“Jees did you see that?” I was staring in disbelief, out in front of the boat. What on earth is it? My brother turns, and looks at me blankly, his fifth beer chugged hurriedly as his line screeches into action, his focus immediately shifts onto the fish launching dramatically into the air fifty metres behind the boat. “Wadidya say?”
Two hours earlier the sandflies are swarming, biting voraciously on any exposed flesh. The chill of an early morning start, this desolate mangrove enshrouded creek and my brother is repeatedly and ineffectually pulling on the outboard motor’s starter chord.
Verumpah, verumpah stokes his growing frustrations at our expedition’s delay. It has been against my better judgement to join him: he knew I didn’t share his enthusiasm for these outings. But my enjoyment was his company; childhood memories of Port Phillip Bay fishing expeditions with him and Dad resurface, the endless haul of flathead. But I had lost my enthusiasm: happy to eat, but not to catch fish!
He had the engine’s cowling off, the spark plug out and spraying some magical elixir into the engine. With the next pull, the motor roars into life, a cloud of toxic exhaust challenges the insects. We are away. I am instructed to take the tiller as he replaces the cover, broaches his first beer, and we move out of the creek into the open waters of Shoal Bay, east of Darwin.
“Righto, now for some fun”, he proffers as we skim across the flat waters. The sun is finally seeing off the morning chill, and his next beer helps steady the ship. He takes the tiller, slows the motor and the mackerel are put on notice that we were ‘on the hunt.’
The tide is on the turn, and three hundred metres ahead we can see wavelets breaking over one of the shoals. “The fish will be feeding just off those rocks. We’ll troll past a few times and see if we can hook up”, he said. I dutifully play out my line, the red and yellow lure bouncing on the surface, before settling a foot below the water. Back and forwards, a couple of kilometres or so, on each sweep.
I am already bored, my couple of ginger beers no match against his remarkable capacities for beer consumption! I am looking towards the shoreline, mangroves and behind them, what I know to be the communication towers on the nearby military reserve. A dark shape surfaces 50 metres off to the right.
I gawk, huge, shiny scales, successive, arched sections of its snake-like body appearing above the water, a pythonesque head, a wake streaming out behind. A few seconds, and it is gone!
I yell again for my brother to look. He is still battling his fish, and possibly well on the way to being drunk. He loses the fish and turns towards me, annoyance writ large, “Yep, whatsup?”
Not even a ripple remains. Nessie, or whatever, never reappears. I hold my own counsel.