Myall Lakes Cruise Boat.Right: The new-look gambling boat at berth. It's the only launch to cruise the entire Myall Lakes system, say owners Bob and Gordon.Buying a $140,000 catamaran once used on Sydney Harbour as a floating casino, and spending $60,000

Myall Lakes Cruise Boat.Right: The new-look gambling boat at berth. It's the only launch to cruise the entire Myall Lakes system, say owners Bob and Gordon.Buying a $140,000 catamaran once used on Sydney Harbour as a floating casino, and spending $60,000 more to convert it to a 100-seater to tour Myall Lakes, may seem like a hare-brained scheme to some entrepreneurs.But that was the gamble readily taken by Gordon Nesbitt, 52, of Hawks Nest, and Bob Atkins, 56, of Tea Gardens, when they chanced upon an advertisement for the sale of a jet-propelled catamaran, Black Jack, earlier this year.The retired tradesmen renamed the 18-meter catamaran Myall Explorer and launched her into t sub-tropical rain forest setting of Myall Lakes to fill what they had long believed was a gap in Port Stephens tourism - a complete tour of My all Lakes from Tea Gardens to Bungwahl. August 28, 1986. (Photo by Steven Tickner/Fairfax Media via Getty Images).