The Queensland Odyssey (Draft 2)

      I continued down the road to pick up one of my good friend Jim Edwards, one of my crew members. As I pulled up to his small beat up ranch style home, he was taking his last puff of his cigarette and flicked the remains away. Jim started towards the old truck of mine, opened the creaky door and sat down.
     "Hey nice to see you again lad." said Jim. Jim was a tall, chubby Irish man with a beard larger than life.
     "Nice to see you too again pal" I said. We started off down the road towards the dock warehouse to discuss the journey we would be going on.
     When we got to the docks, it looked like half of the crew was already there. I opened the large metal warehouse door and me and Jim continued up the stair's towards an old door leading us into an old warehouse office.
     "you're late"said Joe McTyre as we stepped in.
     " Nice to see you too ye ole' hag" Jim remarked.
     Joe was a  65 year old man who was the previous captain of  The Queensland vessel. He has a long white beard whiter than snow. He didn't always have the brightest attitude.
     Jim and I sat down at the round battered table and started our discussion..
     "Well alright boys, lets discuss the topic we came for." Joe started
     "We all know that I'm not going on this voyage this winter"
     "Rob, your going to be leading this little triumph of a crew through this unruly little adventure"
     "Now you boys know I would be leading this crew, but my old ass is too broken down for this anymore"
     I gazed around the table discovering a new face of the crew. It was a kid, looked about 20 years old with a similar facial structure as another crew member of mine, Doyle Jones.
     "Who's the kid" I said
     "This is my kid" said Doyle.
     "So does that mean he's going to be coming with us" said Regg
Regg was the tough cookie of our crew and hated all the nice thing's in life, he also hated little kid's as referring to Doyle's son. He's a chunky man always wearing a baseball cap and his old worn out jeans. For luck he would always bring his old tan flight jacket.
      "Yea, and if you have a problem with it come to me and we'll talk about it" said Doyle
      Doyle was a middle aged man struggling to keep his life together. He's been through a tough life. His    mother died when he was a kid and his dad abused him. He ended up running away at sixteen and  drifting in to Seaton. Fishing was his last resort to getting money into his family due to his poor education. Doyle was a tall slender man with sad eyes and was never happy.
    "Whats your name kid?" I said.
    "My name's Noah but most people call me shaky" said the kid.
    "And why is that, is it because you don't have any guts?" Said Regg
    "Knock it off Regg, Its not like you ever had any" I remarked.
    "Alright Knock it off, we got a whole lot of thing's to worry about" Said Joe.
    "Okay so i want everyone here, tomorrow at the crack of dawn.
    "God help us all, if we don't get lucky, were going to starve."
I woke up the next morning feeling groggy and not ready for what was to come. I grab my bags filled with the clothes and supplies I would need for the sailing we would be going on and headed out the door   for the wharf.
    As I pulled up the wharfs lot I noticed the crew was loading the equipment and food needed for the sailing. I pulled the bag's out of the back of the truck and started down the wharf.
     "Ready for this lad?" said Jim as were loading on the equipment on the large vessel.
     "Yea, I hope" I remarked
     Joe started walking up the ships loading bridge towards us looking distressed and worried.
     "So are you sure you can handle this rob, everyone is counting on you, remember if you boys fail Seaton is going to starve." Joe Shakily said.
     "Joe, everything is going to be alright, were going to come back with full load's of fish enough to feed the nation." Rob said.
     "Don't get to cocky Rob, just don't come back empty handed" Joe said.
     Then out of the blue came a stranger walking up the boarding bridge. A tall slender man with a small black beard came strolling towards us then started talking. Looked about 50 years old.
     "Hello boy's" said the stranger.
     "Alright boys I want you to meet your new crew mate David Walton, He's an experienced fisherman and is going to help you on this sailing" said Joe.
     "I'm not going to take any risk's" He remarked again.
     "you guys be safe now and good luck"Joe said lastly before walking off the vessel.
     We started lifting the the anchor and unwinding the ropes tied to the dock and then began sailing away into the mists of the great blue winter waters of the northern ocean.
      3 days sailing into the sea, It was the night before we entered the area of the northern pacific where we would be fishing and everyone gathered in the dinner hall and we all sat at the battered old table.
Regg and Jim were playing card's puffing on a cigarette, Doyle was carving a piece of wood while Noah or "Shaky" was staring out the window into the dark ocean atmosphere and David reading a book.
     "It's a damn shame how the government won't help about that accident with the farm's." David said.
     "Yea, the bastards left us to die."Jim remarked with his Irish accent.
     "So David, who did you fish with before" I said.
     "My old crew up in Garver, I'm going to miss those chaps." said David.
     "Did something happen"said Noah.
     "There was a fire on the boat, I was the only one that got out alive, I spent 2 days at sea on a piece of discarded debris." David said again.
     "Sorry to hear" Noah said.
     "Hey you know, stuff happens kid it's fine." David lastly said.
     "We'll we have to get up early tomorrow get to bed, see you in the morning" I said before going to bed.
     It was windy next morning and everyone got into their clothes and positions as fast as we could. Noah and Regg at the detector to detect fish in the area, Jim sailing the vessel everyone else at the top casting the nets out.
We were a small crew of 6 and we would have to work hard. Me, David And Doyle stormed the top deck almost being pulled away because they were so strong. We started unwinding the net and twisting the levers dropping the strong steel wire which would let the net go into the sea without sinking into the blue.
     "Be careful dropping that net!" said David.
     "It will tug you right into the ocean!" David said yelling.
     We let the levers go watching as the big large net dropped into the blue.
     We waited and waited until finally tugging the net back up onto the boat finding that we caught nothing. I guess we didn't get to lucky with the harvest.
      The crew met up in the dinner hall again at night. All the faces drooped without even a grin.
     "We can't return home Empty handed, Rob" Said Doyle.
     "That's why were not, were going to spend an extra day at sea." I said.
     "Everyone up at the crack of dawn again, were going to catch these fish." I said while on the way to bed.
     Everyone woke up again the next day manning there positions putting there best effort.
Doyle and I opened the large ship door and ran toward the net levers, while David was clearing the net's drop area of any sort of debris. Jim started pulling the large net readying it for drop.
     "Ready!" said Jim.
     "Go!"
     The large net dropped into the blue of the ocean until the large screech came from the mouth of one of the crew. The net pulled David forcefully, but then he quickfully grabbed the side of the boat before plunging into the vast ocean.
     "God almighty are you ok?" I yelled pulling david back on board the vessel.
     "Im fine, thanks for saving me there." He said thankfully.
     "Be more careful next time kid, You yanked the hairs on the back of my neck!"  Doyle said.
     "We almost lost you!" He remarked again.
      We started to pull the net back up onto the deck finding that we had gods gift in our net.
     "God almighty!" Doyle shouted.
     "This is enough to last us until summer!" I said.
     "Have Jim Change course, Were going home." I lastly said.
     We drank the night away in the dining hall that night knowing we just did something good for our people. The thought ran through my head that night as I was laying bed. We branded the thought in our minds, never give up hope and I closed my eyes knowing we gave hope.