Transcript of Episode 1

The Reef

In 2010, a luxury yacht set sail from Australia with a crew of five. One of those on board had been given the task of delivering the vessel to a wealthy customer in Indonesia, and so a few of his friends, carefree and up for an adventure, decided to go along for the ride. Though inexperienced sailors, to reach their destination they had to navigate a difficult path through coral reef. But luck was not on their side. After an unexpected collision with the jagged coral, they found themselves capsized in the Indian Ocean. Sitting on the hull of their overturned vessel, they drifted further and further from land as they made up their minds what to do. Believing the best chance of survival was to swim to nearby Turtle Island, four of the group decided to make a go for it before the currents carried them any further away. By the time a fishing boat happened to come to the rescue the next day, only one of the original five who had set out on the journey from Australia was still alive. All of the others had come to a nasty end in the jaws of a shark that seemed to pursue and hunt them as they attempted to reach the refuge of Turtle Island. The chilling story spread around the world. The thought of finding oneself in the same situation spoke to a primal fear rooted deep in the human psyche. Luckily, the end of the film brought relief to terrified audiences squirming in their cinema seats. Proclaimed the scariest shark thriller since Jaws, The Reef, directed by Andrew Traucki, was considered a critical, if not a commercial success. Since its release it’s often been ranked alongside Spielberg’s 1975 classic and Open Water as one of the best shark movies ever made. The use of actual video of sharks, rather than CGI, combined with footage of the actors in the sea created the feeling of realistic terror to live up to its dark and ominous poster line- ‘Pray You Drown First’. Yet the most unsettling thing is that, as the opening credits announce, The Reef was based on true events.

On the Friday evening of July 22nd 1983, the New Venture prepared to set off from the tropical city of Townsville in North Eastern Australia. The captain of the 14 meter prawn trawler was Ray Boundy, young for the role at 27, but already a father of two and a hardy seaman. His second captain was Denis Murphy, nicknamed Smurf, a 23 year old deckhand from Brisbane. Smurf was known to friends and family as a bit of a ‘larrikin’- a young man living a footloose lifestyle, drifting from place to place and always looking out for the next good time. Denis’s girlfriend, Linda Horton, was at only 21 the youngest of the trio and served as the onboard cook. Trips would usually see the crew spend a couple of weeks at a time at sea. Often resting or doing odd jobs most of the daylight hours, this mundane routine was but the calm before the storm. At the onset of dusk they would begin casting their nets, working full on through the night in order to land a decent catch. The setting off and leaving friends and family behind could be one the hardest parts of the job, and on that Friday, Linda, or Lindy, as friends affectionately called her, was even more reluctant than usual. She was a particularly superstitious person and the wind that was picking up on the docks of Townsville seemed a bad omen to her. Her parents, sensing her apprehension, had tried to convince her to pull out of the trip, but Lindy, who they knew had a stubborn streak in her, had resolved to tough it out. No matter what they said she wouldn’t be persuaded otherwise. Without wasting any time, the New Venture departed. They were headed for the rich commercial fishing grounds that lay between Townsville and The Great Barrier Reef, knowing the sooner they got down to work, the sooner they could get back to their loved ones on dry land.

The wind which had unsettled Lindy on leaving port refused to relent, and by Sunday evening waves had started building. By that night, the New Venture was in heavy seas, the small trawler being tossed about in the swell. There would be no reprieve. Some time after midnight, they felt the force of a huge wave swamp them. Dennis, on deck getting drenched by the waves, dived into the sea as the boat went down. Ray and Lindy were in the wheelhouse, the captain trying desperately but failing, to keep them steady in the wild seas. Temporarily trapped as they capsized, the pair eventually managed to break out and join Smurf threading water. The three pulled themselves onto the overturned hull, wondering what to do. From the coordinates they’d taken just before The New Venture capsized, they knew they were roughly 90km from their home of Townsville and around 45km from Palm Islands. Items on board were floating alongside them and they did their best to gather together anything useful from the wreckage- a surfboard, a life ring, some Styrofoam boxes for storing prawns, and a beer cooler. Lashing a rope around the collected debris, they fashioned a very basic life raft. It was now Monday morning and though the sun was already up, they couldn’t see any land on the horizon. Nevertheless, knowing there were a number of reefs to their east, they fancied their chances. The three of them held onto their improvised raft and started paddling in that direction. Although being July it was winter in the southern hemisphere, the water temperature in The Coral Sea stayed warm, at around 23 degrees Celsius, so they had no immediate worries of hypothermia. The milder air temperatures meant they could probably even avoid the worst sunburn that can devastate shipwreck victims. Ray, Lindy and Smurf knew progress would be slow, but they tried their best to stay positive as they began their long journey.

It was on that Monday night the shark appeared. It was a large tiger shark, around 5 meters in length. Unlike the great white shark, the tiger has what’s called a nictitating membrane, a kind of translucent eyelid that can slide down and cover the eye. Also found in animals such as crocodiles and birds of prey, in tiger sharks this film enhances their vision in low-light conditions, making them supreme nocturnal predators. So although Ray, Smurf and Lindy could see the shark, it could see them much better. Boundy, as an experienced fisherman, was familiar with sharks and felt, as is often the case, if he and his shipmates didn’t provoke it, it might leave them alone and move on. Rough seas had dismantled their raft over the previous day, but had finally eased off, and they still had a few remaining items to help them stay afloat. So, cautiously, with one eye over their shoulders, they continued onward together. Their progress was soon halted when Boundy felt a quick movement under the surfboard. Instinctively, just as the shark nipped his left knee, he kicked out at it with his other leg. Luckily for Ray Boundy, it was only a test bite and the bulky figure below retreated. Lacking hands, but having extremely sensitive snouts and jaws, many shark species will investigate unusual objects in the water to determine what they are. The bite sends a rapid report to the brain on the size, texture and makeup of the object, but Boundy’s kick had interrupted this process. As quickly as it had come in, it was gone, leaving Ray, Smurf and Lindy grappling uneasily through the dark water, fighting off a growing sense of dread.

Ten minutes later the shark reappeared a watchful distance away. Casually its fin dipped below the surface. There was an uncertain pause, broken suddenly when Smurf screamed ‘He’s got my leg! The bastard’s got my leg!’ Having worked before, Boundy shouted ‘Kick him! Kick him!’ Grabbed by the calf, Smurf kicked downwards blindly with his free leg. It proved futile, his foot only hitting the shark’s hard jaws and snout as it held him tightly. With a sudden yank, the deckhand was pulled below the surface, momentarily disappearing. He popped back to the surface a moment later, having been let go. Denis Murphy realized then that his leg was gone, and soon, so did Boundy and Lindy, as the water around them darkened. Their first instinct was to get a tourniquet and tie it, but they had nothing of use. The bite had completely demoralized the group, having struggled so determinedly all that Monday, and they didn’t know what to do. Soon the situation got worse, when the shark appeared again. ‘What do you want to do?’ Boundy asked desperately. With his leg continuously bleeding, Smurf knew he was done for. He looked at Boundy and Lindy, ‘You bolt. Gather in all the stuff. Leave me’. With brave resolution, hoping to lure the shark away, Murphy said goodbye, pushed off and swam in the opposite direction. As the two remaining crew members swam off towards the reef, with an instantly regrettable glance back, they saw the shark turn back on Murphy and lift him out of the water. Ray and Lindy looked away.

Traumatized by what had happened, Lindy screamed uncontrollably. She seemed unable to function after the shock of losing Dennis. Boundy, reeling too, worried they mightn’t be able to recover from the loss. Faced with no option but to go on however, he felt the first flames of a survival instinct igniting. The captain shook Lindy to try get her out of her shock, telling her they owed it to Dennis to survive. Eventually, the worst of the panic subsided and Lindy was able to continue on. Boundy calculated that if they kept going they’d reach the reef by morning and tried to keep Lindy’s spirits up as best he could. Sunrise was still a few hours off though.

Within two hours, the shark came back. Was it the same one? They felt almost certain it was and that they just couldn’t shake it off. There was an eerie familiarity to the long sashaying fins that signaled its return. Ray and Lindy silently watched it circle around them, grabbing one another’s hand tightly for whatever reassurance could be squeezed out of such a situation. The pair were physically and emotionally drained from swimming and shock and could do little more than follow the shark’s movements with their glazed eyes. After a minute, almost lazily, it swept in towards Lindy, who was sitting in the life ring. It grabbed her around the arms and chest. With her last bit of energy she could only let out a tiny squeal. Boundy was completely helpless as the shark shook Lindy. It was a small mercy that she was quickly motionless.

Boundy paddled on towards the reef, totally numbed by now. It felt inevitable, when the shape of a tiger shark drew near, observing him from a short distance. At that point, Boundy was almost too drained to feel an appropriate level of fear, knowing only one thing- that he had to survive. Seeing Lodestone Reef in the distance he swam on, trying to keep the shark at bay, edging ever closer to salvation. With the help of a sudden large wave, Boundy was pushed towards the edge of Lodestone, and with a last big effort he scrambled ashore, scraping his skin against the rocks and rough coral as he pulled himself onto the ledge. Flat on his belly, Ray burst into manic laughter, a feeling of triumph and relief washing over him. But the outpouring of joy was all too brief, and all at once the gravity of the ordeal hit home, reducing him to floods of tears. Sobbing and almost delirious, he began to make out the sounds of rotary blades. From high above he’d been spotted making his way to safety. At 10.40am on Tuesday morning, a Royal Australian Air Force helicopter winched Ray Boundy up from Lodestone Reef. Six planes and most of Townsville’s trawler fleet had been searching a 13,000sq km area for the shipwrecked crew since Sunday evening, after no reply had been received from the New Venture following a routine radio call near Broadstone Reef.

When finally rescued, Boundy had been in the water for an incredible 36 hours, though with his raw skin, dehydrated lips and sun bleached hair, beard and brows, he looked like he had spent decades marooned on a desert island. In hospital he was treated for cuts and exposure but went on to make a full physical recovery.

In spite of the horrors he’d endured in those 36 hours, nothing could keep Ray Boundy on dry land. ‘The sea is my life’ he told journalists, ‘I’m going back’. As it would turn out, the sea was not finished with him yet either. Returning the favor, perhaps, Boundy was in the news again within months, when captaining The Shamrock, he rescued three trawlermen whose ship had run aground near where the New Venture had sunk. Still, the shadow of the catastrophe would continue to follow him. By the mid-eighties in an interview with The Sunday Press, Boundy hit out at what he called ‘vicious rumor and gossip’ about what happened back in July 1983. As the sole survivor and with such a dramatic tale, it is perhaps inevitable that some in Townsville were drawn to speculate on the supposed ‘real’ version of events. Was the band-aid covered cut on his left knee actually a shark bite? Had one shark really pursued Boundy and his friends over so many hours? Could the story, in truth, be a cover for some altercation or other sinister event that had happened on board the New Venture? Unfortunately, for both Boundy’s defenders and the gossipers, only he will ever know for certain if his account is a fisherman’s tale or not. Yet, though a truly remarkable story, in fact, it doesn’t stand alone in the history of shark encounters, even considering just the state of Queensland alone.

On a Friday night in 1977, near Moreton Bay, Shun Oh, a 25,000 ton Japanese freighter unwittingly smashed into a 9 meter boat completely destroying it. The three men on board the launch had been enjoying a leisurely fishing trip, but Verdon Harrison, John Hayes and Victor Beaver found themselves dumped in the water, clinging to nothing but a floating ice-box. Through Saturday and most of Sunday they held on for dear life, battling the elements, until the arrival of a different kind of danger- sharks. Victor Beaver was the first of the men targeted, dragged off by an enormous tiger shark, perhaps almost 6 meters long. Some hours later, Hayes was pulled off the side of the ice-box and in the ensuing struggle his arm was torn off. Despite brave resistance, he was defeated shortly after, when the shark came back for a second, fatal strike. Miraculously, Verdon Harrison was rescued by a charter fishing boat, whose crew watched stunned from the deck, as the castaway scrambled to get into the ice-box and escape a shark which was trying to pull him out. He had minor bites on his feet and legs but incredibly he survived.

Near the town of Yeppoon in 1988, five years after the sinking of Ray Boundy’s New Venture, another disturbing Queensland sea disaster occurred. A father, Cecil Coucom and two sons, James who was 33 and Bruce, 17, ended up evacuating onto a compact 4 meter dinghy, after their boat started sinking in stormy weather. Constantly swamped by rough waves, they had to take turns with two in the dinghy and one in the sea alongside it in order to steady the tiny vessel. After 24 hours, the two men heard their father’s voice from the water- ‘Shark! It’s got me!’, but in spite of being quickly pulled into the dinghy by his sons, he died almost immediately from the bite. The next day, delirious and exhausted, Bruce let go of the dinghy. Helplessly, James watched as his younger brother drifted listlessly into the path of a shark and was fatally wounded. Help came in the nick of time for him, the rescue pilot spotting the young man, cowering in the dinghy, as it was repeatedly rammed by two tiger sharks- both much larger than the vessel itself. The police at Yeppoon initially dismissed James Coucom’s story of his father and brother being taken by the sharks as ‘patent nonsense’. Only with the testimony of his rescuers did the gravity of what had taken place sink in.

In each of these three disasters off the Queensland coast, the presence of tiger sharks was recorded by eyewitnesses. Roaming in tropical and subtropical oceans, tigers are well known for their voracious appetites and a willingness to eat almost anything they come across given the right circumstances. These traits and their preference for targeting weak or injured animals, has earned them the unflattering moniker of ‘sea thugs’ in various documentaries and news coverage. However, to suggest these sharks are mindless man-eaters would be very far from the truth. Humans are certainly not their natural food source and are usually either ignored completely or dismissed after one investigate bite. According to The Global Shark Attack File, of the only 20 confirmed tiger shark bites in Australian waters since the New Venture disaster in 1983, 15 of those bitten survived. Considering the great size and power imbalance between a tiger shark and a human being, the survival rate suggests mistaken identity or a warning bite in most cases, rather than a true predatory attempt. In recent years ever more insights have emerged to paint a nuanced picture of these large ocean carnivores. In many cases, divers have had positive, memorable experiences with tiger sharks, a species that can, in the right setting, be curious, peaceful, or even friendly. Some scuba divers, like conservationist Jim Abernethy, have even formed close bonds with individual tigers, growing familiar enough with the animals to be trusted to remove fishing hooks from their mouths and pet them affectionately. In spite of this, tiger sharks are, like any wild animal, still very capable of acting outside of our control. In certain circumstances such as a shipwreck a hungry tiger may opportunistically prey upon a person floating at the surface of the water displaying signs of panic or distress, as the crew of the New Venture found out to their detriment.

Captain Ray Boundy continued skippering trawlers after 1983, but it definitely wasn’t all plain sailing for him. Incredibly, Boundy was again shipwrecked with two crewmates in 1988. Abandoning their trawler, Miss Shoalhaven, they took to a life raft in 2.5 metre seas and whipping winds just after midnight. As they were beginning to fear history might be about to repeat itself, the three sailors were spotted by a search plane off Great Keppel Island and airlifted to safety. Whether Ray Boundy is one of the luckiest or the unluckiest seafarers is certainly up for debate.

With the story of The Reef it may actually be a case of fact being stranger than fiction. The film’s director Andrew Traucki agreed, telling interviewers that often, ‘reality is far more intriguing’. While movies have a neat beginning and an end, the memories of those 36 hours in The Coral Sea live on to haunt the lone survivor. On the general release of the film in 2011, Ray Boundy told The Sunday Mail ‘if it is remotely like what happened on that day it will cause pain.’ The former captain has since packed in the business of prawn trawling and spends his days as guardian, ferry operator and curator at Cape Cleveland Lighthouse. His beard is white now and he’s married with several grandchildren. He says he thinks about Smurf and Lindy every day, always grateful for having survived and being able to enjoy the opportunities that his shipmates lost. Carmel and John Murphy, Dennis’s mother and brother, took pride in the fact that he died a hero and were thankful that Ray Boundy had lived to tell the tale. A plaque and monument has since been erected by family and friends in a little memorial park in Townsville to pay tribute to Dennis Murphy and Linda Horton. On the plaque are engraved the words: ‘greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for friends’.