LOST IN THE CORAL SEA

Their boat had sunk 60 kilometres from land and no one knew where they were. Could the skipper save his crew?

The skipper’s determination was their only chance of survival.

From the wheelhouse of the MV Nessodden, 24-year-old Steve Pickering stared moodily at the pewter-coloured Coral Sea stretching to the horizon on all sides. For nearly two weeks in September 1994, the tall, dark- haired skipper and his crew – Rachel Walsh, his 25- yearold girlfriend, and Kurt Thomson, 17 – had trawled the tepid waters 180 kilometres southeast of Cairns on Queensland’s far north coast.

Despite working long hours in tropical heat, they had deposited only 2000 kilograms of crayfish in the trawler’s freezer, not enough to break even on the trip. Steve had laboured on fishing boats along the Queensland coast for seven years, earning a reputation as a reliable crewman. This was his first skippering job on the 80-tonne Nessodden and he had been anxious to prove his worth and deliver a healthy profit to the boat’s owner. No chance of that now, he thought.

Another concern was that he had disappointed Rachel. When they’d met three years earlier at a party in Townsville, Steve had immediately been drawn to the pretty brunette. As she talked enthusiastically about her marine biology course at James Cook University, he felt as if he had found a kindred spirit. She loves the ocean, just like me, he thought. Since then their relationship had blossomed, and Rachel had readily agreed to work for him on the Nessodden. Now Steve worried she’d see him as a failure.

Steve squinted at the sun and calculated it was about 5pm, approaching dusk. “Come on,” he called down to Rachel and Kurt on the foredeck. “We’d better get the nets in.”

Kurt, a quiet, bespectacled youngster, had met Steve and Rachel on a trawler base in Cairns before they set sail from Townsville. For them, Kurt’s capacity for hard work and his ever-present grin made him a welcome addition to the crew.

Kurt and Rachel prepared to help with the winching of the three nets. It was hard, demanding work. Two synchronised winches, designed to pull the nets up evenly, would normally keep the boat steady. But with fuel tanks low, the crew was concerned the boat would be less stable than usual.

The winches, connected by cables to the nets, were powered by a motor operated from the wheelhouse. On his control console, Steve pushed a pair of levers forward to start the drums turning. Immediately they let out a high-pitched whine.

A sudden, grinding noise from the winches made Steve look down. He felt a chill of fear. One of the winches has failed, Steve thought. Immediately the trawler lurched to starboard as the still-functioning winch bore the full weight of the nets.

Steve lunged at the levers to shut off power but the weight of the nets was now entirely on the starboard side,

causing the boat to list further. As the starboard railing dipped below the water, Rachel and Kurt scrambled to the uppermost side of the deck. “Get off the boat!” Steve yelled helplessly.

Steve stood frozen with fear. His mind raced. There was no time to radio a mayday or reach the life raft lashed to the wheelhouse roof. Then he remembered: The beacon! An emergency, position-indicating radio beacon was hanging inside the wheelhouse. Once activated, the shoebox- s i zed dev ice would emit emergency radio signals. Within half an hour, a rescue boat could be on its way from Townsville, 150 kilometres to the southwest.

Almost half the deck was now submerged. Steve tried to reach the beacon, but his feet kept slipping on the crazily tilting surface. The wheelhouse now jutted almost horizontally over the water. Realising there was nothing he could do to stop the boat capsizing, Steve dived overboard a second before the Nessodden took a final lurch to starboard. He surfaced in time to see the overturned boat wallowing like a whale.

“Steve!” Rachel sobbed as the three of them trod water. “What are we going to do?”

“Keep calm,” Steve replied, fighting panic himself. “Climb back onto the hull. The air trapped inside will keep her afloat for a while.” With shaking hands, he helped Rachel and Kurt climb onto the hull, then scrambled after them, straddling the weed-covered keel. “We’ll surely be rescued before she sinks,” he said, trying to sound confident.

But Steve was deeply worried. They were at least 60 kilometres from land – well outside shipping lanes – and night was approaching. All three wore only T-shirts and shorts. They had no food or fresh water, and had eaten nothing since morning. And nobody knows we’re in trouble.

Again Steve felt guilty. What sort of skipper can’t even keep his boat af loat? he wondered. He cursed himself for not retrieving the beacon earlier. Then he had a thought. Maybe I can dive for it. The wheelhouse was about four metres below the surface. If he could find the beacon before nightfall, they would soon be rescued.

With Rachel’s pleas to be careful in his ears, Steve plunged into the sea and swam downwards. Salt water stung his eyes as he located the dark rectangle of the wheelhouse’s

With shaking hands, he helped Rachel and Kurt climb onto the hull, then scrambled after them

open door. Grasping the door frame, he hauled himself inside. His lungs clamoured for air as he scrabbled at the wall for the beacon. But his fingers closed round an empty bracket. He fumbled his way out the door and upwards. Breaking the surface, he sucked in great gulps of air. “It’s got to be there,” he gasped.

Steve dived again and again, to no avail. Finally, exhausted and with darkness falling, he was forced to give up. Grabbing a flotation ring and a doona floating near the trawler, he accepted Kurt’s hand pulling him onto the hull.

With the sun gone, the three huddled under the sodden doona and tried to extract heat from each other as they took turns dozing. At dawn, Steve tried diving for the beacon again without success. Tired and thirsty, the trio saw that the boat was sinking. When it capsized, its propeller had protruded from the water. Now it was out of sight. “Once she goes we’ll have to swim for it,” Steve said.

“Won’t we have a better chance if we swim now?” Rachel asked. Steve hesitated. These waters were renowned for tiger sharks. Even if the sharks left them alone, they would be threatened by dehydration, Steve realised. Within a few hours, the sun would burn and blister their unprotected skins, and salt would leach moisture from every cell. Within 24 hours, most people immersed in salt water are dead.

Steve shook off the thought. Swimming was their only hope. “OK, if we go now, we might get rescued before nightfall,” he said. He fished a second flotation ring from the water and tied it to the first. Then the trio pushed away from the boat, all three clinging to the flotation rings.

As they kicked away from the rising sun, Rachel began to cry. “Steve, I’m scared,” she sobbed.

“Try to be brave,” Steve replied. He felt a surge of concern for Rachel. Before this trip, she had surprised him with a present – an ornamental sword he had admired in an antiques shop. It had taken her months to save the money to buy it. I can’t let her down, he thought. “Rachel,” Steve said, “if we make it through this, let’s get married.” Rachel managed a smile through her tears.

By early afternoon, the trio were exhausted. They had been swimming for over six hours and there was still no sign of land. Their faces were burned bright red. Seawater parched their mouths. Their lips were cracked.

Even if the tiger sharks left them alone, they would be threatened by dehydration and sunburn

With nothing but sea on the horizon, Steve had given up reaching land. Instead he aimed to get inside the Great Barrier Reef, about 20 kilometres to the west, where they might be spotted by a tourist boat or the Australian Coast Watch. Steve was no quitter. In swimming competitions at school, his determination and stamina had caught the attention of Australian Olympic swimming coach Laurie Lawrence, who had personally trained him for several years.

Hours passed – an endless purgatory of thirst as they mechanically kicked. For what seemed like the hundredth time, Steve lifted his head from the water and peered at the horizon. Then his heart skipped a beat. Several kilometres ahead, he thought he saw a trail of white, a sign that water was breaking. “There!” he said. “The reef!”

With renewed energy, they kicked on. Within an hour, they noticed something else: a poppyseed speck of land on the horizon. Steve guessed it was either Hinchinbrook or Dunk Island – both tourist islands with busy resorts – but knew it could be 20 kilometres away. Can we survive another night at sea? he wondered.

As the sun dipped low, the trio felt themselves pushed to and fro by strong currents. Steve knew currents often converged above coral.

“It’s a good sign. We may be crossing a reef fringing land,” he said.

Finally, the trio saw the first real evidence that they had reached the reef: below them, colourful coral tips. Steve pointed to a spot about 300 metres to their left where the water was calmer. “That’s a channel,” he said. “We’ll cross there.”

When they reached the channel, Steve struck out first. Once clear of the reef, he refused to stop. “We can’t wait for someone to find us,” he said. “If we keep going, we might reach the island before midnight.” Rachel and Kurt followed with leaden limbs.

Steve encouraged his crew to press on but Kurt was exhausted. He lay still, floating on his back.

Steve took stock. He estimated they had been swimming for more than 18 hours and that it was now about midnight. They had left the reef at least five hours earlier, yet the island seemed no closer. But if they allowed themselves to drift, the tide might drag them back towards the open ocean.

Despite his own exhaustion, Steve knew there was only one solution if he wanted to save his crew. “Here, take these,” he said, thrusting both flotation rings at Rachel. “Grab hold of my ankle.”

Rachel and Kurt looped their arms through the rings. Then Steve began to swim, towing them through the water with grim determination. His already exhausted limbs burned with the build-up of lactic acid – waste product from overtaxed muscles – but he forced himself to think of Lawrence and what he would say during swimming training: “No pain! No gain!”

For more than five hours, Steve hauled his crew through the water, his pace barely slowing. “For God’s sake, you’ve got to rest,” Rachel eventually begged him. But Steve powered on. We must reach land.

At dawn, a thick fog settled on the water and Rachel lost sight of the island. “Take a break, Steve,” she pleaded again. “Just until the mist clears.”

“We can’t stop,” Steve told her. “I just passed by a shop.”

With alarm, Rachel realised that exhaustion was taking its toll. “Steve, you’re hallucinating,” she said.

Confused, Steve turned, breaking Rachel’s hold on his leg. In his fuddled mind, Steve now thought he saw a fishing boat ahead. He swam on. Soon he had lost the others. After coming this far, the ocean had defeated them.

Just after 9am on September 19, 24- year- old Brisbane accountant, David Fox, gunned the engine of his runabout at Yamacutta Reef, 40 kilometres east of Dunk Island. On holiday in the area, Fox and two friends were searching for a fishing spot.

As the boat scudded westwards through the fog, Fox saw a slight movement in the water a few kilometres to his left. But as they drew closer, he shouted in astonishment. Pulling up, Fox saw a young man and woman in the water, clinging to flotation rings. When the men hauled them into the boat, the pair collapsed. Both greedily gulped water from the men’s canteens, then vomited.

As Fox prepared to rush them to shore, Rachel struggled to speak. “What?” Fox asked, cupping his ear to hear over the noise of the engine.

“My boyfriend,” Rachel croaked, pointing towards the open ocean. “He’s out there.” Fox scanned the horizon, but saw no one. She’s delirious, he thought. Then he spotted a speck several hundred metres away. As he sped towards the spot, Fox saw a young man floating on his back in the water. The man’s arms moved feebly.

“He’s alive, get him in!” Fox yelled. Steve started vomiting as soon as he had a drink. Fox radioed the coast guard at Ingham, a small town on the mainland: “I have three people needing medical treatment.”

It was 9.15am. Steve, Rachel and Kurt had been in the water for 26 hours. In hospital, Steve was treated for a torn stomach lining from repeated vomiting and severe stomach ulcers.

“After what Rachel and I have been through,” Steve said later on, “nothing can keep us apart.”

As he sped towards the spot, Fox saw a young man floating on his back in the water