So, It’s Come to This

Mana Marina (near Wellington)

Saturday 28 March 2020

If yesterday was a slow news day aboard the good ship Chimere, I’m not quite sure how to describe today.  Maybe a No-news day.

Although if a TV sit-com like Seinfeld can be made, ostensibly about “nothing”, then there must be some ounce of drama I can extract from the past 24 hours that is worthy of being shared.  We’ll see…

I was going to say that I haven’t left the saloon all day.  Choosing to binge-watch, in a sloth-like manner, the Australian TV series “The Kettering Incident”; between bouts of eating and listening to the ABBA Collection, CD 3 and 4.  But that wouldn’t be quite true.

Those dark grey clouds that rolled over last night around sundown, which I mistakenly described as, “… big and threatening clouds, but then little came of it” … well as it turned out, quite a bit came of it.

Having looked at a weather forecast a few days ago, in preparation for what turned out to be my false-start-voyage home, I knew we were in for a few days of bad weather.  (Weather I had planned on shelter from at anchor before setting out into the Tasman Sea)  But the 50 knot Storm Warning that was issued for Cook Strait very early this morning, came as something of a surprise; not to residents of Wellington of course, that’s how the place got its name after all … “Windy Wellington”.

You see, after resigning myself to staying tied up at the sea wall – snuggly attached with four strong lines – for as long as it takes, I really didn’t think there was much point in regularly downloading the latest weather reports.

But in the midst of the howling wind and driving rain around 3:00am this morning, that had me rolling to the edge of my bunk, I thought I’d get a couple of forecasts, just for fun.   In summary, it read…

Issued by: MetService at: 3:04am Saturday 28 Mar 2020, Valid to: Midnight Saturday 28 Mar 2020

Forecast: Southerly 50 knots, easing to 40 knots around midday. High sea,easing. Southerly swell 2 metres at times. Poor visibility in rain at times.

Storm warning: Issued at: 3:04am Sat

Three Day Outlook: Southerly 35 knots with very rough sea, easing Sunday morning 25 knots and Sunday afternoon 15 knots. Moderate southerly swell easing Sunday.

It wasn’t just the heeling of the boat, and the noise of the rain on the deck that woke me, it was also the flapping of the halyards against the mast that was really the final straw.   Halyards are those special ropes that run up the mast and back down again, enabling you to lift – with the aid of a winch – all sorts of things … sails, poles, dinghies, you name it.   

The noise of halyards flapping against a mast, particularly in the middle of the night when you are trying to sleep, is a special kind of sound.  “Special” in a … Chinese-water-torture-kind-of-way, as opposed to the special melodic, soothing, of rain on the deck, or waves lapping the hull. 

In some instances, the halyard-sound is a fast, staccato … “ting-ting-ting-ting” … suggesting a thin cord, easily silenced with a restraining string, lashed back to a shroud, or by tightening the halyard some more, maybe on a winch.  Then there’s the … “tong … tong … tong … tong” … sound that speeds up and slows down in time with force of the wind.  This belongs to the thicker halyards, and can emanate from high up the mast, even though you might already have attached a restraining line low down.  If the wind is strong enough, it’ll stir even the tightest halyard into acoustic action.

This “tong tong” noise often comes into play when the wind reaches a particular speed.  You start out thinking you can ignore it, because you feel the wind die off.  You’re almost back to sleep again.  It’s warm under the covers.  Your head is heavy on your soft pillow … then, the wind picks up again and you’re just hanging out, waiting, waiting, sure enough … “tong … tong … tong … tong…” 

Despite the cold and rain outside, the desire for peace finally wins out.   Something in your, (by now fully awake), mind snaps and you are tipped over the edge.  You may not articulate the words, but like Popeye the Sailor Man, pushed to breaking, the sentiment is the same … “That’s all I can stands, cuz I can‘t stands n’more!” …

Well, I reached that moment in the wee hours this morning, resulting soon after in me climbing about one third up the mast-ladder, with a length of rope between my teeth as I kept a good grip with both hands.  Fortunately, the rain had slackened a little, but the howling wind made up for it, heeling the boat and squeezing the string of fenders along the starboard side like cheese slices in a boat-wharf sandwich. 

Fortunately, there was no one to see my crimes against fashion, fully decked out as I was in boxer shorts, slippers and a red wet-weather jacket, but gee it was chilly.  Heeling over so much, there was also a need to lift the fenders higher so that the wooden toe-rail didn’t run the risk of touching the vertical wooden boards of the sea wall.  This turned out to be a little harder than you’d expect, with the constant force exerted by the wind on the boat leaving little room to budge the rubber fenders.

All silenced on deck, I returned to the saloon fully awake, thinking a hot Milo drink accompanied by a few Tim Tam chocolate biscuits would be just the thing.  Can’t just sit here and eat them in silence, I thought, so what about cranking up the flat screen DVD player in the corner.  It was then that I put on the first disc of the sci-fi thriller, “The Kettering Incident”.

The 3-Disc Set was given to “Chimere” for Christmas, by friends Liz and Murray Ogden.  Its significance stemming from the fact that Kettering was one of the places we stopped at during last year’s Tasmanian voyage, while Liz and Murray were onboard.  Having already been spooked from watching the series, the simple mention of the word “Kettering” was enough to put Liz and Murray into a state of heightened awareness.  All the more so, when we had trouble with our autohelm at the time and in seeking assistance from a local chap, he first asked … “did it happen in the d’Entrecasteaux Channel, near Kettering?” … the fault presumably being attributed to an unusually large magnetic deviation in the region.  (Insert spooky music here)

So, I finally got around to watching the first episode, and by 5:30am I’d watched the second.  It was then time to go to bed, but by 10:00am I started binge-watching episode after episode, wrapped in a sleeping bag, while the wind and rain kept up its thing all day outside. 

I’m not proud of myself.  But I can say that I only have two episodes to go.  So it’s not as if I haven’t achieved at least something today. 

To mix it up a bit, there was a, “how’s it going call” … from local friend Gary and cousin Keith, (which were greatly appreciated) plus a long video call from Linda as she took me around the home backyard (and front yard … it was a long call) in Ringwood North – showing me the green grass, (what needs mowing) the new vegetable seedlings, the flowers and the warm sunshine.  Linda even found a face-altering feature on the phone that makes you look funny.  Naturally, I couldn’t resist turning them into a fun-collage, (or is that a montage) interspersed with “real” photos from the distant past.   

So, it’s come to this … Milo, Tim Tams and day-time DVDs …

Just for fun, I’m still looking for sailing crew on the various websites devoted to the task, but the odds are very much against me finding any suitable candidates, (at least in the next 4-5 weeks)  as I adhere to the sound advice from my friends at NZ Customs to, “… be careful about recruiting on Facebook …”  

Smooth seas, fair breeze and so, it’s come to this

Rob Latimer