A Yacht Called Erewhon Read Free

argue. In the glimmer of the lighter we inspected the interior, and apart from the gaping hole and thirty or forty years of mud and straw caked under-foot, the rest of the hull seemed in remarkable condition, with all the varnish and fittings still intact.
    Back outside, Dad pulled out his pocket knife and bounded up onto the hull beside the keel stub. ‘I wonder what happened to the keel,’ he said as he thrust the blade into the timber around the remains of the keel bolts. ‘By the look of the bolts, it was ripped off when she foundered.’ He turned and looked towards the ocean. ‘It’s probably out there somewhere.’
    He grinned as each thrust of the knife met solid opposition. The old timber was in remarkable condition. ‘By crikey, Ben, she’s as solid as a rock! I reckon we could get her floating again.’
    ‘But she may not be for sale,’ I replied, to deaf ears.
    Dad’s brain was racing. ‘Let’s try and work out how we’re going to get this old girl out of here.’
    Dad slid back down the hull and landed feet-first. He continued around the hull, prodding and poking at the old timber, and with each thrust his smile grew even wider. ‘I wonder who owns her.’
    I grinned. ‘I bet whoever owns the hay will have a good idea.’
    ‘Yeah, you’re probably right.’ Without another word, he was off down the track, in the direction of the farm.
    I hurried after him, trying to catch up. The bush gave way to the beautiful rolling pasture of a large cattle farm, but there wasn’t another person to be seen. For that matter, there wasn’ta farmhouse or shed either. Some large, unfriendly-looking dry stock were grazing in the paddock, and after eyeballing one of the bigger members of the herd we decided discretion was called for and so returned to see how the glue was drying on the keel.
    Erewhon wasn’t going anywhere, and we still had about a kilometre to row once we’d relaunched the skiff. Dad decided to ask Hepi who owned the farm and if he knew anything about how Erewhon had ended up there.
    As we headed back to the skiff, we detoured past the giant upturned hull for another look. Dad was jabbering away about the endless possibilities when we owned Erewhon. He was babbling so much, he didn’t hear me when I called to him to stop as we neared the hull. I’d been looking ahead through the bush, and I thought I’d seen someone go through the hole in the side—a Maori girl in a black bikini bottom, drying her hair on a white towel. I tugged at Dad’s shoulder. ‘Did you see that?’
    ‘Did I see what?’
    ‘The topless babe who just walked into Erewhon. ’ My heart raced as I sprinted the last hundred metres to where I’d last seen her.
    ‘You’re dreaming, son. You’ve been out in the bush too long!’
    ‘I know what I saw. She was gorgeous, she was standing right here, and she went in there,’ I said, pointing into the hull. I snatched the lighter out of Dad’s hand as he produced it from his pocket and flicked it on as I dived into the inky blackness. I couldn’t see anybody in the faint glimmer of the lighter in the upturned saloon, so I stumbled my way past the hay bales towards the stern. Still nobody.
    I called out, ‘Is anyone here?’ There was an eerie silence. ‘Don’t be scared. We won’t hurt you. We just want to know who owns the yacht. Can you help us?’ The blackness remainedsilent as I used the flickering lighter to scour the hull.
    ‘You’ve been rowing too hard over the last few days, and your eyes are playing tricks.’
    ‘But Dad, I know what I saw!’
    ‘Yeah, yeah, a real beauty, was she?’ he said with a smirk. ‘Come on, let’s get back to the skiff. A good night’s sleep’ll do you the world of good.’
    Dad headed back out of the hull, and I was reluctantly following when something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. On top of one of the bales of hay was the white towel and a black bikini top.
    ‘Dad!’ I yelled. ‘Look at