The Otway Reef
Come listen for a moment and a tale I’ll tell to thee,
All of the fearful trip I had, first time I went to sea.
It was a ship of three hundred tons and in fair weather we set sail
With a captain and crew, and some passengers too, and a thousand bottles of ale.

As we left Melbourne town, you know, the girls had all waved to me.
“There goes a sailor lad,” they said, “who bravely sails the sea.”
But the wind as we sailed outside The Heads was a howlin’, roarin’ gale,
And I feared for me life, and the captains wife, and wished I’d never set sail.

We had kegs of nails and sewing machines, rolls of wire and golden rings.
We had portholes all ‘round that you’d swear were gold, and treasure chests fit for kings.
We had rat traps, flywheels, mallets and bicycles, Bibles and rum and whiskey,
But the wind drove us round on the Otway Reef and we struck in a heavy sea.

Well the mizzenmast snapped and the forr’ard house went, and the bow plunged under the tide,
And the owner’s son, James, was caught by a wave, and swept straight over the side.
But as I was washed into the sea, me boys, a kero drum floated by me,
And it kept me afloat like a regular boat in 1873.

The girls of Melbourne town had waved, and a sailor I’d wanted to be.
Now forty lives were lost that night that would never more sail the sea.
The captain had gone to his cabin, you know, as we’d safely sailed through The Rip.
You can master your fortune, but never the sea, if you’ve boarded a sailing ship.
 
Written January 1975 from library research for an ABC schools broadcast on The Otway Reef (no rights given). Interestingly, the producer insisted that I change the "owner's son" into the "cabin boy", and the "kero drum" had to become a "whisky keg" . She must have been reading Boys Own Annuals. The tuning was DADFCD