School of Hard Knocks

     Outside the window the rain poured down in a typical tropical downpour. Not good for sailing. In my minds eye, Lowana was sitting on her mooring, half veiled in the heavy rain, the surface of the water boiling as if being struck by myriads of ball bearings. I was chafing. It was now December and only halfway through the Wet Season, but I was already fed up with the rain.
     Just a few months ago I’d bought Lowana in Mackay, which lies on the Queensland coast of Australia at the southern end of the massive Great Barrier Reef system. Since I lacked enough experience in sailing or sailboats, the responsibility of getting her back home to Darwin in the Northern Territory had been given to an experienced skipper. A good friend and I worked as crew on the 1600-mile voyage up through the Great Barrier Reef, and across the open waters of the Gulf of Carpentaria and Arafura Seas.
     That was my introduction to cruising sailboats and by the time we got back home, I thought I had a reasonably good idea of how to maintain the boat and sail it. But deep down, I knew I still had a lot to learn if I was going to skipper my own boat. My apprenticeship had really only just begun.
     Invariably the Wet Season storms are at night or late afternoon, and gaps of clear weather allowed small day trips. My first ventures into the harbour were tentative affairs. At first I sailed with an experienced friend, since the thought of going out there completely alone didn’t bear thinking about.
     With one or two other people on board, I participated in some of the regular Wet Season cruising yacht races conducted by the Dinah Beach Cruising Yacht Club. Going racing, even at a sociable level is an invaluable way to learn. Under advice and in the School of Hard Knocks, I learned to make my own decisions dealing with gusty squalls, strong tides, contrary winds and other less than ideal sailing conditions.
     When Lowana wasn’t being sailed, she spent her days tied to the fore-and-aft moorings up Sadgroves Creek. These are located not far from the main shipping wharf and consist of three rows of thick braided ropes, buoyed at regular intervals by large yellow-painted tyres. After arriving home I became like a mother hen, launching the dinghy and going out there once or twice a week to make sure she was all right. I frequently spent nights at home during thundering storms agonising about her. While the lightning flashed and the wind howled outside, all sorts of dire situations flashed through my imagination as I lay in the darkness.
     Often after a heavy storm I’d make my way up the creek in my dinghy, half expecting to find only her masts sticking up above the water. However, Lowana would usually be resting comfortably with nothing but leaves and twigs scattered over her decks. There was good cause for concern though. On one occasion I was startled to find her out of her usual position. She was facing upstream instead of downstream and lying against an adjacent mooring rope.
     On inspection, I found the chain securing the large shackle on the mooring buoy was completely rusted through. The thick primary rope had detached from the buoy, leaving the yacht to swing around loose at the mercy of the tide, like a tip on the end of a whip. I mentally winced as I thought about what eight tonnes of steel boat might have done to a smaller fibreglass vessel moored nearby. Thankfully there had been no other boats close enough to collide with.
     To fix this, an additional sturdy rope was fitted between the fore and aft mooring buoys. This one was longer than the primary rope and designed to be a floating line that could be picked up by a boat hook. It could then be attached to fore and aft bollards on deck. Three white floats attached to the line proved easy to find under a spotlight when coming into the mooring by night. The system proved itself some time later when a securing shackle was stolen from the mooring buoy. The primary rope had drifted free, but Lowana stayed in her proper place.
     Sitting at home watching the rain it occurred to me that although December was usually one of the wettest months, this year wasn’t quite so bad. There’d been occasional breaks lasting several days, time in which a quick excursion could be made. I hadn’t done an overnight trip yet and I thought I was ready for it. Then and there I resolved to take her somewhere the moment the weather cleared up enough.