Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, June 23, 2004.
SAILING AGAINST THE WIND
SAILING as a teenager in a dinghy on Corio Bay gave me two insights about yachting - either you were wet and miserable or dry and bored ... plus there were the endless cleaning and maintenance chores always needing to be done. I had better things to do and did them. Still, I retained a low-level interest in sailing and even did a WEA coastal navigation course a few years ago although I have never owned a boat of any description. Who knows what possessed me but on holiday recently at Brampton Island, I went sailing. You could select from a range of watercraft - canoes, kayaks, paddleboats, ski boats or jet skis - depending on your skill level and finances. I chose a catamaran, which was free and came with a quick sailing lesson by Collin, one of the resort's watersports crew. As it happens, Collin is from Wallaroo and his mum Maureen works at AQ Print in the Barossa Valley and I know the Viergevers who run AQ Print. Those three degrees of separation, yet again. Col drew a diagram in the sand to explain why boats could not sail directly into the wind, and he also showed what to do in case of a capsize. Another cat was taken out by a fat bloke in a floppy white hat and a long-sleeved anti-radiation suit zipped to the neck. He was soon being towed back to shore by Col's rescue boat from the dead pocket in the lee of the island. Smirking, I made a mental note to avoid the same fate. Yet, tacking and turning, I still drifted too wide and was becalmed, slipping backwards with the tide going out fast. I wondered if a rescue tow from Tahiti was included. I began to grow concerned about the direction all this was heading but was absolutely determined not to ask for a tow. James Cook never had access to a yellow rescue boat to tow him out of dead pockets and nor did he have the option of diving over the side and pushing the Endeavour into the breeze, which I admit I was now considering. Slowly, agonizingly, I made my way back towards the beach and finally touched shore by myself, exhausted from the tension of having Col hovering so close in his boat. "How did you go, mate, alright? - owjagomate-orright?" asked one of the other suntanned, sun-glassed keepers of the water craft, with nothing to do and all day to do it in, sitting under a beach umbrella chatting up the chicky babes. I want his job. "Too easy," I said and noticed the fat bloke now had a kayak, which he kept falling off in the shallows. His partner, who was trying to hold him upright, nearly drowned from laughing so much. Good on them - at least they were getting their money's worth. At day's end, to the sunset hiss of a beer can opening in the twilight watercolours of mauve, violet and lavender - tone on tone - of the sky, water and islands in the distance, I reflected on the day's sailing and promised myself never to try kayaking.
