Sport of Kings - Part Four
Created | Updated Sep 3, 2003
I had been in New Zealand a couple of months and was starting to feel a bit guilty that, having flown halfway around the world, I hadn't made any attempt to meet my pal Loonytunes.
Sadly, all good things must come to an end. Especially Romantic Interest, who appeared to lose interest during the course of these adventures. But I still got a goodbye hug from a tearful girl the next day, then shook hands with my genial host and we headed out across Hawkes Bay for the long voyage home.
Although this was not a race we were still in a hurry. The weather was forecast to get worse, there were now only four of us on board, and we all had other places we needed to be. But, as Napier disappeared, we did little more than enjoy the sailing. The weather continued to be spectacular and the wildlife dazzling. Gannets, mollyhawks, whales, even a pod of dolphins that surfed our bow wave at sunset. And after sunset the moon and stars filled the sky without any artificial light in sight to spoil their glory. Lying on deck staring at the Southern Cross I speculated that it was sights such as this that inspired religions, and not the mushrooms after all.
Then the weather started. Friends had brought the spray shield, and taken away the racing sails so Distraction was a more roomy and comfortable place, but we still had our work cut out as the wind rose to 45kts and we headed into Cook Strait. The Pretty Boy Army were on the radio, being some way ahead of us, and reported having taken shelter in what they believed was the likeliest spot. From the sounds of it they were going to be trapped there until the storm passed, and I heard someone say that the wind had gusted to 60kts where they were.
At such times it's normal to again take solace in off-the-wall thoughts. Here we are motor sailing in some of the most dangerous water on the planet. I've just spent fifteen minutes fighting the waves to stay on my feet long enough to secure the main so that we can fly the trysail. I lost my cup of soup into the cockpit while trying to helm the boat and drink at the same time, because I had no hands free to hold on with when a big wave caught me unawares. I'm cold, wet, tired and bruised, and all I can thing about is names for boats.
It starts with comparing myself to Joseph Conrad's Marlowe in his short story Youth. The eager young man battling the ocean, measuring himself against the elements and his fellow crewmen as the Judea struggles forward on what is to be her last voyage. Ah, the days of sail! Ships with names like Flying Cloud and Thermopylae, names that conjure up images of romance and adventure of exactly the sort we've been having and are still having. Cutty Sark, Endurance, Revenge...
And Pretty Boy Floyd? You have got to be joking!
I am haunted by the thought of Long John Silver's parrot striking terror into the hearts if its master's victims: 'We're the pretty boys then', as 100 terribly nice young men in stylish yacht club blazers and butch haircuts storm aboard singing 'Blow the man down Sneaky' before making off with the cabin boy in a ship sponsored by Mount Gay Rum.
Thankfully the weather distracts me before I lose my sanity completely, and at sundown on the second day we limp into Wellington harbour. At least I think it was sundown, but the only way to tell was to look at your watch, which I hadn't bothered to bring. Visibility was intermittently up to a mile or so, but mostly down to a hundred metres or less. The GPS had given up the ghost, and we were trying to get a compass fix on a nearby headland to know if we were within ten miles of where we thought we might be and could turn in safely.
Exhausted, unsure of our position, driving almost blind, eventually we make the call to go, and managed to get it spot on! The land thankfully falls away on both sides of us to reveal the inlet we need and all we have to do is endure the final half hour motoring straight into the wind and driving spray in agonising misery. The spray is so extreme that to look directly into it is almost impossible for eyeballs that have been lashed by salt water for longer than they care to remember.
I am reduced to wearing a dive mask that protects my eyes, but inconveniently blocks my nose so that I have to keep my mouth open to breathe. This also helps me keep up my intake of salt water, which I had been neglecting recently, but that in turn makes it difficult to talk to Sniffy. He (the b*****d) is standing behind me for protection, tiller in hand, and I'm looking out for rocks, lighthouses, cross-straits ferries, and anything else that could spoil the end of a lovely day:
'There's burble, spit ahead to port, choke, might be the light. Spit. No, it's moving, burble, swallow. No, it's the light. Blah, snort, choke, spit' and so on, until at last we're in the bay and within sight of home. A few minutes later we're nudging softly into our berth, I'm fishing the mooring lines out of the water I dropped them into less than a week ago, and the coastguard are on the radio asking if we know where the pretty boys are.
And that's it. We'll tidy the boat another time. All that matters now is a hot shower and sleep. Everyone climbs into their respective taxis soaked to the skin, hair plastered to heads that are having trouble relating to normal people. Fortunately Wellington taxi drivers are not normal people, and don't speak English in any case, so relating to them is not a problem. But, unfortunately, few of them know their way around the city either. After enduring oceans, quaffing heroic quantities of alcohol (and seawater), sleep deprivation, mushrooms, wind beyond reason, Romantic Interest, Sniffy the B*****d, and three days in the company of a bald nude arm-wrestling loony, I can't say that returning to the real world is a pleasant or relaxing experience. I crawl into my bed, and dream... of the sea.
Sport of Kings - Part One
Sport of Kings - Part Two
Sport of Kings - Part Three
