Silver Bay (2 page)

Moby One
was the biggest catamaran – or ‘cat’, as the crews called them – in Silver Bay. It was usually a two-steward vessel, but the tourists were tailing off as the temperature dropped, so it was just Yoshi now until trade picked up again. I didn’t mind – it was easier to persuade her to let me aboard. I helped her put the tea and coffee pots back in their holders, then stepped back out on to the narrow side deck, where we braced ourselves against the windows, and gazed across the sea to where the smaller boat was still making its uneven path across the waves. Even from this distance we could see that more people now were hanging over
Suzanne
’s rails, their heads lower than their shoulders, oblivious of the spattered red paint just below them. ‘We can take ten minutes now. Here.’ Yoshi cracked open a can of cola and handed it to me. ‘You ever heard of chaos theory?’

‘Mmm.’ I made it sound like I might.

‘If only those people knew,’ she wagged a finger as we felt the engines slow, ‘that their long-awaited trip to go see the wild dolphins has been ruined by an ex-girlfriend they will never meet and a man who now lives with her more than two hundred and fifty kilometres away in Sydney and thinks that purple cycling shorts are acceptable daywear.’

I took a gulp of my drink. The fizz made my eyes water and I swallowed hard. ‘You’re saying the tourists being sick on Greg’s boat is down to chaos theory?’ I’d thought it was because he’d got drunk again the night before.

Yoshi smiled. ‘Something like that.’

The engines had stopped, and
Moby One
quieted, the sea growing silent around us, except for the tourist chatter and the waves slapping against the sides. I loved it out here, loved watching my house become a white dot against the narrow strip of beach, then disappear behind the endless coves. Perhaps my pleasure was made greater by the knowledge that what I was doing was against the rules. I wasn’t rebellious, not really, but I kind of liked the idea of it.

Lara had a dinghy that she was allowed to take out by herself, staying within the buoys that marked out the old oyster beds, and I envied her. My mother wouldn’t let me roam around the bay, even though I was nearly eleven. ‘All in good time,’ she would murmur. There was no point arguing with her about stuff like that.

Lance appeared beside us: he’d just had his photograph taken with two giggling teenagers. He was often asked to pose with young women, and hadn’t yet been known to refuse. It was why he liked to wear his captain’s peaked cap, Yoshi said, even when the sun was hot enough to melt his head.

‘What’s he written on the side of his boat?’ He squinted at Greg’s cruiser in the distance. He seemed to have forgiven me for being on board.

‘I’ll tell you back at the jetty.’

I caught the eyebrow cocked towards me. ‘I
can
read what it says, you know,’ I said. The other boat, which had until yesterday described itself as the
Sweet Suzanne
, now suggested, in red paint, that ‘Suzanne’ do something Yoshi said was a biological impossibility. She turned to him, lowering her voice as far as possible – as if she thought I couldn’t hear her. ‘The missus told him there was another man after all.’

Lance let out a long whistle. ‘He said as much. And she denied it.’

‘She was hardly going to admit it, not when she knew how Greg was going to react. And he was hardly an innocent . . .’ She glanced at me. ‘Anyway, she’s off to live in Sydney, and she said she wants half the boat.’

‘And he says?’

‘I think the boat probably says it all.’

‘Can’t believe he’d take tourists out with it like that.’ Lance lifted his binoculars better to study the scrawled red lettering.

Yoshi gestured at him to pass them to her. ‘He was so crook this morning I’m not sure he’s even remembered what he’s done.’

We were interrupted by the excited yells of the tourists on the upper deck. They were jostling towards the pulpit at the front.

‘Here we go,’ muttered Lance, straightening up and grinning at me. ‘There’s our pocket money, Squirt. Time to get back to work.’

Sometimes, Yoshi said, they could run the whole bay but the bottlenoses would refuse to show, and a boat full of unsatisfied dolphin-watchers was a boat full of free second trips and fifty-per-cent refunds, both guaranteed to send the boss into meltdown.

At the bow, a group of tourists were pressed together, cameras whirring as they tried to catch the glossy grey shapes that were now riding the breaking waves below. I checked the water to see who had come to play. Below decks, Yoshi had covered a wall with photographs of the fins of every dolphin in the area. She had given them all names: Zigzag, One Cut, Piper . . . The other crews had laughed at her, but now they could all recognise the distinctive fins – it was the second time they’d seen Butterknife that week, they’d murmur. I knew the name of every one by heart.

‘Looks like Polo and Brolly,’ Yoshi said, leaning over the side.

‘Is that Brolly’s baby?’

The dolphins were silent grey arcs, circling the boat as if they were the sightseers. Every time one broke the surface the air was filled with the sound of clacking camera shutters. What did they think of us gawping at them? I knew they were as smart as humans. I used to imagine them meeting up by the rocks afterwards, laughing in dolphin language about us – the one in the blue hat, or the one with the funny glasses.

Lance’s voice came over the PA system: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please do not rush to one side to see the dolphins. We will slowly turn the ship so that everyone can get a good view. If you rush to one side we are likely to capsize. Dolphins do not like boats that fall over.’

Glancing up, I noticed two albatross; pausing in mid-air, they folded their wings and dived, sending up only the faintest splash as they hit the water. One rose again, wheeling in search of some unseen prey, then the other rejoined it, soaring above the little bay and disappeared. I watched them go. Then, as
Moby One
slowly shifted position, I leant over the side, sticking my feet under the bottom rail to see my new trainers. Yoshi had promised she’d let me sit in the boom nets when the weather got warmer, so that I could touch the dolphins, perhaps even swim with them. But only if my mother agreed. And we all knew what that meant.

I stumbled as the boat moved unexpectedly. It took me a second to register that the engines had started up. Startled, I grabbed the handrail. I had grown up in Silver Bay and knew there was a way of doing things around dolphins. Shut down engines if you want them to play. If they keep moving, hold a parallel course, be guided by them. Dolphins made things pretty clear: if they liked you they came close, or kept an even distance. If they didn’t want you around they swam away. Yoshi frowned at me, and as the catamaran lurched, we grabbed the lifelines. My confusion was mirrored in her face.

A sudden acceleration sent the boat shooting forward, and, above, squealing tourists collapsed on to their seats. We were flying.

Lance was on the radio. As we clambered into the cockpit behind him,
Sweet Suzanne
was scudding along some distance away, bouncing over the waves, apparently heedless of the increasing numbers of miserable people now hanging over her rails.

‘Lance! What are you doing?’ Yoshi grabbed at a rail.

‘See you there, bud . . . Ladies and gentlemen—’ Lance pulled a face and reached for the PA system button.
I need a translation
, he mouthed. ‘We have something a bit special for you this morning. You’ve already enjoyed the magical sight of our Silver Bay dolphins, but if you hold on tight, we’d like to take you to something
really
special. We’ve had a sighting of the first whales of the season, a little further out to sea. These are the humpbacked whales who come past our waters every year on their long migration north from the Antarctic. I can promise you that this is a sight you won’t forget. Now, please sit down, or hold on tight. Things may get a little choppy as, from the south, there’s a little more size in the swell, but I want to make sure we get you there in time to see them. Anyone who wants to stay at the front of the boat, I suggest you borrow a waterproof. There are plenty inside at the back.’

He spun the wheel and nodded to Yoshi, who took the PA system. She repeated what he had said in Japanese, then in Korean for good measure. It was entirely possible, she said afterwards, that she had simply recited the previous day’s lunch menu: she had been unable to focus since Lance had made his announcement. One word sang through, as it did in my own mind:
whale
!

‘How far?’ Yoshi’s body was rigid as she scanned the glinting waters. The earlier relaxed atmosphere had disappeared completely. My stomach was in knots.

‘Four, five miles? Dunno. The tourist helicopter was flying over and said they’d seen what looked like two a couple of miles off Torn Point. It’s a little early in the season, but . . .’

‘Fourteenth of June last year. We’re not that far out,’ said Yoshi. ‘Bloody hell! Look at Greg! He’s going to lose passengers if he carries on at that pace. His boat’s not big enough to soak up those waves.’

‘He doesn’t want us to get there before him.’ Lance shook his head and checked the speed dial. ‘Full throttle. Let’s make sure
Moby One
’s first this year. Just for once.’

Some crew members were doing the job to make up their shipping hours, on course for bigger vessels and bigger jobs. Some, like Yoshi, had begun as part of their education and had simply forgotten to go home. But, whatever reason they might have for being there, I had grasped long ago that there was magic in the first whale sighting of the migration season. It was as if, until that creature had been seen, it was impossible to believe they would be back.

To be the first to see one didn’t mean much – once the whales were known to be out there, all five boats that operated off Whale Jetty would switch their business from dolphins to whale-watching. But it was of importance to the crew. And, like all great passions, it made them mad. Boy, did it make them mad.

‘Look at that great idiot. Funny how he can hold a straight course now,’ Lance spat. Greg was portside of us, but seemed to be gaining.

‘He can’t bear the thought of us getting there before him.’ Yoshi grabbed a waterproof and threw it at me. ‘There! Just in case we go out front. It’s going to get pretty wet.’

‘I don’t bloody believe it.’ Lance had spied another boat on the horizon. He must have forgotten I was there, to be swearing. ‘There’s Mitchell! I bet you he’s been sitting on the radio all afternoon and now he swans up, probably with a cabinful of passengers. I’m going to swing for that bloke one of these days.’

They were always moaning about Mitchell Dray. He never bothered to look for the dolphins, like the others: he would just wait until he overheard a sighting on the ship-to-ship radio and go where everyone else was headed.

‘Am I really going to see a whale?’ I asked. Beneath our feet, the hull smacked noisily against the waves, forcing me to hang on to the side. Through the open window, I could hear the excited shouts of the tourists, the laughter of those who had been hit by rogue waves.

‘Fingers crossed.’ Yoshi’s eyes were trained on the horizon.

A real whale. I had only once seen a whale, with my aunt Kathleen. Usually I wasn’t allowed this far out to sea.

‘There . . . There! No, it’s just spray.’ Yoshi had lifted the binoculars. ‘Can’t you change course? There’s too much glare.’

‘Not if you want me to get there first.’ Lance swung the boat to starboard, trying to alter the angle of the sun on the waves.

‘We should radio ashore. Find out exactly where the chopper saw it.’

‘No point,’ said Lance. ‘It could have travelled two miles by now. And Mitchell will be listening in. I’m not giving that bugger any more information. He’s been stealing passengers from us all summer.’

‘Just watch for the blow.’

‘Yeah. And the little flag that says, “Whale.”’

‘Just trying to help, Lance.’

‘There!’ I could just make out the shape, like a distant black pebble dipping below the water. ‘North-north-east. Heading behind Break Nose Island. Just dived.’ I thought I might be sick with excitement. I heard Lance start counting behind me. ‘One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . .
whale
!’ An unmistakable plume of water rose joyously above the horizon. Yoshi let out a squeal. Lance glanced towards Greg, who, from his course, hadn’t seen it. ‘We got her!’ Lance hissed. All whales were ‘her’ to Lance, just as all kids were ‘squirt’.

Whale
. I took the word into my mouth, rolled it around and savoured it. My eyes did not leave the water.
Moby On
e shifted course, the huge catamaran slapping hard as it bounded over each wave. Behind the island I imagined the whale breaching, displaying its white belly to the world in an unseen display of buoyancy. ‘Whale,’ I whispered.

‘We’re going to be first,’ muttered Yoshi, excitedly. ‘Just for once we’re going to get there first.’

I watched Lance swing the wheel, counting under his breath to mark the number of times the whale blew. More than thirty seconds apart and it was likely to dive deep. Then we would have lost it. Closer together meant it had already dived, and we would have a chance to follow.

‘Seven . . . eight . . . She’s up.
Yessss
.’ Lance hit the wheel with his palm, then grabbed the PA system. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, if you look over to your right, you might make out the whale, which is headed behind that piece of land there.’

‘Greg’s realised where we’re headed.’ Yoshi grinned. ‘He’ll never catch us now. His engine isn’t powerful enough.’

‘
Moby One
to
Blue Horizon
. Mitchell,’ Lance yelled into his radio, ‘you want to see this baby you’re going to have to get off my coat tails.’

Mitchell’s voice came over the radio: ‘
Blue Horizon
to
Moby One
. I’m just here to make sure there’s someone to pick up Greg’s overboards.’

‘Oh, nothing to do with the big fish?’ Lance responded tersely.