The Beginning
No-one ever thought of me as a water baby.
Before sailing, my boating experience included two or three miserable childhood trips on Sydney’s Manly ferry (I was always afraid of this after my mother told me about the ferry that capsized when everyone aboard rushed to one side of the vessel for some long forgotten reason) and an occasional ride in my cousin Brian’s skiing / speed boat in the days when family outings included a Sunday visit to the Hawkesbury River. Mostly though my childhood boating experience was derived from a few enchanting adventures through Luna Park’s River Caves. I loved it when Mum and I climbed aboard the open boats and whooshed down into the misty gloom of caves filled with elves, Santa and fairies. As the years sped by I did no boating at all until Peter, my partner in life and other follies, and I moved to Queensland. To visit my in-laws who lived at Amity Point, Stradbroke Island, I endured several white-knuckled trips on the little water taxi that ran between the mainland and the Island.
As to swimming, I was never a natural as an endless stream of initially enthusiastic friends, neighbours and relatives will confirm. “It’s easy,” they would each say “Learn to float and you’ll be fine” at which point I would sink because, as my father use to say, “She’s got lead in her a…e.”
Compulsory swimming lessons during primary and high school days were the stuff of nightmares. I became very adept at step 1 i.e. holding the side of the pool and kicking. Out of fear of being in the ‘babies’ class’ forever, at the age of 13 I perfected the art of the poolside fall, which always necessitated several days of rest, and thus avoided the embarrassment of more swimming lessons. This I tell you so that you understand that I am indeed the ‘World’s Least Likely Sailor’ (W.L.L.S.) and how odd it is that I ever went to sea.

In the days before young women were called ‘chicks’ or even ‘babes’, but some time after ‘dames’ and ‘shielas’ had been dropped from the popular vernacular, Peter was a handsome, bronzed Aussie, Gold Coast life guard; funny red and yellow cap and all. He was an out and out water person, part dolphin and a super fish, but he accepted that I was not. Imagine his surprise some years later, on that fateful sunny morning when we were lying in bed and I answered his question about what we should do on our forthcoming holiday with “Let’s go sailing!”
“But you hate the water,” he logically replied. This idea of mine had been bubbling away for a while, since the days when Peter use to play tennis in Cleveland. While he played I wandered the shoreline. Sometimes I would sit near the old lighthouse, day-dreaming about owls, pussy-cats and beautiful pea-green boats. I had grown attached to the idea of drifting across gentle waters in a small boat. Yes, I felt that I was ready to try my hand at sailing.

Never one to procrastinate, within an hour or two of my idle comment I heard Peter on the phone, “Yes, that’s right, two places please. One for me and one for the World’s Least Likely Sailor.” We were booked on a yacht for an ‘Introductory Sail’ the following Sunday. I was greatly relieved when I took the call the night before to be told the trip had been cancelled due to a gale warning. We re-booked for the following week. I was surprised by the size of the huon pine, Tasmanian built H28. She was a much larger boat than that which I had in my mind’s eye; more like a maxi yacht than a little sailing boat, or even pedal boat, that I wanted to drift away in. Along with the skipper, another Peter, and three others we set out on a hot January morning for a day of sailing on the Bay. It was lovely. Terms that would eventually become second nature, such as ‘tack’ , ‘come up’, ‘bear away’, ‘gybe’ I heard for the first time. As we drove home I felt a sense satisfaction and achievement that my goal of sailing had finally been realized and decided that we still might be able to just squeeze in a horse riding holiday in Tasmania. But this was not to be! Like Aeolus who immortalized the word “oops!” when his pals let the four winds fly out of the little dilly bag that he had given them, I had unleashed a powerful force that was going to sweep me along with it come what may.

At the height of the February summer, with the threat of storms ever present, we set out on the same H28 with the intention of becoming ‘competent crew’. This time there were just the two of us, that is Peter and me, on board plus the skipper /instructor. With the prospect of the three of us living aboard for the next 5 days the boat underwent what I can only describe as a miraculous size inversion. We were assigned our own sleeping space which could be vaguely comfortable for anyone weighing less than 45 kgs in the midst of winter. The only sink on board was in the galley so the prospect of an on board shower or indeed a wash was out of the question and over the course of the week an increasing obsession. Then of course there was the heads! The only gesture towards privacy was in the form of a flimsy daffy duck decorated curtain. Now was the perfect time to begin a fast rather than use these on board facilities.

Before casting off we were instructed in the ancient art of tying bowlines, a skill that I am still to completely master, and clove hitch knots and given practical hints by the skipper “one hand for the boat and one hand for the task.” He ahd quickly recognized that as the W.L.L.S. I was a candidate for a practical demonstration of man-over-board. We also learned that boats have no ropes. Surprised? Well so was I. They have springers, painters, lines, sheets, halyards even rodes but they don’t have ropes. So when the skipper ordered “tighten the jib halyard,” he was actually saying “tighten the pretty red rope that holds the front sail up.” By lunch time we were under way and learning about VHF radios, transits, a vital technique for avoiding collisions at sea and helming using the tiller. I quickly and happily adapted to the role of ‘deckie’ after Peter proved to be much better on the tiller than me. Give me a steering wheel any time, or better still, a push button auto pilot.

By night fall we were tied up at the Canaipa pontoon, enjoying a BBQ (not to mention the amenities block) and trying to look like we were naturals at this sailing lark as we gazed across the tranquil waterway towards Stradbroke Island. We shared the evening with about 1,000,000 midges and mosquitoes and two cruising couples from neighbouring boats, who I can only describe as elderly. Now at this stage of my life although I had left middle age behind I was quite fit and strong, but by that night I was exhausted from winching sheets (ropes) all afternoon, so I did wonder how these elderly women, who had sailed from Sydney, managed these tasks. I still don’t know. Maybe they had electric winches? All in all it was a pleasant if sleepless night. We were underway early the next day, using the rising tide to get through the slipping sands near Jacobs Well and down to one of the many Gold Coast resorts, learning more about tacking and gybing i.e. how to turn left and right, along the way. Preoccupied about my next shower and toilet stop I didn’t pay the attention that I should have, but it was quite good fun anyway.

My parents were never the type of people who wanted me to hide under a blanket so that they could avoid paying for me when we went to the drive-in, so the idea of sneaking into the resort to use the amenities was a foreign and uncomfortable experience for me, but not uncommon in yachting circles I have since learned as we have cruised the Queensland coast. We berthed the still shrinking yacht and snuckled into the resort for a swim in the pool filled with the urine of 100 children and then stole a furtive cold shower in the poolside amenities block before retreating to the little boat, untangling and donning (what a curious word) our harnesses and getting underway for our first night sail. Once again Peter was able to get the hang of navigating by counting green, red or white flashes so that we could navigate by night. It was beyond me. Still is, unless there is just one marker and I have say 15 minutes to count, lose count and then re-count the flashes. After a night at anchor in Bum’s Bay, we reached the blissful air conditioned comfort of the Southport Yacht Club at midday, sun burned and sticky from sun tan lotion and the 35 degree heat. The bar quickly filled with noisy sailing folk who drank copious quantities of rum as they relaxed in the cool surroundings of the club and prepared for the next day’s Surf to Surf Race, which we were also participating in. Surprised is the only word I can use to describe our reaction when we were learned that sailors really drink rum. By now we were both considered ‘competent crew’ and during an impromptu ceremony were presented with a log book to prove it, somewhat fraudulently in my case I should add.

Going Solo
No longer working, Peter was able to undertake several practical and theoretical courses and rapidly became skilled at handling a boat while I still struggled with helming and most other skills required for life at sea. However, the time had come for us to try our newly learned skills on our own, or almost on our own. We hired a 40’ Farr, invited a few friends on board, who in hindsight I consider to be very brave or very foolish, and sailed to Tangalooma on Moreton Island, and back. All went well so we did it again the following Saturday this time with only one friend on board who had quite a bit of sailing experience. My memory of the trip is pretty fuzzy. Our anchor was deployed quite late in the afternoon and I settled in the cockpit ready to converse with any passing dolphins and to watch the colours of the setting sun. I remember feeling hot. That’s it. I can’t remember any more until I heard Peter anxiously saying “Can you hear me? You had a fall.”
“Nonsense,” said I.
“Well if you didn’t fall why are sprawled out down here?” he sensibly asked. Apparently I had fainted and fallen, an ungainly head first, down the companion way through to the lower deck. I was unconscious for long enough for Peter to start to call a ‘pan pan’ (i.e. the call you give when life and limb are in danger but the boat isn’t) over the radio and to use some of the skills that he had learned during the previous week's first aid course. He could have taken up the Coast Guard’s offer to have me airlifted back to the mainland which, by now fully conscious and alert, I vehemently refused. There was no way that I was going to appear on the nightly TV news with those kangaroo-caught-in-the-headlights eyes that people plucked from boating mishaps always have. At the hospital I was told that it was dehydration, which was probably right because once I came around on board I drank about 6 litres of soda water and didn’t even have the energy to move, let alone worry, as Peter and Kim, our guest, battled into 25 knots at night to get me back to medical attention.

By October and because it was Peter’s birthday we were ready to go solo i.e. just the two of us on a yacht for a weekend. Puzzling over the underlying demon psychopathology that drove me to get myself into these situations, I provisioned the little yacht, which we hadn’t been on before, for the weekend and we made our way out into Moreton Bay. Canaipa appealed to us as a good destination for this special weekend. En route, somewhere between Peel Island and Stradbroke Island the jib furler jammed necessitating Peter’s presence on the foredeck and mine at the helm. With the wind behind us I learned the finer points of the Chinese gybe as the boom banged from one side of the boat to the other. With eyes on stalks, the passengers on ‘Solo’, the famous yacht which happened at that moment in time to be sharing this narrow passage with us, braced for a collision as I charged towards them. Peter was largely oblivious to the drama that was unfolding as he was head down at the bow swearing at the jammed furler. Somehow we survived, and so did ‘Solo’ but forever more I have hated helming downwind.

Unsettled but undeterred we kept sailing towards our Russell Island / Canaipa destination making our way past the green marker, around the yellow special marker, carefully by each of the red markers and up the little shallow creek anchoring in the Canaipa basin not far from the pontoon. Even with the protection of the anchorage it was too windy to stay on deck for long so we went to bed not long after the markers just described began their nightly flashing. It was 2:00am when Peter woke me saying “I think we’ve dragged.” “F…..g hell,” he exclaimed from on deck as the little flashing markers that had been so reassuringly close to us when we went to bed were now distant pin pricks of light in an otherwise black night. We really knew we were in trouble when Peter pointed out that our anchor was sitting proudly out of the water beside us and that we had dragged a least half a nautical mile onto a mud bank on the Stradbroke Island shore. It was blowing 30 knots, pushing us deeper into the mud as we scratched our heads and tried to figure out what to do. Fortunately sailing courses cover just this type of misadventure! You can, although we didn’t, hoist your sail and hope to heel, reducing your draft sufficiently to get underway. You can swing your boom out to the side and hang off it, again with the intention of tipping the boat enough to reduce your draft and re-float. Peter spent a considerable amount of time swearing and undertaking some type of gymnastic routine at the end of the boom. It didn’t work. Sometime towards dawn as the tide turned we dug our way out with the help of the trusty diesel (a good reason to think twice before buying a ex-charter boat) and re-anchored in the basin to resume our relaxing weekend of cruising Moreton Bay.

A Boat to Call our Own
It seemed natural and logical that we should buy our own little yacht. We wanted something that we could use where ever and when ever we wanted. Our search for the perfect boat began in earnest and lasted about 8 months until we ultimately found ‘Raven’, an Islander 36. She is a brave little monohull that had sailed across the Pacific from California a few a few years earlier. I was, and still am, quietly reassured to know that our boat has almost 25 years more sailing experience than we have. It was in these early heady days that I experienced a new type of terror. Berthing! For at least a half hour before we approached the harbour I would break out into a cold sweat with a heart rate and rhythm resembling a cat trapped in a sack. My job was to hurtle myself off the boat, onto the pontoon, and tie up bow and stern lines in time to prevent any damage being done to Raven, any other boat or indeed myself. The closer we came to our berth the worse I felt and with good reason. Our berth in those days was a ‘blow-off’ and we often were blown away from it at the last moment by an aberrant gust of wind, even on the calmest of days, making that last final leap impossible. But we really only crashed once when Peter, instead of selecting reverse gear, throttled forward, up and over the pontoon, just missing by inches a head on collision with the boat in the opposite berth.

This was not the end of regular episodes of on board drama. We ran aground or at least touched bottom on a few occasions until we understood tides. It should be said though that Moreton Bay, where we cut our sailing teeth, is an interesting waterway because it lacks water. It is notoriously shallow in parts and appropriately feared by intrepid sailors from other parts of the country or the world who rarely have to think about depths and tides. We stand in awe of Mathew Flinders and his adventures in the Bay without the benefit of a depth sounder. But back to, if not the most notable of these groundings, one of the first in Raven. It happened once again at Canaipa (for a time we couldn’t go there without some mishap). We had anchored just beyond the green channel marker in the company of several other yachts. To our amazement and pleasure they left one by one. We were still congratulating ourselves on finding such a perfect spot to spend the night when Peter stopped mid sentence and said “I think that we’re aground.” Almost simultaneously I noticed the unmistakable list. There wasn’t a lot to do as we were high and dry so we waited, counting the hours, the half hours and the minutes until we felt ourselves once again buoyant. It was a dark rainy night by the time we re-anchored with the aid of an on board flood light in the vicinity of the boats that had moved earlier.

Thinking and Talking about Going Cruising
The same curious pathology that had driven me to suggest that we learn to sail also resulted in me agreeing, and quite possibly suggesting under the influence of a little too much to drink, that a cruise north in our little yacht was something that I had always longed to do. Mind you it wasn’t a sudden decision. It was an idle comment here, a chat with someone there and so on, that ultimately culminated in us leaving the safety of our berth and heading alongside the shipping channel at 4:30am one cold dark winter’s morning to all places north. It started in a small way. Casually browsing at Boat Books one Saturday morning, looking for tide tables, Peter pointed out and bought the Alan Lucas book, ‘Cruising the Coral Coast’. The $67 he spent struck me as a bit of an extravagance but what did it matter? Then gradually we made alterations to Raven that would be useful if we ever went on a major cruise and at the very least would make our weekends away on Moreton Bay all the more comfortable and enjoyable. At first there was a deck wash; much easier for me than bucketing water onto a muddy anchor as I winched it in. Then came the hot water system and why not a shower while we were at it? More batteries would be handy, after all you can’t have too much power. How about an auto pilot and while we’re at it let’s buy a laptop with a navigation system that will drive the auto pilot. We’ll always use it no matter where we sail. Meanwhile our library of cruising books was growing, Patrick’s 'Curtis Coast' appeared and soon afterwards '100 Magic Miles'. Our old faithful dual action anchor winch, which I miss to this day, was replaced by an electric version and consequently, with the addition of an extra halyard, we also had an easier system for getting our dinghy on and off the foredeck; useful for the Bay even if we never go anywhere else. Dinghy wheels arrived soon afterwards, then what every woman wants for her 50th birthday, an electric toilet and holding tank. By now ‘the cruise north’ even had a vague date. “Oh we’ll probably get away in about two years” we'd tell people, but this seemed so far in the future I didn’t really pay much attention to it. Meanwhile Peter kept doing this, organizing that for 'when we go cruising'. Subtley, 'if' had become 'when'. Peter’s conversations with fellow yachties altered slightly from “Oh you’re going cruising this year. How nice. We’d like to do that one day,” to “Yes we think that we will get away next year.” NEXT YEAR!!!!! Suddenly it all seemed too real and too close. A wave of panic swept over me and motivated me to immerse myself in all things nautical that could keep me amused and what’s more safe at sea. It was around this time that I began muttering to myself “Why me? Why me? Why Me?”

With the cruise north less than a year away I enrolled in a 13 week night course to learn the finer points about meteorology, navigation, tides and so on. It turned out to be great fun and as a consequence I became and remain the designated navigator on board Raven. I love it and I love radio work which got me into a spot of bother at work in the days before I quit my job. My boss, who lived in another state, was on holidays, so I decided to take off some of the time that I was owed and slip away around 2:00pm one glorious Friday afternoon so that we could get a head start on the weekend. Having heard some friends just conclude a VHF radio transmission I called them up “Sea Wizard, Sea Wizard, Sea Wizard this is Raven, Raven, Raven on channel 67.” We chatted for a while on VHF 77, made an arrangement to meet and that was that. Before I had time to get back to VHF 67 the radio crackled to life and I heard this voice say “Blumsie, who’s looking after the hospital?” I went cold. Stared at the radio for a goodly while hoping that what I had heard wasn't what I had heard and then lied "Mark, it's so good to hear from you." Right at that moment my boss, a non sailor who lives in NSW, happened to be snoozing on a mate’s fishing boat somewhere in Moreton Bay, was woken by my transmission and recognized my voice! It was hard to live that one down.

Quite unrelated to the radio incident, soon after I resigned my job and went straight into a 5 day live aboard course with the 'Capt Bligh Academy of Seamanship and Sail Training'.
“Don’t think that this is a champagne cruise. You’ve paid your money to learn how to be yachtsmen, and er..yachtswomen / woman, and that’s what this week is about.” This was Capt Bligh’s welcoming message as we climbed aboard his sail training / racing yacht . There was me and two other students, a nice Pommie bloke and a smarty pants, at least that was my first impression, and of course Capt Bligh, a hard living, hard sailing, hard task master and all round scary skipper. We were each assigned a bunk and because I was of the female gender given a little more privacy than everyone else. I had my very own torpedo tube-sized bunk. In the interest of not using the heads, my food and fluid fast from those heady ‘competent crew’ training days was immediately re-instigated and I was homesick before we had cast off our first line.

“Hi there! I’m going sailing for a week,” I shouted enthusiastically at my friends and acquaintances who had come on deck of their respective boats as I was completing step 1 of the course and performing the nautical version of the 3-point turn in the canals of our yacht club. Their worried watery smiles suggested that they were not as happy to see me as I was them so we skedaddled out of there and headed north for some night sailing with me still firmly gripping the tiller, because there was no way that I was going to climb even a short way up the mast to prepare the mainsail for hoisting.

Our first night away from home we tied up at a pontoon on the northern side of the Bay. Capt Bligh went for a walk, probably to get away from Mr Smarty Pants who by now had become, at least in my book, Mr D… Head. Meanwhile I scurried about, climbed fences and eventually found an unlocked toilet and shower. Bliss!

Capt Bligh worked us from early in the morning to late at night. We helmed, tacked, gybed, used lines to spring off pontoons and tides to help us tie up to pontoons, climbed (a little way) up the mast to untangle ropes, sorry I mean halyards, practiced berthing without an engine using sail / wind power only, sailed onto and off the anchor, picked up mooring buoys, hoisted spinnakers, change sails, navigated (my favourite task all week) without the aid of a GPS, chart plotter or laptop.

Sailing schools operate in any conditions up to gale warning. We had a strong wind warning for the first few days which meant that we still had to sail. Somewhere between Cleveland and Peel Island with 30 knots across the bow, I was barely able to hang on as I stood in the cockpit taking a bearing with a hand held compass, getting drenched by waves over the bow and yearning for my boring little office and my boring little job that I had left to go sailing. However this turned out to be he least of my worries. You need to understand that this sail training vessel was also a very fast racing yacht which also means, in the interest of weight, or maybe jsut to save money, that it was completely devoid of any comforts such as protection from the elements or an anchor winch, even a manually operated one. Several times a day we dropped the anchor, made sure that it was well buried and then pulled it up again which meant that we three students had to take turns to haul the chain and anchor on board using a hand over hand technique. I hated it.

As to Mr Smarty Pants D….Head, how wrong I was about him. He wasn’t this at all. He was a complete and utter pain in the backside who I would have gladly pushed overboard, if Capt Bligh hadn’t intervened and separated us. It had to do with a winch and a push. We were doing ‘man overboard’ drill at the time. Maybe I will get back to this later.

Bravely I also undertook a ‘survival at sea’ course. At first I enjoyed it, the theory that is, but by day 2 I wanted out. Allow me to digress. Not only was I definitely never a water baby, I was born without an athletic bone in body. The only sport that I participated in which did not pose a danger to myself or anyone else was the egg and spoon race. The vaulting horse was an impossibility for me. Other girls would nimbly spring across it whereas I always landed on top with an inelegant thud. Leap frog turned into a game of ‘first catch the frog’. When the ‘frog’ saw me thundering towards them, ready to leap, they ran, having previously witnessed my efforts on the vaulting horse. Team sports were no better. Softball, vigaro, hockey, basketball, I was equally bad at them all. Team captains use to draw to see who got the shortest straw and consequently me on their team and then whine to the sports mistress “but we don’t want her on our team Miss. She’s hopeless.” Perhaps you get the picture. Therefore, as far as the skills needed to survive a ‘survive at sea’ course I was like a fish most definitely out of water, possibly like a fish in outer space, when I took my place along with all the fit young men who were obliged to take this course so that they could continue their racing careers. Even though I was planning to sail in the tropics, we had to prepare ourselves for rescue in the Southern Ocean and were consequently kitted out in full survival gear, overalls, long jacket and life vest. The survival instructor, which also happened to be the aforementioned Capt Bligh, ordered us up the diving tower and into the water, instructing us to simultaneously hold and inflate life jackets as we did so! All the obedient fit young men did so. But not me. In fear of my life, I hesitated. Ha! Not only did I not swim, I definitely did not jump into water. Never ever in my entire life had I jumped into water. Never. But I had no choice. I had paid my money and what’s more I was too proud to let any of these young bucks know that the old girl was somewhere between ‘wuss and wimp’ on the scale of bravery, not that they would have noticed I guess as they were more interested in playing several yachting permutations of the ‘mine’s bigger than yours’ game. So I jumped, inflated my jacket, thought that I would die, popped up to the surface, thrashed around in the water for a bit and to my delight found that I was buoyant. The life jacket, although a little too snug, really worked. I was so pleased with myself that I jumped /bounced / fell in a few more times from the side of the pool just for the hell of it. Next followed the life raft drill. These are very heavy to deploy and from my point of view impossible to get into from the water owing to the fact that my bottom is still lead lined and I was about as elegant and agile as bright red Michelin Man in my Southern Ocean rescue clobber. Eventually the young bucks who had already clambered into the life raft ahead of me were becoming bored so they took pity on me and hauled me somewhat unceremoniously on board where upon I promptly knocked all of our supplies into the water. Then we had to do it all over again. Helicopter rescue was fine. I held my own with that one. But not so with flares. Not only did I not do swimming, diving, sport of any kind, I also did not do fireworks and consequently flares. Several failed attempts later I managed to get one of them to ignite without burning myself or anyone else in the process which is remarkable as I did it with my eyes closed and head averted.

Cruising North
So it came about that we were ready to leave, as I have already written, at 4:30am on that fateful winter’s morning. We were really and truly going to sea as an enormous full golden moon drifted down and sank in the west.

Some people love night sailing and others do not. It was time for us to find out for ourselves where we stood on this matter. To reach the Wide Bay Bar with the right tide we had to leave Mooloolaba at 10:30pm and sail through the night. Although bitterly cold as the night wore on, sailing conditions were perfect. We were in awe of the stars, the moon, the heavens and just what inconsequential specks we are on the universal scale of consequence; two little people with the starry universe as our umbrella, bobbing along in our little sailing boat in the middle of the night and just possibly in the middle of nowhere. As wondrous as this all was it was also a bit scary for me, the idea of JUST the two of us out in the middle of no-where in the middle of the night wondering if any stray containers might be lurking in front of us or that fears about deaf whales might eventuate. Daylight came around 6:00am not far from Double Island Point and we saw our first breaching whale and then made our first bar crossing. Too afraid to look at the water breaking all around us I stared at the screen of the laptop, engaged in some therapeutic breath holding and counted down the miles and half miles until we were safely through.

Crossing the Wide Bay Bar gives me an insight into what Alice in Wonderland thought and felt after she followed the rabbit down the hole. It’s a whole new world; the Great Sandy Straits, and our first picturesque, tranquil anchorage, Garry’s on the western side of Fraser Island, where dingoes yowl and eagles and kites soar high above. But you can only tolerate paradise for so long according to Peter, so after a few days we up-anchored and faced the challenge of the shallowest part of the Straits, without any problems I should add as you probably expected to hear that we had gone aground, and headed slowly towards Bundaberg Port Marina where we stayed for several days due to a strong wind warning. Every Friday the Marina hosts a (free) BBQ lunch which see yachties and other folk descend like a flock of hungry seagulls on their lawn. It’s a great chance to meet like minded, fool hardy souls who are travelling the world, the coast or nowhere in particular in their little and in many case very big boats. Don’t people for whom middle age is just a memory stay home and look after grand children any more?

The trouble with helming
“Come up into the wind,” yells Peter from the mast as he battles to hoist the mainsail. “I said come up for Christ’s sake!”
“What do you think I’m doing?” I scream back as I gingerly steer upwind a little more and then go too far.
“All I want you to do is hold the bloody boat into the bloody wind before we go aground so I can get the bloody sails up!” he lovingly says to me.
“I know. I know. That’s what I’m doing. If you don’t like it then you come and helm and I’ll get the bloody sail up.” And so it came about that I started managing the sails and Peter furthered his helming skills. Which is why I found myself one squally night, tethered on and hugging the mast, screaming "Why me?” at the heavens, trying to hoist the mainsail as we departed Bundaberg along the ebbing Burnett River. We had a SE wind, 25 knots ‘on the beak’, against tide. Very messy. Very uncomfortable. But I didn’t complain as vehemently as usual because I was hoping to distract Peter from an earlier incident that he had been puzzling over and for which I was entirely to blame, well almost. Just as we left our berth Peter disappeared below to answer the call of nature and left me to steer a course into the river. Now I hate helming as you have already gathered and for good reason. I am no bloody good at it. And, I might add that I have generally poor vision and dreadful night vision. So I was gripping the helm on this dark and eerie night, mesmerized as the red and green channel markers blinked on and off, on and off and so on, trying to determine when to make my turn into the run way and repeating silently to myself green to port as you leave a harbour, green to port, green to port, green to port or is it green to starboard? Peter returned to the helm and within a nano-second of touching it, Raven T-boned the river bank and I knew that the answer to my question was green to port, not green to starboard. Peter thinks quickly, reflexively. He threw Raven into reverse gear and got us of the sandy shore. We were very lucky because a few metres away there were rocks, lots of rocks. But within moments we were facing a new adventure as described above so he didn’t have time to think about how the incident came about and I didn’t tell, at least not for a few days. In fact he thought that it was his fault. Well it was, indirectly. He makes sure that he uses the heads before we depart now.

Continuing.....
Pancake Creek
We had been told that Pancake Creek, a protected waterway between Bundaberg and Gladstone, was difficult to get into and out of. Maybe it’s a rumour circulated by yachties and fishermen who aren’t keen to share this beautiful place, because it isn’t necessarily true, you just need to be careful. As well as being beautiful, Pancake Creek is a good place to sit out bad weather. We left Gladstone Marina very early one morning, sailing south to Bundaberg. Mike from ‘Rocky Met’, the local Bureau of Meteorology, in his first broadcast of the day, announced on the VHF radio a ‘severe storm warning.’ Always enjoyin a bit of a chat with him I called up to confirm that we weren’t likely to be affected and was told in no uncertain terms to find shelter. By the way, a ‘severe storm warning’ on the scale of scary things is much worse than a ‘gale warning’ which in turn is much worse than a ‘strong wind warning’. We skidded to a halt and then headed to Pancake Creek, anchoring two hours later in beautiful sunshine in what is known as the ‘C’ anchorage just beyond the rocky outcrop. The storms arrived at lunchtime. We were confined to the boat for the next three days due to driving rain, wind, thunder and lightening. We were safe but a little stir crazy. But back to our first visit. The plan was to arrive on a rising tide, which is why we left Bundaberg in the awful conditions described earlier, sailed all night and then tentatively crept past each channel marker fearing that we would hit the coral bommies that line the channel. We didn’t and we haven’t. Go there. It’s definitely worth the visit. You can picnic on the beach, fish from the sandbanks, explore the extensive waterway in your dinghy or if you feel energetically inclined, walk up to the Bustard Head lighthouse. Given what we thought to be good directions “turn left at the palm tree,” by a generally reliable sailing Dutchman we found that much of the shore is lined with palm trees, lots of them. Not to be deterred and completely ignoring palm trees, we set off with some like-minded adventurers in the general direction of ‘to the left’ and ‘up’ through a grove of dead trees, across a swamp, along a rough path (vaguely keeping the power line in view) and ultimately intersected an old road, a snake and an old graveyard, the final resting place of several lighthouse keepers and their families. If you need to stop for a rest and you don’t want anyone to know then take your time reading every word on every headstone. More background about these pioneering folk can be read in a book called ‘Lighthouse of Tragedy’ by Stuart Buchanan. It is worth a read before you make the trek especially if you want to delight your fellow travellers with your impressive knowledge as you make the climb. He, that is Stuart Buchanan, is also largely responsible for the lighthouse being restored to its former glory. You will ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ a lot because the view from Bustard Head is spectacular. Take something to eat and drink with you or else appeal to the better nature of your fellow climbers, as we had to, for sustenance. While you are up there be sure to take a look-see at Jenny Lind Creek. It’s just a short easy walk of maybe 30 metres down another dirt road which, unless you have local knowledge and a shoal draft boat, you are otherwise unlikely to ever see it. A final word, make sure that you have left some place markers, ribbons, bird-seed, anything, on your trail as you might need them to find your way back down again.

A word about navigation
“Should we keep that island straight ahead of us to port or starboard?” Peter is curious to know.
“What island?” my voice registers rising panic as I simultaneously grab charts.
“That island there,” he says pointing furiously “you’re suppose to be the navigator. You should know which island I mean.”
“It’s not an island. Is that an island? It’s not an island. I think that it is a big rock. It might be an island. It’s just a little yellow mark on the chart…”
That’s the trouble with charts (and me). It can be hard to get a mental picture of what something looks like in real life especially when one is spatially challenged. For instance between Thirsty Sound and Mackay there are lots of islands (charted as largish yellow blobs), lots of rocks and the odd islet, (the larger ones charted as insignificant yellow marks), shoals (whirly-gigs) and strange tidal flows (arrows going in every direction) all of which add up to being quite a navigational challenge. Trying to match a large lump in the sea to a little yellow mark on a chart can be tough going. Don’t get me wrong. I like navigating and all in all do a reasonable job most of the time. There was a time when I was obsessive with course planning and compulsive in checking and re-checking every detail. Our charts were geometric wonders. Little semi circular exclusion zones were drawn around every rock and obstacle so that we kept a safe distance of a good ¾ nautical mile. We sailed further out to sea than most other yachts. There were tacking triangles, lots of them, all of which proved useless as we rarely tack on long passages. A system of concentric circles was meant to make plotting our position, using the GPS for bearing and distance rather than latitude and longitude, a simple matter, although now I puzzle over exactly how to use it. The point where the loom of any lighthouse was first likely to appear was marked. All in all quite a lot of detail. I’m sure you get the general picture.
Using our charts as my primary reference point each night I wrote down the latitude and longitude of every waypoint that we would be using the following day and then carefully typed the details into our laptop navigational system, our regular GPS and our hand held GPS which was set up especially for AGD 66 charts if that’s what we were using at the time. This took hours and exasperated Peter , “just tell me this. Why does it takes you longer to plot a course than it does to sail there!” This degree of attention to detail made sudden course changes not out of the question but hard to accommodate and very worrying. Happily things have changed since we bought a chart plotter. I have been completely seduced by it. Love it to bits. In a matter of minutes a short course can be created. Paper charts still have their place on board Raven as I still like to plot our position every ½ hour or so. Being anything but an optimist at heart, a Securité announcement for a storm warning will send me into a frenzied revision of traditional navigation methods before the first lightening strike has a chance to hit us and destroy our beloved electronic gadgets. The hand bearing compass is dusted off, our ‘time, speed, distance’ table makes an appearance and I play around with the navigation ruler for 15 minutes trying to recall exactly what it is I am suppose to do with it. Once in a while, in truth rarely, I will actually use the hand bearing compass to take a bearing, primarily to prove Peter wrong when he said “waste of money. You’ll never use it” after I’d spent weeks searching for just the right compass. He was being proven wrong when we were a few miles south east of Hay Point, not far from Mackay and I spied a ship. Wanting to know if it was underway or at anchor my compass was brought into use. “See, I told you that it would be useful” I stated triumphantly, lurching dangerously from side to side of the cockpit with the following sea.
“Which ship are you looking at? I can see 4 of them, I mean 8 of them. No there are 12” he said with growing alarm. Ships, big ones, were appearing everywhere. We lost count at 41 but there were a lot. It was eerie sailing amongst them. They sat high, silent and empty in the water. Was it a ships’ graveyard? What had happened to the ships’ crews? Was this a mystery of epic proportion? I liked to think so but in fact they were all waiting for coal. They sit at anchor for a long time. From the Mackay Yacht Club at night their lights make lovely viewing. The redevelopment of the Hay Point Wharf is well overdue.

Continuing on.....
Of The Narrows, things that bite, shallow places
The Narrows snakes between Curtis Island and the mainland, just north of Gladstone. It’s a challenge, but before I describe it, it is worth pointing out that The Narrows is anything but narrow. It is quite wide, lined with mangroves and is home to countless hungry mozzies and midges, and if a crocodile was ever found there I wouldn’t be at all surprised. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the truth about The Narrows is that it is shallow, very shallow, and should be known as The Shallows. If you tippy-toe in from the north, and you have time to look at anything other than your course, you will see submerged cattle pens. This is ‘Ramsey Crossing’, one of the shallowest parts of the waterway. These pens are partially submerged during high ‘spring’ tides but not during low ‘spring’ tides. In fact the low tide is so low that cattle can be driven from Curtis Island to the mainland or vice versa. Hence the need for cattle pens. If you find yourself stranded high and dry because of a navigational blunder you might be lucky enough to be right in the midst of this cattle drive. Wouldn’t’ that be a thrill? We haven’t had the pleasure.

A sensible skipper of a deep keeled vessel will only venture through these waters during high ‘spring’ tides that is, those tides that occur around the time of a full moon or a new moon. This is the time when high tides are very high (and low tides are very low), and even then you might find little or no water under your keel. You can approach the crossing two ways i.e. follow another boat through if you trust their navigational ability more than your own, or do a calculation to see if the flood tide will provide enough water for you to float through. The tidal calculation uses as its basis the time and height of the tide at Gladstone Harbour. You need enough water depth to equal the sum your draft plus about 1.5 metres if you are feeling brave, or maybe 2 metres if you aren’t. In our case we need a tide of 3.3m (1.8m draft + 1.5m). Try to time your voyage so that you reach the mid point of The Narrows, Boat Creek which is also notoriously shallow, around the same time as the top of the tide in Gladstone. In case you get it all wrong and end up high and dry it’s a good idea to only attempt the crossing if the next high tide, after the one you decide to use, is higher. That way you can re-float when the next high tide floods in. If this all sounds just too tedious, or you get squeamish without more than a few centimeters of water under your keel, opt for the a passage that takes you out along the coast.

We made our first crossing, north to south, in a convoy of yachts; lingering behind so that the others could pilot us through. We were able pick the leaves from the mangrove trees we were so close to the shore. Expecting a similar convoy next time we crossed, we were mildly alarmed, and surprised, to find that there were no other boats, at least not going north. The entire journey was up to us and in particular up to me as navigator to get the course right; no pressure of course. We left Graham Creek, a lovely winter anchorage just south of The Narrows, quite early in the day and in time to ride the flooding tide north. The tide moved us along much faster than we had anticipated which resulted in us being about ¾ hour earlier at ‘Black Swan’, an important landmark, than we had planned. Both being impatient by nature we agreed not to wait but to push ahead with the crossing hoping that if we ran out of water the tide would soon float us off. It was a beautiful sunny morning but there wasn’t much time to take in the scenery because we were both concentrating on getting through; Peter at the helm, me pacing the cockpit like a caged tiger as I kept a record of each channel marker that we passed and both of us keeping a close eye on the depth gauge. Once or twice the depth dropped to 0.2m under the keel. By the time we arrived at the mid point, that is Boat Creek, our depth was 0.00m under the keel. We had run out of water and expected at any moment to feel that unmistakable soft thud from being aground. It didn’t happen! Our depth gauge must read slightly lower than the actual depth because we were able to get through. We had also used a slightly lower tidal height, 3.2m, than the calculation suggested and we left quite a bit earlier than recommended, so it seems that there is some latitude in the recommendations.

Some people choose not to notify the local VMRs or Coast Guards of their intentions. Each to their own. However I like to tell them what we are doing, where we are going and when we are going to get there, if for no other reason than I like a bit of a chat on the VHF radio. Some of these folk can be very helpful, especially those with local knowledge. Jim, a well known identity at VMR Gladstone, is a good example. While he doesn’t give advice he is certainly prepared to tell you what he knows about The Narrows, where he anchors, and how to get the most out of Patrick’s ‘Curtis Coast’ which you simply must have one board if you are going to cross The Narrows.

As lovely as The Narrows is, beware of it, or any other mangrove lined waterway for that matter, in hotter weather. Although I don’t remember, I must have shouted “Come an’ get it!” as we were anchoring just north of The Narrows the night before starting our last crossing, because word quickly spread to each and every midge and mozzie in the nearby mangroves that it was tucker time on board Raven. It would seem that I am to these little critters what hot freshly baked bread with butter; pavlova with cream, strawberries and passionfruit; chocolate caramel slice and gelato in any flavour except bubblegum are to me- SCRUMPTIOUS. They nibbled and munched happily on every part of me with the exception of my right external auditory meatus and the spaces between my toes which suggest to me that even midges and sandflies are fussy eaters. I was miserably covered in bites and blisters. The itching drove me wild. I tried without success to find relief from anti-histamine tablets, Aristocort cream, SOOV with lignocaine and brandy administered systemically, not topically. Momentary relief was achieved by surreptitiously scrubbing the scratchy part of the Velcro fasteners of my sailing gloves across the bites only to have Peter catch me out and remind me at least a hundred times to “Stop scratching!”

Until we were clear of mangroves, no matter how hot it was, I wore long-sleeved shirts, long trousers, socks, sailing gloves and a cap and doused myself insect repellant several times a day. Large doses of Vitamin B1 were suggested by a pharmacist and seemed to help repel the little blighters. From now on every dog that has ever had fleas has my sympathy.
to be continued