Kijana Page 8

  We got to know some of the younger resort employees, and began to frequent the Marlin Bar, the watering hole for Lizard Island employees. These evenings were the only times the crew spent much time together, and even then we struggled to get on. For example, when it came time to head ashore, Beau, Josh and I would find ourselves sitting in the dinghy having already shaved, put on some clean shorts and sprayed on some Calvin Klein aftershave. As we waited, small waves would splash over the side of the dinghy, wetting us as every minute passed, while we waited for the girls to appear. Five minutes of this, with our shorts soaking wet, and our patience was worn out. One of us would be forced to jump back on board to investigate the delay and hurry the girls along. Josh, the diplomat, was best at this. He’d politely remind them that they could tidy their cabin during any number of spare hours we had during the day.

  It was the same story during the day. Any spur-of-the-moment idea we had to liven up those weeks was rejected by the girls. It was as though they didn’t want any adventure.

  The two weeks felt like two months. Finally, it came time for me to leave for the United States. It was such bad timing. I knew the crew needed to keep moving, but instead they would end up staying at Lizard Island for a month.

  I arrived in Melbourne late at night and was over the moon to see Maya waiting at the airport to greet me. It was such a bizarre feeling standing in a modern airport. My hair was salt-encrusted and I felt so dirty. I hugged her for a long time, then we drove back to her house and talked late into the night.

  I was up early the next morning, had a warm shower and left for the office. I felt like such a cheat. I was meant to be on the adventure of a lifetime and here I was back in Melbourne. I met the team at the office for a quick chat about the publicity, before our publicist Flip, who was accompanying me, and I left for the airport for the 20-hour flight to New York.

  On the plane I studied my surroundings. Everywhere was plastic – plastic walls, plastic doors, plastic seats, plastic wrapping. It felt cleaner than the brown wooden walls of Kijana but it also felt too uniform and perfect. There was no charm, no character. I knew how I’d rather make my way around the world.

  I was served a small portion of fish squashed up against steamed eggplant. It seemed impossible to think that the fish I was eating had once been swimming in the same water that Kijana’s bow had been pushing through. I knew it was fish, but something about it was unfamiliar and didn’t feel right.

  It was dark when we arrived in New York and after 20 hours in the air I was totally spaced out. The cab drove at lightning speed in and out of the traffic. I was mesmerised by so much concrete and swerving highways. It made the place look like a futuristic city. The cab felt like a prop in a movie and there was steam pouring out of the sewers, like something from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It was weird!

  Since The Late Show had invited me over, other American media had become interested in our story, so the first three days were spent doing interviews. Flip and I dashed all over the city, catching cabs from one place to the next, then back to the hotel for another phone interview. We visited the Letterman studio with one of the producers to get a feel for what it was like before the actual night. From a publicity point of view it was a great catch to get on the show, but they were mainly interested in my solo trip on Lionheart. It was my mission to give Kijana a plug and try to turn the interview to discussing the current trip.

  Despite the excitement, a few things were getting me down, besides the jet lag. Since seeing Maya in Melbourne I had become convinced that she should join Kijana. I got angry as I thought about it. Nicolette and Mika were clearly not working out, and I now knew Maya wanted to come. The issue of our reef collision was also eating away at me. There I was, on the verge of our greatest publicity opportunity, and I wasn’t able to talk about the one incident that encapsulated the adventure and team spirit of Kijana. I felt like a bit of a fraud, as if I was hiding something.

  The day of the show, 21 May, arrived. The producer took me through the questions Letterman was going to ask. I got the sense this wasn’t for my benefit but because he wanted to hear my answers to make sure they were OK. I must have passed the test, for he made me promise I would give the same responses on the show. I said sure, I’d try.

  Flip and I sat in the waiting room an hour and a half before a woman called me to the studio because I was due to go on. It was freezing and I was getting jittery at the thought of going on live TV in front of such a big audience. It was all up to me. I could make or break the success of Kijana in the United States, not only by the words I uttered, but by how I said them and how I acted. If I was too keen to push my point, I’d stuff it up. But if I failed to mention Kijana, then a lot of effort had been wasted.

  The commercial break finished and Letterman started to introduce me. I walked out to applause and we started to chat. It went well. He made a lot of jokes, mainly about sailing solo around the world at such a young age. He showed some footage from my documentary, and we talked until the next commercial break. At the end I managed to get a few words in about Kijana. It wasn’t much, but they got on air. The cameras stopped rolling and Letterman checked his sheet for what was up next. A sound guy removed my microphone and showed me back out. And that was it – a month’s standstill in the trip for a few minutes on TV.

  On my final night in New York I received an email from Josh.

  Jesse

  Just found out you’re not back ’til Wednesday. What the fuck?

  I miss my Martin and Lizard Island is starting to kill me. Supplies came in – only a little mix-up has it that we are right for Weet-Bix and precious little else.

  Jesse, when you’re here I can block out the other problems and just enjoy us hanging out. Without you this journey of five friends turns to shit. Pretty apt Kijana is in a language I don’t understand because this ‘Journey of young people’ crap is beyond me.

  The girls have edited a bullshit problems segment that is beautifully done to make them look like angels and us like heartless pricks. If only I’d filmed more of them, but how can you capture annoying questions, the times we worked at port and they shopped or the moments when the weather turns bad and we’re the only ones left on deck?

  Whatever happened to being on Jesse’s next trip? Fuck, the media understand it, if only the crew could catch on. When did it turn from Jesse asking me on this trip to – ‘I deserve to be here’?

  They were asked on this journey. Get into it or leave and let someone else enjoy it.

  Hope you don’t feel the same. Hope when you return you’ll smile and I’ll forget this feeling. Somehow you being here makes me feel it’ll all be OK. I miss you not being on the boat. Email me time of arrival back at Lizard so I can meet you at the airport and count down the hours ’til we leave this island. Sorry for burdening you with my crap. I just want this to be the dream we talked about in your apartment. The dream in the last page of your book about five friends sailing the world. I love that page. I miss that dream.

  Josh

  Josh didn’t need to be sorry. It felt good to know he felt the same. I desperately wanted to get that dream back as well. My fear of being bossy and controlling paled in comparison to the fear of doing nothing and watching the dream disappear. I had to return and take back my dream. I needed to show some leadership, if not for myself then for Josh and Beau and the young people who were following our journey for the adventure part of our dream.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HUNTING

  WE RETURNED TO MELBOURNE, WHERE I spent one last night with Maya. Lying in her bed was the only place where I could forget about everything. Her soft voice reassured me that everything was going to be OK. She was so gentle that all I had to do was watch her and be in love. She never swore, even when she got cross at her dogs and told them off in an angry tone. Her voice gave the impression she was trying to be angry but she didn’t have an ounce of anger in her. She was so much more pure than I would ever be.

  For the
first time we talked about her joining Kijana. She admitted she would be keen, but wasn’t sure whether I wanted her aboard. I reassured her there would be no opposition from me.

  I arrived back at Lizard Island at the end of May. The crew was happy to see me, because my arrival meant Kijana could finally set sail. The light plane touched down at midday and we weighed anchor that afternoon.

  We sailed through the night and it felt so good to be back on the boat. We paid special attention to the surrounding reefs, keeping as far away from them as possible. I felt relaxed back on the boat. Despite all the crap that had gone down, I really felt I was home when I set foot on Kijana. But if it were truly my home, Maya would be on board. My desire to have her join me had grown stronger since I had seen her again. And Josh’s email had convinced me we needed a crew change, for things just weren’t working out. The divide between the guys and the girls had grown even bigger.

  Expelling Mika and Nicolette would be complicated. The journey had grown into something much bigger than a group of friends sailing around the world. It had become a corporate thing, with many people having a vested interest in the trip, not least the sponsors and investors. My actions not only affected myself and the crew, but a long list of other people. The study kits distributed to schools, for instance, were already printed with crew names on them. Book contracts were being negotiated and TV pitches were circulating.

  My preferred option was for the girls to leave of their own accord. I wasn’t sure if this was going to happen, for I’d wanted them to leave in Cairns. To test their resolve, and to get my mind back on track, I decided to stop letting the girls affect me. I would focus on the adventures and if the girls fell behind or didn’t want to become involved, then that was their bad luck.

  The girls had the rear cabin to themselves, so they could talk freely to each other, but the boys had no such area, which made things difficult. So I decided us guys should have some time away on our own. After dropping anchor at Forbes Island, where we had decided to stop for a few days until Josh recovered from a nasty accident involving his hand and one of the spinning generator blades, I quietly suggested to Josh and Beau that we head ashore to camp for a night – just us guys.

  ‘The girls will crack it,’ was Josh’s immediate response.

  ‘I know. But if we want to go and have time to ourselves, then why shouldn’t we?’ The decision was unanimous to leave when the girls got back from the island, so we quickly got ready to load the dinghy when they arrived.

  Nicolette questioned us first. ‘Why do you want to go camping?’

  ‘’Cos we’re bored.’ Josh casually replied. Well, he was telling the truth.

  As a parting gesture, Beau offered the girls some dip and crackers he’d just made, then we loaded the dinghy and waved a polite goodbye. We motored to a nearby island, relishing our newfound freedom.

  We put our blankets and mosquito nets under a tree, then went exploring. The island was as beautiful as Lizard Island, but it felt much wilder. We ate oysters and clambered to the top of a hill where we saw crashing waves on the windy side of the island. It felt like paradise.

  Back at camp we cooked dinner over the fire and felt free to make rude jokes without having to look over our shoulders. Then we played our favourite songs on the guitar late into the night.

  The next morning I woke to find the fire was still smouldering. I was covered in sandfly bites and the smoke had infiltrated every part of our bodies and sleeping gear. Needless to say, I felt pretty ordinary as I blew a combination of sand and snot from my nose. It made us appreciate our nice clean boat more than ever.

  Before heading back to Kijana, we vowed to remember that night forever. I even convinced the others to join hands and raise them in memory of the night.

  Then we motored back to the boat anticipating a frosty reception. It never came. Instead, the girls were eager to tell us how much fun they’d had in our absence, staying up until 4 a.m. talking and having a grand old time.

  We set sail almost immediately, bound for Cape York, the northernmost tip of mainland Australia. From the cape would be a three- to four-day crossing of the Gulf of Carpentaria to the town of Nhulunbuy on the Gove Peninsula, in Arnhem Land. This was the traditional land of the Yolngu people, where we hoped to spend a week living with the locals.

  After two days of good winds we found ourselves one day away from Cape York. Josh woke early, as he usually did, to find Kijana sailing along with no one at the helm. Although the sun had risen, Nicolette, who had been rostered on the final shift, was slumped behind the wheel fast asleep. Josh told no one else but me and, despite the obvious danger of the mishap, I was perversely pleased. It was evidence too good to be true, made even stronger by the fact that Josh had pressed record on the camera when he found her.

  We rounded Cape York and arrived at a river simply known as Number Two River. We’d passed Number One River and further down the coast was, naturally enough, Number Three River.

  It was a part of the world relatively unexplored by white man and the perfect location to get up close and personal with the notorious saltwater crocodile. We headed ashore, where we found plenty of animal tracks along the riverbank. However, none of us knew what a crocodile track looked like.

  ‘Everyone try to stay away from the water,’ I ordered. ‘This looks like prime crocodile territory.’ At least I sounded like I knew what I was talking about.

  The water was teeming with critters. Sand crabs ran into the deep water when our long shadows passed over them and shovel-nose rays stopped swimming and tried to blend into the sandy bottom when they sensed us approaching. We grabbed the cast net and fishing lines to see if we could catch some dinner, but the sun was going down, leaving the water too dark and dangerous to hang around.

  We decided to call it a day and return the following day to try to catch some fish. As we began walking back to the dinghy I spotted what I thought was a small crocodile hiding in the water under a fallen tree. Everyone stopped. It was definitely a baby crocodile, probably about one metre long and almost totally submerged with just its nose and tail breaking the surface.

  I asked Mika for the cast net, then slowly headed for the tree. I’d taken no more than five steps when, in a flick of a tail, it was gone. There was no way I was going to wade into the water to chase it. I didn’t fancy meeting its mother.

  Nevertheless I was pretty stoked to have come so close to a crocodile in the wild. ‘How cool was that!’ I said to no one in particular, as I watched the ripples disappear.

  I could tell Nicolette didn’t share my excitement by the expression on her face.

  ‘Why would you want to catch a crocodile anyway?’ she asked in a way that suggested I was being childish.

  I couldn’t handle her. Did I need to explain my every action to her? I was well aware how conservation-oriented she was. We all were concerned about the environment, but obviously in different ways. Netting a small crocodile wasn’t going to hurt anyone and I couldn’t be bothered skirting around the issue, as I would have previously.

  ‘So I can wreck the environment as much as possible,’ I shot back sarcastically, surprising myself at the outburst. But I was glad I’d returned fire.

  She took off in a huff, storming to the dinghy, cursing my answer as she went.

  Josh woke me early the following morning. He wanted to go ashore to catch some fish for breakfast. Beau joined us and we started loading the dinghy. We tried to do it quietly but the girls woke up, so all five of us headed ashore in silence. The events of the previous day hung heavily over us. I actually felt sorry for Mika. I knew she would have been happy to catch a crocodile, have a look at it then let it go, but she was pretty much bound by Nicolette’s stance.

  We motored to shore with our gear, including a rifle, one of two we had on board for safety’s sake. I didn’t want to kill a crocodile but if it was a choice between its life or one of ours, the decision was fairly obvious. We dragged the dinghy onto the sand and secured the anc
hor above the tide line. Five minutes later we crossed a ridge and came across a great fishing spot. But before any of us had time to set up our fishing gear, Mika urgently whispered ‘pig’. We ran to where she was standing and looked in the direction she was pointing. A few hundred metres further along the riverbank stood some wild black pigs, feeding on weeds. They hadn’t spotted us yet. ‘Pig for lunch,’ was the first thought to enter my mind.

  Adrenaline began to surge through my body as I picked up the rifle. Josh followed with the camera and we left the others behind. We crossed over to the other side of the ridge, planning to sneak up behind them. I was surprised the pigs hadn’t seen us yet. And I was excited at having the chance to actually shoot one for lunch. I had no qualms about knocking off a wild pig. In this part of Australia they are considered the worst vermin, with the Government making many attempts to control and eradicate them.

  We crouched down and ran as fast as possible through the scrub. It took five minutes until we got to the spot where we figured we would have to cross the ridge again. If our calculation was out, we risked the pigs spotting us and running away.

  I’d never shot a pig before, although the experience somehow felt familiar. It may have been the stories I’d heard about Mum and Dad living in a humpy in the far north Queensland rainforest. Dad would shoot a pig and share the meat with neighbouring families. I couldn’t remember ever being with him when he shot a pig, but my mind had created images and false memories of being there by his side. When my parents separated, and Beau and I moved to Melbourne with Mum, I often imagined Dad, rifle in hand, providing meat for the community. As I grew up it was really the only picture I had. Now I felt like him.

  My heart was pounding and I could feel it twitching in the veins of my neck. ‘Keep low,’ I whispered to Josh as we approached the top of the ridge.

  I slowly loaded a bullet into the breach and flicked the safety button off. I raised the butt of the rifle to my shoulder with one eye scouring the scene ahead through the rifle’s sights. Josh was behind me, virtually replicating me, his eyes firmly fixed on the viewfinder of the camera. I heard what sounded like snorting and glanced back at Josh, who raised his eyes from the screen to confirm he’d also heard it. It had come from behind a rise in the sand. I knelt down and braced myself. My heart was pounding harder than ever. I knew I could cover both sides of the mound at a moment’s notice, so I decided to wait until one of the pigs wandered out. I could clearly hear them snorting and digging no more than 30 metres from where we crouched. A sandfly bit my ankle, but even that wasn’t enough to make my concentration waiver.