(Derek) Billy Williams: Better Known as Captain Seaweed

"Captain Seaweed" was a well-known local boat skipper and character around Airlie Beach and Shute Harbour during the early days of the region's tourism and cruising industry. He started his career working on the early cruise boats out of Shute Harbour such as “Fantasea”. Bill Williams was memorable for ferrying passengers and bringing travelling musicians across the water for local jam sessions and was a significant part of the vibrant early local music and sailing culture. He was also a man who looked out for others.  

Memories from the late Ken Looke, long time Whitsunday local.  

“We first met Bill Williams (aka Captain Seaweed) on the beach at Horseshoe Bay which was the name for Airlie Beach in those days. There was only one shop then, no pub (the closest pubs being at Proserpine). Everything that was needed was sold at the shop. If it wasn’t sold there, it was not needed. It was also the post office.  

Bill was conducting day sailing tours on the good ship “Southern Maid” owned by Andrew Martin of the Percy Islands, and he asked if I would like to go sailing with him the next day. We subsequently set sail from the old (not the original) Cannonvale Jetty, in a good brisk sou’easter, making ten knots towards Hayman Island where we passed through Hook Passage out to Deloraine anchoring there in a reasonable depth of water.  

When we decided to move, the anchor had fouled. As we tried to free it, the ratchet and pawl failed, spinning the winch handle backwards and breaking the operator’s forearm. While Captain Seaweed worked to tame the huge sail and turn “Southern Maid” into the wind, a second crewman suffered the same fate, but the jolt freed the anchor. Once recovered, we headed for Hayman as quickly as possible. The helicopter crew, alerted by radio, met us to fly the injured men to Proserpine. It was not the usual brochure day sail, but it showed what the Whitsundays can be like when the sou’easterlies are up.  

From then on, our friendship with the Williams family developed. We helped Bill and Josephine get their house built in Cannonvale and spent many enjoyable musical evenings there with our growing families - Bill playing his one-string tea box bass, Merv Jones on tenor banjo, Banjo Jack on standard banjo (5 string), occasionally on guitar, myself on tenor banjo. The kids played outside getting all sticky with molasses, roasting and eating large brown grasshoppers, as kids used to do! The Williams Family eventually numbered four children - William Jnr, Elizabeth, Joseph and Jason.  

Captain Seaweed was the first face we saw on the morning of Cyclone Ada. Around 10 am, though it was still dark, he peered through the horizontal rain into our Kombi van, his curly black hair plastered down, and asked, “Is everybody OK?” We had sheltered there after losing our roof and some walls. Bill had walked from Shute Harbour, where he had spent the night helping secure vessels amid cracking trees and flying branches. Unable to save his beloved ‘Seabird”,hard aground with timber through her hull, he had crawled across the jetty towards where “Mirmar” was going to pieces. His Morris van, its paint gravel-blasted off, had ended up in Bob Porter’s Jetty Kiosk window. It was a dirty night. Once he knew we were safe, Billy continued home — another hour’s walk on a good day.  

Captain Seaweed was taken from us too soon, a catastrophic iatrogenic event. His passing was a great loss to the community.”  

Story sourced from memories of Ken Looke. Photo sourced from “Remembering Cyclone Ada”  

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