Don’t feel like reading? Listen to me tell the story.

It was a Friday when I got a call from a friend asking me if I wanted to help with a yacht delivery from Sydney north to Brisbane the following day. My understanding from this call was the boat was the Coopers beer sponsored yacht (also known as the Caravan of Love for its generous padding and pure opulent comfort), the weather was looking great, we would leave at 4am Sunday morning, and be back in Brisbane by Wednesday night from our 732 kilometre or 395 nautical mile trip.

Never sail without a crazy Norwegian

Why not??  Let me see if I can recruit the crazy Norwegian backpacker I met Wednesday night??

Why crazy?  She somehow decided it was a good idea to travel from Brisbane to Norway on a 39 foot vintage yacht, with minimal sailing experience, and a questionable crew. Did I mention their boat hadn’t been properly serviced for as long as anyone could remember, had a small reef growing underneath it, a gaping rust hole on the bow, copious amounts of crap (broken dinghy, bits of steel etc…) on the deck, the pulpit sawn off, and been sitting in the marina for a couple of years? Yeah naaaah, they’re not crazy…

Perfect. She was in. Plane tickets to Sydney arriving Saturday afternoon were booked and we were DOING this thing!

Sumptuous Sydney hospitality

The three of us arrived in Rushcutter’s Bay in Sydney Harbour and met the skipper neither the Norwegian or I knew, and the boat which was NOT the opulently padded Caravan of Love, but still a beautiful classic 49 foot wooden sail boat. It was arriving back from a day trip to Manly (Manly in Sydney obviously, not our destination of Manly in Brisbane) packed full of his friends and their multitudes of excited kids.

But damnit they had heaps of left-over tiger prawns and craft beers they offered us while they were packing up everything, so we choked those back as we basked in the beauty of Sydney bathed in sun. We were then told we were invited to a barbeque that evening before we left, which was also a really nice gesture.

I would describe our gracious barbeque host as a quintessential Sydney bachelor. He had a spacious, modern apartment with a balcony in Ultimo. There was no food in the fridge or condiments which weren’t directly related to the barbeque food we were to consume that evening.

Later in the evening I tried to help with a bit of clean up.  I opened the dish draw (mini dishwasher thing), and to my surprise there were no racks to put plates in! I was perplexed!

“What is going on here? How do you even use this thing?” I asked.
“She doesn’t get it,” chimed in the skipper.
“I don’t. The maid does it,” replied our gracious host.
“Huh.”

We took nothing with us, but there was insane amounts of food and alcohol. Marinated tiger prawns, lamb cutlets, and honey coated pork ribs for the barbeque, and all kinds of other yummy delights to accompany.

We may or may not have done significant damage to his ample and varied alcohol collection, ended up dancing on his furniture until the small hours of the morning, before forgetting we were in Sydney and there are lock-outs because the punters can’t control themselves, attempting to go out, and realising that was futile before it was too late.

The first of the plans go awry…

Whatever happened, the 4am sail setting target was no longer looking viable…

Most of us made it back to the boat, but one critical player did not show up until 11.30am Sunday morning. All of a sudden the weather wasn’t looking as rosy as we had been lead to believe it would be. The clouds were angry, about to spew rain, and the harbour decided it would respond to the conditions with excessive choppiness. But bugger it! It was time to go if we were going to make our Wednesday deadline!

Off we went! Sydney Harbour is truly a spectacular sight in most conditions. These were not those conditions as I explained to the Norwegian, who was the first to lose bits of her stomach over the side of the boat that day. Luckily for her, she made a speedy recovery and was back on her sea legs in no time.

We were already at the point where we needed to take sleeping shifts early in the piece (I can’t imagine why…). I think three of us out of the four took the first shift. I started feeling guilty at one point when I woke up, so I went out to keep our then helm-master company. After all he attended the same barbeque as the rest of us…

But something just wasn’t quite right. We were in three and four metre swells, the boat was rocking, and the rain was falling. My stomach was doing somersaults I wasn’t feeling crazy about. I had been fine when I was lying down! And I don’t get sea sick! WTF was going on?? The Norwegian got up, and I felt like it was crazy to sit up there and feel rubbish when I could lie down and feel fine again.

Man down! And out…

And that was me for the rest of the day. Officially sea sick and utterly useless. The other three had to brave the gigantic waves, rain, generally dodgy conditions, and their occasional bouts of sea sickness, because I was gone.

At one point our first mate told me the angle of the waves had changed, so it might be okay for me to get up now. Okay! I was a tough, sea faring chick! I could do this!!

Nope apparently not! The Norwegian spotted the tell-tale signs and rushed over with a bucket just in the nick of time. FABULOUS! OH the glamour of sailing. This was SUCH a freaking BRILLIANT idea!! Holding someone’s hair out of their vomit is always a lovely way to bond with new friends…

But far from feeling better, I felt ten times worse, which if you had told me before, I wouldn’t have thought possible. That reprieve I had where I was lying down and felt okay before was gone. That had changed into: if I was lying down I wouldn’t projectile vomit, but still feel like rubbish. This went on for HOURS. Pure hell.

Various other companions joined me in the cabin for respite from time to time.  My ego was only slightly restored when the skipper, who had been sailing since birth, said he was also sick, never gets sea sick, and also stayed down for some time.

ABORT!

The intention had been to sail right through that evening, but we were all just a wreck and the weather wasn’t looking like abating. We pulled into Newcastle late that evening all wet, bedraggled, and feeling incredibly sorry for ourselves.

As soon as we were in the bay and out of the crazy swell, I was a new person! After copious hours of sea sickness, I felt like the picture of healthiness. However, when I did shower at the marina, somehow it felt like we were still rocking heavily in the waves. Mercifully that was short lived and didn’t bring back that unbearable nausea.

We all felt like we had just slayed the dragon and conquered the world, and celebrated with dinner and more drinks on board.

Monday morning we woke up in Newcastle, looked at the weather forecast, and decided we were not going anywhere. Still traumatised by the previous day’s festivities, we decided we would make friends with the pub across the road. We braved the rain back and forward for our steak lunch and then Monday Mexican taco night for dinner. Tall tales were told, sleep was had, food and booze were consumed, a bloody great day not to be out on the water!

Now THIS is what I’m talking about!

Early Tuesday morning it was time to go. The weather was magic and we had some dolphin mates that would join us from time to time. Now it became apparent what a gorgeous coastline we have, and how many lovely, secluded little coves and beaches I had never even heard of there are scattered along the coast.

We were going to sail through the night that night.  It was becoming apparent just how physical steering is without an autopilot, so we made sure we got in our bits of sleep here and there, and all of our food.

Breakfasts on board were bacon and egg wraps with rocket and barbeque sauce. Lunches were ham and cheese sandwiches, and for dinner we had different raviolis with either tomato or cream sauces. We also had ample snacks throughout.

Sundowners were essential with olives, cheese, tinned tuna (couldn’t get a real fish despite lines and lure efforts), crackers, and ham.  We had lots of grapes, fruit, crisps, and the like for sustenance were available throughout the day.

The five o’clock reading

While on duty with the skipper, we discussed a tradition he used to have on some longer, overnight sails of the five o’clock reading. Apparently at sundowners someone would choose an article from a likely not so salubrious magazine, and read it out for the entertainment of the fellow sailors to break things up.  We consulted the internet to see if we could find a suitable reading for that evening, and found a range of interesting genres that had never even crossed my mind, but certainly peaked the imagination!

Our reality was the boat wasn’t suitably charged with electricity and no one could charge their mobile phones, so we were not going to be able to read anything from there.

When our other companions joined us we floated the idea of a chain story where someone starts the story, then around it goes to the next person, then the next, and so on. They reluctantly agreed but wholeheartedly participated!

The story went on for about three hours, and helped distract us from the difficulties we were having with the gas cylinder, and heating the water for the ravioli. While it says five minutes on the pack, it ended up taking hours to finally get the water boiled, and the pasta cooked…

You certainly learn a lot about people through stories such as these! I won’t go into it this is not THAT kind of blog. Suffice to say, it started with new lovers Trevor and Carol sitting on a bus on the way to a surprise date, and ended with Trevor semi naked in the watch house and Carol… well you don’t want to know what happened to Carol, or anything in between. It was an awesome way to spend time, and we were laughing so hard at the shocking and hilarious circumstances they found their way into.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the sailing in the small hours of that morning. We had a full moon whose light cascaded over the black waves all around us as we surfed down them. It felt like being on a giant surfboard and we made excellent time. Eight knots average I believe. The lights of little townships onshore were reassuring us we were not in fact in the vast ocean abyss as it seemed.

Coffs Harbour carnage

Wednesday morning we pulled into Coffs Harbour. It was very clear we would not be making it to Brisbane by Wednesday evening and our skipper had a job to do Thursday. We needed to switch him out and find a ring-in. But first, a shower and a seafood basket!

We chilled out on the boat for a bit, snoozing, chatting, getting manicures from the lovely Norwegian, but eventually had to act. We needed our next ring-in, food for the remainder of the journey, and a bit of a plan for the next couple of days.

We found our ring-in! He was currently interstate, but was keen to fly back to Brisbane, jump in his car, drive the 6 ½ hours to Coffs Harbour, and switch out with our skipper, who would then drive the car back to Brisbane. Perfect. The plan was starting to form.

Mid-afternoon we started our mission for supplies and sustenance. On the way we stopped for our one touristy picture from the whole trip, the Coffs Harbour whale tail.  The walk to the supermarket was a thirsty one so we decided to stop at the first pub we came across, which tell-tale-ingly had blacked out windows… The gents looked at us for approval and the Norwegian and I decided that after everything Trevor and Carol went through the night before, we could handle a couple of scantily clad barmaids in the name of thirst quenching.

After assuring a couple of the male staff we were aware of what we were walking into, the four of us sat down at a table with old mate, who was enjoying the view on his own. The bar was quite packed, not surprisingly with mostly men, and the bar maids were two skinny young things wearing not much wandering through the establishment.

Aside from that there was not much activity going on, so we once again absorbed into our own world, telling tales of adventures past. While telling one such tale, our skipper’s gesticulations connected with one scantily clad barmaid’s tray, sent a glass into her face, and covered her completely with the contents of her drinks. She did not react well. There was no way he could have seen her as she was coming up from behind him.

“I’m so sorry!” he exclaimed.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” she screamed and ran off.

She disappeared for some time and some other staff came to clean it up. When she did return, she came to our table and requested that our hapless skipper pay for the drinks that she spilled. She was incredibly bitchy about it and not endearing at all, so he protested that it was an accident. She was not backed up by any bouncers or anything so we stuck to our guns and off she went.

“The Great Stripper Glassing Incident of 2018”

However, the mood of the bar towards us became decidedly more frosty than it had been, so after finishing our first beers and discussing how much trouble we were prepared to get ourselves in (which it turns out at our ages is not much), we left … And thus it became, “The Great Stripper Glassing Incident of 2018”.

We were now sufficiently satiated to continue on with our food procurement for the rest of the journey to Brisbane. Later that evening we were having pizza at a restaurant not far from said blacked out window pub, and old mate from our table came past. He told us our drenched stripper was quite the cow and milked a lot of money out of the punters in sympathy for the trauma of the evening, so it probably worked out quite well for her!

The ring in!

Later that evening our ring-in showed up with no idea what he was in for. The four of us had bonded through the rough weather and sea sickness, the plight of Trevor and Carol, an inappropriate song stuck in my head I shared while I was sea sick which instantly became a hit, and countless other stories. We tried to bring him up to speed,and his eyes popped out of his head at the craziness of what he had just walked into.

Our skipper then took his car for the 6 ½ hour ride back to Brisbane where he pulled over once in the small hours for a 15-minute power nap, then went straight to his other job in the morning. What a machine!

We got up early the next morning, had our last shower and for them decent coffee for the next couple of days, and then headed off. The weather was absolutely magic. Truly gorgeous sailing conditions. It was difficult for us to explain the horrors we went through between Sydney and Newcastle to our ring-in in such conditions as they seemed so far away.

Our day included taking turns at the helm, me trying to stay out of the sun as much as possible, the Norwegian giving us manicures to occupy herself, and of course taking sleeping shifts again as we were going to be sailing through the night. It also included a lot of advice from our absentee skipper, who while not with us in person, was most certainly with us online and offering advice on tides, currents, breeze, and everything else going on around us.

The night sailing was truly a treat. That evening we sailed past Balina and Byron Bay, and their lights along with the full-ish moon were a lovely backdrop. When the Norwegian was awake, she read tales of famous Norwegian explorers to keep us awake.  Alternatively, we just basked in the awesomeness of the sea and coastline, and chatted about our trivial lives

Enter the day tripper

Our next stop in the morning was Runaway Bay to pick up a day-tripper who decided she would take the day off, and join us on the journey from the Gold Coast to Brisbane. After some slightly hairy, sneaky currents on the way into the backwaters, and a false start where we mistook another marina for Runaway Bay; we pulled up just before 8am.

Ahhhhhh land. There was much pfaffing, getting coffees, picking up ice and cooking breakfast while we waited for our new travel companion to arrive. She turned up and it turned out this Aussie could speak fluent Norwegian! As you do. So she was a hit.

The Norwegian was working on some of the muscle knots in my back and commenting on how much worse my situation was, and how much less fuss I made than any of the lads, when the boat abruptly stopped. We looked up and somehow we were just outside the green and red markers we were expected to stay within. How did that happen?? Distracted by shiny things now we were in somewhat safer conditions I suspect! Regardless, beached we were.

Beached in the backwaters!

Mercifully for us, a police boat was just coming around the corner when it happened and saw the whole thing. After stressing any damage would be at our liability, they offered to help. We gladly accepted as if we did not get out of this predicament, that would be us for the next 12 hours until the tide came around again!

We threw them one of the ropes from the back of the boat, they gave it everything they had aaaand… we didn’t budge. Hmmmmmm. They were not feeling confident and were suggesting we called what we expected to be a somewhat more expensive organisation to come and rescue us. But our former first mate cum skipper told them to try again, only this time pulling from the front and to the side. This time SUCCESS!! Woohoo! The police told us their favourite beer was corona if we felt like popping into their precinct and we were on our way again!

The backwaters between the Gold Coast and Brisbane were quite the change of scenery. Loads of little canals running off them and wee boating communities among the mangrove lined banks. And again, another perfect day for it.  We also now had a new person’s stories to add to the mix! There had been talk of picking up our skipper at Jacob’s Well on the way after another job, but that didn’t work out.

Who needs teeth or a mobile phone?

When we got into Moreton Bay, we were motoring in the flat with little wind and our helmsman, clearly having learned nothing from our dalliance in the backwaters, decided to take a picture of us on my mobile while in control of the boat. The boom swung suddenly and clocked him hard under the chin, taking out bits of two of his teeth, knocking him to the other side of the boat, and transporting my phone to its new home at the bottom of the bay. There was no getting that one back!  I also copped a little knock to the head, but he appeared to have slowed it down as mine wasn’t too bad.

Home sweet home

When we pulled into the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron in Manly, our deserter/skipper was waiting for us eagerly. And like the legend he is, he prepared a barbeque and more beers to celebrate our safe(ish) return!

The Norwegian’s newly landed crew for the stupendously ridiculous sail from Brisbane to Norway on their rust-bucket death trap were invited to join us.

Somehow this turned into another rather large night in the Manly Massive and THAT ladies and gentlemen, is how you do a boat delivery from Sydney to Brisbane.

The End

Thanks for reading and/or listening.  I hope you enjoyed it.  If you did, please like and share on social media.  I’m on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin and my handle is @ClaireRWriter.

If you want to work with me, check out my website ClaireRWriter.com and book a meeting.

Until next time!

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