they all make it on to the train to Brisbane – but only after McKenna and Leo sneak across the tracks at Central to avoid a vengeful publican, some police and a handful of debt collector heavies all staking out the gate.

After a slow, uncomfortable rail journey up the Queensland coast they make it into Townsville and pick up a filthy, near-derelict trawler. They clean it up and set off north again, picking up another boat at Cardwell, then plug on to Cairns. On the way, however, they get a taste of what's to come – an adventure which exposes them to life-threatening hazards. Hazards which may be no accident.

--- oooOOOooo ---

Alas, just as Ian Sharp's yarn was gathering pace, my computer played up. One of those intermittent faults. At the times it wouldn't start, a red light flashed five times with accompanying beeps. That indicated a problem with the DIMMs, said the troubleshooter guide. What? Out with a geek manual – Dual In-line Memory Modules.
It could be anything from faulty connections to a failed motherboard, said the guide. I'm biting my nails thinking of the cost of a new motherboard. Happily, though, it's just the connections and the computer guy up the road charges only $45 to clean them up.
Still, I lost almost a week in downtime and a heap of more urgent stuff had banked up, so it was some time before I could rejoin Ian Sharp and his fellow adventurers.

---oooOOOooo---

They made it to Cairns, and a threatening encounter with another human shark who'd grubstaked their venture – he wants his money, or else bad things will happen. They have to sail immediately, ignoring the weather.
At this point, Sharp introduces a touch of humour, and also switches to a more lively narrative style which overcomes earlier misgivings about Parched Seas.

As they weighed anchor and set sail in the early morning the clouds were low and the sea threateningly choppy. They would have listened to the radio weather report if it had been operable; the replacement part had not been purchased in their hurry to leave Cairns.

They were headed into difficult waters as they passed two low islets covered with mangroves; the larger had a red-topped lighthouse that now lit up as the sky darkened further.

A man came out and waved both hands above his head, the crew waved back. The lighthouse keeper turned and rushed back inside reappearing a moment later, he bent a row of flags on a white post waving frantically at them once again.

“What a friendly lot they are.” I waved back at him. “Look at him putting up
those red flags to see us off.” Even McKenna was impressed.

Sure enough, they sail into a violent tropical storm and they're all in danger again. Sharp writes a dramatic account of their fight for survival. But worse is to come for Sharp and some of his companions.


Too many details would spoil the yarn for prospective readers, but Sharp and some of his companions find themselves stranded on Howick Island [pictured] – and with nobody knowing of their plight, and Capt. McKenna probably too drunk to worry, they ration themselves to quarter of a cup of water a day from their limited supplies.

Sharp writes a strong account of their slow decline as they come close to perishing on the waterless tropical island. Rescue comes just in time. How it comes about is another part of this gripping story, and part of it explains Sharp's understanding and gratitude to indigenous people.

Along the way, I also enjoyed Sharp's pen pictures of North Queensland and its characters. He gives a vivid description of Cooktown as a 19th century goldrush port slowly rotting away in the tropical heat, and of the rough old cattle stations scattered across the Cape York Peninsula.

From a detailed account, I know much more about the way crocodiles were shot for their hides in those days.

Sharp is honest about the squalid living conditions of many Aboriginal people, but he shows understanding and compassion in describing how they got that way – enlightened views which must have been hard to find in North Queensland in the early 1960s.

---oooOOOooo---

It's not hard to find flaws in Ian Sharp's writing. Too many words and placenames are misspelled or misused. Just a few I jotted down were: Loose my money. Corking the trawler, instead of caulking. Poring lemonade. An acing head. A waist of space. Crock shooting. In Dantree River, it should be Daintree. Erskinville should be Erskineville.

In the opening chapter of Parched Seas, Ian Sharp is back in Sydney sipping a coffee when he overhears a couple nearby.

“Shouldn’t let them Boongs among decent blokes,” Edie’s husband Harry growled. Edie and Harry Harrison had both grown old, bitter, bigoted and stout in Little Mount Street Erskinville.

“Boongs in ’ere with us, should be stopped,” Harry emphasised. I realised with a sudden shock because I was burnt black by the sun this suburban couple stared and appraised me so contemptuously because they thought I was a half-caste coloured. In a fury I began to rise, I wanted to grip the man by his hair and knock some of the bigoted ignorance out of him. I would have died slowly and in agony if the courage and strength of coloured men had not saved my life.

It's a useful literary device to introduce the narrative, and Sharp book-ends his story with it – in the last chapter, he returns to the same encounter with Harry and Edie to wrap up his yarn. A useful device, granted, but Sharp extends it far too long, telling us much, much more than we need to know about the unpleasant Erskineville couple and their family.

Tighter editing would help. Indeed, it also would have spotted an error in which several sentences in paragraphs six and seven of Chapter One are unwittingly repeated in paragraph nine.

Another suggestion. Ian Sharp [pictured] provides an epilogue telling what happened to all his main characters in the following years. Except for one character, Ian Sharp himself. It would be of interest to know how he fared over the following two decades before he set down this story.

Oh yes, and a map would have been useful.

Despite those criticisms, Parched Seas remains a worthwhile read – a good, gripping yarn in a fascinating setting.