29-9-1991 Hagar’s Circumnavigation Newsletter 1

Hagar’s Newsletter Number 1 29-9-91

Hi everyone, we've made it to Christmas Island and managed to write most of this tract en route.  It's longer than we wanted, but everything is so new and different to us, we couldn't help writing about it.  The next newsletter around Christmas sometime, should be much shorter, once the excitement of catching fish, changing the sails and taking seasick tablets has worn off.  Photocopying and mailing the newsletter is a big job so we've tried to split it amongst our friends and asked them to send or share it with other friends down the line. Anyone who wants our next one please let us know by letter so that we know for sure that you want a copy. Please write soon so that we have a chance of receiving it before Christmas.

The two months we took to sail to Darwin has been a shake-down cruise for all of us.  In the beginning, schoolwork was a big problem - mostly because the kids were starting halfway through the year. We weren't too sure where to start. In the end Ben had to start his Science and Maths courses from the beginning so we could be sure he hadn't missed anything. He was depressed about it for some time..till he drew up an organising chart and discovered it was possible for him to finish this year. Now he is very independent and only needs some help with some maths problems, some science explanations and some Business Principles problems. The latter being a problem for all of us.

 Rene's studies are not so critical, as we don't have to send papers back, so, thankfully, we are at liberty to change anything we like, which we do quite often, in order to incorporate our travelling experiences. So far, Rene has done projects on the Bowen Salt works, the Cairns region, and with the help of material obtained from the North Qld Museum in Townsville, he's going to do "Dinosaurs" and "Shipwrecks". Rene also wrote away for some fabulous materials from the Ab. and Torres St. Is. Commission so he's got plenty of work on at the moment. The only subject we don’t muck around with is the maths course. Rene completes that one rather vigorously.

We've found that supervising studies, actually takes up a lot of our time. Roger and I are only on our third book now. We do most of our reading on the long passages, highly recommended books so far are: "Oscar and Lucinda" by Peter Carey and "My Love Must Wait" by Ernestine Hill. (True story about Matthew Flinders -we're totally impressed by his determination and his map-making skills.)

We've decided that 6 hourly watches are the best as it enables us to enjoy a fat piece of sleep every night and catch up on one or two hours during the day.

Sailing routines such as putting the sails up, engaging the self-steering, coastal navigating, hoisting the heavy dinghy on or off the boat, using the fickle outboard motor, reefing the mainsail, using the sat nav and or the sextant, lighting the finicky kero pressure lantern  - are all becoming more automatic, now. And the boys are gradually becoming more competent - tying knots etc Rene has even learnt to splice. And Ben is almost as good as Roger at coaxing the outboard along.  But we won't mention any names concerning the incident of the lost fender in Cairns Harbour. Mr Nobody tied that knot...

                         --oo--

So what have we been doing with ourselves in the 75 days since we left Brisbane? Well, mostly we've been sailing!  Only 25 days have we stayed at anchor and not pushed on. This doesn't make for maximum cruising pleasure because there were lots of places we would have liked to visit. We've had to force ourselves to "hurry" because we had to leave Darwin early September in order to catch the last of the trades across the Indian Ocean. However we have made the most of the places we did stop at.

Let's start at the beginning...

The Bon Voyage party was something to remember. (Thanks everyone for your kindness and help before we left - we needed it.) 

We're still amazed that we left when we said we would.

Amidst the chaos of kids,cake, champagne,chicken and lots of crazy people, someone started disentangling  two years of ropes and tyres, people began to disembark, tears fell, last-minute hugs were made, streamers were thrown- Ben had to tackle one rope with machete and kayak -and suddenly the last streamer had parted. 




We had cut loose .. on a fine and glorious mild winter's day.  We had an overwhelming mixture of emotions in our hearts - but we had done it - we had left Brisbane on our adventure.

Our heartstrings were tugged but it felt right to be leaving. All the loose ends seemed to have been tied. In that last week we managed to sell the cars, deliver "Choo Choo" our cat to her new home (Rhyl and the girls) and the day before we left we even found THE mouse that was plaguing us - dead, beneath our bed. (That mouse had chewed a 100 mile hole in the chart of the Indian Ocean that we later had to steer clear of so it was a heroic mouse death)

Although leaving such dear family and friends has been hard, we have learnt that in leaving, we have found out how much people care about us.  If we hadn't gone away on such an epic trip, we would never have found that out because people (us included) take each other for granted. Life is too busy for people to stop and say "I think you're a great friend."  Or “I really enjoy your company." Through our leave-taking, we have come to realise we have a lot of very wonderful people as friends.  We are grateful and want to say we care about you as much (and more, now that we are the ones who have left and now we are apart from all those who are dear to us and loved by us). Thanks everyone - your best wishes and letters are what keeps us going.

    "When you part from a friend, you grieve not;

For that which you love most in him

May be clearer in his absence,

As the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain."

                                      Khalil Gibran

                       

                              -O-

After we left the jetty in the Brisbane River, we spent one night in the smelly boat passage, near the mouth of the Brisbane River and then set sail for Fraser Island. On the way across the bay, Ben cracked up, "I hate sailing!" He was grumbling about having to help on deck.  We soon realised he was just "traumatised"at leaving his nice group of school friends.  He came good with some TLC and toasted sandwiches for lunch. We were all feeling a bit fragile that day.

Our first night sail was encouraging with full moonlight and soft winds - very bewitching. Rene's reaction to Double Island Point close by at dawn was "wow...Wow...WOW!"

We stayed in the Great Sandy Straits for a couple of days to get the boys' schoolwork organised.

Roger dived under Hagar to free the centreboard (jammed with Brisbane river mud) using a dinghy oar as a lever. At Garry's anchorage we caught a squid while bait netting. Its colour changes were spectacular while it struggled. Calamari was mentioned but we'd got quite fond of it and let it go. It wouldn't, it just dug a shallow hole, turned to mud colour and stayed put, tolerating Rene's periodic fondling with great aplomb.

Entering Hervey Bay the propeller made a horrible noise so Roger was hung over the side to view it while the rest of the family hung onto his legs. What trust! It was diagnosed as a broken prop shaft bolt - quickly fixed.

The next leg, four days, took us to Keswick Island and a great week with Paul and Carol Symons who are care-taking there.

 Ben was reunited with their son Adam and disappeared most of the time - skateboarding of all things! And some of the time doing their Correspondence lessons together.

A ferro-cement boat, the "Leona Del Mar" went aground on a nearby fringing reef on our second last day, and we lent a hand getting her off. This included a night-time, pitch-black journey out to the stricken vessel in Symons' tinny. We had to kit ourselves out with lifejackets, coats and searchlight and torches and the boys took their KNIVES. We were really scared of running into two small, just covered reefs, so had to scan the blackness with the strong beam of the searchlight. Jan panicked when one of them showed straight ahead but Adam calmly zoomed past it. She really needed the cup of tea the owners offered when we arrived to help them relocate their boat, once it had floated off. They were still in shock and seemed glad to be told what to do.

 They also didn't seem to realise the danger they were in - even though she hardly bumped coming off, by the time she reached Bowen she was taking 5 gallons an hour. (They were lucky, 12 hours later the swell was big and they would have pounded to pieces).

Keswick provided us with a bush walk through the scrub and hordes of blue butterflies.  If it wasn't for the boys cutting a path through the thick grass, Roger would have taken all day to get there.  That week, we managed a quick swim on the other side (Water was still a bit cold), a short free-floating dive in the channel, and a meal of black-lipped oysters. Carol showed us how to whip them out with a screw-driver and a rock. The kids had a go at fishing and skiing.

 Rene was fascinated by the chooks. (Roger has showed him how to hypnotize them.) Jan experimented with bread making, sorted lots of cupboards and knitted Josie's teddy a couple of mittens. It was here with its 6m. Spring tides that we discovered the heavy weight of our dinghy with its outboard motor attached.  Ever since, we have looked at other yachties' relatively light,deeper aluminium dinghies with envy.

Adam joined us for the trip to Bowen. At one anchorage

 (Tongue Bay) we were able to walk over to Hill Inlet which has the whitest sand and the most wonderful multi-hued turquoise waters. Jan beachcombed, the kids frolicked in the water and in the sandhills and Roger had to work hard not to lose his crutches into the fine sand.

At Nara Inlet, the three boys dive-bombed and jumped off the extended boom into the deep water.  The stainless steel fold-up stairs we had put on the stern were put to their first good use that afternoon.

In Bowen, we were greeted by John and Koffee Warby, Tammra and David. We were saddened to learn that Bill, Koffee's dad whom they had been looking after in their house, had recently died. We remember him from his Yeppoon days as a great old stick. He had a very dry sense of humour and he made the loudest, scruffiest “getting out of bed" noises we'd ever heard. He will be missed. The hole he has left in the Warby household will take time to heal over. 

Whilst Roger and Rene visited museums, Ben and Adam went off skateboarding up and down the wide streets of Bowen (They were quite disappointed that there was no ramp set up in Bowen.) and Jan shopped and washed, thanks to Koffee's help. But by night we wined and dined, caught up on lots of news and we made John show us all the water-colours he's been doing lately, they’re great - he can't keep up with the demand for them now.

As it turned out, John and Koffee were able to deliver Adam back to Mackay by car, and David, who was going to be pretty bored by the weekend's cultural activities, ended up coming to Townsville on board Hagar. He scored a couple of days off school that way too. We left Bowen a little lighter, as we decided to off-load the kids' bikes, and the sail, mast and boom we were going to use for our dinghy. Beneath the Warby's house is now a little more cluttered!

We only made two stops. It gave us the chance to swim, rockclimb, fish and beachcomb. Cape Upstart is a rugged rocky headland with a sweep of little beaches and holiday houses on the protected side. They didn't detract from our feeling of isolation because we knew that the houses had been transported by boat. There are no roads.

With David on board, our trolling suddenly became successful.

  He yanked in a nice 9lb spotted mackerel the first day and an even bigger one the next...he sported very red, blistered hands and a very quiet but very wide grin after hauling in the metre long one.

Cape Bowling Green is a long streak of sand jutting out against the south-easterlies and offered great beachcombing.  Jan collected two bags of driftwood to give away in Townsville and Cairns. Rene and David dug up crabs and collected every wind-blown bottle in sight. No messages. No treasure.

We entered Townsville only intending to stay one night as we had to pay $16 a day at Breakwater Marina, the only place to stay. We stayed three!  We had forgotten how big Townsville was.  It took many hours tracking down the bits and pieces we had decided to get in Townsville, even though we were helped immensely between meals by

Jim and Therese and baby Kate from "Wilbary", friends of John and Koffee's.  We also needed two nights to catch up on Carden's news. The boys got on well with Michael, 13 - They played role-playing games all night!  Denis had to be more studious - he hopes to do Architecture in Brisbane next year.

The marina, being so friendly and convenient also enabled us to get some jobs done - washing, cleaning and silver-soldering the copper exhaust section and sewing the cockpit cushions; and to catch up with other boats - "Tawarri II", with Hans and his crew of tawarriors. He used to live up river from us on the Brisbane River.

Having caught two fish, we then had to eat them. Ben still doesn't rave over fish. He says,

"Having fish for dinner is sort of like doing schoolwork - it's an ordeal that has to be endured rather than enjoyed."

So Jan is continually trying to think up tempting fish dishes. One of the kids' favourites is nuggets. Just dice the fish, throw them into a plastic bag with a little flour in it, toss them in the flour and fry them in a little oil, yell out "Nuggets!", provide some tomato sauce, and they go like hot cakes, especially if Rene is around.

Before we left, Carden inveigled us into collecting corals for her across the Indian Ocean. (Thus inadvertently cementing our route!) Her international biogeographical survey of Acropora (staghorns) has a dearth of information right in the places we plan to sail. It didn't take much for us to agree. So we are now armed with official letters requesting permission to lift a few corals from a few reefs, and a coral collecting basket  and lots of plastic bags to send them home in. (They stink. The ones from Ashmore reef are fermenting on the foredeck. Thankfully the really smelly first and second water changes happened while it was still calm. They are upwind and barely perceptible to a strong stomach in these rolling trades).

A quick sail to Cairns had us in the tropical north for Roger's 48th birthday.

Kathy Brazier, a long-time friend from Mareeba, and Jerry Groeden, a friend of Carden's helped us celebrate with home-made pizza and chocolate-strawberry cake and bottles of red wine (Eric Sankey where were you? Where was the Lambrusco? One of our Lambrusco casks decided it wanted to be a fizzy wine when it grew up - and boy did it grow up! We had to let off the pressure regularly).

Kathy moved up to Mareeba to help look after her mum, who was successfully fighting against her cancer for several years. This year she died. Kathy is dealing with her grief very positively.  She is now closer to her sister and is working very hard on her quarter-acre block, dressing it slowly with a beautiful and well-thought out native garden. Kathy was thrilled with the drift wood we had collected. She knew exactly where it was going to go. The study bug has her again - this time a Bachelor of Business through the Darling Downs I.A.E.

At Rusty's Markets on Saturday morning, the kids saw real live 90's hippies close -up. They haven't changed much from the 60's really. The same bare feet, same gentle hugs for their friends, same babies being passed around, same tuneless busker hoping people have got more money than ears, same friendliness, same well worn colourful clothes and silver jewellry. It's just now the fashion includes slits in their torn-off jeans and almost every one had a couple of strands of hair intricately wound by brightly coloured embroidery thread. Not a bell-bottom, or wrap-around Indian skirt in sight.

We managed to buy lots of fresh fruit and veges, but then realised we had to cart it all home. This meant a slow kilometre walk to The Pier and a wet 10 minute ride in the dinghy to the other side of the harbour. We needed fortification.

Woolworths provided it: a two litre carton of Home Brand Neapolitan icecream and a bottle of coke.  We gorged ourselves under  the fig tree in the midddle of the road. Surprisingly, we had trouble finishing it. And felt quite sick afterwards. This was very definitely an Aberystwyth, which, as defined in  "The Meaning of Liff" is a nostalgic yearning which is in itself more pleasant  than the thing being yearned for.

Cairns was unrecognisable to us poor souls who visited last in 1979. The Cairns Yacht Club was the only piece of water frontage that we recognised, and we couldn't even find it at first. Touro-dollars are solidly at work everywhere. Even the old Post Office has been relocated to the fringe of the city, nowhere near the waterfront, so there's a 30 minute walk and when you arrive, no atmosphere. (No hippies reading  letters on the front steps.) There are no front steps.  We came across computerised mail for the first time.  The worker on the computer told us if we had any mail waiting or not. (The Darwin P.O. has the best system: You read the daily print-out of mail first before approaching the counter.  That way you can personally check for possible misspellings of your name.)

Two of the days in Cairns were spent installing a new Furuno Radar which helps us when visibility is poor or at night. The relatively low price and low power consumption swung us in favour of buying. The last time we went cruising, radar cost about $10,000.  Prices have fallen so much that now we have radar and sat nav.  If we had unlimited funds, though, we would purchase a weather fax and the GPS version of sat nav, which can pinpoint one's position at any time. And perhaps a roller furling jib.

Whilst tied up down the creek, getting the radar platform made, we realised we were next to Fisheries, so we popped over and said "Hi!" to Mark Connell, son of Norm and Helen who lived up river from us in Brisbane.  Mark promptly had us round to dinner for a huge feast of huge prawns. (There's got to be some perks for scientists who, by and large work very long and often odd hours, for little pay and  no permanency.)

Mark was also very helpful in obtaining an obscure piece of piping which completed Roger's buoyancy control device for diving. Ben and Roger are now both kitted out  with colourful puffy vests, big tanks and good regulators. All they need now is warm, clear water.  We didn't find much of that on the Queensland coast.

Twenty-four hours out of Cairns, at Hope Island, we all dived in and scrubbed the weed off the hull. We only lasted 30 minutes in the water, and had to be revived with lots of hot soup.

Tiny Cooktown Harbour provided us with a few diversions. The Museum is well worth a visit, even though it made us feel old to point out to the kids,

"Ben, I used to use a slate like that when I was in Primary school." or

"Rene, we had one of those ceramic water purifiers in Kisumu."

{By the way, who can remember when we were allowed to use biros at school? - instead of those horrible nibbed pens. Was it about 1960?}

We are reading "Over the Top with Jim" by Hugh Lunn at present - out aloud in the cockpit every day. It's when we have half a can of soft drink each as a special treat. I thought it was the soft drink that made the kids so eager for this serial, but we've discovered that they're enjoying it as much as we are. The parts they like are the bits where Hugh gets to throw arrows at adults who are disliked, and he and his brother catch the odd adult out with "low tackles" and clever punches. They envy him the freedom he had to explore the area where he lived (Annerley). The bits we like are the descriptions of that time gone forever.  He may have only scraped through State Scholarship, but his memory of detail is astounding. It's strange how customs and artifacts quietly and silently change without us noticing. One has to be particularly alert to pick up the changes. Hugh remembers the social barrier between the Catholics and the "State School kids", coke a cola bottle tops, trams in Ipswich Road and the rail line to the Gold Coast, listening to Test cricket on a crackling radio in the dead of night. and he weaves these memories and family anecdotes into a “tap-dancing, bugle-blowing memoir of a well spent boyhood". If you get a chance, read this book out to your kids.

 We walked back to the boat via the lookout that Captain Cook used to find his passage out of the "labyrinth" of reefs in his path. He was lucky he had the visibility that he had. We couldn't see the outer barrier reef for the trade wind haze.

We had looked forward to Lizard Island for a long time. We were disappointed on only one count.  The anchorage was steady, the long walk up the headland to the rock cairn was rewarding in its view, we were able to get fresh water from the resort. And we had a good look around

Mrs Watson's house, which is now only two stone walls and a complex foundation.

However we weren't too sure of the status of the reefs so asked a fellow yachtie and were told you couldn't spearfish in our bay but could in the next one around.

So Roger duly took the kids and their spear guns off in the dinghy. After an unsuccessful fish, Roger thought they should say hello to the guy on the beach who seemed so friendly, waving etc. Once ashore they were all embarrassed to find that he was a Ranger and that spearfishing was banned totally on Lizard. They didn't get into trouble.. I guess the Ranger could see the fish population was in no danger from the Woollers. Most everywhere we've anchored has been "No Spearguns" status so the boys haven't had a chance to practice their skills.

It was on Lizard that the Census Collectors caught us. A couple of Resort workers had been coopted to chase all the yachties in the bay. They caught all of them!

Flinders Group was a surprise. Not only was there a fuel barge there, that sold diesel and cold drinks, but one of the islands (Stanley) had accessible Aboriginal cave paintings on it. Viewing them necessitated anchoring in deep water in a wind against tide situation, a short dinghy ride in rough water, and over coral

to some huge rocks, then a squishy walk over the mudflats, (keeping an eye open for logs that could turn into crocodiles) A two kilometre walk in the hot sun through sparse scrub and beach followed .. and we had to be back to the dinghy before the tide cut us off.

Overall the paintings had us quite intrigued. They included old ships that could have been brigs or praus.

On Hannah Island, Roger and the boys went ashore to climb the light tower. Ben raced up to the top and found himself face to face with a very surprised eagle!

The next day, the wind piped up a little and Jan had decided she wanted to be navigator and helmsperson for the day - to give Roger a rest and to give Jan a change from preparing food and overseeing lessons and getting frustrated 'cos there wasn't enough time to write the letters she'd planned.  She pictured herself having time at the wheel to read novels in between islands and having an altogether relaxing day. 

NO way. The wind freshened and the islands, beacons, reefs and coastal ships came so thick and fast, that she was busy to the last as we peeled off to Night Island. Roger came up to pull down the sails and then the self-steering rope broke. We were nearing the coral fringe. Panic was held as bay as Roger directed her to cut the rope,    rethread it and tie it off. (We keep a knife in the cockpit for such emergencies and for cleaning fish.)

We had caught mackerel the last two days, so at Night Island Jan experimented with pickling - using four different recipes. But when we tried eating them (about three weeks later), they were all too soft and mushy to eat and one bottle had gone off. Can anyone tell us what we're doing wrong?  We suspect, you have to eat the fish within a few days of pickling.

Night Island wasn't an ideal island in 25 knots of SE wind.  We deemed it unsafe to take the dinghy ashore.  Roger scored the cockpit for the next day's sail, with showers breaking the monotonously good weather we had enjoyed so far. The canopy and the radar proved their worth that day.

We spent two days at Portland Roads along with many trawlers and yachts and another fuel barge. The second day we went ashore for a looksee. We discovered a restaurant which was closed, some public phones and a line of old houses, some of which were for sale. This was where Rene discovered what a "character" was. He has been plaguing us with "what is a character?" for a long time. 

We met Barbara walking back along the dusty dirt road. She came flying breathless down her hill,

"Would you like some paw-paws?  Come on up."

"Up" was a very old shed. with a concrete floor and partitions of dusty cupboards and hessian drops. Very ramshackle, very open plan.... very open to all her family -  four cats(hiding up on the rafters) three dogs (licking us for attention) two carpet snakes and lots of sandflies.

Barbara is one of those elderly ladies who are tough and have plenty of spunk. She was widowed and we suspect quite lonely.  Once she had her audience captured - we were all seated on her rickety chairs- she captivated us with her stories. After a while we started to make leaving noises, which she took no notice of.  We were worried about the dinghy, as it was blowing 25 knots and the tide was coming in quickly over the rocks and coral rubble. Instead of letting us go, she immediately went into top gear and showed us the mystery objects under the tablecloth - her picture agate collection.  Each agate nodule had been cut and each had a picture inside - the lines and colours lending them to Barbara's active imagination. At the end of all the explanations, Jan had to rush off to tend the dinghy. Leaving Rog and the boys to hear her out. They had to carry all the paw-paws. But they were well entertained. She then started on her healing powers and gave Roger her special healing cloths - squares of old sheet she had cut up -(Roger is not impressed with the attention he gets from "healers" but they keep popping up and he humours the nice ones and gives the evangelical brownshirts short shrift)- and she fascinated the boys with her star sand.  We had never seen sand like it..Coarse coralline sand with the skeletons of tiny animals shaped like miniature snowflakes.  She gave the boys a small sample of it, saying it would bring luck.

Their magic powers didn't last long... Jan got back to the dinghy to discover our friend's inflatable had flipped over. The outboard was having an unintentional bath.

So we had to tow Annelise and her son in their inflatable back to their yacht Setna and then motor back to Hagar. We all got absolutely

soaked.  Another reason for not buying an inflatable. That light flibbertigibbet made our heavy dinghy look positively wonderful.

Shellburne Bay was memorable on three counts: our centreboard scraped over an unmarked extension of reef just before rounding the point, we made a huge bonfire of our rubbish ashore, again, always keeping our eyes open to the possibility of crocs, and we collected buckets of prolific black-lipped oysters - the dirty and shallow waters obviously not attracting a lot of yachties there. The only reason we went there was because Jan had read there were lots of sandhills for the boys to play on. They were there alright, miles away and covered in forest.

We had to anchor at tiny Bushy Island, in order to score a favourable tide when entering the Escape River. It was more comfortable than expected.  We were with another yacht that is headed for the Red Sea,"Setna" owned by a German couple. They came over for a chart comparing session after dinner. Hans must be a good mechanic as he got their flipped outboard motor working again.

In the broad and deep Escape River, the Japanese Pearl Culure boss and his wife were polite in response to our visit, but they didn't show us around as we'd heard they would -perhaps it depends on how busy they are. One friendly Japanese guy was out organising the Islander workers from his boat, all around the rafts of pearl shells.

That night we chatted with Gayle and Ross from "Warriuka".  They were returning from Indonesia, so we had a lot of information to swap. The kids were on "Hagar" by themselves that night and cooked tea for themselves (tinned Spam and Spaghetti).  Unbeknownst to us they entertained themselves by listening in to conversations on the VHF radio. Some slow-talking fishermen caught their attention with their prolific swearing. The little blighters taped it onto a tape recorder and then played bits of it back over the VHF. It confused the swearing trawlermen no end. We were glad we were well away from OTC's radio watchdogs!

We sailed to Thursday Island, reading aloud the bloody history of Albany Pass to the kids as we passed through it pinpointing landmarks. Cape York was easily recognised by the tourists silhouetted against the skyline like redskins.

At T.I., we opted for the lee shore anchorage, as it was closer to town and the jobs we had to do. Our sister-in-law, Dorothy's brother worked at the

Post Office and luckily was able to help us out with our four loads of washing.  The local laundry was charging $1 per lb, so it would have cost us about $50! We did them in Joe and Nora's washing machine and chatted with Nora and her friends, whilst she plied us with cups of tea and chocolate cake in between preparing the food for her Friday night snackbar. We had caught them at a busy time so were very grateful for their help. In the afternoon, we trekked through "town" past the tourist and trade stores to the super market where we bought some bread and fresh veges at exhorbitant prices. It took two wet trips in the dinghy to get our load of washing and groceries home.

We would have liked to visit Dorothy's Mum, Bethel who was in hospital with an infected foot, but it was a long walk and we weren't up to it. Instead, the next morning we set sail for Badu Island to look up more of Dorothy's relatives. With some local advice, an inadequate chart, the tide tables to help us predict the currents and our eyes constantly peeled for uncharted reefs

we made it safely in one day.

Sailing into the channel at Badu was tricky and we didn't see the passage into the small harbour but anchored 1.7 miles offshore in safe water.  Luckily, Dorothy's brother-in-law, Ian, saw us and took us back in his larger dinghy. The next day, a friend of his, Ibod, came and showed us the trick to getting much closer to shore. We certainly would never have attempted it without his help. Ibod is the only person we've ever met who has the same huge appetite for drinking tea as Roger has.

Torres Strait was fantastic fishing.  We caught one mackerel and then tried for another, as we knew we were going ashore that night. A giant 1.3m mackerel almost immediately took the lure and while we were trying to organise the fish and bring the line in, a huge barracuda got hooked. 

It was like taking coals to Newcastle, but we presented the big fish to Annie, Dorothy's sister, and she prepared a meal out of it for everyone, which actually was a lot of people. Annie and Ian had three girls plus new baby, Julia. In addition, there was Bethel and Noelene, who would probably be quite embarrassed to be described as tall and striking young ladies, and Valerie who helped Annie around the house and assorted next-door children who were left over from the birthday party that they had celebrated that afternoon. We stayed ashore in the house to avoid the long journey back at night. Bodies everywhere!

 The "village" was actually quite large and strung out along the coral fringed beach for over a mile. The house, which was actually Grandma Bethel's, and being used in her absence, was one of the many modern houses on Badu -prefabricated and tin roofed- they have fans, lights, septic toilet, solar heated showers and mosquito screens. Bethel's was fronted by arching bougainvillea and other shrubs. Generators power electric appliances at night. Other houses are older and more ramshackle with few conveniences. They do have a modern and very expensive supermarket and a fish and chips shop. No-one,on Badu or TI.was tempted to open a bakery. They would do brisk business. Bread prices were up to $3 a loaf on Badu. They also have a small clinic, and modern community centre and a school.(Annie teaches Year One there)

We were saddened to see traditions dying out on Badu. They buy their pandanus mats from New Guinea neighbours.  The only canoe in sight was one spectacular ocean outrigger from New Guinea.  Only a few of the kids could cope with climbing coconut trees and when we lent our kayak to  a little Badu manki(boy) he didn't know the faintest about paddling it.

All their canoes have been replaced by the faster tinny and 40hp outboard. Families regularly travel to TI. in them.  A very bumpy and wet and exciting ride, they all exaggerate shamelessly about the journey time (28 miles in 1/2 hour!).

Their diving and fishing skills are very intact, however. No-one goes hungry. And they seem to eat a wide variety of fish, crayfish and dugong.  (Annie dug some dugong out of the freeezer for us to taste- it was very flavoursome but extremely tough.)

Important customs that are still kept and adapted to this age concern death. Most families spend thousand of dollars on tombstones and the celebration that follows a year later. The graveyard on Badu was an interesting mix of old, worn stone tombstones close to the sea and very grand modern graves close to the road.

They had tall tombstones and fine lettering, a colour photo of the dead person and often a symbol of the cause of death - in many cases an antique brass diving helmet. Flowers were common.

Roger modified the self steering gear to alleviate the effects of age, Ben ferried dubious looking water from the barge landing, then that last night we had a party on board for Annie and Ian, and Ibod and Gwen and their families. The last of the fish had been eaten!  Before they left we exchanged songs.  They sang us a song about Badu and Roger mystified them with "Where be goin' Jagger?"

It took 7 days to get to Darwin, The winds varied from bouncy 20 knots to light easterlies when we put up the spinnaker. A few firsts occurred -

We caught our first yellowfin tuna. It bottles really well as it is very firm and when cooked it is quite pale and tasty, unlike the Little Tuna we caught which only Roger liked and that was because he said it tasted like liver.

One afternoon, Roger sawed off the bottom part of an old elbow crutch to use to raise the sat nav antenna free of obstacles. This, is to eradicate the odd times when it doesn't seem to latch onto any satellites. Now the antenna whistles in the wind just like Roger's crutches.

We read the worst novel we have ever read..."The Painted Shore".  It was given to us by Carden because it is set in Mauritus and involves Matthew Flinders incarceration there by the French. A great book to use for criticism in class. We consigned it to the kids to use for their latest craze - drawing cartoons in the margin, animated by flicking the pages. The kids went crazy over these cartoons for days, creating bouncing balls, rushing rockets and nimble ninjas, ad nauseam.

Talking about nausea,, Ben and Jan seem to be the worst afflicted Once Ben had just eaten a bowl of noodles but he hadn't taken his tablet soon enough, and so threw it up almost immediately. His only comment was,"It tasted just as good coming up the other way! So on this long trip, they tried the SCOP ear patches for the first time. (They last for three days). They made them tired only at first and they were great for Ben, but they gave Jan double vision. She couldn't read the tiny print on the chart, so had to take hers off.

The boys were due for a wash just before we rounded the Cape Don overfalls.  They decided to go forward and slosh buckets of water overthemselves whilst hanked on by their harnesses.  Rene was taken aback when our bows dug into a tall standing wave and suddenly he was submerged. He got a fright and hung on tight but there was no real force to the wave and he opened his eyes to find that he was still on deck!

We hit the narrow Clarence Strait (Vernon Islands), inside Melville Island at night, and put the radar to good use. We wouldn't have attempted a night passage without it. We thought we had the critical tides all sussed out. But with six miles to go, the tide turned viciously against us and it took hours of motoring to get past the last stretch.  Anchorage was impossible as it was 25 fathoms deep.

We found out later that we'd mucked up the tide calculations because Darwin was only half an hour behind Eastern Standard Time not the hour that we assumed.

At this time of year, a large area around Darwin experiences long stretches of calms and variable winds.  When we reached Cape Don, the wind just fizzled and we didn't get it back with consistency till weeks later out past Ashmore Reef. However it made our anchorage in Darwin more than pleasant.

Unlike most of the yachts which park near the popular Darwin Sailing Club, we opted for the town anchorage at Frances Bay. Because with our heavy dinghy and Darwin's 6 metre tides, we preferred the prospect of a jetty with stairs than a mile of flat beach at low tide.  We devised a system that avoided the dinghy being trapped beneath the metal bars of the jetty or grinding away on the nearby rocks.  The humble canvas kayak that Roger had constructed beneath our Bulimba home one winter, came into its own.  We towed it ashore with the dinghy, disembarked crew and cargo then Ben took them both out into the protected harbour , anchored the dinghy, paddled back to the jetty in the kayak and hey presto, we only had to carry the kayak up the long stairs instead of the dinghy!

The 29th August was Jan's 40th birthday.  She had already resigned herself to not having a huge party. (She commented,"It's the story of my life,  I didn't have a "proper" traditional 21st birthday party or wedding, so what else is news?" Unfortunately, Barnacle Barbara from Broome couldn't get across so we had a day long family celebration that proved most memorable.  Pancakes and maple syrup for breakfast. Present upon present. (She had saved them up from Brisbane. She was delighted with Dora's earrings, Nick and Jan's handbag, Rene's whittled canoe and Ben's carved earrings. Even Julie and Helen's little present secreted away since June gave her a surprise.  From the smiles on their faces when they gave it to her, she was sure it was going to be some disposable panties, but instead it proved to be some eco-socks - these are awaiting the colder Mediterranean now.

But the most exciting gift was Roger's silk outfit which he had been gloating over for weeks. Made by a friend of ours at Morningside, Jo Beard, it is a casual free flowing hand painted silk, top, skirt and scarf in rich bougainvillea/ plum colours with tiny streaks of gold. Perfect for dressing up or being casually comfortable in hot sweaty weather. They can be worn in an infinite number of ways but  she hasn't had much of a chance to try them out yet.

The boys made Carol Symon's fantastic pineapple fruitcake.(Add a can of crushed pineapple instead of water to the boiled fruit) and we attempted in the afternoon heat of Darwin to place 40 candles onto an already hot, just out of the oven cake. We only succeeded in melting a multi-hued waxy icing all over the cake as the candles dribbled wax from both ends. Amazingly, it still tasted great.

So with all the formalities over, we went out on the town down to the Mindil Beach Sunset Markets and gorged ourselves silly on sates, curries and fruit shakes, wandered around the secondhand books and crafts and were lucky enough to view a young team of Aboriginal dancers.  That's what impressed us most about Darwin, the cultures that are alive and well  and nurtured, make it a most interesting city to live in. The Asian immigrants make the many markets real treats for hot food and fresh vegetables. The entrenched Chinese community, has produced dinki-di Australians who run the numerous Chinese restaurants in Darwin  and frequent their traditional but new Joss House. This is completed by the many different Aboriginal communities in the Territory who already have many traditions intact or are trying to regaiin their lost  culture through landrights. We reckon we could easily enjoy teaching up here in the top end at some stage in the future.

We were very lucky in Darwin. Carden had told us to look up Mary and Gordo who worked in Darwin and Michael and Janet who lived aboard "Merops" (rainbird). We spent many an hour swapping yarns in each others'homes and were helped out a great deal with washing and shopping and fuelling and even some welding.

We wished we'd had some preserving jars empty, as kangaroo mince was dirt cheap and quite tasty. (Buffalo meat on the other hand was expensive, tasty and tough.) We spent many dollars and many hours on groceries, charts and spares. We went up on the hard for one day to clean the bottom and weld on an extra Zinc anode.

Rene forgot we were high and dry and confessed to using the toilet ... to calls of "Gross me out" but at least he realised what he had done in time to not pump it!

While helping us careen and clean Hagar, Mary told us the most horrifying story about a cocodile.

She and her friend and her friend's three year old, Nicky were paddling on a beach just North of Darwin, knee deep in water. The rest of the party were some distance away up the beach. Nicky was quite a way off when he started skipping rapidly back toward Mary and her friend who were deep in conversation.

Smart kid, he zigzagged. He tugged his mother's hand. "Mummy, that thing is following me." No response from the adults.

"Mummy, that THING is following me!"  Mary peered shortsightedly into the water and a dark shape resolved itself into a six foot crocodile. Mary said they must have stared at it close up for a good few seconds before shock became action. They scooped up their bite sized snack (Nicky) and beat a hasty retreat.

We didn't attempt any correspondence school work in Darwin, so the kids got to visit town (They were quite disgusted that the shops in town were only for clothes, food or tourists.) But gradually they got to know where the local video game parlour, library, cinema and pool were and played, read, viewed and dived to their hearts' content. One day we rented a cheap used car and became sight-seers. We drove 90 km to the Territory Wildlife Park intending to stay 2 hours, but ended up there for five hours. It's a great place.  We tried to keep a balance between doing jobs, socializing  and sight-seeing but all the time knowing that we didn't want to get caught mid Indian Ocean with an early cyclone.

So we dragged ourselves away from this Northern paradise after two weeks.

 

"He's living in the Territory

Sailing on the face of the south-east breeze

Living on the bounty of the Arafura Sea

     Living in the Territory"

                            Ballad by Pat Drummond

The wind was light varying between West,Northwest and nonexistent all the way to Ashmore reef, 500 miles out, and while the plankton sparkled and spawned in the sea,on board ballads were spawned.

    

     T'was on the good ship Hagar,

     course two seven oh degrees

     we tacked and tacked for many a day

     against a failing breeze.

At              last we fetched to Ashmore reef,

  and there we lay at ease.

It was a slow frustrating fight to windward. One night the steering wheel started to dismantle itself and jam the steering. Temporary repairs worked till Ashmore where it was fixed properly. Other things needed attention. Darwin eggs rot quickly, canned drinks leaked, veges go off, the exhaust pipe leaked a little. More ballads.

     Rotten eggs in the bilges lemonade spilt all over,

     the fungus was thick as the mat in the hall.

     Potatoes were smelly but the life of a rover,

     made us fix up the steering and follow the call.

Sailing through the Northwest shelf oilfields was spectacular. The dying glow of the sunset was replaced by the Jabiru platform emerging from the sea as a miniature sun. It stayed with us all night till we left it far behind in the East, its dying glow eclipsed by the rising sun. There were other distant wells burning off their gases, and together they seemed to be a symbolic gateway to planet Australia.

Six Indonesian praus from Roti were anchored at Ashmore, waiting for an Easterly to take them to Scott reef with their boy scout compasses and no charts. They collect trepang.

They are great seamen following centuries of tradition and we longed to talk to them the next day but they were gone before dawn. The wind beat us to them. Even at an isolated spot like Ashmore there is a social life! Murray and Pam Le Couteur were the National Parks rangers - yachties - living aboard a large motor vessel anchored in the lagoon. They regulate the activities of the Indonesian fishermen, maintaining good relations and flying the flag for Australia. 


Camped ashore were Justin and Ian - technicians for an offshore navigation company - maintaining an antenna system for accurate location of oil prospecting surveys in the Timor Sea.

Both the boys enjoyed hanging out. Not in the usual sense of the word. When we were sailing (in sheltered waters) it could become quite exciting.

All four of us collected Acropora corals for Carden's research, Ben and Roger using their scuba for the first time. The diving was superb. 

It was calm when we left, and Dopey joined us during the night. We thought he'd be our pet he was so tame, but after feeding he took off.

The boys couldn't resist the urge to swim. Later
The spinnaker was just enough to help dampen the rolling.The wind picked up from the Southeast - slowly at first. We trickled along at about 2 knots. I got impatient "We'll never get there at this rate" - Jan looked up from her book, the boys were studying peacefully under a shade cloth on deck "Which would you rather have Rog, this beautiful calm weather and 2 knots or fighting to stay dry and upright in 35 knots of wind?" She had a point! The southeasterly picked up though, and stayed with us to Christmas Island. Yay for the trades!
A large Dorado took our lure. As we hauled it aboard its mate came looking for it and hung around Hagar for a day or so looking very lonely. We felt bad about that. But the meat safely bottled under pressure lasted us for weeks. The boys were not that keen on fish, so Jan made us a huge chicken pie using chicken stock to flavour the fish meat. It was delicious and the boys didn't discover the deception until the last mouthful when Jan confessed. "Look at the structure of the muscle - of course it's fish!"

We arrived at Christmas Island 28th September 1991 and plan to stay about 5 days. 

As usual we would like to stay longer as they are a friendly bunch of people and there is much to see and explore.  Our next port of call is Cocos Keeling where we hope to pick up huge amounts of mail (hint, hint). After that it depends on the winds.  The trades seem to be failing a little earlier this year so instead of going to Chagos near Diego Garcia, we may head straight for Sri Lanka.

Love from us all

Hagar's crew,

Jan, Roger and Ben and Rene.