WARANA

Table of Contents

• Meeting

• Passage to Fiji
• Fiji
• Teissa
• Nandi
• Passage to New Hebrides
• Vila
• Passage to Epi
• Epi
• Passage to New Caledonia
• Noumea
• Passage to Brisbane
• Brisbane
• Passage to Sydney
• Sydney
• Passage to Melbourne
• Melbourne
• Return to Sydney
• Preparation for the start
• The Race
• The Finish
• Epilogue

I pedaled my bike along Taufa’ahau Road, the tropical heat already growing oppressive in spite of the early hour. The smells of pigs and drying copra and rotting fruit mingled with the acrid smoke of coconut husk fires. I passed groups of people walking toward town, the men in white shirts and long gray business skirts, the women in long dresses, both with elaborate woven mats around their waists. I wove in and out among the many potholes, bicyclists, and the occasional open Mini-moke carrying the more important citizens to their appointments. Taufa’ahau was the only paved street in the kingdom, just then being resurfaced by some of my Peace Corps friends. It runs directly from the royal tombs at the ancient capital of Mu’a right to the door of the palace, so HRH Taufa’ahau Tupou Fa himself could look out at his own private interstate to his ancestors.

When I reached the waterfront I turned right and rode along the beach front. It was a dusty road of crushed coral that after a heavy rain turned into a maze of muddy ponds, but now gleamed white in the sun. On the left, beyond a strip of grass and a low sea wall, lay the open roadstead of Nuku’alofa harbor. Coral made it a finger-painting in greens and blues and aquamarine. Farther out, beyond the reefs, the deeper water was a rich royal blue. Facing the sea across the rutted road was a long row of old houses partially hidden in trees and flowers. Most were low white frame buildings, their red corrugated iron roofs covered in bougainvillea and frangipani. All had verandas, where people could sit in the deep shade and watch the passing parade along the waterfront. Some of the houses were raised on stilts, a precaution against the storm seas that sweep over the sea wall during the typhoons.

I pedalled slowly, dodging the deeper potholes and scanning the various boats riding at anchor. Most were locally-built fishing cutters or the occasional inter-island schooner. Down at Queen Salote Pier, the big ferryboat ‘Olovaha was boarding passengers for the weekly run up to Ha’apai and Vava’u. Her engines were already rumbling and she was pumping her oily bilge and blowing her whistles to round up stragglers. A crowd of brightly dressed Tongans stood on the pier, waving and crying and laughing and shouting to their friends on the ship. I went on past the pier and the row of little palm-shaded guest houses. Ahead were the two short curved breakwaters that formed the tiny yacht harbor of Nuku’alofa.

I didn’t have much hope of finding a boat. I’d come down here every few days for two weeks and had spoken to the few boats that came through. Tonga was not on any regular cruising tracks. Perhaps one new boat arrived in a week, but the Tongan government did not allow people to come ashore to stay, so no one left the boats. I had flown out from San Diego in December to visit my brother Gary, a Peace Corps trainer, but the government insisted I have a return ticket in my possession before they would admit me. Now my time was up and I didn’t want to go.

I had gone to Tonga simply as a way of leaping off into the unknown in search of novelty and adventure. I was jaded by five years of bumming around the country from one hippie street scene to the next, then almost two years working on a ship up in the Maritimes. I had expected to stay a few weeks, check out Tonga, then find somewhere else to go. Now I had come to love Tonga, with its open, friendly people, slower pace, and scenic beauty. I was struck by the Tongans’ quiet pride in their country and their culture, with its sophisticated music and dance and its proud and ancient history. I had never lived in a non-Western society before, and I was profoundly changed by it. I had expected the famous South Sea natives to be quaint and simple, picturesque but alien. Now I had many Tongan friends and we had long talks into the night on comparative language, culture, and attitudes. I had lived with a large Tongan family and been accepted as an honored guest. I had lived in an unfinished house in the bush for two weeks and come to love the countryside. I took a class in the beautiful musical language and began to research Tongan history. It was all so much richer than what I had expected.

But the biggest reason I was in no hurry to move on was that I had fallen in love with the lovely Linda Brooks, a Peace Corps volunteer from Virginia. I loved the easy way we were together, the way she laughed at my jokes, the pleasure we both always felt in each other’s company, the curve of her hip while she slept, and a particular pressed-lip duck face only she could do and which I found irresistible. With my usual disregard for future consequences, I had long since cashed in my return ticket for spending money and stayed on. The government had renewed my tourist visa twice, but they had told me this was the last time. In two more weeks it would expire and I would have to leave the country. It was time for the next leg of my round-the-world adventure, but I didn’t have enough money to buy dinner, much less an airline ticket. So I was getting a bit desperate when I rolled to a stop and looked out over the five or six boats in the harbor.

Most of them I already knew: the Canadian couple on their way to New Zealand; the strange and incommunicative foursome from the Netherlands in the ancient Baltic fishing smack; and the young American in the absolutely cherry Tahiti ketch La Flor who was single-handing around the world. No hope there; I’d already tried them all.

But there was a new yacht anchored out in the middle of the harbor. She flew a tiny Tongan flag at the starboard spreader and the blue Australian ensign at the stern. She was an old-fashioned double-ended wooden ketch with nice lines, a spoon bow and a canoe stern. But she had the look of having made a hard passage. A row of rusted metal jerry cans lined her railings, spoiling her lines and sending orange streaks down her white topsides. Clothes and blankets and soggy sleeping bags hung drying in her rigging. Her deck was heaped with cans and bags and cardboard boxes. But there was no question about her name. For some reason it was painted on both sides in huge, peeling, bright orange letters four feet high: Warana.

As I stood there looking her over, a stocky middle-aged man emerged from below and threw a bucket of oily-looking water over the side. He had a ruddy face and a thick neatly-trimmed beard with a clean-shaven upper lip, giving him the look of a nineteenth century Nantucket whaling skipper. Right now he had a sour scowl on his face. He looked around at the mess on deck and sat down with a disgusted thump.

I hesitated to hail him; perhaps I should come back later when he was in a better mood. But I didn’t know how long they were planning to stay. I leaned my bike against the sea wall and walked out on the breakwater to the closest point.

“Hello, Warana!” I called. He looked up in surprise, glancing around until he spotted me.

“I wondered if you needed a hand,” I shouted.

“I need a shipwright, not a hand,” he answered in an Aussie accent. “Are you a yachtie?”

I had no idea what a yottie was, but I was familiar with the word shipwright. My hopes rose. At least they needed something. I had long since discovered that the only way to learn some skills was to say you already had them, get the job, and fake it until you did.

“I was a bosun on a freighter,” I replied, leaving out many important details of a long story. “What’s your problem?”

“We’re bloody well sinking, that’s what our problem is.”

“You’re taking on water?”

“Not now. But every time it gets rough it floods in.”

“Where’s the leak, do you know?”

“No. That’s the damnedest thing. We’ve taken everything out of her and can’t find any place it’s coming in.”

“Mind if I take a look?”

“Not if you can find it. Hang on, I’ll come over and get you.”

He untied an ugly yellow plastic dinghy and rowed over to me. I stepped into the skiff, careful to step into the center so I wouldn’t capsize it.

“I’m Brian Crawford,” I said, offering my hand.

“Peter Sturgess,” he said, shaking my hand unsmilingly before rowing us out to the boat. I followed him on deck and deftly secured the painter, trying to impress him with my nautical skills.

The boat looked even worse close up. The clutter on deck was soggy paper and bits of clothing, disintegrating cardboard boxes, and hundreds of tin cans with their labels soaked off. A large well-equipped metal tool box stood open, but it was full of water and the tools were orange with rust. Everything in sight was covered with a greasy black film of bilge water.

“Come on below,” he said gruffly, and I followed him down the ladder to the saloon. It was worse down below. There was a rank odor of mold and sour bilge. The floorboards and seat cushions were all turned up to dry. A few inches of oily water swilled in the bilge. The berths were heaped with personal gear from the lockers and cabinets. A grey bathtub ring circled the inside of the boat three inches above the floorboards. A good-looking man in his middle twenties sat at the table, disassembling some unidentifiable piece of greasy equipment. He looked up at me with little interest. His mood looked even worse than Peter’s.

“Brian, this is Norm Fraser, our navigator,” said Peter. “Norm, this bloke’s name is Brian. He says he might be able to find our leak.”

“What makes you think so?” Norm asked me.

“I worked on ships in the Atlantic,” I replied. “I know where to look.”

“Look away then,” he said, and went back to his work.

Peter looked at me expectantly as if I could make the mess go away. I stepped gingerly across the exposed floor stringers and knelt beside the galley sink.

“It’s usually a through-hull that’s the problem,” I said, running my hands around the plumbing fitting where the sink drain went through the hull. The rubber hose was intact and seemed to be making a good fit to the shut-off valve. The hose clamps were tight, the brass valve was not corroded. I moved around the boat, checking the engine cooling intake, the salt water intake, the head exhaust and the head sink drain. I crawled aft into the quarter berth and squeezed around the engine to inspect the stuffing box, where the propellor shaft went through the hull. All tight and dry.

“They all seem all right,” I said.

“They always do,” said Peter. “And once we pump her out she’ll stay dry. Until we go to sea again. It happened in the Tasman Sea and when we got to New Zealand we had it all checked. Perfectly sound, they said. As soon as we headed out again and it got rough, we were swimming. Had to put in here before she filled right up.”

I examined a large complex of stainless steel plumbing and a heavy pump mounted under a berth. It too had a through-hull, but it seemed perfectly dry.

“What is this?” I asked. “Some kind of desalinator?”

“No. It’s a high pressure seawater pump. Specially designed for us.”

“Whatever for?”

“To wash radioactive material off the deck quickly.”

That made me look up.

“You were expecting a nuclear attack?” I asked. What had I stumbled upon here, a yacht full of survivalists? Talk about your ship of fools.

“Yes,” he answered straight-faced. “We’re going to Mururoa in French Polynesia to protest the French atmospheric nuclear testing. We’re going to anchor at ground zero. It seemed a wise precaution.”

It occurred to me that a boat directly under an atomic bomb wouldn’t have to worry about decks at all, clean or dirty, but decided to say nothing. I really wanted to find that leak and be the hero and win myself a place in the crew. I refused to give up.

“What starts the leak?” I asked. “Any time you’re out at sea, when you’re running the engine, or only when she starts pounding?”

He rubbed his beard. “Well, it doesn’t start right away. There was almost no water for the first half day out of Auckland. But once we turned the corner and started beating into the wind, it gushed. Seemed to start when we went close-hauled coming out of the Bay of Islands.”

“Oh, so maybe it’s just the heeling, rather than the seams opening up in the pounding. What tack were you on that time in the Bay of Islands?”

“Starboard. We all agreed the leak seemed to be much worse whenever we were close-hauled on the starboard tack.”

“That makes it sound like the leak is high on the port side. But there’s nothing to see on that side, all the way up to the deck. And the only through-hull on that side is the head. You’re sure the head valve isn’t leaking?”

Peter looked at me with a curious expression. “Head valve?” he said. Norm looked up at that.

“Yeah,” I said. “You know, the little valve under the head that closes off the drain when you’re not using it.”

“Oh, that damn thing,” growled Norm. “It’s too bloody hard to turn and it’s the devil to get down there to reach it when you’re in the head. Barely enough room to turn around in there, you know.”

“And smelly,” added Peter. “Damned toilet’s been a problem all along. The bloody thing is always plugging up. Most of the time we just go over the side.”

“So you leave that valve open all the time?”

“Sure. Is that a problem?”

“Well, yeah. You can leave it open in port because the toilet’s above water level. But when you’re close-hauled on starboard tack, she heels enough to port that the toilet bowl is under water. Didn’t you ever notice the toilet overflowing?”

“Come to think of it, the floor of the head was always wet.”

I got up and went below to the head. The valve was a big rusty iron job with a handle too small for the job. I strained to twist it closed. I turned and looked up at Peter.

“Your leak’s fixed.”

Norm snorted in disgust. Peter looked away.

“Want a beer?” he asked.

We sat on the coach roof and talked as I drank my beer. Peter sipped at a large double scotch. He began picking through the cans and wiping each one dry as he told me about the purpose of the voyage. He explained that every other country in the world had agreed to a ban on atmospheric nuclear testing, except the French. Every year they set off a series of bombs above Mururoa atoll in their territory of French Polynesia. The French government continued to insist that they could do anything they wanted on their own territory and the Polynesians, Kiwis, and Aussies that lived downwind could lump it. The Aussies were particularly outraged. A few weeks after each test their flocks would start giving radioactive milk. The anti-nuclear movement was strong throughout the South Pacific. The Australian and New Zealand governments openly supported the movement in spite of their ties to the American military, who opposed the test ban.

For the last several years, protest yachts from various countries had sailed to Mururoa to try to interfere with the testing. Greenpeace always sent a vessel from Canada and there was usually an American as well. This year there was talk of a possible Japanese entry. The French response to these vessels had been increasingly hostile. They had established a wide forbidden zone around Mururoa, and had made it known that they would consider any attempt to enter the zone as a threat to French national security. At first they had simply escorted yachts from the area. Then they began seizing them and imprisoning their crews. The year before, a French destroyer had rammed a protest yacht and roughed up her crew. Peter explained that Warana was the semi-official Australian protest yacht. They had the backing of all the Aussie anti-nuclear groups, and they had support from several members of parliament. They had been financed by a massive nationwide fund-raising campaign and had left Melbourne in a flurry of publicity and fanfare.

I was intrigued. I had always been sympathetic to the anti-nuclear cause, but never active in it. But I had long admired Greenpeace and their courage in confronting the bad guys at sea, often at great personal risk. I remembered watching in awe as the Russian whalers fired a harpoon over a Greenpeace zodiac. Everybody talks about the environment, but these guys are really out there fighting the battles. Here was my chance to get a ride out of Tonga, have an outrageous adventure, and maybe even do something really good for the planet. I imagined writing the definitive protest novel from a French prison, smuggling the pages out in coconut shells. The novel would galvanize the world into action and the French government would be shamed into stopping the tests. There could be a Nobel in this, fame and fortune, and probably lots of babes.

I came out of my daydream to look around at the mess.

“I take it things haven’t been going well,” I suggested.

“Not one bloody thing has gone well,” Peter replied disgustedly. “We got into a bad blow in the Tasman Sea and lost the generator and half the sails. Then the head plugged up and the radio went on the fritz. That’s when I found out the crew was a lot better at posing for publicity shots and making speeches than they were at seamanship. Not an experienced sailor in the lot.”

“How many of you are there?”

“Four. There’s Norm and me, and Kathy Bradley. Then there’s Rolf Heimann. He’s the photographer and spokesman. He’s the one that got that fancy washing system installed. And there’s crates of cinema equipment and radiation monitors and sample jars for marine specimens and whatnot. That’ll be his job when we get there. Resident scientist.”

“How come they’re not helping? Where are they?”

“Ashore. Making telephone calls home, sightseeing, I don’t know what all.” I think they’re probably looking into airline tickets home.”

“Is that so?” I asked with interest. “Then it’s possible you will need a hand.”

“It’s possible,” he shrugged.

“Don’t count on it,” said Norm, coming out to join us with a beer. “We don’t even know where we’re going next.”

“After the beating we took,” Peter explained, “we feel like we should haul her out and do a complete overhaul, make sure she’s sound for the long beat to windward.”

“There’s no slipway in Tongatapu,” I said. “There may be one in Neiafu, up in Vava’u.”

“There isn’t,” said Peter. “We checked. There aren’t even any good beaches for careening.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Dunno. There are facilities at Pago Pago in American Samoa, but that’s upwind too. The next nearest are in Suva, five hundred miles back to the west.”

“Are you sure she needs a haulout?” I asked. “Maybe if the head leak’s fixed and you get her cleaned up she’ll be okay.”

“I don’t feel safe in her,” said Peter. “Not after what we’ve been through. And the others don’t either.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter to me which way you’re going,” I said. “If you decide you can use my help, let me know. You can leave a message for me at the Peace Corps office downtown. Know where that is?”

“Yeah, I saw it,” said Peter. “We’ll let you know. Thanks for your help.”

“Sure.” I finished my beer and Peter rowed me back to shore.

“Nice to meet you, Norm,” I called. “Hope we get to sail together.”

“Don’t count on it,” he repeated.

I pedalled slowly back through town, trying to decide if I really wanted them to get in touch. Warana was obviously an unhappy ship with an inexperienced crew. They were idealists, their minds set on getting to Mururoa and making their symbolic stand, but with little thought for the vast distances and difficulties involved in getting there. This was clearly a risky enterprise at best. I had wanted to be an adventurer, not a statistic in the Notice to Mariners. On the other hand, there was my visa problem. Yachts rarely visited Tonga and even more rarely needed an extra hand when they got there. I fell back on Brian’s Rule: whenever faced with a decision, always take the path that’s wilder, crazier, and more adventurous. The Rule had gotten me in and out of dozens of adventures and scrapes, including the time I had already spent on ships; and it had gotten me to Tonga. So far it had worked well: I was still alive, and I had lots of great stories to tell. I had no doubt what the Rule said about this decision.

I rode back home. Our Tongan friend Soane Hurrel and his American girlfriend Judi Wadsworth were in the kitchen. The room was long and narrow, made even more so by the head-high stacks of empty bottles of Steinlager beer that lined one wall.

“Hey,” I announced, “I may have found a ride out of here. A yacht from Melbourne.”

“Far out,” Soane said. “Where are they going?”

“To French Polynesia to protest the nuclear testing.”

“No shit?” They both looked at me. “Will they take you?”

“I think maybe they will. The skipper seemed to like me.”

“You said they came from Australia?” Judi asked in surprise.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Well, they’re a long way off their course, aren’t they? Judi had sailed from Hawaii to French Polynesia, and knew what she was talking about. “The trades are from the southeast. French Polynesia is dead upwind from here. I’d think from Melbourne they’d stay way down in the forties or even fifties to take advantage of the westerlies. They’ll be pounding into it for months this way.”

“Well, they’ve been pounding into it for months already and have had about enough of it from the sound of it. They’ve been leaking like a sieve ever since Auckland and put in here before they sank. I checked her over and found the problem. Know what it was?”

“A through-hull fitting,” suggested Judi. “Or the stern gland.”

“Nope. Checked them all. Sound as rocks.”

“Don’t tell me they left the head valve open?” she groaned.

“Yep. I don’t think they knew what it was for.”

“Oh, man,” laughed Soane. “Do they know what they’re doing?”

“It doesn’t sound like it,” Judi agreed.

“I don’t think any of them know much about cruising. They were just thrown together to do this protest thing. The skipper didn’t seem to think much of his crew.”

“Oh, no,” said Judi. “Crew trouble, too? Remember there could be other sides to that story. You better talk to the rest of the crew before you make any decision.”

“Have they agreed to take you?” asked Soane.

“Not yet, but some of the crew are thinking of jumping ship and flying home. If they do, I think the captain would take me.”

“Take you where?” asked my girlfriend Linda, just coming in. Her face was shiny with sweat from riding her bike out from her teaching job in town. I jumped up and gave her a big hug.

“Hi, honey-bear,” I said, kissing her. “I finally found a boat. Maybe.”

I saw her face tighten the way it did when she didn’t want me to see how upset she was. “Oh, really?” she said. “Great. What kind of boat?”

“An Aussie ketch, forty feet.”

“They’re going to protest the French nuclear testing,” said Judi.

“Yeah,” I said enthusiastically. “They’re going to go anchor right in the middle of the atoll so they can’t drop the bomb. Pretty cool, huh?”

“What if they go ahead and drop it anyway?” she asked.

“They couldn’t,” I said. “Think of the international incident it would be.”

“Think of you as a cloud of radioactive dust,” she replied.

“There’ll be other boats there, too,” I went on. “There’s a Canadian boat and an American boat and maybe a Japanese boat, I’m not sure. I guess some boats go out every year when they start another series of tests.”

“And they haven’t bombed them?” asked Soane.

“No, but they rammed one and beat up the crew.”

“Oh, great,” said Linda. “And you want to go there?”

“Sure. What an adventure. I’d be like Jacques Cousteau.”

“Or Davy Jones. Do you know how far that is?”

“It’s not that dangerous. Lots of people cross the ocean in small boats all the time.”

“Lots of boats never arrive, either,” said Judi. “Especially ones with crews that are incompatible or incompetent or both.”

“Which are these?” asked Linda.

“Sounds like both,” Soane answered.

“Maybe,” I put in hastily. “I only talked to two of them.”

“When are they leaving?”

“Soon. I don’t think they know yet. They’ll leave a message for me at the Peace Corps office.”

Linda pressed her lips together, but said nothing more. I had said from the beginning that I was just passing through Tonga on my way around the world. Our relationship was great, but I believed that it was a short-lived affair. Now after seven months in Tonga, my itch to travel again was growing strong again — so many islands, so little time. And now my yearning to leave was being reinforced by the Tongan government’s strong concurrence. I knew Linda wasn’t happy about it, but she knew me well enough not to ask me to stay. We went to bed that night feeling the distance already growing between us.

Linda and Soane went to work as usual. Judi and I puttered around the house, then I rode my bike into town. At first I avoided going down to the yacht harbor, not wanting to appear too anxious. I did a bit of shopping at the market. Later I rode down to the Yacht Club Bar, one of the two bars on the island, and close enough to the harbor to get another look at Warana, floating like a kite in the transparent water. I could see someone moving about on her. I sat at the bar, drinking the only beer available, Steinlager in one-litre bottles. A man at a table suddenly raised his voice.

“I’ve had it with him,” he growled “He’ll get us all killed.”

I turned to look and saw Norm sitting with a very attractive young woman. He hadn’t noticed me at the bar.

“You can’t give up now, Norm,” the girl said. “Not after all we’ve gone through. We’ve got to stick together. The project is too important.”

“Bugger the project. Face it, Kathy. This voyage has been a disaster since the first day.”

“We’ve gotten this far. We have to see it through.”

“Maybe you do, but I don’t. I have no confidence in Peter as a skipper. He’s drinking all the time.”

“Peter drinks too much, but he never seems drunk. Do you think he’s really a danger?”

“Oh, he’s all right for steering a course or cooking dinner, but he can’t make decisions. If we got into a typhoon or a knock-down, he’d say, ‘what do you lot think we should do?’ You know he would. We’d be fools to sail with him again.”

“I’m willing to try. So is Rolf. But we need you, Norm. You’re the navigator. We can’t do it without you.”

“I don’t know,” Norm growled. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“Well, think fast. Peter wants to leave tomorrow.”

They ordered another round and their conversation went to less interesting matters. It seemed to me that Norm might be happy to see another navigator come aboard — he could go home without leaving the others in the lurch. But could I convince them I was a “yachtie,” much less a navigator? I finished my beer and walked out on the breakwater.

“Hello, Peter!” I shouted, waving my arms. He looked up, stared, then recognized me and waved.

“Bring the dinghy and come on out!” he called back. “The yellow one!”

I looked where he pointed at a row of dinghies and spotted Warana’s rowboat of canary-colored molded plastic. I waved, then went and took possession of my new command. This I could do. I got myself and the oars arranged, cast off the painter, and rowed out to Warana. I tied up without bumping the sides, though rub marks couldn’t be uglier than the peeling orange letters on her side.

“Come aboard,” said Peter. He was with a young man, tall and thin, with a high forehead, a neatly trimmed beard, and wire-rim glasses. He looked like an earnest young student at a German university. Peter introduced us when I climbed aboard. “Rolf, this is Brian, the young Yank who wants to sign on. This is Rolf, our photographer and scientist.” We shook hands, and he looked me over dubiously.

“So you are interested in stopping the testing?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “I mean, I’ve always been against anything nuclear. I don’t even like the power plants.”

“So in which groups are you active?”

“Oh, well. I’m not so active really. But I marched in that big world-wide spring thing in ‘67.”

“You mean the Spring Mobilization for Peace? You took part in that?”

“Yeah, in New York. Marched all the way from the Sheep Meadow in Central Park down to the UN. Me and a million other people. What a scene, man.”

”Did you help with the organizing, the leaflets? Are you actually a member of any anti-nuclear groups?”

“Not exactly. You need an address to be a member of a group. But when those Greenpeace guys come around, I always give ‘em money.”

I realized this wasn’t much of a credential as an activist, but I was getting irritated by Rolf’s questioning, as if I didn’t measure up to his standards.

“Hey Warana!” shouted someone from the breakwater. It was Norm and Kathy, their arms full of packages. “Where’s the dink? Come pick us up!”

“Who’s going to go get them?”asked Peter.

For just a second I met Rolf’s eyes and read something there, but I wasn’t sure just what. It was obvious he didn’t approve of me. Perhaps he was hoping I’d take the dinghy back to shore and stay there. Maybe he was waiting to see if I would volunteer to do the rowing. Or was he checking my reaction to Peter’s less than impressive command style?

“I’ll go,” I said, and a few minutes later had arrived at the breakwater. I squinted up into the sun. “Taxi, folks? Hi, Norm.”

“Who the hell are you?” Kathy asked. She was a very attractive lady, with a curvy figure well displayed in a halter top much too revealing for street wear in Nuku’alofa. She’d be the talk of the waterfront for a few days.

“My name’s Brian,” I said with my friendliest grin. I’m looking for a berth.”

“I told you before,” Norm replied. “We’re full up. Can’t use you.”

They glared down as if waiting for me to get out of the boat. I decided right then that if there were bad feelings between captain and crew, it was to my advantage to stay on the captain’s side. He was the owner, after all, and if this happy little family was going to be breaking up, I wanted to stay with the one who got custody of the boat.

“Peter’s not so sure of that,” I said. “He says there could be several open berths.”

They shot looks at each other, then Kathy climbed into the boat and Norm handed their packages down and climbed in. I pulled back for Warana.

“So, where are you from?” Kathy asked, in what sounded like an attempt to be friendly.

“He’s a Yank, can’t you hear?” growled Norm.

“Actually, I’m from here,” I replied, with a conscious effort to annoy him. “I live in Palangi House in Tavana, just outside Nuku’alofa.”

“Really?” she asked in surprise. “Here? Whatever do you do?”

“I travel.” Patronize me, will they? We reached the yacht and climbed aboard.

“Kathy,” said Peter. “Brian here says he’d like to go with us.”

“We can’t take more than four,” said Norm.

“We always planned to have five,” said Peter. “We have the two quarter berths unoccupied.”

“What can you do?” Norm asked me.

“Anything. I’m young, strong, smart, and fit. I spent more than a year on a ship in the North Atlantic.”

“Doing what exactly?” asked Rolf.

“A bit of everything. I started as bosun, running the deck crew, handling cargo, in charge of maintenance. After a while, I became second officer.”

They looked at me dubiously. I suppose I didn’t fit their image of the American merchant marine, with my tie-dyed tee shirt, ragged jeans, and pony tail.

“You were Number Two on a ship?” Norm snorted in disbelief. “What were your duties?”

Clearly Norm was the most opposed to me. I figured I better play my best card at once.

“I was the navigator,” I said, meeting Norm’s eyes. I saw them narrow suspiciously.

“You can navigate?” asked Kathy in surprise. She glanced sideways at Norm.

“Sure,” I said casually. “The ship was mainly a coaster, so most of it was coastwise navigation, but I did some celestial. Never lost a ship yet.”

Peter brightened considerably. “So there you are, Norm,” he said. “Maybe that’s the solution.”

Norm didn’t say anything more, but I thought I felt a little warming from the others. I guessed that Norm had been the primary malcontent in the crew and used the fact that he was the only navigator as his bargaining chip. Suddenly his hand was worthless. I wondered if he’d just been bluffing about leaving the boat and now would reassert his position. I’d also noticed the body language between Norm and Kathy and guessed they were more than crewmates. If Norm left, would Kathy go with him? Nothing more was said on the subject. After a bit more talk, I said I had other appointments and Peter rowed me to shore.

“I’d really like to go with you, Peter,” I told him as I got out of the dinghy. “But I don’t think Norm likes me.”

“To hell with Norm,” he replied with surprising vehemence. “He’s a lazy bludger and I’m sick of his complaining. If he decides to leave, his berth is yours. I’ll let you know.”

Encouraged, but with deep misgivings about joining this unhappy ship, I pedalled home.

When I told the others about my conversation, they were less than enthusiastic. Linda, I knew, was worried about my going with Warana, but she would probably have worried about my going away with anyone. I asked Judi if she would consider signing on with me if Kathy left, but she said she was too deeply involved with Soane to leave now. My own feelings were very mixed. I knew I would miss Linda and the happy little household there at Tavana. But I also wanted to have more adventures and see some new places.

That evening we all went out drinking at the Tonga Club, the other bar and our favorite because it was mostly Tongans and lacked the snooty atmosphere at the Yacht Club. Halfway through the evening, when we were all fairly well plastered, a guy I didn’t know came to our table.

“Are you Brian Crawford?” he asked me.

“Yes?”

“They asked me to bring this to you. Somebody left it at the Peace Corps office.” He handed me a note. The letterhead read “Warana — Australian Nuclear Protest Voyage — 1973.” The table grew quiet as I read it.

“It’s from Peter,” I said. “He wants me to come with them. They’re leaving tomorrow.” They all looked at me.

“Let’s go home,” said Linda.

The next morning Linda and I didn’t have a lot to say to each other. She was getting ready for work as usual, while I packed my few belongings into my old army duffel bag. We had one last long tearful kiss on the veranda outside the little oval thatched hut that was our living room.

“Are you really going?” she asked me as we hugged.

“Yeah, I really am. I’ve got to go now. I’ll write to you, okay?”

“Promise?”

“Promise. I’ll see you, honey.”

I swung onto my bike and rolled down the steep driveway with a lump in my throat. Looking back and waving, I was nearly knocked from my bike by a heavy breadfruit hanging down over the path. I recovered my balance in time to avoid the sow and piglets sprawled across the driveway. Another graceful exit. I rode hard for the waterfront, my heavy duffel bag banging against my side. Only Peter was there when I hailed. He rowed over to meet me.

“We’re going to Fiji for a haul-out,” he said. “Then we’ll go on to Mururoa, by way of Samoa, probably. Norm has decided to give it up, but he’ll fly home from Suva. That way you can navigate together at first and we can see how you do. Fair enough?”

“Sure,” I said. “That’s great.” I was very relieved, since I had never actually done any celestial navigation before. I hoped I could learn enough from Norm on this passage to be able to handle it by myself to Mururoa. Hey, how hard could it be?

“When do you want to leave?” I asked.

“We’re arranging for supplies and fuel now. I want to leave before dark tonight if we can.”

“Peter, anyone leaving Tonga has to get an exit clearance signed by every government department to make sure he isn’t leaving any unpaid obligations. For an important person or a group of Peace Corps volunteers, it’s only a formality and some flunky runs it around for them. For your garden variety expatriate it can take a long time.”

“I don’t want to wait any longer. We’re way behind schedule already. Make it as quick as you can.”

I promised I would and dashed to Immigration to get my exit clearance form. I managed to pick up my first few signatures fairly quickly, but there were thirty departments on the list, everything from the minister of roads to the bishop of the Church of Tonga. I didn’t know where half of them were and the morning was nearly gone when I pedalled exhaustedly up to the police station. When I went in I saw my policeman friend Taniela.

“Malo e lelei, Brian,” he called. “Fefe hake?”

“Sai pe, Taniela. I need an exit clearance signed quick, fakamolemole.”

“Sure thing,” he said, taking it from me. “I didn’t know you were leaving.”

“I didn’t either. I just found out last night. I’m going out on a yacht and they want to leave tonight.”

“Tonight? How many signatures do you have?” He glanced down the list. “‘Oiaue, you’ve just started.”

“Yeah. I didn’t know it was going to take so long. I don’t even know where a lot of these offices are. I don’t know how I’m going to get them all today.”

He shook his head sadly. “I know Ve’ehala isn’t even in town. He’s out in Kanokupolu. And the minister of education is in Pea at the christening of his older sister’s brother-in-law’s daughter. And Tupou Posesi Fonua from Archives is in church in Mu’a. I’m sure her office is closed.”

I slumped into a chair. “I’m dead. The boat’s going to leave without me.”

“Maybe not. Let me see what I can do.” He took my clearance in to his chief to be signed and then made a few phone calls. My Tongan wasn’t good enough to follow the quick conversations.

“Okay,” he said, hanging up the phone. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“I’ll take you around. It’s the only way you’re going to get it done today.”

And so we drove around in Taniela’s police Land Rover, rushing from office to office, collecting signatures. At most of them I just waited in the truck while Taniela dashed in and out. Several times he returned to say the office had closed early for the weekend. Then we’d go bumping out along some rutted track through the bush to a remote village I’d never heard of before to track down an official at their home. One minister we caught while he was dining with friends at the International Dateline Hotel. Another we found in church. Taniela tip-toed into the church, slipped into the pew behind the minister, and handed him my clearance. By late afternoon we had all but four of the necessary signatures. Those people seemed to either be off the island or otherwise out of reach.

“Well,” said Taniela, as we drove back into Nuku’alofa for the fifth or sixth time that day, “I can probably get those signatures on Monday. Why don’t you just go ahead?”

“Taniela,” I said. “How can I ever thank you? You spent your entire day helping me. There’s no way I could have gotten it done in a week.”

“It’s nothing,” he assured me with a big smile. “You have a good trip.”

“Malo ‘aupito,” I called as I got out of the truck at the station. “Thanks a lot.”

“‘Alu a,” he replied. “Go well.”

“Nofo a,” I answered “Stay well.”

I pedalled back to the harbor and Peter rowed me out to the boat. When I got there I couldn’t see any preparations for immediate departure.

“We couldn’t get everything we needed today,” he explained. “It’s too late now anyway.”

“So we’re not leaving today?” I asked in dismay.

“No. We’ll do one more shopping run in the morning and be off.”

“Well, okay,” I said. “It was probbly a bad idea to sail on Friday the Thirteenth anyway. Say, would you mind if I borrowed your navigation books for the night? I’d like to brush up on my celestial just a bit. You know how things get a bit rusty when you haven’t done them in a while.” Or if you’ve never done them at all, I thought to myself.

“Sure, I suppose so,” he replied, and brought out two heavy volumes which I stuffed into my duffel bag. “See you first thing in the morning then,” I said, and pedalled slowly home.

The swift tropical twilight had ended and it was dark by the time I got back to the house. I hesitated outside for a few minutes. I had already made my farewells. Did I want to go through all that emotional trauma again? Perhaps I should find somewhere else to sleep and slip out quietly tomorrow. I felt awkward about just walking in. In the end I went up on the house platform and called into the house.

“Linda? Are you there?”

“Brian?” In seconds she was in my arms, sobbing against my chest. I knew I’d made the right decision. We had one more night together, and made it worthwhile. I didn’t get much chance to study my navigation.

I arranged with Soane’s family that they could have my bike if they would pick it up at the dock. I made my second farewell scene and hustled down to the harbor early. As Peter rowed me out to the boat, I had a distinct sense of burning bridges behind me. What would it be like sailing with these people? Would I get seasick? Would I make a fool of myself? Would we survive? Should I be leaving at all, or should I work out some way of staying with Linda? I wondered if someday I would look back on this day as the start of a wonderful adventure or as a terrible mistake.

I was disappointed to find they weren’t ready to sail immediately. Rolf was ashore giving an interview to the local paper; Norm and Kathy were on a last-minute shopping run. But the boat was considerably cleaned up. The clothes and bedding were cleaned and dried and put away, the berths and cushions were back in place, and the oil had been scrubbed off the interior surfaces. Peter was still cleaning up the unlabeled cans and storing them beneath the floor boards. I slid my duffel into the port quarter berth, grabbed a rag and pitched in.

“What happened to all the labels?” I asked, wiping a grey film from an unmarked can.

“We had the tins stowed down under the floor boards to keep the weight down low. When the leak started they were under water and the labels all came off.”

“How can you tell what’s in ‘em?”

“You can guess by the size and shape.”

“So what’s that you’ve got there?”

He held up the can and studied it. “This is either fruit cocktail or baked beans. Or it could be succotash, I suppose,” he added, shaking it by his ear.

“Must make planning meals difficult,” I observed.

“The menu’s always a surprise,” he admitted. I picked up a small flat can.

“Tuna?” I guessed.

“No, that one’s easy. It’s dolma.”

“What?”

“Dolma. Stuffed grape leaves.”

“How can you stuff a grape leaf? And with what?”

“Rice. And some kind of meat; lamb, I think. Spices. It’s Turkish.”

“Is it good?”

“Bloody awful.”

I noticed that most of the cans appeared to be the same shape. “You seem to have plenty of dolma.”

He looked around sadly at the cans heaped around his feet. “Twelve cases.”

“I guess someone else really likes it?”

“No. We all hate it.”

“Ah.” I wiped at a can conscientiously, wondering if the whole crew was mad.

“We had a Turk along at first,” Peter explained after a few minutes. “Didn’t know anything about sailing, but he was about the only ethnic color we could pick up from the anti-nuclear groups. Looked good in the papers. When we sailed, we each got to choose what we wanted to take for food. He decided he wanted only dolma.”

“How did he work out?”

“Bloody useless. Got seasick in the Tasman Sea on our way to New Zealand, wouldn’t get out of his berth. Then when we left Auckland, he got sick again.”

“It happens.”

“Not like this. We were pounding into it, day after day, very rough. He was retching for days. Couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t even drink water. We kept thinking he’d get his sea legs, but he never did. Finally I radioed back to Auckland and asked a doctor if it was possible to die of sea sickness. He said yes, indeed. People had died of dehydration. He told me to turn around immediately.”

“Did you?”

“What could I do? I couldn’t let him die. It would have been bad publicity.”

“At least. So you took him back?”

“We were three days out. It meant losing a week. An ambulance met us and took him to hospital. We waited until it was clear he was going to recover, then we left again. More pounding into head winds and big seas. And then the leak started getting really bad. We couldn’t find it, it kept getting worse. We kept at it for almost a week, still beating into it hard, then I was afraid she’d just keep going down. We turned and ran with the wind. This was the nearest port down wind.”

I fervently hoped I would not be the next victim of terminal mal de mer.

“How long will it take you to get to Mururoa, do you think?” I asked.

“Dunno. Three, four weeks, maybe more. We were supposed to be there by now, but we’ve had nothing but trouble. The frogs only test for a few months each year. If we get there too late, there will be nothing to protest. We thought we’d left enough time, until a storm knocked us down in the Tasman. Then we lost the week with the Turk, and now another going to Fiji. Now it’s going to be really close. We’re all pretty discouraged.”

I looked away to the horizon. Long white dashes slid slowly along it. Big seas were breaking on the reef miles out. I realized I could hear the surf, a constant faint thunder, felt as much as heard. One soon ceased to notice it.

“But you’re going to try again?”

He looked around at the pile of oily cans. “Right now I’m sick to death of it all. But I hate to give it up. There’s a lot of people who are going to be very disappointed in us if we turn back, people who worked hard and gave us a lot of money and support. We were in all the papers, on the telly. Jim Cairns himself came down to the dock to see us off. He’s the Trade Minister, you know. Don’t know how we’d face them.”

“So it wouldn’t sound good if you came back without even getting to Mururoa.”

“Makes us look like a lot of duffers,” he growled. “But it’s true. None of us really knew what we were doing. Norm was a navigator in the Navy, but he learned to navigate with Loran and radar and I don’t know what all. He’s never been in small boats before and knows next to nothing about sailing and seamanship.”

“And the others?”

“Rolf has sailed a bit, but he has no feeling for a boat, if you know what I mean. It’s just a means of transportation to him. Kathy too. We thought she was going to cook, but she was making a bloody mess of it. I rather enjoy cooking, so I volunteered to do it myself. I’ve done all right with it too, if I say so myself. My food is about the only thing they don’t complain about.”

“So are you doing most of the sailing yourself?”

“Well, I can’t say that. No, they sail the boat. But sometimes they seem to think it’s beneath them. It’s like they think I’m the boat driver. Hurry up and get us there, will you, Peter? There’s a good chap.”

“How much cruising have you done?”

“Well, I’ve been sailing Warana for years now, but day sailing mostly, around Port Phillip. I’ve never been out in the islands before.”

Great, I thought. An unreliable, trouble-plagued boat, an unlucky voyage so far, a near death, an incompetent crew that hates each other, and an inexperienced captain, trying to sail three thousand miles to windward to a place where if they don’t ram you they drop an atomic bomb on you. Not exactly Adventures in Paradise. I hoped Brian’s Rule wasn’t going to get me killed.

It was late in the afternoon before the others finally arrived. I was afraid they were going to postpone leaving for another day and I’d have to go home for another farewell party. But at last we hauled the dinghy out and lashed it down on the coach roof. Gear was all stowed away. I checked myself that the head valve was closed.

I had never been sailing in my life, and was anxious to see how one went about setting sail. I had imagined that we would sail off our anchor like they did in the sailing ships. Then it would be all hands to the braces, the roar of canvas filling to a trade wind, the lean into the swells. But Peter just turned on the engine, we raised the anchor, and we putted slowly out of the harbor. There was no one to see us off.

The channel through the reef was well marked and we soon cleared the shoal water. There was a steady breeze, but no one suggested raising sail. I sat on the coach roof and watched the island of Tongatapu sink behind us. Within a half hour it was only a line of coconut trees rising from the water. An hour later and there was no sign of the land. It seemed strange to think that everyone I knew, the whole world I had come to know in Tonga, could be invisible at ten miles away. Still we motored on. No one seemed interested in either conversation or sailing, so I thought I’d write a letter to Linda.

When I went below, the engine filled the cabin with a banging roar and a smell of hot Diesel oil, making conversation difficult. My bed was the port quarter berth, a low tunnel running aft under the cockpit seats. There were two quarter berths separated by the engine and the well of the cockpit, but the other was jammed full of gear. I held onto a handle above the berth and slid myself in feet first, like loading a torpedo. I had no locker of my own, so as I worked my way into the berth I had to shove my duffel bag down with my feet. Because of the canoe stern I had so admired, the berth narrowed at its after end so I couldn’t stretch my legs out. I lay on my back on a hard vinyl cushion just the width of my shoulders, the bottom of the deck only nine inches above my face. A foot to my left, the engine roared and smoked. The temperature in the cabin was probably a steamy ninety degrees, but it was at least twenty degrees hotter in that berth. We were rolling heavily, and I had to brace my knees against the overhead to keep from sliding off onto the engine. I tried to get out my paper and pen, but I couldn’t get myself turned around to reach my duffel. I crawled out again, turned around and pulled out my bag, got out my paper, pushed the bag back in, and inserted myself again. It was like living in a sewer pipe, I thought, only noisier; no, more like living under the hood of a moving truck. After ten minutes I gave up and crawled out to cool off. I changed into a bathing suit and remained in it for the rest of the voyage.

At four o’clock Peter came below to make “tea,” which turned out to be bangers and mash, a mixture of fried sausages and stewed tomatoes. Different, but tasty. I had been afraid Aussie food would be like British food, overcooked and bland, but Peter was a good cook. He liked spicy food and had picked up a large quantity of tiny very hot red peppers that grow in Tonga. He pickled them in a gallon jar of vinegar and added them to most dishes. They got even hotter as the weeks passed.

During the meal, the crew gathered below around the cabin table. For the most part they ignored me. I desperately wanted to shut off the engine and do some sailing, but didn’t want to seem pushy. I was glad when, toward the end of the meal, Rolf complained about the noise.

“Can’t we shut that damned thing off now?” he shouted.

“I wanted to charge the batteries first,” said Peter. “We’ve got a regular reefer aboard,” he explained to me. “And it’s full of fresh food and meat right now, so we have to run the engine a few hours every day to charge the batteries.”

“Bloody nuisance,” grumbled Norm.

Peter checked the battery indicators. “Well, she’s right now. We’ll shut her down after tea and get some sails on her.”

My heart jumped at his words. All my life I’d been fascinated by ships and the sea. I’d read hundreds of sea stories and had always longed to be under sail in the South Seas. Finally the time had come. I jumped up eagerly, ready to cast off brails or whatever one does to set a sail.

“Not the bloody stays’l, though,” Kathy growled, “I’ll never get to sleep with that bastard banging away right over my head all night.”

I must have looked dismayed at her disparaging remarks about our sails, for Peter leaned over to me.

“It’s club-footed,” he explained. “Rather clumsy over the traveller, don’t you see?”

Whatever a stays’l was, I wasn’t surprised that a club-footed one would be clumsier getting over a traveller, but I refrained from expressing any opinion. I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about, but I admired the casual way they could talk about such mysterious (to me) devices as sails. These people might be bumbling amateurs, but they knew infinitely more about sailing than I did. If I had any hope of getting them to believe I knew what I was doing on a sailboat, I’d have to do little talking and lots of listening.

“All right, let’s get ‘em up,” said Peter when we were all finished. The others groaned as they got to their feet. I shot eagerly to the deck, bursting with excitement and anxiety that I might do something wrong. I hoped I had absorbed enough from all those sailing books I had read on long cold night watches in Nova Scotia.

Peter went to the helm. Rolf and Kathy went forward to set the genoa, while Norm raised the main sail.

“Ease the main sheet, Brian,” said Peter, looking up at the billowing main.

The sheet. The line used to control the angle of the sail, as Bowditch’s Practical Navigator had taught me. I looked up at the main boom and saw where a line ran through many blocks and came down to the deck. That must be the main sheet, I reasoned. I took it off its cleat and let it out a foot or two, then waited for a shout of censure.

“A bit more,” said Peter, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I let the line out again.

“Good. Belay.” I whipped the sheet onto its cleat. Warana heeled to the breeze. The genoa was sheeted home and she leaned considerably farther. Finally Norm set the little mizzen and the heel increased again. I slid across the cockpit and a burst of spray flew in my face. Peter leaned down and shut off the engine.

Blessed silence! The little ketch slid easily through the waves, the only sound the rush of water alongside. The full white belly of the huge genoa sail was like a wing pulling us along. Warana was in her element, plowing a long straight furrow in the sea, pitching gently. We were under sail at last! I felt as high as a kite.

The others rejoined us in the cockpit. I grinned at them like an idiot. I thought they must be feeling the same exhilaration.

“Let’s hope the old tub holds together this time,” said Kathy sourly.

Rolf called me for my watch at one in the morning. I hadn’t really slept. With the strong heel to starboard I couldn’t stay in my berth. Every time I dozed I slid off onto the engine, which was still too hot to touch comfortably. Though the motion was considerably easier under sail, the smells of Diesel fuel, hot metal, and sour bilge made a powerful mix in the narrow cave of my berth. It was a relief to come out on deck. The tropical night was warm enough I was comfortable in only my bathing suit. In Tonga I had never been able to sleep outdoors because of the voracious insects. But at sea there was no need for a mosquito net.

Our course was west-northwest. I checked the compass, then settled back on the hatch cover behind the cockpit. Lying on my back, my feet on the wheel, I could steer just by keeping the mast circling around the same constellation. The sky was perfectly clear and moonless, but far from dark. There are three times as many stars in the southern sky, and the Milky Way gleamed like a lighted path across half the sky, bright enough that I could see my shadow. I lay there thinking of all that lay behind and what might lie ahead, feeling perfectly content. I was finally doing what I had always dreamed of doing when I was growing up far from the sea in rural Ohio. My three hours on watch passed quickly and when I went below I fell asleep deeply and easily.

I woke to the smell of sausage frying. Peter was cooking breakfast in the tiny galley, two feet from my head. I pulled on my bathing suit and hoisted myself out of my berth.

“G’day,” said Peter. “We’re making seven knots and the bilge is still dry.”

“Great,” I mumbled. I went to the head and struggled to sit on the toilet in the tiny room. My knees were pressed against the door and the place stank. Every time the boat went over a sea I was thrown against one wall or the other. I could feel sea sickness coming on. I left as quickly as I could and went on deck for some fresh air. There was plenty of it. A stiff trade wind out of the northeast hurried us along, keeping Kathy busy at the wheel. Large seas swept up from astern like row after row of rolling hills, stretching to the horizon in all directions. Whitecaps creamed everywhere. The sky was evenly dotted with small white cumulus clouds like cotton balls. The sea was a deep royal blue, the sky only slightly lighter. Warana was sailing beautifully.

“Brekky is served,” Peter called from the companion. We ate a very hearty breakfast, then I took the wheel while Kathy had hers. When she returned I tried to strike up a conversation with her, but she didn’t seem inclined to talk to me. I went forward and lay out flat on the heavy polished plank that formed the bowsprit. I slid forward until my head hung over the end and looked down at the bow knifing through the azure water. Every few moments the bow would rise clear of the water and I could see where the bobstay chain shackled to the stem. Then I would be weightless for a second as she plunged deep, throwing spray far off to either side. It was mesmerizing, and gave the impression of great rushing speed. I whiled away several hours like that, lost in thought.

At nine or so Norm came on deck with his sextant. I hurried below and got the new notebook of lined paper I had bought in Nuku’alofa for my calculations. I understood the principle of celestial navigation from my readings and had worked out some practice exercises, but I had never actually taken a sight. I joined Norm in the cockpit for our first sight together, eager to learn how it was done. He braced himself in the companionway, locking his knees against the sides to keep his lower body steady. Swaying to keep his upper body vertical, he sighted aft at the sun now climbing away from the horizon. I watched his every move, waiting my turn, hoping he would give me some hints. Suddenly he noted the time on his watch and read the elevation off the sextant. He closed the sextant before I could see what elevation he had measured, then handed it to me and went below without a word.

Nervously, I examined the sextant. Simple enough in principle: a tube to look through, one half covered by a mirror which could be tilted to bring a second object into view, and a protractor to measure the tilt of the mirror. Since I would be looking at the sun, I swung a deep black color filter into the line of sight. I took the position Norm had used and sighted the tube on the horizon beneath the sun. Then I swung the mirror arm back and forth to bring the sun into view. Dark purple sky swept across the field of view, but no sign of the sun. I tried again and again. Occasionally the sun would flash into sight, but then I had lost the horizon. Eventually I learned it was easier to sight directly at the sun, then rock the sextant down until the horizon appears. After fifteen minutes of trying, I finally got the sun just touching the horizon and locked the mirror arm. I read the elevation off the vernier scale and noted it carefully in my book. Then I realized that I hadn’t recorded the time, without which the calculations can’t be done. So I took another sight and this time started counting seconds as I dashed below and noted the time from the ship’s clock. By this time Norm had finished working out his sight and had gone forward with Kathy.

I got out the various navigation books, the ephemeris and the nautical tables and my sketchy notes and began the many steps involved in reducing a sight to a line of position (LOP). I worked slowly and methodically, determined not to make a mistake. Finally I came up with a distance and direction from our supposed position to our observed LOP. When I plotted it on the chart, however, it indicated we were somewhere in western Canada. I went back over the figures, and an hour later found that I had used the wrong sign in one of the calculations due to our being in the southern hemisphere. When I worked it out again it was much more reasonable, about ten or twelve miles west of our assumed position. I couldn’t see that Norm had plotted his LOP on the chart.

“Hey Norm,” I called. “What was your LOP?”

“You’re the bloody hot shit navigator, Yank,” came his voice from the forward cabin. “You figure it out.”

So this is how it’s going to be, I thought. No help there. I wouldn’t even be able to compare my results to his. Well, to hell with him. I would navigate as if he weren’t there and hope that my results would be good enough when we made a landfall. After all, in a week or so I would be the only navigator.

At lunch time we took our chances with the tinned food. Each of the crew had put aboard a quantity of their favorite foods. Since I had none of my own, it fell to me to have dolma for lunch every day. I opened one of the tins. They were like soft little green turds, packed in oil that had congealed into a whitish-grey slime. I tried one. Rather bland and greasy. Not good on an uneasy stomach, but I had been hungry all day and I ate the whole tin. I would eat many more tins of dolma over the following weeks, but I never grew to like it.

At mid day I took my noon sight, which must be taken precisely as the sun reaches its highest point. I was ready ten minutes ahead of time and measured the sun’s height again and again. Each time it was a bit higher. Finally a sight showed that it had started down again. I noted the time and the elevation and worked out our latitude. Back at the chart, I advanced the morning LOP to the west to account for our assumed progress for the previous three hours, then crossed it with the line of our latitude. Where the two lines crossed was our position. I marked a little cross at the spot, dated it, and erased all the other lines I had drawn. I looked in satisfaction at that little mark in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. It was reasonable; it was on the track from Tonga to Fiji and indicated we had sailed one hundred and twelve miles in a full day of sailing. After dozens of calculations with logarithms and table look-ups, however, I wondered if it really represented our position. There was no way to know until we got somewhere.

We spent the day loafing and doing little chores around the boat. Peter made dinner, then I sat out on the bowsprit and watched the sun go down ahead of us. The wind and seas were so steady that we hadn’t touched the sails all day. I didn’t like being awakened for my watch in the middle of the night, but once on deck by myself in the dark I found the long night watches one of my favorite times. In the daytime the sun was roasting and it was uncomfortably hot down below. I also didn’t feel very comfortable with the others; Norm was openly hostile and Kathy and Rolf didn’t seem to have anything to say to me. But at night I was alone. With the others all asleep below, I could imagine I was sailing my own yacht single-handed. There was little to do but think; Warana sailed herself quite well on a broad reach. I usually sat with my hand on the wheel, but occasionally I would walk around. The phosphorescence in the water turned the wake into a ghostly road that stretched away to the dark horizon. I loved lying on the bowsprit in the dark, watching the bow knifing through the inky black water below me, turning it over like a plow to reveal the glowing depths below. It was a strange sensation to lie there on the varnished plank, being pushed headfirst through the tropical night by a boat with no one at the helm, the only person awake within a thousand miles. I felt in contact with the sea, much more than I ever had two decks up in the wheelhouse of the Fairmorse. Here the water was only a foot or so away, and spray frequently flew across the deck to sprinkle me. I could hear it and smell it and taste its salt on my lips. I felt calm in its presence and immensely content.

We sailed on uneventfully. The sailing could not have been easier. The wind was perfectly steady on our port quarter, changing neither speed nor direction day or night. We had added the club-footed stays’l now, and had stretched high up between the masts a large sail called the gollywobbler for reasons I never understood. With the genoa, main, and mizzen, we now had five sails set and we bowled along at a steady five to six knots. The sea and sky were both a deep blue, and puffy little trade wind clouds dotted the sky. Sunrises and sunsets were riots of red and orange, with golden rays fanning up above the horizon. There were occasional rain squalls in the afternoons, but rarely much wind with them.

The seas were really quite high, perhaps twenty feet, but the wavelength was so long that they posed little danger. They came up behind us, looming ominously over the stern, but then we rose up over them and they passed harmlessly beneath us. Occasionally a large wave broke nearby with a roar like an avalanche. At first I was afraid of these acre-sized whitecaps, but several had broken around us with no bad effect. With the wind on our port quarter we were heeled steeply to starboard, and the bow threw an arc of white foam far off to our right. Often a school of flying fish, startled by our sudden appearance in their midst, would burst from the crest beside us and go skimming off on stiff sky-blue wings. Occasionally dolphins played for an hour or so in our bow wave, then veered off suddenly, bound on some mysterious errand of their own.

I was constantly struck by the immensity of the Pacific. When I had flown from California to Tonga, it was just a blue emptiness below our wings, rolling by hour after hour. It was difficult to imagine just how much ocean we were crossing, even at hundreds of miles an hour. To do it in a yacht, at five or six miles an hour, the distance became more real. From the deck of a small boat the horizon was only two or three miles away. The visible world became a disk of blue water six miles in diameter, which we sail across in an hour. Even in the short passage from Tonga to Fiji we crossed a hundred such seascapes. I could sense the great round ball of the Earth rolling beneath us as we crept slowly westward. And it was all so empty; in a half year of offshore cruising we never saw another vessel of any sort while we were out of sight of land. The only proof we had that there were other humans on the planet was the occasional contrail of a jet slicing silently across the sky like a glass cutter drawn across blue porcelain.

Every day I took my morning and noon sun sights and added another cross to the chart. Norm didn’t bother with navigation at all as far as I could tell, though I noticed him examining my marks on the chart when he thought I wasn’t looking. I wondered what he thought, but I wasn’t about to ask his opinion. I wondered if he were sneaking star sights during his night watches, but if so he didn’t mark them on the chart.

The social atmosphere was tense. There was obviously no love between Peter and the others. There were no open arguments, but frequent snide remarks and disparaging comments on both sides. Other than the minimal talk required to sail the boat, there was little conversation around the table or on deck. Sometimes hours would go by without a word spoken. I tried to stay out of it. From their habitual physical closeness, I believed that Norm and Kathy were lovers, but if they found enough privacy for sex they did it without my knowing about it. They seemed completely involved with each other. They often sat apart from the rest of us and talked in whispers. I was never sure if they just didn’t want us to hear their conversation of if they were actually talking about the rest of us, but it made me mildly uncomfortable. I don’t believe that either one ever volunteered a comment to me. I left them alone as well.

Rolf was occasionally part of their whispered conversations, but mostly he kept to himself. I learned that he was an artist and photographer and had his own art studio in Melbourne. He was obviously very bright and politically involved. I thought he might be interesting to get to know and tried several times to talk with him, but he remained aloof and I soon gave up. When we had group discussions about the voyage, he was fiercely determined to complete the project at any cost. I admire people with convictions, but his idealism struck me as single-minded, almost Quixotic. It was impossible to reason with him. I knew he didn’t approve of me, though I was never sure if it was truly personal, a prejudice against Yanks, or a Germanic dislike of my disorganized, rootless existence.

Peter, on the other hand, was very friendly and talkative. He rarely smiled, and his ruddy face and severe dark beard gave him a grim look, but he had a wry sense of humor and was exceptionally kind to me. We sat in the cockpit and talked for hours. He was a retired paper manufacturer from Melbourne, apparently rather well off, but then anyone who owned a house and a yacht seemed immensely wealthy to me at the time. He often talked lovingly of his wife Jean and their children, of whom he seemed very proud. He also loved Australia and was constantly telling me of sights I should see if I ever got there. During the war he had served in New Guinea and often talked of his desire to go back there some day, preferably in Warana.

In turn I told him a few of my less disreputable adventures in the hippie underground. He was interested and non-judgmental, which I found refreshing in a representative of the older generation. This was in the midst of the Vietnam era, and Americans were so polarized about the war and politics in general that every political discussion always seemed to be either preaching to the liberal choir or a shouting match with the right wing bigots. Peter struck me as neither. As a factory owner, he was certainly a capitalist and had some harsh opinions of labor unions and tax rates. On the other hand, he felt very strongly for the common man and was an ardent environmentalist and pacifist. Altogether I found him very pleasant company. With the attitudes of the rest of the crew ranging from disdain to hostility, I was most thankful for one friendly face aboard.

One thing Peter and I could talk about was cruising. Though I’d never done any, I had spent years reading about it and we told each other about the hair-raising sailing adventures we’d read about. Peter didn’t actually have much cruising experience either. He’d owned Warana with his partner Ian Edwards for many years, but they’d never taken any long cruises. Ian liked to race and rather disdained cruising, and Peter enjoyed day sailing around Melbourne, with occasional runs over to Tasmania and the many islands in the Bass Strait. But this trip was his first really blue water experience, and I believe he found it rather daunting. Like the others on the expedition, I think he’d found that he’d taken on more than he’d expected. It was one thing to stand up at a protest meeting in an idealistic fervor and volunteer your yacht for a good cause; it was quite another to be an inexperienced fifty-year-old retiree in a forty-year-old boat with an equally unprepared crew of strangers, suddenly plunked down in the middle of a very large ocean that didn’t give a damn about your idealism or your money and would be perfectly happy to drown you. He didn’t say it to me, but I think he was frightened by the responsibility. He was by nature a cautious and thoughtful man, and his fear increased those qualities. But in spite of a long string of delays, aggravations, and very real emergencies, he’d done his best and pulled them all safely through. His decisions may have been deliberate, but they had been correct.

The crew, for their part, were just as daunted by the reality of cruising. After all the publicity and personal gratification of being touted as heroes, they found their lives suddenly in the hands of a man who clearly did not fit their idea of a seasoned, decisive captain. The boat was constantly having minor breakdowns, the winds were against them, and there was this alarmingly large leak that they couldn’t find. Peter’s thoughtful style had on several occasions left them in dangerous circumstances which a quick order could have averted. And where Peter’s fear made him more determined to forge ahead and complete the mission, theirs ate away at their resolve. They simply didn’t feel safe with him. And they thought he drank too much.

Peter did drink a great deal; he was rarely without a whiskey glass in his hand. But you couldn’t tell how drunk he was, and that was a subject of frequent speculation among the crew. I never did make up my mind about it. He had a ruddy complexion and a rather prominent red nose, so he somewhat fit the picture of a boozer, but I certainly saw no evidence of it. Some men put away barrels of liquor and are hardly affected. Others get completely blotto, but don’t look particularly drunk. Peter didn’t slur his words or stumble about, but he would often sit by himself, staring grimly out at the horizon for hour after hour, getting up only to fill his glass. I never knew if he was enjoying the scenery or morosely fretting over our problems.

He had to have ice in his scotch, and he insisted on running the engine four hours a day to keep the batteries charged up for the fridge. We all complained when he cranked up the engine after lunch and we would have to listen to the deafening banging for the entire afternoon. The noise, heat, and Diesel fumes made the cabin uninhabitable, and the engine was still too hot to touch when I crawled into my berth at night. On the other hand, we had fresh vegetables and cold beer the entire week.

I had taken sights every day, penciling in my little crosses on a huge chart covering tens of thousands of square miles of mostly empty ocean. The daily noon positions, little more than a hundred miles apart, were nearly touching, a tiny chain straggling irregularly northwestward from Tongatapu. Norm took sights today for the first time in five days, but said nothing about his conclusions. I wondered if he was chuckling to himself about my ineptitude, waiting to ridicule me when my errors were revealed. My noon sight today indicated that we were eighty miles from the first of the Fiji islands. I told Peter we should see land sometime tomorrow.

In the afternoon as I was reading on the coach roof a shadow fell across my book. I looked up at Norm in surprise.

“Come below quietly,” he whispered. I looked around. Peter was at the wheel, a drowsy look on his face and a glass in his hand. There was no sign of the others. I followed Norm down the companion. Kathy and Rolf were at the table. I sat down. Norm looked aft to make sure that Peter hadn’t come to the companion to listen.

“What is this?” I asked.

Kathy leaned forward, her voice low. “Do you think Peter is competent?”

“What? Of course. What do you mean by competent?”

“We’ve been talking,” said Rolf. “We don’t trust him. He’s drunk all the time.”

“He’s drinking all the time,” I admitted. “But I don’t think he’s drunk.”

“He drinks a bottle of whiskey every day,” Norm said. “I’d be unconscious if I drank that much.”

“But he’s been doing it for years. You can’t judge him by how drunk it would make you. He obviously has quite a tolerance built up.”

“This mission is too important,” insisted Rolf. “We can’t have a drunk in charge.”

“I don’t think he’s drunk,” I repeated. “He stands his watches, he does a good job at the helm, and he cooks us all three good meals a day. If that’s a drunk, we could use a few more like him.”

“He can’t make a decision,” said Kathy. “When that squall came up yesterday he didn’t know what to do. If Norm and I hadn’t reduced sail we would have been knocked down.”

“Well, he did wait a little too long,” I admitted.

“‘A little too long?’” Kathy laughed. “He’d still be waiting if we hadn’t made the decision ourselves.”

“He is not committed enough to the mission,” said Rolf vehemently.

“He’s risking his life and his boat to take us to Mururoa,” I said. “That sounds pretty committed to me. How many other yacht owners would do that?”

“But we are no nearer Mururoa than we were three weeks ago,” said Kathy. “And we’re sailing away the wrong direction.”

“We’re going to Suva to haul out. Then we’ll try for Mururoa again. That’s what he says.”

“I don’t think he has any intention of trying again,” said Rolf. “He’s already given up.”

“That’s not what he tells me,” I said. “He’s still talking about when we get there.”

“That’s what he says,” replied Kathy. “But I agree with Rolf. I think he’s lost the desire to go on.”

“He’s a danger to us all,” Norm burst in suddenly. “I think we have to take charge.”

“So what are you proposing?” I asked incredulously. “Dump him over the side?”

“No, of course not,” said Rolf. “But when we get to Suva we should call the expedition’s backers in Australia. Perhaps we can have him replaced by someone more reliable. Someone more dedicated to the cause.”

“How can you replace him? Have you forgotten this is his boat?”

“There are others more competent aboard,” said Norm.

“Like yourself, I suppose?”

“Maybe we can ask him to relinquish command voluntarily,” suggested Kathy. “If we all approach him together he might listen.”

“You want to tell him we all think he’s incompetent?” I argued. “How do you think that would make him feel?”

“We must get to Mururoa at any cost,” Rolf said vehemently. “That is what we must keep in mind. This mission must succeed. The feelings of one individual are secondary.”

“To hell with that,” I said. “I won’t have anything to do with it.”

“We have to do something.”

“I don’t see why. Peter is indecisive, I’ll admit. He’s just about the exact opposite of my last captain, but he was a tyrannical bastard. Peter’s no Captain Cook, but I don’t see any signs of incompetence.”

“You haven’t sailed with him for long,” said Kathy. “You’ll see.”

“He’s still the owner and the captain. I’ll do what he tells me to do.”

“You are only a fucking hippie,” hissed Rolf. “You care nothing for the cause.”

“Look,” I said, angry now. “I don’t pretend to be a big political activist like the rest of you. I wasn’t involved in the planning and organizing of this trip. I just needed a ride out of Tonga; I didn’t care where the boat was going. But now that I’m involved, I think this cause is just. I think it’s a brave and important thing you people are trying to do here. I feel good about working for it. If Peter says we’re going to Mururoa, I’m willing to help. If we sink on the way, if we get busted, if the French drop a bomb on us, so be it. It’ll be for a good cause. But if Peter says he’s sick of it and wants to go home, I say he’s got a right to do that. It’s his neck and his boat. I want no part of your mutiny.” I got up to go.

“What will you tell him?” asked Kathy anxiously.

I considered for a moment. Clearly I could no longer avoid taking sides in this feud. I had openly cast my lot with Peter. On the other hand, they knew him better than I did and I had no doubt their concerns were at least partially valid.

“Nothing,” I said. “I suggest we all forget the whole thing. Let’s go to Suva and see what happens there.”

“You watch him,” said Norm. “You’ll see what we mean.”

In the morning we made landfall. Two faint blue triangles could just be seen standing on the horizon just to port of the forestay. I consulted the chart. According to my calculations, we were thirty miles east of the Lau Group, the easternmost chain of the Fiji archipelago. There was no telling which of the forty of so islands we were seeing, but I was relieved to have made land about when I had predicted. As a matter of fact, I was happy just to see land. I had been plagued with fears of missing the Fijis completely and making a fool of myself. Norm had no comment on my success, but everyone seemed pleased to be approaching our destination.

All afternoon we tried to identify the slowly growing islands, comparing them to the tiny shapes on the chart. We took turns going up the mast with the field glasses. Other peaks began to rise from the sea, and we soon identified Vanua Masi with relative confidence. We bore up slightly for the Lakemba Passage. I took bearings on various islands and soon had crisscrossing lines marking our exact position. With the dividers I measured the distance to my dead reckoning position. About eight miles. My error was only about a mile per day. No one congratulated me or seemed impressed that we had arrived in Fiji, but I felt absurdly pleased. Of course, no one else knew this was the first time I had ever navigated.

We rounded some outlying reefs and entered the Lakemba Passage, a wide-open windy strait some fifteen miles across. Then it was a fast wet run dead downwind. We flew wing and wing, with the main on one side and the genoa on the other. High green islands passed on either hand, with fringing reefs enclosing calm turquoise lagoons and white sand beaches. The outer edge of the reefs was marked by a roaring ridge of surf as high as our mast. The big tradewind seas had been building for five thousand miles, and here they threw their inconceivable energy against the coral, and lost. We could feel the concussion of the waves through the boat, like the thump of cannons in the distance. The wind drove her forward with her stern high, rolling majestically from side to side, and I was reminded of woodcuts of the old galleons breasting these seas for the first time almost five centuries ago. Their sailors were brave men, and they had neither chart nor sextant.

The Lau group had an interesting history. It had been populated thousands of years ago by Melanesian colonists from the west, but it bordered on the powerful Polynesian kingdoms of Samoa and Tonga. It was an easy downwind sail from Tongatapu, and many Tongan canoes had sailed to Lau over the centuries. The chiefs of the various islands of Lau were constantly at war with each other, and many of these warlords hired Tongans as mercenaries. Tongans were much larger physically than Fijians and they were terrifying in war, fearless and merciless. Many Tongan men learned and refined their warcraft in Lau. In Tonga as in Europe in those days, the second sons of lords were considered noblemen but were denied the inheritance of their fathers’ titles. With no prospects of their own and often feeling the jealous suspicion of their royal brothers, many of these young noblemen would band together and go free-lancing in Lau, raiding and pillaging like southern vikings. Occasionally they would seize land on their own initiative and bring their followers to establish a colony in Lau. Some of these colonies achieved considerable power. In the 1860’s the king of Tonga sent his ambassador, Ma’afu’otuitonga, to bring the colonies under control. With the combination of force, bribery, and Wesleyan evangelism, Ma’afu’otuitonga seized control of Lau for himself and nearly ruled all of Fiji until the British made Fiji their protectorate. To this day the Tongan influence is deep and clearly evident in Lau. Most people in Lau have a clearly Polynesian look and life style, and their houses are oval, as they are in Tonga.

Finally we passed the reefs of Vanua Vatu and emerged into the Koro Sea. We bore up for distant Viti Levu, the main island of Fiji, now looming up as a jagged purple shadow against the sky ahead. It seemed no more than a few hours away, but we sailed fast all day and it just continued to grow larger. Far off to the right was the long irregular skyline of Fiji’s other main island of Vanua Levu. Other islands dotted the horizon on all sides. Small dark rain squalls drifted here and there, rain slanting down black beneath them. When evening fell we reduced sail to avoid running into the extensive reefs reaching out toward us from the island of Gau in the dark.

By dawn Viti Levu had changed from purple to a rich vibrant green. It was a huge roughly circular island some eighty miles across, rising so high into the trade winds that its summit was hidden in clouds. We rounded the southern end of Gau reef and bore up for a fast beam reach into Suva, in a deep bay on the southeast corner of Viti Levu. We had no detailed chart of Fiji aboard, but the small-scale chart of the western Pacific showed fringing reefs around the harbor entrance. My nervousness increased as we approached the edge of the reef. Then we were sailing right beside it, a vertical wall of coral with roaring surf crashing on it, so loud it was difficult to make ourselves heard. There were some metal poles set in the edge of the reef, so we could see it curving in toward the land ahead. A large island to port was Beqa (pronounced Mbeng-ga), guarding the entrance to Suva Harbor. Still there was little sign of a large city on the shore. We followed the daymarks to the west until finally the harbor opened up beyond. There was Suva, with its white buildings and steep green hills a strong contrast to anything I had seen in many months.

“I see the entrance!” called Rolf from the bow. “There’s a boat coming out.”

We could make out the white hull of a yacht ahead, apparently under power, for she had no sails set. As we got closer we saw that she was not moving and was listing oddly. Finally we realized it was a wreck, high on the reef about a hundred yards short of the entrance. Then we were at the entrance. We rounded up and drove close-hauled into the passage. Surf broke on either side, but the passage was clear and wide enough for large ocean-going ships. We looked solemnly at the wreck as we passed, wondering what it had been like for that crew. Close up, the little yacht was a mess, green with weed and stripped of all her usable fittings. Her portholes and winches had been ripped out with a chainsaw. Her mast leaned drunkenly, trailing lines in the waves that hissed in and out through a gaping hole in her side. It was a sad sight: that pretty little boat, once someone’s proud dream, lay broken on the reef, out of her element, her bottom exposed. It seemed indecent to see her like that. A good boat deserves to be buried at sea, not left on a reef like the rotting carcass of a beached whale. She served as a reminder to us of what comes of careless navigation.

Then the passage opened into the expanse of Suva Harbor. Green-clad hills tumbled down to a sparkling blue harbor dotted with hundreds of boats. The taller buildings clustered along the waterfront. The upper part of the bay was fringed with mangrove swamps, with ramshackle houses peeping from among the drooping branches. A number of ships were tied to wharves near the center of the city; several rusty tramp freighters and longliners, and one gleaming white cruise ship. Peter started the engine and we dropped the sails.

“According to the coast pilot,” said Norm, sticking his head up the scuttle, “the harbormaster’s office should be at the left end of the commercial docks.”

“That’s probably it,” I said, pointing at a square white tower that stood on the corner of the dock. It had an open staircase winding around it and windows around the top floor like an airport control tower. Peter steered toward it. The rest of us dashed about furling sails, coiling away lines, and getting out dock lines and fenders. I hauled two big fenders out of the lazarette and carried them forward to the coach roof.

“Which side do you want the fenders on?” I called back to Peter at the wheel. He said nothing, gazing forward at the now rapidly approaching wharf. We were approaching nearly at a right angle to the concrete wharf with its massive pilings.

“Peter!” I called again. “Which side are you going to put to the wharf?”

Still there was no sign from Peter. By now all the crew had finished with the stowing and we each stood ready with a fender.

“Which side, Peter?” called Rolf. We were only a few boat lengths from the wall now. Peter’s face had an odd stricken look. At first I thought he couldn’t hear us over the noise of the engine, but now watching his face I realized that something was wrong. He stared at the wall now looming high above us as if it were an onrushing train.

“Port! Turn to port!” Norm bellowed, and immediately Peter spun the wheel. Warana slewed around in her own length. We all leaped to the starboard rail and thrust the fenders over the lifelines just as she brought up against the big barnacle-encrusted pilings. Peter cut the engine as I scrambled ashore with the bow line. The tide was low, and I had to run along to an old rusty ladder to gain the top of the wharf. I secured to a bollard and took the stern line that Kathy tossed up to me.

I looked around at the city and felt a rush of exhilaration. The smell of wet mud, Diesel exhaust, and rancid copra drifted on the thick and humid air. We had done it. We had made an open ocean passage of over five hundred miles and arrived where we had planned, all without the least mishap. I was ready to go exploring. Norm climbed up beside me to secure the spring lines.

“Christ!” he muttered as we hauled and tightened. “Did you see that? He couldn’t make up his fucking mind.”

“There had to be something else,” I whispered.

“Did you see anything else? No, he just couldn’t decide.”

We returned to the boat to help finish stowing away. Peter went below to get dressed to go ashore.

“Am I crazy,” Kathy asked in a low voice, “or did we almost run straight into the wharf?”

“He’s drunk,” said Norm. “He’s too damned pissed to make a decision.”

Peter didn’t seem drunk to me, but I had no other explanation for his strange behavior. For all the accusations of his crew, this was the only time I saw any possible impairment of Peter’s abilities. We were nearly silent as we secured the boat, each thinking our own thoughts. Peter emerged on deck in his going-ashore togs: a white shirt, khaki shorts, and knee socks. I went with him to clear customs.

We walked down the wharf to the tower. A sign directed us up the stairs. As we went up, I was suddenly struck by vertigo. The stairs seemed to be leaning precariously out over the bay, rocking back and forth. My stomach lurched. At first I thought it was an earthquake and looked around in alarm at the city and the calm harbor, but there was no sign of alarm. Peter trudged up the steps ahead of me. Finally I realized that I hadn’t gotten my land legs back; I was still rocking with the motion of the boat. After a week at sea with no seasickness, I was on the verge of losing my lunch on shore. I clenched my teeth and continued up the stairs, round and round, until I could barely walk. We entered the harbormaster’s office and I sank weakly into a chair while Peter talked to the officials. I had recovered by the time the harbormaster was ready for us.

“Warana, eh?” said the harbormaster. “I think we have some mail for you,” and he handed Peter a packet of letters. There were some for everyone but me, because of course no one knew where I was. Even when I had left Tonga, there was still confusion about whether we were going to Fiji or Samoa. In fact, Linda had sent me an aerogramme to Pago Pago in American Samoa, which reached me months later after passing through many hands. But at the time, I envied the others their letters and news from home. Being at sea had given us the sense of being alone, cut off from the rest of the world. Now, here in this strange port, it was almost as if their loved ones had been there to greet them. I resolved to make an effort to communicate regularly, both to Linda and to my mother, who had recently become separated from my father and was going through a particularly trying time.

As it was a weekend, we couldn’t clear customs and immigration until Monday. We moved up the harbor to the Suva Yacht Club to anchor. There were dozens of cruising boats anchored off the club, from every corner of the world: Germans, Swedes, Brits, Americans, Aussies, French, Kiwis, and half a dozen flags I didn’t even recognize. They were moored so closely together that Peter decided to anchor on the outside of the pack where we’d have more room to swing at our anchor. We anchored successfully and launched the dinghy. All five of us squeezed into it and we rowed ashore to the club dock. There was a huge raft of dinghies tied up there and it took us some time to find enough room to land. We walked up to the yacht club and Peter checked us in while the rest of us headed straight to the bar.

The yacht club had a genteel, British feel to it, with pictures of past commodores lining the walls and the bar plastered with burgees from hundreds of cruising yacht clubs around the world. The crowd passing through the yacht club was mixed and fascinating. It was a great center for cruisers and a wonderful place to learn all you ever wanted to know about Indonesian pirates, how to fish a broken aluminum mast at sea, the best islands to visit in the Tuamotus, or a cure for salt water boils. When Peter returned he said we had permission to remain in the marina and to use the club’s facilities, but he had been warned against rowdy behavior. Apparently they had had some trouble in the past with drunken crew and wild parties. We all went to take much-needed fresh water showers, then split up to explore Suva.

I walked along the waterfront, checking out the exotic street scene. The Fijians, proud, independent, and warlike, had made unsatisfactory plantation laborers. The British, after establishing control of the group, had imported thousands of peasants from India to work on the sugar plantations. Now slightly more than half the population of Fiji is Indian. With British protection and guidance, the Fijians had risen in less than fifty years from cannibals to a modern nation. Not long before, they had succeeded in convincing the British to return their sovereignty to them. Fiji was now an independent member of the British Commonwealth. As they have in so many lands, the Indians had become successful merchants and importers. Most of the capital and nearly all businesses were run by Indians, but the ethnic Fijians, although now outnumbered in their own country by Indians and whites, had retained political power and had declared that Indians could not own land. Although this law was declared unjust and draconian by the Indians, it had established a balance between the two ethnic groups, with the Indians controlling the economy and the Fijians the legislature and land, with whites still serving in many positions in government. The Fijians and Indians kept to their own cultures and interracial friendships and marriages were still rare. The truce was uneasy, especially among the Indians who hungered for more political power, but so far the situation seemed to be stable.

I spent the day strolling through the streets, admiring the statuesque Fijian women in jeans and miniskirts and the tiny delicate Indian girls in their silk saris. After living in Tonga for so long, the volume of traffic seemed frenetic and intimidating. The waterfront seemed to consist largely of sari and trinket shops interspersed with hundreds of dark bars. Suva was a major port for commercial shipping, and the street crowds were full of Malay, Korean, and Arab seamen. One could hear a dozen languages while walking down one block. Jungle-clad mountains rose up immediately behind the city to disappear into cloud-shrouded peaks. The humid tropical air was thick with incense and unfamiliar perfumes and spices, overlain by the ubiquitous smell of copra. It struck me as very exotic and romantic, and very different from the sunny flat coconut islands of Tonga.

Although the foods, clothing, and general lifestyle of Fiji were superficially similar to those I was familiar with in Polynesia, the language and culture were quite different. There was little similarity in words. The slightly narcotic drink that accompanied every social gathering in both countries, for example, was called kava in Tonga and yogona in Fiji. My knowledge of Tongan was little help here, but I felt comfortable with the friendly Fijians, whose pursuits and interests were very close to those of my Tongan friends. I was especially interested in the Fijian language. Every vocal stop, for instance, is always preceded by a nasal: there is an ‘m’ before every ‘b’, an ‘n’ before every ‘d’, and an ‘ng’ before every ‘g’. European linguists have chosen two completely different orthographies for spelling Fijian. In one, the ubiquitous nasals are omitted and assumed. In another they are always written, but the common ‘ngg’ consonant is written with a ‘q’ and the voiceless ‘th’ is written with a ‘c’. This results in great confusion; for example, the island off Suva is written on some charts as ‘Beqa’ and on others as ‘Mbengga’. Once I had learned these rules, I enjoyed trying to pronounce the Fijian names.

I puttered on the boat and wrote postcards to Linda and Mom. Peter was on the phone all day, trying to arrange for a shipyard to haul us out so we could work on the bottom. Norm and Kathy were away from the boat most of the time on their own business. Rolf got into contact with the local anti-nuclear group, a grassroots organization called ATOM, for Against Testing on Mururoa. They had been struggling along with little support or success, and were thrilled that the expedition had come to Fiji.

Late in the afternoon Norm came aboard and announced that he was flying home immediately. No one even tried to talk him out of it. Rolf seemed the most upset, I suppose because he thought it meant the expedition was falling apart. I had assumed that Kathy would go with Norm, but to my surprise she stayed on. Norm packed his gear and we rowed him ashore. That night I realized that my bluff had been called. I was the only navigator on board. Wherever we went next, it would be up to me to get us there.

This morning we hoisted anchor and moved Warana around to a marine railway to have her hauled out. It was a long complicated process, involving a great deal of shouting and pulling on ropes. A dozen yard workers swam about the hull, hammering together great baulks of wood to support her in a cradle when she came out of the water. Then an ancient-looking engine towed us slowly up the wide sloping railroad tracks. Warana emerged dripping from the sea, revealing a thick skirt of weed. The workers shoved the cradle onto a siding and chocked it securely. A long rickety ladder was laid against her side and we climbed down. She looked huge up on blocks in the yard. Then we got busy cleaning the bottom, a nasty, messy job involving scraping above our heads while slimy dying sea creatures dripped onto our faces.

For the next week we worked on the boat during the day and lived in her at night in the yard. It was a hassle hauling groceries and supplies up the long bouncing ladder, but it was easier than the long row in the dinghy. Throughout this period Peter was in frequent communication with the expedition’s backers in Australia, trying to get them to fund the repairs and the rest of the voyage. They were very reluctant, I suspect due to reports coming back from the others about dissension and incompetence. Peter was getting very frustrated and seemed ready to “give it a miss”, as he called it. Kathy and Rolf were still determined to continue, but the end of the testing season was getting very close. If we didn’t get away in a few days, there was little hope of reaching Mururoa in time. I worked hard to get the boat ready, but took little part in the many arguments, not really caring which way we went after Fiji. Everyone was irritable and snappy.

There was a rusty old tramp trawler on the next way, and I struck up a friendship with one of her crew. He was an interesting fellow, a native of Ocean Island, a tiny speck of land near Midway. One evening we went out on the town and he took me to a waterfront bar called The Golden Dragon. It was a big place, occupying an entire three story building, with a separate bar and live band on each floor. The drinks were cheap and the cover charge so minimal even I could afford it. The main floor was loud and noisy and so crowded I could barely move. A good many of the patrons were merchant seamen from every country in the world, and the place was thick with prostitutes of every race and color, sleek and mysterious and exotic. Many were strikingly beautiful, especially the girls of mixed Fijian and oriental blood. A gang of sailors from a Korean longliner had just arrived. I learned that longliners often stay out eight or twelve months, delivering their catch to a factory freezing ship. These men hadn’t been ashore in nearly a year, and within twenty minutes they were gone again, each with a girl or two on his arm. There were occasionally drunken disturbances, but the bouncers were large and quick to act, so fights rarely developed. The second floor bar was less rowdy and usually had a pretty good rock band. I danced there, wedged so tightly among strangers that I imagined I could pick both feet up and just keep on dancing. The third floor was quieter and less crowded. It was sometimes possible to even sit down there and to talk without bellowing in someone’s ear. I met some people there who told me about an even wilder bar called La Tropicale, and I resolved to give it a try another night.

Today a reporter from the Fiji Times came down to write a story about us. Rolf did all the talking. He said we were leaving for Mururoa early next week. I wondered if there was much chance of that being true. The expedition’s backers were still unwilling to send us any more money, and the chances of ever getting to Mururoa were not looking good. Morale was very low and the crew was barely speaking to one another. The reporter took some pictures of us, got our names (wrong), and left. The people from ATOM came by with some donated food and supplies, which we accepted gratefully.

We’d left our dinghy tied to a piling, but when we got up this morning it was gone. It had been a windy, choppy night, so there was some chance it had just come adrift, but we thought it most likely had been stolen. Peter was particularly disgusted because we’d have to have a dinghy as soon as we came off the ways and the last thing we needed was another major expense.

We gave all the through-hulls a careful inspection and cleaned and repacked the stern gland.

The riggers came aboard today to overhaul the rigging and set up the shrouds and stays. I walked into town around noon to go to a chandlery for some hardware. As I crossed a bridge over one of the many channels that cut into the city, I chanced to glance out at the harbor. Way out in the middle of the bay, two guys were motoring along in an outboard, towing something a bright canary yellow. I was sure it was our missing dinghy. I was determined not to let them get away, but there was no way I could summon help without losing sight of the boat. Already they had disappeared behind some warehouses. I sprinted off down the road, peering down between each building to see if I could spot them again. A few blocks along I came to another bridge and could see more of the bay. There they were, still motoring slowly along, making no attempt to hide. Of course, I couldn’t see how they could hope to be inconspicuous with that particular dinghy.

They disappeared behind some more buildings and I raced to the next bridge. I thought for a moment that I had lost them, but then they came putting by, much closer this time, but still too far to make out their faces or to positively identify the dinghy. I was reaching the outskirts of the city now, where the jungle pressed down close to the shore. Then the road ended at a final bridge to a run-down industrial area bordered by odoriferous mud flats. I stopped and tried to catch my breath, wondering what to do now. My quarry continued on, heading toward the mangrove swamps at the head of the bay. If they got up there, the dinghy was lost. I looked around helplessly, then I noticed a dugout pulled up on the mud beneath the bridge. I glanced around, but didn’t see anybody nearby. I climbed over the railing and dropped down onto the mud, sinking in above my ankles. I waded to the canoe. It contained only some trash and a bailer made out of a bleach bottle, but the canoe was tied to an oar stuck into the mud. With silent apologies to the owner, I climbed in, pulled out the oar, and shoved the canoe out into the water.

The light breeze pushed me out away from the stinking mudflats as I tried to teach myself how to scull. Eventually I got the hang of it and set off in pursuit. A half mile ahead, the boat and dinghy motored around a bend and I sculled desperately after them. The honking of horns and roar of buses faded away into jungle silence. The bay soon narrowed to a broad river, hemmed in by thick forests of deep green mangroves, their snake-like roots twining down into the water. When I reached the bend where I had last seen them, the boat and dinghy had disappeared. The river lay empty for a mile or so ahead, further than they could have gotten. Then I noticed a wake still spreading from an opening in the mangroves on the right. There were dozens of such openings, and I kept my eyes on the right one so I would remember it. I had been sculling for nearly an hour and my shoulders were aching.

When I came up to the entrance I stopped to rest and take a look around. High on the steep hills on either side a few rusty metal roofs poked above the trees, but otherwise it could have been a scene from a primeval earth. I turned my prow into the channel. The mangroves arched overhead, turning it into a shadowy green tunnel. The water was shallow and muddy, and I found it easier to pole the boat with the single oar like a gondolier. The channel twisted and divided, but each time the main path seemed obvious. I glanced into one of the side passages and saw a tiny dock. It was deserted, but I realized that there could be many houses hidden in the swamps, places where even a bright yellow dinghy could disappear forever, or at least until it was repainted. I poled along slowly, stooping to peer into every opening. Then I turned a corner and came out into a clearing. A circle of mangroves about fifty yards across had been cut to make a small lagoon. A ramshackle house of weathered wood and rusty corrugated iron stood on the muddy bank with a rotting dock stretching out from it. Beside the dock were the motor boat and the dinghy. Four men stood looking at it and talking, several others were with a group of women by the house, watching a half dozen children run about on the mud. They hadn’t noticed me yet, so I pushed back out of sight.

With the exertion of the chase over, I found myself considering the situation more coolly. I was in a vulnerable position. I didn’t know anything about these people. Why did they live out here in the swamp? It could be smuggler’s den or a gang’s hideout. No one knew where I was; the crew of Warana didn’t even know that I’d gone after the dinghy. No one would ever think to look for me way out here. If I disappeared they might just decide that I’d jumped to another yacht and wouldn’t even bother to notify the authorities. They certainly wouldn’t know how to notify my parents. I’d be just another American who disappeared in the South Pacific, like David Rockefeller. Didn’t they think he’d been eaten in New Guinea? Come to think of it, weren’t the Fijis once called the Cannibal Islands?

I decided it might be best to go get some help before confronting the thieves. But I’d never be able to find this place again from the water. I needed to know where I was. So I backtracked to the last side tunnel and tried it. It ended at a muddy beach with a foot path going steeply up the bank. I shoved the canoe up into the branches of a mangrove and started up the path. It was muddy and slippery and I fell more than once, catching myself by the trees. I emerged on a dirt road, turned left, and soon came to a narrow vehicle track going downhill, I assumed toward the house with the boat. But I still didn’t know where I was or how to get back here again. I was standing there trying to decide what to do when a big middle-aged Fijian man came along the road. He looked at me suspiciously, but I decided to tell him the truth.

“Mbula,” I said. He nodded.

“Mbula. Are you lost?”

Thank goodness he spoke English. “Not exactly,” I said, “but I came in by canoe and I don’t know where I am. Do you know who lives down there?”

“I know them,” he nodded. “Why are you interested in them?”

“I believe they have a boat of mine. I followed them here.”

“This boat, it is at the house now?”

“Yes. I just saw it.”

“Could you identify this boat?”

“Of course. It’s bright yellow fiberglass, with two seats and oarlocks, and two grey wooden oars with rubber around them.”

He looked at me for a moment. “All right then. Let’s go see them.”

We walked down the road and soon came to the back of the house I’d seen. I glanced at the dock and my heart fell. The power boat was there but the dinghy was gone.

“It was right there at the dock,” I exclaimed, “not ten minutes ago.”

Five or six men came out to meet us as we approached the house. The children gathered on the porch to watch.

“Mbula!” called my companion. The men eyed us curiously. A rapid conversation in Fijian ensued. He pointed at me and they turned to me in surprise. Clearly they had no idea I had been following them. One of the men replied, accompanied with much gesturing and pointing back toward the bay. Finally my translator turned to me.

“He admits they have the boat. He says they found it adrift in the reeds at the far end of the bay.”

“We left it tied to a piling in the boatyard,” I explained. “I suppose it could have come adrift. I’m from a yacht visiting Fiji. It’s our dinghy, our only way of getting ashore.”

The men said something more.

“He says they put it in their boat shed.”

“Can we see it?” I asked. They shrugged and led me across the muddy yard to a large shed near the dock. Two beat-up skiffs were upside down on saw horses. An outboard motor hung in a barrel of water. Nets and floats and coils of line were scattered about. And there was our dinghy, leaning against a wall. We set it on the floor.

“What about the oars?” I asked. “What did they do with the oars?”

More talk. “They say there were no oars in it.”

“There used to be.”

“Perhaps if the boat broke its rope and drifted across the bay the oars fell out.”

“But look at the rope,” I said. “It’s not broken.”

“Could the knot have come untied?”

“It’s not likely. But I suppose it is possible that someone from another boat came home late at night and their dinghy was out at their boat and they borrowed ours. It happens quite a bit. I’ve done it myself, but I always take the borrowed boat back. If someone was very tired or very drunk, they might have decided to just cast it adrift when they were done with it. I suppose they could have kept the oars, too.”

“Yes, that is what must have happened.” He seemed eager to resolve the issue without confrontation. I still thought that they had stolen the dinghy, but there was nothing to be gained by accusing them.

We all carried the dinghy down to the shore and set it down in the shallow water. Then we all stood looking it, each of us wondering how I was going to get it home. There were no oars. I couldn’t even offer to buy any; I was broke, as usual. Then a guy walked down from the house carrying a wicked-looking bush knife. With two quick chops, he cut a twelve-foot pole and handed it to me. I thanked him and my translator, nodded to the rest, and slowly, clumsily, poled out of the little estuary. I went up the other branch and took in tow the canoe I’d stolen. It took me three hours of awkward work in a crosswind to get them back to town. I tied the canoe to its oar as I’d found it. I was thoroughly sick of poling that awkward big dinghy about, but I wasn’t about to leave it in downtown Suva either, so I set out on the long upwind push back to Warana. Peter seemed very grateful to get the dink back, but I was too winded to tell the tale in full at the time, and I think no one ever really believed me later.

After days of cleaning and scraping and caulking — all rather unpleasant jobs — we finally painted the bottom. I usually enjoy painting, but bottom paint is nasty stuff. It doesn’t go on smoothly; it’s thick and gooey to make a good coating. And to discourage fouling, it’s mixed with some very toxic stuff, primarily copper and lead and various weedkillers. One sniff and you don’t need a scientific study to know it’s bad for you. You glop it on as thick and as fast as you can, let it dry, and do it all over again. It’s a long tiring day of squatting in cramped places, painting up over your head.

We worked on the topsides today, scraping off the big ugly orange letters and painting her a new gleaming white. When it was all dry, we carefully painted on the boot-topping, the black line along the waterline. The brightwork was all sanded and varnished and the brass shined. After nearly a week of long hard days, Warana looked like a new boat. My spirits rose. Even Peter almost smiled once or twice.

We met a nice couple on another cruiser, Fred and Elsa, who showed us a great deal of kindness and gave us practical advice. We had became minor celebrities and were invited to several parties and receptions. Many people expressed their admiration for our dedication and courage, and I even began to feel a bit like a hero for my part in the expedition.

The yard workers launched us this morning. It was a much simpler operation this time. The chocks were pulled from behind the cradle wheels, and we simply rolled back into the water. We cast off and drifted back off the cradle, then motored back to the yacht club anchorage. Warana was in the water again and looked great. I had confidence in her now. If we really were going on to Mururoa, I was reasonably sure she would make it. She was ready, but were we? There was still no sign of any further funding. Without a considerable financial infusion from Australia, we couldn’t go on. I didn’t even know what direction we’d be going: east to Samoa and Mururoa, or give up and head for Australia.

We had thought we’d be in and out of Suva in a week or two, but the days dragged by and we seemed no closer to going anywhere. The tension on the boat was tediously thick. Conversation, when it even occurred, was strained. Every mundane request for a tool seemed to be followed by an unspoken, “You jerk.” Every day everyone would go ashore and split up. Peter was on the phone to Australia, Rolf would go off public relating, and Kathy would just go off. I became depressed at the petty bickering, the lack of cooperation from the others, and the slow progress. Now that the refitting was over, I started spending as little time as possible on the boat. Most of my time was spent in the yacht club bar, downing Fiji Bitter on draft and talking to people from the parade of cruising boats constantly passing through Suva.

There were a lot of hippies out in the islands, looking for adventure and cheap travel. Sometimes they were yacht owners themselves, of the more scruffy, down-at-heel boats; but more often they served as hired crew, usually paid only in food. Some skippers expected the crew to pay for their own food and expenses, others actually charged a fee for the privilege of working a passage. Such arrangements elicited little loyalty among the crews, and in the evenings they would gather and swap stories of their boats and fellow crew and destinations. Someone would hear of a boat going someplace they wanted to go and would arrange a trade for the berth. Others would just be desperate to get away from a particular skipper or shipmate. It was not uncommon for a boat to leave Suva with an entirely different crew than the one that brought her in. I had good reason to think Warana might be one such, and I kept up with the gossip. I learned that it is very difficult to just walk up and get a berth on a cruising boat as I had. People knew that their lives would literally depend on each member of the crew, and they wanted experience. Once you had experience, however, it was ridiculously easy to hitch-hike your way anywhere in the world, changing boats whenever you wanted. Now that I had one passage under my belt, I felt like an old hand and swapped stories with the old salts.

I heard tales of the beauty of Moorea and Bora Bora in French Polynesia, of the Cooks and Aitutaki and Rarotonga. People told of the dreaded Tuamotus, still referred to as the Dangerous Archipelago, twined in mazes of uncharted reefs and shoals. Others spoke in reverent tones of the Marquesas, where Melville had described the thronging villages high in the precipitous valleys, separated from their neighbors by knife-edged ridges. Each lush valley had supported tens of thousands of farmers and seamen and explorers. Now the valleys were deserted, their people exterminated by European diseases, their high lonely paths and stone house platforms teeming with ghosts. Many eastbound boats told hair-raising tales of the New Hebrides, the next group to the west. Wild and rarely visited, they were famous for their savage tribal wars and bloodthirsty rites. Though largely peaceful now, the older natives well remembered the cannibal days, many wistfully. The Big Mambas in the northern islands were still much feared. They were also noted for their sport of land diving, in which men tie jungle vines around their ankles, then dive head first from spindly eighty-foot bamboo towers built for the purpose, the intent being to have one’s forehead just brush the ground before rebounding. I was eager to see these places.

Warana’s crew and the leaders of ATOM were invited to speak at the highly-respected Adi Cakobau (pronounced Andy Thankombau) School for Girls. The whole crew got dressed up and a bus was sent to pick us up. We drove for miles up into the steep hills behind Suva, winding around steep hairpin turns with airy drops below. We finally arrived at sunset at a lovely campus with big brick buildings and wide grassy lawns under huge ironwood trees, the whole decorated with hundreds of nubile teen-age girls in uniform. We were welcomed as heros and shown proudly around the school by very well-behaved and well-spoken young women. Then we all went in to dinner in the Great Hall. This was a long high-vaulted stone dining hall, lined with long tables filled with white, Indian, and Fijian girls. The crew of the Warana and the officials from ATOM were seated at a table on a raised platform at the head of the hall. We were introduced by the headmaster in glowing phrases that implied that we were going to save them all from irradiation. The girls applauded enthusiastically while we acknowledged their acclaim with modest nods and waves, as befitted heroes. Then we were served dinner, my first exposure to Indian food. I thought it fiery and delicious, though I’m sure it was probably watered down institutional food. After dinner, we were all asked to make speeches. Rolf stood up and made a long impassioned speech about solidarity and perseverance. Kathy and Peter spoke briefly, mostly thanking our hosts for their hospitality. When it was my turn I improvised a speech about the rising power of women in the world as a force for good. I looked down at all those eager, idealistic faces, and told them that they had the power to rule the man’s world into which they had been born. I don’t suppose it had much to do with our anti-nuclear cause, but I felt that a blast of feminism might do more good at this bastion of British tradition. Some of the school faculty (all white males) looked decidedly uncomfortable, so I hope that it worked. We answered some questions, most in the nature of “won’t you be frightened when the French drop a bomb on you?” then we were surrounded by crowds of admiring young ladies, eagerly pressing autograph books into our hands. I don’t know if it was my long ponytail, my quaint American accent, or my feminist speech, but the biggest crowd was around me, clearly annoying Rolf, who considered me little more than a hitchhiker on the expedition. Then we were driven back down the mountain, a trip no less harrowing in the dark.

Today I was lounging on the waterfront and struck up a conversation with some Fijian men unloading a little inter-island trading schooner. They invited me aboard and soon I was giving them a hand unloading sixty pound sacks of copra. When we finished we went to a little native bar on the outskirts of town and fell in with some of their friends. We were all drunk and full of loud camaraderie and drank one another’s health until we had little health left. When the party broke up at last, two of the men, policemen by day, suggested I come back to their house with them to drink yogona (yong-gona) with them. This was the same stuff as Tongan kava, made from the roots of a pepper plant. I had tried it a few times in Tonga and didn’t think much of the thin muddy taste or the barely noticeable buzz it gave after many cups. On the other hand, it has long been an immensely important social custom throughout both Polynesia and Melanesia. Until the recent introduction of coffee and tea, it was the universal social lubricant and a requirement at every social, political, or religious gathering. The rituals of its preparation, service, and consumption were as carefully specified as any Oriental tea ceremony. I felt flattered to be invited and was reluctant to refuse, especially as both my hosts were very large and very drunk. Also, I was curious about how the Fijian yogona ceremony differed from the Tongan kava ceremony. So again on the principle that it was the adventurous thing to do, I accepted and followed my new-met friends out of the bar and back up into the hills above the harbor.

Soon we left the lighted city streets and entered dark back streets that climbed ever higher. For a while I could see the yacht harbor directly below us. Then we turned off on a dirt path into the bush and walked perhaps twenty minutes in nearly total darkness, up a steep slippery slope. I followed the faint glimmerings of one man’s white shirt and tried not to wonder how I was going to get back. Finally we came into a clearing and I could make out two or three small huts of corrugated iron. The man in front of me walked up to one and banged loudly on its side. Several sleepy groans came from within. He bellowed some rapid orders in Fijian, then the three of us sat down on the porch to drink yet another beer while two young teenage girls crawled out of their hut and chewed big chunks of kava root and spat the pieces into a metal tub. Water was poured in from a rusty coffee can, then the mess was strained and squeezed through some shredded coconut husk. My host dipped a half shell into the milky-looking water and offered it to me. My enthusiasm for the ceremony had waned somewhat, but I could hardly refuse now. I followed the Tongan custom of downing all but the last drop in one gulp, then tossing the remainder over my shoulder. They gave one loud clap in unison as I drank, then cheered me on. The rest of the family went back to bed and we commenced a serious faikava, or kava party.

We drank gallons of kava over the next two or three hours, but I never felt much of a high from it. In fact, all that water seemed to be diluting the large amount of beer I’d had earlier. My hosts, however, got more and more sloshed, until they had either forgotten their English or had forgotten I didn’t speak Fijian. In any case, the jokes were now all in Fijian, but it was easy to know when to laugh. Just as in Tonga, every joke ended in a real punch line — either a jab in the shoulder or a slap on the back hard enough to rattle my teeth. By the third time I’d been knocked off the porch by a particularly hilarious anecdote (I judged it must have been hilarious by the force of the blow), I decided it was time to head for home. Unfortunately, my newfound friends were far too blitzed to either guide me or give me directions, so I said good night by punching each as hard as I could in the arm. I had thought I was taking some revenge for the pummeling I’d received, but they barely noticed it, roaring out good-natured farewells. I stumbled off into the dark.

The first part was easy enough; the jungle on each side of the trail was too thick to penetrate, and I just felt my way along. But then the bush began to open up more. Several paths crossed and nothing looked familiar. I tried the one that seemed to be going in the right direction, but after ten minutes or so it began to curve around up the steep slope, and I knew I had lost the trail. I stopped in a clearing and looked around. It was a moonless night, but the stars were bright enough to see by. I could see a few lights here and there on the mountainside, and far below stretched the lights of Suva, wrapped around the blackness of the harbor. Almost directly below me were the bobbing anchor lights of the anchor-outs at the yacht club. One of them must be Warana. I decided the surest way back was to head straight down and steer for those lights. So I turned off the trail and began sliding down the steep hillside, slowing myself by catching hold of trees. I made rapid progress, interrupted by a few tumbles when I tripped over roots or lianas. It was exhilarating, plunging down through the tropical darkness like that, without a clue where I was. I wasn’t particularly frightened, because I then held to the belief that drunks never got seriously hurt. I kept getting glimpses of the lights of the anchorage directly below, now much closer. In another few minutes I’d be home. Then I came to the edge of a cliff.

I clutched at branches and managed to stop myself from plunging over. When my heart had slowed down, I hung over and examined the cliff. It wasn’t a very big drop, perhaps twenty feet, but it was the road cut for the harbor road and it stretched out of sight in both directions. Just across the road was the old familiar yacht club bar. I was less than five minutes from the boat. Twenty feet doesn’t look high from the ground, but it’s considerably more looking down. Also, I wasn’t very confident in my ability to judge the distance, given the conditions — and my condition. I hung there a long time, trying to get up my nerve to drop. I couldn’t see any alternatives. Even if I could somehow manage to climb all the way back up that mountain, I knew I’d never be able to find that trail again. I’d have to sleep out in the bush until daylight, and that didn’t sound pleasant. So I clambered along to the lowest branch I could see, hung from it by my hands, and let go.

I landed hard, rolled to absorb the blow, and found myself lying on my back in the middle of the road. I got up shakily and stumbled along to the breakwater. The yacht club guard loomed up out of the dark and shone a light in my face.

“Mbula,” I croaked out. “I’m on Warana, the ketch with the steadying sail way out there.”

He studied me in silence a while. In his light I could see that I was covered with mud and leaves and my arms and legs were crisscrossed with bloody scratches. A likely story, I figured. This dishevelled long-haired feral thing crawls out of the bush and claims to be a yachtsman? Yachtsmen wear white duck trousers and brass-buttoned blazers.

“We’re a cruising boat,” I tried.

“Oh, yes, of course,” he replied, as if that explained everything, and unlocked the gate for me.

“Thanks,” I murmured as I stepped through. “Good night.”

“Good morning, sir.” And it was.

When I got to the dock, of course, the dinghy was at the boat. It was considered ill manners to bellow across the anchorage for a lift at five in the morning, so I borrowed someone else’s dinghy, rowed out a couple hundred yards to Warana, towed our dinghy back to the dock to return the loaner, and rowed back out. This seemed to take many hours and infinite effort in my delicate condition. I tumbled into bed minutes before the others started getting up.

I went to the monthly meeting of ATOM. Rolf was there, but none of the others from the crew. Rolf gave a rousing speech, again painting the Warana’s crew as selfless heroes, risking our lives to save the world. He ended with a plea for money, but that bunch of poverty-stricken third-world radicals and environmentalists didn’t have much to give except enthusiastic applause. Rolf was a good public speaker, but his talks always made me uncomfortable with his stress on our selfless sacrifice and willingness to die. It wasn’t self-aggrandizement exactly; I think he was just doing his job as our public relations manager. But I felt guilty when these young idealists looked at us with worshipful eyes, especially because I knew that the expedition was on the verge of falling apart.

They asked me to make a speech, so I decided to clear the air a little. I told them I wasn’t part of the original crew and hadn’t been involved in the planning of the expedition, so I didn’t deserve their praise. I had just needed a ride, but when I learned about their mission I felt it was a good and important cause and agreed to accompany them. If I had thought my speech would separate me from the general admiration in which the crew was held in Fiji, it didn’t work. After the meeting many of the audience gathered around to ask me questions, and I thought Rolf looked annoyed again.

Some of the leaders of the group invited us to go out for drinks, and we accepted. We went to a nice restaurant on the second floor of a hotel and sat on a balcony overlooking the street. We had appetizers and drinks and talked for hours about peace and bombs and the value of life. When it got late Rolf excused himself to get back to the boat, but I was enjoying myself and stayed on. Eventually there were only three of us; the young white president of ATOM and a very attractive Fijian woman named Teissa. She was in her early twenties and wore her hair in a big afro like the early Fijians did, though only the young radicals did now. She was quick and bright and funny and laughed easily, her white smile lighting up her face. I had noticed her at the meeting and had been very happy when she joined our party. Because I was attracted to her, I had been directing most of my conversation to her. I soon detected signs of irritation from the president. At first I thought they might be lovers, but I soon decided that, just like back home, women here could belong to a political group, but they were not expected to have too much to say. But Teissa was well-informed and insightful and I found her arguments much more sound than his more knee-jerk reactions.

Eventually he picked up that there was another agenda going on, and he stretched and looked at his watch. It was nearly one in the morning. He said good-night and at last I found myself alone with Teissa. I asked her if she was tired and she said no, so I asked if she wanted to dance. Her eyes lit up, so we took off and I took her to The Golden Dragon. She told me the place had a very bad reputation as a wild place and she had never been inside before. I was pleased when one of the bartenders greeted me by name. I bought us drinks and we squeezed onto the dance floor. She was a great dancer, very graceful and lithe, and she didn’t dance apart like so many people did those days. We danced close, our eyes on each other, her body swaying seductively to the rock music. I was completely taken with her. Besides being beautiful and friendly, I found her excitingly exotic. In almost nine months in Tonga, I’d never been with a Tongan girl. Now here I was in a night club, dancing with a beautiful Fijian, with every indication of more to come.

We danced and drank for a couple of hours, then it was clear that we had the same thing in mind. I was wondering about the question of venue, as the boat was impossible and I couldn’t afford a hotel. She saw my discomfort and smiled. She leaned close. “Let’s go to my place,” she whispered. I had that delicious rush of excitement I get when I know it’s really going to happen. We pushed our way down the stairs and out onto the dark sidewalk. It was after two and the streets were nearly deserted. After the noise and crowd inside the club, the still, sultry tropical night closed around us like a blanket. We walked along hand in hand, our steps echoing in the empty streets, not really in a hurry, savoring the anticipation. We turned inland, away from the bright lights, the little bars with the thump of electric basses beating like hearts inside. Soon we were in a part of the city I had never seen, with steep narrow streets and few lights. The houses were dark and silent, the yards masses of black jungle. On and on we walked, wordlessly. One mile, two. We were high above the city now, far above the lights twinkling on the harbor. It was cooler here and the long walk had cleared my head and sobered me up. We made many turns, though I couldn’t see any street signs in the darkness. I wasn’t even sure what direction we were going. I was just wondering if I should have asked how far it was, when she turned into the yard of a small bungalow set back from the street. It was very dark under the trees, and she had to lead me by the hand along a narrow path beside the house. We came to a door and she turned and put her lips to my ear.

“We’ll have to be very quiet. I don’t want to wake my daughter.”

Daughter? This was a possibility I hadn’t considered. It raised other questions, such as the presence and possible arrival time of a husband. I realized I didn’t know this young woman at all. I didn’t know her last name, I didn’t know if she was married, I didn’t know if Fijian women lured hapless white men to their lairs for unspeakable cruelties by their mates. I had no idea where I was, nor did anyone else. I had been so drunk with desire that I had trudged miles back into the hills with this woman, and now I was utterly in her power.

Perhaps she sensed my hesitation, for she leaned forward and gave me a kiss that was so full of pure desire that all my fears melted away. She unlocked the door and led me into a pitch black room. I stumbled blindly after her as she maneuvered around unseen furniture, down a short corridor, and into another room. She closed a door behind us, then took both my hands and pulled me forward until I felt my knees come against the edge of a bed. I fell forward and felt the softness of her body beneath me. Then we were in each other’s arms and tugging at our clothes.

The sex was made dreamlike for me by the strangeness of the situation. The room was completely dark; it made not the slightest difference if I had my eyes open or not. The tropical night was still and steamy and we were soon both slick with sweat. We never spoke, our communication was entirely through touch and involuntary sighs. But what touch! We were giving and taking pleasure blindly, discovering each other’s likes and dislikes by experiment. Nothing was asked, nothing was denied. We made love until dawn, and fell into exhausted sleep still entwined.

I awoke late and had no idea where I was. I was hung over and very sore. I opened my eyes and looked around groggily. I was in a small cluttered room, the walls covered with black ironwood carvings and psychedelic posters. An Indian blockprint bedspread tacked to the ceiling divided the room into a bedroom and living room. I was sprawled naked across the bed, the sheets twisted into ropes and giving evidence of a night of either love or war. Sunlight slanted achingly bright through a single small window. I groaned and rolled over. A little girl about three years old was studying me from a few inches away. I blinked in surprise and pulled a corner of the sheet over me.

“Hello,” I croaked. I didn’t even know if she spoke English.

She continued to stare solemnly at me.

“My name’s Brian,” I tried again. “What’s yours?” Nothing. “Is Teissa your mommy?”

At that she got up and walked out of the room. I took the opportunity to search for my pants. I was upside down peering under the bed when I heard a woman’s laugh behind me.

“Well, I see you’re up. Sunny side up.”

I turned around quickly and there was Teissa in the doorway, wearing a colorful bathrobe and looking beautiful in the bright morning sun. The little girl clutched her knees and looked at me.

“Honey, this is Brian,” said Teissa. “He’s from a boat and he’s come to visit with us for a while. Brian, this is Staria.”

“Hysteria?”

Teissa laughed. “Staria, not Hysteria.”

“Oh. Well, we’ve already met. Hello, Staria. Did you know your mommy is a very beautiful lady?”

She looked up at her mother and back to me. “Yeth,” she lisped, and I was smitten all over again. I was self-conscious about being naked, but neither of them seemed to be bothered by it. Teissa came to give me a long lingering kiss, and Staria giggled when I reacted predictably.

“You were absolutely wonderful,” I whispered in Teissa’s ear.

“I still am,” she replied with a smile. “But yes, we were wonderful together. But tell me, Brian. Have you ever been with a black woman before?”

I was taken aback. “What?” I stammered in confusion. “You’re not black.”

She laughed mischievously. Then she let her robe fall open and placed my hand on her breast. My hand gleamed white against her deep brown skin.

“You haven’t noticed we’re different colors?” she asked.

“That I did notice,” I said. “But you’re not black; you’re a rich deep chocolate brown — my favorite flavor,” I added with a kiss.

“I am pure Melanesian, and that means the Black Islands, so I must be a black woman.”

“Well, yes, of course, but…”

“So am I your first black woman?” she persisted.

“Well, yes,” I admitted.

“Why? Don’t you like black girls?” She asked it teasingly, but she was watching my eyes, waiting for my answer.

I stared at her thoughtfully. It was a fair question to ask of an American. I felt that I owed her an honest answer.

“Frankly,” I said. “It never occurred to me to think of you as a ‘black woman’. Black women to me are African Americans — tough, cool and with an attitude. There are thousands of beautiful black American girls I’d love to go to bed with, but it’s really difficult. I’ve tried once or twice, but been turned down. No matter how liberated a couple may think they are, any relationship between white and black Americans is loaded with ancient emotional baggage. On top of all the usual fears and jealousies, there’s the additional concern of the race thing. What will our parents think? People will stare, perhaps become abusive. Having a relationship is hard enough without all that. Especially in the U.S.”

“It would not be easy here, either,” she said. “If you meet a pretty white girl, will you run to her?”

“But it’s completely different with you. You’re literally a world away from all that. And even better, you’re a Pacific islander. Ever since Adventures in Paradise and Mutiny on the Bounty, I’ve always considered island girls the most exotic and desirable of any women in the world. I got all sweaty reading about the beautiful native girls swimming naked out to the ships. Being with you is the fulfillment of a lifelong fantasy.”

She laughed out loud. “Maybe one of these nights I should swim naked out to your boat.”

I laughed too. “I would love it, but I don’t think the Australian Nuclear Protest Expedition would approve.”

Teissa jumped to her feet and pulled her robe closed. “Come on,” she said. “Come meet the others.” Others? I pulled on my pants and followed her out to the kitchen.

By daylight the place looked like any of a hundred hippie pads I’d slept in over the years: a little rundown and cluttered with odd bric-a-brac, not scrupulously clean. I felt comfortable right away. There were three other people in the kitchen: a skinny young Samoan guy, a long-haired Fijian dude about my age, and a striking young Indian girl with kohl-ringed eyes and a lot of jewelry. I had been in Fiji long enough to be surprised: I had never seen Fijians and Indians fraternizing. But like hippies all over the world, they were consciously breaking down old taboos. Like so many of her race she was slim and petite, but even in jeans and tee-shirt she looked both exotic and regal. She seemed to be with the Fijian guy; at least they shared a room.

They greeted me in a friendly fashion and shared their yoghurt and granola with me. Staria climbed over all of us indiscriminately and got tickled by each in turn. I liked these people immediately; they had an easy familiarity among themselves and a ready acceptance of me that I found very welcome after the tension and hostility on the boat. Hippie families always gave lip service to brotherhood and equality, but personal dislikes, racism, and sexism were often just under the surface. I had been in many hippie families that were not as close as this very mixed-race bunch. I was pleased to find that Teissa was not only beautiful and sexy, but a very interesting person as well. The conversation over breakfast was about nuclear arms and power, but the arguments weren’t knee-jerk anti-technology as was so common in the underground movement. Each of them had opinions; not all in agreement, but all well thought out and expressed; and moreover, accepted as such by the others. We spent hours drinking, smoking, and talking politics. I was having more fun than I had in a long time.

In the middle of the afternoon I noticed Teissa eyeing me thoughtfully. She suddenly got up and took me by the hand. I willingly followed her back to her room. We were in the midst of making love when I felt something climbing on my back. Startled, I jerked around to find Staria peering over my shoulder. She had come in unnoticed and was as naked as we were.

“Can I play too?”

Teissa burst out laughing, but I was completely taken aback.

“No,” I said. “Please go out and wait for us.”

“Why?” she asked innocently.

“Teissa,” I said. “She’s your daughter. You explain to her. She doesn’t know why she has to go.”

“I don’t either,” she replied.

“What? Because I want to make love with you.”

“So do I. But why does she have to leave?”

“Because she’s a little kid. Do you want your daughter to see us making love?”

“Sure. Why not? Are we doing something bad?”

“Well, no, but…”

“Look, Brian, this isn’t the United States. If she were living in the village where I grew up, she’d live in a one-room house with her whole family. She’d see them making love every day.”

“And it wouldn’t bother you to have her watching us?”

“Not at all. She’s seen it before. If she wants to stay, it’s fine with me. This is her room, too. ”

“But it just doesn’t seem right.”

“She’s my daughter, Brian. If you want to love me, you have to love her too. She doesn’t usually stay when I’m with a guy; usually she’d rather be playing. But I think she really likes you. You should be flattered.”

Staria grabbed my hair like a mane and bounced on my back.

“Horsey again,” she said.

Teissa laughed. “I think she wants you to start moving again. And so do I.”

All the discussion had caused me to lose the wherewithal to continue, but Teissa knew just how to fix that. It was disconcerting with Staria watching our every move, but Teissa showed no inhibition at all. Soon the three of us were back in the saddle again, with Staria whooping and laughing on my back. After that Staria was often in bed with us, tickling and tumbling about and giggling at our antics. She was like a little porpoise, creeping about under the sheets. That night we slept in a warm pile of bodies and I fell asleep curled around the two of them, listening to them breathe, feeling their hearts beating, and feeling very happy.

I had always been taught that sex was something to be hidden from children, that it was improper, somehow harmful to them. But in the following weeks Staria was often with us as we made love, and for the life of me I couldn’t see why she shouldn’t be. Sometimes she would ignore us completely, and be in a corner, coloring or looking at a book or singing songs to herself. Sometimes she would be very much a part of our play, wiggling in under the covers to be with us. She loved being silly and giggling, and her presence often turned our love-making into a playful game full of laughter. My motives were selfish: of course. I wanted to be with Teissa and she refused to exclude her daughter. But on reflection it seemed the most normal thing in the world. Staria was with us when we ate and slept and went to the bathroom, why should she leave the room when we made love? I suspect that Staria has a better chance of developing a healthy, uninhibited sex life than most American children who learn about sex from dirty jokes.

This afternoon we were hailed from the shore and told that I had guests waiting. Mystified, I rowed ashore and was pleased to see Deacon and Lisa, two beautiful American girls I had stayed with briefly when I first arrived in Tonga. We had drinks in the yacht club bar and exchanged stories. They’d left Tonga on a missionary yacht a few days before us, and had wild tales of travelling in a small boat with a bunch of evangelical Christians. Their skipper was arrogant and tyrannical and their navigator incompetent. While entering Suva, their skipper had run them aground and put them high and dry on the reef. It required the services of a marine tug to get them off. Both crew and yacht had survived, but Deacon and Lisa had had enough and jumped ship as soon as they stepped ashore. They had learned from the harbormaster that we were in and looked me up. We made a date to go to a movie in the evening to see The Godfather. As I rowed back I thought of their story. As much as Warana’s crew complained about Peter’s competence, at least he had gotten us in safely.

That evening I got to the movie late and missed them. I was bummed because they were headed back to Tonga soon and I didn’t know how to get in touch with them again.

This afternoon I was alone on the boat, working on the binnacle light. It had been unreliable, forcing us to keep a flashlight in the cockpit so the helmsman could see the compass at night. I discovered the wire to the light was corroded through. The wire had broken off just inside the binnacle. Using needle-nose pliers, I was attempting to pull a little more wire out so I could attach a new connector. Suddenly the pliers slipped off the wire and my hand flew back into my face, plunging the sharp tip of the pliers into my right eye. I bellowed with pain and clapped my hands over my eye. Liquid streamed through my fingers. I was certain I had felt the pliers go right into my eyeball. I was afraid to take my hands away; afraid of what I’d find. I imagined an empty socket, having to wear a patch like a pirate the rest of my life. The pain was excruciating. I knew I had to get to a doctor right away. Could I even row like this? Then I remembered the others had taken the dinghy. I sure as hell didn’t feel like trying to swim a hundred yards. Peering in the mirror, I saw that I still had two eyes, but my right was completely bloodshot. Tears were streaming out of it, and it was agony when I blinked. I fumbled through the first aid kit and found some eye ointment and squeezed some on. I put a washcloth over it and tied it on with a shirt around my head. Then there was nothing else to do, so I finished fixing the binnacle light. A few hours later Peter came back and took me ashore to a hospital. The doctor told me that I had a deep scratch all the way across my cornea. A millimeter closer to the pupil and I would have popped it. It should heal in a few days. He gave me another ointment and a patch to wear for a few days.

I ran into Deacon and Lisa on the street and we went to a cafe to have some drinks and talked all afternoon. We talked about mutual friends in Tonga and I got quite homesick for Linda and Tongatapu. In the evening we went to see Walkabout, a new Australian movie, and quite good. I asked them to give my love to Linda when they got to Tonga.

Kathy left the boat today with little fanfare. I was sorry to see her go. She had never been as openly on my case as Norm and Rolf, and she had been almost polite after Norm left. She was also quite decorative, and I enjoyed having a pretty girl in a bikini around the boat. Her departure made our sailing even more indefinite. It would be possible to sail a heavy forty-footer with only three hands, but it would not be wise with three with as little cruising experience as Peter, Rolf, and I. Peter talked about replacement crew coming out from Australia, but nothing ever seemed to come of it. He didn’t discuss with me the politics and personalities involved, but clearly the people that had organized and sponsored the expedition were reluctant to try to save it now that it was in trouble. Peter grew increasingly frustrated as the weeks passed and no money or help arrived. Rolf was still trying to drum up local support, but it was obvious that the Fijian protest groups had very limited resources.

Peter told us that his wife Jean was flying in from Melbourne for a visit in a few days. He suggested we take her out for a sail, perhaps around to Nadi on the other end of Viti Levu. I hoped that would cheer him up. He had often spoken of Jean, and I was looking forward to meeting her. At the same time, I suspected that the excursion to Nadi meant that he was giving up on the idea of continuing the expedition.

I met Robert, a young American single-hander, burly and gentle, with a big bushy yellow beard and long ponytail. His great love was his beautiful old Tahiti ketch La Flor. She was so meticulously maintained that there was no speck of dust or grease anywhere. Every rope end was neatly spliced, every grab rail parcelled and served with sparkling white twine. I peeked under her floorboards, where after a long and stormy passage the unpainted white pine was as clean and white as the day it was cut. She was very old-fashioned, with deadeyes and lanyards in place of turnbuckles and Robert’s great strength in lieu of winches. Robert was sailing around the world alone, but he was so quiet and self-effacing, he didn’t mention it to people he met. He didn’t meet many, for he rarely came ashore. He seemed to have no interest in the land and its affairs. The usual cruising route west across the Pacific went south from Hawaii to island hop through the Societies, Cooks, Samoas, and Tongas, a route chosen to encounter as many islands as possible. Robert had sailed direct from Hawaii to Fiji, avoiding all the islands, over three months alone at sea. On the passage he had scraped, sanded, and varnished all his brightwork, including his mast and boom, alone and under way, then scraped the paint from his topsides. When he at last anchored in Suva, he spent a week repainting the topsides before he bothered to come ashore.

Today a strange new yacht came in and anchored off the club. It was a long, flush-decked, rather ugly boat, painted a dark blue that was turning purple in places. It looked interesting, so I rowed over to get a better look. Close up, the boat looked even worse. The paint was cracked and peeling, and missing entirely on much of the port side. What I had taken for purple was long streaks of rust across the dark blue. The boat was entirely built of steel. I hailed them and they invited me aboard for a beer. The crew was a bunch of young, rough-looking New Zealanders with long hair, tattoos, and earrings. It turned out they were all steel workers who had worked together building skyscrapers in Auckland, and had decided to see the world. They rented a space in their company’s yard and built the boat on weekends and evenings. Since the development of ferrocement construction there were a number of lumpy-looking homemade boats in the islands, but this was the first I had heard of to be built of steel. It was like living inside a steel sewer pipe, rough and damp and clangingly loud. The walls were always dripping with rusty sweat. On the other hand, they told me of going up on a reef in the Loyalties during a storm. For two days the big seas pounded her across the reef, picking the boat up and slamming it down on the coral again and again. Eventually they dropped into the lagoon and anchored, having passed over two hundred yards of reef with nothing lost but a good deal of paint. There’s something to be said for a steel boat.

Teissa and her roommates borrowed a car and we drove out into the lush green mountains outside of Suva. We hiked down into a canyon to a beautiful waterfall and spent the day skinny-dipping in the lovely pools below the falls; white skin, black skin, and brown. It was like a Gauguin painting. When we got back we went drinking in a local club. Then I offered to take Teissa out to show her the boat. We cut through the grounds of the yacht club and went down to the dinghy docks. As we walked out on the dock, a Fijian watchman came up to us.

“Good evening,” he said. “Where are you going, sir?”

“Mbula,” I replied. “You know me. I’m from Warana.”

“Yes, I know you, sir. But you may not take the young lady.”

I felt Teissa stiffen beside me.

“Why not?” I asked.

“She is Fijian.”

“Of course she’s Fijian,” I exclaimed. “This is Fiji, after all.”

“Let’s just go,” whispered Teissa, taking my arm. But I couldn’t believe what he was saying.

“Wait a minute. Do you mean to tell me that the Fiji Yacht Club doesn’t permit Fijian guests?”

“That’s right, sir. It is in the by-laws.”

“But I live on Warana. You’re saying I can’t invite a Fijian friend to my own home?”

“Not a Fijian woman, no.”

“Let’s go,” urged Teissa again, clearly embarrassed.

“No. This is ridiculous. Racism is bad enough in the United States, but we at least have laws against discrimination. But this is a black country; you’re the majority here. Fiji is not a British protectorate any more. You should kick these white bigots out of your country, not enforce their racist policies.”

“Come on, Brian. You can’t change things by arguing.”

“But it’s not just racist, don’t you see? It’s sexist, too. The policy is that whites can’t take Fijian women to the boats. That implies that the only Fijian women that might go out to a boat are loose women, or whores. It’s an insult to both your race and your sex.” By now I was shouting, and people were staring at us.

“I think you should leave now, sir,” he said with a hint of threat. He was big and burly, basically a bouncer, and I didn’t want to get bounced.

“It’s all right,” Teissa said. “I want to go home now.”

There was nothing else I could do. Humiliated, frustrated, we left the club and went to her place. I felt emasculated, unable to protect her. We never spoke of it again.

I met a young Australian couple, Gary and Denise, in the yacht club bar. They were going to Tonga in a few days and pumped me for hours about the place. Again I got quite nostalgic and half considered jumping ship and going back. But aside from the fact that the government would be unlikely to give me another visa so soon, I was still flat broke. And I still wanted to see what Warana would be doing. If she was heading to Mururoa, I certainly wanted to stay with her. And if not, there were a lot of islands between here and Australia that I hadn’t seen yet. I told Gary and Denise to look Linda up when they got there and I wrote Linda to expect them.

This morning Rolf announced that he was going home. Clearly there was not going to be any further support from the expedition’s backers. Peter had lost his enthusiasm for continuing and I was not particularly committed to it, so Rolf felt that there was little point in going on. It was the final defeat for the great cause. What had started with such high hopes and publicity months ago in Australia, ended without any public notice at all on a breezy dock in Suva.

Now it was just Peter and me on the boat. After so many weeks of being in that emotional pressure-cooker, it was a great relief. With the hostile crew gone and the effort of keeping the expedition together over at last, Peter was more relaxed than I’d ever seen him. We talked a lot, and grew quite close. I told him about my life on the road the last five years, and he told me about his career and his family. We discussed the need for more crew. We would need at least four to sail Warana; five would be better. Peter put up a notice at the yacht club. I went back to the waterfront dives.

In my bar-hopping I ran into a young American guy, Phillip Rogers, a former Peace Corps volunteer who had been living in Fiji for some time and had an absolutely gorgeous Indian girlfriend named Vanessa. Phillip was slight and sandy-haired and sported a long beard. He looked rather bookish, but he had done quite a bit of cruising and knew his way around boats. When he heard about our voyage, he expressed a real interest in joining us. I took him out to Warana and introduced him to Peter and within two hours it was agreed he would go with us.

Peter heard from some friends that there was a navigator asking around about a boat, and after several tries we managed to make contact. His name was Jake, another American hippie, probably twenty-two or so. He was very good-looking, tan and muscular, and with long golden curls like a halo around his head, giving him the look of a cherub who worked out. His manner put me off a bit — rather bored and aloof — but he seemed to know his stuff. He’d served as navigator on two or three different boats and obviously knew a lot more than I did. I had no intention of giving up my position, however — I liked navigation and wanted to get better at it. But I thought it would be good to have a real navigator aboard in case I got into trouble.

Teissa and Staria had to go out of town to visit some relatives, so I worked on the boat. Peter and I talked to Phillip about Jake and we arranged for all four of us to meet that afternoon at the club bar. Jake was late, and Peter and Phillip and I sat and drank and talked for quite a while before he showed up. He was very off-handed and casual about being late, not even offering an apology. But after that the interview went well and Peter agreed to take him on. Now Peter was the only Aussie on the Australian nuclear protest vessel.

Peter went over his plans with us. His wife Jean was due to arrive in a few days. We’d sail around to Nadi and spend a couple of days exploring that end of the island, then Jean would fly home and we’d head back on the long cruise to Australia. Peter didn’t particularly care what route we took, but he did have a concern about time. His regular insurance on the boat only covered Australian waters. He’d gotten cruising insurance for the expedition, but it cost $350 a month and was due to expire in October. He didn’t want to have to renew it, so he wanted to be back fairly quickly.

In the afternoon I happened to stop by the harbormaster’s office and found that a telegram from Linda had arrived several days before. I’d written to her a few times, but since we were constantly expecting to be leaving for Samoa any day, I’d told her to write to me care of the harbormaster in Pago Pago, so I hadn’t heard from her. She had a week of vacation coming up and decided it would be great fun to fly to Samoa to meet me. She wired Pago Pago to tell me she was coming. But then Deacon and Lisa arrived and told her I was still in Fiji. Sometime after that, she got a report from some other mutual friends, Peace Corps volunteers that I’d run into in Suva. They reported that Warana appeared unlikely to leave Fiji anytime soon. So she changed her ticket to Suva and sent a wire to me there. By the time I got it, she was due to arrive the next morning. My first reaction was a rush of pleasure. Linda was coming to see me and I could show her the sights of Suva. But then I thought of Teissa and my smile faded.

I sat out on the sea wall and thought about what I should do. I read the wire again, the flimsy paper whipping in the warm breeze. Linda was obviously very excited about coming. She had begged me to wire back immediately, but said she would come even if she hadn’t heard from me. Now it was too late to get a wire back to her even if I wanted to tell her not to come, which I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to do. I had felt closer to Linda than I had with any other woman. She knew me very well and still accepted me as I was. We had never laid any claims on each other. She knew before we started the relationship that I was planning on moving on. There were so many other islands I wanted to see. Our relationship had been intense, but I had walked away from it, never intending to see her again — and she knew that. Yet here she was, flying off alone to a strange land on the off chance that I might still be there and would want to renew the affair. I had to admire her balls. After that leap of faith, how could I just send her back?

On the other hand, I hated to think of breaking up with Teissa. She was so beautiful and exotic she still took my breath away. Our sex was spectacular. We had become quite close and comfortable together, and I knew she cared for me. She had even bought me a very skimpy little bathing suit. And what about Staria? I had promised to take her to the beach that weekend. I thought too about what Teissa had said that first morning, how she thought I’d leave her for a white girl. I hated to confirm her opinion of racist white men.

A further problem was that I wasn’t going to see Teissa tonight. She was still out of town and wouldn’t be back until the next afternoon, after Linda was due to arrive. Whatever decision I made, it would have to be a done deal before I could talk to either one. The fact was, I loved both women, and now through no one’s fault I was forced to hurt one of them.

After an uncomfortable night, I awoke with the decision already made. My feelings for Linda were so much deeper, our rapport so much closer, that there was no longer any doubt in my mind. Teissa was a wonderful woman, but she had never been more than a casual affair; Linda was much more. In fact, being forced to go through this comparison, as painful as it was, had made me realize how much I cared for Linda. Now I was really excited about seeing her. She was due to arrive in just two hours. But I was racked with guilt about Teissa. It was bad enough dumping her, but it would be unforgivable to just disappear without even saying goodbye. But how could I talk to her after Linda was here?

With my mind in a turmoil of indecision, I went to meet Linda’s plane. She came bouncing off the plane, smiling and happy. I greeted her warmly, but with part of me not part of the happy exchange of hugs. I kept thinking about Teissa coming home and finding me gone and not knowing what had happened to me. I took Linda to a good cafe I knew, and we started catching up on the news. She’d had a frustrating time with the Tongan authorities and airlines people, changing her destination hours before her flight left. She was excited and breathless, flushed with pleasure at the success of her last-minute gamble. She told me about her job, teaching teachers how to teach English. She said she had been seeing a local man; she laughed and called him her Tongan ma’afu, or lover.Then she wanted to know all about what I had been doing, and a tiny hesitation confirmed her growing awareness of uneasiness in me. She asked if something was wrong.

I was torn about what to say. All my instincts told me to lie. With a natural dislike of lying to people I cared about, I had on a few occasions told the painful truth about a relationship and had learned how deeply and irreparably even well-intentioned words can wound. I had hurt some nice people very badly and rebuked myself for it. I learned that a white lie can spare feelings that deserve sparing.

On the other hand, Linda and I had always been open and frank with each other. It was something I loved about her; the way we could talk about anything, express our opinions freely, sometimes disagree, but it would have no effect at all on the closeness we felt. I could talk with her the way I talked with a guy. And it was also perfectly clear that there had been no suggestion, explicit or implicit, that we were going to get together again. She hadn’t wanted me to leave Tonga, but that had always been the plan, as much as I ever had plans. When I left I was “moving on,” and she had no reason to berate me for seeing another woman. She knew me well enough, I’m sure she’d have been surprised if I wasn’t. So I had no reason to be writhing in guilt, and spoiling this visit with Linda.

So I took the leap and told her that I had a ma’afu too. And as a matter of fact, she was just getting home about now, and I needed to go see her and tell her good-bye. Linda’s smile faded when she looked at my face. She looked away to the sweep of the harbor, and I knew that she felt hurt by that. But then she met my eyes.

“Well, if it was me you were leaving,” she said, “I guess I’d want to be able to say good-bye, too. Go on, I’ll walk around and look at the city.”

I felt terrible for bringing her down when she’d been so happy, but I also felt a surge of love for her. I thought her response showed maturity. I hesitated, still torn about whether it might be kinder just to disappear from Teissa’s life. Teissa was a smart chick; she’d figure it out pretty quick. It would also be easier on me; I dreaded going to tell her. But I kept having this image of her coming home expecting to see me, of waiting a day, maybe worrying about me, coming down to see if the boat had had to leave suddenly. But no, there I am, still in town, walking around with a white girl. I didn’t want that. She deserved better.

“Okay,” I said. “It’s a pretty long walk; it’ll be two or three hours before I get back.”

“That’s okay. I need to pick up some things to take back to people anyway, and I know you hate shopping. I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, okay. Most of the tourist shops are along the waterfront and the next street back. It’s impossible to get lost. How about if I meet you here about five?”

“Right in this square?”

“Yeah.” I kissed her. “Thanks for this. It’s the right thing to do. For both of us.”

“Just make sure you come back.”

“Oh, I’ll be back, don’t worry.”

I hurried up the mountain in the afternoon heat. The sun burned down from straight up, heating my shoulders through my loose shirt. I was soaking wet when I got to her house.

“Hey, baby!” she called, coming out on the walk as I crossed the yard. “I was wondering when you were going to show up.” She gave me a hug and kiss, pushing her hips against me.

“Piliani!” said Staria, coming out of the house to squint up at us kissing.

“‘Lo, Hysteria,” I said, running my fingers through her sphere of hair as fine and soft as a dandelion flower.

“We had fun,” Staria said.

“Did you? Good.”

Teissa pulled a face. “Well, you know, visiting relatives. But it needs to be done, and they’re very nice. There’s a little girl only a year older that Staria, so she likes it.”

My heart was sinking lower every second this conversation went on. Each exchange seemed somehow tainted because I knew what was about to be said and they didn’t. It occurred to me that it was as if I had stepped through some kind of barrier, a wall between Teissa’s world of a happy life-as-usual reunion, and my world of hurt feelings, tears, and perhaps anger. A one-way barrier that could only be passed through once. And I had to jerk Teissa and Staria through it. Then best to have it done quickly, before we start a new conversation.

“We need to talk,” I said. Teissa caught my tone at once. Her brilliant white smile disappeared.

“You mean the two of us?”

“No, Staria’s been a part of everything else we do; she deserves to hear this, too.”

Staria looked up at me, shocked that I would call her by her real name.

“I’m going to be leaving,” I said.

Teissa nodded, as if she’d been expecting this. “So Warana’s finally leaving?” she asked. “I thought Peter was expecting his wife to come out from Australia.”

“No, she’s not,” I said.

“Why, what happened to her?”

“No, not his wife. She’s still coming.”

“I thought you said she’s not.”

“She is. I was saying that Warana’s not leaving.” I couldn’t meet her eyes. I had meant the farewell to be mercifully quick, but it seemed to require a lot of explanation. “Just me,” I added miserably.

“You mean you’re changing boats? I thought you wanted to stay on Warana.”

“I am.”

“But you said you were leaving Warana.”

“No, Warana is staying and I’m staying on her.”

Teissa turned to Staria. “Is he making sense?”

“Gwown-ups never do,” said Staria with a shrug.

“You’re right. I’ll try a simpler question. Brian, where are you going to?”

“Nowhere. I’m going to stay in Suva.”

“I’m confused. I thought you just said you were leaving Fiji.”

“I’m not leaving Fiji!” I blurted. “I’m just leaving you.”

She blinked. That she hadn’t expected.

“Oh, I see,” she said quietly. She looked at me writhing there in her yard, then looked away, out over the sea. “I guess I’ve been confused about a lot of things.”

“No, you haven’t. Don’t say that. I do care about you, very much. But there’s this girl.”

“I leave town for one day…” she began.

“No, someone I knew in Tonga.”

“Oh. Is this Linda?”

“Did I tell you about her?”

“Not really. The name kept coming up.”

“She’s a teacher in the Peace Corps. She has a week’s vacation. She came to see me.”

“How long have you known she was coming?”

“Since yesterday afternoon. I swear. She sent me a telegram. She didn’t know herself before yesterday that she was coming to Fiji. She thought I’d gone to Samoa. She came within a few hours of flying to Pago by mistake.”

“What a pity that would have been.”

“I’m really sorry. I didn’t want things to happen this way. I had no idea she was going to do this. But she and I were together for a long time and she blew her one week off to come see me. I could hardly…”

“No, hardly.”

“I was going to be leaving next week anyway,” I said lamely.

“Yeah, what’s one lousy week? We probably would have just pissed it all away in bed anyway.”

I hugged her. She neither resistws nor responded. “Oh, Teissa. I’m sorry. But it was coming, and you knew it. You knew it when we met. I don’t live here. I’m passing through.”

“Yeah. But I thought I’d be giving you up to a boat.”

“You still are. Linda’s only here for a week. We’re sailing around to Nadi in a couple of days, then she’ll go back to Tonga and I’ll go on to Australia.”

Staria had missed most of the conversation, but she heard that.

“You’re going to ‘Stwalia?” she asked. She knew that sounded far away.

“Yes. I’m going to be going away. I won’t be seeing you again.”

“Soon?”

I nodded. “Uh-huh. Right now.”

“Right away?” asked Teissa. “How much time do you have?”

“I’m meeting her in town in an hour.” She nodded.

“Where does she think you are now?”

“I told her. I said I’d met someone who meant a lot to me and I couldn’t leave without saying good-bye.”

“And she was okay with that?”

“She wasn’t happy about it, but she didn’t object.”

“Well, Miss Linda must be pretty sure of you if she lets you come back to see me. Isn’t she afraid you’ll fall into my clutches?”

“She trusts me for some reason.”

“She’ll learn one day. Do you want to come in? See if you dropped anything behind the bed?”

“Better not. I have to go.”

She broke the clinch herself. “Yes. You have to keep your promise to the lady.”

I didn’t have an answer to that. Staria reached up, and I bent down and squeezed her.

“Bye, Hysteria,” I said into her hair. “I’ll miss you.”

“Are you coming back?” she asked. I looked up and met Teissa’s eyes.

“Probably not, honey,” she said. “Brian’s got more adventuring to do before he stops.”

I stood up and looked at her, not sure what else to say.

“I’ll never forget you, Teissa Marama Tora.”

“Yeah, right,” she said. The wind blew her hair around her face.

I walked back down the hill, feeling empty and bruised. I’d never know if I made the right decision; whether I’d handled it as well as I could. But I never did forget her.

I took Linda down to the boat and introduced her to the others. Peter especially seemed much taken with her. We had a fun evening. It was agreed that Linda would sail to Lautoka with us after Jean arrived.

In the afternoon we went to pick Jean up at the airport. She turned out to be a trim attractive blonde woman in her early forties, quite friendly and open. Both Linda and I liked her immediately. Peter showed her around Suva and took her out to dinner later. Linda and I went out with Phillip and his girlfriend Vanessa. We invited Jake but he wasn’t interested.

Linda and I cruised around exploring Suva, shopping and enjoying being together. We spent a lot of time buying supplies for the voyage. The amount of food required was incredible. Soon every available space was stuffed with cans and boxes again. The jerry cans around the rails were refilled, some with fresh water, others with fuel. Phillip didn’t spend much time helping; he was going through a long farewell scene with his girlfriend Vanessa. Jake pitched in to help, but always seemed to have a sullen expression. He was very quiet and I never could get a good read on him. We did our final grocery shopping and made some last minute repairs. We said good-bye to our friends in the yacht club and on the other boats. On Friday night I took Linda to the Golden Dragon for a taste of Suva nightlife. We got back late and drunk, but happy. We were going to sail in the morning.

We woke to another beautiful morning, but with high clouds. We showed off a bit by sailing off the anchor and ghosting under sail through the maze of anchored vessels. As soon as we were clear we set all four sails and slanted across beautiful Suva harbor with Linda and Jean decorating the foredeck. We rounded the reef at the harbor mouth and leaned into a stiff breeze in the passage between Beqa Island and Viti Levu. The seas started to kick up, and Linda soon began to feel the motion, followed quickly by Jean. Within a few hours the wind and seas had grown impressive and the weather was dark and threatening. Clearly we were in for a blow. Jean went to bed, but poor Linda was too miserable to sleep. I suggested that she lie down with her body fore and aft. She went below and tried it, but it was even worse. She ended up lying in the weather scuppers, wrapped in oilskins, rolling back and forth and looking utterly miserable. I felt bad for having gotten her into this, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it now.

Around dark the weather got considerably worse. Waves started coming over the bow and Linda was finally forced below. We were pounding into it and couldn’t turn and run because we knew the mainland of Viti Levu was out there somewhere in the dark to leeward. The night was so dark that it was difficult to steer because we couldn’t see the big seas coming at us. They were hitting our port bow, but if the helmsman didn’t keep the wind on his cheek just right, we’d hit one bow on. The boat would slam to a stop with an awful shuddering crash, then wallow until she could get headway again. It was a long miserable night, the wind and rain unrelenting.

All through those dark hours I was trying to estimate how far west we’d gotten. Once we had cleared the southwestern tip of Viti Levu, we could run north for Lautoka and stop this awful pounding. But there were no lights visible. With all the bouncing around I had no idea how fast we were going, nor what the current might be doing to us. Around three o’clock Jake recommended that we could turn, but I had a horror of running onto a lee shore in the dark. I urged Peter to hold on for a while longer and we kept our heading.

At six the storm finally eased up and the wind backed around to its normal northeast. I was watching eagerly for first light, but the storm and the season made the sunrise late. I still feared to turn too soon, and we kept on. Finally the day broke and we could get a look around us. Fiji was a dim line of mountains to the northeast. We were miles downwind, many hours from our destination of Lautoka. Jake looked smug but didn’t rub it in. Still, I didn’t feel too bad. Better to go too far than to run aground.

It was a beautiful morning, clear and warm. The seas subsided until even Linda was up and about. In a few hours we could see the line of breakers on the reef, though the land was still forty miles away. The big storm seas crashed on the outer reef with a deep boom and towers of foam. We coasted north just outside the reef, looking for the opening. We found it just before noon and turned east into a narrow passage. Little sandy palm-covered islets called motu dotted the reef on either hand. Once through the passage, the sea became perfectly calm, though there was still a nice breeze. Linda and I were very attracted to a little motu named Taveuni on our right, and talked Peter into going over to take a look. It was no more than a quarter mile from the deep water passage, but we would have to wind through the reef to get there. Jake went up on the spreaders to scout a passage; I went out to the end of the bowsprit to swing the lead line.

With the sails doused and the engine at dead slow, we twisted and turned among the turquoise coral heads that towered up out of the deep water. Peter was swinging the wheel rapidly from side to side to our shouted commands. Often the reef was only a few feet away on either side. Eventually we reached a wall of coral that seemed to ring the motu. We dropped the anchor in the lee of the island, sighting forty feet down the anchor rode to set the hook safely in the sand. Then we launched the dinghy and piled in to go ashore. Peter and Jean decided to stay with the boat. They had been separated a long time.

I was thrilled. This was just like Captain Cook rowing ashore to explore some new land, or Blackbeard landing on a desert island to bury his treasure. This was how I imagined cruising would be. We crunched onto the untracked sand and stepped ashore. Warana rode like a bird a few hundred yards away, the mountains of western Fiji rising beyond. Frigate birds and gulls circled crying above us. The little popcorn ball trade wind clouds dotted the sky. We walked around the island in less than fifteen minutes. On one side a broken-down shelter of palm fronds leaned against a coconut tree. Apparently people came here now and again, perhaps fishing or to harvest the coconuts. But it felt like a Robinson Crusoe place. Soon we came back to the dinghy, and I pointed out our footprints as if they were Man Friday’s. We snorkeled on the reef for a while, then Linda and I swam to the boat while Jake and Phil rowed back.

We extricated ourselves from the reef without trouble and headed for Lautoka. It was further than we thought across the lagoon, and we were in the midst of a glorious tropical sunset when we finally reached Lautoka Bay and tied up to Queen’s Wharf. We went ashore and had a nice meal in a local restaurant. There was talk of checking out the night life, but we were all exhausted from a sleepless night and we ended up turning in early.

The next day dawned bright and beautiful again. We marvelled at the beauty of Fiji and especially its vast lagoon dotted with islands stretching away to the northern horizon. The chart outlined a vast shallow area in that direction, still known as Bligh Water, after the captain that first marked it down. There was a very picturesque island not far to the northwest, a steep-sided high island named Vomo. We decided to do it as a day sail. We picked up some supplies, then headed back out. With me aloft and Jake with the leadline on the bowsprit, we conned the boat through mile after mile of very narrow twisting passages. The progress was slow, and it was nearly noon before we approached Vomo. It was impressive at close range, perhaps two miles long, with grassy slopes rising steeply from the tree-lined shore to a flat-topped mountain. Peter again was leery about leaving the boat unattended, so he and Jean stayed aboard. Peter cautioned us not to stay ashore too long because he didn’t want to try going through the reef when the sun was low.

Linda, Jake, Phillip, and I rowed ashore. We landed on a steep pebbly beach with trees hanging right out over our heads from a small cliff above. We scrambled up through the trees and found a rough path winding upwards. After a few hundred feet of steep slippery trail, Jake and Phillip decided to head back down to explore along the shore. Linda and I continued to climb. It was hard going, and very hot in the shadeless tropical sun. We were both winded and sweating when we eventually came out on top of the mountain and looked around. Far off to the east, the mountains of Viti Levu punched up into their clouds. Immediately below, Warana floated like a tiny toy boat on a paisley pattern of aquamarine coral. The island turned out to be L-shaped, with some thatched roofs visible through the coconuts on the far side. We walked along the ridge to the highest point of the mountain and came to a big round clearing carpeted in soft green grass. We sat down for a picnic, which soon turned romantic. We’d been together for days now, and had yet to find a way to go to bed together. The opportunity was too good to pass up, and we made love there in the grass with the tropical sun burning down on us.

When we finished and were lying panting in each other’s arms, we became aware of some soft whispering sounds quite close by. Sitting up in alarm, we found we were in the middle of a circle of young goats, watching our antics with great interest. Never, we decided, had sex so quickly resulted in a bunch of kids. We laughed and ate and played some more, then reluctantly decided to head back. Looking at the sun, we realized it was already falling behind Vomo. We had been gone far too long; Peter was probably fuming at us. We rushed out to the edge and looked down. Warana was not there.

After a moment’s panic, we spotted her some distance away, obviously under power. The dinghy was tied astern, so Jake and Phillip must have gotten back already. They were slowly circling, waiting for us. We had to hurry if we were going to get out of the reef before dark. The path we had come up was some distance away. I decided it would be quicker to go straight down the grassy slope; we should come out on the shore right next to where the boat was circling and could swim out to her. I plunged down the slope, calling for Linda to follow. It was the first of many times that I have dragged Linda off on the entirely wrong trail.

The footing was very loose and treacherous and we were skidding on our butts as much as walking. The hillside had appeared to be knee-high grass, but it kept getting higher as we descended, until it was over our heads, dry and scratchy and difficult to push through. I was forcing my way through with my weight, and Linda slithered down in my wake. It was awful, and the line of trees below never seemed to get any closer. It was clearly impossible to go back up, so there was nothing to do but keep forcing our way down.

At last we got into the trees and the underbrush turned from dry grass to thick green leaves. We lay down and skidded along on the wet clay on our backs, going under the bushes. Then we were at the edge and caught ourselves on the last trees. Warana was circling less than a quarter mile away to our right. But there was no beach now; the tide had come in and the narrow foreshore was under water. We couldn’t face going back up to the grass again, so we lowered ourselves down into the water and waded along the shore in chest deep water, ducking under the innumerable branches that hung down into the water. The boat never seemed to get any closer, but then they must have spotted us, because they turned our way. When they came abreast of us, we struck out and swam out three hundred yards to her.

Everyone was angry at us, but we were too exhausted to do more than sit dripping in the cockpit. The light was fading quickly, and it was soon obvious that it was too late to try to navigate the reef. We scouted a fairly large opening in the reef and anchored. The bottom was soft white sand, but so deep that we couldn’t let out sufficient scope without drifting onto the reef around us. It was going to be a long anxious night, and I felt responsible for endangering the boat. Peter made a good dinner and we ate on deck, watching the sky turn golden, then violet, then the southern Milky Way arched over us. There were no lights visible anywhere, except for the distant loom of the lights of Lautoka. It was going to be hard to tell if we came adrift. After dark the wind came up to a stiff breeze and the sea built up a moderate chop, now and again breaking on the reef right under our stern. We stood watches all night to check the anchor rode, but we had no problems.

It was a relief when the sun came up and we could see that we were still securely anchored in the little hole in the reef. We had to wait a few hours for the sun to get high enough to give us a good clear view into the depths, so we rowed ashore again and hiked along the beach. We came upon a large rock on the beach with a stream of fresh water flowing out of it. As far as we could tell, it was the only water on the island. When we got back to Warana the sun was high and we hoisted anchor, maneuvered carefully back out of the reef, and sailed back to Lautoka without further incident.

It was time for Linda to go back to work in Tonga. She and I took the bus to Nadi, where the airport was, and arrived with half a day to spare. Rather than hang out in the airport for six hours, we jumped on another bus going to the village of Nausori. The west coast of Fiji is low and flat and covered with sugar plantations, looking like much of coastal Hawaii. But just behind the coast the land rises steeply in a series of dry grassy ridges, looking more like California. We’d heard that herds of wild horses roamed these hills, but never saw any. The bus ground up the steep switchbacking road, narrowly missing steep dropoffs and occasional logging trucks. Finally we entered an area of pine forests and lost sight of the sea, now far below. For an hour or more we drove through rocky pine-covered canyons more reminiscent of Colorado than a South Pacific island. The area was being aggressively logged, and there were many clear-cutting scars. Nausori was a small logging village, but quite picturesque and we enjoyed our brief visit there. We got right back on the bus and rode back to Nadi.

We went out to the airport and with great heartfelt hugs I saw Linda off, back to Tonga. I returned to the boat with my emotions all riled up and confused.

Peter met a young American girl named Debbie Smith who had fallen in love with a sailor on the German yacht Han-Bri, which was just about to leave for New Hebrides. When she heard we were also bound there, she asked if she could go with us so she could follow him there. She was very quiet and seemed nice. Peter agreed to take her along to Vila as cook. What’s one more bloody Yank? Jean said goodbye and flew home to Melbourne.

We finished our preparations and said goodbye to our friends on the other yachts. Just as we were about to leave, a messenger from Fiji Marine ran up and handed me a letter from Linda. She had gotten home safely. At 1300 we cast off from the wharf and motored out to the passage through the reef. The wind was light from the southeast, the sea flat. We set sail and killed the noisy engine, keeping a close eye on the many reefs and islands around us. By early evening we were clear of all obstructions, and set course due west for the New Hebrides.

Still light airs, making about three knots. The sea was nearly flat, the air quite warm and sultry. We trailed fishing lines from the stern. The sails flapped idly. Peter and Phillip got into a discussion about the chafing on the main where it rubbed against the shrouds and spreaders when we were running free. The sail was discolored there, and some of the stitching was frayed.

“Baggywrinkles,” I said. They looked at me in surprise.

“In the old sailing ships,” I explained, “they made these fuzzy things out of old ropes and fastened them where something rubbed on the sails. They called them baggywrinkles.”

“Do you know how to make them?” Peter asked.

“I saw it described in Cugle’s,” said Jake. “I’ll go look.” We found the diagram. It was really very simple. We took an old worn mooring line, cut it into six-inch lengths, and unlaid the rope yarns. Now we had hundreds of short yarns and we knotted them onto two long strands to make a fringe. When twined tightly around a shroud, it made a soft yet durable cushion.

“Great,” said Peter. “Now we only need eleven more.” We set all hands to work, but it was a slow process and we only had three more done by evening. It was tedious work, but we had lots of time to kill.

Around noon we got a bite on one of our lines. There were several strong tugs, and without a pole Peter had to carefully work the line to keep it from breaking. The fish fought hard for a few minutes without showing itself, then suddenly leaped into the air a dozen yards off the port beam. We all gasped. It was a big sky-blue fish more than four feet long, with a high-domed head and a long muscular body arching and thrashing in the air.

“Dolphin!” shouted Peter excitedly.

I started to argue that it was nothing like a porpoise, but Peter explained that it was a dolphin fish. Phillip called it a golden dorado. Jake said it was called a mahi-mahi in Hawaii. Peter worked it skillfully, then it tired quickly and he brought it alongside. Jake gaffed it and he and Phillip dragged it aboard and flopped it into the cockpit. It was huge, at least fifteen pounds. With its big blunt head in one corner of the cockpit, its tail flailed all the way across the boat to the other lifeline.

“Watch now, watch,” said Peter.

We all stared in wonder at the fish. It had looked almost baby blue in the water, but now it was more of an iridescent metallic gold. Even as we watched, waves of green and blue and silver and red flowed down from its head to its tail. Its mouth gaped as it gasped for water. It gave a few strong thumps of its tail, then a long shudder ran through its body and it lay still. In seconds it turned a dull slate grey. It seemed that we had killed something incredibly beautiful.

Peter quickly cleaned the fish and cut it into thick steaks. Debbie fried several, and we had two or three steaks apiece for lunch. It went from vivid life to lunch in less than ten minutes. It was absolutely delicious. Peter packed the leftovers in the freezer, then ran the engine for two hours to charge the batteries to keep the freezer cold. It was deafeningly loud and annoying, shattering the quiet tranquillity of drifting silently along. It also made the cabin, and my berth in particular, completely uninhabitable in the heat.

Wind light all night. Warm enough to spend the whole night on deck in just my bathing suit, lying on my back, steering with my feet. Jake took a star sight and determined that we had crossed the 18th parallel south. Peter felt that we were getting too far south and at dawn we wore ship to starboard tack. Before noon we set the spinnaker, my first experience with them. I found it confusing to try to handle and more troublesome than helpful. Still, it looked nice, especially with the big mizzen stays’l, or gollywobbler up there too. By 1300, though, the wind died away and we had to drop the spinnaker. The stays’l slatted and banged its club annoyingly as we rocked and flapped. Peter ran the engine a few hours to charge batteries and hopefully get us closer to some wind. During the day we made four more baggywrinkles.

Light winds all night, rising slightly at dawn. Making about six knots. Another hot day. Around nine o’clock, we were startled out of our reveries by a loud crack and the sound of something heavy hitting the deck. It turned out that a rigging screw, a big steel turnbuckle on the after main shroud, had simply cracked in two and fallen off. The shroud flapped loose. Fortunately it was a starboard shroud and we were on the port tack, so it was not supporting the mast. We replaced it with a length of chain and set up the shroud again. Very strange.

Inspired to examine the rest of the rigging, we found that the port running backstay was rusted almost all the way through. We located a length of new wire rope and replaced the backstay. The new piece was five or six feet short, so we shackled it to a length of chain to make up the difference. It wasn’t pretty, but it was strong and it worked the rest of the trip.

We trailed a safety line over the stern and went swimming. I floated face down and looked down into the limpid clear water. The sun, straight up now, sent rays down like a halo to converge around my shadow far below me. It was strange to think that it was hundreds of miles to the nearest land, and four miles straight down to the bottom. If I sank here, it would be weeks before I reached bottom, if ever. I kept raising my head to make sure Warana was still nearby.

After another dorado lunch, a line of clouds passed over and the breeze picked up. We set all plain sail and bowled along merrily, happy to be under way again. Within a few hours, however, the wind had risen enough to cause us to strike the genoa and mizzen stays’l. Soon it was a stiff breeze and we put three and a half turns in the roller-furling main. White caps dotted the sea. As the sun went down ahead of us we could see several ominous dark squalls moving across the southern horizon. Very windy evening, sailing well.

The wind moderated during the morning watch, and by dawn the sky cleared. Sailing comfortably at about six knots, west southwest. We caught another dorado. I took a sun sight that indicated we had drifted too far north during the night, so we headed southwest. Ran the engine an hour for the batteries. At 1015, just as we shut the engine off, Debbie sighted land well off on the port bow. Jake immediately declared it to be Efate, our destination, and told Peter to bear up for it. I compared the shape of the island to the heights on the chart and guessed that it was Erromango, the next island south. I suggested we hold our course and should soon raise Efate. We argued for some time, each trying to convince the others of our case. Jake was certain we were sailing past our landfall and pointed out that if we held our course and he turned out to be right, we would have at least a full day of beating back upwind to reach the island.

I felt fairly confident of my position, but the large drift north during the night was disturbing. Neither could convince the other and the discussion became heated. In the end, when tempers were flaring, Peter suddenly stopped the debate. We would hold our course, he said, and if we hadn’t sighted land ahead in two more hours, we would then turn and try to beat back to the island. Jake stormed off to the bow and sat glaring at the distant peaks, now abeam. I was grateful to Peter for putting so much faith in me. After all, I was just some hippie he’d picked up on the beach. So far I only had one landfall to my record. I went aloft to anxiously scan the horizon ahead.

We caught another dolphin for lunch, and when we came out on deck, there was the unmistakable line of mountains on the starboard bow, only a shade darker blue than the sky. We both dove for the chart.

“That’s got to be Epi, the next one north,” said Jake immediately.

“Can’t be,” I argued. “Look, they’re only forty miles apart. The two we’re looking at are at least eighty. And the southern one is much higher. That’s Erromango, and the new one’s Efate.”

He looked back and forth from the islands to the chart, trying to save his theory, but it couldn’t be done. Without a word, he went below. Trying not to sound too smug, I told Peter to fall off a point. He gave me a wink as he brought the wheel around, and I felt a real satisfaction at making another good landfall.

We ran straight for Efate with the stays’l winged out to port, and Warana rolled along like an old mare hurrying back to the barn. We had a good fast run, then coasted along the southern shores of the steep, tree-covered island. The warm humid land air drifted out to us, smelling of flowers and rotting jungle vegetation, strange and alien after so much salt air. The setting sun threw long slanting shadows into the island’s deep mysterious valleys and turned the crashing surf to copper coins. There was very little sign of human occupation, and I thought it must have looked just the same when the first explorers came. But these islands were far from untouched. Thirty years earlier, Efate had been a base of operations for the attack against the Japanese-held Guadalcanal in the bloody summer of 1943. Looking at those green peaceful shores now, it was hard to believe, but the war had raged across these remote and verdant islands, the setting for Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific.

It was after dark when we sighted Pango light just abeam. We turned north and soon the lights of the city of Vila opened out before us. Lights lined the shore and climbed up high into the hills encircling the bay. The water was as still as glass, the town as silent as its reflection. We were glad to find a pair of range lights to guide us into the inner harbor, and followed them right in close to the shore. We ghosted along under stays’l and mizzen with Phillip heaving the lead. He found good bottom at six fathoms and Peter called “Let go.” The chain rattled out with a roar. It was 10:30 at night. We were in the New Hebrides, 530 miles from Lautoka, a run of four days ten hours.

We were awakened at first light by the raucous screeches of peacocks, and tumbled on deck to have a look at where we were. Vila was a beautiful little city, very Mediterranean in appearance. The downtown was small, but clean and rather elegant, with many sidewalk cafes and well-maintained parks, redolent with the perfume of frangipani. The steep green hills were dotted with lovely villas with whitewashed walls and red tiled roofs, many draped in bougainvillea and wisteria. There were a score or so of yachts in the harbor, anchored quite close in, each with a stern line to a palm tree leaning from the sea wall. After a hurried breakfast we launched the dinghy and went ashore. We tied up to the biggest wharf and walked toward land, wondering where one went to find the authorities. They soon found us. A policeman intercepted us before we reached the shore.

“Just entering the country?” he asked in English.

“Yes, sir,” replied Peter. “Just arrived from Fiji last night.”

“Well, you’ll have to clear pratique before you can go ashore. Customs is in the post office -– that big square building down there, but the offices are closed today, it being Sunday.”

“You mean we have to stay aboard all day?”

“That’s right. Sorry, but no help for it.” We all groaned in disappointment.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“Well, we’re an Australian yacht,” replied Peter, “but my crew are all Americans.”

“Oh, then you’ll want British Customs. You’re lucky it’s Sunday then,” he added enigmatically as he walked off.

We stared at one another in disgust.

“Here’s this beautiful city,” grumbled Debbie, “and we can’t even go ashore.”

“What did he mean, we’re lucky it’s Sunday?” Phillip asked. “What’s so lucky about being stuck on the boat all day?”

“Beats me,” Peter said.

We debated sneaking into town after the cop was gone, but none of us relished going to jail in a strange port. We rowed glumly back out to Warana. Debbie kept scanning the other yachts with the binoculars, looking for the Han-Bri with her lover Hans aboard, but they didn’t seem to be in yet.

It was a hot day, and the boat grew stifling in the still air. We saw a man on one of the other boats poke his head out of his hatch, stretch and scratch, then climb into his dinghy. Standing up, he pulled himself hand over hand along the stern line. He walked across the street, bought a paper and a croissant, and was back aboard in less than five minutes.

“Now, that’s the way to anchor out,” Peter exclaimed. “And look, those boats are so close to the wall, they’re in the shade. “Let’s go do that.”

So we raised the anchor and motored around to the sea wall. Dropping the hook, we backed slowly up to the wall. Jake heaved the stern lines ashore and some boys tied one to a palm and the other to a pandanus. The tall elegant palm leaned out over us, just enough to shade the cockpit in the afternoons. We rigged up a spinnaker halyard as a long running loop so we could pull the dinghy back and forth with no one in it. Finally, the problem of the dinghy always being at the wrong end was solved.

We spent the rest of the day cleaning up the boat and ourselves. It’s amazing how grungy you can get just lying around on a boat for five days. We were quite happy when evening came at last. It was hell listening to the sounds of merriment from the waterfront cafes and not being able to join in.

At eight o’clock we hurried ashore to the post office. We went in and found that it looked like any other small colonial bureaucracy, with small service windows and hard benches on which to wait. A Union Jack was on one wall and Queen Elizabeth smiled imperiously down on us from another. It took some time for a clerk to be located, but the formalities did not take long. While we waited I changed some money (into Australian dollars, I found) and bought some aerograms to write letters. When Peter came out we strolled around town, but nothing was open so early. We decided to walk along the waterfront and look at the yachts, and I was nearly run over as I stepped off the curb. The motorist shouted imprecations at me, mercifully in French, and I realized that they drive on the right here. After nine months in Tonga and Fiji, it looked all wrong, and I was constantly looking the wrong way before crossing the street.

The downtown area was quite small and soon explored. The shops were very upscale and fashionable, quite a change from the more rustic ports we were all used to. We had a good dinner together in a cafe in the evening.

I went ashore to mail my letters. I walked into the post office and stopped in confusion. Had I gone into the wrong building? It looked like the same post office, but now there was a French tricolor on one wall and Charles de Gaulle frowned down imperiously from the other. All the signs were in French. I looked closely and noticed that every sign was hanging on hooks, even the No Spitting signs and the sign on the restroom. I learned that the New Hebrides is neither a country nor a colony; it is a Condominium, governed jointly by the British and the French. Now two more unlikely bedfellows have seldom existed. How could they agree on anything? The fact is, they couldn’t. The governments took turns. Tuesday, it turned out, was French.

Shaking my head in amazement, I went to the window to post my aerogram. It was a different clerk now, and he made it clear it was a demeaning experience to be forced to speak English to me.

“I am sorry, Monsieur,” he said disdainfully. “You cannot post that letter at this office.”

“Why not?”

“It must have the stamps, no?”

“It does. See?”

“Ah,” he said, with an exasperated air, “but do you not see, monsieur, they are British stamps. And today, it is le jour Francais, n’est ce pas?”

“But I bought the stamps yesterday, at this very window.”

“But monsieur bought them yesterday. If monsieur wished to use the British stamps, monsieur should have posted them yesterday, do you not see?”

“I’m starting to see now, yes,” I grumbled. “All right, let me have some French stamps, please.” I handed him two crumpled bills.

He looked at them in some distaste. “Ah, monsieur, have you no Hebridean francs?”

It was English day, so we all went ashore and split up to do our shopping and errands. I loved walking around the city. Vila had some of the most beautiful girls I’d ever seen. Many were the daughters of French colonial officials, and often showed the heritage of various colonies. Some were from French Polynesia and had Tahitian or Marquesan blood, but there was also a significant number of Vietnamese from the former French Indochina. There were even a few of Algerian extraction. All were very fashionable and haughty and (to me) unapproachable.

While Vila was a beautiful city, after a while I noticed that it was no paradise. For one thing, the only blacks I saw were in menial jobs. The streets and parks were spotless because squads of Hebridean natives worked on them every day. I never saw a black person driving a car, or shopping in the stores, or eating in the sidewalk cafes. The customers and waiters were all white, the bus boys and kitchen help all black. It was such a change from Fiji, with its less than five percent white population, and Tonga, with even less. There the people seemed proud, the idea of being either inferior or subservient to whites never arose. Perhaps I was blind to it, but, except for the one incident at the Suva Yacht Club, I was never aware of any racial discrimination in either country.

But the New Hebrides was clearly different, at least in Vila. It had much more of a colonial feel, a hint of Africa or India under the Raj, and it made me very uncomfortable. I wasn’t much interested in the white population - they were wealthy and pampered and not that different from rich people anywhere. Nor were they interested in talking to a scruffy hippie from a yacht. I didn’t need them; I could be shunned by better people at home. I wanted to talk to the Melanesians. Hebrideans are quite different from Fijians: not as large physically, and with different facial features, more of the look of New Guinea tribesmen. I wondered what cultural features they had in common with other Melanesians. Did they have a kava/yogona ceremony, were they matriarchal, did they have any good intoxicants? But most Hebrideans I met on the street were very reticent to talk to me, and few spoke English, French being much more common. I never heard any speaking their native tongue.

I think we all felt some of this, and after our initial excitement of being in Vila, we all expressed a desire to get away from the city. That night at dinner we talked about it. Each of us had heard stories about the other islands. Tanna has active volcanoes and open grasslands with wild horses. The men of Pentecost Island build bamboo towers a hundred feet high and throw themselves off headfirst with a vine tied around one ankle, the point being to have your forehead just touch the ground before you rebound. The Big Mambas of Espiritu Santo were headhunters in recent memory.

Peter said that Vila is the only port of entry in the entire group — all yachts have to come back to Vila before clearing the country. But as long as we did that, we could hop around all we wanted in between. So after dinner we decided to take off the next day to explore some of the other islands in a series of day trips.

As usual, things didn’t go as smoothly as we’d hoped. Everyone was taking off one at a time to run various errands, and it was mid-afternoon before we had a full crew aboard. Then Peter wanted to take on water. We still had a score of jerry cans lashed around the rails, some of Diesel and some fresh water, but the water was rusty and stale and tasted like sucking pennies, so Peter wanted to fill up the water and fuel tanks before we took off. We raised the hook and moved around to the Burns Philp company wharf, but it was already closed for the day, so we tied up for the night to get an early start.

There was no sign of the fuel dock opening early. It was English day again, so we moved to the British government wharf. They had neither fuel nor water, so we returned to Burns Philp to wait. A big inter-island ship, the M/V Manutai, had tied up in our absence, so we tied up to her. Burns Philp finally opened, but had no fuel. Manutai took pity on us and offered to fill our water tanks. They ran a big hose over the side and I inserted it in our water filler. When they turned on their pumps, it nearly blew the water tank through the bottom of the boat. In seconds, water was spurting out of the filler into my face. We thanked them and cast off at 11. As we would be going ashore again in the evening, we trailed the dinghy astern.

As we crossed the harbor we were joined by the yacht Papillon, also just setting out. We sailed side by side to the harbor’s mouth, calling out greetings and questions. It was a grey day with little wind, but it picked up when we got outside. We set all plain sail and lay over, running northward. The Papillon sheered off and headed south. By noon we had rounded Devil Point and gybed in a stiff twenty-knot breeze to follow the coast of Efate northward. Soon the wind backed and freshened until we were close-hauled, but still making seven knots. Then the starboard after main shroud parted with a snap. It was the same shroud that had parted earlier at the turnbuckle, but then it had been on the lee side. Now it was under considerable strain. We quickly bent on a mooring line and took it to a winch, but it was a stopgap measure. Repairs were obviously required, so Peter steered while we cut off a length of anchor chain. Then we had some wild work getting the chain shackled on and the line off, all of it under great strain, working in the lee channel with green water up to our knees. With a great deal of swearing and cursing we got it done.

We entered the channel between Efate and a much smaller Leleppa island to port. Both islands were high with steep slopes and the channel looked like a tropical fjord. The water was smooth in the lee of the island, but the wind was still strong, so we bowled along with a quartering breeze. The shore of Efate was a thick dark mass of mangroves standing out in the sea on massive arthritic legs. There was no sign of human habitation on either side.

We motored toward the sandy beach, then anchored in four fathoms just after four o’clock. Peter reversed the engine to back down and set the anchor. Suddenly there was a grinding noise, something banged hard against the stern, and the engine stalled. Dashing to the rail, we looked down and saw the dinghy under the stern, swamped to the gunwales, jammed against the prop. We’d run over the painter. Phillip jumped in and cleared the prop, then we spliced the painter and tensioned the jury shroud. We rowed ashore to investigate a coconut plantation. There was little to see beyond the endless rows of trees: a corrugated iron shed, a fire ring, wooden pallets, and the nasty-looking husking stakes slanting out of the ground. Jake climbed a tree and picked some fresh drinking nuts for us all.

The sun did its usual tropical vanishing act. Just at twilight we could make out moving black dots along the edge of the mangroves, which turned out to be dugout canoes passing in and out of the narrow channels between the trees. When they got closer we could see that each canoe contained two or three women. It was nearly dark now, and these women were heading home after a day of working on their farms, fishing, or just visiting. They called to each other in soft voices, floating clearly to us across the still water. I heard one call out loudly, then many joined in with derisive hoots of laughter. It sounded exactly as if one had made a playful verbal jab at another, and the chorus was awarding the point. At that distance they could have been speaking any language, but it didn’t sound any different from a bunch of shop girls teasing each other in a mall.

The outriggers quickly disappeared into invisible passages in the mangroves. There must have been villages on the shore behind the trees, but there was no sign them. Sunset came in the usual blaze of tropical colors, then it was pitch dark. There was not a light visible anywhere. Later in the evening a faint light appeared and bobbed slowly toward us. Two men paddled past the boat in an outrigger with a small kerosene lantern in the bow and a pile of shining fish around their feet. We bought several fish for our dinner, and the men paddled off into the dark.

Woke up at five to get an early start. Having learned our lesson yesterday, we took the dinghy aboard and lashed it in place on top of the coachhouse. The fishermen came by and sold us six reef fish for a pack of cigarettes. We had a good breakfast and were under way before seven. It was another overcast day. A light breeze sprang up in a few minutes and we killed the “iron mains’l” and headed north. We passed several very steep little rocky islets, one a towering pinnacle of rock like a leaning tower. The wind continued to rise until we had to reef. After lunch we made the southwest tip of the island of Emai and the wind moderated as we got in its lee. The much larger outline of Epi was visible in the distance.

We ran up the west coast of Emai until mid-afternoon, when we spotted a little white house among the trees at Sesaki Bay. There was a small boat channel through the reef there, and after some debate we nosed into it. We worked in to a deeper hole and anchored, but none of us were happy about the holding ground. We were right in the middle of the boat channel, nearly filling it, with the reef only a few yards away on either side. To top it off, the wind was funnelled over a low place in the narrow island and sent strong gusts against us. We raised the anchor and moved to a better anchorage a few hundred yards away where there was almost no wind, setting the hook in coral sand around 2:30.

We immediately launched the dinghy and rowed ashore to explore. Jake and Phillip headed off into the bush to investigate a village we had spotted further along the bay. The rest of us strolled down the beach to the little house, calling out greetings as we approached. Getting no answer, we peeked in: a cot, a sink, a table and chair, some bookshelves, and a desk covered with carpentry tools. It was obviously lived in, but there was nobody there. A well-beaten path led back into the bush, so we followed it. Instantly the sound of the wind and the sea was cut off by the thick foliage. We padded silently along the winding track, the trees towering over us. I felt like a rabbit in a thicket, and wondered where the hell we were going.

We came to a very small village, just a half dozen thatched huts. There were a few people about, but they seemed very shy. A few kids came out to greet us and we stopped to talk. They spoke French, but some of the kids had a little English and seemed to enjoy trying it out on us. After a while we continued on the trail to the east. After twenty or thirty minutes, we could hear and feel a dull booming, causing the air to shake. Then a distant thrumming sound grew to a roar of noise, and suddenly we stepped out onto a beach. It couldn’t have been more unlike the one we had just left. The sky had cleared in our short passage across the island, and the sun glared down out of a transparent sun-washed sky. The wind howled in our faces. Huge seas threw themselves against the fringing reef, sending long spumes of spray across the beach. The foliage here was all screw pine, the only tree hardy enough to live in the salt spray and sand-blasting. This was what the Tongans called the liku, the back of an island. People built their villages where the harbors were, on the lee sides of the islands. The liku was the wild side, where people rarely went except to look at the scenery and to write poetry.

A hundred yards down the beach, a white man stood looking out to sea, his back to us. We approached to speaking distance — not very far in that wind.

“G’day!” shouted Peter.

The man yelped and spun around, startled out of his voice for a moment.

“Bloody hell!” he gasped in an Aussie accent. “Where the hell did you lot come from?”

“Beg pardon,” Peter replied. “Didn’t mean to startle you. We’re off a yacht,” he added, gesturing vaguely toward the trees.

“Oh, I see. Haven’t had any company for a few weeks. Didn’t expect to see anybody.”

“You’re here alone?” Debbie asked.

“Yes. The Brits hired me to build a school.”

“So how’s the school coming?”

“Got the slab poured. Framing’s going a bit slow, not having help, of course.”

“Why don’t they give you helpers?”

“Why pay for more? They’re in no hurry to get it done. Me contract says I’ve got six months.”

“Will you make it?”

“Sure, no worries, mate.” Suddenly he stiffened, staring off down the mist-shrouded beach. “Damn, there’s more blokes walking around. It’s getting like King’s bloody Cross around here.” We looked up and saw Jake and Phillip strolling toward us, looking disheveled after pushing through the bush for a mile or more.

We accompanied him back to his house and heard his story. He’d been a young carpenter doing small jobs around Sydney when he saw an ad for this job.

“So I asks meself: what am I doing that I couldn’t give up? Live on a desert island for six months and build a one-room schoolhouse? It was too good to pass up.”

“Do you like it?”

“Aye, I reckon. It’s no paradise, but there’s worse ways to spend a half a year.”

“Don’t you get lonely?” Debbie asked.

“Not too much. I always spent a lot of time by meself, even in the city.”

“Do you need anything?” Peter asked. “Food or anything?”

“Nah, got plenty of tucker. A few packs of cigs, if you have any. Unless you’ve some books to spare? I’ve read every word on this island three times.”

“Sure,” said Phillip. “I have a couple of books I’ve finished.” We all had a few, so we offered to bring him a bag of books before we left in the morning.

“Ta. That’d be a real pleasure to me, to have some new books. But say, you don’t have to walk all the way down here to bring ‘em. Just leave ‘em in that shed on the beach.”

It was getting near dusk, so we said goodbye and walked back to the dinghy. We finished the last of our fish and sat out on deck enjoying the sunset and the warm night.

We woke to a still grey morning, the glassy water reflecting the lines of palms on the shore. After an early breakfast, we put a dozen books and two packs of cigarettes in a bag and rowed ashore to leave it hanging conspicuously in a tree. Around eight we raised the anchor and motored out of the bay. There was a bit of wind, so we set sail and drifted northwest toward Epi. With little sailing to do, I brought out the Western Pacific Pilot, the fascinating book that describes each island and its features. I began reading aloud to the others about the northern New Hebrides.

“It says here,” I said, “that Epi is uninhabited, or at least it was when this book was written a few years ago.” I read on, trying to find anything about preferred anchorages, but there was little to go on. “Hey, listen to this,” I called. “‘The yachtsman is urged to exercise reasonable caution in any interaction with the natives of these islands. The two Mamba tribes in Espiritu Santo are still considered unpredictable and dangerous. The people were known headhunters during the war.’”

“Hey, can you believe that?” said Phillip. “That’s less than thirty years ago. We could meet people who remember what ‘long pig’ tastes like!”

“Yeah,” added Jake. “I think we’re not in Kansas any more, Toto.”

It was exciting to realize that this was still wild country, not all that different from the days when only heavily armed and manned vessels went through this group, trading for pearl shell, bêche de mer, and sandalwood. Many a whale ship or daring trading brig has been cut off on these coasts and every man killed and eaten.

After noon, as we approached the Foreland, the southern tip of Epi, the clouds broke to a fine sunny afternoon. We rounded the Foreland and coasted the west side, looking for a likely anchorage. The coast was strikingly beautiful. Everything was covered with a deep green verdure. The craggy peaks were dark volcanic rock, but much of the coastal cliffs were white limestone. The result was that white and black sand beaches alternated along the coast. We came to Ringdove Bay, with a stream rushing out of the trees and across the white beach. It was too inviting to pass up, and we cautiously felt our way into the cove. It seemed to be all sand, and the water was fairly deep right up to the mouth of the stream. We anchored in only two fathoms, so close we could almost jump ashore. We quickly landed and looked about with interest. The only sign of human activity was a rutted dirt road that ran up from the beach into the bush, and a handful of cows browsing at the edge of the creek.

We followed the road, but it soon forked. We talked it over, with no one agreeing on what we wanted to do. Some wanted to go back to the boat, others were for going on. Finally we said, hey, the island’s uninhabited, right? Let’s all go where we want and we’ll meet back at the dinghy around dark. So we split up. I felt like trying to find my way to a prominent peak south of the cove and took the road that went that way. The road dwindled to a track, and soon I was trudging up a steep muddy slope, the air still and muggy beneath the trees. Insects buzzed and whirred invisibly, and now and again a bright bird dashed through the tree tops with a peripheral flash of brilliant color.

I realized suddenly that I felt blissfully happy. Here I was, having navigated a boat to an uninhabited tropical island, exploring a jungle all alone. Not a person in the world knew where I was, only a handful even knew what country I was in. This was adventure; this was why I had stayed on the old Fairmorse all those long months, why I had left school, why I travelled. This was definitely not my home in Beavercreek, Ohio. What would they think if they could see me now ? I had one of those rare epiphanies, where one realizes that today is one of the good days you’ll remember all your life. I felt so content that I didn’t care what happened after this; let it end here. Bring on the cannibals.

I reached the summit of the little mountain, but the trees were so thick that there was no view. I could tell by the sun that the afternoon was getting late, so I turned right around and returned to the beach. Jake was already there, sitting on the upturned dinghy. I still felt high from my solitary experience, and wasn’t in a hurry to end it with conversation, so I sat down in the sand to wait. I looked up at Jake and saw that his eyes were closed, his head erect, listening and inhaling the smells. He had a beatific smile on his face.

A few minutes later, Debbie emerged from the bush and walked over to us, kicking her feet through the powdery sand. Her hair was wet. She had found an iron water tank and taken a shower. Then Phillip and Peter walked down the road from the other direction. They told us they had met a native man who sold them three large triton shells, worth at least eight dollars apiece in a city, for six cigarettes apiece.

“Bloody nice island,” said Peter. The rest of us nodded happily, then we turned to and launched the dinghy and rowed back to the boat. During the evening the saloon light kept getting dimmer, indicating some kind of a short someplace. We traced as many wires as we could get at, but couldn’t find anything wrong. We lit a kerosene lamp, which gave a nicer light anyway.

In the morning we ran the engine to charge the batteries, but were getting a very low and irregular amperage from the generator. We took the generator out and tore it apart, but none of us were electricians. We concluded that the brushes were probably loose or worn, nothing we could fix here, so we put it all back together. After lunch we upped anchor and continued north. It was overcast again and dead calm, so we motored slowly along, exploring each bay, looking for a good anchorage.

At two o'clock we came to Lamuda Bay, larger than most we had seen. Several roofs were visible through the trees and outriggers dotted the bay, so we anchored in seven feet of water, just two more than our draft. We went ashore immediately and found there were two schools, one British and one French, a small hospital, and a construction crew building an airstrip. A mission station was on a small island in the bay. It seemed a real bustle of activity after the places we’d been the last few days. We walked over to the British school and talked to the two teachers, an Australian husband and wife team. They were very friendly and helpful and allowed us to take showers in the school restrooms. Some of the construction workers gave us all cold beers, a real treat. The missionaries even paddled over from their island to meet us. They were a young English couple and quite nice, for Christians.

As evening began to fall, we noticed a lot of people getting into outriggers and small native sailboats and putting out to sea. We at first assumed they were going night fishing on the reef, but so many seemed to be leaving, including even the construction workers and small children from the schools, that we asked about it.

“Oh, they’re going home,” replied the male missionary.

“Home? Don’t they live here?”

“Oh, no. No native would stay on Epi at night. It’s tapu.”

“Why?”

“No one knows for sure. It always has been. The theory is that something terrible happened here centuries ago, a battle or a natural disaster, and it’s still haunted by tevolo, devil-ghosts.”

“But they come in the day time, obviously,” said Peter.

“Yes, tevolo only walk at night,” put in the woman teacher. “But look around. There’s no native houses anywhere on Epi.”

She was right. Besides the public buildings, there were just four European-style houses; theirs, and the houses of the French teachers and medical staff from the hospital. The white construction foreman lived in a quonset hut beside the airstrip.

“Do you mean,” asked Debbie, “that all of your students go home to other islands every night?”

“Yes. I have three six-year-olds that sail over seven miles in a dugout outrigger every morning.”

“By themselves?” asked Phillip in astonishment.

“Yes. They start before dawn and get home after dark. If it’s stormy, they study at home and bring their work when it clears up.”

“What about the hospital? Don’t patients stay there?”

“Oh, no. I’ve seen a family load their old dying granny into a canoe and paddle away, over the horizon.”

“But there are no people here,” Peter exclaimed. “Why build schools and a hospital on a tapu island?”

“Well, the land’s free. Since no one lives here the government didn’t have to negotiate for a piece of land.”

“You see,” put in the missionary, “everyone knows the New Hebrides is going to get its independence in the next few years. Both the British and the French would like the natives to vote to retain close links with their countries, so they’re competing for the people’s affection. The French announced that they were going to build a school up here, and the British couldn’t have that, so they announced they were going to build both a school and a hospital.”

“Then the French said they were going to put in an airstrip,” added his wife. “They both keep upping the ante.”

“I suppose it’s all to the natives’ benefit,” I said.

“Oh, yes. They’re clearly happy with the arrangement, and sharp enough to know that it won’t last forever. Once they have independence, a lot of this aid could dry up. So the independence council keeps drawing out its deliberations, delaying any decision on which way they’ll go.”

“And that delays their independence,” the male teacher added. “So it just continues as the Confusion of the New Hebrides.”

I was excited by the idea of being in a country at its birth. “Will it still be called the New Hebrides?” I asked.

“That’s not decided yet either, but I don’t think so. Most of the people see the name as a relic of colonialism, given to them by the Europeans. Most likely it will be called Vanuatu, the name they use for the whole island group.”

We returned to the boat for dinner, and afterwards Peter informed us that he had decided to cut the exploring short and head for home, as he was getting concerned about his cruising insurance, which was due to expire in about three weeks. We were to return to Vila the next day to clear the country, then head for New Caledonia. We were all disappointed that we were not going to get to the really wild islands further north.

In the morning we were awakened by the sound of native voices close at hand, and looked out to see scores of canoes coming into the bay. We had a quick breakfast and went on shore again, quickly splitting up. Phillip and I strolled along the beach to examine some of the canoes. They were dugouts, very deep and narrow, pointed at both ends, and supported by long outrigger poles longer than the boats. We talked with some teenage boys who were working on one of the boats and managed to make them understand that we wanted to try out a boat. They readily agreed to let each of us take out one of the smaller non-sailing canoes.

We lowered ourselves awkwardly into them. They were so narrow we had to kneel upright, the rough-cut bottom very rough on our knees. The dugout portion was so narrow our hips were wedged in place. The boys handed us each a heavy diamond-shaped koa wood paddle and shoved us off the beach. It was much harder than I had imagined to paddle. They were so long and narrow that it was very difficult to get them to turn, especially with the long outrigger poles slicing along just under water. The boys laughed uproariously at our clumsy efforts and shouted many suggestions and comments in French. I felt relieved just to get back to shore without requiring a tow.

Jake and Debbie had been diving on the reef and raved about the many brilliant fish they had seen. Peter had been shopping. When we got back to the dinghy, he was just arriving with a native man carrying a huge bunch of bananas Peter had bought, at least two hundred. They were so heavy they nearly swamped the dinghy. We hung them up in the cabin to ripen. We hoisted the dinghy aboard and got everything shipshape for sea. It was mid-afternoon when we finally sailed off the anchor and out of the bay, waving and shouting to our friends on shore.

Once out of Lemuda Bay there was a good sailing breeze, but directly in our face. We set jib, stays’l, and mizzen and started a long hard beat to the south. When we cleared the Foreland we encountered short steep seas that made for a rough passage, though we were making better than six knots. After dark we kept a close lookout for those volcanic islets we had passed, but never spotted them. By midnight we were in the lee of Efate island and the wind lessened considerably.

We steered various courses during the night, guided by the infrequent lights on shore. Just as the eastern stars started by fade, we brought Pango light abeam and tacked into Mele Bay for Port Vila. Soon after, the lights of a large ship approached from the south, showing both red and green, so we tacked to stay clear. When the sun rose, its slanting rays turned the huge white bulk of the cruise ship M/V Fairstar to red and gold as she glided past. We made several more tacks trying to get into the harbor, but the wind stayed light and fickle. At 0715 we gave up and motored in to tie up to the Burns Philp wharf just before nine. Debbie scanned the harbor for her boyfriend’s boat, but it still wasn’t in. We offered to take her on with us to New Caledonia, but she said she would stay in Vila and hope they showed up eventually. We spent the rest of the day shopping and getting the boat stowed and cleaned up for the long passage. Peter got the generator repaired and cleared customs and immigration.

Debbie packed her gear and left after breakfast. She was still hoping to get together with her boyfriend Hans, but I think we all felt she was probably heading for disappointment. We were all sorry to see her go, for we had gotten along very well together.

It was nearly noon before we were finally ready. We cast off from the dock, waved goodbye to Debbie, and motored out of the harbor. We raised sail and headed almost due south for New Caledonia, more than 250 miles sou’souwest.

It was Jake’s birthday, and Peter surprised him with a hand-drawn birthday card. Jake just grinned and looked embarrassed, but I think he was really touched. Peter’s a very good-hearted guy and seems to feel a real affection for all us young Yanks. He calls us “the boys.” Looking at him now at the helm of his yacht, relaxed and happy, it brought home to me how completely the situation had changed since the passage from Tonga to Fiji. Then the crew was tense and hostile, all of us aware that we were losing both precious time and hard-won miles by sailing west to Fiji when our goal was still so far to the east. Tempers were short, every chance observation seemed to bring a sharp, sarcastic retort, and the days were spent trying to stay out of each other’s “space.” But now, with a relaxed, compatible crew and the easy, directionless pleasure cruising through these beautiful islands, there was no comparison. This was the way cruising should be. Peter was happy, his drinking was no longer a concern, and we were enjoying each other’s company.

Even the competitive friction between Jake and myself had faded away. I think we had both developed more respect for the other’s seamanship and reliability. I was now the acknowledged navigator, though I often sought his opinion. While we were all sorry the cruise was coming to an end —- there had been talk of exploring the Solomons, New Britain, even New Ireland - there were still many weeks of cruising and scores of islands between us and Australia. Since it was all new territory to me, I was happy to go wherever the boat was going.

Toward sunset the wind rose and the scattered clouds started to gather and darken into squalls. By ten the rain squalls were so frequent that we reefed the main.

In the morning the sky was breaking and the wind and seas had dropped. We shook out the reef and made a steady five knots. The sailing was glorious, but the sou’southeast wind was right in our eye. We were close-hauled, laid well over, and occasionally hitting a big sea hard, throwing spray high over the bow. Shoals of flying fish skittered away from our bow wave, sometimes hundreds at a time, like a constellation of sky-blue stars skimming over the deep blue water.

The angle of heel was so extreme that I couldn’t stay in my bunk without jamming my knees hard against the side of the engine. Peter continued to turn out three good hot meals a day, in spite of having to wedge himself in the tiny galley to cook. We ate in the cockpit, huddled behind the saloon to keep the spray out of our plates. We made long six-to-eight hour tacks to west and southeast, trying to make our southing. The wind and seas rose again at dark, so we reefed the main sail for the night.

At dawn we shook out the reef and continued beating long boards. The pounding was still heavy and some water was coming aboard, but running the engine for a half hour a day was enough to charge the batteries, run the fridge, and drain the bilge. I had been expecting to see the Loyalty Islands, a small group east of New Caledonia, some time after first light, but it was almost noon before we sighted a high island on the starboard bow. We assumed it was Lifou, the largest of the Loyalties. At noon I caught a good sun sight and confirmed the landfall. I had been hoping to get a bit further east so we would clear Maré, the easternmost Loyalty, but it was going to be close. We had averaged a hundred miles a day, but because of the tacking we were not nearly that far from Efate. We shortened our tacks to every two hours to try to get down to Lifou. By three o’clock we were close enough to the island to feel the effect of its lee. We slowed to three knots, but the motion and heel eased considerably, making us much more comfortable.

Lifou is a high green island with few visible signs of habitation, though we could see smoke rising from the trees in a number of places. It looked very inviting, but Peter didn’t want to stop. We ran down Lifou’s eastern side, then tacked east to try to get around Maré. The passage between Maré and Lifou was thirty miles wide, but dotted with small islets and unmarked reefs, and we hoped to avoid a night passage. After a couple of hard tacks, the wind came right around against us, and we decided to go through the passage, though the sun was just going down. We took a number of bearings on various points and islands to be sure of our position, then turned southwest again and ran on under reduced sail.

We carefully tracked the two visible navigation lights throughout the night, and by three o’clock had cleared Vauvilliers Island, a dangerous pinnacle of rock that had been our greatest anxiety. We bore off due west and ran on more confidently, though I was still nervous about unknown currents setting us onto the numerous reefs just a few miles south of our track. At dawn we shook a reef out of the main and set the big genoa. The Loyalties fell away behind us and we entered the open waters of the Coetlogon Passage between the Loyalties and the mainland of New Caledonia. For once I wasn’t worried about missing an island. New Caledonia, though only about 20 miles wide, stretches more than 250 miles from northwest to southeast, with long strings of smaller islands and reefs extending out another hundred miles on each end. Missing it would be like missing California. Just before lunch, a long jagged spine rose out of the sea ahead, a faint blue line that stretched out of sight to north and south.

I went below to study the charts and the Coast Pilot for New Caledonia. Together with the Loyalties, it is a French possession, noted for its valuable deposits of nickel. The only city, and the only port of entry, is Noumea on the southwestern tip. Unless we took another two days to beat around the southern end of the group, the only passage is Havannah Channel. I flipped to the sailing directions for the channel, and went on deck to read them aloud to the others.

“‘Havannah Channel,’” I read, “‘is notorious among mariners as one of the most difficult approaches in the Western Pacific. The navigable channel is narrow and tortuous, with scores of unmarked reefs, poorly marked islands, and strong offshore winds, especially off the mouths of canyons. Shifting sandbars cause concerns even to mariners who have made the passage recently. The prudent mariner will not rely on charted navigational aids, as these are rarely operating and often misplaced. Strong unpredictable tidal currents, whirlpools, and sudden steep waves have resulted in the loss of many vessels when they were swept out of the main channel.’”

“Sounds like a nice place,” said Peter.

“Wait, there’s more. ‘These currents are at their most severe during spring tides, particularly at the equinoxes.’”

“What day is today?” asked Phillip.

“The day after the spring equinox,” I replied.

“Well, we’ll just have to trust to the compass then,” said Jake.

“‘The immense nickel deposits in the mountains,’” I read on, “‘cause the largest magnetic deviations in the world, often exceeding forty-five degrees, so no reliance should be given to magnetic compasses. Frequent squalls and occasional dense fogs make visual navigation problematic at best, and navigators are urged to rely on a good well-calibrated radar set to keep them out of danger.’”

We looked at each other solemnly.

“Rather makes you wish we had a radar set,” said Peter. “When do you expect we’ll get there?”

“If this wind holds we should be at the passage in late afternoon,” I replied.

“Oh, perfect,” said Jake. “So we’ll be going through in the dark? Why don’t we just blindfold ourselves to make it more interesting?”

“She’ll be right,” said Peter. “If we get there too late, we’ll heave to till morning. No worries.” I wished I felt his confidence in my navigating abilities.

I took a noon sight that indicated we were being helped by a strong westerly current, so we were making well over seven knots. Since we were planning on having to wait anyway, we dropped the genoa to slow down. At five o’clock we sighted Port Yaté at the entrance of the channel. We took bearings to determine our exact position and guessed we were about four hours from Havannah Channel. We decided to heave to where we were so we’d be far from any dangers while we drifted, then we could run in to arrive just before dawn. The first part of the channel is fairly wide and well lighted with leading lights, so we could do that part in the dark, then have the light behind us for the reef passages. We dropped the main and came up into the wind to heave to under stays’l and mizzen sheeted flat. Warana rode comfortably with her head under her wing, making about a knot and a half. The sun went down an hour later under hazy, pearly skies, and we had dinner and turned in wondering what tomorrow would bring.

At midnight we raised the main and headed for the channel at five knots. The sky was starless, the only light the yellow blink of Yaté light on our starboard bow and the phosphorescence of our passage. Feeling nervous, I sat on the end of the bowsprit, straining my ears for the sound of surf out there in the darkness. Sometime later, I noticed pale ghostly comet shapes rushing through the water beneath my dangling toes. Peering closer, I could see that they were about the size and shape of stocking caps, twining gracefully around each other, easily keeping up with the boat. I felt a shiver of superstitious fear at the uncanny sight. Then I heard a splash and a quick breath and caught a strong odor of fish. It was a school of bottle-nosed porpoise playing in our bow wave, so streamlined that only the leading edge of their bottles disturbed the phytoplankton and caused it to phosphoresce. I didn’t wonder at their joy in swimming through light. My tension eased and I felt better for having the porpoise accompanying us. Perhaps the old stories of their leading sailors out of danger were true.

Being able to see Yaté light gave us confidence to keep on our course. We expected to see the first leading lights any time, but at four o’clock the wind died away and a light rain began to fall. Yaté light disappeared in the rain, and since as usual we were sailing without running lights, it was literally too dark to see the bow. Warana drifted motionless, the only sound the hiss of rain on the sea. I knew we must be very close to the channel entrance, with a strong current carrying us into the channel. Not liking the idea of drifting around in such close quarters, we dropped all sail and Peter started the engine, running very slowly to give us steerage way. Now we couldn’t even hear any breakers if they were there. It was still two hours to daylight. All hands were on deck, straining our eyes into the darkness ahead.

An anxious half hour later Jake suddenly pointed off our starboard beam. “Hey, what’s that light way over there?” I peered out at the dim glow in the rain, then we went to look at the chart inside the doghouse.

“I don’t know,” I said. “There shouldn’t be anything there. Maybe it’s a ship?”

“I don’t think it’s moving,” said Phillip. “And look, there’s another one up ahead.”

“Oh shit,” I said. “Those have to be the leading lights we’re looking for. But if they are, we’re at least a mile south of the channel, right in this mess of reefs down here.”

“Peter!” we shouted. “Stop, stop. We’re out of the channel!”

“What?” he called, cutting the engine. “I didn’t know we were in it yet.”

“Neither did I. There must be a monster current.”

“What’ll we do?”

“Well, I for one have no desire to run around these reefs in the dark. Check the fatho. Can we anchor?”

“Sixty fathoms. Too deep.”

“Then let’s head north as slow as we can and get back into the channel.”

“Too right,” said Peter, spinning the wheel. We motored along at dead slow, scanning the darkness ahead, watching for any sign of white foam in the darkness. The edges of coral reefs are usually vertical, so the fathometer gives no warning. Ten anxious minutes later the leading lights finally came into line and we knew we were back in the channel. None of us wanted to continue in the dark under these conditions, so we turned east and ran back out of the channel until daylight. A half hour later the sun rose dead ahead behind heavy clouds, and we spun around and headed back. A light rain was still falling. By the time we got back to the leading lights at six, the rain had stopped and the sky was lightening. We steered various courses, following several sets of lights, until 0740, when the sky started to break and a favorable breeze sprang up. We set all sail and killed the engine.

The rising sun broke through the clouds and flooded the low rain clouds before us with crimson and orange. Sun glories streamed down all around us, turning the grey water to sparkling blue. The channel opened up before us, high rugged mountains tumbling down on either side. It was a glorious morning, exhilarating in its beauty.

The wind soon grew fickle. We alternated sailing and motoring until eleven, then dropped the sails for good. We saw mountains ahead on the mainland that glared white against the green jungle all around. When we got close enough, we realized that the mountain had been strip-mined, scraped down to bare rock to get at the valuable nickel deposits below. Occasional glimpses up into the interior showed range after range of mountains, all similarly ravaged. It was sobering to see what men had done to this remote and beautiful island. An hour later we rounded the southernmost tip of the mainland and came into another world.

A long harbor opened up before us, beautifully sheltered by an offshore island. Powerful speedboats crisscrossed the harbor, some towing water-skiers. Sleek yachts with snow-white sails raced one another around set courses. Modern houses tumbled down the steep slopes to white beaches, looking like the French Riviera. With our scruffy-looking baggywrinkles, yellowed sails, and rusty jerry cans around the rail, we felt like hobos crashing an elegant party.

We motored to Noumea, a modern gleaming white city at the far end of the harbor, and soon spotted the anchor-outs that marked the yacht club, some miles from downtown Noumea. We congratulated each other on finally making landfall on a weekday so we wouldn’t have to wait to clear customs. We were maneuvering among the outlying boats at dead slow when a voice hailed us.

“Warana! Welcome to Noumea!”

We recognized Robert, our friend from the Suva yacht club, standing on the bow of his meticulously maintained little Tahiti ketch La Flor. His friendly face and cheery greeting made us feel welcome.

“Too bad about your timing,” he shouted. “Today’s the 150th anniversary of the colonization of New Caledonia. It’s a national holiday and everything’s closed. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to clear.”

He directed us to the yacht club dock, where we tied up at one o’clock, having run exactly four hundred miles from Efate. We secured the boat and walked up to the clubhouse, but found it was closed for the holiday. We rowed over to visit with Robert. He was the single-hander who had refinished his boat on the passage from Hawaii to Fiji. On the run from Fiji to Noumea he had stripped the canvas off his decks, recaulked and sealed them, glued on another layer of canvas, and given it two coats of non-skid paint. He was a remarkable craftsman, but it was lucky he sailed alone because he was so fastidious he would drive anyone else crazy.

We returned to the boat, cleaned her and ourselves up, and relaxed to admire the beautiful tropical scenery. Robert rowed by on his way ashore. An hour or two later, the sky grew very dark and a line of white swept across the harbor toward us. We were already snugged down, so there was nothing we had to do except close the boat up. Moments later a vicious squall struck like a tornado. The wind was tremendous, but because the marina was relatively sheltered the waves never built up much. Halfway through the blast, we were amazed to see Robert come rushing down to the dock and launch his dinghy.

He rowed frantically out past us, directly into the white-streaked seas beyond the breakwater. Then we saw what he had seen. His beautiful ketch, anchored out in the harbor, was adrift and heading directly for a cluster of jagged black rocks. He rowed like a madman, but the seas kept turning his little dinghy around. I was afraid he would founder any minute, for there was no hope of catching La Flor in time. But her dragging anchor apparently caught in some better bottom, for she stopped on her own with no more than fifty yards to spare. We saw Robert clamber safely aboard and moments later the squall had passed. I chalked it up to the good karma Robert had built up.

We decided to hitchhike to Noumea to clear customs and see the town. We walked out and stood on the road with our thumbs out. A few people drove by and gave us dubious appraisals, then a man driving a little Citroën screeched to a stop. The driver spoke no English but agreed to take us to Noumea. All four of us squeezed in and we roared off in a spray of gravel.

It was astonishing to me how quickly everything was flying past. It seemed to me that we were going dangerously fast, but I decided it was probably because I hadn’t been in a car in almost a year. I was also having trouble deciding which side of the road we were supposed to be using. This was French territory, so I assumed the right side, but this guy seemed to use whichever side was smoother.

I smiled to myself at the thought of an American growing unused to being in a car. Even the few times I had ridden in a Mini-moke in Tonga, the roads never allowed the car to go much more than twenty. I was too wedged into the car to see the speedometer, but this guy was surely going much faster than that. I was used to five knots seeming very fast, and here we were suddenly going ten times as fast. I’d just have to get accustomed to speed again.

It was hard to do. I kept having the impression that the driver was driving very recklessly. It was a two lane paved road, but winding along the shore with a seawall on the left and a steep cliff going up on the right. He was talking very quickly and loudly, amplifying his remarks with his hands, frequently turning around to address us. None of us had any idea what he was talking about, but we all smiled and nodded amiably and tried not to look terrified. Suddenly we rounded a turn on the wrong side and there was a blue Renault coming right at us. There was a terrific crash and the tinkle of broken glass, then silence. We were all too astonished to say anything.

Then the driver was out of the car, screaming at the driver of the Renault. We untangled ourselves and clambered out. No one was hurt, miraculously enough. We stood around awkwardly, studying our French profanities as the drivers shouted at each other. We didn’t know if we should stay or not. But what could we do to help? We interrupted the tirade long enough to thank our driver for the lift, then set off to walk into Noumea. Ten months away from cars, then I get into an accident in the first five minutes. I had thought he was going too fast.

In fifteen minutes we were in the outskirts of the city and found our way to the Australian Consulate. He welcomed us and told us the French officials were very aware of who we were and what had been the purpose of Warana’s voyage. He expected them to give us a hard time, but in fact they turned out to be very courteous and efficient. It was a pleasant relief.

Noumea was a very modern European-style city with fancy cars and expensive shops. The streets were full of beautiful French girls in miniscule miniskirts, but not a black face to be seen. Everything was way too expensive for me, even a sandwich. I had less than twenty dollars left, which had to last me until I got to a place with an address. I still had two hundred dollars in my bank account at home, but I was never in one place long enough for my parents to wire it to me. Well, I didn’t really need money for anything until we got to Australia. We were planning to head to Brisbane any day, then down the coast to Melbourne. I had no plans at all for myself, but rather hazily imagined staying with Warana as long as she was still moving. On the other hand, maybe I’d jump ship in Brisbane and head for the Outback. Or New Guinea, or Java, or Indonesia, or Nepal.

Peter was very anxious to be in Australian waters when his insurance expired next week, but day after day the wind was from the southwest, right in our face.

The wind finally came around to the east this morning, so we made ready to leave. We called French customs for clearance, and an officer actually drove out from town to pick us up and give us our clearance. Perhaps they were just anxious to be rid of us. We got back, fueled up, and left the dock before ten in the morning. In twenty minutes we had cleared the harbor. We set sail, killed the engine, and headed southwest with a large following sea. The sky was partly cloudy with a steady wind behind us, giving us over six knots.

The wind dropped during the night and we were ghosting slowly along all morning, though the seas were still high. I good a good sun sight at noon that showed we were in a westerly current that had boosted us along another sixteen miles a day, giving us about 140 miles noon-to-noon, one of our best days yet. In the afternoon the wind came up again. We set the genoa and were soon back up to six knots. I was concerned about Kelso Bank, a shallow reef somewhere ahead of us.

No sign of the reef by daylight, so we steered a bit more westerly to make sure we cleared it. The wind was variable, but always behind us. The sky was clear and the seas still impressive, making the ride so rough it was difficult to move around the boat. I found it exhilarating. Riding on the bowsprit was epecially exciting. The toilet had plugged up within a few hours of leaving port, as it had on every passage. We had long since gotten used to the idea of sitting out on the bowsprit to poop. It was undignified, but the view was glorious. Jake had a malicious streak in him and took great delight when steering to round up into particularly big seas and dip the unfortunate occupant over his head. It was amusing to see a crewman come dripping out of the water, pants around his ankles gushing water. Since each occurrence destroyed a roll of toilet paper, however, Peter discouraged the practice. The noon sight showed a run of 147 miles. By late afternoon the wind had risen to twenty-five knots and we were making a steady seven. As the Australian Coast Pilot said that fish taken near Kelso Bank were often poisonous, we took in our trolling lines.

A wild night of steering through big seas in total darkness except for the brilliant phosphorescence of our passage. The free-wheeling propellor left a glowing double helix in our wake. I became accustomed to steering by the feel of the wind on my cheek and the rise of the stern as a sea passed under us. When the clouds opened up the stars were brilliant, the Milky Way easily bright enough to read by. Our speed varied between seven and eight knots, exhilarating speed. We were heeled steeply to starboard, the lee rail buried in the rushing sea, the bow slamming down into the water, throwing spray fifty yards to leeward.

At dawn we were clear of Kelso Bank and resumed our southwesterly course. Just before noon the wind rose to nearly thirty knots, and we decided to drop the genoa to keep from burying the bow so much. While raising the jib, the sister hook at its head parted and the halyard skied, running up to the masthead block. With the seas so rough we didn’t dare go aloft to retrieve it. Even without a headsail we were making nearly seven knots. My noon sight confirmed that we had run 171 miles noon-to-noon, a record for as long as Peter had owned Warana.

Around three o’clock we decided to try to retrieve the skied halyard. We dropped the main and used its halyard to haul me aloft in the bosun’s chair. While the others struggled to winch and tail on the plunging deck, my main concern was to stay in contact with the mast. If I swung free I could do serious damage when I got back. I kept my legs wrapped around the mast, but when I had to loosen my grip to pass the spreaders the mast took a painful toll on my parts. I had volunteered to go aloft in those conditions because it needed to be done and it would be an adventure, but once I got forty feet up I was having second thoughts. My weight up there increased the already violent motions of the boat. The masthead was describing wide circles, interrupted now and again by sudden lurches in unpredictable directions. I was secure enough in the canvas chair, but it was a long lesson in frustration and banged knuckles to try to hold the shackle in channel locks, turn the pin with pliers, and fit and spread a cotter pin with a screwdriver, all while holding on to the mast, staying in the chair, and trying to avoid dropping any tools. In twenty minutes it was done, but I was shaking for an hour afterwards and had bruises for weeks. We set the main and jib for the night.

At midnight a light rain started, the wind backed to east-southeast, and soon after began to moderate at last. The air temperature was noticeably cooler, and we all put on oilskins as we were always wet from spray. At five thirty I took my first successful star sight. After all my studying of the southern constellations back in Tonga, I had been unable to get a good star sight on the whole voyage. I could look up and name the stars, but one star looks much like another through a sextant’s small telescope on the heaving deck of a small boat. Star after star would flash one at a time through the scope and I had no idea which one was the one I wanted. Sun sights were easy and I had relied on them completely so far. But I got a good shot on Achernar, worked out the sight, and it corresponded well with my dead reckoning position. I felt like a real navigator. I determined that we had just crossed the meridian between Caledonian time and Australian Eastern time. We were in Australian waters, and Peter’s cruising insurance expired today.

My noon sun sight showed we had made good 162 miles, but were getting too far south. We were aiming for Cape Moreton, the northern tip of a line of barrier islands that extends northward from the coast of Queensland and protects the entrance to the Brisbane River. We gybed to a more westerly heading, then again toward sunset as the wind dropped and became variable.

Throughout all these days of violent motion and howling wind, Peter had turned out three good meals a day of meat and veggies. Standing in a galley no more than two feet by one, with his knees wedged against the drawers and the stove swinging wildly in its gimbals, he had cooked and served us hot meals at the appointed hours. Just at dinner time we caught a barracuda and another dorado, this one over fifteen pounds. Peter managed to scale, gut, fillet, section, dip in milk, flour, fry, and serve them in twenty minutes, complete with side dishes and hot drinks, all without spilling anything, in spite of not having a level surface on which to set anything down. We drank his health in hot cocoa and agreed that the continued health and good spirits of the crew were largely due to his efforts.

The wind continued to decrease through the night. My morning sun sight showed that we had gotten too far south again, and we gybed northwest to maintain course. I estimated that Cape Moreton was fifty miles away, but lowering clouds cut visibility to considerably less than that. I started getting my usual pre-landfall anxieties. Australia was one island I was not about to miss, but I didn’t want to hit it a long way from Brisbane and lose a lot of time running along the coast. I wanted another sun sight at noon to confirm my position, but the overcast made it impossible. Around 1130 a lightening of the clouds overhead allowed the circle of the sun to just be made out and I took a quick sight I was not very sure of. Not being at noon required a lot more calculations, but I eventually determined that we were 36 miles from Cape Moreton. It should be visible from that distance, but we could see nothing in the haze. The wind was very light and variable now, giving us no more than three knots, though the seas were still very big. We caught several more barracuda and popped them in the fridge.

Finally at 1220 Phillip spotted a high headland on our port bow. We gave a cheer. Australia at last! We were only about ten miles south of where I had hoped to make land. We turned on the engine and ran north to clear the head, which also charged the batteries, pumped the bilge, and kept the fish cold. A light rain started, blotting out the land again. Around three the wind came up and we stopped the engine and raised sail.

As usual, we were making landfall on a weekend. Peter was concerned that we wouldn’t be able to clear on a Saturday, so he cranked up the radio we hadn’t used in weeks and contacted Brisbane Radio. They told us that Lytton, at the mouth of the river, is the quarantine station and they would be open tomorrow.

At 1630 we gave up and motored again. In an hour we had rounded the high headland and entered Moreton Bay, steering various courses following the Northeast Channel southwards toward the river. The whole bay is extremely shallow except for the dredged channels, through which even ocean-going ships can navigate. We were running low on fuel and figured we wouldn’t need our emergency reserves any more, so we emptied all the fuel cans on deck into the tank. By dark we were still a long way from the river, so we turned east and followed some leading marks through a very narrow winding channel into an old abandoned whaling station at Tangalooma on Moreton Island, where we anchored close inshore at ten-thirty. For the first time since Noumea harbor, the sea was flat. We had run over 750 miles. We were back in civilization, but it was hard to tell. All we could see was the rusty ruins of an old warehouse and rows of rotting pilings standing in the water. But it was a real pleasure to be able to sleep through the night in a level bunk.

We were all up early, anxious to get to Brisbane and finish the passage. The morning was cool and gray with a light rain falling. We raised the anchor at 0730, motored back out to the main channel, and continued toward the Brisbane River. Even under power, it was almost ten before we came to the mouth of the river. We hailed the M/V Fiji Gas, a big oil tanker coming down the river, to ask where we should go for pratique. They suggested we go back down to the Shell Oil wharf to await a Customs boat. So we turned around and tied up to the huge commercial wharf designed for tankers. A yacht came by and told us the proper procedure was to proceed upriver to the Quarantine wharf, so we turned around again and eventually found the correct wharf at 1100. A doctor came out to talk to us and asked if we were sick. When we said no, he signed a medical clearance form and told us to proceed to Brisbane and anchor in a yacht anchorage beside the botanical gardens. He would contact Customs and have someone meet us there.

We headed up the river again under sail and power. There was heavy traffic in the river, every size of watercraft from sabots to ocean liners. Tugs hauled strings of barges; tall passenger ferries steamed by, the passengers shouting and waving to us; flocks of sailboats raced about; people paddled canoes, rowed rowboats, and steered outboards; and in the midst of it all, there we were tacking back and forth, trying to get upstream against the strong current. One yacht coming down the river kept changing course as if to hit us. A man on deck kept shouting and waving his arms. When they got close enough, Peter realized it was a friend of his from the yacht club in Melbourne.

At noon the endless industrial suburbs finally gave way to the white modern-looking city of Brisbane. A verdant area of lawn and trees appeared on our right, with two rows of mooring pilings parallel to the seawall. A half dozen yachts were moored between the pilings. We readied lines, springs, and fenders. As we got close we realized the river was running quite fast, four knots at least, with a sizable bow wave around each piling. We dropped the sails and motored slowly up to the row of pilings. The spaces between were not much bigger than the Warana. Peter spun the wheel and we surged between two pilings and into the lane between. Phillip and I each lassoed an upstream piling, while Jake and Peter tied off to those downstream. We killed the engine at 1230, having run 786 miles from Noumea in a little over six days. Amazingly enough, we found that we knew the boat ahead of us from Suva and the one behind us from Nuku’alofa. They told us of a further coincidence: today was the last day of the Warana Festival, and banners with our name flew all over the city.

We were still stowing the sails when a Customs officer hailed us from the seawall. We launched the dinghy and Jake picked him up. I was concerned about immigration because I had never gotten a visa to enter Australia. I had looked into getting a work permit in Fiji, but the Australian consul told me they weren’t giving them out any more, so it would have to be just a three month tourist visa. Also, my passport was about to expire in January, before the visa expired, and I hoped that wasn’t going to be a problem. As it turned out, the official was very pleasant and quickly gave us all visas, telling me that I should get my passport renewed as soon as possible.

Once the boat was straightened up, we all piled into the dinghy and went ashore to see the sights. The botanical gardens were very lush and attractive, a nice way to enter the city. Downtown Brisbane was a bustling modern city with lots of traffic and noise. The streets were full of lovely tan long-legged girls in the shortest skirts I’d ever seen. Even shop girls and office workers wore skirts so short that their panties showed when they sat. It was very distracting to someone who’d been on a boat full of men for a week.

I went straight to a post office and sent a telegram to my mother to ask her to wire my money to me at once. Then I just strolled around the streets. I passed a small club with a dance floor and on impulse went in. A bartender came over and looked me up and down, then everyone in the place did. I remembered suddenly that I had long tangled hair, a scraggly beard, and was wearing blue plastic thongs and a bright yellow slicker. I sauntered up to the bar and tried to look unobtrusive.

“Gimme a beer,” I croaked.

He gave me a look like I had said something really stupid. Or was it just my accent?

“Tuthsortooeysnewroldskunermidi? he asked.

I blinked. And I’d been so sure this was an English-speaking country. Had I wandered into a Finnish bar?

“No, thank you,” I said slowly and distinctly. “A beer.”

He snorted in disgust and pulled me a tumbler of dark beer, full to the brim. It was delicious, if not cold enough. As I looked around the bar, I eventually noticed two signs advertising brands of beer: Tooth’s and Toohey’s. A light dawned. Eventually I learned that “new or old” meant “light or dark” and schooner and middie are two sizes of glass.

The bar was about half full. A band was playing dance music, and there were four or five couples dancing. More to the point, there were several unattached women at the bar. A really cute one was just a few stools down from me. Desperately I tried to think of an opening line. Dressed as I was, I knew it would have to be a humdinger. Hello, baby, just sailed across the ocean. Yeah, the big one. Want to hear about my yacht?

I rallied and lost my courage about ten times, watching her out of the corner of my eye. Finally I thought: I’ve faced the stormy sea, I can face this. I jumped up decisively and strolled over closer to her.

“Wanna dance?” I asked. She looked me over, but I think she’d already made up her mind before I’d asked.

“‘Kay.” She got up and followed me onto the floor. We started to dance reservedly.

“I’m Brian.”

“Hi. I’m Natasha,” she said with a heavy Queensland accent.

“Pretty name,” I smiled. She smiled.

Oh, right, I thought. Probably Sally. Hey, I’m a perfect stranger, you can be anybody you want. Part of the game. I should have made up a name. Sterling, miss. Lance Sterling. We talked a bit between the songs, but mostly we just danced. I liked the way she moved, and thought once we loosened up we could dance well together. And after that…

My fantasies were interrupted by a tap on the shoulder. It was the bouncer.

“Sorry, mate, but this is a quality place. You don’t meet our dress codes.”

“What?” I blurted out. “Why not?”

“You have to have a tie, for one,” he said stiffly. I glanced around. All the other men had on ties.

Shit. I hadn’t had a tie since Sunday school. Not around my neck, anyway. I shrugged apologetically to Natasha and turned to leave.

“What kind of a tie does it have to be?” she suddenly asked.

The bouncer was as surprised as I was.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, does it have to be a regular tie? Can it be a bow tie?”

“Yeah, sure, a bow tie is okay.”

“How about a bolo tie? You know, one of those gaucho things.”

“Yeah, anything. It just has to be a tie, you know?”

“How about this?” she asked, pulling on the drawstring on my foul weather jacket. Suddenly I got it. I pulled the string out and knotted it nattily around my neck.

“Right,” I said to the bouncer. “Just got in from Buenos Aires.” Natasha and I started to dance away. Now this relationship was going somewhere. But I was too quick in celebrating my victory. There was another tap on my shoulder.

“And shoes,” he said. We all looked down at my blue flip-flops, covered in dust, worn thin at the heels, one strap repaired with sail thread, and a dog bite out of one.

“These are shoes,” I said. “In Suva they are considered acceptable business attire, and in Nuku’alofa even the king sometimes appears in public wearing them.”

“You ain’t there, mate. This is The Blue Palm, and they ain’t shoes here.”

Stung by his undeniable logic, I conceded gracefully. I had faint hopes of enticing the lovely and very potential Natasha to accompany me, but her mild interest in me (curiosity, boredom, a fascination with the bizarre?) was insufficient for her to allow herself to be thrown out of the bar with me. She still had some pride, or more likely, friends in the club. So I went back alone to the boat in a foul mood.

My spirits didn’t improve when I found the gates of the botanical gardens locked for the night. As I scouted around for the best place to climb over, I heard someone coming down the street. I slipped into the bushes. The last thing I needed was to spend my first night in Australia in the slammer for breaking into a park.

But then I recognized Philip Rogers. He was reading the sign on the gate.

“Hey, Philip,” I said.

“Hey, Brian. Are we locked out?”

“Yeah. Why don’t they put up a sign on the inside so we’d know about it?”

“Think we can get around on the seawall?”

“Let’s try it.” There was no one about, so we quickly climbed around the end of the fence and trotted off into the darkness under the trees.

“Been out on the town?” I whispered.

“Yeah. What a great evening. I was walking along the street, not ashore five minutes, and this absolutely beautiful chick walks up and starts talking to me, asking if I’m off the boats. So we get to talking and I’m telling her about my adventures and she’s really digging it and she’s really nice. So she sort of, you know, wanted to welcome me to Australia. So she invites me out to dinner at this great restaurant she knows, and I say well yeah, sure, and it’s this great Moroccan place with these…”

“Fuck the restaurant, what happened with the girl?”

“Yeah, I’m getting to that. So we had this great dinner and we talked and laughed and stuff. Then she asked me if I wanted to get high and she had this great shit at home, so I said well yeah, sure, and we went to her place and got really really stoned. Then she asked me if I wanted to have a bubble bath.”

“And you said well yeah, sure.”

“Well yeah, sure. So she gives me this great bath, and rubs me all over with this sponge thing.”

“And is she in the tub with you, this girl?”

“Well, yeah, sure. Then we get to playing around, you know how it happens.”

“I think I remember.”

“And she asks me if I want to go to bed, and I say…”

“You are so full of shit, Phillip.”

“Well yeah, sure,” he grinned, but he definitely had that cat-with-feathers-on-his-face look. “How’d your night go?” he asked innocently.

“Bite me. You row.”

We launched the dinghy, and found that the tide had turned. The river was now going the other way, and nearly as fast. Phillip had a hard pull to get us down to Warana. Now we knew why all the boats were moored to four pilings. We turned in and slept hard.

Peter called Jean to tell her he was back in Oz. She said that his partner Ian Edwards had been calling her to find out when Peter would be back because he wanted to enter Warana in the Sydney-Hobart race in December. I’d heard of the race but didn’t know much about it. Peter explained that it was one of the biggest sporting events in Australia, held on Boxing Day, December 26. The whole country follows the race on television and in the papers. The course was 630 miles from Sydney Heads to Hobart, the capital of Tasmania. Peter called Ian to talk it over, and Ian decided to fly up from Melbourne to join us on the passage south.

Jake ran into a friend he’d known in Fiji, a tall skinny young Kiwi named Ian Ravenwood. Ian was interested in coming with us at least as far as Sydney, and probably on to Melbourne. He’d just sailed in from Rarotonga, so he had experience. He looked okay to everybody, so Peter agreed.

I visited with some Kiwis on a neighboring boat and got into a long talk. We got into the usual cosmological theological discussions. I told them about some of my favorite heavy books, Siddhartha and Eyeless in Gaza and The Magus and Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me. One of the guys loaned me Favorite Game and Beautiful Losers and I spent the whole day reading them. Leonard Cohen and Hermann Hesse made a deadly cocktail. It put me back into the old metaphysical depression I’d wallowed in so long back in college and in my speed freak years. I decided to try to head off the depression by going to a movie, and went to see Last Tango in Paris, which only made it worse. Together with being lonely and horny and missing Linda, I got into a very depressed state and tried to work my way out of it by writing the start of a pornographic novel, with only moderate success.

Phillip came by with his new girlfriend, who really was as gorgeous as he’d said. He showed her around the boat, then they invited me to accompany them ashore. I liked the girl even more when they took me off into the bushes and got me royally stoned, my first high in nearly a year. That perked me up considerably.

Jake announced that he was leaving today. He still wanted to go down to Sydney, but he didn’t want to wait for the boat. We said goodbye on friendly terms, but he was always so hard to read that I was never sure what he thought of me. We had never been friends, but the initial friction we had experienced seemed to be long past. Also, we had been through a lot together, and it seemed sad to acknowledge that the voyage was over.

Ian Edwards, co-owner of Warana, and his friend Phil flew in from Melbourne and Peter rented a car to pick them up and bring them down to the boat. Ian was a solid, balding guy in his fifties, I guessed, looking like a retired executive. He was very hale fellow well met, but I didn’t get a good feeling from him. I suspected he was really conservative and didn’t approve of us scruffy Americans all over his boat. He seemed dismayed at the weather-beaten appearance of the boat. We had stopped noticing the damage, but when we walked around and discussed the broken shrouds, the plugged head, the binnacle light with loose wires hanging out, the grassy bottom, and so forth, we realized how the boat looked to others.

Ian was very eager to do the Sydney-Hobart. It had been his lifelong dream and one of the primary reasons he bought a share of the boat. He was very aggressive and competitive, but I got the feeling he wanted to be in the race mainly so he could say that he was, like an American running the Kentucky Derby or driving the Indy. He wanted to get the boat back to Melbourne as soon as possible and completely refit it for racing, with all new rigging, paint and varnish, overhaul the engine and transmission, everything. Peter, however, had had enough of sailing for a while and just wanted to get home. He would not be racing.

Ian and Peter had apparently talked in the car about Phillip and me, and Ian said we were both welcome to race with him if we would take Warana to Melbourne, help refit her, and sail her back to Sydney for the race. We could live aboard Warana while in Melbourne and Ian would provide food and a small salary until the boat was ready for the race. Phillip jumped at the chance right away, but I said I’d have to think about it.

I wasn’t sure I really wanted to do it. For one thing, I still had fantasies about changing boats and heading back out into the islands. The few months we had cruised had only whetted my appetite for seeing more islands. I also had a feeling that Ian would not be the easy-going type of skipper that Peter had been, especially in the stress of a race. Then too, Linda and I were talking about getting together for a visit. She was due for a month’s holiday after a year of service, which would be in late December, just about the time of the race. And I had also heard that Melbourne was a cold place, way down south by Antarctica. There were penguins in the harbor, for Christ’s sake. I had spent a miserable winter on the Fairmorse in the North Atlantic and had sworn then that I would never live in a cold place again.

On the other hand, it would mean cruising the whole east coast of Australia, then participating in one of the great yacht races of the world. I had never raced, knew nothing about it, but thought it had an appeal. It would be fun to see just what we could get out of the boat with a big crew and flat-out effort. I had also become quite fond of good old Warana, and the thought of fixing her up all cherry sounded like fun, and good experience. Finally, there would be hundreds of yachts in Hobart after the race, heading out to all corners of the world and I would no doubt be able to find a berth to wherever I chose to go.

Ian asked me about it again in the morning. He said he was especially concerned about finding a good navigator for the race, and that Peter had strongly recommended me, saying that he trusted my judgement and abilities completely. I was very grateful to Peter, flattered by Ian’s offer, and attracted by the idea of navigating the race. The navigator on a racing yacht is very important. His decisions and accuracy often determine how the boat finishes, and his opinion is always sought in any strategic decision. He is much more a part of the command team than the other members of the crew. And I knew the experience would stand me in very good stead in finding another berth, especially if Warana did well. I agreed to go. Ian said we would leave in the morning.

I went to the bank to see if my money had arrived, but not yet. I left instructions with the bank manager to send the money on to their branch in Sydney. We cast off after lunch and motored down the river. We tried to sail, but the wind that had fought us all the way up the river now fought us going down. Four hours later we had just reached the mouth of the river. With the day getting late, the tide ebbing, and the whole dangerous expanse of Moreton Bay to cross before we got to the sea, we decided to put into Tangalooma again for the night.

As we wended our way through the dredged channels and just as it was getting dark, the steering wheel suddenly fell off in Ian’s hands. We hurriedly jammed it back on and resumed the tricky passage, following the leading lights into Tangalooma. A light rain started to fall, reducing visibility. Some of the lights were out, and it was nearly dark as we approached the ramshackle old dock. There was a big rusty sign there that said mooring was forbidden, so we decided to get into the shelter of some nearby wrecks just off shore. Feeling our way in with the fathometer, we squeezed in between the wrecks and the shore and anchored at eight o’clock.

We were off at eight and motored through the channel into Moreton Bay, then sailed. The wind was light and we made slow progress. It wasn’t until six in the evening that we rounded Cape Moreton and finally turned southeast into the sea. The wind picked up during the evening and backed all the way around the compass, and soon we were close-hauled again, beating into it.

The wind kept backing all night, requiring many tacks and sail changes. At daylight it rose to a stiff breeze and we reefed the main. Seas moderate, but slow progress with the head winds. Ian Edwards, Phil, and Peter sat in the saloon and drank and talked all day while Philip, Ian Ravenwood and I steered. I felt like “just crew” again. At midnight we passed Cape Byron, the easternmost point of Australia.

The wind dropped during the night and by dawn we were becalmed, drifting off Sandy Head. While I was in Suva I had gotten a letter from my old girlfriend Martha Lightheart, whom I had known in San Diego and who had followed me to Tonga. We had spent a month together in a little unfinished house in the bush. Her letter said that she had gone to Australia and was living in the little coastal town of Ballina in New South Wales. Studying the chart, I noticed that we were only a few miles from Ballina, and I asked Peter if we could motor in and see her. Since we were becalmed anyway, everyone agreed, and we turned on the engine and ran into the Richmond River to Ballina. There was a breaking bar at the entrance, but we followed a fishing boat through the unmarked channel. We tied up about ten o’clock and I went ashore to try to find Martha. The address she had given me was a vacant apartment and the post office said she had moved away and they would not give me a forwarding address. When I got back to the boat all disappointed, I found that we couldn’t leave. The locals told us it was impossible to cross the bar at low tide. We had to wait until nearly six before the flood reached us, then we followed the town’s fishing fleet across the bar, nearly close enough to touch the breakwater. We killed the engine as we sailed slowly south. At eleven a bearing on Wooli Head Light (a name I found amusing) showed that we were getting a knot or two of help from a southerly current.

My noon sight showed us to have crossed the thirtieth parallel, and the night time temperatures confirmed that we were out of the tropics. No more night watches in a bathing suit. Day and night now I wore an old tattered yellow foul weather suit someone had left aboard. I didn’t have a jacket or sweater, and I was often cold. The wind came fair at last and we got up to six knots. In the afternoon we tried setting the spinnaker, which I had never seen done before. It was immensely complicated and everyone was shouting at everyone else. I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing, and I don’t think I was the only one. In any case, we soon had the spinnaker wrapped up in the spreaders and forestay, and we hauled it down and put it away again.

Ian Edwards loved to talk about the Sydney-Hobart, and I eagerly listened so that I could start learning about navigation and tactics. The first part of the race is due south down the coast of New South Wales. The trick there is to find the strong warm southerly current that runs down from the Coral Sea. The current moves in and out from week to week. A boat that gets well into it can often cut a day from its run. Further south, a weaker counter-current runs north close to the shore. The idea is to stay close enough to shore to keep the track as short as possible, without getting into the counter-current. Some navigators take salinity testers and water thermometers to try to detect the currents.

Once you clear Cape Howe at the southeastern tip of Australia, you enter Bass Strait and the situation changes drastically. Huge seas build up in the vast emptiness of the Indian Ocean, growing all the way from South Africa, until they are towering mountains of cold grey sea water. Then they get funnelled into the narrows of Bass Strait. There the water quickly shoals to less than a hundred feet. The big seas feel the bottom and break, often miles out of sight of land. The warm tropical water meets the frigid Antarctic current, generating thick fogs that can last for weeks. The strategy there is to hope for good weather and plunge ahead to try to dash across before something big knocks you down. Then you approach the Furneaux Islands and you have to decide to go around them or, if it’s daylight, take a chance and run through their midst. Once in the lee of Tasmania, you run another two hundred miles down the rocky eastern shore, then beat thirty miles up Storm Bay and into the Derwent River to Hobart Town.

The town of Hobart, the Aussies assured us, waited all year for the big race and they were prepared to welcome the racers. The whole state is on holiday for the entire week of the race. The post-race parties are legendary. The crews are wined and dined and feted by the town officials and, according to rumor, more personally entertained by the lovely young Tasmaniac girls. This was sounding more interesting all the time.

I was awake most of the night doing coastal navigation, taking hand bearings of various lights and plotting our position. When the sun came up the wind died. Ian didn’t want to wait, so we put the engine on and motored four hours. At noon we passed Sugarloaf Point, where the land bends away southwestwards toward Sydney. A slight wind arose so we sailed slowly on about seven or eight miles off shore. Winds light and fickle all day and evening.

Wind backing, light and variable all night. Lots of tacking to catch what wind there was. At five o’clock it died completely, leaving us drifting in slow circles with the sails hanging limp. An hour later we gave up and started motoring again. The sun rose to reveal a thick haze to the west, obscuring any sign of land. We were getting close to the latitude of Sydney, and I started getting anxious about overshooting it. The sky was very hazy, making my sun sights difficult. I panicked when my noon sight showed us to be twenty miles further south than I had thought, and already several miles south of Sydney Heads. We turned west and ran in toward the land while I frantically rechecked my calculations. Even with a two knot southerly current, we shouldn’t be this far south. Finally I went on deck and took another sight. This one showed that we were within a mile and a half of my dead reckoning position. I could only assume I had bumped the sextant when I brought it below the first time. I had Peter turn southwest again. My momentary panic had increased my nervousness about the landfall. The thick coastal fog prevented me from knowing how far off shore we were.

We killed the engine to have lunch in peace. At lunch everyone pressed me for when and where we would meet the land. I predicted that we would see it within the hour, but I wasn’t sure exactly where. After we cleaned up from lunch, everyone went on deck to look for land. Around one thirty we entered the wall of fog, motoring slowly and straining our eyes and ears. We went on like that for a very long time. Where the hell was land? I knew a whole continent was dead ahead, but more than an hour passed before Phillip suddenly cried out.

“Land! High cliffs, broad on the starboard bow.”

There was a moment of uncertainty, then the fog to starboard darkened and thickened. A towering cliff of twisted black rock rose vertically from the sea, two hundred feet at least. It ran diagonally across toward our heading. Clearly we would have to turn soon.

“Which way, Navigator?” called Ian.

I had a terrible moment of indecision. The coast on each side of Sydney Heads is all high cliffs without a break or harbor for twenty miles. The entrance is only a couple of miles across, opening into Port Jackson with Sydney at its head. If I guessed wrong, we could run for hours along this rocky fog-shrouded shore, heading directly away from Sydney. I had to guess, and now. My former doubts at thinking us too far south had not worn off.

“Right,” I said with more conviction than I felt. “I predict we’re a mile or two south of the Heads.”

“More land to port!” called out Phillip from the bow. We peered in the direction he was pointing. Sure enough, another tall black cliff loomed over us on that side as well. Where the hell were we?

“That’s Sydney bloody Head!” shouted Ian. “We’re in the middle of the channel!”

And so we were. After four days and five hundred miles, the last day without a sight of land or a reliable fix, we had sailed straight into Port Jackson. My only regret was that I had told them I thought we were off. I should have kept my mouth shut and claimed I knew it all along.

As soon as we cleared the Heads we popped out of the fog into a bright clear spring day, and there was the beautiful city of Sydney all around us. I couldn’t believe it. Port Jackson is huge and many armed, with long peninsulas dotted with houses thrust out into the bay, encircling snug little coves dotted with anchored boats. Islands were everywhere, some with solitary houses, others like parks, with lawns and trees and little docks. In the distance stretched the graceful arches of the Harbor Bridge, and just below it the gleaming white sails of the Opera House, just finished and not even open yet. Water traffic was everywhere: speed boats, fishing boats, working boats, freighters, liners, ferries, dredges, barges, yachts. A big streamlined hydrofoil ferry roared past at fifty knots, standing up on its foils like a water strider. Little water taxis with fringed awnings scampered about, their occupants staring at us curiously.

It took us two hours to motor up the harbor and admire the sights. At five o’clock we entered beautiful little Rushcutter’s Cove and tied up to the guest dock at the Sydney Cruising Yacht Club.

We straightened up the boat, then I took a much-needed shower and headed out to explore Sydney with Phillip. The city had a nice feel to it. The waterfront was bustling with activity and a great place for people watching. We cruised along enjoying the sights. There were a lot of hippies around, more than I was used to seeing even in most American cities. Lots of people with hair and wild Carnaby Street clothes. It was such a complete change from the rustic life I’d been around for the last half year. The roar of traffic, the crowds on the sidewalks, the music pouring from cafes, all seemed a bit dizzying.

The whole city was in a frenzy of celebration for the new Opera House. Apparently it had been planned decades before and had gone through a long design selection process, then many revisions and delays. Even after it was under construction there had been major cost overruns, arguments with the architects, and more delays. Finally it was done and the consensus seemed to be that it was one of the wonders of the world. Everyone loved it. There was to be a huge dedication ceremony in a few days, with the Queen cutting the ribbon, and people had been pouring into Sydney for weeks to be there.

With all the hoopla, we of course had to go see the place. We walked a mile or so along the waterfront, and each time the white sails of the building loomed higher. Finally, just at sunset, we came out on a long point thrust out into the harbor, surrounded by a massive sea wall. The Opera House was on the end of the point, just a few yards from the water. The huge steel filigree span of the Sydney Harbor Bridge arched behind it like a rainbow.

Along with thousands of others, we walked up and touched the walls and looked up. The walls are made of white limestone and lit by huge floodlights, the complex curves soaring up out of sight overhead. The end walls are all glass, lit from within by huge fifty-foot chandeliers in the lobbies. The main hall is probably ten stories high, with more floors beneath the stage for elaborate stage machinery, capable of raising and lowering the stage section by section. Each seat is supposed to have acoustically perfect hearing. All in all, an extremely impressive building. Then we headed out to go check out the night life of the city.

I’d heard that the action was in an area of town called King’s Cross, which we eventually located a few miles’ walk away. Even early on a weeknight, the place was jumping, with street performers and head shops and sleazy little sex clubs. We strolled around checking out the scene and the girls until well after midnight. I was determined to get off the boat and find a place to stay ashore. We struck up conversations with some of the street people and finally got the address of a crash pad not too far away. After some wrong turns, we eventually found the place, a rundown second-story apartment.

Phillip didn’t like the look of the place from the first, but I went in and talked to a stoned chick in a tie-dyed slip. She said I could just sleep anywhere, but there wasn’t much space left. I stepped over sleeping bags and people, trying to find a space big enough to lie down in. I finally found a little open floor under a cupboard in an upstairs bedroom, so I threw down my stuff to reserve the space and went out to talk to Phillip. He said he’d look around some more and if he couldn’t find anything better, he’d go back to the boat. So he took off and I went back inside. I joined a group of a dozen or so around a large hookah and got loaded, but the sordid surroundings and the rowdy and rather stupid behavior of some of the other denizens of the place soon started bringing me down. I retired to my bedroll to read, but I was still reading depressing existentialist books on the theory that authors who thought the world was crap must have a deeper insight. It worked to the extent that I got royally depressed.

I started feeling that I was really wasting my life. I had been living in a similar street culture for years back in the States, but being away from it for a long time had made me feel no longer a part of it. I was twenty-six; most of the people around me were six or eight years younger. They were getting drunk and stoned and blathering on about deep thoughts, just like I had been doing at their age. But now they struck me as very shallow. I had been having continuous adventures, going to exotic places, seeing the world, for almost six years now. The issues that appeared to be of burning importance to them were no longer of much interest to me. I should be having the time of my life, but I just felt lonely and directionless.

I tried to remember the last time I’d been with someone I’d known for more than a month or two, who had any idea who I was. Other than my family, there was no one except Linda. Suddenly I missed her very much. The strength of my depression surprised me, for I hadn’t realized how lonely I’d been. Jammed in under a broken cupboard on a dirty bedroll, I started writing poetry, always a very bad sign for me.

The festivities for the opening of the Opera House were in full swing now. There were parades and parties everywhere. In my depression the civic celebrations seemed forced and artificial. I slouched morosely down to a big city park to wander around and watch girls. It was a beautiful spring day, however, and even I began to get into the festive occasion. I heard a lot of shouting and went over to see what was happening.

In a grassy corner of the park a half dozen people had set up little platforms and stood on top of them to give speeches. I learned that this was Speaker’s Corner, modelled after one in Hyde Park in London, and a revered bastion of free speech. Everyone was welcome to say whatever they wanted. There was a bible-thumping evangelist and a Scientologist handing out pamphlets as he shouted. Most had political agendas, everything from Nazis to communists. Some were totally ignored by the strolling pedestrians, but many speakers were very entertaining and had collected crowds of listeners. Heckling seemed to be part of the game, and I picked up that many of these people, both speakers and hecklers, were regulars. I became caught up in the spiel of a socialist speaker who declared himself a Fabian, which I resolved to look up later. His arguments were telling and to the point. A big red-headed guy in the crowd shouted out some witty jibe, drawing a laugh, but the speaker was ready for him and riposted cleverly, drawing hoots of appreciation.

There was hot music in the distance, and I wandered off to find it. It turned out to be a really good rock band, half white, half aborigine, playing to a crowd of perhaps fifty thousand, all dancing on the grass. Clouds of dope blew through the trees. People told me that there had been bands playing in the park every day for two weeks. The whole city was almost stopped because everyone was down at the park.

Later I joined the throngs heading down to the celebration. Today I couldn’t even get close to the Opera House. The entire plaza and park around the building was packed with people. Bo Diddley was playing in the park nearby, the finale of an eight-band all-day music festival, and a crowd of hundreds of thousands was rocking and rolling. Then it was late afternoon and time for the dedication. People found seats with views of the harbor.

The crowd hushed as it got dark. An aborigine appeared on the very highest point of the Opera House, wearing a loin cloth and paint. Searchlights locked onto his thin black body so impossibly high up on the sweeping white wings. Speaking through a huge PA system, he sang an aborigine song, telling the history of the point where the new buildings stood. There were brief speeches by various dignitaries, and then the Queen appeared and spoke. I waved, but perhaps she didn’t notice. She cut the ribbon, and immediately the whole harbor was lit up.

Dozens of huge barges had been moored out in the harbor, and from each now poured up torrents of colored fire. It was the largest fireworks display ever done anywhere in the world. It was simply astonishing, each new pyrotechnic display surpassing the last. It was like the final burst of the finale of an ordinary show, but it went on well over an hour. The crowd was roaring its approval, but the deafening roar of fireworks and bursting bombs drowned us out. When it was over at last, I wandered back to the crash pad, aware that I’d been present at something truly historic. My depression was gone. What a week to arrive in Australia.

I went back to the boat to see what was happening. The Aussies were still drinking and fraternizing at the yacht club. Ian Edwards had at first talked about sailing down to Melbourne with us, but he told me tonight that they were all flying home. It would be just Peter and the three “crew” — Phillip Rogers, Ian Ravenwood and me. That was fine with me. Ian’s friends were all friendly in their bluff and hearty style, but they were all old mates and just wanted to drink and talk, which got pretty tiresome for me. They were a conservative old bunch, and only Peter seemed tolerant enough to enjoy my company. I went back to my crash pad.

I saw Phillip at the Cross. He’d run into a chick who loved opera and he’d decided to stay on in Sydney to see the performances during the opening week. One ticket cost twenty times my life savings, so I forwent the pleasure. Phillip said he was still planning on racing in Warana and would come down to meet the boat in Melbourne. That meant only three aboard for the last leg to Melbourne.

I finally got the money my parents had wired to Brisbane. I went out to a good chandlery and bought a decent set of foul weather gear. It was already cooler than I liked and I was heading a lot further south. Feeling very rich, on impulse I bought Linda a very pretty dress, intending to either send it to her or give it to her if she really did meet me as we were discussing.

I packed up at the flop house and moved back aboard. We had the usual business to do of provisioning the boat and getting everything stowed. The last days had been crowded on the boat, and it was a relief to have room to move around. It was a busy day, and I went to bed tired but ready to get out to sea again.

We cast off at 0800 under a grey sky and motored out of the harbor. A light wind met us at the Heads two hours later and we turned due south under all plain sail. We rolled along slowly on oily, slowly heaving seas. The wind picked up after sunset, and we came up to six knots. Soon after that, two star shells lifted up over the eastern horizon and hung burning brilliantly for a long time. We wondered if we should investigate, but it was obviously many miles away. It would take us all night to get there against the wind. We monitored the radio, but there was no distress call. If someone was in trouble, we hoped that someone in a faster boat had seen it.

Came on watch at 0530 and found that Ian had been letting her fall off to leeward through his whole watch. I took a quick set of bearings and found that we’d run in ten miles closer to shore than I’d thought we were. We gybed to the southeast to get a little more space.

In the afternoon the wind gradually faded until the sails were flapping and the boat took on an unpleasant jerking roll. We ran the engine for the three b’s (batteries, bilge, and beer). The hammering of the engine took the charm off the sailing, and we started talking about spending the night in the fishing port of Eden to get a good night’s sleep. There was no sign of any returning wind, so we headed into Twofold Bay and its tiny Eden Harbor. The town jetty was filled three deep with big commercial fishing boats. We asked one of the fishermen if we could tie up to him, but he said they’d all be leaving well before dawn. We ended up squeezing in at the cannery pier between two much larger vessels. We had to climb a long ladder to the pier and it smelled like the bottom of a fish barrel. Around four in the morning, twenty big Diesel trawlers fired up and headed out to work, slamming Warana against the pier so hard the mast rattled. The voyage lost yet more of its charm.

It seemed to take forever to get up, bathed, and breakfasted, and it was after ten before we cast off. It was still overcast, but there was a steady breeze from the north. By noon we were bowling along, watching the great capes slowly passing by: Green Cape, then the long sand dunes of Cape Howe, the southeastern corner of the continent. Now we were in the Tasman Sea, of evil repute for big dangerous seas. Sure enough, just after dark, with Point Hicks Light on our starboard bow, the wind rose and turned colder and we double-reefed the main for the night. By midnight the waves were getting bigger fast. We couldn’t see them but we could feel the big seas coming up from astern, lifting us and throwing us forward. Steering became lots more work.

By two A.M. the wind was over thirty knots and the seas were becoming dangerous. We got all hands on deck to reduce sail, but that meant only Ian and me because Peter couldn’t leave the wheel. There was the usual slipping and cursing in the dark on top of the house getting the main furled. Watching our antics, Peter had a momentary lapse of attention and unintentionally gybed the mizzen. Before we could drop it, the sail split from head to foot and we had to wrestle it in as well. When things were battened down again, Peter went to bed, leaving Ian and me on deck. It was getting colder and I still didn’t have any warm clothes. At least I had my new foul weather gear, which kept me dry and helped considerably.

Before dawn the boat was becoming very difficult to steer and we decided to take in the stays’l and run under the jib alone. We discussed calling Peter, but Ian said it was a small enough sail he thought he could get it in by himself. He went forward into the darkness and soon I heard the thunder of released canvas as the sail came down. A moment later, though, I heard a loud thump, an anguished cry, then silence. I called to him, but he didn’t answer. My heart froze. If Ian had gone overboard, he was dead. It would be extremely dangerous to try to turn in these conditions. If one of these waves caught us broadside, we’d go over in a flash.

I couldn’t leave the wheel even for a second, so I bellowed down the companionway. Peter appeared immediately and disappeared up forward. I kept wondering if Ian was in the water back there somewhere. The chances of spotting a head bobbing in the dark water were next to nil, even if we knew where to look for him. We were running fast; each second took us another boat length further from him. Minutes went by without a word.

Then they both appeared, Peter helping Ian through the shrouds and back to the cockpit. Neither could speak at first. Ian slumped back against the house. He was bleeding badly from his foot. The water swirling in the cockpit turned red in the light from the companion.

“Caught my foot on the fucking anchor,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “Lost my balance and fell into the sail as it was coming down. Then I couldn’t get out of it.”

“He was all wrapped up in the folds of the sail,” panted Peter. “might have gone overboard if he hadn’t gotten tangled.”

“I didn’t want the sail getting loose in that wind,” Ian added. “So I just hung on until somebody got there.”

“Once I got him out we still had to furl the sail,” said Peter. “So how bad’s your foot, Ian?”

Ian lifted his foot, leaving a red footprint on the deck. There was a big ugly gash across the sole.

“Well, hopefully the sea water will keep it clean,” I offered, as Peter took him below and tended to his foot.

We were making more than five knots under jib alone. It was all I could do to keep us from being pooped. Ian came on deck with a heavily bandaged foot and I was relieved in more ways than one.

Daylight came weakly through the dense cloud cover, and with it came a cold driving rain. There was a slight lessening around noon and I had hopes of catching a glimpse of the sun, but there was nothing. The knot meter showed us three hundred and forty miles from Sydney, but I had no idea how fast we were travelling. For all I knew we had passed Tasmania already. Next stop Antarctica.

The wind increased with a vengeance, and by two o’clock was blowing force seven. The jib blew out with a bang like a cannon shot and it was a tricky job getting it off the bowsprit and stowed. Even under bare poles we were making over four knots. The seas were higher than our mast. Peter was steering and Ian and I sat with our backs to the house, watching those big monsters loom up from astern. More than once Peter became alarmed when he saw our eyes widen and go up above his head.

We checked the bilge and found that the water was nearly up to the floor boards, and yes, the head valve was closed. Peter started the engine, but the pump must have plugged up, because there was nothing coming out of the discharge. We opened the lazarette to use the hand pump, but the rubber bellows had dried and cracked and it wouldn’t suck. Weary as we were after battling the wheel and sails all night, there was nothing else to do. We raised the floor boards and Ian stood knee deep in the swirling oily bilge, passing buckets to me where I hung in the companion way. I took the buckets, twisted around, and emptied them into the cockpit, where the constant inflow from the deck rinsed it out the scuppers. Peter was still stuck on the wheel, so he couldn’t help. Finally, after thirty buckets we declared it low enough and we closed it all up again.

The boat was rolling too violently for us to stay in bed. We all sat huddled in the cockpit, hunching our shoulders against the cold rain that blew horizontally across the vast gulfs between the waves. The sky was like a fast-moving grey blanket being pulled over the masthead. We ran on under bare poles, glad we had sea room to leeward. To conserve it and to give us all some relief, at two o’clock we rigged up the sea anchor and towed it off the stern by a mooring line. She hove to fairly well, but the following seas kept swallowing the boomkin that extended from the stern. I figured it was only a matter of time before a big one came aboard. The long day finally passed into night, and almost immediately the wind began to lessen. By midnight we were nearly becalmed.

The seas dropped as quickly as they had risen. An hour after midnight, under a star-studded sky, we hauled in the sea anchor and started the engine. A light was spotted to the west, just at the limit of seeing. We timed it and decided that it was Deal Island light, out in Bass Strait. We had been blown many miles too far south and had a long sail to get to Melbourne. We turned around and headed northwest. With only one light in sight it was very hard to estimate our distance from it. It mattered, because there was an unlighted Wright Rock a few miles off the island, marking the edge of the Kent Group, a large and complicated collection of islets and shallows. By three A.M. I was too nervous to run any further in the dark, so we turned off the engine and just drifted until dawn.

With the sun came a light fickle wind, and we set the main and stays’l. We bent on the heavy genoa in place of the blown-out jib, giving us barely two knots. I grabbed a noon sight that put us just six miles from Deal Island light, less than ten miles from where we’d been at midnight. Soon after I’d worked out the sight, the wind died away in a series of frustrating variables. We started the engine again.

We set the trolling rods, and very soon we caught a beautiful long thin fish four feet long. Peter pronounced it a very nice barracouta, not to be confused with barracuda. While he was cleaning the fish, we took another even bigger on the other rod.

At three P.M. a haze to weather thickened into dark and threatening clouds. We furled the genoa in case of a sudden squall, but when the rain came in a tremendous downpour, there was no breath of wind. We motored on until eight P.M., when a breeze sprang up, unfortunately from the northwest where we wanted to go. We close-hauled and headed into it. We caught our third barracouta of the day, using bare hooks. Apparently they’re attracted to the flash of the hook.

We could see two lights now and got a good bearing. The wind picked up to a fresh breeze. We bailed another twenty buckets of water from the bilge, an awkward job with the boat heeled so steeply. We were barely making headway into the wind. An hour later we doused the genoa and reefed the main for the night. The rain became even heavier, cutting off views of the lights. The seas were picking up again, rushed along by the rapidly increasing wind. Clearly we were in for another roughing up.

Being so short of hands and with all of us tired after a long night and day, we decided to heave to for the night. At ten thirty we furled the main and sheeted the stays’l as flat as it would go, then lashed the wheel so she would keep rounding back up into the wind. She rode fairly easily like that and we would have been quite comfortable if the Hogan, Kent, and Curtis groups of islands weren’t somewhere to leeward. The rain was so heavy we couldn’t see a thing. Leaving Ian on deck to keep a watch, Peter and I turned in.

At three A.M. Ian called down that he thought he could see an island. Peter and I tumbled up. Sure enough, there was a steep pyramid of darker night right astern. I decided that it must be Devil’s Tower. If so, we had been blown back almost twenty miles, right through the midst of the Curtis Group. There must be islands all around us that we couldn’t see. We dropped the stays’l and started the engine to give us steerage way, then brought her around directly into the wind.

The rain had stopped, and from the tops of the highest waves we could occasionally see a light away to the northwest. From its period we decided it must be South East Point light, on the tip of Wilson’s Promontory on the mainland. We figured if we could see the light there couldn’t be any islands on that track. We ran directly at it, but the wind was howling at forty knots right in our teeth and the seas were so steep that the entire front half of the boat was frequently under water. Occasionally we would hit a wave with a teeth-rattling jolt and we could hear Warana creaking and groaning from the impact. Even at full speed we weren’t quite holding our own. Devil’s Tower slowly moved up on our starboard side and passed us. Curtis Island loomed up to port.

We drifted backwards like that all night, the engine roaring and shuddering, the seas sweeping the deck, poor old Warana pounding and shuddering. The dawn came grey and cheerless, but soon after the wind began to drop and we set the stays’l and mizzen sheeted flat to give her some relief. Gradually we passed Devil’s Tower again and clawed our way northward. When the wind dropped still more we set the main double-reefed and killed the engine. The bilge was nearly full again, and we bailed out another twenty-five buckets.

It was mid afternoon before we finally passed guano-encrusted White Rock, the northernmost of the Curtises. Finally we could tack and stop the awful nonstop pounding of the last twelve hours. We were only making three knots, but it felt like we were finally moving again. We bailed another thirty-one buckets, a back-breaking hour and a half after a dreadful night without sleep. Melbourne was still dead upwind, and we gave up any hope of making it against that wind. We were running for the aptly named Refuge Cove, tucked into the lee of Wilson’s Promontory, a long rocky finger jutting southward into Bass Strait from the belly of Australia. It was five in the evening before we got into calmer water and six by the time we dropped anchor close inshore. It was grey and overcast and a cold rain was falling, but we were out of the wind and the sea was mercifully flat. We all collapsed into our berths.

I slept late, awakened only by the smell of bacon frying. Peter was already up cooking. Ian and I dragged ourselves out of bed and gratefully ate a hearty breakfast. The day was warm and sunny. The little cove we were in was in a bowl of thickly wooded hills, with a couple of little streams tumbling down the cliffs and winding across the sand. It was very lovely and seemed immensely peaceful after the beating we had taken, but we could see huge swells sweeping by outside and the wind still whistled through the trees at the top of the hills. There was no hope of making it to Melbourne today. Peter told us about a small fishing village, Port Welshpool, not far to the east of us, where we could put in. They would have fuel and supplies and restaurants and he would be able to call Jean, who must be worried about him. We cleaned up the boat as well as we could, bailed her dry, and motored out of the cove around noon. We passed between Monkey Point and Rabbit Island, and ran wing and wing through Corner Inlet Channel. Even motoring the last hour, it was getting dark when we tied up on the inner side of a breakwater at Port Welshpool.

Port Welshpool is a typical little fishing port, with a couple of cafes, a rough workingmen’s bar, a chandlery, a bait and tackle shop, and a post office. The half-dozen fishing boats were small rusty little buckets that didn’t look safe enough to take to sea. For the three days we were there nobody went out, for the wind was howling overhead and the waves were crashing on the other side of the breakwater. Jean drove round from Melbourne to visit and we all went out to dinner one night. Peter found a mechanic to fix both bilge pumps. Finally by Friday the weather report said the weather would be fair the next day and we got ready to sail again.

Saturday dawned overcast but flat calm. We moved around to the fuel dock to fill up, then motored out of the port. At noon we were feeling our way past an area of shoals at the entrance to Corner Inlet. Breakers appeared on our port bow, and we slowed the engine. A few minutes later we all suddenly looked at each other, trying to identify the strange sluggish feeling to the motion of the boat. Slowly the boat came to a stop. We realized we had run aground in soft mud. Peter gunned the engine in reverse to back off, then we discovered we had fouled our fishing line in the rudder and had to get that cleared before we could get off. Once clear, we moved in closer to shore to give the shoals a wider berth. These waters were full of fish. During the course of the afternoon, without bait or lure, we caught sixteen barracouta. At six P.M. we cleared Ramsbotham Rocks and were back out in Bass Strait. We killed the engine and set all plain sail for Melbourne.

At 10:30 A.M. we gybed around Corsair Rock and entered the huge expanse of Port Phillip Bay. Melbourne is all the way up at the head of the bay, not even visible from the mouth. The wind was strong on our starboard beam and we had a fast wet sail up the bay. At three P.M. we were off Williamstown, where the yacht club is located. We dropped sail and motored into the yacht club harbor. At 3:40 we tied up port side to the dock of the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria, having logged 630 miles in eleven days from Sydney. The great Australian National Nuclear Protest Voyage was over, right at the dock where it all started almost six months before.

Melbourne was a pleasant enough city, a little cool for my taste after the tropics. It seemed a much more staid businesslike city than Sydney, and certainly more so than the laid back atmosphere of Brisbane. I came to picture the three cities as a reverse of our west coast, with Melbourne a no-nonsense Portland, Sydney/San Francisco the sophisticated city by the bay in the middle, and a relaxed beach and redneck culture in Brisbane/San Diego. This was no doubt a totally flawed perception, for I saw very little of any of them. Williamstown was some distance from Melbourne, near the end of a commuter train line. It was quick and cheap, but just enough of a hassle that I didn’t get into the city much. I hung out in a little neighborhood pub in Williamstown, drinking ale and eating meat pasties with the other lads. I had little social life and no sex life at all except what I could provide myself.

Peter packed up his gear and went home to Jean. Ian Edwards was the skipper now, and he wanted Warana completely fixed up again so she’d look good for the race. We absolutely had to be ready to leave for Sydney no later than December 15. He was paying Ian and me twelve dollars a day and he bloody well expected us to be ready.

The next six weeks were taken up entirely with working on Warana. She was a mess after the long cruise and the battering in Bass Strait. There wasn’t one unpatched sail aboard, the standing rigging was cobbled together with U-bolts and lengths of chain, and the running rigging was knotted and spliced. The bottom was foul, the paint was chipped and stained, and the interior smelled like a mildewed sleeping bag.

The yard crew hauled her out and rolled her cradle over into a remote corner of the yard. The only access now was to climb a long bouncing ladder on her starboard side. The first few days were spent simply unloading her into a storage locker. We emptied every locker, drawer, and bin. The last few rusty cans of dolma went in the rubbish tip. It was amazing to see what a huge pile of crap had been aboard; the pile looked bigger than the boat. Ian Ravenwood and I started cleaning her out inside, scrubbing out the mildew, scraping the disgusting oil-stained gunk out of the bilge, and ripping out the head which hadn’t worked in five months. Ian Edwards and some of his mates were supposed to be pitching in and they did spend their weekends working with us, but during the week it was rare to see one of them come by. When they did they’d sand a handle or something for an hour then take off again. Clearly if the boat was going to be ready for the race it was up to us in the black gang.

While we toiled away inside, a crew of professional riggers came out to measure her for all new standing rigging. I was very interested in the process and talked with the guys a lot about what they were doing. I went once or twice to their shop to see how the wire was measured and cut and the fittings swaged onto the ends.

After we had been at it a week, Phillip Rogers showed up looking rested, dapper, and very clean. Ian and I were covered with grease and slime from the work in the bilge and were very pleased to see him arrive to help. He had spent two weeks in Sydney listening to opera (he says) with his opera lady. He had written to his girlfriend Vanessa in Fiji and she was planning to fly to Hobart to meet us there around New Year’s. It was nice to see Phillip again, but he seemed to have an awful lot of little errands and chores to get settled before he could really pitch in. By the time he did, the really nasty work was done.

The yard pulled the masts and set them on blocks for us. We removed all the fittings and overhauled them. Then we scraped the masts down to bare white wood and applied three coats of marine varnish until they shone like pool cues. When all the fittings were cleaned up and replaced they looked great. A week later the riggers arrived with the wire and we turned out to help. The yard crane restepped the masts, then the master rigger began the complicated business of re-rigging. Each shroud and stay has a loop at the top which goes over the top of the mast. Each wire is cut to a slightly different length so they have to go on in the right order. Once all the wire is on, the tensioning has to be done very carefully, moving around and around the boat so no wire is tighter than another to distort the mast. It was all very skillfully done.

The skipper showed up the next day with a pickup full of bright new running rigging. I spent at least ten hours aloft, making innumerable trips in the bosun’s chair to reeve the new lines. It all gets very complicated at the masthead, with two jib halyards, two spinnaker halyards, a stays’l halyard, a main halyard, a topping lift, and a pole lift, each with two ends to keep straight and run fair. Together with the line holding my chair, a safety line, and a hoisting line, it makes for a bewildering tangle. But within two days all the rigging was done to Ian’s liking.

Now with everything aloft done, we worked our way down, refinishing the coach roof, house, deck, and topsides. The Aussies did turn out to help a lot on this stage, and we got a great deal done with eight guys working some weekends. She was starting to look like something again.

There were tradesmen always coming by; electricians and plumbers and shipfitters and mechanics. The engine and transmission were overhauled, all the electricals fixed, and a new head installed. The plumbing system installed to wash fallout off the deck was ripped out.

My old friend Martha from San Diego dropped in to see me for a few days, but I had very little time to visit. We ran a bunch of errands in town and we got to spend one night together, but most of the time she sat in the boatyard and watched me burning paint off the bottom. After four days she decided that she could imagine better things to do and left to go back to the States.

Throughout this hectic period Linda and I had been exchanging letters about getting together again. She was finishing up her first year of service and had a month’s vacation coming up. The Peace Corps would send her anyplace reasonable, so she proposed coming to Oz to meet me. The problem was that I’d be too busy to see her until after the race. She could meet me there, but the boat would be full coming back to Melbourne and I couldn’t give her a lift back. Part of my problem was that I didn’t know what I was going to do after the race. I had hazy notions of catching another boat to New Zealand, or possibly going to Queensland or maybe New Guinea. Peter and Jean offered to put her up in Melbourne, and there was talk of sailing back to Refuge Cove and boat camping there for a while. Eventually we decided she’d fly to Hobart to wave her hanky from the dock as we arrived. Then I’d leave Warana and we’d go exploring Tasmania, take the ferry to Melbourne, and the train back to Sydney, where I’d see her off.

When we finally made up our minds it was nearly December and time was short. I made a number of trips into Melbourne to buy tickets, get schedules, arrange visas, and so forth. Each time the others complained about my taking time off when there was so much to do. I couldn’t feel too guilty about it because except for Ian Ravenwood, none of the others was doing very much to help. Phillip Rogers was gone day after day and frequently did very little even when he was there. Although I liked Phillip, both Ian and I grew increasingly resentful about Phillip’s lack of effort.

The skipper was well aware of the situation with Phillip, but he didn’t do anything about it that I was aware of. I’m sure the refit was costing him plenty and I didn’t begrudge him for not being there as much as I would have liked, but the other guys were getting on my nerves. After I’d been busting my ass working sixty and more hours a week, they’d drop by for an hour or two on Saturday, then spend most of their time sitting on deck with a drink while I scraped and sanded. After all that I had been through on Warana, I felt like more than just the hired help. Here they were coming into my home, sniffing about how long the refit was taking, and expecting me to stay out of their way with my smelly paint and varnish. My frustration and resentment continued to build as the weeks passed and the deadline drew closer. If they had worked as much as they talked and drank, the boat would have been ready weeks before. I was getting frustrated by the skipper too. He would frequently make snap decisions that didn’t make much sense, but wouldn’t listen to my opinion if I tried to make a suggestion. I think he was enjoying the idea of being master and commander and would rather stick with a clearly bad decision than admit that he could be wrong. It didn’t bode well for racing under him.

I finalized the plans for Linda’s visit and mailed her a plane ticket. She was still having trouble getting her tourist visa, which I couldn’t help her with. It was all very difficult from Tonga. They didn’t even have an Australian consulate; she had to do it all by mail through Suva. I told her I’d be leaving when the boat was ready or on December 15th, whichever came first.

By the end of November we had burned all the bottom paint off, a truly disgusting job, made worse by the weather. It was summer now, and the temperature was over 100. The boatyard steamed and baked, and all the crud we’d scraped off the bottom became extremely rank. Then we sanded and scraped off all the stains and burn marks until the kauri pine shone white and smooth and clean. We recaulked it all, cleaned the prop, through-hulls, and rudder pintles and gudgeons, then gave it two good thick coats of bottom paint. When we painted the black boot topping stripe along the waterline, she was as ready as she was going to be. She looked perfect, like a new boat. We were extremely proud of her. The next day we launched her and put her into her slip. It was Wednesday, December 12. In nine days the skipper and I as navigator had to be at a pre-race meeting in Sydney or the boat would be disqualified. I couldn’t help but note that it had taken us eleven days to sail down.

Now that the hard work was done, the Aussies pitched in with a will. All the gear was overhauled, cleaned up, and re-stowed. We were trying to go as light as possible for the sake of speed, so much of the cruising gear stayed ashore. She seemed quite roomy with all that junk out of her. We had a new suit of sails, and the older ones were completely repaired and carried as spares. We spent the day loading groceries and supplies aboard and stowing everything away. Everything seemed easy now she was back in the water. For five weeks we’d had to carry everything on our backs up a long shaky ladder. Now we could just roll it out on the dock and put it aboard. The spirit was really upbeat and happy. The hard work was done; now for the race. It was a beautiful summer day, hot and clear with a nice favorable wind blowing the flags out. The cruise to Sydney promised to be a lot of fun.

Phillip was supposed to be helping, but he wasn’t around. The skipper asked Ian and me if we knew where he was. Ian said he thought he might have gone into Melbourne. The rest of the day was extremely busy and the boat was crowded with workers and guests. I didn’t give Phillip much thought until he came strolling down the dock late in the afternoon with bags of stuff for the trip. The skipper met him at the rail.

“Bugger off, Rogers,” he said.

“What?” asked Phillip, his smile fading.

“I said get out. You’re a lazy bludger and you haven’t been pulling your weight. I’ve been paying you to work on the boat and you’re gone half the time and no one even knows where you are. You’re through. Collect your gear and get out.”

“Oh, come on, Ian,” Phillip stammered. “You can’t do this. I’ve been planning on making this race for months. I bought plane tickets for Vanessa to fly from Fiji to meet me in Hobart. You’ve got to let me come.”

“No, I don’t. I own this boat and I don’t want you on her.”

Phillip looked to me for help, and Ian and I tried to talk the skipper out of it, but there wasn’t much we could say. Phillip had goofed off week after week while we worked our butts off. I thought the skipper was being unnecessarily harsh and I wished he had talked to Phillip earlier and given him a chance to make it up, but it was too late now. I knew Ian Edwards wouldn’t listen to me or anyone else, nor would he ever admit he had been hasty. Still, I felt really bad for Phillip. We had sailed together a long time and had a lot of good times. He was the only one on the boat I felt was a friend. He had done a lot more on the boat than some of the others who were going. I couldn’t imagine what he was going to say to Vanessa. The boat was silent while he collected his stuff. No one wanted to make eye contact. He slung his duffel over his shoulder and walked quickly down the dock without a word. I never saw him again.

We went back to work, but the cheerful expectant mood was gone. The incident cast a pall over the final preparations and the little farewell party later in the club. I hoped it didn’t bode ill for the voyage. We were going to sail tomorrow.

The old sailors thought it was unlucky to begin a voyage on a Friday, and this day seemed to bear them out. I was still bummed out about Phillip and couldn’t come to like some of the other crew, who struck me as dilettante sailors who didn’t know much about blue water and weren’t inclined to learn. I resolved to keep my mouth shut and do my job as well as I could.

We had hoped to get off by noon, but people kept showing up with one more bag or box of stuff and wives and girlfriends were all over the boat, getting tours and exclaiming about the cramped conditions. With all the jerry cans gone and the extra crap ashore, it seemed positively expansive to me, even with six aboard. It was almost six o’clock before we finally cast off. It felt good to be under way again.

The weather, which for weeks had been over a hundred and dry with a nice stiff westerly, suddenly changed as we motored out into Port Phillip Bay. A big cold front blew up from Antarctica, bringing a low flying overcast and a sudden drop in temperature. Within an hour of starting, a cold wind was driving rain and spray in our faces, nearly knocking us down and sending us diving below for our foul weather gear. I couldn’t help wondering if the wind out here always came from dead ahead.

Around nine P.M., just as the sun was going down, the starboard spinnaker sheet came adrift and became fouled in our prop. It had been lying in the scuppers outside the lifelines and apparently no one had thought to secure its forward end. Fortunately we were not under power or it could have done some damage, but the prop was free-wheeling and the sheet had wrapped itself around the prop until it was jammed tight against the rudder. We hove to and all tailed on to try to pull it free, but it couldn’t be done. We stood there in the downpour in our slickers and tried to decide what to do. The skipper wanted to sail back to Williamstown to clear it, but we didn’t think we could afford to lose that much time. Since someone was obviously going to have to go in the water to clear it, we might as well do it right here. Besides, after all the hoopla of departure it would be very embarrassing to show up just a few hours later with our polypropylene tail between our legs, so to speak. So I volunteered to clear it.

I put on a safety harness and clipped the lifeline to the pushpit railing, then climbed over the stern and let myself down into the water. It was surprisingly cold. Even on a hot day the water in the bay is always chilly, and in that driving rain it felt frigid. The wind had already kicked up a little chop, and the canoe stern was bobbing up and down like a cork. I could just reach the prop with my feet from the surface, but some moments of pulling the sheet this way and that convinced me that it wasn’t going to pull free. I took a deep breath and pulled myself down to the tangle around the prop. With one arm around the rudder to hold myself down, I tried to rotate the prop enough to get a turn of line free. I quickly discovered that I didn’t have enough leverage to turn the prop with one hand. I wrapped my legs around the rudder support and cranked the big knot of line a turn. Then I had to let go and kick free of the boat so I wouldn’t come up under the transom and get brained as it plunged.

I thought it took hours and dozens of dives, but I’m sure it couldn’t have been long before the last turn came off. By that time it was completely dark. The others simply hoisted me out of the water by my lifeline and hauled me over the rail like a gaffed fish. The water poured out of my foul weather gear. I had swallowed so much seawater that I felt nauseous and chilled through. While the others got the boat under way again, I went below to dry off and change clothes. I got into my berth because I couldn’t stop shivering. The wind died after sunset, but not the downpour of rain, so the skipper started the engine. I gradually drifted off to sleep in spite of having my face two inches from a running engine. At least it was warm.

A loud pop close to my head woke me up. I opened my eyes to a shower of sparks. I stuck my head out and yelled to cut the engine. Upon investigation we discovered the generator on the engine had shorted out. We fiddled with it for a while with no results except some more blown fuses. The skipper decided that we would run down to the town of Queenscliff at the mouth of the bay, where we could hopefully find an electrician in the morning. We pulled the brushes out of the generator so it wouldn’t spark (or generate, of course), and motored through the night. What a way to start a trip, I thought.

We arrived off Queenscliff around six A.M. and fumbled our way in by lights on a jetty. The town was just a small harbor for fishing boats and a few marine-related businesses. The skipper and one of his mates went ashore and wandered off in search of an electrician who would work early on a Saturday morning. If we couldn’t get one today we’d probably have to wait until Monday, and that would almost certainly be too late to get to Sydney by Saturday. I took advantage of the wait to write a long letter to my parents about my current whereabouts. A few hours later, our guys returned leading a rather sleepy-looking electrician. He crawled into the engine compartment and disassembled the generator.

“Just some bare wires shorting out, mate,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll have her fixed in a tick.” He wrapped the wires in electrical tape, stuffed a greasy rag into the hole in the side of the generator, and tied it all back together with a piece of string he had in his pocket.

“She’ll be right now,” he said cheerfully, wiping his hands on his overalls.

The skipper started the engine. Instantly there was another shower of sparks and all the lights went out. Three of the four fuses had blown. We killed the engine and replaced the fuses while he took the generator apart again, mumbling to himself. He stuffed some more padding into it, tied it together again, and bolted it back on.

“Right as rain,” he pronounced. “Fire her up and Bob’s yer uncle.”

When we cranked it that time the surge of current jammed shut the relay in the voltage regulator, blowing all the fuses again. Cursing and growling, he took the regulator cover off and while examining it dropped a mounting bolt into it. Another shower of sparks welded the relay closed and blew two more fuses. I learned a lot of very colorful Australian slang in a very short interval. He broke the weld by whacking it with the handle of his screwdriver, then quickly bolted it all back together and slithered out.

“You’ll have no more problems now,” he said, putting his tools away.

“Shouldn’t we try it again?” someone suggested.

“No!” he snapped. “She’s right, I tell you.”

Ian paid him and he made a very fast retreat, back to the pub, no doubt. It was now past noon, so we cast off immediately and sailed out through the heads into Bass Strait. An hour later the lights started to dim and Ian started the engine to charge the batteries. There was a terrible clatter from the engine room and all the lights went out. Upon checking, we found that both the generator and the regulator had blown, along with the last of our fuses. The skipper cursed everybody from the electrician to Franklin and Volta. We hooked up the spare battery for our running lights, but we were without power for anything else. We had been underway less than sixteen hours and already a half dozen things had gone wrong. We were only about twenty minutes by car from our slip.

The only good part of all this was that we were finally outside and the nasty cold southerly wind was now on our beam, not our nose. We bowled along quickly and rounded Wilson Promontory, “The Prom” to Victorians, before midnight.

The cold wind and scattered rain showers continued through the night. We rounded Cape Howe around midday and turned north for Sydney. It was bumpy and wet, but the strong wind gave us great speed. With the bottom clean and all new rigging, we seemed to be flying.

Ian Edwards was a very different skipper than Peter Sturgess. Peter was no master mariner, but he didn’t pretend to be. When he didn’t know what to do, he’d ask one of us. For a good part of the cruise I’d felt like the unofficial first mate, making many of the decisions about course and tactics myself. I enjoyed the responsibility and felt that I had come to know Warana pretty well. Peter trusted me to do the right thing in an emergency.

Ian didn’t know any more than Peter, and considerably less about bluewater sailing, but he refused to admit it. When a crisis arose he’d look flummoxed for a moment, then snap out some ridiculous order that was often exactly the wrong thing to do. If I tried to suggest something else, he’d snap at me about not following orders. I was the navigator, but that meant telling him where he was when he asked, and nothing more. As example followed example, my slight respect for him as a skipper eroded away to disdain. The other blokes were generally pleasant, but not knowledgeable enough to know what a mess he was making of things.

We had a good fast run and made 160 miles noon to noon. If the wind held, we should make Sydney in plenty of time. With that worry alleviated, the tension on the boat subsided. The wind was steady on our quarter, Warana’s best point of sail, so there wasn’t much to do except trim the sails and steer. I took the time to pore over wind and current charts. The skipper had brought along plots of the courses sailed by the last dozen winning boats, and we compared them and discussed strategy and tactics. Since most of the other boats were newer and bigger, they would be much faster. But they were mostly light-displacement boats with relatively fragile gear. Our best hope was for a really heavy blow, which would force the thoroughbreds to reef down and sturdy old Warana could make hay.

The wind held fair. While it was great for us now, we wondered if it would still be blowing like this for the race. Looking back at the big seas rolling up from the south, I hated to think what it would be like beating into that for 650 miles. We had another good run all day and by midnight we were approaching Sydney. This time the night was clear and I had no trouble locating Sydney Heads.

We tied up to the Cruising Yacht Club dock in Rushcutter Bay at 3:30 A.M. and turned in. We’d made it to Sydney in four and a half days from Melbourne, including half a day lost in Queenscliff. Not bad. After a few hours of sleep, we went ashore. The skipper went up to the club to check in, the rest of us walked around the marina to check out the competition.

It was a very impressive collection of vessels. Even the uninitiated could see that they were nothing like the cruisers and daysailers one sees around the bay. These were racing machines, and they weren’t built for comfort or even safety. Their decks were flush, unencumbered with cabins or lifelines. If they were beautiful it was because our eyes see beauty in pure function. Every detail was there only if it made the boat faster. Because a boat’s maximum speed is proportional to her length, they were huge, many seventy feet or more, but because they are rated by their length on the waterline, they sported sharp bows and long overhanging sterns, making their hulls look top-heavy. Because the power of a sail is in its leading edge, not its area, their masts were even longer than the boats but their booms were extremely short. All were sloops, and none were wood. They were of ultra-light fiberglass construction, with masts of extruded aluminum or graphite. The masts themselves were aerodynamic, with teardrop cross-sections, and allowed to rotate to the wind.The cockpits were huge and unprotected, with room for a dozen crew and gleaming stainless steel coffee-grinder winches for every line. Even the stays had tensioners so the crew could adjust the bend of the mast for each tack and angle of heel. The interiors were spartan in the extreme, all bare white plastic and anodized aluminum. The berths were aluminum tubing with nylon webbing. Every bit of excess weight was removed. Even the bolts had been drilled out hollow to save weight.

In contrast, Warana was half their size, twice their weight, one quarter their mast height, and forty times their age. We learned that we were the oldest boat in the race, and nearly the smallest. Our only hope was a major typhoon that would sink most of these paper-thin boats and leave us the sole survivors. Even with our considerable handicap we were unlikely to be a contender. In talking to the other competitors, we played up the “character boat” bit to the hilt.

Ian came back with a large packet of racing instructions, and I spent the rest of the day plotting courses and the bearings to the lights and radio stations.

The yacht club was a hive of activity. There were events every day for skippers, navigators, and crew, everything from briefings to weather reports and current charts updated daily. The evenings were solid parties, sponsored by some of the racing syndicates, marine suppliers, yacht clubs, and the media. Reporters and cameramen were everywhere, interviewing people and panning up and down the towering masts. We waited to become a human interest story like the little engine that could, but no one noticed us. The day was taken up with tinkering with the boat and talking with other racers. We learned that one of the big boats, built especially for this one race, bore a mast that was the largest single piece of extruded aluminum in the world. The big high-tech boats were part of the Southern Cross Cup, a series of major ocean races of which the Sydney-Hobart was only one leg. After this they’d race the Hobart-Auckland.

Today a very large odd-looking trimaran sailed into the harbor and past the mouth of Rushcutter’s Bay. She flew a French ensign, and we could see a man at the masthead, working frantically at something and shouting something unintelligible toward shore. No one else was visible on deck. Everyone turned to watch. The tri sailed up toward the opera house, then the man quickly let himself down and disappeared below. A moment later the big boat spun around in a fast tack and headed back out toward the heads. The man reappeared and hauled himself back up to the masthead. As he passed the cove again, the big main suddenly collapsed and fluttered down onto the deck. The man lowered himself again, dropped below, and a moment later sailed into the cove under the jib alone.

I joined a large crowd making its way down to the guest dock to see what it was all about. When I got there the tri, a big sixty-footer, was just ghosting up to the dock. The only crew visible was a sun-bronzed wiry man with a thick brown beard and shoulder-length hair, wearing only a pair of jean shorts. He brought the boat to the dock, rushed forward and backed the jib to stop her, then threw a heaving line to the dock. When the boat was secured, he stepped up onto the dock and was greeted by some of the officials from the yacht club.

It turned out he was single-handing around the world in a boat he had designed himself. He had just run non-stop from Cape Town. When he had tried to put into the club the first time, he found that the main would not come down, so he went aloft and found that the halyard had rusted to the sheave on the masthead block. He had had to hacksaw it off to get it free. I thought cutting your halyard through at the masthead while sailing through crowded Sydney Harbor alone was enough of a feat, let alone crossing the Indian Ocean.

He had tried to enter the famous Whitbread Round the World Race from England to England, but the race officials told him the race was only for monohulls. He argued that if the race was to see which was the fastest boat around the world, he should be allowed to compete. He would sail single-handed to make the competition more fair. They still refused, so he simply sailed around the world on his own, starting each leg at the appointed time. The official competitors were still out in the Indian Ocean somewhere.

His boat was fairly ugly. The wings connecting the three hulls were just frames with lightening holes, like the inside of an airplane wing. The hulls were so narrow it was hard to stand on them. There were little clear blisters at several points, like the turrets on a B-29, so he could see the sails from up forward, with a larger blister over the cockpit. All lines came down inside the hull and cleated in the cockpit, so he could do all his sail handling without going out on deck. He had two roller furling headsails, a jib and a genoa, so he could even change headsails without getting wet. He said he sailed out of Cape Town, set the sails, and stayed below and read for three weeks. That’s why the main halyard had seized up; he hadn’t touched it in all that time. He’d flashed across the ocean just ahead of a massive series of tropical storms that have been hammering the official contestants, still days behind him.

The summer solstice, and a busy day on the boat. Two more of the racing crew showed up; Phil Simms and Peter Spotswood. Phil was quiet, mid forties, good-looking, and seemed quite friendly and pleasant. He ran a civil engineering company in New South Wales and we talked for a long while about my experiences as a surveyor in Ohio. Peter, or Spotty, as the others called him, was a small dapper-looking man with a white goatee and silver temples. He was a diplomatic courier, delivering dispatches to Australian embassies and consulates around the world. He looked as staid as a deacon, but it was a completely false impression. He was cynical and witty and could sometimes be quite funny, but he had a tendency to drink too much, a quality all too common in the crew. In the evening all the skippers and navigators had a meeting up in the yacht club. What a scene — hundreds of the best ocean racers in the world all in one room. These were some serious no-nonsense guys, and I soon realized just how outclassed we were.

Warana had once been a serious ocean racer. In fact she had already run the Sydney-Hobart in 1953, finishing fifteenth out of twenty-four. But that had been twenty years ago and the advances in boat design had left her far behind. She was a product of pre-war technology, competing against the space age. But Ian was well aware of that, and he didn’t care. All his life he’d followed this race and wished he could be in it some day, and he was determined to fulfill his dream.

The first of the official Whitbread racers came in this morning, the seventy-four foot ketch Pen Duick VI from France, skippered by the famous racer and designer Eric Tabarly. They told horror stories of the passage of the Indian Ocean. They’d been battered for weeks by gale force winds and mountainous seas. They all looked thoroughly shaken by what they’d been through. They’d been dismasted in a storm in the South Atlantic on the first leg from Portsmouth to Cape Town, but said these storms were much worse. Late in the evening the second boat arrived, the British ketch Great Britain II, commanded by Chay Blyth, who as a very young man had single-handed around the world and written a famous book about it. They said they’d gotten a call from the biggest boat, the eighty-one foot ketch Burton Cutter, saying they’d been knocked down and dismasted. They had lost a man overboard and were putting in for repairs.

Another member of Warana’s racing crew arrived, Simon Firth. Simon was a younger guy in his mid-twenties with a lot of sailing experience. I liked him immediately, with his boyish looks and his quick wit. He was a keen sailor, racing many kinds of small boats all his life, and very competitively. He figured me for an old seasoned salt and was telling me about dinghy racing with all its capsizes and knockdowns, but of course I had no idea what he was talking about. The myriads of dinghy classes, the baroque rules and handicapping, the equipment and gadgets I’d never heard of, made me realize there was a whole branch of sailing of which I was completely ignorant. After my year on the 147-foot Fairmorse, Warana still seemed cramped and tiny. For Simon, she was the biggest boat he’d ever sailed. We got along well, for we both loved boats and we each knew a lot the other didn’t.

Another Whitbread boat arrived this morning, the Mexican entry Sayula II, a beautiful Swan 65, the Rolls-Royce of yachts. They moored near us and I wandered over to talk to them. I soon made friends with Juan, one of the crew. He told me they’d been pitchpoled a week back — flipped over end for end. That evening I took him out to buy him some drinks, of which he was badly in need.

On the walk Juan described the capsize. He’d been on the wheel at night, fighting huge following seas. Only the skipper was on deck with him; everyone else was asleep below. Suddenly a sea much bigger than the others lifted them up on its crest, then broke. They free fell off the front of the wave, buried the bow in the trough, and went right on over, landing flat on the deck. Juan was thrown free, but he had his life line clipped to the railing around the stern. He came up just in time to see the boat roll over right side up. He pulled himself hand-over-hand along his lifeline back to the transom, then clambered up it and climbed back aboard. Just as he did, his lifeline clip dropped off in his hands. He showed it to me, a quarter-inch stainless steel clip opened up like a capital C. They never saw their skipper again. I resolved then and there to buy a new safety harness with a clip that could be locked closed.

We went to a little jazz club I’d found where the music was hot, there was no cover charge, and there were lots of beautiful women. The club was on the second floor. We entered at a little side door where a bouncer stood at the bottom of a long narrow flight of stairs. While we were showing him I.D., a girl suddenly tumbled down the stairs and landed in Juan’s arms. After apologies and giggles and a quick introduction, in five minutes they were off to her place. I went on up to have a drink by myself. I didn’t mind so much never scoring, but I had to stop hanging around with guys who did.

Christmas Day, and never had one felt so little like Christmas. First, it was the middle of summer, hot and muggy. Second, I was far from home and everyone I knew and loved. And third, I was working my butt off doing the thousands of last minute chores.

I was in a bad mood because I was the only one aboard. Every other man jack of the crew was up at the clubhouse boozing it up. I could hear roars of drunken laughter every few minutes. I’d been angry for weeks about doing more than my share of the work. Warana had also been my home for half a year now, and all these new guys showed up and moved in without so much as a by your leave. It was irrational, I knew, but I felt invaded and displaced. I was frustrated because I didn’t feel I could say anything to the rest of the crew — they were the skipper’s friends and I was just hired crew. I had been hoping that they’d straighten up a bit on the last day and we could get down to planning for the race. But the start was in less than twenty-four hours and they showed no sign of getting serious.

I didn’t like Ian or some of his cronies, but he’d offered me the berth on Peter’s recommendation, and I was determined to be just as professional and conscientious as I could be. I felt a real affection for Warana and proud of how she looked all cherried up. I felt that I owed it to her to make the very best showing we could. Obviously every other navigator in the race knew more than I did about racing, but I knew the boat extremely well, having sailed her in every imaginable wind and sea conditions. All I could do was hope for heavy weather. For once I prayed for a storm.

I got the storm that very afternoon, but not the way I expected. After a tedious morning checking through supplies, I was at the saloon table studying the tide charts when I felt the boat rock. Someone was coming aboard.

“Ian, you old bastard!” someone roared down the companionway. “Are you aboard?”

I looked up. The visitor was a big man around sixty, with a red face and wattles and a droopy pot belly. He wore the ubiquitous Aussie sailing rig of crew neck, bermudas, and knee socks, with his pale varicose knees protruding between. He had on a blue sailor’s cap with the brim turned down, and I thought he made a ridiculous figure, like a Gilbert and Sullivan caricature of a yachtsman. He looked me up and down in surprise.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded archly.

“I’m Brian Crawford, the navigator,” I replied. “Who the hell are you?”

He drew himself up at my audacity.

“Pat Andrews, the sailmaster,” he replied haughtily.

“Is that right?” I said. Not another loud drunk, I thought to myself. “I knew there was one more coming, but I never heard anything about a sailmaster. Did Ian tell you that?”

“I offered myself as sailmaster, and he said he would be glad of my services.”

“What does a sailmaster do, anyway?” I asked. “I thought the skipper and navigator made the sail decisions.”

He sniffed at my ignorance. “The sailmaster is the tactician,” he explained impatiently . “The captain handles the overall racing strategy, but the sailmaster determines the best way to carry out his decisions. The navigator just has to tell me where we are.”

“Yeah, I see,” I snapped, getting more irritated every minute. “Well, sailmaster, the skipper and the rest of the crew are up at the bar. I’m sure you can share another bottle of racing tactics with them. Just follow the noise.”

His face grew even brighter red. “Look here, you scruffy little Yank,” he blustered. “You don’t know who you’re talking to. I’m an important man in Victoria. I can buy and sell your kind any day, you lazy bludger.”

In ‘Strine a bludger is a loafer, someone who doesn’t pull his weight. That was all I needed. I threw down my books and flew up on deck.

“Bludger, am I?” I screamed in his face. “You haven’t done a minute’s work to get her ready, and you’re accusing me of fucking off? You arrogant bigoted bastard! You and your reactionary friends think you’re fucking kings, as if your money makes you better than working men. But you’re a bunch of fat old nouveau riche farts not worth the space you’re taking up on the Earth. If you weren’t always pickled in alcohol you’d probably wise up and shoot yourself, you worthless piece of shit! Now get off of this boat before I throw you off.”

He stood there shaking, his face purple with rage. “I won’t have you talking like that to me!” he screamed. “I’ll have you know Ian and I are very old and very dear friends, ever since we were boys. I’ll have your dirty ass tossed off this boat so fast your ears will flap. You’re through on this boat, you little long-haired American prick.”

With a thrill of horror, I realized that of course he was right. What had I done? I’d just thrown the owner’s best friend off his boat. I was going to end up like poor Phillip Rogers, kicked off the boat on the last day. And after all the hard work I’d put in. I couldn’t imagine standing on the dock watching these idiots take Warana out without me. I felt sick to my stomach. What an idiot! For the sake of blowing off some pent-up steam, I’d ruined everything.

“What’s all the bloody shouting about?” called the skipper angrily, coming along the dock. “Is that you, Pat?” This was it, I thought miserably. I might as well start packing.

“I asked what was going on here,” the skipper demanded. “Is anybody going to tell me?”

Pat was too apoplectic to reply. “Just a little disagreement, skipper,” I murmured.

“A disagreement? What about?”

I looked down at my feet. “Well, Pat called me a bludger…” I began.

Ian wheeled suddenly on Pat. “Is that true?” he asked. Pat was still too outraged to speak, but he nodded.

“See here, Pat,” said Ian fiercely. “If you think that, get off this boat right now and never come back. Brian’s been working twelve hour days, seven days a week, for over two months to get Warana ready for this race, and he’s done a fine job. He’s done everything I asked and more on his own initiative. If I had five more like him we’d have some chance of winning our division in this bloody race. Now I just broke up a fight at the damned clubhouse between two other drunken crew, and I won’t have any more of this. Pat, I want you to apologize to Brian and shake hands, or you won’t sail with me.”

Pat and I both stared at him in amazement. From his tone of voice I was pretty sure he meant what he said, and I think Pat thought so too. I had never thought much of Ian and I’m sure he knew that. I assumed the feeling was mutual. I figured he was sorry that he had hired me as navigator and would be glad of an excuse to replace me with one of his friends. But here he was sticking up for me, even at the cost of kicking his old buddy off the boat.

Pat finally found his voice. “I’m sorry, Ian,” he said. “I didn’t know how it was.”

“I want you two to shake hands,” said Ian. “And mean it. I want this to end right here. We have a long race ahead of us. I won’t have bickering among the crew.”

Pat turned to me and held out his hand.

“I’m sorry. Afraid I had a few too many drinks.”

I shook his hand, still dazed from Ian’s instant and vehement reaction.

“That’s all right,” I said. “Sorry I blew up at you. I guess I was more frustrated than I realized.”

“I can hardly blame you,” said Ian. “Up till now, no one else has done much to get ready for this race. But that’s going to change. I’m calling a crew meeting, right now. Pat, will you go up and get the others?” Pat hurried off, much chastened.

“I have to apologize for Pat,” said Ian to me when he had gone. “He’s a pretty big executive with his firm, and he’s used to getting his own way.”

I shrugged it off. “Now that it’s over, I feel better for blowing off some steam. Thanks for standing up for me, Ian. I appreciate it a lot.”

“Just trying to keep the peace,” he smiled. “What Pat said was wrong. You’ve done more than anyone else to get us ready to race.”

So I guess I did get a Christmas present.

The Aussies call this Boxing Day, for no reason I could ever learn. Finally, after all those weeks of frantic work, it was race day at last. The media hoopla was terrific. Sydney Harbor was packed with boats. Helicopters circled overhead. The shores and islands in the bay were lined with spectators. There was national television coverage. Everywhere I looked in the dock area, gangs of people with lights and cameras were pressed around crewmen and skippers. But even our underdog character boat angle wasn’t worth a reporter. It was announced that six boats that had entered would not be racing, so that left ninety-two.

The start was set for noon. The day was fine, with a moderate breeze out of the east. We left the dock at ten, with Ian Edwards as skipper, Pat Andrews as sailmaster, me as navigator, and Phil Simms, Ian Ravenwood, and Peter Spottswood as crew. With nearly a hundred contestants and four or five hundred spectator and press boats milling about, it was quite a trick just to get out of the cove. We moved off up the bay toward the Opera House to stay out of the crush. We did a few tacks and changed a headsail, and that was it for practice. As sailmaster and tactician, Pat was in charge of watching the signals and keeping us informed of the time. At 11:30 we moved up into the maneuvering area behind the starting line. All spectator boats had to remain outside this area, but ninety-two racing boats jockeying for position in one square mile is still an anxious situation. It was amazing to see the big boats under way. With their eight- and ten-man crews, there was a man and a winch for every line. They would rush up straight at our side, and just when it seemed their knife-edge bows were about to cut us in two, there would be a thunder of Terylene and a clattering of winches and they would spin around and be off again. Ian’s strategy was to sail into Taylor’s Bay on the west side of the harbor, then come out parallel to the line just before the start. It was less crowded in there, and we could hear the cheers of the crowds that lined the shore dozens deep.

At ten minutes a gun barked out from the starting boat and an orange ball rose to its spreaders. Scores of boats tacked and wheeled just behind the line. We could hear shouting and bellows of protest from the milling herd. Five minutes later came another gun and an orange cone joined the ball. Ian headed out into the throng. All of us were kept busy, calling out sail numbers to Ian as boats pressed close around us on all sides. Ian brought us within a hundred yards of the line, cutting diagonally through the prevailing traffic. At noon exactly, a third gun banged and both marks dropped. A thousand voices roared out together and the fleet wheeled and spilled out across the line.

We got a good start, well toward the front of the pack. We went close-hauled, sailing as close to the wind as we could and still keep up speed. It was not Warana’s best angle, and the bigger boats quickly began to pass us. With their towering masts and immense headsails they could point higher and foot faster than we could ever hope to. In the three mile run to the heads, most had passed us. We could see a cloud of helicopters and camera planes hovering over the big boys out at the Heads, and we still had a mile or more to go. There were only about a dozen boats behind us when we finally reached the mark boat off South Head. The cliffs towered above us, lined with tens of thousands of people watching us. A television boat covered us rounding the mark. A press boat came up alongside us and took a number of pictures.

Once we cleared the Heads and entered the open sea, my job really began. I had talked with a lot of people who had done the race before and had kept my ears open. The trick, I was told, was to try to stay around the two hundred meter depth contour, the most likely place to find the southerly current. Off Sydney this would be about twenty miles off shore. The main body of the fleet was heading east-southeast, angling out toward deeper water. A few were staying closer in, hoping to gain some advantage if the wind dropped. I plotted a course that seemed a middle ground and gave the heading to Ian at the helm. The wind was on the port bow and we had up the big genoa, stays’l, main, and mizzen. Throughout the afternoon the fleet pulled away from us. By mid afternoon the leaders were over the horizon. There were a few sails around us, but no one close enough to identify. There was still a handful behind us, which gave us some consolation.

By regulation, each boat had to report its position by radio three times a day, so that meant a lot of navigation for me. While cruising, I’d taken a morning sight and crossed it with a noon altitude and that was close enough. Now I had to take a half dozen sights a day, and if any didn’t look right, keep doing more until I had a good fix. For the afternoon position I took four sights until I had a good clean convergence of lines of position. Then the whole fleet called in their positions, one at a time, to Mia Mia, the radio relay boat that would accompany the fleet throughout the race. Mia Mia relayed the positions back to Sydney and they were published in all the newspapers around the country and shown on television every evening. It took several hours to get through all the boats. We all gathered around the radio to listen. I plotted each position on the chart, and as the dots accumulated, we could see the fleet stretched out in a straggling line ahead of us. We were well back, but there were probably fifteen boats behind us and the inshore group scattered out along the coast. At sunset we could only count forty sails, most ahead of us. The rest were already out of sight over the southern horizon. The wind was light to moderate, favoring the ultra-light displacement boats.

During the night I spotted a red distress flare ahead of us. I told Spotty at the helm to steer for it, then went below and tuned to the emergency frequency. A New Zealand boat, Inca, was calling to request a doctor for one of their crew who had suddenly fallen ill. Mia Mia told the rest of us to hold our courses. They had a doctor aboard and would be alongside Inca momentarily. A few minutes later, Inca came on again to say that the man had died of a heart attack, at twenty years old. The news put a chill on us all.

Light winds all night didn’t help us. At daylight we could only see two boats behind us and none ahead of us. When I plotted the fleet’s positions at the morning report, we found we were third from last, with only Korumburra and Olympia behind us. Both were considerably smaller than Warana, and Korumburra was one of the other three ketches. The leaders were now seventy miles ahead of us. In little more than half a day of racing, we were already more than half a day’s sail behind.

Our hopes faded still more when Olympia gradually passed us during the afternoon. The race for us became a fight to avoid being last. That evening I worked out my position carefully and waited by the radio as each boat called in its position. The only boat in sight was Korumburra, about two miles astern of us. Our turn came early in the rotation and Korumburra’s toward the end. When they came on, they gave a position almost exactly two miles ahead of us. Our crew groaned, but I assumed that either their navigator or I had made a slight error. Two miles is a minor error in celestial navigation, and I was not concerned. Still, it meant we were reported as dead last. Around sunset we caught a glimpse of Cape Howe, the end of North Island, as the Tasmanians call the mainland. We were back in Bass Strait, of evil memory for Ian Ravenwood and me. It was time to leave the two hundred meter contour and head for Tasmania, which was just as well because we were soon too deep for the fatho to detect bottom. I plotted a course for the tip of Tasman Island, just off the mouth of the Derwent River.

The winds were moderate all night and our speed was only four knots. We tried adjusting the sails a bit, but nothing seemed to make much difference. There was little to do and nothing to see, so I took several extra sights to get a really good fix for the morning report. Korumburra was still a mile or so behind us, but again they gave their position as two miles south of ours. I began to get annoyed, because I was so sure of our position and I knew we were not last.

The wind diminished throughout the morning, and by noon we were becalmed. The sky was a thin high overcast. The oily seas rolled under us, rattling the sails and rigging while we slowly drifted in circles. It was very frustrating to be in a race and not be able to move, especially as the leading boats were reporting a nice stiff breeze and were making good time down the coast of Tasmania.

A very slight northerly breeze picked up in the late afternoon and we set the big spinnaker to take advantage of it. When it came on a little better toward sunset, the ‘chute started to pull well and we took off again. Pat decided that the spinnaker’s head could be brought up a little and Simon and I went forward to tighten it. I took the halyard off the cleat while Simon put the handle on the winch. Suddenly the line slipped off the winch and started running out fast. Terrified that the spinnaker would drop into the water ahead of us, I made a desperate attempt to stop it, but the line ripped painfully through my hands and I had to let go. Fortunately the halyard was knotted below the cleat and caught there with the ‘chute bellied out forward over the pulpit. Simon winched it back up and belayed it while I staggered back to the cockpit. All the skin on both palms was gone and long strips of loose skin fluttered from my fingers. I cursed myself for my clumsiness and wondered how much of an impediment this was going to be. Simon treated my hands and bandaged them up pretty well, but they hurt like hell.

The wind continued to pick up during the night. We dropped the spinnaker and set the genoa again. I worried about being able to take a sight with my hands all bandaged up, but as it turned out the sky was now thickly overcast and there was no hope of a sight. I watched the knotmeter and compass carefully and made my best guesses about currents and leeway. Every hour I plotted another position on the chart, wondering if it had any relation to reality. We couldn’t see anybody else any more, but Korumburra continued to say they were two miles ahead of us at each report. The leading boats were already in the Derwent River, running the last leg into Hobart, and we still had 250 miles to go.

We tried the spinnaker again in the afternoon to try to make some more speed, but the wind was just too strong for it. The strain on the sheets and guys was incredible. The halyard that had attacked me parted with a bang and the foredeck hands had a hell of a time getting the ‘chute doused before it “shrimped,” meaning to go in the water and get run over. During the evening we listened to the radio as the lead boats crossed the finish line. We could hear cheering and shouting. It sounded very far away. Low clouds scudded by overhead. Big grey seas rolled up from astern. We were making great time finally, but it was way too late.

The wind and seas increased all night and dawn broke cold and grey to reveal huge seas sweeping down from the north, streaked with white foam like snow on a slate roof. The sky was still covered, and I had nothing but dead reckoning positions to report. At all three position reports, Korumburra was exactly two miles ahead of us, though we never caught a glimpse of any sails. Steering became very difficult, and it was exhausting work to be at the wheel for more than an hour. My hands were still too bad to do any steering or sail handling, so there was little for me to do except worry about our position. At noon, by my estimation, we had run 175 miles noon-to-noon, a lifetime record for Warana.

The seas were now well above the masthead, the wind over thirty knots, and the situation was becoming scary. Still, it was a race, and one didn’t reef unless it was absolutely necessary. We kept all sail up, not even reefing the main. The wind would shriek and tear at the boat on the crests, then die away when we surfed down into a trough. The helmsmen had to fight the wheel every second, adjusting to the changing wind and wave conditions to keep her from broaching to. An accidental gybe in those conditions would have been fatal.

Poor old Warana was creaking and groaning as she was driven relentlessly through the waves. Accustomed to cruising, I kept feeling that we should reduce sail for safety’s sake. Simon loved this kind of sailing though, and he was a superb helmsman. He had spent his life racing tiny sailing dinghies, often on the verge of capsizing, and he felt right at home pushing Warana to the edge. When she heeled dangerously over and water flooded the cockpit, he’d shout with joy, and his enthusiasm was infectious. We were determined to make the very best showing we possibly could, even if half the fleet was already partying in Hobart.

In early afternoon we crested a huge sea and plunged down its back like a toboggan going down a mountainside. There far below us, like a house in the bottom of a valley, was a boat, the first we had seen in two days. It was Valhalla, a big sixty-foot ketch, just returned from an eight-year cruise around the world. She was under stays’l and mizzen only, beating slowly in toward shore, rolling heavily and having a hard time of it. Her helmsman looked up and saw us plunging down at him under full sail. He gave a shout down the companion and a moment later the whole crew came out on deck and cheered us as we surfed past their transom. In another minute they were out of sight again. We called them up and they said they had been hove to since morning and were just trying to get a sight of shore to find out where they were. When the fleet reported their positions a few minutes later, I noticed Valhalla gave a position more than twenty miles behind us, and I wondered again if my dead reckoning was that bad. I hadn’t seen land or sky for two days and my navigation was quickly becoming naviguessing. But an hour later Valhalla called up Mia Mia and corrected her position to a point four miles astern of us. I was greatly relieved.

When it started to get dark we didn’t dare keep full sail up. We put up the small jib and reefed the main. We had just gotten all snugged down again when a sudden squall struck, knocking us down almost flat. The wind shot up well over fifty knots and shrieked through the darkness. If we hadn’t reefed we would have been knocked down for certain. The radio came alive with damage reports. Ruthean, a 54-foot yawl, lost her boom. Dozens of boats had sails blown out. Even Mia Mia lost her radio mast. But old Warana kept blasting along, completely in her element. The squall finally blew out around nine o’clock and the clouds parted to give us a glimpse of Tasman Island on the starboard bow. This was a great relief because it showed that my dead reckoning was off by less than six miles after more than three hundred miles and two days without a sight. A few minutes later the sun set and we lost the land again, but at least I knew where we were.

The wind howled all night and it was all we could do to hold our course. None of us got much rest. Quite apart from the very real fear of capsizing, the noise was tremendous. The thunder of water against the hull, the crash of waves on the deck, the whistle of wind in the rigging, combined into a cacophony of noise that precluded sleep. Our consolation was that we were making good time when the lighter faster boats were hove to. At the morning position report we gleefully discovered we had passed six boats during the night.

At dawn I judged we had passed Tasman Island and we tacked to enter the fjord-like Storm Bay. Soon we were close-hauled, beating hard into moderate seas. The sky was low overcast, scudding across the bay. Warana was not a particularly weatherly boat, and we were making less than four knots. We tacked tediously back and forth from one rocky mountainside to the other, making little progress toward Hobart. Hour after hour we beat back and forth, our elation from the last day’s run gradually turning to despair as one by one the boats we had passed crept up behind us and disappeared up the river. Not until sunset did we finally enter the Derwent River. There were then only three boats still behind us.

In the more sheltered waters of the river we could make better speed. Our goal now was to finish before 1974, now only three hours away. We squeezed every knot we could out of the breeze, but it continued to dwindle and we went slower and slower. Even Ruthean, with her boom fished back together, passed us. By eleven, when we entered the outskirts of Hobart, it was almost calm. The river was glassy, the lights of the town reflecting on the black water.

We were barely moving now, the almost imperceptible breeze just barely enough to give us headway against the gentle current. We peered anxiously astern, afraid that another boat would come up and pass us at the line. It would crush us if Korumburra beat us after all. We watched the time as the last minutes of the year ticked away. The finish line was visible ahead, illuminated by the headlights of a car parked on the shore. But we were barely moving. Everything was silent. Suddenly there was a blast of noise. We could hear sounds of merriment from the shore — car horns, firecrackers, the blast of boat air horns. 1973 was over, and we still had three hundred yards to go.

It took us another twenty-five minutes to make that distance. Finally we drifted across the line, marked only by the feeble pop of a gun, lost in the continuing noise of firecrackers. We yelled and shouted and congratulated each other. We broke the seal on the prop shaft, Ian fired up the engine, and we motored into the marina of the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania and slid into a slip. Any spectators had long since retired to the club house to celebrate New Year’s. As we were tying up, a guy came out on the dock and passed aboard a case of ice cold beer. It wasn’t the boisterous welcome we had hoped for, but it sure tasted good. After clearing up the boat, we went up to the club house to join the revelry. We had finished 87th, the first of the four ketches in the race, and ahead of Korumburra. We made the best of our accomplishment, telling everyone we’d just come in first in the 1974 Sydney-Hobart.

After a few hours of sleep, we got the boat cleaned up and looking nice. Crowds of people strolled the docks and admired the boats. Quite a few stopped by to talk and ask us questions. I went out to talk to some of our competitors. I looked up Korumburra, introduced myself, and was invited aboard. She was a 36’ steel ketch, built by her owner a few months ago, and just returned from a cruise on the Barrier Reef. I met her two navigators, a pair of brothers, and we exchanged our experiences of the race. Finally I could stand it no longer.

“Tell me,” I said. “Our fixes never once agreed throughout the whole race. It was driving me crazy. I kept rechecking my figures and I’m sure I was right.”

They both laughed. “You probably were,” one said. “Every time you reported your position, we just calculated one two miles ahead of you so we wouldn’t be last.”

“I knew it!” I said. “I knew that’s what what you were doing.”

Reassured, I returned to Warana and told them our suspicions had been correct. Boats continued to straggle in throughout the day. The last boat, Saracen II, didn’t come in until six P.M.

Linda arrived today and I picked her up at the airport. We went down to the boat and I introduced her to the crew. Some of them were packing to fly home, others were getting ready to sail the boat back to Melbourne. Ian Ravenwood had found a berth on Siska, a big 59’ sloop and the second place finisher. He was to navigate her back to Perth. After seeing her high-tech accommodations (the entire navigator’s cabin was gimbaled so it swung inside the hull and stayed level), I was a bit jealous, but I had my baby with me and we had some swinging of our own planned. Simon Firth had found us a place to stay in Hobart in a creche, then we planned to take off hitch-hiking around Tasmania and on to North Island. Time was a-wasting, so I hurriedly packed my gear, shook hands with the skipper, and stepped off on the dock. When we reached the shore I looked back at Warana lying in her slip, looking sleek and snug and still shining in her new paint and varnish. Then Linda took my arm and we turned away and walked up into the town. I never saw Warana again.

Linda and I stayed in Hobart a few days, then hitch-hiked across Tasmania to Launceston and caught a flight to Melbourne. We visited with Peter and Jean and were royally entertained. Then we took a very scenic train journey to Sydney, where I saw her off back to Tonga. I hung about in Sydney for a few days, then Phil Simms gave me a job on his survey crew in Bateman’s Bay on the coast of New South Wales. I worked there for four months, enjoying getting paid for hiking about in the beautiful wild countryside. In May Linda left the Peace Corps and we rendezvoused in Nadi for a flight back to San Diego, where we married in December.

When my parents were killed in an airplane accident in 1977, we used some of the settlement to buy a thirty-foot sloop, which we named Arwen. We did day sailing and a few cruises to the Channel Islands and Mexico, then sold her in 1983. In 1986 we moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where our son Nathan was born in 1988. In 1996 I started crewing on a racing sloop, Blue Streak, in San Francisco Bay. One day I saw a big cruising sloop from Australia and noticed it was from the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria. I spoke to the skipper and mentioned that I had sailed in his club. We got to talking and he told me Peter Sturgess was still associated with the club. I sent Peter a letter care of the club and eventually got a reply.

Peter and Jean had sold Warana and moved to Magnetic Island off the far north coast of Australia. After a few years in the tropics, however, they returned to Melbourne. Peter bought another boat and fixed it up himself. I told Peter I was working on an account of our cruise, and he was kind enough to send me copies of the log book as well as letters he had written home to Jean at the time. This material, along with the letters I wrote to Linda and to my mother, formed the major documentary sources for this account. I could not have completed it without Peter’s help. I want to thank him for the kindness he has always shown me, both a quarter century ago and now. I would gladly sail with him again any time.

Peter tells me Warana is alive and well at the age of sixty and he often sees her sailing about in Port Phillip Bay.