If I Could be a Pirate, I Definitely Would (be a Pirate)

Goodness, in my rush to share these incredibly fascinating golden memorypearls of the historypast I almost forgot a whole chapter. That being this.

You may recall that whilst we were in the 4,000 Islands at the bum end of Laos, we were on the same site as two Australians, Ross and Deirdre. On the other hand you may not. Either way really, you're here now. 

On one of the long evenings we spent chatting about gadgets and drinking Beer Laos they, naively, said that if we were ever in Surfers Paradise we should drop by. Well, the moment came and we did just that. In fact, we dropped by for a full four days.

Emma and Rick, on the way back to Noosa, dropped us off at Surfers and we had a quick walk around, including having a go on a Buck Rogers toilet that played Burt Bacharach songs at you while you poo.

I had the day of my life, playing in massive waves with other men that seem to do it for serious sport rather than fun. Quite impressive watching the nobheads go.

Helen is scared of waves, more than a slight Achilles heel for a marine biologist, and so sunned herself on the beach whilst I ran around smiling and yelping like a puppy with pedigree chum stuck in its teeth.


Around four o'clock Deirdre picked us up from the main shopping and beachy part of Surfers and took us back to Ross' gaff in the suburbs. It was a really nice house, and Helen was over the moon as he had two cats, Molly and Moet. They were both around four hundred years old. Molly, in particular, was looking slightly worse for wear, but as Ross explained, she probably had the right to...

'She ate about 250 grams of rat poison, fell off the [two storeys up] porch and then got hit by a car. Bit of a miracle she survived any of those really, but she's fine now. Aren't you Molly? [To Molly] You're ugly aren't you Molly? Ugly.'

Molly the Invincible

The next day our hosts had to go to work, so Helen and I explored the area and went down to feed the ducks at the wharf. We got stung by a posh-man's kebabian, charging us 50 cents to a dollar for every different type of salad we wanted. The owner then patronised us by saying, 'I don't know how they do it in your country, but over here this is how it's done.' Bent, you mean, you fucking fuck.

After walking off the anger we returned home to await the antipodeans. Ross had big plans about taking us out on his beloved boat, and the next day all of his dreams were fulfilled. Although in a slightly windier fashion than he'd expected.


We probably shouldn't have gone out on the water, but Ross is a competent seaman (chortle) and it actually made it quite fun. The day was spent reading, looking at rich people's houses and pretending to care about boats, boating and, in particular, Ross's boating boat. 

I was attempting to do things that Ross asked me to do using confusing boat terms such as 'the front of the boat' and 'the red rope'.



That evening we talked about a variety of things. Why you can't call people 'Pakis', even though 'that's what they are'.

The curious incident of the Madeline McCann in the night time. 

(Which, incidentally, I got told off by Emma for mentioning about a month later, saying 'Wouldn't it be good if we found her?' before we went out fore the day, which I thought was a strange thing to be told off for. It would be good, wouldn't it? I mean, she's dead, and it wouldn't be initially very pleasant, but at least we could clear that whole up. Anyway. What was I talking about?)

Ross continuously asked us if we'd ever heard of the most obscure Australian bands, before saying that we'd never heard 'of anyone', then Dancing Queen came on the radio and he asked us if we'd heard of Abba.

'Well, yeah. Of course we have.'

'Oh, so you've heard of someone then!'

'Well, yeah. But Abba were Swedish...'

We also talked about a few of their acquaintances, the most interesting of whom was a gay feller that moored his boat a few up from theirs in the harbour. This chap, in all seriousness (we met him briefly), believes that he won the British National Lottery jackpot when a female friend of his 'played it on the internet'.

This was meant to be two years ago, and he's still waiting for the money. Apparently, the man who writes the cheques was ill, and then his dad died, and an assortment of other mind bogglingly stupid reasons that he hasn't got the money yet. The sad thing is, these are all things that his female friend has told him.

Whilst this is happening he's lending her money, paying for both of them to fly over to England first class (where he surely could have substantiated at least some of the things this conster trickswoman was telling him?) and all sorts. 

Hilarious and tragic at the same time. Like a monkey in a tux killing a man with a banjo.

Considering Helen was reading a book called Live Working or Die Fighting: How the working class went Global, she fit into the rich-white-girl-on-a-boat routine very easily.


We stayed on the boat that evening and I had an asthma attack, my first in about 12 years. It wasn't that bad, but the dust in the little cabin in the boat combined with a nose more blocked than US aid to Cambodia made breathing pretty hard. I got about an hour’s sleep, but on the upside, I saw a super duper sunrise.


The next day we spent mucking about on kayaks and Hel and I attempted to go for a walk along a wooden promenade whilst Ross and Deirdre drove off somewhere on the boat. 

I literally took one step before getting a hundred splinters in my foot, making me as mobile and as friendly as a Reeves vs. Hawkins bare-knuckle brawl.

Deirdre went off for a paddle in the kayak, and went missing for two hours. We honestly thought she'd been dragged out to sea.


Helen, although disappointed in the lack of walking, was then delighted to take out the shards of wood with what she said were tweezers, but felt like more splinters.