During a bouncy sight seeing tour of Cairns on land and in water aboard an amphibious vehicle, ex US military Vietnam War , which once operated in Darwin , it included a cruise through a fleet of vessels , the owners surprisingly referred to locally as " grotty yachties ". While some vessels look worse for wear, not everybody can afford mega luxury yachts like James Packer , with a crew decked out in designer label marine clobber to keep everything in seagoing order, the brass polished .
Admittedly , the appearance of some yachts gives the impression that they may have recently limped into port after fighting the Roaring Forties along the Clipper Route to Australia .
A number of them are lived on and the residents , an interesting mixture of sea salts , commute to and from shore in small dinghies, some very basic . The cruise commentary included the statement that the grotty yachties risked being eaten by crocodiles as they paddle backwards and forwards from " Centrelink and the pub"... grounds for class action defamation case?... being ripped from their moorings in a blow . A beached vessel , in mangroves appears to have a large garden, vines climbing up the rigging -a potential floating Garden of Eden .
Eve not spotted nibbling an apple...could have been inside cutting up a rejected Queensland pineapple and straightening out the bend in large bananas which the major chain stores will not accept for sale and end up dumped ." Hippies" said to be living nearby .
