Navy People: Small boats, big adventures
18 November 2010
Paul Savage grew up in Marsden and his parents Joyce and Graeme still live in Parkinson, over near Mt Gravatt. His brother Graeme (jnr) now operates the billiard shop at McGregor. But for Paul, life has taken a very different turn.
Paul joined the Navy as a junior sailor straight from school, and was already overseas when he celebrated his 18th birthday with shipmates in Hong Kong.
Three years later he was celebrating his 21st in Jakarta, Indonesia. He has delivered patrol boats to Vanuatu, met Prince Charles, and even said g’day to then Prime Minister Paul Keating in Singapore.
And that’s between the fun stuff like intercepting drug smugglers.
Even when Paul was posted to Garden Island naval base near Perth, looking after the environment was a lot tougher than picking up sweet wrappers.
“The island’s environment included tiger snakes and carpet pythons,” said Paul. “They preyed on the local wallabies, called tamars. My job was to pick the snakes up with tongs so the local ranger could weigh and measure them.
“It certainly wasn’t a job I expected!”
By 2007 the Marsden boy sailor had made the great career leap to officer, and now he’s based in Cairns and has specialised as a hydrographer — making maps of the sea.
Between his annual visits home with his wife Susan, Paul is the second in command of HMAS Shepparton, a twin-hulled Navy survey ship that only draws 2.2 metres — very useful in reef-infested waters.
Paul and his shipmates are now making charts for northern waters that haven’t been surveyed since Captain Cook passed that way in 1770.
“The good thing about small boats is the mix between work and play,” said Paul, “And we get some good fishing in too.”
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