Sheik of the Creek

INTUITIVE CONTROL LIGHT, POWERFUL, DURABLE… INTUITIVE CONTROL

QLD MERCURY DEALERS

ROCKLEA BRISBANE BOATING & LEISURE 1713 Ipswich Road Rocklea P: (07) 3875 1600 E: sales@kareemarine.com.au W: www.kareemarine.com.au

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EVERTON HILLS HOLT MARINE 25 Queens Road Everton Hills P: (07) 3353 1928 E: info@holtmarine.com.au W: www.holtmarine.com.au

CAPALABA MIKES MARINE 9 Smith Street Capalaba P: (07) 3390 3418 E: sales@mikesmarine.com.au W: www.mikesmarine.com.au

SLACKS CREEK AUSTRALIAN MARINE CENTRE 3491 Pacific Highway Slacks Creek P: (07) 3808 7333 E: sales@amcboats.com.au W: www.amcboats.com.au

NOOSAVILLE SUNSHINE COAST MARINE 122 Eumundi Road Noosaville P: (07) 5449 7633 E: sales@sunshinecoastmarine.com.au W: www.sunshinecoastmarine.com.au NORTH ROCKHAMPTON RIFEN BOATS 6 Dooley Street North Rockhampton P: (07) 4927 9150 E: rifen.boats@bigpond.com W: www.rifenboats.com.au

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LIGHT, POWERFUL, DURABLE… Filling up the boxes INTUITIVE CONTROL

BRISBANE The Sheik of the Creek

It’s funny how as you get older you are more and more likely to be put into little boxes by those that profess to know you.

Take me for example. There are occasions when I think my good wife is almost at a point where she can tolerate me in small doses, sometimes as long as four or five minutes. My bad wife never tolerates me. She has one or two little boxes that she places me into. Well, let’s say she opens the little box, places me on top of it, pushes me as far as I will go comfortably into the little box, then places her foot on my head and pushes me into the little box, then gets a mallet to make sure there aren’t any stray pieces still outside the little box. Then nails the lid on.

One of these little boxes has a sign on it suggesting I have a lack of skill in fixing things around the house, shed, yard and boat. ‘Lack of skill’ are my words, her words are more like, ‘you’re a bumbling idiot’.

I like to get into the boat and make little adjustments here and there too: a bait board, or a cover for the batteries or a wooden stubby holder. These are often things that can be bought ready-made, cheap and effective from the local chandlery or tackle shop, but I like to put my personal touch on them. Also, because I tend to make them out of scraps of ply and pine lying around under the house, the mango tree or sometimes even in the shed, they tend to have a home-made look about them. And more often than not, they sometimes work, so the joke is on the Dudds! It’s fair to say there’s a moderate to high level of sniggering when we rock up to one of our weekends and my handiwork is revealed for the first time. Especially from Boobies, just because he’s a builder from Central Queensland he tends to look on my efforts as ‘sniggerable’, which is completely unfair. There are some things in my boat that are not that ridiculous.

Take the bait board I just made. Being a little tired of sniggering, I decided to do the job proper-like. Got new ply, measured twice, cut once with a new drop saw, then tacked together using mostly new wood screws (after I ran out of the cheap ones at the bottom of the toolbox I found under the house), then counterscrewed rod holders on, and to finish off, painted the whole thing with some old wood glue my wife left in the shed a little while ago… I think when Hawkie was PM. I can tell you, the finished result was so good I even surprised myself. It almost looked like something Boobies might make. Admittedly, on VIC MERCURY DEALERS January the 1st, but still. I was so pleased with it, I carted ALBERTON it into the house to show ALBERTON MARINE 39 Johnson Street Alberton my wife. I think she was impressed. She wouldn’t be if she saw that when I dropped P: (03) 5183 2344 it into its place in the boat I F: (03) 5183 2219 realised I hadn’t allowed for W: albertonmarine.com.au the lid of the live bait tank, which now won’t open. But I MELBOURNE BL MARINE don’t plan on telling her. She’d just put me in a box. 612- 614 Plenty Road Preston P: (03) 9478 1420 F: (03) 9470 4638 W: blmarine.com.au MELBOURNE MELBOURNE MARINE CENTRE 92 Hallam South Road Hallam P: (03) 9703 2003 W: melbournemarine.com.au MORNINGTON PENINSULA MY MARINE Cnr Nepean Highway & Ponderosa Place Dromana P: (03) 5987 0900 W: mymarine.com.au

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