Tin Can Bay Boat Ramp

Tin Can Bay

Queensland

Just after dark.

Dear Santa,

Obviously the stuff I sent you last year about how large your four legged friends look through a telescopic sight hasn’t got through to you. I would think you’d be very keen to keep Dancer and Prancer and Wobbler and Staggerer healthy or you would have done what I asked you to do. You didn’t do it last year, and I’m writing this friendly little note to let you know this is my last warning. If you ignore me this time, there will be repercushio… reperkus… problems for you.

I’m sitting here at the boat ramp watching other people come in from a day’s fishing either in the Strait or over the bar. Some of the people in boats don’t look very happy. Some of the people looked like they’d rather have been eating a vegetarian meal. But that doesn’t matter Santa. That’s not the point. I don’t care if other people don’t seem to enjoy being out in boats.

I want one. You see, the point is Santa, that I asked you for a bigger boat. A better boat. Where is it? What happened? Didn’t you get those threats suggestions that I sent you last year?

And how many times do I have to tell you that you have to ignore whatever the other Dudds tell you about the stuff I’ve done to them… I mean with them… this year? They couldn’t lie straight in a cattle trough.

Doughers, for example was fine about me swapping rods so ignore that. If he says my Bart Simpson rod was hopeless, it’s just not true. His Shimano Calcutta was rubbish too. If he were a better fisherman he would have caught those Spanish macks.

And Pommers and Stuffer? You know they don’t need help to break things on our trips. If things happen, it’s because they’ve started drinking again before we get in the boat at dawn on their way to 170 cartons for the day.

And I didn’t tie knots in Skipper’s lines. You know very well he does that by himself. Then spends the rest of the morning tying his tackle on before losing it straight away on a snag. Or a whiting…

And Boobs doesn’t start drinking early because he actually doesn’t stop at night. In fact, he doesn’t stop during the entire trip, except when he goes to have a shower. Then he comes back to camp really tired. And I know Manboobs kept getting busted off all the time when we were out on the reef fishing for reds and trout. I know it looks suspicious that all the droppers I especially tied for him had little nicks so that they broke easily but that must have just been something else that happened when I was rolling them up or something. Maybe I accidently dragged them over my knife?

So how about it Santa? I’ve been a good boy. A really good boy. Just ask Blossom, my wife. In fact, now I think about it, don’t do that. She’s feeling a little bit… tired at the moment. Those kids of ours really tire her out. Even though they’ve all left home and I’m the only one left. She’s always calling them things like immature, juvenile and childish and other names that I don’t understand.

Also, you might be interested to learn that I heard somewhere that reindeer are on the Greens threatened species list. Maybe they should list Santa’s too, if I don’t get a bigger boat this year.

Anyway, another boat is coming in to the ramp so I have to see whether they’ll let me borrow their boat for the night. So far, no takers. But you never know Santa. Here’s hoping I get one of my own soon. And if I don’t, that long pointy thing with fins and a glowing red light at the back that’s rapidly catching up with your sleigh over Queensland is my present to you.

Kind regards,

Sheik of the Creek

Seriously Santa, I mean it this time, a new boat… or else.