Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
I was up on deck and spied a red boat with a short mast and funny square sail. Thought it
was Olivia with a broken mast. The mind plays funny tricks when you are tired. Eventually,
it turned out to be a fishing vessel on its way to the Three Kings Islands to seek shelter
from the storm, and to do some fishing. She was the “Hardy Herald” I was informed when
radioing them. I wanted them to know I was directly in front of them. They suggested I
seek shelter there as well as conditions weren't expected to improve.
I altered course downwind. What a relief! It was so much quieter and less violent with few-
er waves crashing over the bow, and the boat not jarring into every trough.
Three hours later I was in the calm lee of the three islands. It was incredibly eerie. These
large, tall, rocky islands which must have been part of the New Zealand coast at some
stage stood around like three ghostly, shrouded old men in a huddle. Albatross and other
sea birds nested on top of the high cliffs, and the water in the center of these monolithic
rocks bubbled and boiled in confusion. There was a sinister air about the place. I was ex-
hausted. The Hardy Herald and another large fishing boat were moored in the best part of
the sheltered bay. They suggested I try to pick up a mooring buoy around the corner of the
northerly of the three islands at the base of the sheer rock cliff. The water was very deep
here, and I wasted a lot of energy trying to drop an anchor with all her line to a sea bed that
was well out of range of the anchor rode's scope. My back and arms burned with pain as I
hauled up the dead weight. I saw a red marker buoy closer in towards the base of the tall
cliff.
It was close to a large sea cave, large enough to accommodate a yacht, but the sea was
being sucked in and out of this deathtrap in rough broken swells and I was very concerned I
would get too close to it. I was thinking with a very tired, sleep-starved brain when I picked
up the red buoy. I attached the line securely around the Samson post and made sure I wasn't
drifting. I then turned on the cooking gas in the cockpit and retired below in the cool calm
of the cabin. I put on a can of food in a pot and began heating it. The wind whistled over-
head from the Venturi effect at the top of the cliffs.
I was halfway through my much needed hot meal when I happened to look through the
porthole towards the cliff. My heart almost stopped beating. Déjà vu was almost at the
mouth of this huge, gaping rocky maw, and the swells were sucking her in towards it. I
threw my plate down and dived for the cockpit. Mercifully, my engine started first time for
once, and I stumbled hastily up to the bow. In a trice, I flicked off the buoy that was in fact
not a mooring buoy but a marker for a fish trap, and motored the hell away from that ugly,
toothy, dark cavern. It was as close a call as I have ever had. I was furious with the blasé
attitude of the fisherman who had glibly suggested I “go moor in the lee of that rock over
there matey.”
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