This is the latest tale of traveling adventure, for previous logs visit the archives. If you are new to Bad Latitude and wish to get a better idea of the whole adventure then it is best to start at the very beginning. The logs are updated when we get the chance, due to the erratic nature of sailing it is difficult to know exactly when we will be able to update the site, so for this reason we have the update alerter which will inform of any update via e-mail.

Issue10 - 02/10/2001 Cape Grenville - Port Douglas - Freedom !

Our next anchorage was the deserted outpost that is Portland Roads. Literally two phones is what Portland Roads has to offer - one of which was broken. This gave the Aussie contingent an opportunity to phone home for the first time since T.I. an opportunity which Peter Lau relishes, him being on the phone for about three hours. Which actually caused rare annoyance toward Lau from Skipper Pete, though not to his face of course. Pete seemed in awe of Lau's age and 'wisdom'. So much so Lau could get away with murder, whilst the rest of us, even Brian got treated like babies. I could write about a few but here's one little anecdote that illustrates the point. Back in Port Essington Lau decided to go fishing. Now Port Essington is in the middle of Arnhem land in the Northern Territory, roughly a 1000km drive from Darwin. It has one dirt track to get there, which is inaccessible during the (oncoming) wet season. So without letting anyone know about his plans Lau jumps in the dinghy, doesn't fit the motor engine cut off cord and buggers off into crocodile and shark infested waters, out of site of the yacht. If he falls out the Dinghy would just go and go and he would have to swim back through water that contains two of the most proficient predators the seas are home to. I'm not being melodramatic as he saw an eight foot Hammerhead whilst on his jaunt. The fact that Lau went off on his own against the wishes off the skipper was casually mentioned to Skipper Pete; ".....but how do you tell a sixty five year old guy what to do, I just cant.....". And so this went on. Leave a spoon unwashed in the sink and prepare to be keelhauled, whilst Lau could walk grease around the deck with the Skippers consent, no problem!

Anyway back to Portland Roads er, not much happened here, the Norwhingers whinged a bit about the head (toilet), and we recovered from the previous couple of nights exploits. So one night there, and we were finally on our way to the first true Barrier Reef island - Lizard Island. Situated about 100NM from Portland Roads Lizard Island was the highest point Captain Cook found in order to help him navigate a passage through the Barrier Reef and out into open ocean. So after over two months of not being able to swim we finally dropped anchor in Watson Bay at L.I. and immediately dived in! Even Tracy - assisted by a bodyboard joined in the swim. The water around Lizard is amazingly clear - coral heads could clearly be seen as could the local reef fish of all descriptions. It was stunning, an absolute paradise. As we swam to the shore we passed a beautifully tidy little cutter called Charisma that was pumping out house music. The guy on board laughed at Tracy's perilous position underneath me, perched on a bodyboard. I nodded back and thought "we're on the wrong boat!"

That night we all went to our first bar for what seemed like an eternity at the resort on Lizard. Skipper Pete went over to Charisma and invited the guys onboard to join us for a drink. So there we were in the first bar we had set foot in since Cape York some three weeks earlier, we had been there about an hour when the guys from Charisma walked in. Despite Skipper Pete inviting them to join us they were left standing at the bar looking a little bewildered. I asked skipper if we had time for another, "yeah sure!" came the reply. I went and introduced myself to John Lawler and Brad Edge who were sailing on the aforementioned S.Y. Charisma. Now the 'Lau effect' kicked in, that previously mentioned effect whereby Skipper Pete loses all rational control of his mind and affords said control to the Chinese one I refer to as Lau. Lau wanted to go basically, according to him - the master of foolhardiness - it will be difficult to get back due to the reef. This is the guy who clambered accross mud flats in the croc infested Escape river, risking his life for the sake of a ten dollar lure he lost in the mangroves. So everyone upped and started to leave, I was bewildered naturally. The tide was rising so the reef wasn't a problem and more importantly I had just bought a drink and was meeting new faces! John and Brad looked equally bewildered, so Tracy took the initiative and suggested they give us a lift back to the yacht later, "sure" was the reply. So off marched the rest of the crew whilst me Tracy and, you guessed it, Lydia stayed.

John and Brad were the skipper and mate respectively from Mirabella - a 150 ft super yacht that has played host to a load of celebrities and the world's rich. We went back to Charisma for drinks and a chat that went onto the small hours. We all hit it off immediatly. John mentioned that Brad was leaving him in Cairns so we exchanged numbers and email addresses as we felt life on Nkwhazi was not going the way we wanted and Charisma seemed a potentially logical move.

Anyway the next day we scaled the heights of Cook's Look the highest point in the area. Cook upon finding himself grounding the Endeavour needed such a vantage point to survey a passage out of the Barrier Reef, which he of course did sailing the Endeavour East and into the open ocean. The walk itself is really demanding, especially after such a late night! At the top the are stunning panoramic views of surrounding islands and the mainland. There is also a guestbook, we signed it on the 29th September 2001. Another night on the Charisma followed before we left the beautiful Lizard Island for Cooktown the next day. I could have stayed there longer, but we felt like we were rushing now, or rather being rushed.

After an early rise we found ourselves racing Charisma towards Cooktown. Charisma is a 43ft Cutter built for speed - Nkhwazi is a 50ft ketch built for comfort, so no surprises who won! It was funny to see Pete desperately try to keep up with them even resorting to unloading the front locker to dig out a minging brown old staysail that last saw action when the mutineers took over The Bounty. The staysail actually REDUCED our speed - classic!! Kim even put on his racing gloves so I knew things were serious but even they could not help as Charisma edged away over the horizon.

So after the first proper full day of sailing we had since leaving Darwin we made the approach into Cooktown. What followed was farcical beyond belief. Let me just explain that Nkwhazi 'boasts' a variable pitch propellor which means that the propellor can be feathered into a streamlined position, which is good for sailing. However in constricted places such as Cooktown it means that in order to find reverse the control wheel has to be feathered in to the reverse position. This involves spinning the rusty old wheel and effectively guessing that you're in reverse, you kind of know which direction to turn it but how far is often a mystery. Now take into account tidal stream and wind on the boat then this makes things very tricky. So there we were circling Cooktown, Peter Lau relaying irate instructions to an owner of one of the premises on the marina side - an ever patient owner (who wasn't even obliged to help) who was relaying instructions back to Nkwhazi (always wrong for Pete though). This went on for 30 minutes - a crowd of bemused and mostly amazed locals seemed to gather on the jetty to watch the big yacht with the purple headed skipper. The patient chap finally suggested we moor alongside a fishing trawler on the jetty. This then took three attempts, Pete's face was now resembling Alex Fergusons nose after taking a beating from well, most teams this season (a kind of crimson purple). Precisely 60 minutes after arriving we were finally moored!! Pete actually apologised later, I nearly fell overboard, not literally I hasten to add but an apology was a rarer than a Dugong sighting. As the fishing boat was due to leave the next morning at 12-12.30 this reduced our 'visit' to Cooktown the next morning to three and a half useful hours (great).

That night me, Tracy and Lydia knew we had to leave the Nkwhazi. It was a real pain seeing the Charisma moored in the bay at Cooktown (no doubt anchoring with no dramas) and knowing we could do no right where we were. We basically decided to get off at Cairns and try to join John on Charisma. The next day we had to leave at noon that left just over 3 hours to contact home for the first time for ages (bearing in mind we had been stuck in a river for 3 weeks). This was also indicative of the older crew - things were always rushed, despite being told that we should come and go as we please and it should be decided by all of us how long to stay at places the decisions were firmly in the hidden itinerary of the Skipper, which of course were held sway occasionally to the phenomena that is the Lau effect. So unfortunately I can't say what Cooktown has to offer really. So we had to rush around to leave at noon for our next destination Port Douglas via a beautiful little sand Cay called Hope Island. (Words don't do the irony of the Islands name justice).

So after our overnight stop at Hope Island we motored over to the mainland to Port Douglas. A quick radio call later and we had our mooring spot on the jetty directly opposite the yacht club. The marina owner was there to greet us and took our lines, effortlessly. This time there were no such dramas as we'd had before until Pete decided to moor us starboard side on instead of port. It was amusing to see the lines snatched from the marina owners hand by not only one but three grown men - Brian, Kim and Peter - who then heaved with all their might at the stern line (which was even more amusing as the lady marina owner had previously held the line with one hand, simply allowing the fair tidal stream to gently push the stern towards the jetty !!!). This was also a common demonstration of this journey, it always took 6 pairs of hands to do a job that 1 would do. Try controlling the main sheet with a dithering old idiot on your shoulder trying to grab it from you - very annoying. But I digress, so here we have the bow tethered and 3 men heaving on the starboard stern line, Nkwhazi gently eased towards them and then bouncing back stubbornly, so cue more heaving by the three men - proper heaving Galleon style!. Nkhwazi bounces back away from the jetty again. By the third time I decided to put them out of their collective misery and loosen the bow line to allow the boat to pivot on her beam and allow her to be moored properly. Why didn't I do this in the first place? We (me, Tracy and Lydia) had pretty much given up helping out on the boat, we never seemed to do anything right anyway! (or if we did attempt to help the rope, torch etc would be wrestled off us!). So having a chuckle at someone else's expense helped, as it does.That night after watching Brian electrocute Pete (who could want for a better start to a night out) Us three went straight out for many hours and a sample of the nightlife -the others, as usual were tucked up by 9pm sharp.

The next day unsurprisingly Pete asked Tracy and I to leave once we arrived at Cairns, "No problem!" was the reply as of course we'd banked on meeting John Lawler and Charisma there anyway. Bizarrely though Pete mumbled something to the back of Lydia's head that went to the effect, "I've asked Leigh and Tracy to leave but the others said it's okay for you to stay". I say bizarre as Lydia was also getting treated like dirt too. Unfortunately for Pete's bank balance Lydia didn't like the idea of spending the next couple of months with people who rate cleaning over anything, and go to bed at 9pm so the decision was made to bail and hopefully meet John in Cairns, though Pete was unaware of this. It was this day that we discovered May the Norwhinger had bought two sets of rubber gloves for everyone and was sat on her bed writing everyone's names on them. They were colour coded to signify which area of the boat you were about to clean. "Thats err, really nice!" I said in jest as she explained the system. "Glad I'm leaving" I thought! That obsessive compulsive disorder thingy really seemed to be kicking in.

We went out for the night and awoke the next day to find we were not going out to the reef as planned yesterday because the wind was too strong (it was 15 knots SE -terrifying stuff). The cynic in me suspects that Pete stalled us so that Peter Lau could get some more false teeth in Cairns to replace the set he chundered into the Gulf of Carpenteria, there's that Lau effect again. Anyway we couldn't bear the thought of spending another day with these people (especially after hearing them talk so nicely about us from the yacht club verandah the night before - sound travels at night you guys) and Lau's imminent departure to get his dentures in Cairns got me thinking, "lets score a lift off the old git !!". However after checking his hire car out it was way too small for us and all of our luggage, no problem, we decided to hire our own car.

Now the rest of the crew were not privy to the fact that Lydia was bailing with us. Since Pete asked us to go they were sickly saccharine sweet to her for the first time - I have never seen such blatantly candid two faced behaviour, ever. So we found a hire car and began unloading our gear onto the jetty. As Lydia packed Brian seemed first to notice she was actually leaving and true to past form 'grassed' to the skipper. Cue lecture for Lyd from the purple headed one in which he called her a 'foolish girl' and of course upset her. I was unaware of this, but I was aware that they were shocked at her decision and sudden departure - were they not aware of their behaviour over the last eight weeks? Because we were and we were now gone from Nkwhazi! Our departure was polite, and I resisted the huge temptation to rip these people up, but my experience decrees that I would be wasting my time.

This whole mission took about 40 minutes from the realisation that we weren't moving today to being loaded up and ready to roll. So jammed into our hire car and totally elated we drove to Cairns and the unknown. Imagine if Big Daddy was giving a piggyback to Giant Haystacks, and Big Daddy was performing this Herculean feet whilst standing on your face. Now imagine the relief you would feel as the tonnage stepped off your face! That's how we felt! THE RELIEF!!!! (Ok maybe an overstatement but you get the idea, and the mental image made me laugh.)

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