The Fisherman Who Rode a Horse

Kenneth Watters

Description

This book will give you lots of laughs most of the time and leave you scratching your head the rest of the time.
It is about life in the fishing industry starting with crayfishing then trawling for prawns followed by beach seine fishing.
It is about the life of a teenager going from school to fishing then becoming an electronic engineer for NASA and finally going into research in the fishing industry. Along the way he led a life filled with fun and adventure riding out cyclones at sea, also known as hurricanes, got into trouble on several occasions and closely avoided death on at least one occasion. The book follows the fishing industry over half the Australian coastline from Fremantle in Western Australia to Cairns in Queensland and life at the Carnarvon NASA Tracking Station and college then the Orroral Valley Tracking Station nestled in the snowy mountains.
This is an autobiography of one who has enjoyed life to it’s fullest and married a wonderful woman.
I am sure you will not be disappointed.

Sujets

• Autobiography
• Biography
• Personal Memoirs

Informations

• Publié par: Balboa Press AU
• Date de parution: 22 mai 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781982297343
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE FISHERMAN WHO RODE A HORSE
 
 
 
 
KENNETH WATTERS
 
 

 
 
Copyright © 2023 Kenneth Watters.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
 
 
Balboa Press
A Division of Hay House
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.balboapress.com.au
AU TFN: 1 800 844 925 (Toll Free inside Australia)
AU Local: [phone] ([phone] from outside Australia)
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well- being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
ISBN: 978-1-9822-9733-6 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-9822-9734-3 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023908543
 
Balboa Press rev. date:  05/18/2023
CONTENTS
Introduction
1.     Jurien Bay
2.     Sailing North
3.     The Arrival
4.     Cyclone Elsie 1964
5.     The Season Of ‘64
6.     Snag Island
7.     Xmas ‘64
8.     Geraldton
9.     Prawning in ‘65
10.   A Sad Farewell, Sailing For Fremantle
11.   Beach Seine Fishing The Bay
12.   Life Ashore
13.   Pro Roo Shooting
14.   Xmas 1966
15.   Carnarvon
16.   Back to School
17.   Once I couldn’t spell engineer now I is one
18.   Eastward Ho!
19.   Orroral Valley
20.   Settling down to family life
21.   A Dilemma
22.   Home at Last
23.   Off Again
24.   Settling Into Queensland
25.   Life in the Tropics
26.   Cape York
27.   Pen Pak
28.   Wetter Than Wet
29.   74 Season
30.   Going Home
31.   Home at Last
32.   Highway Cowboy
33.   Back to My Roots
34.   Geraldton ‘74
35.   Abrolhos Islands
36.   Navigating the Islands
37.   Trawling the Abrolhos
38.   Living on the Edge
39.   Close to the Wind
40.   A Very Rough Passage
Epilogue
About the Author
INTRODUCTION
This is the story of my life from 1963 to 1975.
I left High School with very acceptable results in 1963 to go fishing professionally up and down the West Australian coast. I rode out several cyclones at sea, joined in the fun and games of my peers both ashore and at sea.
I was involved in most types of fishing, crayfishing, shark fishing, prawn fishing, tuna fishing and beach seine fishing.
In 1966 I took a job at the Carnarvon NASA Tracking Station between seasons where I developed a very strong interest in how it all worked. I returned to school at the WA Institute of Technology (now Curtin University) and graduated as an Electronic Engineer in 1970 and from there I became an Engineer at the NASA Tracking Station at Orroral Valley in the Mountains of the ACT.
In 1974 I left the Tracking Station to return to Carnarvon in West Australia to take a position, with the Nor West Whaling Company, as research engineer. After 6 months in Carnarvon NWW transferred me to Queensland to do research for their Gulf of Carpentaria fleet, home ported in Cairns. Having a strong desire to return to WA for the birth of our second son and not being happy in Cairns my wife and I journeyed back to WA to take up a position with the M G Kailis group to do further research in the fishing game.
While writing this autobiography in 2003 my wife and I were living in Ocean farm. A friend living close by called in and asked if I would like to accompany him on a farm run. He was managing several farms in the area. On the way back to Ocean Farm we had a very nasty accident. We were travelling on a dirt road and as we came over a crest found a vehicle coming at us down the centre of the road, quite normal on a dirt road. Bob went to the left as far as he could as the crest was atop a cutting and the banks on each side of the road were quite high. The van coming at us turned to the same side of the road and we hit head on. The young guys in the van were from Norway and they drive on the right side of the road opposite to us Aussies,
The young guys were both killed. I took it pretty badly as they were kids the same age as my two boys going off windsurfing at Gnarloo the same spot my kids surfed. I came down with a severe case of depression and closed of writing my biography. If there is ever a strong enough demand I might take it up again as I have another 20yrs of fishing experience culminating in operating a hovercraft service between Carnarvon and Monkey Mia.
I would like to thank my wife for not only putting up with my long absences at sea and raising my two wonderful boys but for being my best critique.I would also like to thank Terry Kierans an ex Tracky for editing my book.
1

JURIEN BAY
It was 1963 the last year of school, or so I thought. In those years it was called 5 th . year High. It had been a good year for me I had made the State colts rugby league side, represented Tuart Hill High in swimming, won the junior beach sprint championship at Trigg Surf life saving club and I was well and truly ready to go out and face my future.
Way back as far as I could remember whenever I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up the answer had always been “A Fisherman Who Rides a Horse”. I had spent all my young life following my father to various crayfishing camps on weekends and any other chance Dad had to get away and was sometimes lucky enough to go out pulling pots. I absolutely loved the life of the fishermen and the sea itself, the rougher the better for me. I can only remember being seasick the once, I think that I was always too excited to give seasickness a thought.
Dad was not too happy about me going fishing for a living but gave into my persistence and found me a job as deck-hand for a cray fisherman by the name of Brian Morey who was fishing out of Jurien Bay at the time.
The day after my final Leaving Examination Dad dropped me off at Brian’s and we set off for Jurien in Brian’s Landrover.
We travelled up to Gin Gin and then onto a dirt track through Mugumber and Dandaragan. It was a very hot dusty and rough trip and I was very glad to come over the hill into Jurien Bay.
After we unloaded the Landrover Brian handed me a shovel, a hammer and a cold chisel and said.
Ken see those two 44’s over the back?
Yeh.
Well knock the tops and bottoms out and bury them one atop the other at the end of that track.
You want a Dunny Brian?
Yeh.
OK.
Boy O Boy what a start to my fishing career, I was lucky that I had done a lot of Banjo work for Dad over the years and also a bit of hammer and chisel work. It was 110 degrees in the water bag and the sand was that fine white stuff that flows like water. It was a hell of a job just keeping it out of the hole, let alone going any deeper, but I was fit and keen to impress and went at it like a Trojan. I think Brian was impressed but didn’t say much.
Brian’s wife was a great lady and a great cook. After eating a humongous meal that night I went to bed in the annex so exhausted and with tummy so full no amount of anticipation of going to sea the next day was going to keep me awake.
It was 4.30am.
Wakey Wakey Hands off Snakey.
Ugh.
Wakey Wakey breakies ready.
It was Brian, I shot out of bed, today is the day boy o boy lets go.
We had breakfast, I grabbed my boots, we climbed into the Landrover and headed off down to the beach. Brian had been off to get the bait the evening before while I was digging the long drop. We loaded this into the dinghy on the beach and pushed out. Brian let me row and sat on the back thwart guiding us through the dawn. Boats could be heard starting their motors and we passed a shadowy outline of the only boat between us and the ‘Kay’. Shortly after the order came “ship oars watch your fingers” we bumped alongside Brian’s boat Kay.
The Kay was smaller than Theo Rose’s boat ‘Helen’ or other boats Dad had taken me on over the years but this was my boat and she was beautiful.
She was 30ft long with a very small wheelhouse at the stern, a petrol driven Volvo stern-drive with a nice steamy exhaust Brian claimed cleaned your bum while you hung your backside over the stern, and a mast up the pointy end which would whip backwards and forwards whenever the bow came down heavy over a wave.
We lifted the bags of bait over the side from the dinghy then I watched Brian check the oil and water in the Volvo. He cranked it over and it rumbled into life. Brian then took me to the bow and watched closely as I tied the Dinghy painter to the mooring rope. I let the mooring line drop over the bow and he beckoned me back to the wheelhouse, a few rays of sunshine