owlrigh

The bottom was visible when I dropped anchor at Yeppoon -- not something which had occurred upon my yacht before. The depth sounder assured me that I had anchored in three metres, while my eyes swore otherwise.

Even more disconcerting is looking down as you are sailing along and you see the unmistakeable ripple of the seabed. I made a practice of not looking down, especially when I knew what would be there.

Middle Percy Island's West Bay had a clear anchorage; my father could see his anchor lines intertwining with a nearby yacht's at one point and I could clearly see reefs. Coming in closer to rivers and pollution, however, and none of that is possible. I rather doubt most people know what it is like to see the bottom, especially if they hang around the murky waters that constitute the likes of Pioneer Bay.

Perhaps that would be why the caretakers of Middle Percy were living there. One chap we certainly knew his reasons -- he told us in exhaustive detail -- but one can only conjecture for the others.

( A long way from civilisation. )

I can hear the sound of the autopilot working. Bzzt. Brrt. "Bzzzrtt" when the sea is especially tough to deal with and weatherhelm is taking over. Only the autopilot isn't on and I'm over ashore.

If I were steering in rough seas the only thing I would feel would be the juddering of the rudder as it sliced through a wave. I could predict the movement and prevent her veering. But -- no, it is the autopilot working away all of the time instead, and its sound grinds its way into my skull that I'm always expecting to hear it.

When in a rolling situation the whole yacht creaks. I wouldn't have thought that a fibreglass yacht would creak, but somehow the few bits of timber manage it. The bigger the wave, the louder the creak. The bigger the wave, the louder the slosh of water in the front water tank. One day that will be insulated so I don't hear it, although if I lie in the V-berth I would likely still feel the odd breaking movement of water going the opposite way to that outside.

The wind grabs the least stray rope in the rigging and ting, ting, ting it will go -- faster the higher the wind. And if you manage to lash it down so tightly you could play music on it, that is what the wind does: at first with a light whistle, escalating all of the way up the register into a howl. At least there isn't the 'ting'.

( This is all normal now. )

Now, understand that I did not do any hunting myself. While all this was going on I was cleaning up my boat -- seeing that we were in a relatively calm anchorage for the first time in a week.

I was just there when the permission was given by the Middle Percy Island residents.

"Get a nanny. Billy goats are too tough to eat. When you do they need at least three horus of cooking."

So up in the morning -- 8 instead of their planned 6 -- I watched as the inhabitants of the yacht we were sailing with went ashore, laden to the gills with hunting gear, and then Damien -- in camo, of course.

"We killed two goats!" he said to me later. "One as a billy goat, so we threw it over a cliff."

( They didn't throw several other goats over any cliff. )

The last time I had a hot shower was somewhere in January. Until last night. Then I had the hot water on -- and only that -- and felt bliss. It was still a fairly brief affair by land lubber standards -- water on, wet, water off, soap, water on -- and repeat, for ever since I moved on board my yacht I have been practising the poor man's shower of no more than 4L of cold water anywhere between every few days to a week -- it's damned cold and my water tanks only holds 300L.

We'd been holed up in an anchorage for a few days due to a northerly wind -- at this time of year! -- and my dad had been making noises about two weeks at Great Keppel Island to await out the military's no-go zone of Shoalwater Bay and surrounds. (Have to love a name like that.)

"No way!" said I. "I have no more cat food, no more vegetables, two empty water tanks -- I'm going to Rockhampton."

( Not Rocky, however. )

I was at least no longer nervous of anchoring when we finally left Bundaberg. That one I conquered a few days beforehand by going off down the river and setting at anchor a few times. I have it down pat now: putting it down is "easy" -- I am not certain of how much chain to put out yet -- and despite my brother's helpful "more the merrier" injunction. It may be so for holding purposes but not so much for my arms.

Lifting anchor was more interesting: I pull up a bit, run back to the wheel and motor forwards a bit, run up to pull more up, and so on until I get the anchor up. I forsee this being a problem in rough conditions -- there is no solution for it but that I develop some mean biceps.

When the afternoon came that my dad pronounced us leaving, I could handle the anchor and turning on the engine -- no mean feat when you've to figure out why the dad-blurned thing won't start. (It was the battery.)

On went the engine.

"Don't worry," shouted my dad from his catamaran when I asked for clarification of the river channel. "Just follow us."

( Don't trust the people on catamarans. Rather long. )

I was aboard my family's catamaran, helping my brother scrub the deck, when I looked over at my yacht dead on from the bow.

"Oh my god!" said I. "I'm listing!"

"I noticed that a while ago," said Damien, not even looking up from his scrubbing.

"Listing to starboard! I told Phil that I thought I was, that all the storage was to starboard and not enough on the port. What does he say? 'Oh, the fridge and stuff will even it out.' Hah! What baloney!"

( Rubbish indeed! )

When my father described the dinghy which came with my yacht, he was full of praises. It's a tri design, he said, and that means it'll be stable. He said this before he saw it and he said this after he did, all before it hit the water.

Damien and I had just finished a long day of sailing -- last week -- when we put the dinghy in the water to take the dog ashore to Fraser Island, which we found out the next day is illegal and will get you a $3,000 fine. The dinghy seemed all right to start with, even if a little too prone to easy movement when you yourself moved about in it. Then we put the outboard motor upon it.

This was where we found that the dinghy was anything but excellent. It went on all right, but when Damien sat down where one normally does to steer -- on the rear -- he nearly went for a swim as it tipped backwards and the front end went skyward. When I ot in and back out again it was even worse, and we cursed the thing all over. Even the dog, with his happy running around in the dinghy, made it tip and threaten to send us all in for a dunking.

Upon returning to Bundaberg we complained about this to my dad.

( And so we got a new one. )

We had hardly left Tin Can Bay when the motor sputtered and came to a stop. Damien ran up deck and pulled the sails up -- I've never seen anyone move so fast -- for we were still in shoaly waters and even the smallest deviation from marked channels would mean that you'd end up on sand and end up in the most embarrassing of yacht positions: on your side. Sails up was the first move; from then he tried the motor, with me on the helm, and it would not start.

It had taken most of the day to get the yacht into water and it was then growing dark. It would take us forty-five minutes, the guy in the marina had said, to get to the anchorage we'd chosen. Under sail it took us hours. In the dark.

The easy part was getting there, despite the rain and the cold. The markers are more visible at night than in the day, for they flash their appropriate colours and all you've to do is head for them or stay to the centre. It was anchoring which was the difficult part, for all the jokes my brother had been making the week before about dropping anchor at sail. We could see were we were to go only because of where other yachts were already anchored, by the use of their anchor lights.

All yachts, by law, need oodles of things. Some are silly, like life rings if you're a solo sailor, but others are not: navigation lights to show by means of red and green lights which direction you are heading, and anchor lights at night so that you are visible and nobody ploughs into you under dead of night. It was this marvellous thing which had us sail up and check the depth and quickly yank down the sail and then drop anchor.

( It was sail all the way to Bundaberg. )