Thursday Dec 15
It’s 0700 hrs and I’m up on deck having a quiet coffee watching the rhythm of the long slow southerly swell as we cruise along merrily under heavy cloud and 15knot winds when Peter similarly armed with caffeine joins me for a chat.
“So what shall we do today?” I say with only the slightest hint of feminine mimicry.
That comment prompts a brief discussion on the observance of how a large proportion of female folk who, when one hasn’t contemplated what the day may bring and quite content to do absolutely nothing, is compelled by their partner to shatter this sloth-like existence with activities that seem more akin to just ‘filling’ a day rather than achieving anything specific.
Of course now that the subject has been broached my sloth like tendencies have suffered a mild case of guilt and I go in search of something more active than turning a page of a book. It’s then that I am overcome with the urge to fly a kite!
I can just imagine as you read this shaking your head and thinking well of course he wants to do something he’s probably bored; but fly a kite? Those that know me are thinking that figures trust Detlef to choose something idiotic to occupy his probably now, stagnant, twisted mind.
Oh ye of little faith. It just so happens that the concept occurred to me in Fremantle and I, after some canny negotiation and organisation have in my possession a grand flying machine, skilfully designed (bright yellow and green painted cartoon monsters), deftly crafted (completely plastic and made in Hong Kong) and of outstanding value ($3.50), just waiting to fly.
I savour every moment of tearing open its plastic bag, inserting plastic stick (a) into plastic cup hole (b) & (c). Then with tongue ever-so-slightly poking out of the side of my mouth, I thread the flimsy cotton string through hole (d) and tie the most sea-man like of knots, the bowline. (Try that with something half the thickness of dental floss)
Now the dilemma, the question I have been mulling over in my mind since the thought of flying a kite from a yacht occurred to me; given a specific wind direction and strength, what part of the boat is going to be the preferred launching and flying point?
We are running with the wind we have a poled out genoa, a stay sail on the other side and a reefed main. The decision is to launch from the stern and without undue ceremony up she goes. I have about 150 meters of line and I let out about 50 meters of that as Peter armed with a camera props himself to take the obligatory pictures. After 2 or 3 minutes of glorious flying, complete with some unintentional swoops and kamikaze dives the kite screams around behind the main in lee of the prevailing wind and unceremoniously nose dives into the drink. We laugh uproariously until we realise that of course the yacht is doing around 7 knots and the kite is held by little more than flimsy cotton. That said, my one and only attempt to bring it in is foiled by the basic laws of physics and lousy Hong Kong sweat shop construction leaving me with nothing more than fond but fleeting memories, 150 meters of line, replete with bowline on the end of a skerrick of plastic formally attached to my $3.50 kite.
As Peter refuses to drop sails and turn our ship around to retrieve it (even after I stop threatening to set off the EPIRB), so I ask him “ok, NOW what will we do”. Peter grins conspiratorially, “let’s play with the big kite”.
Soon it’s all hands on deck dropping sails, hauling out the spinnaker, searching for appropriate sheets, none of this made easier by the fact that apparently the spinnaker hasn’t been used since the current owner has had the boat! Eventually at the precise moment as the sun simultaneously makes it’s debut through the clouds, our spinnaker flies proudly celebrated by a trio of adolescent whoops and whistles. (“A message, a message from the lord; God be praised”) Our speed picks up to an average of 8.5knots and we are eating up the miles until after a few hours, the wind shifts then builds and the spinnaker is dropped in favour of a more workable sail plan.
In the process setting up the new sail plan the genoa furling line snaps (we half expected it anyway by the state of it) causing us run with the staysail instead whilst some surgery is performed. An hour or so later Peter has sutured the rope with fishing line (no whipping chord to be found anywhere on the boat) and some tape. Announcing, “It’ll be a miracle if it holds” we feed the furling line and give it a try. Miracles do it seems, happen. Blessings too it seem when we all decide a shower, shave and clean clothes are the order of the day.
Late afternoon up on deck we three are resplendent in our freshly shaved faces, clean attire and smelling somewhat more palatable. We crack a beer sit back rather exhausted and decide once and for all, never again through this voyage to start the day with. “What will we do today?”
Friday December 16
We are pleased to embrace our first completely clear day since departing Exmouth. Gone are the clouds with nothing but bright blue skies over a sensational cobalt ocean. Hugh described the ocean over the past few days as a slate blue and I wonder if the intensity of the Indian Ocean has anything to do with the depth. We have been sailing through “Wharton Basin” an area we discover is the deepest in the entire Indian Ocean. Our chart shows as far west as Africa, as far South as 50 degrees (Iceberg territory), Western Australia and just short of the equator and this is by far the deepest part. Sounded to 6499 meters in parts I find it fascinating if not a little eerie, that below this yacht is a drop of over 6km! Our reward for this topographical fact is the most intense deep blue ocean.
Our early morning coffee has Peter decide (without prompting this time) that it’s time again for the spinnaker. This time the asymmetrical kite will be flown from the bow and set as a “gennaker” (absolutely no spell check for that so make of it what you will, though I was given the option by spell check of using “genital” which made me laugh) The winds are considerably lighter than they have been for a week (around 10 knots) so a good long kite run should do us the world of good. We set it without incident and enjoy some breakfast. Spirits are indeed high this morning and not just because we are making good speed on a bright sunny day, but our calculations have us now within territorial waters of Australia again, but this time the Cocos Islands and we look like dropping anchor sometime early tomorrow morning.
Perhaps the experience with my little hand kite (now either floating half way to Indonesia or adorning some sea creatures’ fin like cheap costume jewellery), should have been seen as fortuitous because whilst helming I pushed it just a bit too much, began rounding up then BANG! It took us quite a while to get the exploded kite in and packed away, a clean tear just beyond the reinforcement on the tack with a sad limp remnant still attached to the bow the only clue that on both days it hadn’t even got to lunch time and already we’ve (ok I ) have broken the toys.
Saturday Dec 17
Blue skies, 10 knots of wind, a beautiful sunny day with the temp in the late 20’s when around 1100 hrs we spot the Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the distant. Entering the atoll we’re overwhelmed by it vivid blue waters, a blue so bright I was nearly asking for the ‘volume’ to be turned down as my sunglasses fought to counteract the intensity. Joshua Slocum when arriving at Cocos over 150 years ago wrote along the lines of “If there is an island paradise on earth then I’ve found it.”
By 1430 we’ve dropped anchor 50 meters off the uninhabited Direction Island, or as referred to by the locals who use it as their weekend away destination D.I. and I throw myself overboard into the crystal clear 30 degree water and within a few minutes see a nice reef shark about 1.5meters long.
Made up of over 27 islands forming a ring, two are the major habitations. Home Island, populated by the Malay community of around 500 people and West Island home of the predominantly Anglo Saxon Australian community. Typically Australian is the fact that the Malays have the very small island and a (relatively) large population whilst the Aussies who make up about 100 people have the largest Island of the whole atoll.
We get ourselves ready to head to home Island, getting the tender off the deck, fitting the outboard, washing etc. After the obligatory showers and shaves we set of in our tender and head for Home Island for we have it on good authority (more on that later as I still contemplate slapping the person in Fremantle who solicited the advice) that this is the place to get all the info you need. After a 20 min boat trip we arrive at home Island. Where is everyone? It’s late afternoon Saturday and not a soul to be seen. Information gleaned earlier that day via phone (calling harbour master, customs etc) was ‘go to house 8.’ where we were met by our Malay contact who as charming and hospitable as he was, gave us no real information to help us organise our next few days save that just about everything is closed until Monday, and even fuel is not available until Wednesday and that the ferry that runs between Home Island and West Island won’t run again until Monday.
A quick check of the watch, it’s 5pm and we decide there’s enough light to make the 5 nautical mile trip by tender (keeled yachts can’t get there due to draft and bommies) across to Home Island. By the way, I should add in here that each of us is also carrying some pretty potent dirty laundry in the hope of washing over the week end. (No chance of that either on Home Island) Peter looks at me with a “well shall we take a chance and do a run to West Island besides we’ve run out of beer on the boat?” look, I figure hell why not and give him that “sure, after all I’ve been with only you and Hugh for the past seven days and I don’t relish spending another night on the boat with just you guys for company when there are cold beers and natives who I’m sure who are just dying to make our scintillating acquaintance” look. (Try making that look – not easy)
An hour later the sun has deserted us in favour of a moonless night, we’re around 100 meters of Home Island the chop of the bay has soaked us completely, we have dry clothes but no one would come within 100 meters of us if we wore them, the hand hell GPS has shat itself (make note to remind Peter to slap the bastards who serviced it and didn’t properly water seal it there-by turning a perfectly good water proof GPS into a rather useless piece of plastic with buttons. Just like our mobile phone though quite dry are similarly useless here due to lack of coverage. Be warned all service providers who assured us there WAS coverage on Coco (Keeling) Islands you too shall be slapped mercilessly) Now where was I – oh yes.
Ashore now after finding the correct spot to alight, tender tied to a bilingual sign post we are confronted with two distinct wide sandy paths and not the slight sign of civilisation or any posted hint as to where one may find some. Typically Peter turns and asks me – ‘ok which do you think?’ I go for the path to the right leading away from the beach whilst the other parallels it. Fifteen minutes later after being repeatedly accosted by some very seriously large land crabs with pincers akin to the size and potential ferocity to the “Jaws of Life” that fire officers at road carnage sites use to cut people out of mangled cars, Peter makes the decision that we return to the tender and try the other path as this one seems to be heading north and the town we are told is to the south. After 15 minutes in that direction we are proud to say we found the towns’ tip all by ourselves. So now it’s back to where we started and off on the first track again, the crabs now rather bored with our directionless meanderings until eventually we come to a small T intersection, this one paved and grandiosely named the Sydney Highway. We head south and walk and walk, and walk. It’s now 7.30 pm we’ve been doing this rather bizarre trek now for nearly an hour and a half when at last a car comes from the direction we’re heading. Controlling our immediate desire to throw ourselves in front of this vehicle assuring it to stop, our better instinct prevail and we conservatively flag it down there-by reducing the chance of being road kill, as for all we know running over newly arrived yachties who are foolish enough to offer their weary bodies as speed humps could be a local sport. After all the damn crabs will probably dispose of the evidence by morning anyway.
Luckily the two guys offer to take us into town and we pour our, hungry, wet, miserable bodies into their car and within a few minutes are within earshot of the sound of a VB can being opened thanks to the local watering hole known simply as the Cocos Club.
We did though learn a few things on this rather quick journey.
1. We should expect it to be a quiet Saturday night due to the excessive partying that took place on Friday night, apparently these two guys and supposedly the rest of the town are nursing a severe hangover.
2. We should waste no time at all in getting a meal at the motel opposite the Cocos Club because they’re bound to shut by 8pm and it’s the only place to get food. And whilst there we should check in for rooms as it might be difficult organising one after 8.30pm
3. Everything is shut on Sunday except the club that opens at 5pm.
Town, even in this light (or lack of) is exactly what you’d expect in place that has a population of around 100 people and everything public revolves around a the pub (hence the word if guess). We dash into the motel dining room, a room seemingly devoid of people and ominously; edible food. Reclining in the warmers is some very tired looking cooked meat, next to that is a pool of largely (for good reason) untouched gravy, some chips and a braised casserole type thing. But there is some battered anonymous fish and green salad that has my name on it. Then came the first real “highlight” of the evening. Jose’ our illustrious portly Malay (I think) chef. No cook. No just make that Jose’ full stop.
At a guess, I think poor old Jose’ who we were later reliably informed has been doing the same job for 24 years sat down and watched (probably via Indonesian TV with dubious subtitling) “Seinfeld”, the episode with the soup Nazi and thought “hey I could do that”.
Let’s just say that I have no idea what profession Jose thinks he’s in, but hospitality is not it. At best he was ambivalent to any of our questions or polite requests at worst he just behaved like a tired old queen, bitter and bored. It seems that Jose’s personality by-pass is quietly accepted by the town and in fact has been know to be quite polite when the mood takes him. It appears that one of his issues is that he is not a fan of yachties, and us being such friendly guys too!
We scoff down our meal with ravenous intent and whilst Peter arranges our accommodation I step over the road and check out the bar, not before noticing there is a rather large commercial aeroplane sitting not to distant from it. Upon ordering three cans of VB at the wonderful price of $2.50 a can (I love duty free), and after being asked where I’ve blown in from the bar keep thrusts out his hand and with a wickedly disarming smile proclaims “ G’day I’m Ash, welcome to Cocos. Wearing a bright red shirt replete with Las Vegas logos and dice emblazoned on it Ashley informs us that the bar is open as long as need be but tonight there’s a card game so he’ll be shutting around 10 and heading there so at least there’s an excuse for that shirt. We are also told that yes, nothing is open on Sundays and as most people will be heading for D.I. tomorrow he’ll also be there and we’re welcome to catch up with him and his family.
Soon the duty free red wine was flowing, an understandably Margaret River heavy selection at my disposal was marred only by one particular bottle of vin ordinaire (recommended by our host) but replaced by another by way of Ash opening one and sharing it with me whilst he perched himself on a stool on the other side of the bar. As the excitement of the day catches up with us and having kept Ash two hours longer than intended, we leave him to shut up shop and join his card game whilst we have an appointment with the motel room pillows.
Sunday December 18
Having organised with customs to meet us at the yacht around midday today Peter knocks at my door at 9.15. He has spoken to Steve the Federal Policeman and customs officer here and he’d be ok to see us now before he heads off to D.I. A short walk around the back of the club along side of the airport runway (that explains last nights’ plane parked so close) and we meet Steve who checks us over, gives us some forms to fill in and say’s he’ll meet us at the boat later today., and no (after asking) he can’t give us a lift over as he has a full load of friends and family.
Back to the hotel kitchen we are met by Jose again (lucky us) who when asked what’s for breakfast replies with all the morning cheer of a mortician, replies “continental or cooked and we don’t do bacon”. We all go for cooked even though he’s not explained what “cooked and we don’t do bacon” consists of, but we take a punt anyway. A good hearty country style coronary inducing fry up with sausages, eggs, tomato, mushrooms and toast soon presents it’s self and we happily shovel it in.
We settle in to discuss our dilemma. Whilst here we are on West Island, everyone it seems is on D.I. where our yacht is, we have no way of getting back to the yacht now as there is no transport and our tender that lies some 4km away is dangerously low on fuel with no way of getting any more and to top it all off – we have bags of dirty laundry and although we can wash them here at the motel we have no washing powder or similar and our only person who can help is Jose, who when asked says “speak to the cleaner” (who probably doesn’t work Sunday’s either). Even a request for a quarter of a cup of dishwashing liquid is met with stony silence and a look that implies, “Listen if I have to be here 24 years and serve you grotty yachty types, you can be damn sure I’m going to make your little stay here as miserable as my cold black heart”.
We eventually find some dishwashing detergent, set off our machines and do the sorts of things one does when they are in a new place and have a few hours to kill. We take photographs of things that look interesting at the time and then look back later at the photo and go “why the hell DID I take a photo of that satellite dish”. Going back into the motel café I see Jose is having his bacon free breakfast and I pour myself a coffee. As I head outside with my coffee cup he looks up and smiles at me and says something that sounded like “have a good day”. My first reaction is to look over my shoulder to the person who MUST behind me, then realising he is actually acknowledging me I blurt out some sort of reply and walk away confused as to wether he was being polite or had just got a touch of indigestion.
With clean washing and a case of beers we sit beside “Sydney Highway” under a tree and wait for a car to come along which eventually does, driven by Tracy the school’s health and PE teacher who happily takes us all the way to our tender. Within one very nerve wracking hour due to the tender now seemingly running on fumes only, we’re back on Last Chapter and I throw myself overboard amidst the sound of boats flying past with kids shrieking in delight as they’re towed about at break-neck speeds in rubber rings or throwing each other of the tiny jetty. Seems we had completely blown it. WE arrive on the night everyone is hung over and not interested in playing and the following day spend much of it alone on the other island watching our washing go ‘round whilst every one else is kicking back just meters from our yacht! It was kind of like arriving in Noosa and going to Gympie thinking it would all be happening there.
Soon Steve makes his way over in his boat and processes us into Cocos whilst wearing little more than board shorts. (Gotta love that) Ash whizzes by on a boat towing kids and yells for us to join his clan on the beach whilst we extend an offer for him to join us on the yacht. We will but first, given the pristine conditions Peter want’s to go to the rip, just 200 meters from where we are and do some snorkelling. With a beach infested with tiny hermit crabs Peter and Hugh head out whilst I mind the tender. They come back an hour later grinning from ear to ear, in less than 3 meters of water and perfect visibility they’ve spotted hundreds of fish including a few good sized groper.
Later that afternoon Ash paddles over on his own little rubber ring and joins us in a beer and formally invites us to join his family and friends for dinner on the beach. We have nothing but frozen stuff but he assures us he has plenty of everything except ice, so we compile a selection of cheeses, some beers and a bag of ice that we have in our freezer and make our way over. Under a rustic shelter festooned with the wonderful, creative and quirky evidence of many of the yachts that have visited we meet the rest of the family and friends. Ashley and his wonderful wife Kylie and their two kids Maddison and Candace, the lovely Larissa and her two Kim and Taj and local school maths teacher the shy and mysterious Sharon with her three, Matt, Tim and Grace.
Soon everyone is eating, drinks are topped up again and again the night surges on bonfires are lit whilst kids toast marshmallows and work on the pyrotechnic skills. Gossip’s bartered for personal information, histories are revealed and best of all the laughter is long and loud and warmer than the bonfire. During the course of the evening, Peter invites the kids to come and have a look at the yacht tomorrow and they seem suitably excited with the offer asking what time – “when you see us on deck” I say. We wrap it up on the beach around 1230am then Peter, Hugh and I decide a cleanser on the yacht would be ideal to finish the night, all too quickly 4am arrives and we finally call it a night.
To be continued…. Detlef Bauer