In dangerous waters , looking like the adventurous explorer Vasco Pyjama and his direction finding duck - created by masterful Australian cartoonist, Michael Leunig , of Melbourne - this vignette was discovered on a caravan by our ice cream licking Shipping Reporter in a parking bay on Magnetic Island , near the Marlin Bar , closed because of virus restrictions .
Our waterfront roundsman was strolling about Horseshoe Bay with a double scoop (coconut and macadamia nut ), when he spotted the intriguing drawing on the eye catching caravan which highlights the Torres Strait pearling lugger HB 1939 and carries messages to save the Great Barrier Reef and birdlife .
It turns out the Shipping Reporter , the only one north of McMurdo Sound, where Vasco da Gama never ventured , has been a longtime Leunig fan , so much so that he has several of his books . Also in his possession is a rare bound in copy of the entire l969 weekly Melbourne publication , Broadside, edited by Pete Steedman , in which there are many fabulous Leunig drawings , some across two pages , strongly anti-war .
Furthermore , Leunig often drew a man with a bulbous nose, experiencing the vicissitudes of life, a teapot on his head . It just so happens that the Shipping Reporter recently helped a lady place part of her teapot collection and other oddities on high in her new kitchen .
He also watched with great interest the recent ABC documentary on Leunig. The waterfront scribe liked the political cartoon, below, Leunig produced about the episode in which budgie smuggler Tony Abbott threatened to shirtfront muscle flexing Russian strongman Vladimir Putin at the G20 conflab in Brisbane .
