The Throw Up Bucket

The Throw up Bucket



I’ve never felt very comfortable around boats. I don’t know why, but I have always pretended to like them. I think it has something to do with my father. He’s always been attracted to them. Ever since I can remember, his favourite pastime has been engaging himself in endless thoughts about floating obstacles. When he first left us, he built a houseboat to live on. I can recall it quite well; it was situated in the river near a graveyard in Claremont. It had brown-varnished wood, green windows and was weighed down with oversized dark, green pot plants in every corner. I caught my first fish on that boat, an eel, big and black. I couldn’t pull it in so Dad had to come and help. He put it in a blue bucket full of water and left it in the sun. I watched it for hours. I don’t think I had seen anything apart from insects die before. It amazed me how long it took.

I think there must have been some sort of family feud going on at the time because when dad dropped us off and mum answered the door to receive us he splashed the bucket down the hallway. Mothers just do not appreciate a good dead eel.

My brother and I used to have weekends with Dad all the time and half of them would be spent walking around the docks looking at boats. Then, one day, my father decided to set sail for Bruny Island.

It’s a weird thing, I’ve met several men that know nothing of boats and never had a desire to know anything about them but all of a sudden, they reach a certain age or level of independence where they feel they have to sell everything that they own and sail off into the sunset with their family.

My dad was one of these people. I don’t mean just by sailing to Bruny Island- that was only a day trip. He had an ambition to rig up a proper yacht and sail around the world. I guess he was just starting small.

Nowadays my father likes to consider his ambitions reached. Of course it’s a lot more complicated than anyone would have thought. You’ve got to take into mind: currents and tides, wind and sea conditions, navigational methods, map reading, knowledge of signs, lights, beacons and what they all mean and most importantly, you have to have a tight ship-shape vessel with everything intact. This includes safety equipment, radio, appropriate food and provisions and lots and lots of rope. And you have to know where all the ropes go and what they are all called and how to use them as well. In addition to this, you need to have plans B, C and D just in case plan A didn’t work.  So as you can see, proper sailing trips take a lot of practice, preparation, equipment, brains and time. It can be years before you get a tight set-up.

What we were undertaking was not a proper sailing trip; however we still needed some of the above to complete our voyage. Although it did not occur to us at the time, the only thing that we had was plan A.

I must have been about six years old and every year that passes since, I have found myself realising a little more of how stupid the idea was. I won’t even mention my thoughts on my father’s intelligence, as he was an age of no less than thirty-two.

He had borrowed a yacht off the guy marooned next to his houseboat. It was white with a green stripe and it was very small, barely big enough for two.

We left early on a Saturday morning. The plan was to reach Bruny, spend the night at a motel and then return the following day- simple.

As most stories of tragedy go, we started off fine. The day was bright, the water calm and we had both had a goodnight sleep. As soon as I had stepped aboard the small vessel I was feeling doubtful about my stomach movements but my father reassured me by saying something like, “Don’t worry, I’ve been told that there are only two types of seasickness; the one where you feel like your going to die and the one where you wish that you were dead.”

I hadn’t really thought about whether I was going to enjoy myself or not, all I had thought about was that it wasn’t school. Therefore, whatever was about to take place upon that little yacht would definitely be better than the previous day (I found prep challenging). So for a while, I was having fun, not doing anything but just sitting back and enjoying myself. Then, as we were making our way into open water, my father had a great idea- fishing! Now I thought fishing was boring but apparently, according to my father, I was wrong and that it was only because I had never used a rod before that I was unenthusiastic. So, he went and got the fishing rods, made me assemble them as well as I could, took them apart again, reassembled them himself and proceeded to teach me to cast. Soon, he had me hanging a line over the back of the boat waiting for my first nibbles.

At the age of six, I totally assumed that my father knew exactly what he was doing and that because he had called what we were doing ‘sailing’, we were obviously sailing. Not at all did I suspect that, what we were

actually doing, was dithering around in the middle of the ocean while Dad tried to figure out a miniature junk-rig mast without so much as an instruction manual or the smallest gust of wind. There was an unexpected yank on my fishing line and I found myself struggling frantically to keep from falling overboard. 

“Take the tiller,” my father had said, then wrenched the rod from me and started to reel in hard. I stood by his side, not moving to the request for fear of missing something exciting. After a short while it appeared that the fish was about to emerge from the frothy waters. By now the rod was creaking under the strain and bending at a sharp curve as if there was a submarine on the other end. Dad, noticing that I was still by his side told me again to grab the tiller, so I did. I was so excited at the thought of how big the fish would be, perhaps a shark. My mind started flicking through photos of Great Whites and Blue Pointers that I had seen in magazines. I had only just got seated in the cockpit when Dad shouted for me to cut the engine at once. I reached down and turned the key in the lock. There was a choking sound and then the motor gave a great shudder and fell silent. I looked around questioningly at my father only to find that he was not there. Perhaps he had fallen over. I jumped up and peered over the stern railing. There he was, submerged perhaps about two feet below the surface of the water, clinging to the boat. At first it was quite puzzling, but then it hit me. The shark had pulled him in! I had no idea of what to do. Could I jump in there and save him? Of course not, what could I do against a shark? So I did the only thing that seemed to make sense when your father is being eaten by a shark, I cried.

I cried for probably fifteen seconds, not looking over the rail again for the thought of seeing something horrifying. There was a splashing sound and something hit the boat, then there was a grunt and to my astonishment my father’s head appeared over the rail.

“You won! You killed the shark!”

“What?”

“The shark….. You killed it and I thought it had eaten you.”         

My father looked down into my tear-stained face and explained that he had only jumped over board to free the line which had been caught in the prop (also an explanation for the big pull on the rod), and then laughed hysterically at my paranoia. You could imagine how humiliated my father had made me feel. Suddenly I felt very tired and queasy and I crawled into the main cabin to fall asleep on the bed, under a large blanket.

On further reflection, I quite understand my dislike for boats, if you have ever been badly seasick you must sympathise with me. The horrible smell of motor oil, fish guts and maggoty, rotten bait added to the slow but jerky up and down motion, as if you were standing upon a giant camel. I felt this sensation as soon as I awoke, my insides where bubbling inside me. It took me a second to realise, but sure enough I knew it was coming. Up I jumped, struggling against my itchy, hot blanket, I stumbled across the floor, dizzy and disorientated and groping desperately for the hatch.

It was at this exact moment that my father, who was sitting just on the other side of the closed hatch, had apparently decided to check on me and lifted the wooden board, coming nose to nose with my rather desperate last attempts to contain breakfast.

When I recall the comical second where my father was squinting down at me, bewildered at the expression upon my face, I often ask myself the question; “Could I have turned away?” I don’t suppose it matters now for what’s done is done. A great rush of warm vomit spraying out of my nose and splatting against my dad’s face, my throat dilating to resembling something of a fire hose as I blurted spew all over his upper body, and mine, and the walls, and everything, yes I remember it well. I dropped to my knees, still showering things with the stench of stomach contents, my gut sucking in as I pumped out every last drop of fluid.

I think that that ended the trip for me; I spent the rest of the day draped over the bed with my head in a blue bucket, just like that poor eel. After cleaning up most of the vomit, my father soon realised that he had no idea where we were. With the commotion that took place we had gone in several circles, totally disorientating ourselves. He had to get on the radio and call a coastal rescue team to come and tow us back to Hobart.

Since that day I haven’t been associated with boats. Whenever I step on board of one I remember lying in a puddle of spew, thoroughly exhausted and staring into the blue throw up bucket. There is a chance that I may be missing out on good things, but it’s a chance I am willing to take.