Old sea dog recounts three years stuck on reef near Cooktown

For three years in the late 1980s English sea dog, Dick Brooks, eked out an existence with his wife and newborn baby on a stricken trawler stuck high and dry on a reef near Cooktown.

FOR three years in the late 1980s steadfast English sea dog, Dick Brooks, eked out an existence with his wife and newborn baby on a stricken Arctic trawler stuck high and dry on an isolated reef off Cooktown.

Fast forward 30 years, Mr Brooks from the relative safety of his UK home reflects on the halcyon days at the helm of the famous ship that was once scouted by film makers as a ring-in for the ill-fated Rainbow Warrior.

Four decades after a cyclone tossed the ship up on the reef another colourful marine identity Ryan Moody has recorded images revealing the march of time through stunning drone images.

The 57m trawler built in 1947 is slowly being reclaimed by Mother Nature after running aground at Emily Reef, 40km southeast of Cooktown in 1987.

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The ship’s skipper, Mr Brooks, became a Great Barrier Reef oddity and popular with tourists but was despised by authorities who failed to convince the rogue skipper to quit his post.

“It will take the entire Aussie navy and air force to sink me,” he told the Fleet St press in the late 1980s.

How the ship came to be on the reef and what happened next can’t be told without the detailing the extraordinary life of skipper Richard Brooks.

English-born, Mr Brooks began his adult life with a stint with the police in the UK town of Ipswich before losing interest in law enforcement to acquire a 35m trawler and set sail for the Persian Gulf.

He sold the ship to a wealthy Arab in Dubai and was employed to service his fleet and assist with smuggling sly grog.

The skipper returned to the UK in 1975, brought the Rainbow Warrior’s sister ship, the Debut, and embarked on a tour of the South Pacific where he fell in love and married an 18-year-old Samoan barmaid, Mariana.

Mr Brooks then sailed to Cairns where he learnt about interest in the ship from film makers shooting a movie about the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by French saboteurs.

Mariana gave birth to her second child Robbie at Cairns Hospital and returned to Samoa but not before an unorthodox start to the baby’s life.

“Mariana and baby lived on board Debut while on Emily Reef for 11 months,” Mr Brooks said.

On the bridge of the MV Debut in the early 1980s. Dick Brooks' wife Mariana is holding a monkey called Bear. The skipper ended up killing the monkey to stop it biting baby Robbie while the ship was stranded on Emily Reef. Picture: Supplied

“By then, Mariana’s breast feeding wasn’t enough for him, and there wasn’t any food on-board to ween a healthy baby boy. There was plenty of fresh fish on the reef, and I always carried a freezer filled with rice to feed rescued seafarers, being a salvage vessel, but no baby food.”

So mum and baby left the ship for Samoa and the old sea dog was left alone with his maritime mistress.

MV Debut Dick Brooks lived on the wrecked ship for three years before returning to England. Picture: Ryan Moody Fishing

“Debut has been more faithful to me than any bloody woman,” Mr Brooks said at the time.

This week the old seafarer, now 76, said tropical days spent in company with a resident hammerhead shark, growing his own food on deck and chatting to passing fishermen was still fresh in his mind.

“Of the 12-year voyage of Debut around the tropical world, I still think about the three years that I spent on board her looking at Mount Cook, only 25 miles to the northwest,” he said.

This week the War on Wrecks program that was started in 2018 achieved a major milestone when the 1000th wreck was removed from the water. It comes after Marine Safety Queensland oversaw the removal of another 197 vessels from the state’s waterways last year, including a 34m ex-navy patrol vessel in the Far North.

The Cairns Post campaigned for a clean-up of wrecks, particularly abandoned boats in Trinity Inlet but so far the iconic MV Debut at Emily Reef has not been targeted.

Originally published as Old sea dog recounts three years stuck on reef near Cooktown