Pearling boats once roamed the seas off Queensland. Crews remember dangers, good times
/ By Amanda CranstonThe crusty calluses on Jeffrey Bob's aged hands are long gone and the thick rope that cut deep into his palms has been replaced by the smooth handle of a wooden walking stick.
But the soulful tunes he once sang with his crewmates are etched into his brain.
Life onboard pearling boats was treacherous, but for a boy on the cusp of manhood, he saw it also as an adventure.
"The boats would all pull up next to each other and we would all sing and dance," he says.
"I have a lot of happy memories from that time."
Jeffrey Bob was just 16 when fresh out of school in 1960, the Torres Strait Islander scored a gig onboard the trochus shell boats and pearling luggers that roamed the seas off far north Queensland.
"I started as a cook first, then a deckhand, then became a middle tender where I looked after the life of a diver," the 78-year-old says.
"I looked after the rope when the diver was on the bottom collecting shells."
For the divers trawling the ocean's floor, Mr Bob had their lives in his hands.
One slip of the rope could mean the difference between life and death.
Mr Bob was happier staying dry while those below the surface faced danger at every turn.
"If a shark showed up, three divers would come together so the bubbles would stay in one place and they would make noise to scare the shark away," Mr Bob says.
Working with danger, time limits
The role of a shell diver wasn't for the faint-hearted.
Wearing helmets as heavy as a medieval suit of armour, they had one hour to fill their baskets with pearl or trochus shells. Beyond that time limit, they would run out of oxygen.
Meanwhile, it would be the crew's job to pull the 400-kilogram treasure back up to the surface.
It was a risk William Busch, now 85, was willing to take when he started diving in the 1950s as a 16-year-old.
"We had to be brought up slowly to avoid getting the bends (or decompression sickness)," he says.
Divers can suffer the bends after surfacing when bubbles can grow in tissue, causing local damage, or bubbles enter the lung circulation.
"You come up slowly or you'd be like a fish, everything comes out through their mouth when you pull a fish fast from deep water."
Superstition ruled the seas, where the crew numbers were carefully counted over to avoid tempting fate, no matter how irrational the fear was.
"Never 13 on the boat as this is [a] bad luck number," Mr Bob says.
"If there was not 14, [the] crew then we would take one dog or one pig on the boat to make up 14.
"Brothers couldn't be on the same boat either as that was bad luck too, so they had to crew on different boats."
Hunt for pearl shells
The pearl shell industry took off in northern Australia in the late 1800s.
It wasn't pearls that were sought after, but the shells to export to the European market.
Historian Sandi Robb, executive officer of the Cairns Historical Society and Cairns Museum, says the shells were used to make buttons and other luxury items.
"They would send the large shells to Hong Kong and the artisans would make them into beautiful works of art and lovely brooches, jewellery and decorative ware," she says.
"If you had friends come over, you would get your jam spoon out with your pearl shell handle and your best crockery and entertain because it was a prestige."
The industry pumped a lot of money into the region, but it was also built on the exploited labour of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers.
For crew members like Mr Busch, who grew up on Thursday Island, the pay was low and the food was scarce.
"Only a piece of damper for breakfast and lunch and for dinner we had whatever meat was within the shell, cooked up and served with rice or tinned meat," he says.
"We all slept on the floor in the timber cabin underneath on palm leaf mats with a pillow and a blanket.
"Sometimes you were so tired, you would just fall asleep."
Dr Robb says the crews' knowledge of the seas was passed down through the generations and that made the voyages successful.
"Western people use maps for navigation but the Torres Strait Islanders and Indigenous used different methodologies using the stars," Dr Robb says.
"They would sing a lot on the boats, but it wasn't just singing for singing's sake, they were mapping the reef and each song helped them know exactly where they were.
"Their songs were how they passed down their navigation skills."
Dr Robb says the invention of plastic buttons signalled the demise of the pearl shell industry in north Queensland.
Ensuring their stories live on
Jeffrey Bob and William Busch still remember the songs that guided them across the water all those decades ago.
"We were like one big family," Mr Bob says.
Descendants like Nerelle Nichol fear their stories and knowledge will be lost over time.
Ms Nichol's grandfather, Fred Walters Senior, also known as Papa Zitha, was a skipper on pearl and trochus shell boats in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
"There are only a few people remaining from those days who can give firsthand insight into what it was like working on the boats and I want the elders to share their stories," she says.
Ms Nichol recently curated an exhibition called Lugger Bort dedicated to the Aboriginal, Torres Strait and South Sea Islanders who worked on the pearling, beche-de-mer and trochus shell boats in far north Queensland.
"The pearl shell industry is an important part of Queensland’s history," she says.