Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
I'd had enough of this treacherous place and felt it was much safer out in the stormy ocean
at night where I had enough sea room to heave to and not have to put up with this cauldron
of a bay, surrounded by these dark, depressing, toothy, old shrouds of gloom and almost
doom. They had not done with me yet though. I ran up to the mast and hauled up the sails
in between dashes back to the helm as I made way under engine power. The seas in this
maelstrom bay were akin to being inside a washing machine.
The Venturi-driven wind that screamed down the cliff faces slammed into me like a freight
train. I estimated these blasts at around seventy to eighty knots. It was terrifying, and I was
thrown over many times onto my beam ends from all directions. The wind would change
its direction without warning and would die out and blast from the opposite side. It was
a nightmare; how my mast remained up is beyond me. I kept the engine on all this time,
fearing for my safety. It was several hours later that I finally left the evil influence of the
Three Kings Islands and on my heeled-over departure, I called up the Hardy Herald and
gave them a piece of my mind!
After three hours of sailing into the dark and ugly storm, I decided to hove to. I was safely
away from those bloody rocks, but it was too heavy going to sail any further, I was so tired,
and it was so rough that I hove to around midnight. The wind now changed direction and
came at me from the west. It was revolving anticlockwise which meant hopefully it would
continue around and eventually run out of steam. I decided to sail on, and for the second
time today I was hit on the head by the boom while jibing. The first one was a bad one; I
was bashed on the forehead, saw stars, and fell into the cockpit; luckily, I had on my safety
harness. As chance would have it, the boom hit me on the back of my head the second time,
perhaps knocking some sense into me this time.
The westerly wind now brought on the most awful sea conditions. It was a wildly confused
sea, as the northeasterly gale had set the seas in a certain direction for several days, and
now when the wind changed direction, the seas were gathering from the other direction. It
was worse than the maelstrom at the Three Kings. I could not sail any farther and hove to
again and fell exhausted on my bunk. I had to brace myself with bunk cushions as the boat
rolled and heaved about most alarmingly.
Every possession I had in the boat, including cans of food, provisions, cutlery, crockery,
tools, spares, you name it, all were crashing in noisy unison now this way, now that, in the
violently pitching yacht. The noise was deafening, and I was madly irritated and screamed
out so loudly and angrily to Murphy that my voice became hoarse. I finally passed out in
spite of it all.
On 26
th
March, my sixteenth day at sea, I awoke at around nine or ten in the morning.
The storm had abated. A clear, blue sky appeared through the port holes, and the sun was
