by Jackie Parry
‘Getting to port.’
I could feel the creases deepening on my forehead, but so as not to be put off, I asked, ‘What does it all cost?’ thinking about our budget plans.
‘Everything we’ve got,’ came the reply. The creases now hurt as they carved their way across my eyebrows.
I didn’t talk to Noel for the rest of the day. Close together on the motorbike, we felt miles apart.
The following day, I had another go. ‘Well, why the hell do it then?’
Noel grinned, ‘There’s always a good pub in the next port.’
‘Good grief,’ I replied, my conversation held no bounds.
To avoid another twenty-four hours of baffled silence, Noel added, ‘Actually I can’t think of a better way to live; it’s the closest thing to freedom I have ever experienced.’
Now that worked for me.
In August 1998, three months later, we became the proud owners of Mariah II. A thirty-three foot cutter rigged sloop, which is a sailboat with one mast. With all the charm of timber, we immediately felt at home. Oddly enough, when we stepped on board, I was the first to say, ‘I think we’ve just found our boat.’ At this point, my sailing career consisted of climbing onto umpteen vessels at anchor, being bamboozled with boat speak, and gazing at gadgets and doodads that looked like they should live on a space rocket. I was relieved when Noel felt the same.
‘We’d better have a proper look at her then.’ The corners of his mouth twitched with excitement. Our idea was starting to show some promise.
I remember thinking, look at all this space in the boat – I am never going to fill all these cupboards. That just about sums up my ignorance at that point. As well as weeks of supplies, we would stuff the cupboards full of every conceivable spare part we could muster.
People who own sail-boats are deemed to be rich. This could not be further from the truth for most. Most people who live on their boats are financially challenged. It’s been likened to putting your money in one big pile and setting it alight. As soon as you get more money, you just add it to the flames. It’s not always the maintenance that’s the problem; it’s the fact that there are such yummy, exciting things to buy all the time. There is no end to the gadgets you can purchase. All of which can be argued to increase safety and therefore, ‘We must have it!’
The freedom we acquired was mind-boggling. In the beginning, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Noel was a bit perplexed when I offered to write a project plan. Old habits made me feel comfortable; listing our daily jobs, writing budget spread sheets, and organising weekly progress meetings. I really didn’t have a clue about boating life. The regulated, regimented lifestyle I was used to didn’t exist anymore. Now I could choose what I did and when I did it. Ironically, the problem now was what to do and when to do it!
My way of life was not just changing: my whole ethos morphed into a different world. Hair became something to pile on top of my head, clothes were comfy, and fashion was no longer in my vocabulary or on my back. I became a fan of charity shops. Our budget was as elastic as wet cardboard and just as and fragile, so these places were ideal to keep a girl happy.
Tenaciously, I hung on to something familiar: organising my life on bits of paper. Phones, computers, and faxes were replaced with boat-to-boat radios, second-hand novels, and dinghies. I had no practical experience of painting and fixing. My most technical operation achieved was hitting the stereo when the CD drawer wouldn’t open, or turning the power off and on again on my laptop when it stopped working. Then there was boat-speak – it was so strange.
‘Hand me the painter,’ people would say. In my head this would evoke vivid images of a tall, dark Italian man with an open, cotton shirt splattered with coloured paints. Cruelly, reality brought me down with a thud when I found out that the ‘painter’ was the bit of rope on the bow of a dinghy. I could see I was going to struggle and withdrew further.
My discomfort was not just from the new way of life, a new husband, culture, and country to adjust to. With my new found freedom and more time on my hands, I had the opportunity to think: who am I? And, scarily, how do other people see me? The things I said, I analysed with frightening results. I had no idea who I really was.
Within this quagmire of unfamiliar emotions I notched up my tenacity. I am competitive; I don’t like to be beaten. My entire faith in Noel, and the fact that I knew I’d laugh about all this one day, kept me at it. However, my ignorance evolved to new levels that approached dangerous. Just a few hours after becoming the proud owners of Mariah, we nearly smashed her in half.
3
Crash landing
Losing control and almost smashing up a fifty-five thousand dollar, ten tonne boat was quite exhausting. At the time, Noel and I had owned Mariah, our new home, for just forty-eight hours. My knowledge of sailing was on a par with my knowledge of moon landings. My first twenty-four hours at sea had been hair-raising. The thoughts of smooth seas, full sails, and clear skies were viciously blown away and replaced with a three-dimensional lurching, bumping, bucking, and gyrating hell. In an instant, I was all at once in disbelief, scared, and amazed. We had just one inch of timber between us and several miles of deep, dark, cold salty water. How Mariah remained in one piece astounded me.
We set off on an overnight trip to Brisbane from Tin Can Bay. Bouncing out into the ocean I sat in the corner of our small cockpit and fought the growing nausea. Looking out into the dark, threatening sky I noticed the fingers of vivid lightning sparking closer. Noel was on deck, and when he returned to the cockpit I found the energy to look up into his face just in time to watch him throw up over the side.
‘Just great,’ I muttered. Swallowing my fear, I was able to string a couple of words together.
‘Is it always this rough?’ I asked. Noel swallowed heavily.
‘Actually, this isn’t rough,’ he said as he wiped spittle from his chin. I spent the night whimpering in the corner, thoroughly regretting the whole boat idea. Neither of us slept.
As dawn tickled the sky, we reached Brisbane River, awash with relief to be in flat, protected water. As we puttered along, watching the city slowly awaken, the flaming sun struck purple on the tall city buildings.
That wasn’t so bad, I thought.
Approaching the small marina, Noel had given me clear instructions on how to handle the lines. This was my first attempt at helping to dock the boat. I leapt off and managed to hold on to both the fore and aft lines. I was rather pleased with myself. Then Noel piped up, ‘I’m coming in on a bit of an angle, just chuck the ropes back on board, I’ll come around again.’ I shrugged and threw the lines back on the deck. This is easy, I thought, standing safely on a jetty. Feeling proud as punch, with a little happy-smile, I looked up to see my new boat and my new husband careering down the river, sideways. Noel stood in the cockpit reflecting the situation quite well by pulling tufts of hair out of his head. The four-knot current whisked them both away.
With a muttered expletive, I raced along with them as best I could on land while watching my home and husband teeter on the edge of disaster. The jetty I stood on was locked, and I literally dragged a half-naked man from his boat, demanding him to unlock the gate immediately. Running along the water’s edge, I could see my new husband and new boat heading for a rather large concrete wall. Noel grabbed a post and managed to tie up under the watchful eyes of several cruisers and half the population of Brisbane city that stood by to watch the three-ring-circus. I had caught up with Mariah by then, and as Noel grabbed a post alongside the concrete wall, I took the opportunity to hop back on board. Noel nearly jumped out of his skin. He hadn’t seen me get back on board and did a double take at my presence and said, ‘How’d you get here?’
Suddenly, several grinning, rather hairy men appeared from other boats in an array of dinghies and offered to tow us onto the pilings; they had been watching the display of how not to go cruising.
We couldn’t stay against the wall – the tide was rising rapidly. Wit
h some reluctance to hand ourselves back into the clutches of the current, we let go of our haven. Fellow cruisers valiantly tried to tow us in their rubber dinghies, but the small boats couldn’t get any purchase and Mariah’s ten tonnes pulled them back alongside us. Suddenly, we were heading side-on to a large, solidly embedded concrete piling. It felt as though it was going to go straight through the middle of our boat – which we had owned for less than two days.
‘Fend off,’ was screamed from somewhere, and we all did our best. The piling stopped us in our tracks, and the solid hull of double diagonal timber planks stayed in one piece, suffering superficial wounds only. With several hands scrabbling to tie us up, so we were no longer a menace within the tightly packed boats, we were finally safe. The breath I had been holding, for what felt like hours, could finally be released. On further inspection, we learned that a cush drive had sheered on the engine, which meant we had no forward or reverse propulsion. This chaos was the cause of our eleven o’clock beers that morning and my look back along the slightly frenzied winding path of my life to figure out why the hell I was there.
The purple dawn lights that stroked along the skyscrapers were now replaced by a brilliant white reflection of sun igniting glass. The Brisbane River was as calm as a koala, and after coming uncomfortably close to destroying our new boat, we were safely tied up to a piling; the adrenaline was now replaced with weary relief.
‘So, how long have you been sailing?’ Our saviour and newfound friend asked as we gratefully sipped a cool beer as if it contained life-saving properties.
I pointedly looked at my watch.
‘Oh, nearly twenty-four hours now.’ I expected sympathy and congratulations on surviving my introduction to life on board.
Instead, he smiled. ‘Welcome to sailing,’ he said, with not a hint of irony.
I decided to sit quietly for a while.
That summer in Brisbane, the temperature hovered around an uncomfortable thirty degrees, but the boating community was great, galloping fun. Tied between the pilings, boats from all over the world tugged against their lines while the city unfolded around us each morning. Each day the river ferries sliced past the moored boats while the botanical gardens received their regular drink from the sprinklers; the calming sights were all wrapped up in a delicious aroma of coffee from the glut of funky cafes.
Showers and laundry were part of the facilities, as was the dinghy dock. The manicured botanical gardens that stretched out along the banks were like our own, and the city was small enough to hold on to its charming character.
Kindred spirits would sit outside the brown brick shower block, on green peeling wooden benches, talking boats and gadgets. The dinghies gently rocked together and against the floating jetty. It was a quaint and peaceful existence all for about fifteen dollars (Australian) a week. Christmas came and went with an ‘Orphans in the Park’ party. Most people living on the river had left their family behind to break away from society or to simply take some time out to travel. We all congregated in the grassy gardens, making enough food to feed however many on each of our own boats, resulting in a huge banquet style feast. Silly presents were exchanged and daft games played. I revelled in my new life.
After just a few weeks, with the engine repairs complete, it was time to break free for a while. We enjoyed our time in Brisbane city, but the cruising community had its highs and lows. The incessant, conflicting advice became a bore. Noel had years of experience under his belt, but some cruisers would talk to us as if we were three-years-old. I was a beginner, but I didn’t need to be talked to as if I was a baby. I knew diddlysquat about boats, sailing, weather, and navigation: I soon found out that there is nothing some ‘old-hands’ enjoy more than a new fledgling to break in.
Some days I would be lectured at and smiled at condescendingly. ‘You’ll have to learn how to do the dishes in cold water,’ was one I remember well. How would it be different? I thought, do the plates and cutlery behave differently in cold water? Perhaps they complain.
One couple would frown at me when I said, ‘She’s a wooden boat.’
‘Timber,’ they’d say with a superior smile.
I now know that people were, in the main, trying to give me an idea of what to expect. I only saw it as them having the chance to highlight my ignorance.
Noel would placate my frustration. ‘It doesn’t matter if you call things orange marmalade, as long as we both call whatever it is the same name.’
Despite this, our time in Brisbane was one of our most memorable summers. We quickly made some lifelong friends and had one of the most social times of our lives.
Living on a boat is like stripping your life of several complications and adding a whole new different set. Once you’ve got a handle of this weird floating world, the new set of complications are exciting and rewarding. Firstly, forget any sort of luxuries. Of course, buckets of money would buy you anything you needed, but we’re talking reality here. Our reality was a thirty-three foot boat, which was eleven feet wide – not much room to start with.
Below we had a galley (the kitchen), which for a small boat was quite sizeable. Squeezed in was a small oven and two burners, which ran on gas, a tiny sink, and lots of midget size cupboards. We had a navigation table big enough to lay charts on, surrounded by equipment I had yet to learn how to use. The saloon was our lounge and held a fixed-in table, two ‘bunks’ (settees which doubled as our beds when at sea), and a small pot belly burner, which I thought we’d never use because I was not going anywhere that cold (time would prove me wrong, of course). It was agony to try and watch anything on our small TV, as swinging three-hundred-and-sixty degrees on anchor meant that the shows were more snow, lines, and fuzz than clear pictures. There was a loo, which was called the ‘head’ (apparently in the time before the loo was invented the crew used to do their business at the head of the boat, over the side). A small work-bench sat opposite the head, where some of our good clothes hung above. Lastly, there was the v-berth. The v-berth is the front pointy bit, shaped like a ‘v’ – this is where we slept when not at sea. The engine sat under the cockpit. We call the deck our veranda for no better reason than to pretend we are wealthy enough to have such a thing.
Noel soon became my best friend and a strong supporter when he saw signs of me becoming withdrawn and shy. He’d send me off to the chandlery on my own to buy the simplest of things.
I always thought that I could step into anything new and be able to do it straight away or without much effort. That thought was fading fast, and it was a little scary. I was enjoying part of my new independence, but I hated the fact that I didn’t know much about the nautical world and it would take a lot of time and effort to become proficient. I had fallen into the trap of becoming bored with the cruising life, as I didn’t understand my environment. I didn’t once think of enrolling in a course, or reading more on the subject. Everything was so new, so scary, so unknown, it turned me into a behavioural idiot.
Fortunately, Noel was patient with me and explained everything he was doing on the boat and why, soon he re-awakened my interest. I think I would have been a gibbering wreck in the corner, dribbling occasionally, if it wasn’t for Noel’s support.
4
“Uhhhhm, arrrhhhhh”
Noel and I gelled on the boat, and we started to work well together. Initially, though, the cross co-habitation of an Aussie and a Brit meant we had one or two communication problems.
‘I’ve got a problem with my doobrie,’ I said one day and had, apparently, used that word a lot.
‘Okay, we’ll go to the quack,’ said Noel.
‘What?’
‘To check out ya plumbing,’ he explained.
‘What bloody plumbing?’ In despair, I took on the Aussie vernacular, ‘And what the hell’s a quack?’
‘Aren’t you having trouble with ya doobrie?’
‘I’m talking about this bowline knot doobrie you want tied.’ I had become exasperated.
‘Ahh, I always thoug
ht you meant girly stuff when you said doobrie,’ Noel said rather sheepishly.
‘Doobrie means anything,’ I explained through the laughter, ‘I just can’t remember the right word sometimes, so I say doobrie, same as thingamajig, dooffa, whatsaname – doobrie!’
Likewise, Noel would say, ‘Let’s get some snags,’ (sausages) and I would think, ‘Will it hurt?’ I soon became accustomed to the lazy Aussie language to a point where I considered myself bi-lingual, translating European English to Aussie English. I also became used to Noel referring to doctors as quacks.
We pried ourselves away from our secure haven in Brisbane and set off on an adventure in to Moreton Bay. The enormous area was littered with shallows, but had the luxury of flat water, the islands offering protection from any large curling waves and the pumping ocean swell. The engine was fixed, but my nerves still twanged with tension, there was so much to learn.
In calm weather, we enjoyed some sedate sailing.
I think I’m going to like this, I thought.
We had time to play with sails, so I learned how to haul up the mainsail and reef it down to a smaller size. I played with the foresails, furling them in and out. Time, appointments, and structure were blissfully shed and forgotten.
As the evening crept up on us, we searched the charts for a suitable anchor site. Anchoring was yet another new experience, which meant I sat back and supposedly learned, while Noel ran around like a headless chicken doing umpteen jobs on a boat he hardly knew. As we approached our selected anchor site, we silently glided past another boat that had already anchored and was lying at a rather precarious angle. The tide had lowered and the boat was aground on the sand. ‘What a stupid thing to do,’ we both muttered.
We found our spot. The glassy sea was mellow and Noel put Mariah in neutral. As she eased to a leisurely stop, he raced up to the bow to release the anchor, which fell about a metre, stopping just above the water. After much jiggling and muttering, he managed to release the chain a bit further and the anchor hit the water, only to stop running out again. More jiggling, pulling, swearing, and about ten metres came out. Finally, Noel’s colourful language was enough to turn the air blue and his face red, and he managed to release enough chain for us to anchor securely.