Croc Tails
So I braved my fear and agreed to go out in the boat, its been nearly 10 years since I was last in a boat of any kind and thankfully it was uneventful! It was when I worked for Paspaley Pearls in my twenties (some time ago) that I was thrown out of a boat at high speed. I had been working out at sea as a deckhand for over two weeks during a pearl harvest when I was tranferred to Kuri Bay to work. There was a few of us in the boat with our belongings (clothes, doonas, pillows etc) and I remember being so excited at the prospect of walking on land again as I had been at sea nearly three weeks.
Well anyway, the idiot skipper decided to have some fun with the boat next to us and with some serious high speeds and a few water boat donuts thrown in for good measure about 3 of us were thrown clean out of the boat. Unfortunately I was carrying my doona at the time, so first thing I remember was being underwater not knowing which way was up and completely entangled in my doona. What felt like ages I finally made my way to the surface to be nearly hit by the other boat!
I still have an area on the back of my leg where the muscle was pushed & mishaped from the impact of hitting the water, I had a purple leg for about two weeks from the bruise arhh, a reminder of my time with Paspaley. But dispute being thrown into croc and shark infested waters I am not overly worried about the crocs up here, so it was a pleasure to come across this old man croc on the bank.
I got out an old lens that is covered in mould esp for the journey, so don’t look too closely but you’ll get the idea. We saw quite a few crocs swimming about but this guy got our attention, laying on the bank as if he didn’t have a care in the world…well he doesn’t really does he? By the shape of his tail we suggest he would be about 60- 70 years old and no sooner had i finished taking the pics when he turned quickly to disappear into the murly waters, I didn’t catch this action as I was holding my daughter a little too tight by this stage.
Still thinking about what camera to get when we sell the house, CF is certainly making it difficult by showing the best of nearly ever camera brand out there!!
wow Jules! Great pics too. funnily enough we too were in boats yesterday although much less adventurous. Fairfield Boat house in Melbourne
March 15, 2010 at 12:55 PM
Awesome Jules, glad you`re getting out there and enjoying what NT has to offer + seeing a crocodile in it`s natural environment.
March 19, 2010 at 6:52 PM
Thanks Michael, I have been lucky enough to see plenty of crocs in the wild up here over the years, I just don’t go out in boats much:) I do admire crocs a great deal and have a huge respect for them. I have been able to show a few southerners where crocs are lurking much to their absolute horror:) We have a rule here, if it doesn’t have tiles at the bottom of it, its probably has a few crocs there. Cheers Jules
March 22, 2010 at 5:10 PM