Green Ghost, Blue Ocean

by Jennifer M. Smith

  Some would argue that you could never consider yourself on a forced march if the fishing was good – and the fishing was good. We caught a bonito, a shark, and a barracuda, but a good edible fish was eluding us and Nik started to worry about running out of food.

  Normally I’m confident about what’s in the pantry, but there in FNQ, Nik’s panic undermined me. I began counting days. It had been thirteen days since we were in a grocery store. We had about another twenty days before the next one. With a refrigerator less than four and a half cubic feet, five weeks was a long time to go between shops. We had little in the way of fresh produce left. We had to rely on canned provisions to carry us through the longer stretches. Fortunately, our reasonably large freezer (two and a half cubic feet) helped us to store protein and keep meals interesting.

  I discreetly made a menu plan for every lunch and dinner for the next twenty days based on the existing food stores. The exercise alleviated my fear. We would make it to Darwin, even if we didn’t catch an edible fish. To our delight we soon landed a large wahoo, adding eight meals for two to the freezer and doubling our meat supply in a single catch.

  A strong high-pressure system developing in south central Australia was beginning to kick up the winds on the Queensland coast. Blustery conditions and rambunctious sailing came about as we were nearing the top of the country where there is little barrier reef protection from the offshore swell. The forecast was predicting strengthening winds and some nasty weather as we approached Cape York. With only 25 NM to go to the tip of the continent we decided to duck out for a day or two and hole up in what was for us the aptly named Escape River.

  The wind was ripping through the broad low-lying area at the mouth. It was a hairy ride going in over the bar at low tide. Seeing two metres under our keel in a couple of spots, I was holding my breath that we didn’t go aground in that lonely unfamiliar place. We soon saw that it wasn’t completely uninhabited – there was a pearl farm at the river’s mouth that wasn’t much to see. The floats in the water marking the man-made pearl oyster beds kept us on our toes at the helm, but there was no sign of life whatsoever around the half-dozen small structures on shore. Without a trace of movement and no sign of human inhabitants, there was an apocalyptic feel to the place.

  Although the wind was blowing hard just off the coast, the anchorage upstream was so settled our wind generator blades ceased spinning completely. There was only one other boat in the anchorage, and when they departed the following morning we had the place to ourselves except for the crocodiles basking on the muddy shoreline.

  After one day of rest we hoped to move on but the strong wind warning continued. It was hard to believe that the weather was raging while we sat in the quiet calm of the upriver anchorage. We decided to go out to the river mouth and review the conditions ourselves. As we approached the open water the wind was howling at thirty knots, a squall was coming through, we were pelted with rain, and visibility was obliterated. We got our answer – it was not a day to move on. We turned Green Ghost around and went back to anchor. Down went the anchor and before the silt had settled around it we were below with a bowl of buttered popcorn and a game of Scrabble on the go.

  In the afternoon, we heard the sound of an engine – the pearl farm was inhabited after all. The farmers came zotting over in their tinny. They had seen us do the about-face at the river bar earlier in the day, and concerned that we didn’t have access to a long-range weather forecast, they very kindly came out to us with information. In that remote and wild place, they hand-delivered a weather report printed from the Internet which they had sheathed in a professional-looking plastic sleeve to save it from getting wet en route. After a brief exchange, they handed over the weather report and left us with a bit of advice.

  “Looks like the weatha might keep you in a coupla days, mate. Don’t get in the watah – plenny a crocs ’round heah!”

  And with that they were gone, buzzing back to the pearl farm where they’d lived for twenty years.

  We spent two nights alone in Escape River, leaving us to wonder where all the other boats had gone. We’d repeatedly seen the same boats since leaving Lizard Island. Felix, Fantasia, Boomerang, Pegasus, and Invictus Reward were in each of the anchorages on our route north, but none of them stopped at Escape River. We headed for Mount Adolphus Island feeling sure we would once again catch up with everyone, but there was not a single other boat in that anchorage either. Either we’d been left in the dust again, or no one else was moving in the still boisterous weather.

  The high-pressure system that gave rise to the wind warning up and down the Queensland coast continued to generate twenty to thirty knots of wind. The seas inside the reef were two to three metres high; our flat-water sailing days were over. We sailed the short hop from Mount Adolphus Island to the anchorage at Cape York, for the first time in six weeks heading west rather than north. At the Cape, once again there were no other boats. We were beginning to wonder if we’d sailed into some parallel universe. Where was everyone?

  Since Cairns, we’d developed a herd mentality. In crowded anchorages we wished the herd away, longing for the privilege to have an anchorage to ourselves, but as soon as we found ourselves alone we experienced a growing anxiety – had we been left behind? Where was the herd?

  Herdless, we set anchor and put the dinghy in the water to go and set foot on the Cape itself. As far as destinations go, that pointy bit at the top did not disappoint. I spent the day wearing out superlatives; it was beautiful, it was stunning, it was gorgeous! The gently rolling green landscape, white beaches, and emerald water made for jaw-dropping views. I’d hoped for something dramatic at Cape York, but I’d no idea it would be as impressive as it was.

  We walked up the crest of the rise to the cairn on the Cape, adding a rock to the pile on our way by. We took pictures of the touristy sign that read, “This is the most northerly point on the continent of Australia.” While up there, we looked out at the breathtaking scenery that stretched down Australia’s east coast behind us and across Australia’s north coast to the west. As we did, we watched a few other sailboats round the cape. My heart leapt.

  “There they are! The herd!” I said excitedly.

  All but one of the boats sailed past. Only a catamaran came into the anchorage and pulled to a stop right next to Green Ghost. As we descended the promontory and crossed the sand beach, the catamaran’s dinghy was unloading on the beach.

  “There they are!” I heard the occupants say.

  Friends from the Mooloolaba Marina who we’d not seen once on our thousand-mile journey stood on the beach before us. It was wonderful to see some familiar faces and share hugs all around. Our chance rendezvous eased our herd anxiety; we’d not entirely lost the flock.

  We were also pleased to learn a welcome piece of news: there was a small settlement called Seisia on the west side of the Cape and apparently there was a grocery store there. We hoped for apples, a head of lettuce, anything that might crunch when you bit it. There wasn’t a single piece of fresh food left on Green Ghost.

  Not only was the grocery store a great find, there was also a trailer marked “BIN” at the wharf. We were thrilled to be able to take our garbage ashore and deposit it in a proper receptacle. It may sound crazy but one of the things we really dislike is carting our garbage around with us for weeks on end. For both of us, finding an appropriate place to drop garbage is nearly as exciting as finding a grocery store.

  After the thrill of the garbage drop, we drooled around the fresh food section of the small shop and loaded up on fruit, vegetables, and dairy. We didn’t need meat with all the fish we had in the freezer. We had a brief exchange with the checkout girl before heading back to the boat. The conversation was notable only in hindsight because it was our last human interaction for a rather long time.

  It was the end of June and there was still another 750 NM to get to Darwin. The Gulf of Carpentaria was before us. There was no more behind-the-reef sailing. The next leg was the real deal, bac
k out on open water.

  The first step was a 350 NM trip across the Gulf. We expected it would take us about sixty hours to get to an anchorage on the other side. Three nights and two days to cross the Gulf – how bad could it be?

  Green Ghost under sail entering Indonesian waters. Photo credit: Jim and Barbara Wallace of s/v Contrails.

  Green Ghost crosses Singapore Strait, the busiest shipping lane in the world. Photo credit: Robert Ayotte of s/v Caminata.

  Nik by the navigation station below deck as Green Ghost heels under sail in steady trade winds. Photo credit: Jennifer M. Smith.

  Jennifer with a nurse shark, Warderick Wells Cay, Bahamas. Photo credit: Alex Nikolajevich.

  Nik with a giant tortoise, Francois Leguat Giant Tortoise and Cave Reserve, island of Rodrigues, Indian Ocean. Photo credit: Jennifer M. Smith.

  Jennifer and Nik visiting Angkor Wat temple in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Photo credit: Alex Nikolajevich, self-portrait with a tripod.

  Dancers at the Toka Festival, island of Tanna, Vanuatu. Photo credit: Jennifer M. Smith.

  CHAPTER 18

  Across the Top

  (June – July 2011)

  How bad could it be? Sixty-four hours of hell on keel, that’s how bad it could be.

  We set out from Queensland hoping to make landfall in the Northern Territory’s picturesque Wessel Islands. We ended up on the Gove Peninsula, in Nhulunbuy, a bauxite mining town with a processing plant and an industrial deep-sea loading facility. Upon our arrival Nik announced that he’d never been so happy to lay eyes on a smelter.

  We were foolish. On our trip up the Queensland coast we’d sailed many smooth-water days with only the foresail in use. In the flat waters behind the Great Barrier Reef we didn’t need the mainsail for stability. Sailing downwind, the genoa pulled us along nicely day after day on the flat slab of sea. In the habit of leaving the mainsail down and poling out the genny, we departed Seisia in the same fashion. What were we thinking?

  The Gulf is a large shallow basin notorious for the uncomfortable wave patterns it can produce. The waves were short steep pointy bastards that were organized in two distinct sets, one set wind driven and another set refracted from the shores of Hades. The sea state was profoundly disproportionate to the wind strength and the pyramidal form of the waves made us feel like we were sailing in a washing machine.

  On the first night, I barely slept at all. The motion on board was violent. Curled up in my sea berth, I was being thrown from side to side with such force that I was shaken awake every few minutes. It was not just the motion that was unsettling – it was the sound. Green Ghost was being picked up and slammed down repeatedly in the short period waves. Every few seconds there was a deafening BAM! Every item on board was being beaten against the inside of the lockers. I felt like I was a gerbil in a plastic ball falling down an endless staircase, or a cat in a pillowcase tormented by children.

  In the light of the following day we pulled ourselves together and rearranged the sail plan. It was too late – by then both of us were suffering, me from sleep deprivation and queasiness and Nik from all-out seasickness. Nik stopped eating.

  Thirty-six hours in and the wind had cranked up to twenty-five knots and the nasty seas picked up too. We crept through the second day, the two of us trading shifts every two hours. Neither one of us could manage our usual four-hour shifts. Nik was trying a new prescription-strength antiemetic but it wasn’t doing anything for him. There was a lot of dry heaving and moaning going on.

  At last the final night was upon us. When I went off watch at midnight, my vision went as I crawled into my bunk. Pixels shimmered before me. Everything looked like an unfinished jigsaw puzzle. In an instant, I was on my feet with my head over the galley sink just in time to throw up the four crackers and the half cup of water consumed on my watch. I ran water into the sink then flicked on a light. To my disgust, the sink had the plug in it. As I reached in and pulled it out, I mused over the metaphor – if only I could pull the plug on the bilious trip itself.

  I was back on watch at two a.m. A deep-sea commercial port, Gove was well-lit with navigation markers, an easy place to approach in the dark. The light. Go to the light. I was managing now but still desperate for the trip to be over. By 5:30 a.m. I turned on the engine to assist us against a land breeze that was developing right on our nose. Nik joined me in the cockpit for the final two-and-a-half-hour push. By eight a.m. the hook was down, the boat was at rest, and so were we after sixty-four hours of torture.

  Despite the relief of arrival, we remained shell-shocked. Oh, the thoughts that go through your mind in a small boat on a terrible sea! It was the first time I’d become so miserable that I’d decided we should sell the boat. Land travel seemed an excellent idea. We could backpack Southeast Asia; there was no need to sail there. We would find a broker, sell the boat, and ship our possessions home. We could move back to Canada, buy real estate, and tell stories of our sailing days. We always said we would keep going until it wasn’t fun anymore and the Gulf of Barfentaria wasn’t fun at all.

  We didn’t go ashore in Gove. We spoke to no one else. We laid low for twenty-four hours, resting up, rehydrating, and confessing our boat-for-sale-fantasies. Nik, of course, had been having similar thoughts. In the morning, we were up and underway. Under sunny skies we headed west to Elisabeth Bay. How quickly we forget.

  Beyond the Wessels lay the Arafura Sea, a vast wasteland with few sheltered anchorages. We considered coast hopping to avoid an overnighter but there were too many holes in the charts, large sections that were poorly surveyed or not surveyed at all. It was too risky.

  We decided to make a straight shot across the stunning aqua-emerald-coloured seas of the north coast. We passed one other motor yacht on our journey, but otherwise we’d not seen a single other vessel at sea since leaving Seisia nearly a week earlier. It was a desolate, human-less coastline.

  Once again, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology issued a strong wind warning. Gale-force winds set in, gusting to over fifty knots on our port quarter, but the skies remained sunny and the air, warm. The seas were a most remarkable aqua-green, frothing white as they tumbled over themselves at our stern. Over land we noticed that the stark sky took on a mauve light from the reflection of the red earth on blue. The sea and sky were remarkably beautiful, but the smudge of landscape between them was not. Low flat scraggy bush, some exposed stratigraphy, reddish shorelines of alternating rock or sand beach, dull green vegetation. Flat, flat, flat – everything around us was a horizontal line.

  The insignificant elevation of the coastline offered little protection. The strong southeast winds blasted across the continent and ripped across the open shallow bays, creating whitecaps on waves that formed not far from the shore. The only way to get protection from the chop was to press in as close to shore as possible, carefully picking our way into shallow water and anchoring with as little as four feet under our keel. Close to shore, out of the chop, the wind still hummed through the blades of our wind generator. Dinghy down and dinghy up again was abandoned in favour of bum down, feet up and once anchored we both ducked below to get out of the elements for the day. With not another soul in sight and a vast expanse of sea and sky to the north and west behind us, we settled into these lonely spots with a slip of low-lying dry land for our pillow.

  One evening as I put dinner together in the galley, Nik grabbed both my hands and began a silly dance to the music he’d queued up on the stereo.

  “I’m trying to make dinner. Quit bugging me!” I laughed.

  “I have to bug you! I have nobody else to bug!”

  “You’re losing it,” I said.

  “It’s true,” he said. “I’m not playing with all my marbles.”

  “Cards,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Cards – you’re not playing with a full deck of cards or you’ve lost your marbles,” I said.

  “Whatever,” Nik said. “You know what I mean.”

  We were going a little stir
crazy on this lonely coast. Our last major social interaction had been twenty-four days earlier, when fifty people had gathered on the beach at Lizard Island. We’d been isolated in one another’s company for a little too long.

  Ten days after leaving Seisia we curved into Alcaro Bay. We were looking forward to taking a day off in this marine park. A dinghy ride and a walk on the beach were in order. Feeling worn out by the heavy weather and a bit dejected by our lonely coastal run, we were pleased to find one other sailboat at anchor in the bay. We called them on the VHF radio.

  First let me explain, I am not good at tempering the in-flows of human interaction. I’m easily influenced by the comments and moods of other people. Everything gets in. Much gets taken to heart. Negativity, even a tinge of it, can affect me quickly. I’m equally likely to be overwhelmed by the ultra-positive. Perhaps this is why I often feel the need to take myself away from the crowd. When you have no intake filter, people are an exhausting proposition. And, at this point, my limited abilities were rusty from disuse.

  Over the radio our neighbour proceeded to tell us about their “fabulous outback experience” and their “most wonderful time” at the Coral Bay resort, a bay we’d sailed past earlier in the day. How had we missed it? They described their trip across the top as “exhilarating.”

  The thrill of having neighbours evaporated. I hung up the mic in a bit of a funk. Somehow, we’d missed “fabulous” and “wonderful.” “Exhilarating” didn’t fit how I was feeling. Had we blown it as travellers across this godforsaken stretch of barren coastline?

  I consoled myself with the prospect of a walk on shore in the morning, but just as I cheered, our neighbours called us back to warn us of a large crocodile in the area and to urge us to exercise extreme caution on the beach. After “fabulous, wonderful and exhilarating,” they rained on what was left of my parade. Human interaction. Bah! Humbug!