Burgoyne Church.

The wooden church.

The winter sun skims just above the ridge and lights the Burgoyne Valley in a pallid cool light. I stop the car and take a stroll around a little white pioneer church sitting primly behind a picket fence. I photograph the remains of some flowers in a window, and then wander around to the plain back wall. White painted wood siding, a single leaded glass window set high in the center: nothing here, I think. Then I notice the cast shadows of bare branches. The wooden horizontal siding is patterned with a complex web of vertical stripes that reach up toward the sky.

There is a confluence here that pulls at thought. The little leaded window is made in a formal pattern that obviously came from the same curving up-reaching form of trees as are now patterning the wall. How much of our art patterns and architecture can be traced back to their roots in nature? How much of their power to touch us deeply rests in their common ground with our own elemental selves? We know that the original Stonehenge was a woodhenge, that the Parthenon`s progenitors were wooden buildings. Even this little church is built of wood. Nature has provided both the inspirational image and the materials to realize it into form.
I take the photograph and record the discovery that has been waiting for me here. How close I came to driving right past.

Shiriri Saga # 78. The Westerlies.

A freighter says hello.

Charlie`s Charts of Hawaii’ has urged us to arrive at this vacant spot on the sea`s surface. Boats headed home to North America from Hawaii must sail close hauled to this position where they can catch the enormous circle of winds that curve around the North Pacific High. We have used these same winds to sail down the coast of America and across the ocean on the way to the Marquesas. Now we plan to catch them again.

We have been sailing on and on and further north through fog that has made even our bedding wet and clammy. The low pressure systems arrive packed with more punch too as they roar eastward between us and the Aleutians every few days. It is so tiring and so annoying to be going in the right direction and be forced to deploy the drogue which slows us down even as it saves our bacon by keeping us safe and in control.

On the drogue again and again and again.

Moonflight is well ahead of us now but keeps precious contact. We make up riddles for them to solve by next day`s schedule. Once at the end of a session we are called by another voice: a crab fisherman in the Bering Sea who has been listening in. "What are you doing out there?" he wants to know. We are at a loss for a good answer. We wonder ourselves. Australia, so far back around the curve of half the world, keeps sending Robbie`s voice and we begin to know that home is ahead when we talk to Tofino Coastguard Radio one night. It seems another lifetime since we sailed along that west coast of Vancouver Island. It seem a lifetime we have been sailing out here.

NOAA weather Radio waits until we finally reach Charlie`s magic spot on the chart where we expect to jump on the wind escalator to home and then announces in it`s Darth Vader mechanical voice that the Pacific High has dissipated. DISSIPATED?? This means that we will be in the midst of these frontal systems all the way home! We shrug, we feel fated already and railing against the fates just uses up too much precious energy.

Albatross does fly by.

My birthday arrives in the last week of August in what we call Dad`s Birthday Storm. As the grey rain-swollen clouds rush overhead we decide to celebrate on another day. Heather steers and chats away to me as I hunch under the dodger. This scenario would once have seemed high drama to us but by now it is situation normal. In all this time we have never taken a green and frothy wave into the cockpit but as I watch the waves behind Heather I wonder if this could be the time..... The S.E. part of the front has passed and the strong Westerly gale is now forming a new set of waves that cross the previous ones. As they collide they cause great spouts of water to shoot up and collapse in foam. An albatross flies beside us and paddles it`s feet onto the water to help itself up the wave face. A kittiwake flutters nearby. Much as we mutter and mumble, this is an amazing place we are in, still a thousand miles from home.


Casual cockroach crunch.

We start counting down the last set of hundred mile segments even as Anne and I struggle with sail changes . One early morning we are hoisting the reefed Fores`l after yet another rough night when the VHF radio calls and off to leeward is a big freighter. He has seen our sail rise and drop again as we struggle with it and is checking to see that we are not in distress. Anne chats to him and as she does so a big cockroach scuttles across the seat beside her. There is no pause in the conversation as she picks up the daily journal and smashes it to oblivion! The freighter captain offers us any supplies we might need, a phone call to our relatives when he reaches Vancouver..... "Good old Yanks" we say as this thoughtful American vessel carries on with our no-thanks but thanks anyway. Despite a few close calls, we have been so fortunate to belong to this camaraderie of the sea.

Shiriri Saga # 77 The Horse Latitudes.

Mother and calf swim beneath Shiriri.

If it was n`t for the enthusiastic reports from the Moonflights, who have reached Midway Island and are having a wonderful time helping to band albatross`legs and eating fresh fruit and vegetables, we would enjoy this area of gentle breezes more. "You must come and see!" they call, and we would like to except that we are three hundred miles west of Midway. With these calm seas we could motor nonstop for three days and be there. Of course we would use up a lot of fuel that we might need later and really the calendar tells us we must keep moving toward home. We settle to enjoying their radio reports and catch up on our sleep as we gently sail onward.

One very black night Heather calls the whole crew on deck. "I can hear breakers!" she says. This is enough to get us wide awake! We know that far off Midway is the closest land but still we can hear the steady splash of waves in a calm barely ruffled sea. We imagine an uncharted tip of a volcanic island until we realize that the sound is tracking from right to left ahead of us and it dawns on us that we are listening to a line of dolphins crossing our bows and leaping and splashing as they travel.

As we edge north we become caught up in the trailing fronts of low pressure cells that are tracking east farther north. We are sailing due east now to use these moderate winds and we hear from Moonflight that they have left Midway and will rendevous with us to hand over some fresh vegetables. One late afternoon we see them bouncing toward us and we heave-too as they drop their dinghy in the water and row over with a profusion of gifts. They have even remembered that I have a birthday coming up soon! We haven`t seen them for over a month and must look like a group of weird castaways grinning like mad with this human contact!

Besides our daily chats with Moonflight on the radio we have been keeping a radio schedule with Robbie, Anne`s friend in Australia. We begin to pick up a collection of eager listeners from all over the Pacific, some even acting as relays when direct contact is full of static. One evening we talk to our old friends Tom and Jodie and their girls on Flyer which is anchored at Jededia Island back home in the Strait of Georgia. One important contact we have maintained is with the Seafarers Net that keeps daily track of our progress and posts our position on the internet so friends and family can know where we are.

Now we have crossed the Date Line once more we feel almost close to home but keep sailing east at about 35 degrees north. We will start edging north-east again far north of Hawaii to sail around the top edge of the Pacific High and into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Heather and Anne start complaining of being cold on watch at night: there is a distinct damp chill in the air. I point out that they are still in shorts and barefoot and that we are only going to get colder still. We dig into plastic bags of cool weather clothing that seem strangely bulky and so bothersome to put on. One misty day I can see whales leaping on the near horizon as I sit semi-asleep with the rest of the crew in the cockpit. Suddenly, only a quarter of a mile away, a long line of spray rises from the sea. I think dully, "more whales," and it is only some time later when Heather asks Anne, " What does a periscope look like?"that I rouse myself. Heather draws what she has seen over the other side of the boat a few minutes before. "Yep" says our navy girl, " that`s a submarine." We hear later that this big patch of ocean is a favourite training area and we guess they were practicing sneaking up on us. If only they had thought to surface and offer us some delicacies from their galley! We are losing weight even though we eat filling meals: the constant motion and sail handling is using up more protein than we are taking in and I especially am getting very skinny. The occasional fish we catch just does n`t provide enough and after my metabolism has used up all the fat available, it starts to consume solid flesh.

We see a lot of flotsam in this part of the Pacific. Bik lighters, fishing floats and bits of rope and nets lie in windrows on the surface. We also begin to see albatross and kittiwakes and one day a humpback whale cruises along beside us, leaves and is replaced by a mother and calf that dive beneath our boat. We are a little nervous but we have been so long at sea that we are sinking deeper and deeper into a sense of oneness with this oceanic world.

The little sea lion that swims over to us really does seem to be coming especially to say hello. Yes we are becoming a little weird by shoreside standards, but our impression is that we have been privileged to pass through a portal into a clear vision of the world. In a way we are no longer subservient to the Gods but now are seeing the world through their keen eyes. Considerations of life and death fade in importance because we now know that if we were killed out here we would simply remain in the eternal steady state that lies already folded tightly into this real world. This will always be the most valuable of gifts we gain from this time and yet the one that will be most difficult to touch again or communicate when we are absorbed once more into human society.

Shiriri Saga # 76. Typhoon Dodging.

A Close Encounter.

Moonflight, our American buddy boat calls us up on our radio schedule and warns of a typhoon to the south of us. They are further east and in the clear but this nasty brute is headed our way in the next 48 hours. Head east they say. We start the engine and motor all night into the easterly wind and waves and gain perhaps twenty miles for our pain. We are full bowed, have a lot of wind drag on our masts, hull and rigging and do not have a lot of push in our engine. We decide to sail north and try to outpace it. Although the circular winds within the typhoon can be very powerful, the actual movement forward can be slow. Perhaps we can keep ahead of it and hope it will wander off to the west as most do.

The next day, Moonflight reports that the typhoon has turned and is headed for the Marianas to the west of us.( Over the next while it will devastate the island of Truk and thrash the shores of China) We are back into convergence zone sailing amid an endless procession of enormous rain and squall filled clouds. We turn the radar on at night to see the rainy cores hidden in the black cloudy skyline to windward. We make rough guesses that lots of rain means lots of wind but really we are taking chances just to keep sailing and adding up the daily miles. We are already bone tired from constant sail changes.

We are sailing through the spawning ground of typhoons and sometimes find ourselves in the center of a perfect ring of big thunder clouds. The light is a coppery colour, the feeling oppressive. Just a little more energy and the right upper level winds would start the engine to turn this into the swirling winds of a typhoon (typhoon, cyclone, hurricane - all the same event.).There are some really vicious squalls roaring out of the base of monster black thunderclouds that force us to turn and run with them thereby losing more and more precious easting. We seem to be headed for Japan. Every mile lost to wind and current now is an extra mile we will have to make up once we get up into the Westerlies.

We listen to NOAA weather radio each day and are frustrated when they spend much time on a hurricane off the Mexican coast and forget our big square of the Pacific entirely. Does that mean we are OK or what? We are tense and tired. At last they describe a typhoon starting up to the south-east and predicted to have 160 knot winds in three days time near where we will be. We feel a cold stone settle into our hearts. Our chances of surviving this would not be good. Anne and I raise the mainsail, heel Shiriri down, bury her bulwarks in foam and race northward. We must try to out-sail the typhoon as it is almost on an identical course. The only safe direction would be for us to go east and we now know that we can not do that! Perhaps this one too will turn west. The next day we listen to NOAA once more . Please let them not forget us! Blaaa, blaaa, they work their computer voice way through all the other regions of the Pacific and then tell us that this typhoon has dissipated after twenty-four hours. Phew!!

Slowly we reach the half way mark of our voyage. There are thousands of miles yet to go but we start counting down the distance at around one hundred miles a day. We are a thousand miles due west of Hawaii now and see the con-trails of jets headed for Asia. We speak to a freighter headed for America. One moonlit night we see masthead lights coming over the horizon on our port side. Our radar shows us to be on a collision course. What are the chances of hitting another boat way out here? Pretty good it would seem!

First we call up the boat on the VHF to call their attention to our presence. No reply. We know that they would not be looking for another boat out here and might be chugging along on autopilot with no one on lookout. We have the right of way according to the regulations but we do not want to be right, dead right, either. I call for the red strobe light and play a spotlight on our sails. We can see the bow wave flashing in the moonlight..... We start the engine and scuttle forward and out from under. The Asian style fishing boat, silhouetted against the moon, plods indifferently on over the horizon.

The Trades now permanently switch from mostly east to north-east and become stronger. We really do not wish to go to the west side of the Pacific so we furl our trusty gaff fores`l and hoist a storm jib between the masts as a mainstays`l. That together with the jib, forestays`l and storm trys`l gives us a small but efficient upwind sailing rig. Shiriri heels less and goes closer to the wind than we have ever experienced before. The clouds are in ferment as they swirl and twist high above, indicating we are approaching some new celestial boundary. The warm air that rose high in the atmosphere near the equator has travelled north and cooled and is now descending as a belt of high pressure to begin its return trip to the equator as the trade winds. Finally the wind eases, pauses and then very faintly at first begins to blow from the west!

Shiriri Saga # 75. Tarawa Atoll.

Rowing ashore at Tarawa.

Palm trees fringe the horizon and our GPS confirms that the atoll of Tarawa is just ahead. It is now three weeks since we left Noemea in New Caledonia and we have crossed the Equator just yesterday - June 26th. Those 25 knot easterly Trades that rattled us up the coast of Vanuatu finally eased and were replaced by the clouds and squalls of a convergence zone that went on forever. How we longed to return to those strong winds and bouncy waves!

We have a photo-copy chart of the lagoon so we sail beside the fringing coral reef until we find the pass, line ourselves up and enter the enormous lagoon. Two sleek tuna fishing boats lie at anchor and the shore is littered with rusting hulks. We know that this was a famous battleground of WWII but these despite their rust seem too new to date from that era. (They were fishing boat wrecks.)

We anchor near the wharf and then notice another yacht arriving .It turns out to be Moonflight sailed by a family from Seattle. They are returning home from New Zealand and will be our buddy boat for the rest of the way home. Our main interest is to top up our fuel and water tanks and to buy what food supplies we can find, but we have a more interesting mission as well. A friend back in Victoria has asked Anne if she will attempt to find the grave of a missing American Marine whose body never came home from Tarawa.

What we find ashore on the island of Betio is a crowded, sandy, palm tree covered bit of land with starving dogs tottering around the village, a small container port, fish plant (Japanese), a fuel depot, a few stores and a garbage dump over which children crawl. Poised along the shore are big naval guns still facing out to sea. It seems a surreal place: a sort of post-apocalyptic vision where people carry on their humble lives just ten feet above sea level amid the shards of a crashed star ship. This little island was the site of one of the fiercest battles of the war: Nov. 20 1943. The war in the Pacific was starting to roll up through the Japanese held islands and Tarawa had an airstrip that was needed to facilitate the next attacks in the Marianas. The assault was to teach the US Navy some important lessons about amphibious assaults against strongly fortified islands but at a terrible cost in human lives.

While walking along the causeway that connects Betio to the next in the ring of islands around the atoll we are picked up by an Australian Missionary who is married to a local woman. We tell him of our mission and enlist his help. He shows us a school he has built and the concrete fortification that stands behind it. We stop at a little graveyard of all the missionaries who chose to stay to help the local people rather that leave before the Japanese arrived. Too bad; they were all executed. We feel his bitterness and know we are talking to one of the ongoing casualties of that war in the lives of the present.

He drives us through a more fertile area at the beach near where we are anchored and where the worst casualties took place. Old rusty pieces of iron fluttering with garbage bag flags litter the beach but these too are of recent vintage: we are on an old garbage dump site and that accounts for the fertility as well. At this rate of garbage pile up, Tarawa will struggle ever upward to keep ahead of the rate of sea level rise due to global warming. Of course, it could also sink beneath the weight!

We never locate any American grave sites ( although some were discovered after our brief visit) and start the process of checking back out of the country. Kiribati, this far flung nation of many small Pacific islands (of which Tarawa is the crowded capital), must try to fulfil all of the functions of a nation state and we find it is a struggle to get the right rubber stamps put into our passports. " Could you come back tomorrow? I think the right stamp must be at the airport." "What about this one?" I say, determined not to make the long hot walk once again, "It`s OK. Just stamp it and put your signature and date in the middle." Ta Daaa! We are checked out!

As we hoist anchor we look thoughtfully at the scar on the shore line where a couple of days of big swells have eaten it away. Those waves were generated by something very fierce to the north of Tarawa and that is where we are headed. The season of typhoons has already started and we must run the gauntlet. We are still far short of being halfway home. It is July 4th.

That evening we sail between two little islands that are brilliantly lit in the evening light as we round the northern edge of the Tarawa Atoll. They are so lonely and so beautifully green. They are land, no matter how minute. We will not see any more for the next two months.

Shiriri Saga # 74. Volcano in Vanuatu.

Rolling past Tana`s volcano.

The wind is from the west! The next morning after leaving Havannah Pass the wind switches direction and starts to blow us eastward toward Fiji. Now this is more like it and is what we have hoped for but did not dare dream of happening. The prevailing easterly winds do falter and switch around from time to time: we were held up in Bora Bora on our way to Australia for several days by just such a wind pattern and it is believed that the early Polynesian and Melanesian settlers of the Pacific used these winds to voyage eastward relying on the easterlies to blow them home again if they did not find new land.

We see another yacht behind us and they call us up on the VHF radio and offer us a big piece of the tuna they have just caught. Even motoring, they take a long time to catch us up. I trail a plastic bag on a long rope in our wake so they can put the fish in it and we haul it in. No they don`t have the plague, but it is dangerous for sailboats to come alongside each other while rolling in ocean waves and risk crashing together or tangling their rigs.

Soon our westerly wind fades and the east wind returns. Even so, as we reluctantly turn onto a northerly course we have gained enough easting that we hope to pass to windward of the islands of Vanuatu. As usual, it is the middle of the night when we arrive at the most southerly island, Aneityum. Shiriri has n`t quite managed to get far enough to windward. Perhaps we have been overly optimistic or the west setting ocean currents are messing with our expectations. We turn on the radar on this black rainy night and with the screen showing us the island and the fringing coral reef close to windward, we angle out across the broad passage between this and the next island in the chain, Tana.

The morning light shows clearing skies, Tana and ----what`s that? -a volcano belches a plume of ash just down wind of us. We remember now that other cruisers have come to see the volcano, so it did n`t just happen especially for us. It feels weird to be simply sailing past and eating breakfast while a great geological event is happening nearby. We imagine how it must have been in ancient Rome when Pompey was buried in Vesuvius`volcanic ash. Did folks nearby sip their wine and say "Oh yeah, there she goes! So Octavia, what`s for supper?"

Over the next week we thrash our way north with the islands of Vanuatu clear on the western horizon. The easterly trades continue to freshen (25 knots) and Shiriri rolls rail down in the steep beam seas. Now we are paying for all those sunny months in the Australian marinas: the wooden planks above the waterline have dried and shrunk and are now letting steady streams of water find their way into the bilges. The normal bilge pumps do not work well on water that sloshes back and forth at high speed as the hull rolls and we must regularly use a hand pump to catch it briefly on the vertical and suck the water up and overboard. This will naturally correct itself as the planks swell back tight in the damp but in the meantime I think it would be a good idea to duck into Port Vila just over there to leeward and take a break from these miserable conditions. Anne is stern however and as our navigator, points out to her old dad that we will only get home if we buckle down and keep sailing!

Shiriri Saga # 73. New Caladonia hangs on.

Shiriri in the Baie de Prony.            

May24th.
We are in a rush to leave just as soon as we can top up our fuel and water because we must arrive home on the West coast of Canada before the winter gales start in the North Pacific. Here it is still the end of May and yet so great is the distance yet to cover that we must plan three months or more ahead. We also have to check our rigging after the knock down and the engine exhaust system is leaking fumes. I shinny up the masts just fine but asking in French for the right gasket cement draws on all my linguistic and drawing talents!

As Shiriri leaves Noemea en route to Havannah Pass we discover that we have battery problems. Friends from the Manley dock -Amatuana II- help us diagnose the problem at anchor in the Baie de Prony and reroute some wires so we could proceed on only one bank of batteries, but in the end we turn back to Noemea for a new starter battery and a manual battery switch. With a solution still so close at hand and a great blank on the chart ahead of us it only makes sense.

A few days later we are ready to leave again even though this time the harbour master points out that the trade winds are persistently easterly and that we should wait until they settle back to south-east if we wish to make any easting at all. Yes, we agree, he is right, but no we can not afford to wait around. We must get through the warmer parts of the North Pacific as soon as possible to avoid the hurricane/typhoon season even if that means losing our easting.

Back in the Baie de Prony near Havannah Pass we are forced to wait a few more days as the pass is too difficult for us to exit in strong eastery winds. We visit with Noasson, also from the Manley docks and waiting to depart for Vanuatu, and then one morning with an iffy forecast of lighter easterlies we bounce out of the pass at last and start a long tack south-east to gain some easting so we can miss the Loyalty Islands just to the north when we tack again and sail close hauled to clear the south end of Vanuatu. Shiriri puts her shoulder into it and we begin to refine our windward sailing expertise.

Burgoyne Bay. Reflections in Reality.

                                         Reflections in Reality.

Just across Salt Spring Island from where I live is a bay that faces toward Vancouver Island. Cradled between mountains, the land slopes down to the waterline. Beaches are always exciting places, a meeting of two eco-systems, brushed by the sky. In late Fall the light is often cool and the skies overcast; not, one would think, an exciting time for photography. What it is though, without it`s summer flash, is an opportunity to look more deeply into the nature of reality in the reality of nature.

As I wander with my camera hunting for a “good” image I`m pulled toward the small streams that have gathered together the water draining off the fields and hills. There on the still or rippling surface is the even tone of the grey sky and the flickering reflections of trees, grasses and, if I lean forward with my camera seeking yet another reflection of thislandscape,myself.

Why do I take these photos anyway: is it as a form of self expression, a kind of trophy hunting, or am I a kind of intermediary acting like the streams and reflecting the reality of the world back to others of my species? If so, I must accept that I am also an integral part of the process: I too lean forward into the picture frame and select what will be seen.

I walk the shoreline, still in the shadow of the ridge to the south, note the ducks feeding in the shallows and choose to picture not the ducks alone but the dark shore and the curve of the stream as it empties into the sea. That big stump that has been stranded here for years: how can I be true to it`s place on the beach except to place it amid the lines of kelp so recently cast up on the strand? This is all such a delicate process of divination that I feel I have stepped out of my human skin and sunk deeply into the landscape itself.

Behind the beach, through the trees, up a steep muddy trail, are old farm fields carved with great labour from the forest a hundred and fifty years ago. Can I find another truth in these green meadows open to the sky? A great boulder pokes it`s boney head through the sod and I am down on my belly in the wet grass struggling to change mental gears and understand what it has to say. It`s rocky form echoes the lines of the mountain behind. The wind ruffles the taller grasses and I choose a slower shutter speed and wait for a gust to set the tall seedy tops a dancing before tripping the shutter. A line of May trees lining a farm road are stripped of leaves and display grey branches and the red fruit that will feed the birds all winter long. I step closer and fill the camera`s frame with nothing but twigs and fruit repeated a thousandfold. Won`t this repetition of form and rhythm that is the dominant feature of this landscape be boring? I hear my inner human designer, conscious of a future audience, worrying about composition and shrug: this feels true to the reality of this place and that trump all other considerations.

As I leave Burgoyne Bay I see a final image waving to catch my eye: a field of arching gone-wild blackberry vines and uncut field grasses are backed by abandoned rusty-roofed farm buildings. Even as artifacts of human settlement they are saying something I`m sure about the beauty and regenerative power of nature through the seasons and the changing but enduring relationship that I and my human species have with the land.

Shiriri Saga # 72. Knockdown in the Tasman Sea.

In the heart of darkness.

Several days out from Brisbane and the east coast of Australia, we are dodging some dirty looking clouds with waterspouts trailing beneath them. We motor along with only our storm trys`l and forestays`l up. We are still on anti-seasick pills which make us drowsy, but are already adapted to being back at sea. Australia seems to belong to another world far back in the misty past. We are back to living minute by minute in the present moment.

"Look," says Heather. "The clouds are all rushing south." Sure enough, the sky to the north begins to clear, while to the south the clouds seem to be piling up on the horizon. As we are going east, we feel they are welcome as long as they stay away from us. Then it dawns on us that a boiling black mass is racing north toward us. I just have time to get to the base of the mainmast when we are hit by a seventy knot blast of wind that heels Shiriri down on her side. Suddenly I am standing beside the almost horizontal mast and the sea is half covering the top of the cabins. We are in the midst of a thunderstorm. Lightning flashes continuously through the mist that rips across the flattened sea.

Shiriri is over so far that her rudder is out of the water and we remain pressed down and unable to manoeuver. I haul the trys`l down, or rather sideways toward me, coil and hang the halyards back on the pin rail and lash the sail to the boom. I`m sure that my thinking mind is in shock but it is here that our months of sail training pays off: the routine is so well established that I operate on automatic. Shiriri pays off with the forestays`l pulling the bow downwind and rights herself. I edge back to the cockpit and find Anne steering with her eyes bugging out as Shiriri takes off downwind in a flurry of hail. I decide that is the best possible thing we can do. We are presenting Shiriri`s narrow end-on profile to the wind which keeps us upright and are giving with the punches by running off. The forestays`l gybes back and forth from time to time but everything holds together for what seems hours until we see a lighter patch of cloud to port and edge over toward it. Suddenly we are out in bright sunshine and gentle winds.
Ahead of us a massive cloud bank is quivering with lightening flashes. Behind and to the north are more of the same so we motor south through a narrow gap toward some clear blue sky. Anne calls some friends who are sailing towards New Caledonia somewhere to the north of us to warn them of what is coming their way. They get all sail down and motor into what Martin later described as the wildest experience they have ever been in.

We have had no weather warning of this Southerly Buster but the radio now speaks of strong storm force winds on the way. The further south we go the nastier it will be so we alter course toward New Caledonia and manage to avoid the worst when strong winds and high seas arrive the next day. We decide to try trailing our storm drogue off the stern on the bridle I made for it back in Australia. With no sails set, the wind pressure on our two masted rig keeps us sailing at three knots even with the drag of the drogue. I find that I can still steer enough to swing the stern to meet the two different wave trains and yet every thing is relatively quiet and under control.

On the drogue again...

The wind finally dies during the evening, changes direction and blows fiercely for an hour,( It is my turn to steer with my eyes bugging out) and then leaves us wallowing in the chaotic waves. No one is going out on deck to make sail or take in the drogue in these conditions, so we wait for daylight and calmer conditions before picking up the lost threads of our voyage.

We are happy sailors to finally sight the lighthouse at the pass into Noumea . This is a new pass to us but a familiar harbour and we are soon at anchor in the dusk waiting for daylight to enter port and check in. We have been given a rough beginning to our homeward voyage but it has served to get us quickly back into voyaging mode. And that, as it turns out, is a good thing!

Our Stone Age Past.

                                           Our Stone Age Past.


We read in books how back before history was recorded, life was brutal and short: uncivilized in fact. There was a progression through time from hunting and gathering groups to agricultural communities to political empires and industrial societies. The implication is that things get better along the way: more refined, in step with more complex.

Those brutish people back in the stone age: artists, part of nature, no concept for genocide, no words for war. That must have been hell back then!

Valediction.

In mid November we know it surely cannot be long until first frost. Other nearby places have had theirs already but somehow we live on in summer country. This has been an unusually dry and sunny Autumn, the big maple leaves have turned yellow and orange and have drifted lightly down to lie as a gentle comforter upon the ground.

The recent rains when they came filled Big Pond in one pelting night and now the seasonal stream once more trickles and murmurs down the hillside. The dampened land and rotting stumps sprout delicate rose-tinted mushrooms. It is an evocative time of year.

This final flair of colour as we creep toward the shortest day of the year brings me along with it. I keep busy with my projects, working hard to complete them before winter makes outside work more limited and also to keep my mood from being pulled too far downward by the fall of autumn leaves.

It is a delicate balance: there is an obvious sadness of farewell to the ending of growth that I could wish to avoid, there is beauty and poignancy that I wish to experience to the full. A third grandchild arrived on Thanksgiving day - Clara Rose - and looking into her lovely little face has reminded me of the march of my own human season as well. No wonder this season, these falling leaves, bring thoughts of my own mortality.

I look searchingly up into the almost bare maple branches and down into their reflections in the dark pools of water and feel them calling that this time of sleep for them is a necessary part of the yearly cycle of life. This is not a time for sadness but a vivid celebration of renewal. It is Spring buds that have forced the old leaves off the trees and the sap recedes to concentrate for renewal when the sun rises higher in the sky once more. Vale, Vale.

Shiriri Saga # 71 Out into the Tasman Sea.

                                    Out into the Tasman Sea.

Aukland. N.Z.The e-mail says that we should phone our yacht broker back in Manley. A serious offer! Would n`t you know it, now we have settled into land cruising in New Zealand in our diesel van and have Gwyn visiting us from Canada for Christmas, interest finally picks up with Shiriri.

Soon she is sold, the survey passed and the deposit in the brokers hands.... and then the buyer gets ‘sick’ and backs out! We don`t know it yet, but this pattern of unusual selling fumbles will continue until we finally leave Australia. The Gods are prodding us back to sea. Even as we back out of our slip for the last time, the broker comes to say that the latest ‘sure thing’ buyer who has had his money all lined up for the last month is still saying on the phone this morning that it is too bad we are leaving, he has the money!

We are sick to death of living this high stress life in which on the one hand Shiriri will definitely sell any day and at the same time the period that we can have our boat in Australia without paying import duties is coming to an end and the right season for the trip home approaches. We polish our boat to show for sale, while at the same time we try to prepare for our long and difficult voyage home.

The plan for our voyage must allow for contrary winds and currents for two thirds of the trip. While in the southern hemisphere we must struggle to get as far east as possible before we catch the south-east trades and angle up across the equator. Somewhere past the ITCZ we will be into the north-east trades which will try to set us back toward Japan. Still further north, we will enter the westerly gales wind pattern that should blow us home to Vancouver Island. Dear Shiriri with her gaff rig and full bows does not take well to going to windward in big ocean waves and we have many thousands of miles of this kind of sailing ahead of us. Plus, this year the cyclone season is still active south of the equator and may start early to the north. Things will be tight. A cyclone could kill us.

One day a van arrives with all the food supplies we will need for four months at sea. We are glad that Shiriri has such a large amount of stowage space: we must not count on replenishing our supplies along the long lonely way home except by what we can catch with out homemade lures and perhaps a stop at a coral island along the way.

Anne has stayed longer in New Zealand when Heather and I flew home after four months exploring the north and south islands. We need extra time to haul Shiriri once more to put on a final coat of anti fouling paint so she will not add a layer of seaweed and barnacles to slow us down. On her last day in New Zealand Anne sells the van and flies back to join our final preparations.

One day in mid May we get a favorable forecast, say goodbye to all our friends on the dock and head back out through the sand bars of Morton Bay and into the darkening Tasman Sea.

What`s in a name?

In your closet...? Oh Jimmy! Don`t you know the difference yet between Monster and Mobster?

Shiriri Saga # 70. Home Again to Shiriri.

Penguin viewing on a cool evening.Phillips Island.

After saying goodby to Anne we decide to travel back to Shiriri the long way around. With Edith clinging to the roof rack again, Heather and I head south to the coast and then follow it all the way back to Manley. We visit Mornington near Melbourne where Heather`s father was born, and later dip our feet in the Southern Ocean. We visit penguins who are coming ashore on a chilly night and look south across nothing but ocean between us and Antarctica. Do we detect a bit of yearning to voyage in that direction? No, surely not, we are land voyagers at present!

A windy day crossing the Gateway Bridge.


Back at Manley Boat Harbour we resume our by now familiar life: Heather is now halfway through the third Patti story, I paint more postcard pictures of our south Pacific travels and we use the van to travel locally. Soon we hear that Anne has another school break and we arrange to drive south to meet her at the Jenolan Caves in the Blue Mountains inland from Sidney. As we both have cell phones we keep track of each other with text messages and arrive at our campground within an hour of each other!

Camping beside the river at Jenolan Cave.


While going underground is not my favourite activity, the caves are really spectacular. We then convoy up to the top of the mountains for a few days and walk along the rim near the ‘Three Sisters’ before we head back west and bid Anne a sorrowful goodby as she drives off back to Mildura and we head back north via towns like Orange and Dubbo and Tamborine. We finally reach the coast again and stop for a visit with Keith and Nora.

A forest walk near Tamborine.


These school breaks of Anne`s have kept us hopping but it is now nearly time to hand our van back to it`s owner ( John, another very kind stranger). It is not the youngest van in the world, but has served us very well with only one fuel filter and two new tires in the six months we have had it.

Our next plan is to fly to New Zealand before we leave in May for the long trip home across the Pacific, buy another van, and explore for four months. Gwyn will holiday with us over Christmas, and then Anne will join us when she finishes her teaching contract in Mildura. It`s funny to think that several years ago when we first imagined what life could be like if we had a live aboard lifestyle our expectations were modest indeed compared to how we are living now. Almost, but not quite, we look forward to the monastic life of sailing again on the broad blue sea.

Shiriri Saga # 69. Voyage to the Interior.

Camping beside the Murray.

"Time`s up ! It`s my turn to row!" The winter wind is cool, especially for my wife Heather sitting idly in the stern of our 14' dory Edith. We have had this kind of discussion many times over the past few years: from the west coast of Canada, south along the long coastline that reaches down to Mexico, and west through the many islands that sprinkle the South Pacific across to Australia. Edith is the dinghy to our wooden gaff rig schooner Shiriri and has provided us with many intimate and interesting experiences of the lands we have visited over the last couple of years. Now, here we are rowing down the Murray River in central Australia, several day`s drive from our yacht where we left her in the care of cruising friends near Brisbane on the east coast.

Edith is a pleasure to row at any time with her long narrow canoe shaped underbody and now we appreciate her wide flared sides as well, that allow us to carry ourselves and a full cargo of camping equipment. Our boating experience was begun in little rowing and sail boats like this and as we moved up to larger and more complex boats the early skills of small boat handling have continued to be the most valuable. We had another dory in the past and camped among our own Gulf Islands, so when we finally reached the land mass of Australia and still had westering deep in our psyches it was natural for us to switch from charts of the ocean to maps of Australia. "Look!" we had said to Australia friends, "Inland, just beyond the Great Dividing Range are the headwaters of rivers that we could follow west across the interior plains." They laughed." Not enough water most of the year. Dangerous!" "Hmmm," we thought. "Now that sounds interesting!"

Great ideas do become modified as more information is collected and digested and we began to understand that our Australian friends were right in many respects. Through much of the year the landscape of the dry interior is blistering hot and rivers are low or retreat into damp bits between the sand bars; that is, when they are not flooding from sudden heavy rains. The fascinating flora and fauna as seen in tourist photos also include a lot of other specimens that match the conditions and are anything but gentle. It really would not be wise to wander off into the bush without a lot of careful forethought.

Our daughter Anne, who had sailed across the Pacific with us, had found a teaching job in an inland town called Mildura which just happened to be on the Murray river: the biggest one in Australia. We had been loaned a van so we decided to drive across country to visit her during the mid winter break and together drive north to the Red Center to see the country around Alice Springs. Ah, we thought, remembering our river dream, we could carry Edith on the van, and after the interior trip, Anne could drop us off some way up the Murray and we could row and camp our way back down river to Mildura through a particularly interesting section that has park land on either side.

So here we are on a wintery afternoon being most solicitous that whoever is at the oars should not exhaust themselves for one more minute than permitted. We decide to camp early on a sand bar the first day, so we pull Edith well up and after setting up camp, prop her up on her side as a wind break against the cool west wind. I soon have a eucalyptus fire started as Heather cooks supper on the single burner propane camp stove. It rained today so everything is a little damp and dreary. The wind drops with the soft grey evening light and we have a strange sense of dislocation as a large shrieking flock of cockatoos settles down for the night in a tree on the next bend of the river: it feels so like tropical rivers we have floated down and yet is so cool and grey. Already, so soon on our solitary little journey into the interior we are feeling the strangeness of this landscape.

A mechanical sound buzzes on and off during the night and in the morning we see a pumping station on the far bank. The Murray River has served mankind in many ways for thousands of years and nowadays it is also a source of irrigation water for agriculture along the banks. We are about to enter the park reserves and will leave these pumps behind for a while but not their effects: the salts flushed out of the soil and back into the river will keep us drinking bottled water for the duration of our trip.

The morning sun filters through the tall red gum trees on the bank behind us, a flock of parrots fly cheerfully by and swallows flit back and forth across the river. The cool west wind is back, so we shake the dew off the tent and are soon rowing down the meandering river. Those curves require that the helmsman in the stern must act as a human compass, continually correcting the changing course with a pointing hand. The person at the oars corrects with a stronger pull on one oar, glances over the stern and finds a mark on the bank behind to steer by until the next course correction. There is plenty of time though, for us to observe this unique landscape. The winding river bends and the ancient eucalypt riverside forest have a hypnotic sameness, but also a subtle beauty. The ancient grey-green trees seem to be quietly chanting a song to themselves and at first, to be indifferent to our presence. A bird calls, "Bo Brady, Bo Brady" from the bank. A red fox trots along under the trees. We stop on a sandbar for lunch, and run around for a while to warm up and get the kinks out. Some of the red gums are enormous but the piles of sticks and fallen trees and the heavy branch that drops just behind us discourages any desire to explore away from the river bank. The river has been dammed for irrigation control in several places and this has meant there are few seasonal floods to spread over the banks and renew the riverside environment as they did in the past.

The wind is still heading us. If this keeps up we will be doubly glad that we left the now useless mast and sail in the van as being just too much extra to burden Edith with. Heather keeps well bundled up in the stern and we regularly remind ourselves how lucky we are to be on the river at this time of year instead of when it is boiling hot. "Yes," I say, "And it is not really cold, we have just been used to tropical temperatures for a couple of years". "Brrr, its still cold!" replies the wrapped figure in the stern. There is lots of interesting bird life on the river though: some big mallard-like ducks, cranes in flocks riding the wind, a red billed black swan and familiar ospreys fishing up and down the river. Serried ranks of massive trees line the banks as we pass. By day`s end we estimate we have traveled about twenty-four kilometers and are now deep into the Park.

Once again we repeat our camping routine well away from the fringe of the forest: that falling branch during our lunch stop felt suspiciously like it was "accidently done on purpose"and we joke about a sense of being observed. Sheltered beside Edith we listen to the sound of silence: no distant sound of traffic, no aircraft, just the sigh of wind in treetops, the creak of branches and the gentle gurgle of the flowing river. I wake in the night to hear the scream of something being gobbled up in the darkness.

Morning arrives at last with an evocative kookaburra chorus and we start using the wood fire for cooking our porridge and morning tea. The propane single burner is misnamed: it will burn everything! In the sandy world of the river bar we use Edith as windbreak, backrest and kitchen counter. The ribs act as dish racks. We chat about our nights sleep and find we have both had the same disturbing dream: some ancient terror, a massacre on this bend of the river. This is still definitely an alien landscape to us and we feel it fending us off even as we become more in tune with its moods. Realistically, to this landscape, we are the dangerous aliens. Back on the river again.

Civilization! We walk up from the riverbank through the trees to a little store set in an orange grove, to buy drinking water and two chocolate bars. This is the community of Nangiloc and just down the road is its mirror image, Colignan. We have slipped out of the park and into the world of irrigation pumps and intensively farmed orchards and vineyards. Once this was all scrub land until enterprising people developed machinery to rip it out and built big pumping stations to irrigate large tracts of land. It all hangs in the balance now as long droughts reduce the available water and farmers work to adapt to low water use irrigation. It`s tempting to condemn the whole concept of destroying a natural ecosystem and replacing it with this industrial farming model but we are just passers by and know that if we paused to probe the system more thoroughly things would seem less clear cut. We all benefit from this agricultural model after all and so we wish them well with adapting to making less demands on the river. It is a beautiful landscape and our farmer`s hearts respond to all that green productivity. The wind eases and Heather rows five kilometers in the next hour as we follow the river north into wilder country again. The Murray is wider now and flows more smoothly, perhaps we are nearing the long section penned up by the Mildura weir.

Camp-fire.

The air is still and the clouds are black by the time we find a beautiful campsite, free of big trees, on the south side of the river. We quickly set up camp and cover our gear with a plastic tarp as it begins to rain. Soon the storm rolls away to the east and that evening after an undercooked supper over the propane burner ( We just can not get it right with this devil.) we enjoy the quiet rain washed air, flickering firelight and a star filled southern sky. We seem to have left last night`s sense of weirdness back in the park reserve. Just perfect! It is this image of camping in the outback that we share as an ideal with all the peoples of Australia, even those who never stir beyond their city gates and bathing beaches. We all know that this is the original and essential life of all human kind. Billy tea and damper cooked over the coals are the final touch. We have a dreamless sleep interrupted slightly by a kangaroo doing speed trials behind our tent.

As we prepare to leave the next morning we hear a steam whistle and the chuf- chuffing of a steam engine. A train, we think and scan the river bank downstream for train tracks. Finally, around the bend, comes a paddlewheel steamboat liberally sprinkled with men in blue coveralls. They pause opposite us and one yells "Is there a good depth of water further upstream?" I spread my arms wide to indicate four feet or so and they continue puffing and splashing on their way. We read later that there is a flotilla of private steamboats attempting to reenact another use of the Murray when steamboats were the main form of transportation and roads and trains had as yet not been developed in the interior.

The cut-through.

Edith slides smoothly back into the river again and as we row we soon see a gap in the river bank through which rushes a large volume of water. Here is the cut-through we have been warned about: the meandering river has recently created a short cut that will soon completely cut off a big bend of the river. Fallen trees drape across the rapidly flowing water from both sides. We row over to have a close look, mentally map out a way through and decide to go for it! Rapidly we zig zag through the tangle of sweepers and are soon in calm water again.

We feel a pleasant adrenaline rush. We laugh, we did n`t need to do that, we are ahead of schedule, and an upset amidst all those branches could have been deadly. We have become adrenaline junkies on our sailing trip and needed a hit! A little physical risk in life makes the world shine brighter. If only it would stop the wind as well!

That last sluice ride has dropped us into the impounded waters behind the Mildura weir at last. We miss the unfettered life of the free flowing river and smile to feel how easily it speaks to us in metaphor. "This river is your life," it says, "This is how it feels to be fettered, controlled and put to work." Our sunny morning gives way to cloud and the familiar cool wind still impedes our progress. Pull, pull, pull, as we wander around curve after curve against it. We stop for a warm lunch of noodles, and then find that at last the wind has dropped and the sun is actually trying to shine. The adrenaline effect was just delayed after all! A long stretch of river is filled with fishing cormorants and as we pass the red cliffs of Red Cliff, long flights of white pelicans patrol the upper air. We had planned to stop for the night at a sand bar near the Lindeman winery but on arrival find it to be a dusty dreary place, obviously near a road. We have absorbed some of the river`s wildness ourselves and instinctively distrust this human place, so we row on and find a camping spot up on a low bank in the Gol Gol state forest. We scrape down to the clay for our fire hearth and Heather uses a stump for a kitchen. The stump explains why this is a young and vigorous forest: it had been logged off several years before. She is bitten twice by big, inch long bull ants and we get in our tent very carefully to avoid bringing any to bed with us. Later that night we hear "Thump, thump,... snurt?" A kangaroo has stumbled across our camp and is expressing... what? Surprise, anger, passion? I stick my head out and say " Get lost!" Thump, thump, thump into the distance. We hope that Skippy the bush kangaroo does n`t have a big brother.

Night encounter.

There were no return visits overnight and we are off again early in the morning. We had planned to camp one last time before we reached Mildura but after a stop at a winery where we found it only opened to booked tour groups ( no one expects stray scruffy tourists wandering up from the river at this time of year), we push on past possible camping spots on the river banks that are too beaten up and easy of access to cars and partying people. " Press on," we say. "Press on!" By late afternoon we pass under the Mildura bridge, pull into a waterside park and phone Anne for an early pick-up. While eating our last camping supper and waiting for our daughter to come home and get our message, we observe the passing scene in the gathering dusk. Just down the way a man is obviously selling drugs to young folk so they can party their Friday night away. We remember our own adrenaline high as we sluiced down the cut-through and partially understand their desire for an elevated mood. Like the river itself, they are feeling confined by this town but unlike the river they can choose an artificial, temporary escape. We think we will stick to an exciting reality though: it may be a bitter pill to swallow at times, but it does you good, leaves great memories and lasts forever.


Sidebar.
Endless cold winds, repetitive scenery, biting insects, danger! What kind of a holiday is that?

For us of course, it really was n`t so much a holiday of escape in the usual sense as it was about getting close to the deeper reality of life. This human need underlies the popularity of adventure tourism and in our case there were parallel journeys into the interior of a continent on a flowing river and in our own personal lives. The story of Edith the little rowboat meandering down an Australian river and the perspective it`s occupants gain along the way lies at the heart of what we all seek in life but often end up buying into the easier consumer version instead.

On our way across the Pacific we had stopped at the Polynesian island of Raiatea near Tahiti. It was Canada Day, we had dressed ship with all our signal flags, and I was available at dockside to welcome anyone aboard. Three retired American men off a nearby cruise ship came by to admire our big classic schooner. They were so interested in what I had created that I invited them below so they could see how the whole boat really worked as an integrated system. As they left, one said wistfully, " This is the first Real thing we have seen on this whole cruise." They had bought a fantasy luxury cruise but belatedly recognized that they were missing something essential in the process. Unfortunately it was something that money could not buy: it was the struggle of the voyage itself that gave our life meaning.



"People say that what we`re all seeking is a meaning for life....I think that what we`re really seeking is an experience of being alive ,so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we can actually feel the rapture of being alive."
Joseph Campbell.


"Drugs are vehicles for people who have forgotten how to walk.
Chatwin."

Shiriri Saga # 68. The Inland Adventure.

On the banks of the Murrumbidgee River.

From the journal:
June 28th.
We are camping on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River in New South Wales. Just 15 K from the town of Hay and only one more day`s drive from Anne in Mildura. We have been driving southwest for five days.

First, over the mountains: (we had a plugged fuel filter that got fixed in Glen Innis) then we took the New England hwy. through 3000 foot high rolling hills. It was - 6 C. overnight, so we wore our fleece outfits to bed in the van. Heather spent the evening in the bathhouse immersed deep in a warm tub with only her nose out in the freezing air.

Soon we left the mountains behind and entered forest covered hills. We camped overnight in a rest area in the midst of a Eucalyptus forest.
As we drove south we found vast gently rolling farmlands -lots of cattle and sheep. The roads were very straight and very narrow. 80k. for hours on end gets a little mind numbing. Edith clung tenaciously to the roof racks.

Today we woke beside a river to the sound of a kookaburra morning chorus, saw white cockatoos and Galas and later kangaroos and emus in the desert before the town of Hay.

This is a beautiful site tonight ( a drovers camp). We are all alone, have a fire to warm us ( this is winter in Australia), the river gurgles alongside and our only worry are the overhanging branches of the enormous gum trees that could drop on us in the night. Let it be a calm, if chilly night!

.......................................................................

As this is really a boating story, I `ll simply say that we picked Anne up in Mildura, left Edith sitting alone on the grass in the backyard (very sad), and drove west and then north to Alice Springs in the ‘Red Center’ of Australia.

With Anne to spell me off with the driving it was like being back at sea keeping watches as we crept for days across the immense landscape, except that we got to ‘anchor’ every night at a campground, roadhouse, or in the bush.

We visited some spectacular places; King`s Canyon, Ularu, and the Olgas. With recent rains, the desert was in bloom. Eventually however, Anne had to be back at school, so we rescued Edith, and Anne dropped us off with our camping gear a long way upstream from Mildura. I have written of our journey back down the river in the article which follows next.

A Giant problem!

A GIANT PROBLEM!

Shiriri Saga # 67. Stepping Ashore.

Stepping ashore.

Feb. 15th.
"Bill, Bill, come and join us in the cockpit!" Heather call to me as I stand at the bow watching the breakwater at Manley Harbour draw closer. We have squirmed our way back north through the ‘ditch’, passed Peel Island again and are approaching the voyage`s end. This could be our last voyage with Shiriri if she sells in Australia and I feel a need to be alone with her. One can make a sensible decision with one`s head and find that those lazy old feelings have just not kept pace.

This is the ending of a great thing, but soon we are tied alongside in the marina and learning to wear sandals to prevent our feet burning on the concrete docks. We check in with customs, get Shiriri evaluated for sale and I settle into getting the last of the painting done. We discover the commuter train to Brisbane and explore the city. The library just down the road at Wynnum provides us with free e-mail and reading material. We find all the best walks around the local community of Lota. I begin to repaint the interior cabin walls and overhead. Anne comes and goes, still waiting for the paperwork to be evaluated which will allow her to start teaching in Mildura. More rain squalls and southerly gales.

David and Lisa of the Francis vessel arrive in their car from Scarborough and we all drive off to explore the highlands behind Brisbane. Heather and I keep craning our necks to get a glimpse of the land farther west. We are still thinking of Edith`s river project.

By April, we are flying off to Canada to launch Heather`s first Patti story " Life on the Farm"and visit with the family at home, just as Anne drives off all alone to travel half way across Australia and the beginning of her teaching job in Mildura.

Walking home.

May 1st.

Back again. Heather and I get off the train from Brisbane at the Manley station and stagger back along the waterfront with our many bags - some loaded with boat parts. The break has done us good and we settle down to life at the docks. We move across the harbour to a Yacht club and gradually find a whole dock full of new, mostly Australians and New Zealanders, friends who live aboard their boats.

Our days settle into a routine. Heather starts a third Patti story and I begin a series of small postcard sized paintings of our ocean adventure as I reread my journals. I have finally made it to the essential next stage of any major life experience: the evaluation and understanding phase where I pull meaning from the experience, incorporate it into the present moment and use it to build a new foundation for the future. As his wartime stories were for Keith, so this process of painting the highlights of our voyage works to preserve important memories while they are still fresh. I have discovered that I can move forward into the present while preserving the important lessons of the past.

Waking to Lota along the seawall.

We walk the parks and waterfront trails of nearby Lota. We talk to Anne on the phone and plan a visit to Mildura during her holiday break. I read the Murray River Pilot that Carrick Road`s dad has sent to us and begin to plan. This travel plan needs a van to carry us and Edith and we finally find a little Toyota on loan that we rig up for camping. We load Edith on the roof racks and drive carefully around the boat yard to see how much we list to one side or the other with her weight on top. Hmm, she`ll be right, we say optimistically. I learn to drive on the left side of the road.

Walking in the boatyard: confronted by lapwing.

There is not a lot of interest in Shiriri from prospective buyers but really we are good for one whole year in Australia and time and adventures stretch before us!

Shiriri Saga # 66. Hard at work on the hard.

Heather leaps to my side of the saloon seat.

"Are we safe?" gasps Heather as she leaps over to my side of the saloon seat. A massive explosion! The instant flash lights our cabin which teeters high in the air. We are in the midst of the worst Southerly Buster yet with fifty knot winds and a powerful thunderstorm. It is comforting not to be back at anchor in Bum`s Bay in this, but distinctly nerve wracking to be balanced precariously on our keel on a large concrete slab with our masts pointing up into the crackling storm.

We were lifted out over a week ago at the Gold Coast City Marina and have been hard at work in 35 C. temperatures repairing and repainting the hull. The bottom now has two coats of a powerful antifouling paint and Shiriri`s topsides are a spotless white. Edith too, sparkles in a new coat of dory buff. After the storm rumbles on to the north we will launch and tie up alongside the docks here to complete any work on deck.

The Carrick Roadies, have been busy beside us repainting their concrete yacht and had the same saloon experience as us in the thunderstorm. We also talk to them about an idea we have been playing with. Those day trips we have made into the highlands have whetted our appetite for a voyage into the interior. The map of Australia shows the headwaters of a number of rivers not too far away, could we somehow haul Edith over the mountains and row and camp down river across the central plains? When we mentioned the idea to Keith he had laughed and said no, not enough water in the ‘rivers’, too hot, too many nasty snakes etc. So Rob and Michelle, what do you think? Yes, they say, it is possible on the biggest river of them all; the Murray. Rob says that his dad lives on the Murray river and will send us a cruising guide. So it is possible, sort of, and that is good enough for us to begin to plan. We really need a plan, we still itch to keep moving west, we need a replacement challenge.

The newly painted hull.

Once launched again we tie up to the docks and the next morning hear two yard workmen making a list of the boats at the dock. One spells out Shiriri`s name for the other to write down. "Es,haich,oi,arr,oi arr,oi." We smile, we are getting to enjoy a Queensland accent. Then it starts to rain in earnest; 13inches of it in 48 hours. We have plenty of discussion time as the rain drums on the cabin roof.

Anne now has a little car and is off visiting friends much of the time .She has applied for a teaching job in Mildura on the Murray River. We have found that we can stay in Australia for quite a while if we leave and come back every six months. We need to put Shiriri in a marina if we wish to travel around the country. What are our long term plans? Will we sail on around the world or sail home across the Pacific against the prevailing winds and currents? A big determiner is Heather`s health. We have set a three year limit on our voyaging and that would mean we would spend all of that time mostly at sea if we kept sailing west. The voyage here has been pretty stressful and not good for Heather`s heart. Lets take a long break and explore this big continent by land and then..... OK this is it, what are our long tem plans for Shiriri? We know that we will have to sell her sometime at the end of the voyage when we move back home so why not sell in Australia and avoid that killer trip back across the Pacific if possible? One thing Heather and I do well is plan and so by the time the rain stops we have charted out our life for the next year or so.

By the time we sail back down the Coomera river we have located a marina back north in Morton Bay at Manley Boat Harbour just south of Brisbane and, plus plus, we get a reduced price on the moorage if we have our boat listed for sale there. The Gods are smiling on us!