Kijana Read online

  After a minute or so he was able to speak. He explained, through his tears, that he wanted to know if we were still friends. He wanted permission from the captain to leave the trip and he needed confirmation that he was making the right choice. He wanted me to face the problems that had existed on the trip since the day it began and he needed a brother who cared as much about him as he did about me. A punch was the only way he knew how to say all of that.

  I realised then that I faced a monumental choice. If I agreed with Beau, and gave my blessing to him leaving, I was conceding that leaving was the right thing to do. It was a case of choosing between forgetting all our woes and forging ahead with Kijana versus Beau and Maya.

  I was standing at the biggest crossroads of my life.

  Throughout the trip I’d taken inspiration from the Yolngu custom of leaving the sick behind when survival of the tribe was the priority. It was why Mika and Nicolette departed, and why Beau now had to go. They had to be cut out for the good of Kijana. I now realised I was one of the sick people. It was no use blaming everyone else for Kijana’s woes. I was the one who had made all the promises and selected the crew. Kijana may have been my dream, but now I was standing in its way.

  All of a sudden, the person I thought I was – adventurer, leader and wanna-be visionary – disintegrated. I felt the complete opposite of all of those things as my own sobbing overtook the noises coming from Beau. He was taken aback by my breakdown and stared in amazement. I’d never been so open with another human, not even my brother. My emotional tap had been turned on and I felt like I was washing myself clean.

  Children stopped to look at Beau and me, a pair of blubbering, filthy waifs slumped in the gutter, until their parents yanked them away. We sat together for a few minutes not saying a word. I then pulled myself up and told Beau I was off to an internet café to email the office.

  I had crumbled under the weight of Kijana and had decided to leave the trip. A part of me felt so relieved. Another part was terrified about what I had to do next. The journey was over, ten months into the expected three years, and now I had to try to explain my reasons to everyone else.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  NO REGRETS

  Hi Jesse,

  Wanting to write you a quick note. I apologise for last night. I remember saying to you that you were a ‘DICKHEAD’. I really do think the opposite of this. I can’t really say how I’d be in your shoes at the moment.

  Even though I lose my temper sometimes I want you to know that if you ever ask me something, like if you need help or whatever, I will always stand with you and support you in ways which I think best.

  I feel this trip has brought us closer together and I like hanging out with you bro.

  Do what you think best.

  Beau

  His plane was in the air by the time I received this note, which he’d left on the cabin table of Kijana. His words only confirmed my decision to end my role aboard Kijana.

  Josh had taken it pretty well when, earlier that morning, I told him I was leaving. As with everything on the trip, he accepted my decision, even if he didn’t understand my reasons. I had battled side by side with him for what seemed an eternity and time after time he had shown faith in me, willing, if you like, to lay down everything in the name of our shared vision.

  When I told him I was leaving, I felt I was abandoning him. I knew deep inside he’d feel confused and in despair. He put up some resistance, making suggestions as to how we could make it work if we continued. But my mind was made up. It was over. I desperately wanted to take him home with me, but he wanted to fight on, like the true adventurer he had become, choosing the open ocean to continue the Kijana dream.

  As you can imagine, the office was in a state of shock as they digested my decision. They couldn’t understand why I was leaving. We decided that Josh would return to Melbourne with me while we sorted out whether he could continue with a new crew. We found a safe anchorage and left Kijana under the watchful eye of a nearby yacht, then flew back to Australia, a few weeks before Christmas 2002, to meet with the office and try to forge a new plan for the Kijana adventure.

  As I walked through the sliding doors of Melbourne Airport, the irony struck me. Few people saw me off aboard Lionheart, yet 25,000 greeted my return. Thousands farewelled us aboard Kijana and two people welcomed us home – Josh’s mum and my dad.

  We stepped into our respective cars for the ride home and, for the first time, it hit me that Josh and I were heading our separate ways. The next time I saw him was a few days later at our first meeting with the office team. A heavy mood hung in the air, adding to my feeling that I’d let everyone down.

  I glanced at the shelves lining the wall, filled with legal binders and promotional material for Kijana. They were simply more reminders of how much work had been put into the project to make it happen. I was glad when we decided to adjourn to a nearby pub for our discussions.

  I confirmed to those present that Kijana was over for me. I could not make my part of it work, I told them, so I had no choice but to leave. The office no doubt felt dumbfounded. Everything they had been working towards was in jeopardy. It was suggested that Josh keep going with Kijana, something I encouraged. He knew how to sail her and could competently captain her with a new crew. I would have felt proud if he’d continued. But over the next few months we discovered the reality was, without an injection of funds, Kijana wouldn’t be going anywhere and no one wanted to further support a journey where the skipper had resigned. Talk about pressure.

  The office suggested I remain as a figurehead, with another skipper aboard to take the pressure off me. But that wasn’t going to solve my issues. I struggled to convey the reasons why I could not return. My heart was no longer there, I said. For me, the journey was over and I needed time to heal. Being the skipper was irrelevant. I would pay everyone back, I promised. I preferred to have nothing than to carry the burden of Kijana.

  Everything I thought I had been working towards disappeared with my decision that night in Patong. I wrote to the sponsors and friends of the project thanking them for their help and apologising for my inability to captain Kijana to success. After it was publicly revealed the trip had finished, negotiations with the television networks immediately fell through. We were up to our ears in debt. And hanging over our heads was the threat of legal action for not fulfilling our obligations. I wasn’t surprised. With all the contracts and deals we had promised, to get the trip going, I’d expected as much. All I could offer was to forgo my share of the sale of the boat, which at the time of writing had yet to be sold.

  For nearly a year, I negotiated the split of the Kijana Partnership. Everything I had put into Kijana, along with all my proceeds from Lionheart were used to pay others. The only thing I wanted out of it all was the hours and hours of footage, photos and diary entries, so I could explain what happened on the journey. It was the only thing I cared about.

  My decision cost me a lot more than money. I lost many good friends I’d worked with to get the trip up and running, and my reputation was damaged. I didn’t get time to see much of Beau after we returned and I felt I’d permanently scarred my friendship with Josh. Without him to make me laugh, my life felt empty. If it weren’t for Maya, whose softness nurtured me, I would have been a lost and lonely soul. She may not have been able to hold a sail in a storm, but she could save my life in a much less obvious way.

  I wished I could have seen that I was leading Mika and Nicolette on the wrong trip. It was my trip and it suited me. Realistically, it would suit few others. I apologise for what I put them through and for not being the type of skipper who could accommodate them. That inability is something that still haunts me.

  The first time I caught up with Mika was weird. A few months after I returned we decided to meet up and clear the air. It’s taken nearly two years for me to feel comfortable around her. I hope she reads this and understands why things happened the way they did and we won’t have to talk about them ever again, ex
cept to look back and have a laugh about it all.

  I haven’t spoken or had any contact with Nicolette. She flew home to the United States a few days after she left Kijana. I’ve wanted to write to her and apologise for the experiences I put her through. However, like many good intentions, I’ve never got around to it and probably never will. This book, I hope, will explain why I acted the way I did and said the things I said.

  Maria continued travelling after she met her brother in Darwin. I hear she is back in Denmark, where she has bought a flat and is attending fashion school. I’m grateful for the time she spent with me aboard Kijana and only have fond memories of our time together.

  Beau returned and immediately began working as a labourer for our uncle. He helped me with some money for the first few months I was home, until I got my life together. He hasn’t become a monk, although he did cut his hair short. However, I think his haircut had more to do with his job than anything. Still, he maintains an interest in Buddhism, even plonking a small statue of Buddha in the garden of the house he bought after working hard for two years. He also has a girlfriend, who keeps a smile on his face. We don’t see much of each other, nor do we feel the need to. But I know he’ll always be there for me and me for him.

  Through no fault of his own Josh was forced to return home with nothing, struggling to comprehend why his dream had ended. He spent a year working on an Australian feature film and shooting wedding videos to get by. For a long time it seemed the best part of Josh had been left aboard Kijana. Our friends noticed a big difference in him compared to the Josh they knew before the trip. For a long time we only really saw each other around our group of friends and even then we didn’t have much to say to each other.

  About 12 months after we arrived home, I phoned Josh, not sure what to say, but wanting to say something other than an obvious ‘sorry’. My voice trembled as he answered and I said ‘Hi’. He hurriedly told me he couldn’t speak but would call back. I waited, but the phone never rang. I was scared that I’d hurt my best friend beyond repair and it would never be the same again.

  Instead, I got an email from him shortly after, saying everything I wished I’d known how to write myself. I could have paraphrased what he wrote and signed my name at the bottom, but it would never have had the same heart.

  Hey Jesse,

  I don’t want to be a pain in the arse, but my head is racing and if I called you to explain I’d probably forget what I wanted to say, or start crying before I could get it to make sense. So I’m writing it.

  I don’t know how to write it without being ‘on the nose’ so I’ll just chuck it all down here before I over-think it, and you can take from it what you will.

  I miss you Jesse.

  I could end it there and just write: from Josh, but I’ll write a few more paragraphs to explain the weight behind those words. If they’re in my head they’ll only spill out backwards one night in a drunken stupor, so I’d prefer to get ’em out on paper.

  We lived a fucken weird time together Jess, 10 months crammed in a boat and there’s stuff I want to say sorry for, and stuff I hope you remember and stuff that I don’t ever want to forget. We’ll talk about it when the time is right, and some things will probably never be said.

  Waking up in the morning I close my eyes again and wish I could sleep all day. Some of that’s because I wish I was waking up on the boat, ready to crawl up the stairs and fall over the side. But a lot of that is the fact that you’re not just a few feet away, about to wake up too.

  When we hang out you make me laugh, and think, and I hope I do the same for you. I haven’t felt that flow in a long time now.

  That said, I’m looking forward to catching up. But I don’t want you to think of me as another Kijana loose end that needs tying up.

  Don’t get me wrong. I know you think highly of me and I know we’re good friends. I think you sum it up in one of your old diary entries, you say: ‘Josh wants me to talk and open up more but I don’t feel like it ’cos I want to be like that with Maya.’ And I understand that. Just that I don’t have a Maya to come home to.

  I don’t want you to call me every day and make me feel better. I don’t need that. You and Maya will be off living in LA or huts in Borneo some time soon enough and I don’t want to miss you when you’re gone as much as I miss you when you’re only a suburb away.

  I don’t regret a single day of preparation for the trip or any moment while it was going. I hate how people look at me now and smile an understanding smile as if I’ve just been through hell. It wasn’t hell. It was the hardest, and best two years of my life, and I don’t give a fuck that the boat’s just in Thailand. I’m proud it came this far.

  I hope what we had together on Kijana didn’t end when the trip did. History in a friendship can be a real bitch. But I hope we stay friends forever, not just mates.

  Sorry I was sad when you called, I just miss ya.

  Your friend,

  Josh

  PS Don’t reply to this email fuckwit. I know you hate doing it.

  We’ll talk soon.

  People have asked me whether Kijana was doomed from the beginning, whether it was too big, too ambitious, surrounded by too much hype and too commercial. Well, consider this quote by American author and critic Alexander Eliot:

  Life is a fatal adventure. It can only have one end. So why not make it as far-ranging and free as possible?

  We know that growing up and living life is doomed from the beginning, but that’s no reason not to embark on it. It’s the same with Kijana. The warning signs for Kijana may have been there from the start. Hell, you only have to look at our original inspiration, the film The Beach. It portrayed the image of paradise we were searching for, yet we all overlooked the fact that it had a tragic ending. But that shouldn’t be a reason not to embark on Kijana. How would we ever know it would end the way it did if we never took the risk and embarked on the trip in the first place?

  To say Kijana was a failure is like saying the death of a village chief in Toraja is a waste of a life. As with the Torajan funerals, I see the end of the trip as a time to reflect on the moments of happiness and bliss during Kijana’s life even though some, surprisingly, came in those worst times. I could never label the journey a failure.

  To all those dreamers and would-be adventurers, don’t be deterred by my experience. I’ll always encourage anyone to follow the call of adventure in the quest to be somewhere or someone better. Do it with all your heart, and don’t listen to those who say it can’t be done. It’s just that they can’t do it. Commit everything, aim high and follow it to the point where all you care about are the bare essentials. To borrow the words from one of Mika’s diary entries: ‘I have learnt that paradise is not a pretty beach and freedom is not just five friends sailing around the world.’

  Of course I could rattle off a list of things I wished I had done differently, but it kind of ruins the point of what the journey was about. Things were done the way they were and it was all part of what was in store for us. I now know more about who I am, as distinct from who I wanted to be. I have fond memories of very close friends, with whom I feel proud to have shared the most important journey of my life.

  I thought I was leading the journey, but in fact it was leading us, and I am thankful for where it took us.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I wish to thank the following individuals and organisations, without who Kijana would not have been possible.

  John Allin

  Maria Anderson

  Michael Barrett

  Damien Bear

  Eliza Bellmaine

  Jayne Bendroph

  Bruce Bird

  Lawrence Blair

  Tracy Brady

  Gerry Bryant & crew

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Davies

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