Couldn't Call It Unexpected
Pacific Venture
It is hard to hold back a strong tinge of sadness for me here. Up to the age of 14, I was privileged to spend almost all of my school holidays with extended family and friends at Laurieton, where I developed a sort of infatuation wit the port's trawlers. That's what I want to do when I grow up, which of course never happened (no, not the growing up part, although that is debatable...). I would wake in the morning and from my bedroom window, I'd be able to see them putting out to sea, with the comforting thrum of their diesels competing with the early kookaburras and magpies. Id ride my bike to the co-op when they came back in, and the smells of them unloading their catch, and the excitement of the whole process, is still vivid with me.
Around the corner from my grandmother's house, which was next to the river and mangrove swaps, lived Sonny (Alfred) Poole, who captained the Soncerea, which I was lucky enough to go on and steer.
The Soncerea's larger sister vessel was the Pacific Venture, captained by one of Sonny's brothers. The Pacific Venture was the largest trawler in the port., and the Poole family also had a third trawler, the Florence.
Others trawlers that I can remember (and I still have my extremely detailed drawings of them, that I would colour in at the kitchen table), were Kismet, MaryAnne, Duel, Dauntless (which apparently had been used in WW2), Trimmer, Jo Ellen, Jacquelyn, Connie Maria, Laurieton, Sea Queen, Robin Anne, Heather D, Blue Seas, and Diamond V.
There's probably a couple of other pics of Pacific Venture in my images scattered here on Flickr.
Over time, one by one, the fleet disappeared from the port, and for many years the Pacific Venture remained the only one left, as a dilapidating and idle link to my boyhood past - a symbolic reference point to periods of my life when I'm not sure I've ever reached such inner contentedness, aided by a whole adventure world of the Camden Haven River, since,...sort of in a Huck Finn nature.
Anyway, shortly after I'd taken this pic, and upon returning back to Sydney from a quick break, I discovered she was up for sale. I'm sure she's now sold and left Laurieton, and given her deteriorating condition, I haven't got a lot of confidence that she would still be floating and intact.
The times, and a whole lot else, have a-changed. I have utterly no logical reason to feel so forlorn about this image, so jotting down these few words somehow helps.
www.flickr.com/photos/ants47/5637663010
Pacific Venture
It is hard to hold back a strong tinge of sadness for me here. Up to the age of 14, I was privileged to spend almost all of my school holidays with extended family and friends at Laurieton, where I developed a sort of infatuation wit the port's trawlers. That's what I want to do when I grow up, which of course never happened (no, not the growing up part, although that is debatable...). I would wake in the morning and from my bedroom window, I'd be able to see them putting out to sea, with the comforting thrum of their diesels competing with the early kookaburras and magpies. Id ride my bike to the co-op when they came back in, and the smells of them unloading their catch, and the excitement of the whole process, is still vivid with me.
Around the corner from my grandmother's house, which was next to the river and mangrove swaps, lived Sonny (Alfred) Poole, who captained the Soncerea, which I was lucky enough to go on and steer.
The Soncerea's larger sister vessel was the Pacific Venture, captained by one of Sonny's brothers. The Pacific Venture was the largest trawler in the port., and the Poole family also had a third trawler, the Florence.
Others trawlers that I can remember (and I still have my extremely detailed drawings of them, that I would colour in at the kitchen table), were Kismet, MaryAnne, Duel, Dauntless (which apparently had been used in WW2), Trimmer, Jo Ellen, Jacquelyn, Connie Maria, Laurieton, Sea Queen, Robin Anne, Heather D, Blue Seas, and Diamond V.
There's probably a couple of other pics of Pacific Venture in my images scattered here on Flickr.
Over time, one by one, the fleet disappeared from the port, and for many years the Pacific Venture remained the only one left, as a dilapidating and idle link to my boyhood past - a symbolic reference point to periods of my life when I'm not sure I've ever reached such inner contentedness, aided by a whole adventure world of the Camden Haven River, since,...sort of in a Huck Finn nature.
Anyway, shortly after I'd taken this pic, and upon returning back to Sydney from a quick break, I discovered she was up for sale. I'm sure she's now sold and left Laurieton, and given her deteriorating condition, I haven't got a lot of confidence that she would still be floating and intact.
The times, and a whole lot else, have a-changed. I have utterly no logical reason to feel so forlorn about this image, so jotting down these few words somehow helps.
www.flickr.com/photos/ants47/5637663010