An empty Captain Kidd rum bottle was washed ashore with directions for the finder to rush it to the Little Darwin isolation ward / newsroom with promise of a large reward from the office petty cash tin which is jammed with IOU scraps of paper .
Inside the bottle was a typical grumpy story from him highlighting the fact that the local media does not know how to cover maritime activity , vessels important to the commerce of the Queen City of the North coming and going without mention, some daredevil reporter even going aboard , speaking to the captain , members of the crew . It read thus .
The bulk carrier named MV Yangtze Brilliance , above , sailing under the Hong Kong flag , following the directions of overhead clouds, has just entered Townsville . Yangtze ? Sounds foreign , even Asian . Somewhere in China ? And Hong Kong , isn't that one of the places, unlike Australia , where the brave population stands up and actually fights for democracy against the puppet regime and against enormous odds ?
Where is the vessel from , what cargo will it load , will the crew be allowed to land if they are from overseas , what are the detailed arrangements for handling overseas vessels and crew . Just a few queries that could be made by the local scribes ; ETD , destination.
I once suggested the Townsville Port Authority should get the Townsville Bulletin to run a daily shipping movements column which used to be a regular feature of newspapers all over Australia . Going on the response from the person I spoke to , they thought the situation could be handled with a regular half page PR-like piece extolling the port activities , really not a daily shipping movements column. The poor coverage of shipping in this port city is a situation which could drive you to drink watered down rum .
By the way , during Easter , another ghost ship, above , leaving port , caught my eye while I was power walking to the bottle shop to stock up on myxomatosis .
(This post dedicated to the memory of racing reporter "Big Betting " Bob Staines, whose tips straight from the mouths of many nags meant we , and another prominent racing tragic, Max Presnell , lost our holiday pay at the track in the l950s, and did not fly from Sydney to Surfers Paradise to paint the town as planned, so broke we were reduced to playing cards for seashells at Kurnell instead .)
