I step forward, willing myself not to blush. The suit’s of thick rubber, like a giant baggy wetsuit. Captain Crane says it’s in case the ship starts sinking, when there’s the likelihood of us ending up in Antarctic waters that have an average temperature of –1.8°C. The suit has built-in feet. I have to sit on the floor to get into it. Bands of severe rubber clamp tightly around my wrists. It’s hard to poke my hands through. I’m taking a long time. People are laughing. I’m blushing. My fingers are getting panicky and annoyed. I finally stand and the captain pulls the hood over my head and pulls a flap tightly across my nose and mouth. I’m gagged by rubber. All that’s exposed is a sliver of eyes.

‘This is the way we like our journos,’ Captain Crane says.

There’s laughter from the mess. When I pull away the suit there’s a round of applause.

We’re herded on deck for the next instalment. The lifeboats.

A fibreglass orange bubble that floats. Inside, it glows yellow, like a church, from the sun through the fibreglass. Strange shoulders and thighs press close. The man from the auditorium climbs in late, last. Without looking, he sits opposite me. He’s had a haircut. His greyness is cropped close, he’s almost bald. He looks across and catches my eye. He beams. He points to his head and pulls a stricken face. I smile. I can’t tell his age. He could be ten years older than me, or twenty. I like older men. They teach me things.

We’re in a lifeboat that seats seventy. It’s completely enclosed, like a mini submarine that floats. We’ve been crank-jerked over the side of the ship for a chug around Hobart Harbour. There’s laughter as three mobile phones intrude into the safety talk. Feet thud and scrape on the fibreglass. Diesel fumes thread through the air.

‘Thank God there isn’t a swell.’

Someone from the rear, loudly.

‘I’ve been in one of these in Bass Strait, and a bag of vomit was passed from person to person, and there was vomit on vomit.’

The sparse chatter stops.

‘No-one was spared. Even if they didn’t feel like having a go at first, they did when the bag got to them.’

The stiffness among strangers is snapped. There’s a collapse of groans and exclamations and laughter.

The man and I smile wryly at each other. The man next to him catches us out. He stares at me.