Some things stay with you for a long time and other things stay with you forever and with recurring shivers.
One for eternity is the encounter with a saltwater crocodile.
We have been sailing through the area of the crock for two weeks now. An area designated in the warning leaflets as “crock country” with the slogan “be crockwise!”
The Great Barrier Reef is teeming with dangerous inhabitants including sharks, stingrays, sickening jellyfish and deadly water snakes. So there are more brochures and probably that's why you don't see anyone just swimming at those beautiful positions. The saltwater crocodile is by far the nastiest, compared to which our Dutch wolf is a lap dog. Since prehistory, the animal has specialized in turning out body parts so that it can then quietly consume the prey. A simple but very effective trick. Crock bites your arm or leg and then quickly rotates a few circles around his or her axis to remove the body part. Prey has nowhere to go and escape is virtually impossible.
Now I take pleasure in taking a dip in every sea I come across. Growing up on the coast I always want to feel the salt water. And tell yourself how often do you swim in Australia in the Pacific.
One morning when we want to do an anchor exercise at one of the last islands of the Sunday Islands, I thought I'd see my chance to feel the salty water of this ocean and immediately take a walk on the beach. We come to a halt where we want to lie and I lower the anchor when at that moment a large green head turns away and belly appears on the surface. If this crock wants to say "come on here's another hole!" The crocodile smoothly disappears under the surface of the slightly murky water. I stay frozen and can only think “it's not going to be swimming today”. Fortunately, crock warned me. I think he saw my legs and thought “it needs to be greased up first”. Later I see the nose floating quietly above the water a little further on. The next swimming stop is a white beach with palm trees in the Indian Ocean where I read the folder carefully before diving into the water.
Mark
