Bronwyn takes control

How did it happen that two landlubber computer programmers, on contract in the far corners of the world, decided to exchange their perfectly good if somewhat hectic lifestyles for the uncertainties and trials of bluewater cruising?

This is the tale of the how. The why you can figure out for yourselves.

A qualification in dinghy sailing wasn't going to get us around the world. In Australia, the first step in 'big boat' qualifications is the Competent Crew, so we enrolled on a course in Pittwater, which is a large estuarine sailing area north of Sydney. There were five students on board a Bavaria 38 with Tony, our pommie instructor, and over a weekend he drilled us in all the skills that would enable us to be crew rather than passengers on a large sailing vessel.

To Bronwyn, used to single-handed and two-man dinghies, the Bavaria was daunting, with its arrays of multicoloured ropes and pulleys and winches. To me, it was a lot more familiar. Even though I had not, technically, sailed one, I had been on cruising holidays on 45 and 50 foot Beneteaus, had holidayed on a number of friends' yachts, and had piloted narrowboats around the canals of England and Holland. At least I knew what most of the things were for, even though I had no idea how to use them. Bronwyn, on the other hand, was quite capable of sailing her, but had no idea which ropes to pull to make it happen.

Slowly, patiently, Tony - recently returned from a record-breaking attempt of circumnavigation of the south polar seas - instructed us in the art of making a large expensive piece of fibreglass move through the water without hitting anything, all the while regaling us with tales of sub-zero storms and weeks without hot food. Slowly we got the hang of it, although one girl was completely hung up on the 'rules of the road'; 'Who's got right of way?' she would scream, freezing at the helm, whenever a sail appeared on the horizon. With turn and turn about, however, the rest of us got comfortable with helming and crewing, and managed some halfway competent 'man overboard' exercises. Suddenly we weren't complete passengers, suddenly we felt that, if we were on a yacht and the skipper suddenly fainted, we could at least manoeuvre the vessel without sinking it.

At the end of the course, Bronwyn and I got an impromptu tour of the Arctos, the vessel that Tony had so recently crewed. The Bavaria is, even in the charter version that we were using, a luxury yacht with no expense spared to make it look like the inside of a Hollywood Captain's cabin. The purpose-built Arctos certainly gave us a taste of the other end of the spectrum. With its plain white-painted interior, single potty toilet and cramped webbing bunks, the interior cried sweat and adrenalin and testosterone and, on the outside, every fitting was twice or three times the normal size, speaking volumes of the sheer destructive power of the seas that it had had to navigate. Impressed, but shuddering, we struck the Antarctic off our list of sailing destinations.

At the end of the weekend, proudly brandishing our certificates, we pondered the reality of our situation. We were now, at least on paper, competent crewmen. However, we knew that in fact we were far from competent, but the only way that we were going to improve was to gain some experience, and we couldn't get experience without chartering a yacht, and nobody would let us take their boat with only a Competent Crew certificate...

Over a glass of wine, we discovered that our good friends Chris and Nicky had, in fact, not only done their Competent Crew, but had also gained their Inshore Skipper certificates. This latter is the minimum required to charter a yacht, although after an initial cruising holiday, Chris and Nicky hadn't had the opportunity to take their sailing any further. A couple more bottles of wine, and without further ado, the four of us found ourselves back in Pittwater aboard a rental Bavaria 36.

We had a really great weekend amid the blue gums of the Ku-ring-gai National Park, with gentle winds and lots of hilarity and more wine. It was just what the doctor ordered; no problems or alarms, just good confidence-boosting experience.

Bronwyn and I had already started doing an Inshore Skipper course by mail, but the course matter was badly written and often self-contradictory, and we were less than happy with it. Chris and Nicky, however, had done their course with a guy named Steve who operated a small yacht in Sussex Inlet, a short way down the coast, and they recommended that we talk to him.

Bronwyn, Chris and Nicky cruising on Pittwater

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