Six months on a leaky boat

Karen East has a passion for the sea. Some would call it an obsession.Straight out of school, Karen jumped on a fishing boat and was out at sea prawning in Bartalumba Bay, Groote Eylandt. A large island on the far east coast of the Northern Territory, this has to be one of the remote places in Australia. She began adept at prawning , working Australia’s northern coast. Darwin, Broome and Port Headland all became temporary stops between long stays at sea searching for prawns and scampi.An opportunity to fish in the orient took Karen’s fancy. Lured by the dream of experiencing exotic locations, cultures and people, she joined a team with half Australian and half Burmese crew and went prawning off the coast of Burma. This turned out to be high intensity fishing, twenty four hours a da , seven days a week. During one shift, Karen spent six months at sea. Numerous boats were involved in the organization. Some were prawning while others resupplied the prawning trawlers. On one occasion, Karen found herself on one of the small supply boats. The motor broke down and the boat just drifted at sea for days. Then the drinking water supply dried up. Karen found herself to be the only English speaking person on the boat, the crew only spoke Burmese. Meanwhile with the motor and refrigeration inoperable, the cargo of seafood in the hold began to rot. The smell was unbearable.Fortunately Karen survived the Burma experience but all the hard work took its toll and she took two years off commercial fishing. Working at a shop at a remote surfing camp in the north west coast of Western Australia was a suitable break.Early in 2000 Karen found herself back fishing, this time drop lining in the Timor Sea for gold band snapper and assorted reef fish. Since then she has cooked on a Paspaley pearling boat, worked the banana prawn season and obtained her Master V fishing ticket.When we caught up with Karen, she had just returned from a Spanish Mackerel sortie and was up to her neck in boat repairs. The motor was out and Karen had an angle grinder in hand tackling rust, a fishing boat’s ever present enemy. As soon as the motor is back in, Karen will be back at sea with the wind in her hair and a smile on her face.