Word: reefing
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...many. Visitors follow the relaxed, happy life of Australians, splash in the surf that pounds its beaches, and go to see the original Teddy bears at the Koala Bear Sanctuary in Brisbane. More adventurous types can fly out to Hayman Island (round trip: $209) on the Great Barrier Reef, where there is a good hotel ($5 per day) and some of the world's best skindiving and big game fishing, or go on a three-week hunting trip (cost: $210) for monster crocodiles in the lonely Bay of Carpenteria...
Prince Tungi of Tonga believed that the little craft had struck an uncharted reef, capsized and righted herself. "Those aboard," he said, "must have clung to her sides for as long as they were able before the seas washed them away." Why, then, was her compass missing? And her log book? One diehard romanticist persisted in the belief that Dusty Miller had kidnaped his entire ship's company and whisked them away by lifeboat and raft to a desert island to live forever after, free of the perils of divorce courts and bill collectors...
...sullen waters spumed in white fury along the Great Barrier Reef, steely, hidden fingers of coral dug into the bottom of the Endeavour and the hearts of every man aboard. Ordinarily, 18th century seamen panicked fast. Most of them were too superstitious to learn how to swim; they felt it would only prolong the agony of drowning. The only rule of shipwreck and death was to loot the liquor supplies and drink oneself insensible in the short time left to live...
...Juice. In Australia he made a more amusing error. Spotting a strange new hopping animal, he asked the aborigines about it, was answered with the word "Kanguroo" and never learned that the word meant "I don't understand you." After the near shipwreck on the Great Barrier Reef, the Endeavour was badly in need of a drydock, and Cook put in at Jakarta (then Batavia). The two-month stay salvaged the ship but wrecked the crew. Seven men died of malaria and dysentery in the fetid port, another two dozen on shipboard as the Endeavour limped her solitary...
...lions with sad-princess eyes go flitting through the gold and violet depths, as light as swallows in a summer sunset; while under a red reef the huge sea elephants loll and preen themselves like odalisques in a sea god's harem; one of the beauties puckers up to kiss the camera, and the theater rocks as if it had been hit (as in fact it has) by a two-ton buss...