SOME REAL LIFE ADVENTURES

When Dean and I were married, a long time ago, we made vows. These vows included the usual boilerplate clauses along the lines of ‘in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer’ etc.  Also included were a few more whimsical vows, one of which was to ‘add adventures to each other’s lives.’  That we have done. Business ventures, travel, mad friends and family, and a few institutional battles have added interest, change, risk, hazard and excitement to otherwise very safe middle class lives. 

Our current adventure (cruising with Moonraker) has produced quite a few adrenalin-inducing moments that have taken me (and occasionally Dean) well outside the comfort zone.   My brother Boyd, who has done some sailing, gleefully points out that our adventures make everyone else feel good about staying at home.

Here are a couple of my favourite ‘adventure moments’.

 Involuntary serial re-anchoring

I am the anchor-man on Moonraker. That means that I look after the anchor when it is going up and down, make sure the electric windlass doesn’t jam and fix it when it does, ensure that the chain doesn’t jump off its track and put it back when it does, ensure the chain has easy passage in and out of the hold and clear it when it doesn’t, wash the mud off the chain, anchor and deck, and so on.  I care about the anchor, as it provides safety and comfort, usually. 

Being anchor-man is dangerous, as it involves managing the 60lb anchor with its 60m of heavy chain, all driven by electric motor or, even more powerfully, by the force of gravity.  Sometimes it feels as if the apparatus is waiting to pounce, to tangle you and take you to the bottom, or remove fingers, toes, hands or feet that get in the way.

On the day after the Sydney New Year’s fireworks, we were anchored on the Harbour.  It was very choppy because of the heavy boat traffic and we were in relatively deep water, with 50m of chain out. With me at my anchor-man post, the anchor came up easily.  I bent over to secure it on deck when it gave a terrific heave, leapt out of its cradle, and plummeted over the side, with its chain snaking and roaring very fast after it.  I leapt out of the way, very startled and apprehensive about what was happening. Two thoughts leapt to mind: confidence that we were not at risk of losing the anchor and chain, as I had checked a few days before that the anchor was tied to the boat at its bitter end; and determination to cut it free if the anchor was putting us in some sort of perilous situation.

Soon enough, the chain stopped roaring out, and I gingerly approached it.  Again, a further few meter of chain rattled out, before it stopped again.  I was apprehensive and mystified.  What was happening?  Had we hooked a whale? Found a hole in the earth’s crust. What?

Soon reason reasserted itself. The chain had merely (!) bounced free of its track in the windlass, so unrestrained, the anchor had gone to the bottom.  The boat was also drifting backwards, and for every few meters of drift, a few more meters of chain were wrenched free. 

The main problem was to secure the moving chain without losing fingers, put it back on its track and start again. Which I did. Twice.  By the time we were securely un-anchored, I needed some medicinal champagne. But all fingers and toes survived, I avoided being personally anchored by feral chain.  And, I had learned more about anchoring.

Surfing the Port Macquarie Bar

Many NSW coastal harbours are guarded by dragons that intrepid sailors must pass to reach safe harbour. The ‘dragons’ are shallow sandbars that come and go and move around. Skill, judgement and luck is required to cross safely if the wind or swell is up, especially if you are in a slow moving deep-keeler like Moonraker. The Port Macquarie bar is considered one of the most dangerous, its rogue waves having taken out hundreds of boats, ships and dingies in its time, with many deaths recorded.  The NSW Marine Rescue puts a lot of effort into helping people negotiate the bars, and tall tales and true of crossings are told and retold in other sorts of bars across NSW.

For our approach to Port Macquarie, we were well prepared, and not overly concerned.  This was our second entry across this bar, so we knew, sort of, what to expect.  It was a moderate day, swell OK, the local marine rescue service had raised no red flags.  Our approach was timed perfectly just before the top of the flood tide, we were on the leads and our reefed main was up for stability and safety.  All to plan.

I looked behind as we were almost inside the bar in time to see an enormous wave rearing up behind us.  Moonraker cockpit is a meter above the water, I am 5’ 6” and the top of the wave was well above my head. It broke just before it reached us with a tremendous roar.  Moonraker, which weighs about 16 tonnes, was picked up by the stern in the white water and impelled forward as if she was a boogie board.  She jumped and slewed a bit, but essentially plowed on, undeterred. No broach.  Well done Moonraker.

So when it came time to exit across the bar a few days later, we were being VERY careful. Now we knew what they mean by ‘rogue waves’. We consulted all and sundry at the marina about tactics and they confirmed advice from the VMR that the leads were not the best guide to crossing the bar. The leads are apparently positioned due to the inertia of feuding local authorities rather than the position of the sand.  Ten degrees north of the leads was considered best.  We endlessly studied the bar (in real life as well as via the real-time bar-cam on the web).  We picked a day that had moderate winds, low swell and again no red flags from Marine Rescue.  We prepared the boat carefully (washboards up, life jackets on, everything battened down) and set off at dusk.

Again we were nearly through when a huge wave (I would say 10ft face) reared up steeply in front of us. “We’ll take it head on”, shouts Dean.   “Well, I certainly hope so”, thinks I. And we did. Moonraker climbed the wave then swooped down its back. 

 But no relief.  An even bigger wave followed, and this time it was breaking. Worse, the previous wave had left us a few degrees off straight to the waves and with some momentum lost. So, with no option but to watch and hang on, we took a breaking wave over the starboard bow. White water foamed, covering the boat.  What would Moonraker do?  I was worried that she would broach and be washed sideway onto the rocks.  But no.  Moonraker shrugged off the wave, albeit after a mighty jolt and a bit of a roll, and continued to head stoically out to sea.  Fifteen tonnes and a sturdy diesel engine helps.  And it was a two-wave set, thank heavens.

We got a thorough soaking. White water had washed into the cockpit, soaking us, our navigation computer (RIP), the bean bags.  Miraculously the i-phone survived, as did Dean’s old Nokia. The cabin took a dousing through the open companionway hatch (which we hadn’t closed over the washboards on the grounds that water NEVER gets there) and the carpets got soggy.  The dingy on the foredeck snapped its lashing but luckily got stuck drunkenly in the safety rails.  

I was a bit shaken to say the least and it took me an hour or so to stop shaking, about a day to recover my good humour and two days to clean up the mess.  We later heard stories from a chap who had, in his youth, taken a boat exactly like ours out to wind-surf the Port Macquarie bar ON PURPOSE, FOR FUN. Made me feel like a wimp.

The night we ran aground on a mud bank in Laurieton

When we lived at Brooklyn on the Hawkesbury, one of the shameful acts of schadenfreude we indulged in was to smirk at the people (not to their faces) in hired houseboats who became stuck on sand banks. Poor things had to wait in conspicuous embarrassment until the high tide floated them off. 

But what goes around comes around, and so we too became the objects of amused pity of locals. The actual event was at Laurieton, an impossibly picturesque little town nestled under the towering North Brother mountain, with a lovely river in which we sought harbour one fine, still evening.  We had managed to negotiate the bar but it was dark by the time we motored into the river, intent on finding the mooring we had booked from the local boat shed.  Our cruising guide was quite specific: it emphasised the importance of following the channel; it warned of the large moving mud banks; it cautioned against trusting published charts and guides; it counselled that the locals knew the shifting banks best; and it suggested that we follow their well-lit channel markers in preference to anything else. 

Ken and I were lookout.  Dean was at the helm inching the boat forward.  But, what we didn’t realise is that the lights on the channel markers are not maintained religiously.  So, most were lit and three were not.  On the dark, moonless and overcast night we failed to notice the unlit ones. To cut it short, we hit the mud.  Moonraker rounded up and her momentum and the force of the incoming tide pushed us harder into the mid-stream mud bank.  We were stuck.  We had no chance of floating off as we only had 20cm left in the tide and were about 40 cm short of floatation depth.

 Luckily the wonderful local marine rescue people agreed to forsake their Friday night activities and launch their rescue craft. They declined to pull us off backwards (damage risk to rudder) but pulled at us from the side, using a long, long rope and two huge, roaring outboards on their rescue cat.  At first, giant spumes of water issued from their engines but we were not moving. Then, we began to inch sideways. Suddenly the mud let go with a jerk, we slid sideways off the bank, and then found ourselves virtually water-skiing behind the rescue boat, doing  what felt like 15 knots up the sleepy river.

So, embarrassed, thankful for the amazing marine rescue volunteers and chastened about our navigation skills, we clocked up another adventure, applied champagne and carried on.