Day Cruising to Magnetic Island

I have been sailing a bit lately on a Catalina 400 named Freya, and have even crewed for Magnetic Island Race Week, a week-long yacht regatta based on Magnetic Island. 

Freya’s owner sails over to Magnetic Island most Sundays, and I was invited to go this Sunday. And so myself and another Freya regular, my new mountain biking friend from yesterday, joined the owner to help him sail over to Magnetic Island. I have visited this beautiful place a few times now, but had previously always got there by ferry. It would be fun to get there by wind power.

After leaving the harbour and getting all the sails up and set, the skipper passed the helm over to me – meaning I got to steer the yacht. It was my first time doing this on a yacht, and I was surprised at how difficult it was. You are constantly having to make adjustments to your steering to compensate for the fact that the slight gusting or dropping off of the wind, and the changes in waves and currents, all constantly influence the direction the yacht is heading. You have to compensate for all of these factors to maintain the direction you want to head in, and to make the sails power the boat effectively. Hence the look of serious concentration on my face!

We sailed north out of Townsville, and around the east side of Magnetic Island. We rounded the island anticlockwise, and after sailing as far around as Horseshoe Bay on the northern side of the island, we changed direction and headed back to Radical Bay (with the red label) to drop anchor for a while.

It was a pretty windy day so we were all working to do this – the skipper had taken back the helm by this point, and Owen and I were working hard on the winches to manage the sails.

Radical Bay was relatively sheltered, with just a small swell, and we anchored up for lunch and leisure. While the skipper stayed on board to just enjoy being on his boat, us crew jumped into the sea for some swimming and cooling down. It was so pleasant to float about in a bay on a tropical island, admiring the scenery and enjoying the beautiful day. 

I swam around getting a few pictures of Freya before getting out to dry off ready for lunch.

From the boat, we could see these fish hanging around hoping for a snack.

Fish weren’t the only ones hoping for a snack – the resident Brahminy Kites also know how to work the yachty crowd for food. They weren’t disappointed, as our skipper had brought along some meat specially for them. 

I mostly don’t condone feeding wild animals, but these kites are mainly scavengers and weren’t coming too close to humans (and even then were only approaching the yachts) so I don’t think that it’s a big problem. It was certainly fantastic to watch them circling round the yacht, and see them catching their lunch in mid-air!

During our own lunch, I managed to stub my little toe really hard against the side of the yacht's cabin. I was only walking slowly along, but the swaying of the boat at anchor was just enough to alter my balance enough that I kicked the side - really hard!! My toe bruised and swelled up straightaway, that's gonna hurt for a while...  The swaying at anchor also made me a little seasick, but such is the price we pay for adventure :)

We sailed back to Townsville after lunch, and despite sickness and injury I felt I'd had a great a day :)


On later investigation, it turned out I had banged my toe so hard I had dislocated it - no wonder it hurt so much!

Maggie Race Week 2015

One of the activities I’m really lucky to get to do in Townsville, Qld, is sailing. I go sailing on cruising yachts on most Wednesday evenings, and we have a leisurely ‘race’ (it is not taken very seriously) around a fixed triangular circuit. Occasionally we have come first, and have been presented with a bottle of Bundaberg Rum for the achievement.

Anyone is welcome to come along and put their name on the notice board to be allocated to a boat – this is how I got started – so every week there is a different crew, often of different nationalities, making it a great social occasion as well.

My first time sailing on a yacht

After a few months of regularly sailing on the same yacht, a Catalina 400 named Freya, I was told that I was regarded as part of the crew now, and as such I was invited to crew for the yacht in a proper race regatta, the Sealink Magnetic Island Race Week. What an honour! I was very excited and agreed straightaway.

Not having much spare money, unlike the other yachties in their luxury apartments for the week, I opted to camp at the YHA campsite on the island. I had a large tent though and a decent camp stretcher, so along with a cheap clothes rail and a handy camping chair, I made a pretty comfortable set up.

The racing took place over different courses each day, and the Saturday course was a circuit around the whole Island, which in the light winds we had took pretty much the whole day. Unlike the usual Wednesday night sailing, where whoever turns up works at whatever they are needed for, in the proper racing each of the crew had their own specific roles. Mine was a new role for me, working the foredeck. My tasks were to assist the headsail across when tacking a jibing the yacht, and to work with the spinnaker - raising, lowering and jibing it as required, all of which I had to learn on the job as we had never used the spinnaker on a Wednesday night sail!

Some of the crew

Some of the fleet, with Magnetic Island in the background

Me at my post by the mast!

My view when I was needed at the rails

Every evening there was entertainment laid on as part of the Race Week, and this was really great fun to be a part of, especially the night of the crew party where there were silly games to play for small prizes – I won a pair of sailing gloves in one such game, which was perfect as I needed a pair of my own, my borrowed pair being pretty worn out and much too big! The fun wasn't confined to shore though, and there was plenty of fancy dress going on on the yachts too as they left and reentered the marina. Some even had different themes for each day. Ours was perhaps not the most imaginative, but it went down pretty well with onlookers!

We didn’t get any high places in any race, being a cruiser rather than a racer, but it was so great to get out there as part of a team, to have my own job to do and feel myself getting better and better at it as each race progressed. 

Springing to action on the foredeck

With the spinnaker flying

It felt pretty magical to be out on the sea, at one with the wind and the water, watching the birds and occasionally spotting a dolphin, feeling so lucky to have this opportunity. 

Beautiful Pembrokeshire: Some Active Bits ...

I made a trip with my husband back to Pembrokeshire to spend a few days visiting family and friends. We were blessed with incredible weather while we were back, which lasted for most of the time we were there, and so we were able to really enjoy ourselves. My best friend Sarah, who I have known well since we were about 13, still lives in our home town, and she has 2 lovely boys. They were off school for the summer when we arrived and so it was great to spend plenty of time with them when we were visiting. They will be visiting us next year in Australia, but still every moment counts!

Our first day therefore was spent at the beach! Pembrokeshire has so many wonderful beaches, and on this day we headed to Manorbier in the hope that there would be surf. There wasn’t… We spent several happy hours soaking up the great weather, catching up with each other, reading, and then I braved the sea, going out with the boys to try and catch the tiny waves on the surfboard and later taking the youngest one out with a snorkel as he wanted to swim a bit. Great fun!

A bit blurry - I guess that's what happens when a little boy has the camera!

The next day has its own post, as we headed off on the boat to Skomer Island for some puffin spotting!

The following day and we hit the water for the third time in three days – this time with wind power. I learned to sail little dinghies when I was about 10 or 11 years old, and when Sarah had got in touch before we travelled down to ask if I would take her littlest one out sailing I was really excited. I haven’t sailed in years, but I had sailed for so long that I felt confident I could still sail competently, and teach the little lad too.

We hired a couple of dinghies so that everyone could go out at once. I took littlest one out in a Topper dinghy. It’s designed for one person to sail, and as such it only has one sail – the main sail – to worry about, so it seemed a great way to teach him. I began by showing him how to look after the main sail. As we went along I also taught him a few bits and pieces about the theory of sailing to help him understand what he was doing. Once he was ready, I moved on to teaching him about helming (steering) the boat. At first he struggled to concentrate enough to steer properly – he was so excited and so interested in every that was happening all around us! After a short while though he calmed down and then – with a bit of guidance – he was sailing by himself! He seemed to be having a great time, and I found it so rewarding to see how far he had come in just an hour. I’m not always good at teaching as I can lack patience, but I tried really hard to stay calm and relaxed while trying to teach an excitable 10-year-old, and I felt really good about our time out on the water together! 

We had hired the boats for 2 hours, and after that first hour I swapped over into the bigger boat (a Wayfarer – or ‘Wafer’ as the littlest one kept calling it!), while another sailor swapped into the Topper. I was then sailing with my husband, my friend, and her eldest son. They had obviously been learning about sailing already, so I just let people have a go a whatever they fancied – managing one of the sails, or taking a turn at the helm – while I supervised, until it was time to go in. There wasn’t much wind, so it was very relaxing sailing. I was chuffed at the end that after so much time I was still able to take over control of the dinghy when we had to head back in, and tack it (sailing and making a series turns so that you can get to an upwind destination) back to the jetty, judging it right to glide in to the jetty without bumping the boat. I was very happy with the day!

The fourth day and we were not waterbabies this time. A friend of Sarah's used to work at a quadbiking centre near Tenby, Ritec Valley Quads, and was keen to take everyone there. The rest of us grown-ups had each been quad biking once before, although it was the first time for the eldest son, while littlest son had to go on the children’s circuit which he had done before. We were all looking forward to it, and the course was really interesting – lots of different terrain and tricky paths to follow - even a couple of obstacles to overcome.

The quads had gears which you click through up and down, and it’s really tricky to remember which gear you’re in sometimes! We whizzed around the place, with only the occasional detour off the track when a bend was too tight…

The time seemed to go by fairly quickly - I just felt like I was getting the hang of things and feeling braver when it was all over! Adam found this his favourite activity of everything we did while in Pembrokeshire, Sarah and I had a great time, and her eldest son did really well considering it was his first time.

Still to come: Puffins!

Voyage on the Sir Winston Churchill ~ part 6

March 1997

Thursday, 27^th March

We arrived in Swanage after travelling across an angry sea, with high winds whipping foam off the waves. As in Fowey we were at anchor rather than moored in a dock, but this time shore leave was impossible as it was far too rough for the small tender to go ashore. Instead, everyone stayed aboard and worked on their acts for the Sods Opera to be held that evening.

After lunch all hands assembled aft for the next part of the inter-watch competition: the quiz. The Mate asked the questions while the Doctor ensured fair play. Each member of a Watch was pitted against their opposite numbers from the other Watches, and were asked questions that involved locating something technical on the ship, or tying a particular knot correctly. Our number 8 Charlotte scored first for us, but the point was disallowed. I was next to score, and this time the point stayed. Throughout the quiz we made an amazing recovery in the rankings. We had been about 8 points down against the other Watches at the start, but by the end we were second to the leaders Main Watch by only one point.

At 2000hrs all were watches were abandoned again, and all hands were called to the afterdeck for the evening’s entertainment. I had been in the galley again, this time on mess duty, so was very glad to be called out. The Watch Officers distributed bottles of Becks to their Watches, and charismatic trainee, Ben, was called upon to be Master of Ceremonies.

The running order for the night was:

Mizzen Watch: ‘Sailing on Churchill’ (I wrote our song to the tune of ‘Waltzing Matilda’. The writing of it compensation for the fact I am so dreadful a singer!)

Ben: reciting a poem he had written

Main Watch: ‘Main Watch People’ (Their song to the tune of Pulp’s ‘Common People’)

Fore Watch: ‘Sailing Over the Sea’ (Their song to the tune of ‘The Animals Went in Two by Two’)

                                      

The permanent crew members then sang a selection of shanties and comical songs. Requests were taken, and a good time was had by all, laughing, joking, drinking and singing in true sailor fashion.

Friday, 28^th March

We upped anchor and left Swanage Bay for our final day of sailing back to Poole. There was an air of sadness as we entered harbour, knowing that the voyage was over and this was to be our final night together aboard the ship. We were to wake up and bang our heads on the ceiling or bunk above us for the last time.

We had our usual tidy up once the springs and mooring lines had been secured. We also had to put up a small marquee on the aft deck as there was to be a cocktail party for the Sail Training Association trustees that night while we all went out in the town.

Once all aboard was ship shape everyone sat down in the marquee for the wash-up, the Captain’s debrief of the voyage. He covered all of the gruesome details, even shaming those seasick individuals who had puked into the wind and “got their own back”! The Doctor had organised a sweepstake for how many nautical miles we would cover during the voyage, and the winner who guessed nearest to the actual total of 623 nautical miles claimed a huge £5 prize. The inter-watch competition results were also revealed: first was Main Watch, followed by Fore Watch, and last but by no means least was my Mizzen Watch. A crate of Becks was awarded to the winners, and silly leaving gifts were also given to the Watch Leaders. More Becks was distributed to the rest of the crew, and everyone hung around taking group photographs and swapping postal addresses.

                                                     

Once everything was finished we all went out, trying to find a pub that would let us all in as we were quite a large group (the Cook’s Assistant was supposed to have booked somewhere, but hadn’t). We were finally allowed in the Poole Arms, so while I settled down to a coke as I couldn’t get served again, although one of the older trainees did smuggle a drink over for me, giving me my first ever taste of a G&T, and two of our Watch went off to buy our Watch Leader’s leaving present of a bottle of rum.

Things got going full-swing, and the night was certainly cheered up when trainees Ben and Gordon arrived in skirts and make up! Soon everyone was drinking and singing, and the 0000hrs end of shore leave quickly came around. Our Watch had clubbed together for a sneaky bottle of rum and some coke though, and our Watch Leader managed to sneak us off ship for a few more hours during the changing of the watch. The revelry continued, and the last of us managed to stagger back aboard at about 0300hrs.

Saturday, 29^th March

We woke up at 0500hrs and just about managed to roll out of bed. We packed all of our things eventually, no mean feat as my bag seemed to have mysteriously shrunk during the voyage, though looking around I wasn’t alone as several others were also jumping on their bags to get them closed.

We had an extra long, extra thorough happy hour, took down the marquee and loaded on fresh stores before signing off and collecting our valuables back from the Purser. Everyone had ordered lithographs of the ship, and we all signed each other’s as a memento of the great time together.

Skippy, who came aboard in St Malo having cycled from Greece to France

Before our Watch signed off we presented Amanda with her token bottle of rum. We then had to hand back our smocks, harnesses and pillowcases to Rupert, the Boatswain’s Assistant, which seemed to prove it really was all over. There were big hugs all round on the quayside as people began to leave to return to their lives on land. My family arrived too to bring me home again, a slightly more worldly teenager than the one dropped at that same quayside just two weeks before.