Chasing the Horizon

THE possibility of sailing as a way of life began for me when I was working on Brampton Island in the Whitsundays in 1991, although the inspiration to travel via the ocean had been with me since childhood.

One day while I was working on the beach, three 16’ Hobie cats sailed past and beached themselves on Carlyle Island. I was quick to race over and have a look and see if they needed anything, but more to satisfy my curiosity.

As I approached I began to put the picture together. There were six young men unpacking and setting up camp on the beach. They went from sailors of small craft to beach front campers with ocean views in a very short time. I was intrigued and inspired.

The adventurers were from Melbourne and had towed their sail craft for a three week Mackay to Airlie Beach holiday. The trip was well planned with food and bedding in watertight bags. Water also had to be carried and cooking equipment and utensils stowed as well. Charts were laminated and a compass was used for navigation. They were pretty much self sufficient for the three week trip. I spoke to a couple of them for a while and asked question after question. The seed was planted and my mission was to hurry up and buy my first boat to start my own sailing adventure.

Two months later I was the proud owner of an 18’ Hobie cat. I remember the first day I took it out after it was barged to Brampton Island. The previous owner was kind enough to come out and teach me how to sail her. As it turned out Mother Nature wanted to test us and she blew a solid 25 knots all day. It was my only chance to learn so off we went broad reaching with 30 knot gusts up our bums. We were both out in the harnesses flying along; I was sh*#!g myself but trusted the skipper’s skill and hung on. The predictable happened when we had to tack and due to me not getting to the other side of the boat in time over we went into the deep blue sea. This failed to dampen my enthusiasm and turned out to be the beginning of a life of boats and adventure.

I spent couple of months learning to sail and setting the boat up for extended trips. I did a couple of overnight sails to Cockermouth Island, which gave me my first taste of cruising. I can still remember the feeling of freedom of a setting sun over the water, a fire, and a deserted island as nature intended.

My first real trip was a two week sail from Brampton to Mackay. I had just met a wonderful girl and was keen to share with her, and impress her, with my newfound love of cruising. Everything went perfectly for the first week, and we were having heaps of fun and romance. Then lady luck deserted us after 10 days out. We were camped on the beach on Scawfell Island 30 miles of the mainland and a north-east storm blew in. Three days later and the storm hadn’t abated, and I started to feel like we were trapped in a Gilligan’s Island rerun and I was playing Gilligan.

The rudder was broken from a failed attempt to sail out through breaking seas, we had done the SOS with drift wood on the beach, our drinking water was low, we were down to a cupful of rice and some 13 day old mouldy curry powder, we were eating green ants for vitamin C and oysters off the rocks for fluids (things could have been worse I guess) and every night we would dream of roast lamb, chocolates, red lemonade and pizza. We were both getting worried about the water situation, as there was no rain with the storm.

It made me realise how vulnerable we were and how under prepared I was. After four days the storm died and we sailed back to Mackay and gorged ourselves on pizza, red lemonade and chocolate till we were sick. Nature is a great teacher and I have never forgotten the lessons I learnt on that trip.

Port Douglas seemed like a good departure place for the next trip. The original plan was to sail to PNG and try to get to the tropical islands of the Louisiades. This would involve sailing to Thursday Island first so with that in mind I started to prepare the Hobie for an extended trip. An old friend called Steve was keen for some adventure and signed up as crew. I met up with Peter Greig (Ocean Emu) who is a rigger with lots of miles under his belt and under his guidance the boat was strengthened and re-rigged.

Just about everything was looked at from new rivets in the mast to in hull storage compartments, compass mounts, capsize drills, paddles, rudder reinforcement, fishing rod mounts, food, water etc, etc. As always this took time and money but without this preparation our trip would have been a short and expensive one. Not to mention a dent to the confidence.

It didn’t take long to get into a routine and sailing, unpacking, setting up camp and cooking dinner became normal practice. The beauty of this type of craft was first realised at Cedar Bay (south of Cooktown) where we sailed in over the reef with the rudders half up and did a nose to wind beaching on a weather shore. An hour later we were sitting around a campfire with the boat tied to a coconut tree, a hot chocolate in hand, and ocean views out the tent door and paradise as our back yard.

It didn’t matter if it blew 30 knots for three days the Hobie was high and dry and we had two fresh water streams, and enough coconuts, fish and rice to keep us happy for weeks.

It seemed to me that this season was the windiest the north had had for years. This feeling was of course amplified by my lack of experience and a high-speed small craft. I realised just how fast my boat was on approaching Cooktown. Never let it be said that Cooktown is not a windy place. We approached with a full main in 30 knots of breeze that increased as we got closer to the headland. Navigation can be difficult on approaching an unfamiliar harbour doing over 20 knots boat speed. Looking at the chart is challenging when you are leaning as far out the stern as possible so as to avoid pitch polling into a croc infested river mouth.

For me the ocean tends to drop subtle or sometimes dramatic reminders on how insignificant and vulnerable we are when exposed to her moods and power. It was time to put a reef in the main. The next couple of weeks were to be our last in civilized world for a while so we enjoyed what we could. We checked out the Laura Aboriginal Festival, went to the Hopevale community rodeo, played pool in the top pub and most importantly sewed a reef in the main sail so as to avoid any high-speed record attempts again.

Lizard Island is often referred to as one of the more beautiful places on the Reef so it was with great anticipation that we sailed into Watson’s Bay.

You tend to get a few interesting looks and comments when travelling in a small craft so it was a relief to meet another small boat sailor, on the beach. Deta was an eccentric Austrian who was sailing up to the Cape York in a 14 foot dory. He had a very basic set up and slept on board. His only survival items were a bottle of rum and a knife. The plan was to sail to the cape then leave the boat on the beach for whoever came along.

I was relieved to find someone else doing the same thing and in a smaller boat at that. We both agreed that what we were doing was a safe and fun way to see the top end. Months later I heard the good news of a very interesting and smelly gent called Deta hitchhiking down from the cape on his way back to Austria.

My crew Steve decided that sailing on a small cat was not really his thing and flew back to Cairns while I waited for another friend to come up. It proved to be a good thing and I ended up working at the resort as the dish scrubber for a few weeks and made camp in the bay. The leftovers and cakes I would come back to the tent with were totally debauch. With my girlfriend ‘Dan’ now onboard as second in charge we took a trip out to the outer reef for a snorkel at the ‘Blue Hole’.

The feeling on the Pacific Ocean swell rolling through the passage was a little intimidating as we were about 40 miles offshore but once we were in the water the nerves settled and a whole new dimension to life unfolded. Massive potato cod would swim right up to us and check us out. They looked big enough to take an arm off, but were just after a free feed. The experience was inspiring and I was beginning to see why some people sail to the far corners of the planet to experience such underwater beauty and harmony.

With the stomach bulging and some money in the kitty we set sail for the north and beyond. We generally covered about 30 to 50nm per day and tried to spend at least a few days at each destination. Noble Island proved fascinating with some old gold mine shafts and Perigan falcon and Osprey nests. We caught fish off the beach each day, which is great dinner but also gives you the confidence that you really know what you are doing in these wild areas. The reality is that no one goes to these places much as there is no anchorage so you can stumble along with little idea and still put dinner on the table just like Tarzan.

Heading north again we spotted a Dugong in Ninian Bay, and eventually found ourselves camped on the beach at Cape Melville.

That afternoon as we were watching the sun go down and taking photos of the giant rock formations behind and taking in the serenity of the place a very big pig wandered into camp. It seemed like it was my duty to chase it away and I adapted the cave man run, big noise, wild arms and big stick approach. Normally this works and I have seen people do this on the television and have success. Unfortunately this pig stood its ground and with trepidation and a healthy ego to service I went again into the caveman routine only to be confronted with a big angry pig now running towards me.

Fortunately for me cavemen used to climb trees as well and survival instinct took over and I found myself ungracefully perched on a branch. Sleep didn’t come easy that night and we decided to shift camp further up the beach the next day.

It’s funny who you meet in remote places and it was in the middle of Bathurst Bay that we met Charlie. Charlie’s camp was well set up with freezer’s half full of salmon, a shower, comfortable bed and lots of beer. He was a wealthy grazier with properties down south and every year he would drive into the bay and set up camp for three to four months. He would stay until his freezer was full of Salmon and then head home with enough fish to last him the year. A gentle man at peace in the bush. They say you can learn something off everyone you meet, and the thing I learnt off Charlie was how much pleasure can be had enjoying the simple things in life.

Flinders and Stanley Islands are just off Cape Melville and are full of caves and aboriginal burial grounds. There are paintings of tall ships on rock walls and stories of grave robbers frequenting the islands. It is certainly a spooky and very powerful place. Dan and I spent a couple of weeks here and met up with the Sea Swift mothership to receive supplies. I had a hand held radio and would radio a southbound mothership to bring up a box of supplies that we had left in the holding shed in Cairns.

So we early awaited these moments and would sail up and tie off on the mother ship with some interesting looks from the fishermen. Brian who is still driving today was always helpful and friendly but after a quick chat we were always keen to sail back to camp and devour the chocolates and other sweets that we had packed months earlier.

We crossed Princess Charlotte Bay where we were out of sight of land for some time and made landfall on Turtle Island where there was a heap of turtle tracks to justify the name. You really feel alive when camped on a small atoll miles off the coast in the middle of nowhere. Both Dan and myself were slowly being absorbed into the cruising life and enjoying the freedom and challenges you encounter travelling at sea.

A week or so later after some more uninhabited islands a few mackerel mixed with moments of bliss and nervous uncertainty, we sailed in over the reef at Chilli Beach.

When it is blowing 20 knots from the south-east and you are on a windward shore you only have to go into the rainforest 50 metres and the breeze drops down to a gentle five knots. So it was the famous Chilli Beach where we set up camp and sat around the bush TV and waited for the billy to boil. Little did I know that it would be a year before I would set sail for Cape York, and in that year there were months in the Torres Straits on a trout and mackerel boat, pig hunting in the rainforest, three day full moon parties, house sitting the Hilton for the wet and enough interesting characters to intrigue most souls.

The small fishing village of Portland Roads will either fascinate or bewild you. Either way it is an interesting place.

This story will continue next mag... there is Cape York, the Gulf, Arnhem land, the Kimberlys and Africa to come.