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It didn’t take long for the boat to sink but fortunately it settled on a rock bar at low tide. There was a 25-metre
dory, which they used to run nets and shoot crocs out of. George climbed into it and started throwing in what
was needed. Eric Worrell was with them on the trip collecting sea snakes for his aquariums in New South Wales.
He had a few venomous snakes that got loose in the melee of the sinking boat. Sugarbag and Sam, Aboriginal
crew members, watched from the safety of the dory and gave a commentary to George about the event: ‘watch out
it’s going to sink, it’s going to sink’, but then exclaimed, ‘Tobacco, tobacco—get the tobacco!’ Once George got
the tobacco they were no longer interested, until they started yelling ‘snake, snake, snake, get out quick!’ It took
George and Jim, who was a shipwright, a week to cut the damaged plank out and replace it with a new plank and
to caulk it while George pulled the motor apart cleaned it and got it back together again and working. They were
960 kilometres from Darwin without any radio contact. This trip yielded 150 crocodile hides.
With the drought of 1951–1952, barramundi became scarce and the partnership of Haritos and Edwards broke
up. George and his brothers, Ningle, Michael and Jack bought Victory and two other pearling tuggers, Torbul and
Fram and went pearling. Victory was renamed Despina and it had Greeks from Kalymnos as divers, but they were
not used to the pearling systems and the strong currents. So Japanese Okinawan divers who were very systematic
workers and good seamen and proved the best pearl divers replaced them. The market was for mother-of-pearl
shell and the pearls were a bonus. Shortly after the Haritos’ brothers had started pearling, the bottom fell suddenly
out of the market with the introduction of plastic buttons. The Okinawans had to be repatriated which was an
expensive business. George went fishing in Torbul and the barramundi and the sale of the pearling shore base
helped pay the pearling debts.
The fishing industry was in its infancy and George would sometimes fill up in one day with over 2 000 kilograms
of barramundi. The fishing did pay well with interstate markets. It really kicked off with the use of nylon nets
of about 18 centimetre mesh and interstate markets. Interstate markets for whole fish airfreighted to Sydney,
Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane were established by Ningle (Nicholas), George’s brother, who did a tour of
the capital cities promoting barramundi and setting up contacts for supply. About 27 000 kilograms of barramundi
were exported in a season.
In 1955 George and his brothers were asked to take the Duke of Edinburgh and his aide-de-camp, Michael
Parker, out crocodile shooting. Despite a storm warning the Duke shot a two metre crocodile with spotlight and
was noted to be a very good shot. For decades George had a crocodile he called ‘Albert’ in his back yard.
In 1963 George with his uncle, Louis Harmanis, bought the ketch Betty Joan. She was 105 feet long, with
121 metric ton capacity and had been used for carrying wheat. George sailed her up the east coast from Port Adelaide
to Darwin. From 1964 to 1970 George had contracts for oil surveys, and had a trip to Timor for sandalwood.
He then obtained a contract to supply the settlements as they were called then: Bathurst Island, Garden Point
Snake Bay, Goulburn Island, Croker Island Maningrida, Milingimbi, Elcho Island and Gove (Nhulunbuy). In 1971
he put a huge freezer into Betty Joan and went fishing in the Roper River; he was doing very well until 1974 when
Cyclone Tracy claimed her in Frances Bay.
Barge Express offered George a job as Master of one of their barges and he worked for them for two years
initially from 1975 to 1977. During those years he was Master on the barges Alana Faye and Glenda Lee. In late
November 1975 George was master of Alana Faye on the return trip from Dili (Timor) when he and the crew found
a Timorese refugee swimming in rough seas several miles from the Timor coast. He had been in the water for at
least 12 hours and was very lucky to have been found as the currents were not in his favour George said. His name
was George Remedios (Rocha) and he was brought back to Darwin where he was re-united with his sister who was
living and working in Darwin and granted a seven-day visa. He was later re-united with his wife, two children and
mother who were living in Perth. He and his family live in Darwin to this day.
George had to formalise his knowledge and experiences and go back to school (in Queensland) to sit for his
Master’s ticket, which he obtained in 1976. In 1977 he started to work for Perkins Shipping as First Mate and
eventually Master on the coastal barges Warrender and Fourcroy. Barge Express and Perkins barge operations
had taken over from George’s owner/operator local coastal communities supply run. He worked for Perkins for
approximately six years before returning to Barge Express to be Master of Trisha Kate until his retirement on
29 July 1989.
In the Australia Day honours in 1987, George was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM). The citation
said, in part, ‘his speciality was the regular and reliable lifeline between Darwin and the islands, isolated Aboriginal
communities, off-shore oil rigs and coastal settlements’ from Western Australia to the Gulf of Carpentaria. George
made a considerable contribution by adding to the knowledge of poorly charted waters and he took part in sea
rescues.
He died on 8 June 1992, aged 72, survived by his wife and daughter. He was a stubborn man, totally committed
to his ideals of fairness and sharing, and always searching for knowledge. It was said of him that he took everything
that his remarkable life had to offer in his stride.
C Chandler, ‘Sea Hasn’t Seen Last of George’, Northern Territory News, 29 July 1989; G Haritos, oral history interview, Murdoch University
project ‘The History of The Australian Fishing Industries’, 19 May 1990, oral history interview, Northern Territory Archives, February 1991;
A Manicaros, ‘The Legend of George Haritos’, Sunday Territorian, 14 June 1992; Northern Territory News, 28 November 1975, 9 June 1992;
Northern Territory Parliamentary Record, 18 August 1992; G Reremedios, interview.
HELEN MARIA HARITOS, Vol 3.
HARNETT, HILDA GERTRUDE: see ABBOTT, HILDA GERTRUDE