Messages from Deep Down

By Ross W Lloyd

A story of adventure as six young adults come of age, .during an epic journey where they try to do something good, .to help motivate the masses, and the resulting drama which unfolds. The quest to them means everything, .and all of them will need to dig deep, if any are to survive, .with more than a touch of feel good and romance along the way. Their attempts to remain positive throughout the ordeal and their ambition to try to help in a Global sense, continued to be true for the six until the very end.

Messages from Deep Down, is written as a first hand memoir story as told by one character, sharing their most inner thoughts throughout the disastrous expedition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Mar 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781504312615

Ross W Lloyd

Ross W. Lloyd was born in in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He spent most of his adult life working in the agricultural machinery, turf care machinery, and rural irrigation industry. He enjoys attending Australian rules football matches and riding motorcycles. This novel is a reflection of a story he developed over the years that remains close to his heart; it is largely unedited to reflect the true passion of the author.

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Copyright © 2018 Ross W. Lloyd.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-1262-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-1261-5 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 04/09/2018

To my wife, ….thank you for being you, and allowing me to be me.

Our duty of care should be, that each of us should strive to leave this place in an even better condition than which we inherited it, better in every regard that is, ….and remember that we are merely custodians, for a very short time indeed. Ross W Lloyd.

S o

here we are, it is still dark, and the sun won’t be up for another three to four hours or so.

How did I get here? How did we all get here? I guess we all have our own truly unique and sometimes fascinating story as to how we arrived on the ‘Snarling Lobster’, but perhaps some of it is not that fascinating really. What a fricking corny name hey, on the ‘Snarling Lobster’, surely someone could have come up with a better name or even a ‘cooler’ name than describing a crustacean’s facial expression.

The Snarling Lobster, a weird name hey, but that’s what they called her, she is a fairly large fishing boat, ….Lobster boat no doubt, quite old and quite rusty in places, ….yet here we are, in the middle of some fricking ocean, trying to do something quite admirable I think, and yet all of us, in our own ways, are totally scared shitless.

The swell is beginning to get a bit rougher now, as predicted to us earlier, and all of us are novices on boats, all of us except that is, for Captain Barney, ….well, we call him Captain Barney, ….he looks nothing like a Captain, and even less like someone who would be called Barney. Truth be known, he is some Filipino guy, the reason we called him Barney is we couldn’t really understand the pronunciation of his name when he said it to us, a couple of times or more, ….we thought with his particular accent, that he said his name was something like Rubble, ….hence he got labelled Captain Barney from us, ….not sure if he understands our sense of humour, but hey, we had a laugh anyway, ….as if his name was Barney Rubble, and laughed we did, ….as we were still likely half pissed at the time.

We do believe that he is a Captain of some sort, but not sure if he is even qualified to operate this size vessel, and we’re dubious about his skill level also, ….because every now and then the ‘ol Captain just yells out something in his native tongue, ….it can’t all be good, ’cause he runs his hands through his very thin jet black hair quite often, and then turns in a circle, anticlockwise for some reason, ….fuck knows why, ….and I could swear I hear him say ‘hey, hey, hey’, ….almost like Fat Albert would say, ….and although we’re shitting ourselves at present, it’s still pretty funny, at least I or we haven’t lost all of our humour, ….we kind of give it to him a bit, but truth be known we are all likely fucked without him.

I can start to tell you the story, about how the six of us came together, on this rickety old boat, I’m not really sure what rickety fully means, or even if a boat can be rickety, but it seems an appropriate word to use at this nervous time. That’s us six plus Barney of course.

I’m sure the swell is picking up further, I’ve got my spew can between my feet, just in case, ….as I’m not feeling well really, I don’t think any of us are.

So there’s me, my name is Luke, and I am the quiet type. I am an introvert, self-confessed to you only as I’ve not shared that admission with anyone before, and quite honestly I am just as happy or happier being by myself at times. Some people think that I’m snobbish, but truth be known I am quite shy, and nervous at times, even self-conscious. I stammer and stutter a bit, which in my younger years was quite difficult, as others made many jokes at my expense. However, just because I’m on the quiet side doesn’t mean I won’t or don’t stand up when needed – which I do; and interestingly enough, some of these dudes who ‘mouth off’ all of the time, are nowhere to be found: when a situation gets a bit tough.

I have a farming background, and had left high school at the age of seventeen, to help on the family beef farm. Not a large farm, but enough for my folks and myself to survive on. Having me work on the farm full time, allowed my folks to ease back a little on their work duties as they aged. I enjoyed my time on the farm, much of the time was spent alone, mending fences, on the tractor, checking stock, travelling to stock auctions, cutting and baling Hay, and the like, ….and while comfortable with my own company, I soon realised that I needed to push myself to interact greater with others more often. Though I was quite insecure in doing this, ….it was the healthy thing for me to do, ….which would eventually lead me to wind up on the Snarling Lobster, some years later.

Having worked on the farm, and with farmers needing to be quite resourceful at times, has allowed me to develop a skill set of being ‘a jack of all trades’, ‘but a master of none’.

Also as part of our group on board; there is Cy, quite a noble fellow really, Isaac who is a bit flighty, Jarryd who is pretty tough and resilient, Stephen who is a bit of a sleaze really, and of course Anabel, the only female on board.

Anabel is quite timid actually in some ways, but shows incredible strength in other ways. She is starting to show signs of early ageing, perhaps it’s just the worry, ….but is still quite a ‘chicky-babe’ honey. I must admit to you that I like her, I like her a lot, I would never tell her, I just think that she is really nice to be with, and she is quite honourable. I think she knows that I like her, because I avoid eye contact with her at times, probably because of my shyness and some nerves, but every now and then she knows that I avoid the eye contact, and I see her with a wry smile, out of the corner of my eye. She’s probably a year older than me, I’m guessing she is thirty-one, and I’ve just recently turned thirty. She tries to be very accurate in all that she does, not wanting to mislead anyone in any conversation, as she tends to fully explain all, and quite sincerely really. I can tell you that she has green eyes, fair complexion, slim, with shoulder-length blonde hair, which has quite a red tinge in it, as the sun catches the colour in a certain light.

In general conversations over recent days on the boat, and even while at shore, I’ve learnt that she majored in University studying English Literature, and has a keen interest in Oceanography.

Sorry I’m rambling a bit, ….it’s just the situation we are in at present.

I wish I was sitting next to her now, because as the swell increases significantly, we could bump into each other, and use each other to support ourselves, ….perhaps I could even get an accidental cuddle, chest to breast, ….’Wouldn’t that be awesome I say to myself’, ….then, I say again to myself, ‘Grow up dickhead, you’re supposed to be an adult, ….a man’.

Sometimes your inner thoughts are confusing hey, especially when under stress.

I guess we all have good thoughts and bad thoughts, and the trick is to catch and keep the good thoughts, and let the bad thoughts go through to the keeper.

The air is quite damp, a touch on the cool side, which to me is a little bit unusual because of where we are on the globe, and what we are doing here, ….a great cause I think, which Barney doesn’t comprehend or understand fully about as yet I’m sure, he’s just trying to get us there, somewhere, and perhaps trying to get some freedom for himself as well, ….or just get away, but I’ll share more on that a little later. I believe he is fleeing something, perhaps something quite mischievous.

Everything in this cabin has a damp feel, not sure if it is the humidity, or how much salty air is floating around, or the constant sea spray, but everything is kind of damp to touch, and almost mouldy at times.

Talk about having a good idea, a courageous idea or two even, but not really thinking it through properly and the consequences thereof, ….well that’s exactly us, and we’re really in the middle of it now, ….by the way Steve just had a bit of a chuck, glad it’s him, as I really care for all the others on board, even Captain Barney a bit, I think, and especially Anabel, ….but not so much Steve.

I wonder if the Captain will go down with the ship, if she goes down or when she goes down, even if he doesn’t own the ship, even if he or we stole the ship, or perhaps mislead staff and authorities to take the ship. Did I say ship? A ship sounds big, but the ‘ol Lobster isn’t that big, especially in these seas, so I best refer to her as a boat, I guess.

As I understand it, the Snarling Lobster was in her time, quite a vessel, ….a deep sea fishing boat, with two cool rooms for the catch, a galley for the many meals to be prepared, three small bunk rooms with two bunk beds in each, a kitchen eating area, two small toilets, a shower, plus some storage areas where I presume the fishermen and perhaps fisherwomen, would store all of their gear, nets, crane gantries, etcetera.

And of course there is the bridge where Barney does his work, which is just upstairs from the kitchen where we are all sitting, apart from Barney, ….we can all see him through the darkness. The swell is too great for any of us to sleep, there are no conversations going on a present, we’re tired, we’re all quite tense as we know what we are in for, and none of us passengers being very seafaring souls at all.

It will be another hour at least before Anabel is due to receive the next call from the media, they’ll have a heap of questions once again, and yes, we’re almost famous, ….I think that’s a title of a movie, ….I think it is anyway, as yes we’re, ….Almost Famous.

I assume that there must be a heap of diesel capacity in these fuel tanks, because after all it is a deep sea fishing boat, that could go out fishing for weeks at a time, ….surely, I think to myself.

It’s probably been a couple of days since Anabel has had a shower, but I don’t really know and she still looks very pretty. I know she said she wants to wash her hair, but then she said something about all the salt in the air would make it frizz. Thinking about showering, ….we should have packed some more towels before we left hey, ….what did I say about us being amateurs?

I mentioned that we’re almost famous, and I’m glad it is Anabel who talks to the media contact, who then records the interview, and puts it to air, ….right around the world as I understand it. I guess I would be nervous talking to the interviewer, though the interviewer or journalist Charlotte and her producer Max, and some sound engineer guy called Jackson all seem very nice, courteous and efficient. Anabel appears to be very organised when being interviewed, very clear and concise in what she puts forward. Yes, we