The
struggle for small businesses to survive nowadays is evident in North Queensland . Recently we reported that three
shops in Townsville’s large Castletown shopping
centre had closed, one trading under the name , Heavenly Fragrance .
New occupants
of that perfumery site are
into fishing tackle which
brings back memories of an
overpowering smell of
armpits , stinking
burley, bilge water , pea green individuals chundering
over the side
due to mal de mer .This
writer has chundered
into waters off New Zealand , New
South Wales , along the Northern Territory coast and on a return
trip from Darwin to what was then Portuguese
Timor . Unforgettable was the 1950s occasion when
brought low by
seasickness, I lay on the bottom
of a bobbing launch off Lord Howe Island, near Ball’s Pyramid, while enthusiastic tourists hauled
in many Kingfish ,
thrown on top of me in a dance of death as I brought up bile .
There is a
strong link between perfume and denizens of the deep.
One of the sought after ingredients
of expensive parfum is ambergris ... whale vomit washed up on beaches. There is a New Zealand website which offers ambergris for US$26 a gram . A 2013 newspaper report said a
man walking along a beach in England found a lump of ambergris worth $180,000. Now that is my idea
of a great fishing trip and it takes
place on terra firma .
