Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
“You might find this funny, but I think you are just showing off. This is not a race track,
and I don't need to be killed at this stage of my life.” I stared angrily and silently at him
now.
“OK, I'm sorry, no need to panic; I thought you could handle a little fun that's all.”
I think that last bend had shaken him a bit too, as he did slow down quite noticeably and
remained quiet.
“Thank you, I do appreciate the lift. I am just a little nervous having spent so long on a
slow boat out at sea.”
I explained my situation. We drove the rest of the way in relative silence. To his credit, he
drove down to the Opua dock and dropped me off right where my dinghy was moored. I
smiled and offered my hand in farewell. He smiled slightly and wished me well. “You are
fair dinkum real mate. You are doing something far more dangerous than I would ever have
the guts to do. Good luck with your trip.” He opened the boot, and I retrieved my grocer-
ies. “So long, bud,” he said. With that, he drove off with a screech. I felt lucky to be alive!
I spent an easy day the following morning packing away my groceries and generally mak-
ing sure the boat was seaworthy. The following day I decided to make a support brace for
my engine's starter handle. I had found a discarded aluminum bracket in the trash a few
days before and had salvaged it, thinking I could use it somewhere. The chore took me
most of the morning, and I was pleased with the results. Now I could crank my engine over
with the long starter handle running through this support without the handle falling off at
odd angles. It was so much better.
I carefully went through all the rigging and attachments, shackles, pins, split pins, bolts,
and nuts. My mast had taken a pounding crossing the Tasman Sea, and I had looked briefly
at it when I had arrived. I was looking down at the base of the mast and saw a little pile of
rust gathered below an old bolt. This old bolt was the only thing between an upright mast
and a disastrous dismasting, one that would have left me for dead without a doubt. I re-
placed the rusty bolt with a large stainless steel one and not without a struggle.
I recalled a time I was hauling myself up my mast and felt a slight jerk down but continued
all the way up to the top, only to find that the halyard shackle way at the top had rusted
through. The only thing holding me now was the resulting hook of the shackle! I managed
to walk away from that landing after a nervous mast-hugging descent. I checked out my
engine as much as I could and saw that I was low on diesel. I decided that when I was to
depart, I would go across to Ashby's boatyard and fill up with diesel.
That night I lay awake on my bunk trying to think of things I needed to do before my first
leg back against the five thousand miles of trade winds to Hawaii. It had finally arrived:
