owlrigh

There's been a low pressure system hanging around the Northern Rivers area the past few days, which will stay over the weekend. High wind warnings were issued and now flood warnings for all the major rivers in force. We couldn't sleep the other night, because of the wind howling and being in general nervous over whether the anchors would hold. Nothing untoward happened, unless one counts a lack of sleep.

Ben's father, Dan, left for Mackay yesterday morning, going to check a boat for someone who's interested in a boaties' opinion of its current seaworthiness. We dropped him off at the bus stop and then hung around town. Before leaving we had a look at the ocean; the beach was a mass of white froth and the wind, even though it had eased off considerably, was still so strong I could only just wedge the car door open with my body to get out.

It was just edging towards evening and Ben had gone ashore when I looked over at Dan's trimaran and noticed it was now further out in the river and pointing towards my boat, a sign it'd dragged anchor. Chances are if a boat points sideways to the wind, it's moving, adios, bye-bye.

"Ben," said I into the phone immediately, "you'd better come back. Your dad's boat's moved."

It must have snagged something, for it stopped moving shortly after. It was dark when Ben finished moving her closer back into the shore and resetting her anchors with the strongest one shoring up against the prevailing winds. He turned her navigation lights on so he could keep an eye on her against the dark background of the mangroves, the bright red and green lights reassuring us over the next few hours that she was all right.

We'd decided to pack it in for the night, for although it was windy it's wasn't as bad as the night before, and we were tired from sleep deprivation. It was still raining, though, and around 11pm Ben went outside to bail the dinghy so it wouldn't sink, as happened recently when we slept through the rain.

He'd hardly gotten back in the boat and was drying himself off when the wind picked up suddenly, and the next I knew the boat was flattened sideways, wind screamed, water came through the boat, and Ben was swearing.

"Fuck! Fuck! Dad's boat just flipped over!"

I jumped up and threw my clothes on hurriedly and scrambled around in the dark for my glasses, which had gone flying when the boat was knocked sideways. There's a reason to get laser surgery, thought I out of nowhere, and eventually I found my glasses -- and opted for the contacts, instead, in case the wind and rain picked up again.

By the time I was dressed it was eerily calm, and has remained that way ever since. Gone from 55kt (100km/h) winds to nothing in the space of minutes. [ screencap of Ballina weather info from bom.gov.au over this period of time ]

Our dinghy had filled up with water; the gust had come down the creek in a white wall of wind and water right up our stern, which was why the cabin had gotten wet even though the boards were all in. Priority was saving the dinghy and getting the engine working again. The fuel container was gone and we had just enough fuel to get ashore.

"I'm scared the shed's fallen in," said Ben, "I'm shaking."

We both were. We made it ashore just as the outboard began to splutter and ran up the yard, which was flooded with water, up to the shed. It was miraculously still standing. All around us small boats had fallen over and trees were broken and this shed, banged together with recycled roofing tin and whose sides are nothing more than tarpaulins had held together. Inside was a shambles, but it hadn't fallen in on the catamaran; I think it would have broken Ben if he'd found that these last two years of work had just been destroyed.

We found some fuel, "borrowed" some, and then went to look at the the capsized trimaran. The current in the creek was strong and the boat in the middle of the channel. The only thing keeping it in place is the mast stuck fast into the mud underneath it.

"Let's go ask Jacko for help," said I, expecting him to brush my suggestion away. "I know you hate asking people for help, but we have to this time. We have no rope, nothing."

He didn't even put up a fight about it and off we went, knocking on a yachties' boat downstream and sourcing rope and assistance. First we had to bail his dinghy out, and then took ages motoring against the current to get back to the boat. Tying a rope to the riverbank was hard, because such was the force of the water on the rope that the dinghy wouldn't move. We eventually managed, just, and then for the rest of the night watched the debris make an island of the trimaran.

As the night wore on we pulled out the boathook and pushed the collection of sticks and logs piling up on my yacht, for if the pressure grew too much it probably wouldn't hold, and Gecko would go on down the river too -- we ran out of diesel a couple of days ago and the prop is fouled; even if the engine was full we wouldn't go anywhere, not with how much growth is on the hull.

I kept quashing tears at the thought of Dan's home gone; he left yesterday with only a backpack, and now that's all he has in the world. The only comparison to a house I can think of is someone's house burning down, only they'd still have the land value, and the house would be insured. Now Dan has nothing, no savings, no insurance ... nothing, not even money to fix his boat if it could be salvaged -- and he has no money even for that.

At least he wasn't inside. His chances would have been slim, what with the boat flipping around in the wind and then smashing back down in the water. With it upside down it would have been impossible for him to get out, if conscious to do so. If last night had been the night before, when he'd been on board ...

"I can't believe Dad's boat's capsized," Ben kept saying last night. "I just watched the lights go around, it just flipped with the gust. I can't believe this, it's like it didn't happen."

"Let's have a cup of tea," said I, and continued to do so as we maintained watch throughout night, eyes burning but still awake.

The ride to work is along the Pacific Highway for a stretch, the main road going along the NSW coast going up to Brisbane. It isn't my most favourite part of going into town, but often enough it provides some excitement, if only from the wind hitting me as a double-train truck goes past.

Sometimes this happens with such strength it forces me off the road! Ever since I arrived and have had to go from the boat yard to town I have wished for a bicycle path. There's one going from Ballina all of the way up the coast to Brisbane, just about, with a small bit from Ballina to Lennox Head without a trail. From there, north? You don't have to go on the road at all.

So it was with some pleasure that I noticed some earthworks begin along the side of the road. It began with stakes, which I swore up and down to anyone who got close enough that it looked like a bicycle path. Everyone pooh-poohed my enthusiastic optimism, and the stakes remained untouched for ages.

I went away to Brazil for a month and when I returned the earthworks had begun in earnest. They'd put fine gravel down, flattened it off, and created a path from to the nearby caravan park -- cutting my ride along the Pacific Highway by a third. Eventually this path was paved with hot mix, making it even more desirious to ride up, most especially when a headwind was in force.

This afternoon there was a wind against me, and so when I got to the path I went to cross onto it over the bushy ground. This was where I forgot I'd pumped the tires up to their maximum PSI, which I'd done in anticipation of a bitumen ride.

I promptly hit a very small scraggly clump of vegetation and stacked my bike.

I was wearing a fluoro safety vest so I could be seen better by motorists, and I wished immediately I'd not put it on today. I jumped up and righted the bike, and found that the handlebars had been twisted 180 and one of the gear levels pushed to the side.

I took a quick look around to see if anyone noticed and saw a guy walking up the path towards me. My bicycle-fixing speeded up, but not before he passed by without a glance. I couldn't decide which was worse: him seeing and saying something, or his polite blindness, probably while laughing to himself.

A car'd beeped its horn at me while I was still down, and I hoped that it wasn't anyone I knew; earlier in the day while riding around someone'd beeped and waved, which is what people I know do when they see me riding along the highway. (They tell me days later, hey, I saw you riding!)

All shaky, bicycle fixed, I headed on into town, and stopped by the video store/dvd store. The owner, Neil, was there; I speak to him on a regular, chummy basis.

"I did the most embarrassing thing just a while ago. Stacked my bike in full view of the highway!"

"You all right?" He checked me over. "I know someone who was riding with his wife, and his wife hit a pothole, fell off, broke her neck and died. You're lucky."

All the times I've ever fallen off my bike I've only ever come away with scratches, and only one scar -- from the most memorable of stacks coming down a hill in Tasmania a couple of years ago.

The most embarrassing will remain the time in Bundaberg -- where I looked down to avoid the glare of the low afternoon sun and ran into the back of a parked car at full speed. Instead of twisting handlebars this bent my front fork backwards to such an extent I couldn't ride it properly back home! Because I was riding with Damien to town, I had to continue there, as he was waiting for me at the agreed rendezvous (he had a racer and so went vastly faster than myself). Bad enough to ride with everyone seeing my mangled bike, but then my unsympathetic brother rolled around laughing. At least he wasn't there this time.

Ben and I were on the wheelhouse of Trekker one night, finishing off our drinks outside of the view of the customers, when I looked over the aft. There was a dinghy not very far away, going with the tide.

"That's not our tender floating away, is it?" I asked.

We looked again, and hopped on down to deck level. I kept an eye on it the whole time, and that's when I noticed the red glow.

"Wait, Bob's --"

Ben jumped in after the tender before I could finish saying that Bob was smoking his cigarette in the dinghy. I could hear their voices after he finished swimming his way to the rescue.

( Unnecessary rescues and the necessary ones. )

It was nearly midnight when I returned to my boat. Three people trailed behind me, and yet I was the first to see her ... lying on her side in the mud. I guess the idea of sitting in the water hole in amidst the mangroves was not such a hot idea.

A local chap had been in there before me, with a big ferro yacht. He let me know that when he moved, I could have it; at low tide all he'd had to do was step ashore, and because there was a hole in the mud which his keel slipped comfortably into. He was away from the worst of the weather -- what better place for me to put my yacht into while I was away working and worrying about whether she dragged anchor or started pounding?

The night after the fellow moved I was ready to get on in -- and had five helpers to do it, with myself being the most disorganised of the lot. I hadn't even had lines out to tie to the mangroves! Seeing that my skipper had been on board for this it was more embarrassing than it would have been otherwise.

( So we went to sleep standing up. )

It was since the middle of December that Big Bandicoot had taken up at one of the Bundaberg marinas and stayed there -- and just shortly before I moved back on board the catamaran my father decided to move. The engines were working, after all, and there was no longer any excuse of immobility keeping the catamaran on moorings.

When I moved back on board it was to find the catamaran just around a river bend, no longer in sight of the main town. It became a half hour ride -- for me -- to go to and fro the town centre. Still, I get ahead of myself.

It was the morning after I returned on board that Phil went outside to enjoy the breeze.

"Hey! HEY!" I heard him call out, and quickly poked my head around the corner. A fishing boat was only metres away, about to plough right into the stern.

( Miss us, miss us not. )

Many people, upon finding out that I ride a bicycle, have predicted accidents for me. They've all been based upon my being on a big road, like one of the arterials, and some vehicle -- usually a truck -- hitting me. Somehow I got the gruesome idea that I would die upon this happening.

The minor kind of accident, like where I hit the kerb or a pothole and fell off the bike, now that kind of accident goes without saying. Even if I've never had them. I've fell over the front of the bike once, going too slow, and another time a bicycle pulled into the front of me and I once more fell off the bike. No harm was done to me. Nobody told me that I'd have another kind of accident.

I was riding into Bundaberg town the other day, for I moved back onto the catamaran with my folks when they moved far out of the town reach, when the sun was low on the horizon and I was heading towards it. My contacts were not in, so the sun bounced off my glasses and back into my eyes, blinding me when I looked up. And so I looked down.

( No looking down! )

Little did we know, as we decided to have a shower shore after a hot sticky day, that it would be the first of many, even if the next would be salty. We piled the dinghy with empty jerry cans and showering bags and off we went, with our usual pushing and shoving and swearing at the dog for barking in our ears.

The dog appeared for brief visits while I showered, wriggling his little body under the stall door and sniffing about before leaving. I laughed and finished early, so that I could go play with him. As soon as I finished mine, however, so did Damien, and he took over the dog.

At loose ends, I went to fill the jerry cans. The faster it was done the less time ashore -- and less time being eaten by midgies, for it was that time of night. I was filling the last jerry can when the boys came back down, and the last jerry can being on the aft of the dinghy I stayed there and they piled into the centre seat.

"Can you start the motor? Can you? Don't flood it ... she can!" said Damien, as I started up the outboard. I reversed out, shoving the dog away, and set for the middle of the river and the catamaran.

"Stop! Stop!" they cried shortly.

"What? What?"

They were shifting madly and then, when I looked to the edge -- no freeboard. Water was pouring in!

( Man overboard! Rescue! )