ATTACK ON THE "KURANDA"

Not Kuranda attack

Yo, ho, me hearties, gather round and listen to a true tale of the menaces of the sea.  'Twere back in the year of '73 it befell and I can tell you, it just shows we do not know all that lurks in Neptune's watery kingdom.  They on the Kuranda were sailing through the Pacific when it happened, on a day when that Ocean were not so peaceful as its name indicates.  The fore portion of the ship went underneath the water or 'dipped' as mariners say, and when it came up, you would not believe the monstrosity that came with it.  Another drop of rum?  Thankee!  Yes, a tentacled nightmare had grasped the bows of the ship and filled its crew with horror.  The ghastly head of the creature were visible to the hapless sailor-men aboard and it swished its tentacles across the deck, catching one unlucky matelot by the arm, so that his companions had to free him.  Some of the tentacles seemed fully two hundred feet in length and they were afeared that the monster would drag the ship under the waters of the pitiless Ocean.  As luck would have it, another ship, the Hercules, came by and sprayed the monster with steam, which caused it to release its furious grasp.  No one knows what this appalling beast of the brine was, though scientific folk have opined, from studying the slime it left in its wake, that it might have been related to the lion's mane jellyfish.  However that may be, those on the Kuranda will have welcomed its departure into the depths whence it came.

[This story is supposed to be true.  The literary format is my own.  The date of the incident, by the way, was 1973, not 1873].