mixture that is New Zealand—a country where personal relationships are
warm and hospitable, but where business contacts can be irritating in
the extreme. The casual absence of the doctor on the day we arrived
turned out to be quite typical of the “couldn’t care less” attitude of
the average New Zealander. The socialized state provides free medical
care, free dental care, old-age pensions, mothers’ pensions (with
bonuses to Maori mothers for increased production!), and many other
benefits so that worry scarcely enters the consciousness of most
individuals. No one works any more than he can help and business and
industry have to beg for laborers and make all sorts of concessions to
keep them happy. We had hardly settled down after arrival when I
overheard the following conversation on the dock:
“How would you blokes like a job while you’re here? We’d pay you right!”
“But we have only tourist visa. Cannot work.” This from Nick, who had
been strongly warned against trying to earn any money while staying in
Hawaii.
“Oh, you can work here right enough! Anybody can. When will you start?”
“I don’t think ...” Nick was obviously bewildered, afraid of getting
into trouble, not sure he had understood correctly, or perhaps reluctant
to desert the boat. I knew how low all the boys were in personal funds
and hurried up to reassure him that they were quite free to take any job
they might wish. Before I could get there, however, the would-be
employer had pressed ahead so eagerly to close the deal that he had
twice raised the going rate—although even the base pay was far more than
any of the men had ever received in Japan—and had even agreed, without
being asked, to have a taxi call for and deliver them every day.
And, as Moto said in bewilderment after the visitor had extracted their
willing promises and gone, “We don’t even know what kind work! Maybe we
cannot do!”
Actually, the job turned out to be the breaking up old American planes
for scrap metal, a task that all three could do very well and took a
particular delight in getting paid for.
Christmas in Auckland, 8,000 miles from home, found us locked up behind
the high board fence of a deserted shipyard. December being midsummer in
New Zealand and the height of the yachting season, we had found only one
shipyard that could accommodate us for the bottom job we had promised
the _Phoenix_—and that only if we would do our own work over the
holidays. On the morning of Friday the 23rd the workmen had made a
feeble gesture of assisting us to haul out—then silently stole away to
start their vacations. Before we knew it, the last of them had gone,
locking the gate behind him, and there we were—trapped.
Of course, we could always rescue ourselves by rowing the dinghy along
the shore until we found an escape hatch, but we wanted easier access to
our ship. Moreover, we were smarting with the indignity of it. How
_dare_ they just walk off and lock us in? (We had yet to learn that the
New Zealand workman will dare anything.)
The family and I explored the yard, whose fences extended down to the
waterfront on either side, in a vain search for a man-sized mousehole.
Nick, Mickey, and Moto stayed on board and settled themselves for a
philosophical nap. Situations like this, they seemed to feel, were
pre-eminently the problem of the Skipper.
Dusk was falling as we climbed onto a pile of lumber near the main gate
and peered over into the silent, empty streets.
Suddenly Jessica shouted, “Man ho!”
Sure enough, far down the street a speck resolved itself into a
pedestrian. We waited until he came abeam.
“Hey!” I hailed him.
He looked up. “My word,” he observed genially, “Americans!”
“Too right!” I responded in flawless New Zealandese. “Can you tell us
how to get out of here?”
“I’m frightfully afraid I can’t,” he admitted. “I should think
everyone’s gone home by now. The holidays, you know.”
He started on, but then he had a thought. “By the way,” he added, coming
back and speaking directly to Jessica, “if you should want a Christmas
tree, you’ll find bags of them at my stand just down the road. No one
seems to be buying this year, I’ll take a frightful loss. Just trot on
down and help yourself!”
“But there’s still time. You’ll sell lots tomorrow,” Jessica pointed
out.
The man sounded positively shocked. “On _Saturday_! Now, what would the
wife and kiddies say if I was to tell them I was going back to the stand
on a Saturday just to sell a few more trees? No, I stayed a good half
hour over as it is and now I’m for me holiday! And a happy Christmas to
you!”
He disappeared around the next corner, but we were not alone for long. A
car drew up to the curb and four very large bobbies stepped out. They
deployed in approved Scotland Yard fashion, one remaining near the car
and two covering the fence, while the fourth strode toward us
purposefully. His face was officially stern. He opened his mouth—but not
fast enough, for Barbara, always the strategist, spoke first.
“Can you tell us how to get out of here?”
The policeman seemed taken aback. “I beg your pardon?”
“Out!” I pressed our advantage. “We want to get out!”
“We were informed,” he told me reproachfully, “that some person or
persons were attempting to break into this yard.”
“Quite the contrary!” We explained the circumstances and suggested that
they summon the manager.
“The manager? Of the shipyard? Impossible. It’s the holidays, you know.”
I explained, as gently as my nature permitted, that we well knew it was
“the holidays.” In fact, that even increased our desire to be free to
come and go. We, too, would like to celebrate Christmas. So would he
please get the manager? Or could he get a key to the gate? Or perhaps it
would be simpler if I just broke the lock?
That did it. My last suggestion was vetoed in horrified tones, we were
told to wait, and sometime later a defensively apologetic manager came
down and unlocked the gate. He permitted us to put our own combination
padlock on it for the duration, and even gave us the key to the W.C. and
shower for which we had quite forgotten to make arrangements.
Our original plan, to sail on down to the South Island after the first
of the year, was rudely changed in the course of this overhaul, for a
routine inspection revealed the presence in the head of our mainmast of
a nasty variety of boring insect, the first of which we had discovered
in the course of our trip to Tahiti. After digging into the mast and
finding that it had been badly infested, I decided that, like a bad
tooth, the whole thing would have to go. The situation was discouraging,
however, for—unlike an infected molar—it would have to be replaced
immediately.
There was no doubt what wood we wanted for the new mast—kauri pine,
historically famous for its use as spars on sailing ships. However,
there is a modern-day hitch in that kauri has become so scarce that it
is now protected by law.
Where there’s a law there’s a loophole, however, and it was the helpful
manager of the shipyard who helped us find a way. Suppose someone wished
to build a new house—or construct a road—and a kauri “ricker” just
happened to be growing in the way? In such a case, permission might be
obtained to cut the tree and no questions would be asked as to its
subsequent disposition.
After scouting around for days we were finally directed to the right
combination of tree and circumstance. Permission was granted, the tree
was cut, and the trunk, bark and all, was hauled to the shipyard and
dumped. I had announced that our own gang would do all the work, but
when we looked the log over it seemed a truly formidable undertaking. I
could feel my feet getting cold.
“Are you quite certain you know how to go about making the mast?” the
yard foreman asked.
“Quite certain,” I said firmly.
“Is there anything you need?”
“Nothing but adzes, axes, spokeshaves, planes, sandpaper—and a few
weeks.”
He lent us the tools and told us to take as long as we needed. The boys
looked at me.
“What do we do first?” asked Ted.
“First,” I said, “we take off the bark.”
About a month later we had our mast, gleaming smoothly in the summer
sun. Frankly, I was proud of our job. Kauri is beautiful wood, both to
look at and to work, and it has the added advantage of needing no
seasoning period. With the help of the workers at the boatyard, we
rolled the mast into the water, borrowed a motorboat, and towed it
across the harbor to where the Auckland Harbor bridge was under
construction.
I approached the operator of an enormous steam crane.
“I have a boat,” I explained, “and that mast over there. I’m trying to
figure out how to get them together. Any ideas?”
He grinned. “Bring them on over.”
We did so, the crane lifted our new mast like a twig, poised it
dramatically for a moment over the gaping hole amidships, and then
lowered away. By nightfall we had our “homemade” mast completely wedged
and shrouded, with a bright “thruppenny” bit—a gift from Jessica, which
we were assured would bring luck—nestled beneath the base.
It was time to move on and I began to inquire about the possibility of
sailing down the east coast as far as Wellington, through Cook Strait,
and thus across the Tasman to Sydney.
“Wellington?” everyone demanded scornfully. “Why do you want to go to
Wellington? There’s nothing there, really. And as for the trip down the
coast—you’re likely to have very bad weather, you know—shocking!
Wellington harbor’s not too good, either—exposed and windy. My word!
Terrible! As for Cook Strait—worst stretch of water in the
world—absolutely notorious. No yachts go that way to Sydney. You must go
north first, then west and around the cape. It’s the only way.”
Still I hesitated. We’d come from Russell and it seemed a shame to go up
that way again when there was so much farther south that we hadn’t seen.
Surely there must be another side to the story.
At last I found it. One day I met a charming chap on the dock. He had
just come in from his mooring. In the course of our chat I mentioned the
possibility of our sailing to Wellington. He was delighted.
“Ah-h-h, yes-s-s! Wellington! Splendid place. You’ll like it. Very
active yacht clubs there—real sailors, you know—nothing they won’t do
for you. The trip down the coast? First-rate fun—easy course. Fine
sailing. Wellington harbor? Couldn’t be better. Bit of a wind there,
true—but it’s well protected. Wellington to Sydney? Through Cook Strait?
Well, why not—why not? I remember distinctly another yacht made it that
way—no trouble at all. Back in the thirties, I think it was. Not as
sturdy a craft as yours, either.”
Here was the optimistic note I’d been seeking. I turned away,
encouraged, but had a sudden thought. “By the way, where are you from?”
He smiled cheerfully. “Ah—Wellington, actually!”
At any rate, on February 6 we sailed south, en route to Wellington. We
left Auckland with a bit of a flourish, in a force 6 southwesterly, amid
showers. For two days we bowled along, covering a record 280 miles in 48
hours, but then the winds fell off. In the next few days we experienced
the wide variety of weather that can be expected in these latitudes,
with winds ranging from calms to gales in rapid succession, and
neglecting no point of the compass. First-rate fun, indeed!
Early on the morning of the eighth day we rounded the last headland and
tackled notorious Cook Strait. It did not disappoint us—although we were
more than willing to be disappointed. A northerly gale funneled down on
us and after a few rough and profitless hours of beating through high
seas we eased off and continued on across the southern approaches to the
strait and ran for the lee of South Island. The _Phoenix_, which takes a
bit of a breeze to get underway, was making an easy seven knots under
storm jib and reefed mizzen alone and her motion evoked unwelcome
memories of our North Pacific crossing.
By evening we were well down the coast and had about decided to pay a
visit to Christchurch, as long as we were in the neighborhood, when the
evening weather forecast announced a strong southerly in Cook Strait.
That was what we had been waiting for, so we put about. The breeze swung
to the south, at first tentatively polite and then rudely boisterous,
and we tore back up the coast, staying well offshore.
When taking our sun shots the next morning we suddenly realized that our
latitude was now outside the range of the H.O. 214 navigation tables we
had on board. Ted, in no way disturbed by this discovery, extrapolated
the data necessary to work out our position. That afternoon the entrance
to beautiful Wellington harbor rose out of the mists, dead ahead. At
1800 we were met by the pilot boat and escorted to a comfortable, if
somewhat public, berth at Queen’s Wharf, five minutes from the center of
downtown Wellington.
Our first visitor was Bill McQueen, an enthusiastic young chap from the
Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club, who had spotted us through glasses as
we entered the harbor. Anything he could do for us? Any shopping?
Perhaps we’d like him to run up and bring us a few pies, since it’s well
past teatime? (A pie, in New Zealandese, is a delicious and filling
meat-and-vegetable concoction, a meal in itself.) We accepted the offer
gratefully.
While he was away, our next visitors arrived: Commodore Tomkies and
Vice-Commodore Catley, also of the yacht club. They, too, offered hot
pies, and were a bit chagrined to learn that one of the youngsters had
beaten them to it. However—would any of us care to come up to the house
later for hot baths and supper? We would? First rate! Someone would be
down to pick up the lot of us at eight o’clock.
The hot pies arrived, two apiece, fragrant and delicious. Handing over
honorary guest cards to all of us, our new friends of the yacht club
took their leave and we retired below to enjoy our pies. It was nice to
be alone for a few moments, to sort out our impressions. Suddenly
Jessica, curled up on the seat box by her desk, glanced out the
starboard porthole and gave a gasp.
“There are _hundreds_ of _people_ up there on the dock—watching every
bite I take!”
“It is rather public,” Ted agreed, “but you can always close your eyes.”
Our central location was both an advantage, for shopping, and a
disadvantage. Each day, during the noon hour, some two or three hundred
workers were decanted from nearby offices and all of them wandered down
to look us over and comment on our activities while they stood about
drinking beer and eating fish and chips. Frequently, I’m sure, they had
no idea how their voices carried.
“Do they have to crawl around on their hands and knees?” we heard one
citizen demand, eying the two feet of cabin that is raised above deck
level.
“They came all the way from Hiroshima,” a man explained to his
companion. Obviously he had read the newspaper.
The girl beside him let out a little cry as she spotted our bobtailed
Mi-ke sleeping in the furled mainsail. “Oh, look at the poor little
pussycat!” she crooned. “It must have lost its tail in the atom bomb!”
In Wellington we said good-bye at last to a quiet, but not particularly
attractive, deck passenger—the _gempylus_, or snake mackerel, that we
had caught and preserved on our passage from Hilo to Papeete. We had had
some correspondence with Dr. Falla, of the Wellington Museum, and now we
turned our specimen over to him with accompanying newspaper fanfare.
“SNAKE MACKEREL ARRIVES!” proclaimed headlines on the front page and we
were reminded again of how little it takes to titillate the reading
interest of so remote a country as New Zealand. Accompanying the article
was a picture of our unprepossessing-looking creature, curled into a
tight U-shape, just as it had solidified in the can. It was obvious that
it would need considerable expert attention to restore color and natural
form before it would be ready for display.
Meanwhile, we were making preparations for our crossing of the Tasman,
mostly a matter of laying in provisions, as we had given the ship a
thorough overhaul in Auckland. Another boathiker was signed on for this
passage: Peter Callander, a sensitive and intelligent young Britisher
who was looking for deep-sea cruising experience and promised to be an
enjoyable companion for Ted and a help to Barbara.
We sailed on March 5, with the promise of a southerly to push us through
the strait, a promise that was not kept. Cook Strait had fought us
coming in and it fought us going out. Unable to make progress against a
fresh northerly and heavy seas, we crossed the strait and I checked the
charts for a likely anchorage along the coast of South Island. There was
a choice of two, but one was suspiciously empty of soundings, so I
elected to backtrack ten miles downwind to a better-marked anchorage,
Weary Bay. Once again my fellow crew members made it obvious from their
attitudes that they felt I was being overcautious, and when I insisted
on setting an anchor watch there was even more audible dissent.
I think we were all a little jittery about the passage, particularly as
we had only recently been told, in graphic detail, about two yachts that
had been lost, with all their crews, in the course of a race across the
strait only the year before. We lay uneasily at anchor and even though I
had set an anchor watch, my rest was disturbed. I was more than annoyed,
therefore, when I found Mickey sound asleep in his bunk during the
period of his watch. He apologized profusely, and promised it would
never happen again.
Once again the ever-recurring dilemma presented itself. The only
sensible thing to do with a delinquent or mutinous crew member would be
to fire him, for the safety of the ship. But how could I fire Mickey
when I hadn’t hired him in the first place? To sever our relationship
now would mean putting back to Wellington and waiting for an indefinite
period until passage could be arranged for him to Japan. On the other
hand, to make it clear that I intended to terminate the association as
soon as we reached Sydney would certainly do nothing to make for smooth
crew relationships on the potentially difficult crossing of the Tasman.
Again I compromised with my better judgment, accepted Mickey’s apology,
and hoped that all would work out for the best. This solution was not an
easy one for me, personally, as I am not a patient man by nature nor do
I take kindly to mutiny. However, I was learning patience, a lesson I
sorely needed.
The south wind finally arrived in the early morning and we began to work
our way through the strait. By nightfall we had recovered our lost
ground and made good progress, but we found the going very tricky at the
northern end, where the currents were strong and unpredictable. It was
another day before we had made a safe offing, and I had a deeper
appreciation of the passages in Cook’s Journal in which he describes his
own difficulties in this area, which came near to wrecking his ship.
Once again, after a wistful looking backward to friends left behind and
things undone, we settled into the timeless routines of life afloat,
with Peter to continue the galley boy arrangement that meant so much to
our cook. It was good to have leisure to relax, to get acquainted with
one another again, and to sort out our impressions of the country we had
just left before plunging into the whirl of the one that lay ahead.
We were six days out before we had our first taste of “Tasman weather.”
A front passed, with its sudden squall, and ripped out our foresail
sheet. We had a busy half hour before we got all secure and then I made
one of my rather rare radiotelephone contacts, reporting to the
Wellington weather station the passage of the front. I had a very good
contact.
Two days later, in the predawn darkness, Peter called me sharply. In an
instant I was on deck.
“Someone just shot a flare—off the port quarter. A green flare.”
Together we watched for some time, but the signal was not repeated. As
Peter described it, he had seen a greenish glow light up the white of
the mizzenmast and had turned in time to see the tail end of the
rocket’s flight and the star shower. I took a bearing, which was
directly upwind of us, and attempted to report to Wellington by radio.
This time, however, I was unable to raise them.
Whether it was an actual flare, a natural phenomenon, or perhaps a
flying saucer—we had no way of knowing, but we tacked our way back,
under power and sail. We cruised the area all day, with a man at the
masthead, but found nothing. At nightfall we added the incident to our
backlog of mysteries of the sea and set the course again for Sydney.
The next day we spoke the _Waitaki_, Union Steamship freighter bound for
New Zealand, and reported the sighting and the approximate position. We
have never heard any more about it.
On the thirteenth day the Tasman gave us another sample of its dirtier
side. The barometer had been dropping slowly for two days and, at 0730,
with a quick shift of wind to the south and a torrential rain, the seas
and wind began to rise. By evening, with wind force 7–8, we took a reef
in the main, and thereafter rode easily. According to radio reports, we
were caught in the tail end of a cyclone centering over Lord Howe
Island, north of us.
The next day was squally, with overcast skies, but with occasional
fleeting glimpses of a wan sun. I kept a sextant to hand all morning,
and near noon Ted and I were lucky enough to get two quick shots of the
sun, so that we could be reasonably satisfied of our position. Late that
afternoon we saw a line on the horizon that gradually hardened into
land, and by dark we were able to identify Barranjoey Light, twenty
miles up the coast from Sydney Heads.
The wind was now dead against us, so we tacked down the coast all night.
The breeze and seas were dropping rapidly, and by 0600, with North Head
in sight, we were becalmed between short bursts of mild rain squalls.
Taking advantage of each flurry, we gradually closed the heads and went
in under both sail and power.
It was good to drop anchor in the first likely-looking spot, Watson Bay,
and there, with our Q-flag flying, we waited for the officials to
arrive. The port doctor quickly gave us pratique, the immigration
officer glanced at our visas and stamped our passports—and H.M. Customs
took over. He was courteous and affable, but his duty was to guide us
through the largest and most formidable assortment of documents and
manifests that we had ever seen. By the time we had completed everything
we were quite exhausted and ready for the more enjoyable aspects of
arrival to begin.
After the officials had left, we sat on deck, ate a leisurely if belated
lunch, enjoyed the splendid view—and felt a little bit deflated. We had
been cleared—yes, but we had no idea of where to go next or what to do.
Sydney’s harbor is so vast, her anchorages so numerous, her geography so
unknown that we felt intimidated. We longed for someone to come and take
us by the hand.
The afternoon wore on and still we were unmolested. No one on the shore
seemed so much as to glance in our direction. A few yachts and launches
passed at a distance, but we might have been a part of the permanent
view for all the attention we got. We commented on how nice and peaceful
it all was, how attractive the red roofs, how big and clean the city.
But Jessica summed up our unspoken feelings when she demanded, at last,
“Where _is_ everybody?”
“This is a big city, honey,” Barbara explained carefully, “the biggest
we’ve visited. It’s a seaport, with hundreds of ships coming and going
all the time. We can’t expect them to pay much attention to us.”
Suddenly I realized that she was right. We’re spoiled, I told myself,
that’s our trouble. Okay, so we’ve just crossed the Tasman Sea of
terrible repute, and we did it the hard way, direct from Wellington. So
what do we expect—a medal? Nobody asked us to do it, nobody invited us
to come. We complain about the fuss and furor of greetings, the invasion
of our privacy by the press, the curiosity of dockside crowds, but when
we are paid no attention at all we pout.
I went below and started checking the harbor chart for a likely
anchorage, while Ted and Barbara hunted through the accounts of other
yachtsmen to see what they had done about Sydney.
You’re on your own, I reminded myself sternly. Nobody is going to meet
us, nobody is going to greet us. Sydney is just a great, big, impersonal
city and, as they say down under, the inhabitants couldn’t care less.
A motorboat pulled alongside. “Ahoy, _Phoenix_!” sang out a cheery
voice. “Welcome to Sydney! We’ve been watching for you!”
“You _have_?” unbelievingly.
“Too right! We’re from the Cruising Club of Australia. Throw us a line!”
“A line?”
“Too right! We’ll tow you over to your moorings.”