It’s a great life being a writer. You travel to exotic locations, get to meet interesting people, and they dump on you. Last year, I was researching a book in Florida and I got chased out by gun-crazy seppos and a hurricane. Then I got chased out of Jamaica by dope-crazy Rastafarians and a hurricane. In Hawaii, I got attacked by sea lice, took a bait in a Korean restaurant and got chased by another bloody hurricane.
So, I’m happily back in God’s great garden when a bloke I’d met in Sydney got in touch. He had a yacht moored at Airlie Beach in Queensland and did I want to go sailing around the Whitsunday Passage for a week or so? Snorkelling on the Barrier Reef sounded okay and the bloke seemed all right when I met him.
I get out of the taxi at Airlie Beach and there’s Captain Crabpot, looking and smelling like he hasn’t had a bath since Ned Kelly held up the Glenrowan pub and with a face longer than a bush mail run. His rubber duckie had blown up, it was costing a fortune to get fixed and wouldn’t be ready for four days so, meanwhile, we were stuck in Airlie.
A few days sitting on a yacht getting pissed wouldn’t be all that bad, I thought, so we trudged down the jetty to the hired tinnie; a battered, leaking aluminium dinghy, slopping around in a metre of muddy water, with a scrawny outboard, that looked like it wouldn’t pull a wet condom off a slack whizzer.
Soaked and muddy we reached the boat, got on board and I promptly fell down the hatch with my bags. I’m not saying it was cramped inside, but I noticed a few mice, and they were all hunchbacks.
The rain eased off and I suggested that if he could get us to shore I’d shout dinner and drinks. I’m no thrillseeker, but anything was better than being stuck in the gloom listening to Captain Crabpot.
We made land and walked up the main drag to some pub. After a couple of beers and watching some yobbos shoving each other into the pool we went to a place I’d noticed called Magnum’s Resort and Restaurant.
Naturally, being a star author, I was recognised as soon as I walked in.
Copious amounts of booze flowed and the resort directors asked me if I’d like to be a guest judge in a wet T-shirt contest the following night? Would Michael Jackson’s lawyers like to know where he left the other glove? Would I what? And forget my usual $100,000 fee — I’d be there in a hands-on capacity.
Early next day, the skipper ordered all hands on deck. Which meant me. We had to get some more ropes and things as the sea had risen and the dinghy was bashing in the side of the boat.
We jumped in the tinnie and headed for shore. The wind was howling hard enough to blow a dog off a chain. I left Captain Crabpot in the boat shop and limped to town.
It took me about a minute to work out my situation. Four days bouncing up and down in the Iron Maiden, no food, warm piss and Quasimodo going for his life on a bell under my head every night. Not counting Captain Crabpot and getting half-drowned every time you went into town.
It took 15 minutes to find a motel, 10 minutes to get a bandage for my knee and five to change my flight to the next day.
Yes, midshipman Barren was mutinying. Once I’d got the plan together, the sun came out, so I went to have a look at the Fun Race Parade.
Marching girls, hula girls and colourful floats. But mainly it was one huge water fight. Spectators pelted floats with water bombs and the floats fired back with monster Super-Soakers. I got caught in the crossfire by a huge water bomb.
Magnum’s float went past with three of the best sorts I’ve ever seen with their boobs painted over. If that was the standard of tonight’s contest, I was in heaven.
I wandered back down to meet Captain Crabpot to give him the good news. This didn’t go over too well and the skipper said he knew I was a landlubber and a slimy bilge rat the minute he laid eyes on me.
But he needed help with the slipguerneys or whatever it was we had to take back to the yacht.
Then he couldn’t get rid of me quick enough and dropped me at low tide on the nearest mangrove swamp. There I was, slipping and sliding across the ooze with my bags like a 90kg mud crab.
I hitched a ride to my motel, cleaned up, had a feed, watched the football with a bottle for the pain and before I knew it, it was time to go boob judging.
Magnum’s was packed; mainly blokes — but there were also quite a number of attractive young girls.
Again, the booze and jokes flowed. Only this time I didn’t have to sail around The Horn with Captain Crabpot afterwards; just stagger to my motel. Then it was showtime. The mob surged towards the stage and us three wise and supposedly sober judges took our positions.
The mob howled and out came the contestants in their T-shirts. And not a bad line-up.
The DJ introduced them but I was too drunk to remember names. Then he poured jugs of cold water over their T-shirts; I don’t know what this did for the mob, but it sure made it better for the judges.
The girls paraded, the mob howled, the judges pontificated and up went that legendary battle cry ‘SHOWUSYATITS!’
The contestants were only too willing to oblige and after that it was thanks for the mammaries, girls. The mob bayed again, the DJ poured more water and us judges went into a huddle.
It was a tough one. But rather than get lynched, we gave it to the one in red; which seemed a pretty fair verdict no matter how you looked at it. Or them.
All up, I reckon it wasn’t a bad night. There was no trouble and everybody seemed to have a good time, including the lovely contestants and the judges — despite risking castration by the WECAAMHAGT (Women’s Electoral Cadre Against Australian Men Having A Good Time and other postgraduate dykes).
I don’t see why wet T-shirt contests shouldn’t be in the 2000 Aussie Olympics!
I’ll be back at Airlie Beach next year for the wet T-shirt contest and the parade.
But next year, I’m going to get there Airlie. And the Airlier the better, I reckon. But one thing’s for sure — I won’t be sailing with Captain Crabpot.