Lionheart Page 2
I got my first job when I was ten, delivering pamphlets after school and on weekends to five streets in the Upwey area. It was hard work. Some weeks Beau and I would package five pamphlets for each letter box, walking from box to box, while Mum or Pop drove along, carrying our supply of pamphlets. We actually expanded into a second run until we were delivering for three different companies which, in the world of the pamphlet, was a big no-no. But we were on good money for ten- and twelve-year-olds, earning about $20 a week for two deliveries. We got up to $40 a week when we took over the second round and one month, near Christmas, we made more than $900. That was the pinnacle of my pamphlet career. I finished the pamphlet round about twelve months before I went on the solo trip. The money from the job helped to finance my early adventures. Delivering pamphlets was one of the small steps in achieving my goals. As Paul Kelly says in his song, ‘From little things, big things grow.’
Things changed, as they invariably do, when I began secondary school. In 1994 I entered Year 7 at Wesley College, a large, well-known private school in Melbourne. It has a proud history as a boys’ school and only recently threw open its doors to girls. I went to one of the newer campuses in the eastern suburb of Glen Waverley, an hour on the bus from home. I knew little about the school, except that it was big, students had more responsibility and freedom, and the uniform was purple, bright purple. I'm sure it was a tactic to prevent students from mucking about in public after school because everyone knew the distinctive Wesley uniform.
I think I suffered from the classic syndrome of big fish in a small pond who suddenly became a small fish in a big pond when I went to Wesley. I was house captain in Grade 6. At Wesley I was one of 180 Year 7 students, with a support base of one other kid from my old school. I was never part of the ‘popular’ group that was elected school captains and class monitors. I realised I was swimming in a different school of fish.
I was an average student at secondary school as my mind gradually turned to other, more interesting things. In my final year of primary school, Dad had returned from the Daintree to live in Brighton, a bayside Melbourne suburb. He told Beau and me about a sailing trip he and a friend had planned to make from Cow Bay to Cape York, the northernmost tip of mainland Australia. Not long after, the plan fell through, so Dad asked if Beau and I wanted to tackle it with him—would we like to sail more than 600 miles on a small catamaran, sleeping in the open and cooking our own food?
Would we what! Who wouldn't want to go camping with their Dad for two months in the tropics? I nearly burst with excitement at the thought. But, as I was only twelve at the time and Beau ten, Mum and Dad decided we had to wait a couple of years.
However, the damage was done. By the time I hit secondary school, my mind was away on the waves. All I could think about was adventure. I wanted to learn everything I could about sailing, which left me with little time to worry about essays and maths tests. I was passing, but I could have done a lot better, and I think the teachers knew that. The marks were average, but the reports were negative.
Mum initially had a few reservations about the Cape York trip. She thought it was a big responsibility for Dad, who hadn't had a lot to do with us up to that point, to take us away on his own for two months in what would be pretty tough conditions. But Beau and I pushed to go, so she threw her full support behind us.
What most concerned friends and family was that Dad had little sailing experience. He didn't even have a boat! We went to the Port Melbourne Yacht Club every Saturday for a few weeks to learn to sail. I loved it. Moving under the power of wind was a new experience, and very different from the motor boats we'd mucked about with in the Daintree. A sailing boat is at the mercy of the wind and the waves, and has to work with them to move along. The motor boat, on the other hand, just thumps its way through the chop.
After completing the course Dad bought a secondhand 14-foot Caper Cat catamaran for $1000, with storage in each hull. It was the same size as the small catamarans for hire at any beach. It took Dad eight months of hard work to get it ready for our trip. I bided my time at school while dreaming of tropical beaches and lazing in the blazing northern sun. No wonder school was doing little to excite me!
To get some experience for the Cape York voyage, we decided to do a trip from Mornington (on Port Phillip Bay) to Bar won Heads, on the Bellarine Peninsula, about 25 miles to the southwest. On a map the journey seemed simple enough, but what a map can't show you is the treachery of the Port Phillip Heads. The Heads are internationally renowned as one of the most treacherous port entries in the world. The pressure of water gushing in and out of the narrow two-mile mouth at peak tides can create incredibly dangerous conditions. There are tales of 4- to 5-metre cliff faces of water suddenly appearing, or menacing whirlpools that could spin a 30-foot yacht out of control onto rough jagged rocks.
The sail from Mornington to the Heads proved to be far removed from my romantic daydreams of lazy days in the sun. It was bloody hard work. And scary, because it was all so new. We made good progress but were getting drenched. I don't know if it was the sensation of a new experience, but I was pretty worried as we sailed across the Bay. We seemed to be going too fast, and the waves were crashing into us. And really, despite having taken a course, none of us were experienced sailors. Sailing on the sedate waters at the other end of the Bay was far removed from the conditions we experienced on the way to the Heads. We were all a bit green around the gills. But we eventually made it to the Heads, travelling the 20 nautical miles in five hours. We were absolutely drenched and close to exhaustion, but we made it. However, we knew that whatever we'd experienced so far paled in comparison to what lay ahead.
The gods were pretty kind to us, and we sailed through the Heads without incident. But the swell was amazing. There were few waves, but the swell rose and dropped, creating great moving slabs of water that we rode up and down. The sheer length of each swell was simply awesome, even if they weren't too steep. To be on such a small craft made it even more exciting.
We were soon in Bass Strait, which boasted a fearful reputation. The currents of the Roaring Forties that race around the bottom of the globe find themselves suddenly forced into this narrow channel between the mainland and Tasmania, creating incredibly fierce conditions for boats. Luckily, conditions in the Strait were also at their best and we made the short distance to Barwon Heads safely.
We camped at Barwon Heads for a few days, marooned by unfavourable weather. Our return trip was notable for a lack of wind, which forced us to travel the last stages in the dark. We had to guess which lights were Mornington, and missed our mark by many miles, which meant Dad had to hail a taxi to grab the car and trailer. (We found out later that the local authorities were getting anxious about the car and trailer that had been sitting at the boat ramp for four days.) We'd passed our first serious sailing test, but there was enough to suggest that the Cape York trip would not be all fun.
We departed in September 1995, a few weeks after my fourteenth birthday. Beau was twelve. I'd been waiting for this moment for nearly two years, which is a hell of a long time when you are fourteen. The trip was to take three months, which included a month to drive the 7000- kilometre return trip. You can imagine our excitement as Dad, Beau and I set out!
We hitched the Caper Cat behind Dad's car and left Sassafras for Cairns in the first week of the school holidays. We camped on the way up, stopping where we could, eating mangoes as we got into the tropical areas, washing and brushing our teeth in the rivers. We stopped at Brisbane to get some equipment, including a .22 rifle and some ammo—Dad wanted the gun to hunt wild pigs for food and also for protection in case one of the pigs wanted us for dinner. The only thing we actually shot was a coconut. I can't remember if we were hunting it, or if it was set to attack us.
After one and a half weeks on the road, we hit the warm humid rainforest of Cow Bay. It was a world away from the classroom. We sailed from Thorntons Beach the next morning, an overcast day, and hardly the ideal start for a
tropical adventure. But pretty soon the clouds cleared to reveal one of those perfect tropical paradise days you see in brochures.
There was only a gentle breeze so we glided along the pristine beaches of Northern Australia, with its native trees and miles of untouched sand. Dad sunbaked naked; Beau and I mucked about with the fishing lines out the back of the boat. We caught two mackerel and I remember thinking, this is perfect. I look back at the moment and still think that.
We sailed for about six hours on that first day, and stopped for the night at a place called Cedar Bay. As we pulled in, a huge mackerel jumped out of the water and did a rainbow arc just off the bow of the boat. It was a fitting conclusion to a spectacular day. This is going to be a dream trip, I thought to myself.
On the beach, a man in the distance turned and walked away from us. This was one of the most remote places in Australia, so people usually go out of their way to greet other humans. But this guy just disappeared into the bush before we could get close to him. I always wondered who he was, and why he disappeared.
I later heard the story of a man called Michael Fomenko who would be about 60 years old. He had gone to live in the area in the 1960s, and was known to the locals as ‘Tarzan’. Legend has it that he had been dragged off by authorities and ‘lobotomised’ many years ago. He was a simple bloke who ran everywhere and embarked on major adventures, once reputedly paddling by canoe to Papua New Guinea. He was a bit like the character Forrest Gump in some ways. I wonder if it was Tarzan we saw at Cedar Bay?
That night we cooked the fish we caught and ate it with rice. It was a pretty good meal, despite our poor cooking skills, and capped off a fantastic day But nothing stays perfect forever. It started to rain before we had our tent up. That put a dampener, literally, on things. The next morning Beau hacked into a coconut, so we had coconut juice, cold rice and fish from the previous night's dinner. Cold burnt fish with gluggy rice was not a very appetising start to the day.
The food was the only real low point of the trip. Man, it was awful. After a while Beau and I couldn't stand it. We moved from eating uncooked rolled oats mixed with water to swigging chilli sauce from the bottle just for the taste kick. By the end of the trip we were eating hot and spicy concentrated torn yum soup mix out of the jar.
From Cedar Bay we sailed on to the Hope Islands, then Cooktown, where we had the first scare of the trip. After leaving the shelter of the headland we were hit by a sea wind that caught us off-side. One hull abruptly lifted out of the water. Dad quickly uncleated the main sheet and the hull splashed back into place. It's quite common to lift the hull on a small catamaran, but it's not advisable to do it in an area infested with dangerous saltwater crocodiles. Who knows what was lurking nearby if we'd tipped over and been thrown into the water.
The cat had no cabin or shelter, forcing us to sit on the trampoline strung across the hulls, which left us exposed to the elements. There was simply nowhere to hide from the blazing sun. My nose got so badly burnt I still have to take extra precautions to ensure it gets no sun. I think that part of my face will need special attention for the rest of my life. Our hair went white blond, and our tans were on a par with aboriginal skin. We must have made a hell of a sight, this strange man on a slip of a boat with two small dark-skinned blond boys.
But it was the salt that really got to me. It invaded every part of our life. After getting drenched, and then dry, we would be covered in salt crystals, as though we'd been coated with a spray gun.
Most of our days of sailing were spent in silence as we tended to the boat and watched the coastline. There was not much to talk about, except when something exciting happened, like spying a 3.5-metre tiger shark gliding a few metres from us, or when Beau fell asleep and plunged over the side, waking to find himself dragged along in the water with his foot stuck in the rudder.
There was no timetable or planned route. The only requirement was that we finished by Christmas, when the wind turned from the southeasterly that was pushing us along, to a head-on northerly. We had no such worries, as we travelled an amazing 120 miles on our final three days on the water.
The long days of sailing placed a strain on all of us. There was also extra pressure on Dad because we were young. Before we left he laid down the rules of the trip.
‘Everyone wipes their own arse,’ he told us. We had to be responsible for the equipment, and work together to make things happen. It caused some friction among us, particularly between Beau and Dad, as Beau is a bit more headstrong than I am. A few times Dad pulled us into line, which I think we needed, but at the time we thought he was on our case. We were pretty young to be doing the trip, and were behaving like normal teenagers, leaving stuff behind or forgetting to do things. At home it may not have been a big deal, but on a trip like that careless behaviour could threaten our safety. I can actually see a bit of my father in myself now—I'm not very tolerant of people who do something wrong, or who don't respect property.
One of our stops was Lizard Island, an exclusive resort island 240 kilometres north of Cairns. It had fantastic beaches and coral reefs, making it ideal for scuba-diving, snorkelling and game fishing. As a consequence, it attracted some of the most amazing and luxurious yachts you'd ever find in the one place. In such surrounds we must have looked a sight—a bedraggled man and his two waterlogged kids, trudging up the beach. We were allowed to stay on the island on the condition we didn't mingle with the guests. Nonetheless, we met a wealthy man who thought it was crazy of Dad to take his two young sons on such a foolhardy adventure. He insisted we take his Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon with us in case we struck trouble.
‘I don't agree with what you're doing, but take this for the sake of the boys,’ he told Dad. An EPIRB costs a couple of hundred dollars, so it was a pretty significant gesture. Luckily we had no need for it, and posted it back to him when we returned home. I hope he didn't need it while we had it.
I'd always been taken by the idea of adventure and there I was, on one of my own. I certainly did not want this trip to be my last, so I spent those long days on the catamaran dreaming about what to do next. I made up my mind on Lizard Island. The place was swarming with fantastic yachts—a marked contrast to our situation, floating about on two slivers of fibreglass eating burnt fish and getting our salt-encrusted bodies fried to a crisp.
Yachts were the way to travel, I reasoned as I inspected every yacht I could peer into. They had nice comfortable cabins, with all the fresh water you could want, were clean and were moored in a beautiful tropical location. That's when I started to think, hey, I'd love to get my own little boat, do it my way, go around the world doing all the stuff we were doing, but in a bit more comfort.
I could imagine sailing to exotic ports, meeting people, swimming in crystal-clear water, diving and catching fish. It would be fabulous. The irony was, when I did sail around the world, I never sailed to any of those places or met any people, except for a couple of fishermen. And as for luxury, people shudder when they see inside Lionheart, my home for eleven months.
After we left Lizard Island I told Dad I wanted to sail around the world. ‘OK,’ he said, as if I'd announced I was going to the shop to buy an ice-cream. Either he didn't hear me or he didn't take it seriously. Not that it worried me. My focus had shifted to organising my trip. My first priority was to get my hands on a copy of Trade-A-Boat magazine, which has advertisements for used motor and sailing boats of all shapes, sizes and budgets. If I was going to sail around the world, I figured I'd find the type of boat I needed in that magazine.
I couldn't get a copy of the magazine until we arrived at Thursday Island, where we completed the trip in December. In the meantime, I spent my days on board the cat drawing plans for my dream boat, working out where I'd put the supplies, making lists of food and equipment, and dreaming of a life sailing around the world.
We finally made it to Cape York two months after we left Cow Bay. It ended in a sort of comedy as we searched for the signpost to tell us we'd reach
ed the tip of Australia. We finally found it so we could get the obligatory photo to prove we'd arrived. The next day we sailed the short distance to Thursday Island, where we stayed for a week while we waited for a ship heading back to Cairns that could take us and our boat home.
Almost immediately Dad began to plan another catamaran trip, this time to the Solomon Islands, about 1000 nautical miles east of Cow Bay. That trip is still in the planning.
I started the 1996 school year with my mind clear on one thing: I was going to sail around the world. How and when were yet to be worked out. My trip was virtually the only thing I could think of. No wonder my school marks were less than spectacular. On cold winter mornings, as I made my way down the mountain on the school bus surrounded by screaming students, I'd put in my earphones, listen to music and look at the sun and think, ‘It's a beautiful day today. I can't wait until I'm out there sailing around the world.’ The notion of doing it non-stop hadn't been considered at that stage, until something happened on the other side of Australia.
In February 1996 seventeen-year-old David Dicks left Fremantle on his 34-foot yacht, Seaflight, to attempt to become the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world. The first time I heard of David Dicks was when Beau rushed into my room in late 1995 and yelled, ‘There's a kid on the Today show who's going to become the youngest person to sail around the world.’
The news came as a total shock to me. I'd already started planning my trip in my mind. Little did I know that another boy, three years older than me, was planning the same thing, but doing it solo and non-stop. As David was in Perth, we didn't get much news of his trip on the east coat. I remember him leaving, as there was a big fuss when he turned back after a few days because of equipment failure.