Montebello Islands

No.63. in my series of short stories,

Montebello Islands

Fancy a swim somewhere a little different? Set your navigation course to Montebello Islands, we arrived we swam and we drank copious amounts of whatever liquid we could find.

Sitting on the beach for days in the heat painting drawing and keeping an eye on the kids. The ocean is not one of my favourite things to paint but there wasn't much else around except sand and waves, waves and more bloody waves and I definitely didn't want to paint old nuclear rusted buildings sitting up high on the sand dunes overlooking the Indian Ocean.

Above I have my first ever wave painting, its ok but not for me I am so much into landscapes.

The Montebello Islands, are an archipelago of around 174 small islands (about 92 of which are named) lying 130 km (81 mi) off the Pilbara coast of North-Western Australia. The islands were the site of three British atmospheric tests for nuclear weapons in 1952 and 1956. There are remains of concrete bunkers, monitoring stations, roads and scrap metal on some islands. There are still slightly elevated radiation levels at test sites on a couple of the Islands.

OUR TRIP! Two friends of ours purchased an old tug boat to start up a business called Mermaid Marine. Mermaid Marine is now a large company on the stock exchange. Anyway back to the 1980's when it all started. Purchasing the tug from Hamersley Iron and it needed a lot of work to make it sea worthy again, so local tradesmen known to the new owners pitched in to restore it giving up many hours to do so. My husband was the electrician on the restoration job so when finished the prize was that all the helpers would be invited to go on the finished tug for a holiday to the Montebello Islands with their families.

About 50miles out to sea the air conditioning broke down and it was stinking hot and the humidity was horrendous, night time was approaching and no way could anyone sleep below deck even though we did try. I can't remember how many people there were but I do remember how uncomfortable it was. The boat had several scuppers which are an opening in the side walls of a vessel or an open-air structure, which allows water to drain instead of pooling within the bulwark or gunwales of a vessel. Many of us brought our mattresses from below up on to the deck, so every time a wave came the deck got flooded and so did our bedding and of course all of us.

Arriving on an island was a relief after enduring conditions at sea. Being able to finally get off the boat and escape the discomfort was a very welcome change.

What a shit of a boat trip.