Always the flats were full of locals fishing with tinnies and poking around for oysters or clams, gathering supper in a simple and unassuming commune with nature, seemingly unhurried and unencumbered by all the expensive flashy gear and equipment that Americans seem to feel necessary accoutrements to any outing. We made friends with whole families who floated chattily down river in tubes of an evening sunset, regardless of the crocs “Oh none here, they’re all over on the Bribie Island side!” In the place where I’d grown up, where the Puritan Work Ethic still ruled bone deep, people would signal that they accepted an outsider by saying something like  “A decent, hardworking, honest person”. In Queensland, you knew you were deemed ok when somebody would say “Fair dinkum story teller” or “Makes a smoko go quick”  or “I got time for them”. 

Following the sighting Nick rented a small plane to locate VAL and was set to rent a boat to bring VAL when the police said they had a training exercise nearby and they would tow VAL into Eden. Nick was told not to tell anyone that VAL had been found to avoid salvage claims.  VAL was repaired in Eden about 235 miles south of Sydney. A local man donated to Nick a new full suit of sails that he had kept for his next boat that never came to pass because of ill heath.

While other kids were playing sport, Ms Lambert and her brother spent weekends by their father's side as he built his masterpiece over the next decade. She was a teenager when the boat was finally launched at Mackay Harbour in 1984.