WHEN THE UNEXPECTED OCCURS.

James, our mate from Utah and I were fishing out north the Vernons.  We missed our chance at a quad hook up on 70cm plus queenies (2 on boat) and decided to call it a day, after all it was 4 oclock and we still had the drive back to Palmerston.

There were plenty of these, and double hook ups were common
so we tried with two rods each and nearly ended up with
a quad hook up....got the treble instead.

Half way back to the channel between Knight reef and North Vernon the motor started to surge, so we dropped back to idle and decided to throw a jerry can of fuel into the tank (thinking it probably sucked some air)

We went to start and no deal. No desire to crank, then finally did, but was slow and laboured and wouldn’t fire.

The next half hour was spent swapping batteries, ripping out fuel filters and cannibalising Minn Kota wiring to bridging batteries as a last effort.

It was at this point the gravity of the situation began to set in. There we sat, between Melville island and the Vernons, sunset a few hours away and no other boats in sight. We had a Minn Kota with a battery that had copped a flogging all day and the cranking battery that was suspect.

Sea was calm thankfully

We had no desire to be stuck in the channel over night, the plan was set to aim for the point of Middle Vernon, working with the current and hopefully make it to the top of Knight reef to have a good chance to make a run at the blue holes when the tide turned. If this didn’t work, we would be sitting in the channel or swept out past the Tiwis. Neither of which was an agreeable outcome, both adding significantly to the possibility of needing to set off the EPIRB

With two mobile with zero service, 112 not even yielding a dial tone and no other real communication methods (VHF’s quick connect plug corroded, so not operational), It was decided that we would turn one off to preserve battery, and sacrifice the others charge in an effort to push an SMS or a Facebook Message through if a glimmer of signal was to appear.

The first message to get through at 19.46 then contact was lost again.

As it turned out, by the time it was getting dark, we’d made it further than anticipated, the first battery was drained and the run to the point of Middle Vernon was still 5kms or so.

The first message was saying it had sent, so we were a little happier, that atleast someone knew where we were aiming for, we added an updated message for the new plan and set off on our slow and steady trip.

By this point the sun was throwing rediculous colours through the clouds as it made its final decent from view. Ironically, It was quite possibly one of the best NT sunsets I’ve ever experienced.

As we made our way to Middle vernon we had accepted that our game plan was anchor up, sleep and pester passing traffic in the morning for a tow back to the ramp.

We  neared the final corner when the electric decided that steering and motoring was too much and we decided to call that our anchorage for the evening. Sitting in about 3 meters, sheltered behind the island and most importantly; out of the current. We were pretty happy with our efforts, was pretty hard to believe the distance we had just travelled on a heavily used battery and one that had failed to start the main motor. (wish I had the track from the GPS as a photo, but it was unplugged or turned off mostly till dark as a result of our battery changes etc.)

The next message to get through at 2136 then none until 0318

 James switched on his phone as a last minute though to grab some contacts from mine which was well below 5% now. Through pure fluke with timing, there was a tiny window of decent reception where a 1 minute call was made and we found out there were people on their way. All was good.

Shortly after this we both seemed to nodd off, I woke up about 2 hours later, got up to get my bearings and noticed a 3^rd light, where there had only been two marker lights before.

Unblinking, red, with an occasional beam of white eminating from it. Another 40 minutes passed, while they moved up the island from where we had intended to reach to our actual location.

Estimate we traveled about 12.5 kms on the electric

The crew from the Volunteer Coast Guard were lovely, offering us water and asking how we were before getting underway with us in tow. Slow and steady to the mouth of leaders creek, where our friends (Eugene and Matty) had made it to, waiting to tow us the rest of the way. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, with most of us crashing out from being over tired. As I pulled into my driveway after unhooking the boat from the car, my alarm (set from the previous day) started to go off. 24hrs. Geez. The sleep that followed was glorious, only to be topped by the motor kicking over first turn of the key with a new battery.  Knowing the battery was to blame and there was nothing we could have done on the water was quite a relief, even though it changes nothing (I’ve since been given a jump pack, hopefully I’ll never have to use it)

This whole experience would not have been anywhere near as pleasant if it wasn't for my deckys “Mr Chipper” attitude, although at times it was a little too positive, it definitely made the whole experience more tolerable.

Thanks again to those who helped, whatever part you all played, it was appreciated.

The take away message from all this, don’t set off your EPIRB unless you’re in imminent danger and maybe some VHF infrastructure up here would lead to more people carrying and using them. 

Check your EPIRB regularly and keep all the safety gear dry in-date and serviceable.

Last but not least.... JOIN THE COASTGUARD

Sam and James