Surfacing on Collins Street

Friday. The Nautilus opened her hatch in Melbourne today, on Collins Street, and took on her first Victorian expedition.

They came in coats. Melburnians always come in coats, I am told, whatever the weather, and today the weather could not make up its mind either. They hung them in the lockers and stood in the brass light, looking about them as if they had discovered a very good café.

Same Nautilus, same trouble: the groan in the hull, the air that will not last, and the Beast, drawn to the newest submarine in the fleet like a cat to a fresh cardboard box. It found us before lunch. It always does.

Along the corridor the pirates are moored, as in Perth, as in Sydney. I am beginning to suspect they are following me. I have asked Barnacle to keep an eye on them. He has two, on stalks, and is happy to spare one.

Melbourne, welcome aboard. Mind your shoes.