Shooting Stars and Flying Fish: Swapping the boardroom for the seven seas

by Nancy Knudsen

  ‘So when are we getting fish for breakfast, Ted?’ I ask mischievously one morning.

  He grins back ruefully. ‘As a fisherman I guess I make a very good sailor.’

  As if on cue, the line is pulled out of the peg, which signals the bait has been taken. We both jump in shock, and after a struggle Ted hauls in a very large bright blue-green fish. He then manages to get it out of the water so that it hangs down the side of the boat, slapping and banging. It is big. Very big – maybe a metre from nose to tail. I feel my toes doing a little dance on the deck in excitement.

  ‘Get the gaff!’ Ted shouts at me.

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The gaff! The gaff! Don’t just stand there!’

  ‘What’s a gaff?’

  ‘You know – the gaff. The gaff, for crying out loud. On the foredeck with the oars.’

  As I rush to the foredeck I can hear the fish still slapping against the boat as Ted prances from one foot to the other, trying to tame it. Blackwattle, luckily, is sailing herself.

  Now I see an implement that looks like Bo-Peep’s crook. Since it is the only thing I don’t recognise, it has to be the gaff. I struggle with the bungee cord and finally get it free and run back aft, tripping over the lines on the deck on the way, inadvertently hurling the gaff at Ted. He doesn’t even notice because he is bent over the side, still struggling with the fish, which is jerking and banging. I can hardly bear to look. I suddenly wish he would let the poor thing go.

  ‘Don’t put that gaff down. Get him in the gills – quick, quick!’

  So I pick up the gaff again and started jabbing at the fish’s gills. Of course, like all fish, it is slippery. I keep jabbing uselessly. Ted finally succeeds in getting the fish over the lifeline and onto the deck. It hurls itself from side to side. Blood splashes over the cabin top, drenching the teak decking, splattering the portholes and my bare legs. But Ted is winning.

  ‘Did you put the cover back on the gaff?’ he calls over his shoulder as he wrestles away.

  ‘It wasn’t covered.’ I lift it to show him and he turns to look. Then he starts to laugh, still grappling with the fish.

  ‘You didn’t take the cover off.’ He laughs some more. ‘No wonder you couldn’t catch the gills.’

  I now see that there is a red plastic cover over the hooked end. I take it off and find a lethal-looking point.

  ‘Well, how am I expected to know that?’ I sniff. ‘I’m a city girl. I don’t catch fish. Normal fish come from a supermarket.’

  Ted is now ignoring me, being much more interested in the fish. He is filleting it, shaking his head and continuing to chuckle.

  As I carry the fillets, still warm from the salty sea, direct to the deep freeze, leaving some out for that night’s dinner, I am still wincing and giggling.

  That night we enjoy the first of our many freshly caught dinners on the boat. Quickly sautéed in butter and garlic, drizzled with lime and accompanied by a crisp salad, the fish is delicious. I am to discover that fish fillets thrown into the freezer straight from the sea retain an amazing freshness, and that lemons and limes keep forever when soaked in mild bleach, to prevent mould, and then wrapped in aluminium foil. We are to learn to be subsistence fishermen, putting out the line only when we run out, and subsistence farmers, growing alfalfa and mung beans for salads that are fresh even when we have not seen a market for many months.

  Up the coast, every new anchorage is a revelation to us. On Brampton Island we walk the high winding paths through dense forest among clouds of butterflies which rise as we approach, disturbed by our arrival, settling again as we move on. At Airlie Beach Robin and Suzy meet us in their boat Vanda III. We sail together to Woodwark Bay and find black-lipped oysters on a deserted rocky shore. Like excited children we collect dozens and they go down nicely with a green salad and chilled white wine. My sense of disbelief surfaces at such moments: It’s really me, here, now, doing this?

  Robin and Suzy sail away the next day. We don’t know when we will see them again. The life of a cruising sailor, we are beginning to learn, is ruled by the weather, by boat maintenance, by incidents along the way. No one ever makes appointments. ‘We’ll see you down the track somewhere,’ is the cruising sailor’s farewell.

  We have arrived in the tropics, land of bougainvillea, tropical palms, hibiscus, and crotons with leaves of every colour. Sometimes the sea is full of fishing boats, with their spreading side cranes making them look like little girls with their arms stuck out, skirts held high, skipping along on the waves.

  We are still having trouble making our CQR anchor hold. We set and reset it continually, but it drags too often for comfort. This is unnerving, since one cannot ‘feel’ an anchor dragging, and we find ourselves darting on deck every few minutes to check that the boat hasn’t moved.

  Early one morning, in a brooding anchorage under misty mountains, I sit watching how the sun, just risen, glints off the water, catching the ripples. The tide is coming in, upstream, and I see a log floating. I stare for a few seconds. There is something strange about that log. Now I twig – the log is floating downstream, fast against the tide.

  ‘Ted.’

  He is still asleep.

  ‘Ted.’ Whispering.

  ‘Mmmmgrrrrm.’

  ‘Ted, I can see a crocodile.’

  He is awake and on deck instantly.

  This croc, our first, is huge. We watch until it disappears around a bend. There will be no more swimming in the sea.

  For some luxury before we launch into the last 1400 nautical miles of our Australian journey, we head for one of the country’s prized deluxe tourist hideaways, Lizard Island. It’s an overnight sail. On the way there is sporadic scudding rain with the wind often upwards of thirty knots, visibility sometimes nil. We keep the radar on as we are in a shipping lane for most of the night and there are also a couple of islands without a single light.

  In the middle of Ted’s midnight watch, the radar stops working. When visibility is bad, radar becomes a vital aid, and its loss is a blow, but worse is to come. Partway through my dawn watch, with ships visible all around in the faint morning light, I find I can’t move the wheel. The autopilot is holding it rigid. I wrestle with the controls, with the wheel, try everything I know – but it is stuck fast. Frightened by this lack of control I wake Ted, who has just gone to sleep.

  He rushes up into the cockpit, half awake and grumbling.

  ‘What did you do to it?’

  ‘I didn’t do anything.’

  ‘Well, it was perfectly all right when I left it.’

  We struggle with it, alarm in both our hearts, trying everything we can think of to free the autopilot mechanism from the wheel. Suddenly it detaches itself and the wheel swings free. But the experience leaves us scared and shaking. We hand-steer the rest of the way to Lizard.

  After we put down anchor, the adrenaline rush that keeps you going in times of alarm subsides in me. I collapse bleary-eyed and shocked into the cushions of the saloon couch. It is a low moment. Radars breaking down, unlit islands, so many ships, so much rain and wind – and the wheel stuck. And we’re not even away from shore yet, so it can only get more difficult. (I had yet to learn that the safest place in the world on a yacht is in the middle of an ocean.)

  While I am brooding, Ted is busy on the satellite phone to the manufacturer of the autopilot, trying to establish what is wrong. The idea of hand-steering through the fourteen-day journey from Lizard Island to Cape York and then on to Darwin does not fill us with joy. It looks as if the cost of flying parts up to Lizard, not to mention an engineer who can install them, would be horrendous.

  Were we crazy to have embarked on this voyage? We thought we knew so much but are discovering gaping holes in our knowledge.

  The person on the end of the telephone is asking Ted lots of questions. He goes to t
he engine room to find the answers. There he finds a tiny screw on the floor. It had fallen out of the connection between autopilot and wheel. He puts the screw back in place. The autopilot works. Now the phone conversation takes a different tone.

  ‘One small screw? Fell out? Of a brand-new expensive autopilot?’ shouts Ted angrily.

  ‘Put Loctite on it. That’ll keep it on,’ advises the ‘expert’.

  Ted’s response to this suggestion is colourful. But later, after a little swimming and trailing along the beach of Lizard Island in the warm sunshine, our spirits are restored. We find exquisite shells of many colours and sizes which we leave on the sand and then follow a track past the remains of Mrs Watson’s Cottage.

  In 1879, the Watsons and their Chinese servants moved to the island. As far as they knew, there was no one else in residence. They collected and traded trochus shells and bêche-de-mer. While her husband was away fishing, twenty-one-year-old Mrs Watson and her two servants were attacked by Aborigines. She, her child and the one surviving servant escaped in a drum. They drifted to another island, the waterless Howick No. 5. Nine days later they died. It was months before the three bodies were found, together with Mrs Watson’s diary. Her last entry reads: Nearly dead of thirst.

  On our last day we are both tense. Lizard Island is our last ‘civilised’ stop until Darwin. The autopilot experience has disturbed us, and now it will be difficult to trust it. The dead radar has also deprived us of a vital navigational aid until we can replace it in Darwin.

  But we are also excited. Tomorrow is the start of our journey into the wilderness coastline of Cape York, through the maze of coral reefs, day-sailing to avoid negotiating them at night. Indigenous people on a few settlements are the only people there. Lizard Island is famous for its butterflies, but they all seem to be in my stomach as we depart.

  Day-sailing is pleasant, but there is no more swimming because crocodiles infest every river mouth and bay where we anchor at night. We also sometimes anchor behind the coral reefs of the Great Barrier Reef. Some days we sail a good fifty nautical miles and on others up to seventy-five. Because the reef now lies close to the mainland, the seas are smooth even in high winds, offering glorious sailing. The low-lying land to our west is featureless and mysterious, uninhabited and half lost in a tropical haze. Reefs to the east are almost invisible. We sail as if on a huge lake of rippling water. Every task, every chore, every sail change is a delight. As we speed through the sea, the swish of the waves, the seagulls wheeling under the blue arc of sky, the constant smell of salt spray and the lure of the unknown ahead all combine into a singing lightness in my chest.

  Now the days become humid and misty, the warm air drawing moisture from the sea. Blackwattle becomes slightly damp all over: the decks, the bunks, the couches, the cabin. Everything is covered by a light film of stickiness and saltiness.

  Each anchorage is different. Some atolls are lush, with inviting white-sand beaches, while others show only the grotesque shapes of exposed coral. Out behind the atolls, the high wind never stops and our anchor is never quite secure. In the bays and river entrances the water is thick and brown around the mangroves, and it is here we are most conscious of the lurking crocodiles.

  The end of the financial year, a time that was a pivot of my earlier life, comes and goes without my even noticing. Now I have different concerns. All is not peace and smooth sailing. Sometimes storms blow up between the skipper and the crew, and then there is no holding back on either side.

  ‘What did you do that for?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Release the kicker too soon. It hit the f&%@ing forestay!’

  ‘You had your foot on it – so I couldn’t get it on tight.’

  ‘If it damages the forestay we’ll be in deep shit.’

  ‘You’re already in deep shit with me – accusing me of things I didn’t do!’

  And then there is:

  ‘Why did you coil the line that way?’

  ‘I’ve always coiled it like that. It’s to stop it from kinking.’

  ‘Well that’s not the way you do it.’

  ‘Your hero Johnnie Keown taught me to do it that way. Which way do you want me to do it then? I’ll do it any way for a quiet life.’

  ‘Hrumph. Never mind. I’ve already done it myself.’

  ‘That was too fast. I couldn’t see what you were doing. How can I learn to do it your way if you hunch your shoulders over it?’

  Some grumpy mumbling is the only reply.

  These squabbles have started to occur on a daily, if not hourly basis. Of course, one of the joys of Ted Nobbs is that such squabbling tends to disappear with the wake of white water behind the boat. Even a minute later no rancour remains. However, this is what I write in my journal, to be sent back to family and friends:

  Ted Nobbs has an interesting way of teaching seafaring skills that various education departments might well note when they are next revising teaching methods. The following methodology must be followed exactly:

  Step 1: Teacher must first make sure that student is unaware of the coming lesson, otherwise smarter students may try to work it out in advance.

  Step 2: Teacher should ensure that no prior instruction is given to the student for the same reason.

  Step 3: Teacher suddenly announces: ‘Do X!’ This should be delivered in a stern tone, implying that dire consequences may follow if X is not implemented instantly. In addition, it’s handy if the student has no idea what X is. Student will then try and use logic to carry out X to the best of her ability. Teacher should then shout, ‘No, no – that’s not right!’ This is best delivered in a roar, and the teacher then rushes over to take charge.

  The next step is very important and should be carried out with precision:

  Step 4: Teacher should bend over the job with a shoulder in the way, so as to ensure that the student’s view is blocked. Teacher then carries out X to his satisfaction, in silence, unless any swear words are appropriate to the situation.

  Step 5: Teacher then returns to his own task. The great advantage to the student is that she now knows one very important thing: that what she did is definitely not the way to do X, according to Skipper Ted.

  Skipper repeats steps 1 to 5 frequently. The student learns, on each occasion, one more way that X cannot be performed. Finally, by process of elimination, or by chance, she hits on the ‘correct’ way to perform X.

  The final step is vital.

  Step 6: When the task is completed correctly, instead of the normal step 4, there should be no response from the teacher.

  ‘Did I do it properly this time?’

  No response.

  Louder: ‘Did I do it properly, Ted?’

  ‘What? Of course you did. Now, quickly: Do Y!’

  As this process occurs over and over again, at the end of three years I should be quite a competent crew and helmsman, not to mention sander, varnisher, electrician, mechanic and weight-lifter. I may even be able to sail according to the unique Nobbsian codes. My character will also have greatly improved. I will have developed unlimited patience.

  As we finally approach the very top of the Australian continent, we are to pass through the narrow Albany Passage, notorious for its tidal flow, to get to ‘the tip’ of Cape York. It is a sparkling day with a high wind whipping the sea around us into white horses far out to the horizon. A three-knot current helps us speed through the narrow channel with its high rocky shores on either side. Blackwattle slows as we leave the passage and round the tip, in sight of Horn Island.

  Our eyes meet, then we hug one another gleefully.

  ‘We’re here, Nance. We’ve sailed to Cape York, just the two of us.’ It is a sweet moment.

  Later, anchored on the western side of the tip, as we sit together in the dark on deck enjoying a nightcap, not a single light competes with the stars. The Milky Way is, therefore, s
pectacularly milky. A gentle breeze rocks the boat and at night, secure in our cosy cabin, I drift off to sleep wondering how Captain Cook must have felt as he rounded the most northerly tip of the mysterious Great South Land.

  In fact, history tells us, Cook didn’t know that he had reached the tip or even that the Torres Strait existed. I now have a strong desire to visit Possession Island, where the great navigator formally ‘took possession’ of Australia after he had made his way, without charts, through what he called the ‘labyrinth of coral’, to arrive at the tip of this ‘unknown’ continent and claim it for Britain. Possession Island is now uninhabited, with only a small monument commemorating Cook’s landing in August 1770. When he was there he said he saw people with bows and arrows, an extraordinary claim given what we now know of Indigenous lifestyles. With a small band of men he climbed to the top of the island and, for the first time, became convinced that Australia was not part of Asia. Until that moment he had expected to sail around the Philippines to reach Batavia.

  We sail in gentle wind to Possession Island and anchor in a pleasant bay on the western side, just where we figure Captain Cook must have landed.

  The beach is at once delightful and distressing. There are shells galore, great piles along the tide lines, beautiful and intact as one rarely sees. But there are also fishing nets, plastic bottles, thongs, polystyrene cups, even a bread board and some pegs, untidy piles of them littering the high-water mark. We stare. The debris must have been brought in by the waves, carried by the thousands of tides since Cook’s time. This is not the first time on our trip up the coast that we had found such debris in otherwise pristine and uninhabited surroundings. These piles are mostly oil-based plastic, and will still be here hundreds of years from now.

  During the next few days the image of the destroyed beach at Possession Island won’t leave me. How many other uninhabited beaches are like this? I can’t help wondering wretchedly. Lying sleepless at night, my mind tumbles with thoughts about society and progress, symptom and cause. I don’t realise it yet, but a crack has just appeared in that smoothly perfect metaphorical egg that is my vision of our world.