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SYDNEY--Monday, March 30, shortly before ten in the morning.
I open the garage door, hop in the car (an old but sturdy
Nissan "proudly built in Australia"), and turn the key.
Utter silence. Nothing whatsoever happens. Turn again,
wiggle it this way and that: no go. Turns out the battery is
dead as a door nail. Some freak radio contact seems to have
drained it over night, and it was tired and frail to begin
with.
This is bad news, because I am supposed to be on a yacht by
12 noon sharp, and I have about two hours worth of driving
to do to get to the marina. The ferry which might take me to
a place where I could catch a train has just left.
Luckily, Tony who lives downstairs is around. We call the
only filling station in this village, and they actually have
a battery that *might* fit. Rush down to get it, bring it
back, tuck it in, turn the key, vrooom, off I go.
Rush hour traffic fizzles
The fact that I am a bit late has its advantages. Sydney
rush hour traffic has fizzled out, and I make it across town
in record time. At every red light, I glance at the
scribbled map that Captain Rosco whom I have never met has
sent me in the mail. Get briefly lost a couple of times, but
my watch with built-in compass gets me back on track.
A few minutes before twelve, I pass through the last cluster
of shops before the marina, and since we are supposed to
bring our own booze, screech to a halt in front of the local
bottle shop (the only kind of establishment where one can
buy likker in Oz). A guy in shorts, sporting a white beard
and a boater, stands in front of the shop, talking with some
backpacker-looking types. I have seen a small photo of Rosco
on the net, at the site where I found out about this "five
days on a yacht for Oz $375" deal, and he looks slightly
familiar. You Rosco by any chance? Sho', you gotta be
Wolfgang. Right-o. Thus matched up, I follow his car for the
last mile to the marina.
Trainees clamber aboard
Cape Flyer, a 40-foot beauty with a 17-meter mast and a
black-and-yellow stripe around her waist, is waiting for us,
ready to go. Slightly apprehensive, we four trainees hoist
our bags over the rail and clamber aboard. Captain Rosco
gives us a brief rundown of the ship and shows us our
accommodations: two cubbyhole cabins under each side of the
cockpit, with headroom of about 70 centimeters max. Each has
a double berth, a small square window, a fan, a light, and
even a cupboard for stowing our gear. Since we are two
female and two male trainees, all of whom came on their own
and have not met before, the sleeping arrangements are
quickly decided: the two girls take the left-hand berth and
the two boys the one on the right.
The large saloon midships has full standing headroom and a
circular seating area, flanked by the galley and the
navigation table with the radio equipment. Forward is the
captain's cabin which has a berth similar to ours but with
full headroom, more stowage, and a separate seating area on
the side. As we later learn, Captain Rosco has been living
fulltime aboard this ship since separating from his wife
("she got the house and I got the boat"--fair 'nuff, I
guess). The toilet (the mechanism of which requires a
detailed explanation and some getting used to) and shower
are combined in a fairly small cabinet whose main
disadvantage is the fact that everything that goes on inside
can be clearly heard on the outside--so better wait till the
others are on deck if you are of the fussy type.
Safety first
The Cape Flyer is ready to go, but we are not. After we have
tossed our stuff onto the berths and have had a sandwich
lunch, the first lecture begins (to be followed by many
more, sometimes in the morning before leaving an anchorage,
sometimes at night after dinner, helped along by a bit of
alky lubrication). This one's on safety: where the life
jackets are kept, how to use a harness, where the switch on
an EPIRB is, that kind of thing. Sounds a bit like what you
get when you board an airplane?
Yes, but here the relevance to your actual survival is
somewhat more direct, plus Captain Rosco, unlike the cabin
attendants on a commercial flight, is allowed to make the
occasional deadpan joke (although, like the cabin
attendants, he undoubtedly must get a bit fed up with the
routine since he has been doing this sailing course almost
every week for quite a while now).
Casting off
But finally, under the hot afternoon sun, we cast off the
lines (our first real job), and the skipper reverses the
boat out of her berth. Propelled by the confidence-inspiring
hum of the Volvo diesel, we glide into the Pittwater, a vast
estuary north of Sydney, separated from the open Pacific by
a thin long stretch of land that contains a locale named
Palm Beach, made famous by a local soap opera, and some of
the most spectacular real estate that can be found south of
the equator (and probably north as well).
But even better, to our left, sorry, to port, opens up the
wide expanse of the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park with its
rolling green hills and countless little bays and inlets.
The natural beauty of this area really has to be seen to be
appreciated. In fact, because the tight curriculum of the
five-day sailing trip left all too little time to appreciate
the impressive surroundings, I intend to come back here some
other time with the fambly (probably to spend a few days on
a rented motor boat). In between tacks and gybes and manning
the helm, however, I did manage to catch glimpses of
pelican, sea eagles, penguins, and at dusk a wallaby coming
out of the forest close to the shore where we were anchored.
First taste of sailing
After we reach a wide open expanse of water, we get our
first taste of real sailing. The difference between a
halyard, a sheet, a line, and a strop gradually becomes
slightly less mystifying, as we learn the intricate
procedure that has to be followed when raising and lowering
the mainsail and the headsail and doing the numerous other
things that are required in order to get a boat of this size
under way in a light breeze (which blows as if on cue).
Quite a few things, however, we need to be told over and
over during the course of the following days. I am by far
the oldest member of the crew (in fact, twice as old as the
next younger one), but it seems that I am not alone in
continually forgetting which one of the telltales fixed to
the headsail is the one that tells you to steer closer to
the wind and which indicates that you should bear away.
Impersonating a steward
The first night is spent at a mooring in a lagoon. We learn
how to pick up the mooring and stow the sails for the night,
then it is dinner time. Captain Rosco does all the cooking,
and while certainly no gourmet chef, he knows how to keep
his crew members well fed after a strenuous day. For other
things such as hauling food and drink to the table in the
cockpit and doing the dishes (while carefully husbanding the
water), we take turns. I volunteer for the first full day,
if only to be able to take it easy later on. Whether my
impersonation of a clumsy steward à la Buster Keaton
really helps to keep the ship's company entertained is
something that I am not in a position to judge.
But one thing is for sure: on a cruise like this, the makeup
of the crew is quite an important factor. In this regard, I
think we are quite fortunate, an opinion that is voiced by
various members at various times. More or less sailing
beginners all of us, we are quite a mix:
What's next
Derek, a likable lad with a penchant for quick jokes, hails
from Newcastle (the Ozzie version). He has just finished his
B.A. in economics and does the sail trip as a kind of
interlude while working out what to do next. He has been on
the Endeavor (the modern Ozzie version) for a month, and
although he really wants to be a fighter pilot, he can't be
all bad because he is reading Patrick O'Brian.
Lizzie from Glasgow (the real version) has worked in
Australia for a year, waitressing and doing various other
odd jobs, and is now getting ready to return to Scotland.
Although her stories of various boyfriends, both current and
ex, tend to become a bit involved, she is good fun (and a
pleasure to look at) and keeps us up to date on what is
happening in the Newtown party scene. (When the talk touches
on chill-out music and a DJ named Christopher K, I volunteer
that I know someone in that profession by the name of Chris
Case, but I guess the two aren't identical, or are they?)
The Cape Flyer is a smoke-free vessel, but this certainly
doesn't keep us from swapping dope stories as the night
wears on.
Idiom diluted
The third crew member, Marlies, a professional beer hall
waitress from Garmisch with the forearms to prove it, is on
a five-month backpacker trip through NZ and Oz. Now this is
not the kind of thing that German beer hall waitresses
normally do, and she is unusual also in that she has left
the Catholic church and speaks quite fluent English because
she has spent a year in America. Unfortunately she does so
with such a strong Bavarian accent that the carefully
cultivated idiom of the fourth crew member tends to get
diluted in the process.
As we finally retire for the night, one problem that I have
already anticipated surfaces: I really am not used to
sleeping in close quarters with strangers of the same (or
any) sex, even well behaved ones. Because of the high
temperature, all the cabin doors including the captain's are
left open, and in that confined space one can basically hear
everyone aboard breathing and tossing and turning. I manage
about two or three hours of sleep at most. Still, I relish
the simple thought of being aboard a yacht, and I already
have a plan for the next night.
`Wolfie, terror of the helm'
The second day sees us again hard at work on the winches,
the sheets, and the helm, and as we are sailing across
Broken Bay into the Hawkesbury River, the wind freshens to
such a degree that we get the biggest thrill of the entire
voyage. The boat heels to the point where land lubbers (and
that includes us) think that she surely must capsize any
minute, whereas in fact large yachts--thanks to the tons of
ballast they carry in their keel--are highly unlikely to do
so. There are some moments, however, when Captain Rosco
quickly has to take over the helm to prevent some major or
minor catastrophe. The fact that these moments tend to occur
when I am steering probably contributes to his later
jovially referring to me as "Wolfie, the terror at the
helm." Ah well, those old salts always need someone to pick
on, and if need be, I'm willing to play the part.
Later in the day, the wind calms considerably, and at the
anchorage in another picturesque bay populated by a number
of other boats, we even get the chance for a quick
pre-dinner swim. In this bay, by the way, is a moored barge with
a number of trash cans on it, for the use of sailors in the
area. The trash is regularly carried away, also by boat, of
course. Unlike Japan, Australia knows how to make boating
folk feel welcome.
Waking all too early
That night, I take my sleeping bag up into the cockpit and
stretch out under the awning, on one of the benches that is
just the right length. The balmy breeze and slight swaying
of the boat, plus the modicum of privacy make for a much
better sleep than the night before, but the harsh cries of
some sea gulls at first light wake me all too early.
After breakfast, a slight drizzle continues just long enough
to give us a chance to parade our rain gear while we
practice anchoring. The weather soon picks up again, as we
motor upriver with an eye on the nautical chart and the
various channel markers. Anchoring close to an island, the
dinghy is scheduled to come into play, but the outboard
turns out to be highly temperamental, requiring considerable
coaxing from the skipper. Thus we learn another important
lesson: if it doesn't work, have lunch.
Certified `competent'
Apart from a few jokes about how to address the helmswoman
and about doing the "chick overboard practice" instead of
the man overboard practice, role attribution on the boat is
refreshingly non-sexist (or so I like to think). The days
pass all too quickly, and soon the time comes to head back
to our point of departure. While we still give the skipper
plenty of opportunity for jocular chiding, we have come to
feel a bit more at home in the handling procedures of the
boat. We even can go in a full circle around a buoy if he
points out what to do. What would happen, however, if no one
was around to tell us which way the wind blows is all too
easy to imagine. This is why the certificate that we are
issued at the end of the voyage attests us to be "Competent
Crew", only the very first step in a number of AYF
sheepskins. As for myself, the Buster Keaton in me doggedly
keeps tagging on an initial "In".
Captain Rosco clearly runs this training voyage for his love
of sailing (of course, he can use the money, too). His
teaching style is characterized by the kind of humor that is
grounded in a full mastery of his subject. After all, he has
been sailing all his life and he didn't spend 12 years in
the Navy for nothing. Yet he is not averse to doing a little
wacky self-ironic jig in the cockpit to the tune of "we are
saiiiiling". His voice when he literally sings out
"tackiiing, tackiiing" will probably keep on ringing in my
head for quite a while. And I have definitely decided to
start working on that rig for my inflatable when I get home.
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