ALERT BUT NOT ALARMED?

The noise was quite insistent, and very disturbing.  It sounded like kindling burning, or a camp fire crackling.  In the quiet of the night on our mooring in the Clarence River, it was very unwelcome. 

Lying in bed, I skimmed through alternate explanations. Top of mind was a short in the electrical wiring with its attendant fire hazard and power failure. Or, perhaps some sort of chemical reaction on board?  Or a weird engine going past? 

Alert and alarmed, I morphed into Sherlock Holmes mode. The noise was very diffuse and pervasive. It was really loud in the engine room, and in the head, moderate in all other cabins. It disappeared on deck. During my futile midnight search, it occurred to me that the sound was reminiscent of the noise you hear when scuba diving on a reef where crayfish are present.  In the end, that night, I decided that it was crabs roosting on the hull (I was tired) and went back to bed. Elementary my dear Watson.

Next day, I hit the net. Thank God for Google.  What I found is that yachties from all over the world have been alert and seriously alarmed when first they meet this noise.  Many report practically dismantling their yachts on the hunt for the noise that is described variously as frying bacon, crackling, or rice bubble pop. Most, like me have been intent on assessing whether the noise is vessel threatening, a risk to life or limb, or just the normal massive drain to the pocket. 

Various theories about the noise have been put forward. My favourites are that cockroaches or mice plagues have infested the boat, that the anti-foul has got active and is noisily eating slime, that electrolysis is devouring the hull, or, more likely, all of these simultaneously. The consensus explanation is that the tiny shrimp krill are snapping their jaws as they eat and the yacht hull acts as a huge transponder, magnifying the sound.  If it is these tiny shrimp, they are most likely eating the marine growth that accretes to the hull.  So yachties can until further notice consider it a comforting sound, much like campers do the crackle of a camp fire.

But stay alert.  Be alarmed. It’s good for you.

I want a fridge magnet.

DEATH ON THE HIGH SEAS

It was distressing to see so many of them dead. They were afloat, but their usually perky heads hung under water; their bodies twisted and shapeless.  Their soft, chocolate-brown feathers which normally made them look quite cuddly were dull and sodden. 

Shearwaters (or mutton birds) are more finely built than seagulls and much more appealing. Their wing shape is sharply aero dynamic, and they glide over the waves, gracefully skimming the roughest water inches from the surface.  Are they really slip streaming our yacht, or is that just mutton-birdly curiosity?  They frequently settle on the water, popping their head under the surface for a look, and taking off again.  Every October, they arrive on our SE coast at the tail-end of their massive 32,000km round trip from Australia to Russia via NZ and Japan, then back again via Alaska, the west coat of North America and a Pacific crossing.  Marvellous.

What disaster could have killed so many?  Feral fishermen taking pot shots? Poisonous food?  An algal bloom? A bio- or chemo-hazard accident? 

A call to Michelle at the Ballina Seabird Rescue Organisation provided the answer. They were dying of exhaustion and starvation. Official theory blames the wild weather being experienced across eastern Australia this spring.  The unseasonal storms were just too much for the tiny shearwaters. A similar phenomenon was noted 5 years ago.

So, sadly, fewer Shearwaters will be returning to their habitual nests this year, and their life-long partners will need to re-partner to lay their eggs in November before they head off again in April to repeat their risky passage. 

THE DRUG BUST

We were up on the hard stand, antifouling.  Moonraker was propped in a steel cradle, balanced on her keel, feeling queenly. We were fully overall-ed, masked and gloved, paying homage to the queen with barnacle scrapers and paint brushes.

Then, to the astonishment and delight of all in the marina, Australia’s biggest drug bust (according to Channel 9) dramatically unfolded.

The actual drug boat, a nice Beneteau, had tied up feet away from us just hours before.  The police had to pass almost under Moonraker to get through, and aboard her, 12 feet up in the air, we had pole position. 

There were literally dozens of federal and local police, customs and homeland security folk swarming the fingers, many with thick flack jackets and huge automatic, weird-shaped  machine guns. There were three police boats blocking the harbour, one a Darth Vader affair: black, fast, big and inflatable  with chunky men on board. A huge van and lots of four wheel drives disgorged wave upon wave of armed personnel. Disappointingly, there was no helicopter or submarine.

The really scary guns (carried by what looked like a rugby team) were camouflage-coloured, but they stood out like elephants, especially as the rugby players were initially kneeling down, taking careful sight and aiming the guns at people across the water, while their colleagues shouted instructions at the people they were aiming at.

Very CSI.  I noticed that the riflemen had a medical person trailing them so I think they were serious.

The official bustle went on for two days. Around the marina, it will be a point of analysis for weeks if not years. People earned brownie points for being the first with tidbits of news.  Dean got a scoop by being driven by the taxi driver who actually knew the taxi driver who has given the perpetrators a lift.  Wow! TV news covered it a day or so later and we (the marina collective) were all riveted by the 30 second grab.

I am now confirmed in my view that we should decriminalize the drugs to get criminals out of it. But, I guess it would disappoint our law enforcement team, who appeared to be very professional and very expensive.  And quite enjoying themselves, as were we.

BUILT LIKE A BRICK (ahem) WASHROOM



Built like a brick (ahem) washroom.



I WOULDN'T GO WITHOUT IT Provisioning for our first passage

There was a TV advertisement a few years ago in which a young woman declared winningly to camera that she wouldn’t go anywhere without her Mum… Mum deodorant that is.

Well, if you are a cruising sailer, your Mum is pretty well the only thing you can go without.

For our first passage, my naïve idea of ‘supplying’ our boat was to make sure we have plenty of water, wine, food and sunburn cream. 

Forget the wine for a moment.  Let’s start with the supply category ‘spares’. This covers spares for every moving and non -moving part of the boat.  There are probably hundreds of ’spares’ required, ranging from ropes and halyards of multiply sizes and grades, anchors, impellers for each pump, extra pumps themselves, various belts and bits for various engines, pipes and hoses for every inlet and outlet valve ever thought off, bits and pieces for generators, radios, tanks and cooking appliances.  Spare for this; spares for that; spares for the other.  Mountains of them.

In addition to cataloguing and storing the spares themselves (storeman position available) there is enough work for a part time librarian to accession and maintain all the literature.  There are mounds of manuals for everything on board.  Mainly they are helpful for establishing the maintenance schedule so that theoretically you don’t need the spares.  But, they come in handy when repairing items on the run (i.e. daily). For someone for whom constructing an Ikea bookshelf was a challenge, the instructions for replacing the impeller in the macerator pump was a doozy.  Practical guides and manuals aside, for the theoretically-minded, there is the extra cache of volumes to ensure that you can not only do it, you can realise why. (Why Does a Diesel Engine Work?  Theory of Rope Splicing for Dummies; The Whys and Wherefores of Waves; Understanding the Electromagnetic Spectrum for Yachties etc )

Then, just as you think you are on top of spares adn maintenance, you have to check that you have a veritable Bunning’s Warehouse of the tools vital to a sailor’s life. I realise now that I had a very Pollyanna view of ‘sailing tools’ before I got on board.  I had a very nice set of navigation instruments, a shackle spanner and some terrific sailing gloves.  Little did I realise that more important to me would be, inter alia, a set of huge bolt cutters (to cut away the mast when it falls?), grease gun, angle grinder, soldering iron, huge numbers of imperial and metric spanners, Allen keys, vices, clamps, jig, fret and hack saws, hammers and mallets, sewing equipment, vacuum pumps, screw drivers (various), compressors (four?) and generators. I had optimistically thought that the presence of a number of hairdryers on board was a sign of the elegant life, until I realised that they are actually used to heat flexible piping before deploying onto their fittings.

In addition to standard tools that anyone would recognise, there are a range of bent, twisted, welded, cut and generally surreal implements that have been customised by the indomitable David Casson to suit this particular yacht and its unique nooks and crannies.  The engine mountings awkward to access?  Here is our customised spanner handle that makes it easy.  Stern gland in a devilishly unreachable place to check?  Here is a fabulous customised spanner that you can use with your eyes closed?  Head blocked up? Here is a fully customised flexible set of micro tongs with a remote spring control that can get tiny bits of loo paper from inside the pipe without disassembly.

But wait, there is more. There are solvents, cleaners, polishes, bleaches, glues, detergents, paints, greases, oils, conditioners, buffers, tapes and a myriad of other consumable gunk needed to clean, etch, prime, degrease, polish, seal  or otherwise finish the job. Plus the disposable gloves, overalls and masks for the operator. In my youth I used to campaign against the nuclear subs that berthed in our bay, fearing that they might sink and cause an environmental mess.  Your average small sailing vessel might not have nuclear power (at least I haven’t found any on our yacht yet) but it has enough chemicals on board to rival a Bopal factory. 

And here was me thinking that tee tree oil, eucalyptus oil, vinegar and vanilla were all we needed. 

Then of course, because of all the gunk, all the tools, all the sparks, flames, moving parts, and because boats move around and can sink and people can get ill or injured, there are  the safety and environment procedures to be learned, safety and environmental regulations to be complied with, and safety equipment to be checked and stored.   Our 44-foot sailing boat is chock-a-block with alarms, safety devices, mandatory licences, registrations and compliance certificates.  There is a pile of safety equipment you literally cannot jump over: life raft, PFDs, flairs, radios, radar, depth sounder, EPIRBs, hand-held radios, GPS, danbouy, life rings, safety harnesses, fire blankets, fire extinguishers, first aid kits. There are environmental protection procedures for dealing with hazardous waste including holding tanks for bio waste. 

Our mentor in these matters (my favourite person David) said that he nearly had a safety-induced accident when there was a fire in the engine hold.  A piece of paper had blow onto a hot pipe and ignited. He  opened the engine hold,  gently blew out the flame, stepped back and nearly broke his leg on the mound of fire extinguishes and fire blankets that his partner had instantly deployed behind him, as per approved procedures.

So, back to supplying the vessel for our first trip:  I think we forgot the wine.  

ARCANERY Living the illiterate life

I was really worried that we made a bad gaff the other day.   As we walked up to our broker on a finger, we overheard him snorting in derision at the silly bugger who ‘two-packed his wood’.

Being paranoid, I immediately assumed that we were guilty.  Had we inadvertedly two packed our wood?   Further, was that dangerous or just stupid? 

As it turns out, the story was about a fellow who bought an old wooden boat and put the wrong paint on it.  The very inflexible two -pack paint cracks as the wooden boat flexes.  I know that wasn’t us, as our boat is fibreglass.  (Phew)

But it made me think about the stew of illiteracy we have been boiling in lately. Do you think it is possible that mariners’ use of language has the highest density of arcanery in the English speaking world?  I can’t immediately think of other fields in which there is a richer source of very particular language use. Other than the law, of course. 

At one level, marine language is no different from any other specialist field in that it has lots of nouns and verbs unfamiliar to land-lubbers that describe things or concepts that do not exist on land.  ‘Sloop’, ‘yawl’ and ‘schooner’ might be synonyms for yachts to the uninitiated but there is a world of difference to anyone who knows. Most landlubbers don’t have to heave-to and are not often at risk of broaching.  We struggle to learn the litany of foreign words about yacht design and maintenance, communications, sailing technique, diesel engine operation, navigation, weather, moods of the ocean, rules of the road, and so on. 

Even the smallest of areas of knowledge have vast volumes of weird words. We are currently grappling with knots, and we have a set of small encyclopaedias of knowledge devoted to them: what they are called, their component parts, how tie them, what to tie them with and to what particular purpose you would use them for. (Q: What kind of knot would you use to secure the fender to the rail? A: Half hitch with quick release.  Now do it.)

Old words and phrases get new power. We are literally learning the ropes. I am worried that my beloved I-phone will be scuppered and sink without a trace.  We are sailing too close to the wind so we better take another tack. I am fearful of falling overboard or being cast adrift, or up a creek or elsewhere without a paddle. WE are waiting for a good time and tide to leave this port, but THEY await no man.

That twinge of self consciousness from sounding like a pirate in a b-grade movie is almost gone.  I now comfortable sit on thwarts and look for things abeam or abaft.

We have almost got past the stage of diving for our boating glossaries and springing snap quizzes on each other. We can now tell our clew from our leech, our rhumb line from our rum supply and our spring lines from our brest lines, our forward from our forehead and our pulpit from our pushpit. But remind me again what the hell is the name of that thin line of paint stencilled just above the waterline?

Ahhrrr.

IS THIS A GOOD IDEA?

Day 1: 19^th September 2010

My stomach did a lurch and I felt suddenly nauseous. Not seasickness or at least not the traditional type as I was in the CYC bar at the time.  It was just the realisation that effective today, I am technically homeless, with no fixed address.  The trendy apartment has been relinquished and all the furniture has been stored. The family trinkets are in a safe deposit box, the 35 year old potted Kentia palm has been fostered (thanks Dianna) and all mail has been redirected to a PO Box.

Members of my family tell me I am over-reacting (again!). They know I can get myself theatrically worked up about anything.  But I am not exactly complaining, or even looking for sympathy.  I am not penniless, disadvantaged or deserving of charity.  On the contrary, I am decidedly middle class and moderately prosperous. I have chosen to go on what I am broadcasting as ‘the adventure of a lifetime’: 18months sailing around Australia on a yacht. 

But it is weird. No house, just a little yacht. (How will that feel in a storm?)  No car, as our jaunty little yacht is not blessed with either helipad or garage. No job, except a little bit of work running our publishing company via the internet.  No TV.  (Actually, that’s a lie: we will have a TV, CD and DVD on board.)  We will be cut off from the world. (And that’s a lie too: our communications gear includes an HF radio, several VHF radios, a27mh radio, , radar, several EPIRBs, one Telstra and one Optus 3 g account, all run by three computers, with two mobile phones).

Natalie, quick of wit and fast of lip quipped that I was holding up her search for a luxury apartment to lease in Perth with her new man, as “it looks dodgy to have a next of kin with no fixed address”.    

A huge loss is access to Surry Hills restaurants, galleries, cinemas and trendy throb just outside the door.  Cunningly, to acclimatise to this privation, we have booked a berth in a Sydney Harbour marina for the first three months while we get our sea legs and work out which of our friends is prepared to do champagne on the aft deck at sunset. We aim to follow the fleet out of the heads in the Sydney Hobart yachts this year, and take in the traditional Sydney New year’s celebrations a l’eau. My theory is that you really need to work up to desert islands and shouldn’t dive into the slow lane too quickly.

But, back to the nervous nausea.

Could it be that I harbour doubts about my nautical resilience, especially in relation to living with my significant other. Can we live cheek by jowl on a small boat for 18 months? A hint: this is the same couple who had separate apartments in one of our homes so that we didn’t have to interact during the daylight hours with the occasional exception of coffee at 11am on special days

I might also be suffering from a delayed reaction to packing up all our worldly stuff and cramming it into two containers.  All that much loved (I thought) furniture and effects looked decidedly insignificant and unimportant as it was man-handled into a rusty container.   

Is this a good idea? Well.  Only time will tell.