The Transit Lounge

    Destiny, Aurielle and Wombat of Sydney at anchor in Refuge Bay


“It’s got our boat as a picture on the computer. Isn’t that wonderful?” Alex is at the nav station, peering at  his laptop screen, as he often is, and he's had a breakthrough. The innovative Froggie program MaxSea which allows us to overlay computer-generated weather files onto our GPS position and our electronic charts is up and running. Whacko, as our friend Peter would say.

I say whacko too, of course, but we've got another problem that all the computing power in the world can’t solve for us. This shitty weather. The boat’s skidding around her mooring, even though we’re tucked into a famously sheltered corner of the river. Gale force winds are belting the NSW coast, and I imagine it’s the monstrous swells out there which account for the unusual presence of commercial fishing trawlers in the anchorage. We’ve been holed up at Refuge Bay for a week now, waiting for a break in the March of the Lows. What we need is a gap of 48 hours to make our run up the coast to Coffs. That’s all, a measly 48 hours. But here’s where the golden rule of cruising veterans kicks in. You wait. You wait till you are as sure as you can be that the weather gods regard your passage favourably. Don’t tempt them. Don’t think you can fool them. They often exact a horrible price for cockiness.

“It says communications with the modem have been lost.” Ah, we’re plunged into the abyss again. Alex has been trying to pull up files using the text communication program SailMail, but the German Pactor modem which translates binary files transmitted by HF radio isn’t playing ball. I can’t keep up. We need the modem because we need SailMail. Or do we? We didn’t have it last year. Very few boats had it, or equivalent programs which allow ocean-going sailors to access weather forecasts and email, until about five years ago. What exactly do we need to sail this boat? “Sometimes I think we get too caught up in technology,” Alex volunteers. I look up from the stove where I’m stirring rolled oats, coconut, flour and sugar into melted butter and golden syrup. Anzac biscuits. Food for soldiering on. I agree with him. “It’ll be good when we can talk about something other than technology,” I say.

He goes up to the cockpit for a cigarette, a cup of coffee and some deep thinking. He makes a telephone call to Mr Pactor Modem, the remarkable Mark, and today's problem goes away. No need, after all, to haul the bosun’s chair up the backstay (he'd wondered if there was a crack in the HF antenna). In these winds, that’s no small let-out.

Casting off

I’m bad at leaving. When the moment comes to go, I always want to stay, very badly. So even though I had been making it plain for days that I was impatient to go, to get out of the house and on with the voyage, the brutality of those last hugs shocked and bruised me. I wasn’t at all ready to leave my children. I never am.

We motored up the coast to Pittwater – the Hawkesbury really, for we aren’t much attracted by Pittwater itself. There was next to no breeze. The day before’s rain had let up, and skin of the ocean was pearly, the swell so gentle I hardly noticed it. In fact, I hardly noticed anything. Alex took the helm and I sent teary texts to my kids. I wanted them to know how much I loved them, as if they didn’t already. Each reply consoled me and pushed me on my way. They know me well.

By the time we were parallel with Avalon, or thereabouts, I’d pulled myself together sufficiently to mix up some bread dough, and laugh at the digital scales crazily trying to keep up with the boat shifting its own weight across the sea. Digital scales don’t have sea legs. Fortunately, we have cups and spoons to measure with.

So, you want to know, don’t you? Did the bread work out in the galley oven? Yes, yes and yes again. Hallelujah, as my dear dad would have said. I cooked it at full blast (number 6 on the dial) for the usual time – 30 mins in the pre-heated pot with the lid on, and then another 15 mins with the lid off. It looked the part. It tasted the part. Mission accomplished.

It’s the rainy season here at Refuge Bay. The waterfall is streaming hard and fast off the escarpment. In summer when this anchorage is like a caravan park, with music blaring, kids roaring around in rubber duckies, yachts and Rivieras rafted up, the big thing is to stand under the meek cascade’s stinging droplets and dry off on heated sandstone shelves. I couldn’t imagine anyone stripping off under this wintry deluge. But I forgot that I was old, didn’t I? First I heard the shrieks and when I peered out through the cockpit windows I saw pale bodies leaping about on the wet rocks. Within 10 minutes the beach was cleared, and the kids were back on their rented houseboat.

I’ve pared down to just the one Icebreaker merino on top and track pants, and the drift stops there. It’s cold.

We’re sharing the anchorage with John and Shauna De Launey’s yacht Destiny. Destiny is not just any old boat. She’s got form. In a previous life, she served as a youth training ship, and many a Sydney sailor who learned his or her ropes on her in Theo Taylor’s day, including our mate Wayne, has tall tales to tell of life on board Destiny. She’s had a complete makeover since then and John and Shauna sail her in considerable comfort. Their espresso machine makes fine coffee - and they’re good company too! We expect to be sailing north to Coffs with them, when the weather allows. Perhaps tomorrow, but there’s no rush. We’re underway even when we’re at anchor. That’s the beauty of this life.

The eleventh hour

It's happening. Tomorrow, all things being equal (is there a better way of saying this without invoking someone's god?), we leave, rain or shine.  I think we can safely count on rain. Alex is on his feet again. The boat is loaded, the bills paid, the house sorted. No, that's not true. Nothing is ever completely sorted but of course leaving is only nominally to do with tidying up finances and houses. It's about stepping out of the lives of those you love, trusting that you will be able to step back in when you return. For nothing stays the same, and we leave knowing that. Our children are young adults. Six months is a long time in their lives. My mother is in her mid 70s. My absence costs her, and I'm aware of this. Still, I'm excited to be leaving. I felt that surge, that lift tonight as I was making dinner.. We had planned to go out to eat, even down to choosing Sel et Poivre in Darlinghurst which serves my favorite seared calves' liver. Alex, who looks like he could do with a good steak these days, was indeed hankering after a steak and those wispy little French fries. But when we returned from the boat after dark, having packed away meat, cheeses and fresh fruit and vegetables, hung the remaining framed photos and peeled off HOBART from Kukka's stern and replaced it with SYDNEY, I had second thoughts. The warmth of the house wrapped itself around us, and then there was our cat Po. We're leaving her too. We could stick around one last night for Po's sake, couldn't we?  I could cook up a pot of sausage and fennel pasta sauce to take away with us,  plus mix up a batch of  hummus. Too easy, as they say.  My mind rapidly reasoned that if we ate at home I could also feed Sam, who was working the evening shift at the bottleshop up the road. We'd be there when Mikey swung by to borrow the car for band practice, and when Freddy and Claudia came home from a barbecue at their dad's place down the road.. Everyone was a winner. And this is precisely why I need to leave home! Something to do with comfort zones, and thinking that one is indispensable. And did I ever mention how much I enjoy the sea?

Don't ask

Until further notice, Alex is in recovery position - flat on his very painful back. It's a place he's only too familiar with. Shall I put a positive spin on this setback (sorry)? I can't think of when we last had such a cold gloomy day in Sydney. The sun might have risen but we haven't seen it, the rain (much needed) has alternated between steady drizzle and splashy downpour. I'll be honest. I'm happy not to have spent today loading our last supplies onto the boat. Tonight I'll sleep in a snug bed in a heated house after taking a deep bath ....only a fool would be going to sea in this weather (am I convincing you?). But tomorrow, or the next day? Well, that's another story. We'll be gone when we are gone, but my best bet is it won't be before the weekend, and maybe not till next week.

Confusing, my dear Watson

Today is the end of the week which, in theory, is our last week on land. We've told ourselves (and anyone else who cares to listen) that we'll be around for Monday night dinner, but after that we'll be gone as soon as the weather allows. These final days find me unsettled, and tetchy. The manufactured pink slick which surrounded Jessica Watson's arrival into Sydney harbour yesterday didn't help. Beyond the large print (that is, headlines containing the phrases 'teen hero' or 'conquers the world'), what exactly is it that she has done, and why does it matter? It's hard to know. From the outset, I've felt queasy about Jessica and her quest to be the youngest person to sail round the world non-stop and "unassisted". In some respects, sailing around the world has become as predictable and routine as taking a guided hike to the top of Mt Everest. Satellite technology takes so much of the mystery and the risk out of crossing oceans, and puts that achievement within the reach of some decidedly unseaman-like people (like me).There's that, plus my feeling that Watson's voyage was managed a bit like an interactive adventure game. Anyone can play! Just point the pretty girl in the right direction and watch her sail! One of my boys compared her to a contestant in Big Brother. Apply the pressure and let's all watch how she responds (there were cameras all over the boat). Either way, she's lasted the distance. She's a winner! Now watch her collect her prize money, cash in her celebrity chips.  Perhaps when her sponsors have extracted their dues and she's outgrown her girlpower branding, she'll tell her story in her own words (I don't hold out much hope for the almost-published book being in her own words). Perhaps I'll find what she has to say interesting. Then again, perhaps I'm just a tired old grouch.
We are both tired. Alex is tired of spending money, and I am tired of shopping in supermarkets. No matter that I tell myself as I trudge up and down the aisles that soon I'll be wrangling with awkward, heavy shopping bags and have no easy way of getting them from A to B. I'm tugging at the leash I've clipped around my own neck as Mother Superior. I'm ready to go.
Alex is too, but there's a glitch. He tweaked his back yesterday as he was unloading the car. It pays never to take Alex's spinal health for granted. In the past three months, he's done all manner of incredibly tight work in cramped and confined corners of the boat - look at him, curled up like a yogi in the starboard lazarette, fine-tuning the workings of the watermaker.

I've watched him many times manoeuvre a trolley loaded well beyond capacity down the hill to the marina. But then something as commonplace as lifting a milk crate can undo him. It's all in the twist. On the positive side, he's physically much  fitter than ever, thanks to an impressively rigorous (for which read competitive) walking and swimming routine. He and our tall friend Peter, his workout partner, are the odd couple on the early morning circuit. So, fingers crossed, he'll straighten up and we'll get away only a few days later than planned.

Breaking bread

The first phase of my bread campaign is coming to a close. It's taken a couple of months, but I can now say with confidence, and a flagrant lack of modesty, that most days I bake bread for which I'd happily pay money (and I'm fussy).  It's a small enough achievement, given what some of my contemporaries tackle on a daily basis. At 53, I am only too aware that the people running governments, armies, banks and major theatre companies are about my age, and getting younger. But distorted perspective aside, here is a drum roll for the loaf.

The absence of explanation

I've been struck mute  - or rather, I was struck mute - for two reasons. First, my much-loved sister Barb came to Sydney for a few days. Somehow, by error and by design, I've organised to live the past 25 years in a different country from her. I regret that, for when Barb's around, I don't need to explain anything. There's  no-one who understands me so intuitively, nor who shares so many of my habits and mannerisms. We sound the same - even our children can confuse our voices. There's something in the way we move too. Perfect strangers ask us if we're twins. Needless to say, we don't consider ourselves to be alike at all (I'll always say she's the pretty one, and she'll always say I got the brains.) but what counts is that we grew up breathing the same air.

                                Here we are in NZ over summer. Definitely our mother's daughters...

So, that's one reason why I've been quiet. But there was something else. A couple of weeks ago, I picked up a terse note on Alaskan Mike's blog. Admittedly he and Alisa were in limbo, waiting for the birth of Eric Leo (who arrived, in a great hurry, on April 28 - welcome, little man!). Mike wrote that he has a standard for blogging - Blog Only When You Have Something to Say. The business of clogging up everyone's computers with the "mental chaff of the moment" he leaves to others. Ouch. Where does that leave this blog? I wondered...

I could sit Alex down and get him to detail exactly what he's done on the boat over the past two months, instead of glibly reporting my impressions. Fuel injectors overhauled, solar panels fitted, new car radio installed blah blah blah. It's all very important stuff. Boat maintenance is where cruising begins and often ends. But it can also be an end in itself. Alex is the first to say that he's probably taken twice as long to do the work on Kukka that we planned because a) he's learning as he does it and b) he enjoys it so much. You know the line, the one from the opening chapter of the Wind in the Willows, where the Water Rat explains the charm of boating to Mole, to whom the river and riverside ways are a novelty. `Believe me, my young friend, there is NOTHING--absolute nothing--half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.'

My hope - actually it's better than that, it's a conviction based on our shake-down cruise last year - is that once we go sailing, the distance between us (the Rat and the Mole) will narrow. I will become more involved with the boat as a machine, and Alex will see beyond its workings. When that happens, the blog will have something to say about us. I'm looking forward to that.

But back to me (just joking). We took the staysail off the boat today, with Mikey's help. It needs a new line down the leech (the back edge of the triangle) to stop the sail from fluttering. Fortunately, the mainsail, which is incredibly heavy and unwieldy, looks good to go. As of today, I also have access to the interior of the boat, vacuumed and shipshape. There is not a loose wire in sight. The man is a gem. Without ceremony, I re-hung the ugly curtains which I had intended to bin. The time for worrying about aesthetics has gone. This week we'll be figuring out how to maximise the space in our storage cupboards. Now that's something I know a lot about. Finally.