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.