Mermaid off the port bow

Yarr, salty dawgs! I survived the weekend of sailing off the coast of Hervey Bay and Fraser Island…despite the best efforts of a couple of Australian bogans, some tiger sharks and a vexatious sandbar. Ahoy and amen to that.

Our band of degenerates descended on Hervey Bay on the morning of Halloween. The weather was hardly spooky: sunny and 30 degrees Celsius. We came from all corners: Nathan and Eva from Sydney, Rachel detoured via Brisbane, Matt from the hot underbelly of inner Queensland, Basil from Canberra, and yours truly from marvelous Melbourne. The boys had done most of the shopping for food and drink: the result was an ungodly amount of beer and raw meat. Thankfully, Eva tagged along on the shopping trip to throw in a few fruits and vegetables and some red wine. After all, sailors have to be sure to ward off scurvy.

We motored out of the marina on the Boomerang and it wasn’t long before the first Corona was cracked, amidst jokes that this boomerang might never come back. From that point, it was just six friends on the water with sun, sandy beaches and smiles. Once we dropped anchor on that first night, we all jumped into the clear blue water and you would not believe how warm it was! We watched the sunset from the side of the boat and then fired up the barbie for steaks. Rachel, whose culinary skills may be notorious to my blog-readers by now, made an amazing salad of rockette, cherry tomatoes, toasted pine nuts and shaved parmesan.

I rose with the sun the next morning and jumped in the water first thing. After yet another gourmet meal (Rach and Eva made an amazing omelette with bacon, sausage, toast and fresh fruit on the side), we hauled anchor, hoisted the sails and soon, we were sailing off into paradise. Tacking was my favourite part – Captain Nathan (whom Basil referred to as Captain Fabio, or just Fabs) would call the order to tack and us girls would loosen ropes or haul with all our might. I’m not sure what the other boys were doing while we tacked…but it most likely involved consuming beer. In the great Australian tradition of nicknaming your friends, Nathan called to Colesy (Matt) and Flynny (Basil) to hoist different sails or get another beer.

Around midday, we took the tender onto a deserted strip of beautiful white beach on Fraser Island. The boys immediately started throwing the footy around and I took the opportunity to run down the beach, strip naked and frolic in the sand and water. Rachel and Eva followed, a bit more timidly than me, but eventually we were all nude, our tan lines fading while we chatted on the sand and then jumped into the sea to cool off when it got too hot. Up the beach, we could just make out that the boys had followed suit – except they kept to the water and had their boardies tied around their heads lest one of the others steal their togs. Back on the boat, we spotted a dingo running down the beach where we had just been.

Later that night, I was the last one out on deck after sunset, savoring the last moments of daylight and the dregs of my red wine. I was just about to go down to the galley to help with dinner when I saw something jump out of the water with a splash. “Whales off the port bow!” I called. Or what is dolphins…or tiger sharks? Whatever it was, it slowly circled out boat, jumping out of the water and showing off for us before swimming off toward the fading daylight. It was a magical ending to a beautiful day.

Things got a little more hairy the next day when Nathan decided that the GPS must be wrong and steered us directly onto a sandbar. Rachel jumped off the boat to find herself only chest-deep in water. What ensued was the classic male/female argument about what to do next. The boys had all kinds of crazy “solutions”, including “just gunning the engine” or using the tender as a tug boat. Eva’s suggestion to tack the sails and let the wind take us back into deep water went ignored for several hours until the boys resorted to this option. Within minutes, it was smooth sailing again.

On our last day of sailing, we alighted again on Fraser to wander the sand and lounge in the cool fresh water creeks that run into the ocean. On the boat, Rachel performed culinary magic yet again, producing a pitcher of excellent sangria and nachos smothered in beans, meat, salsa and cheese. We were all pretty exhausted on the final eve, given the drama of the day and the dance party we held in the galley the night before. We traded stories and laughed on deck, polishing off the last of the beer.

Before we knew it, our three nights at sea were over and we were motoring back into the marina at Hervey Bay on a scorching November morning. After a final gourmet brekky and hugs all around, I hauled my pack onto my back and staggered my sea legs up the marina to catch a taxi to the airport. After a hop, skip and few connecting flights, more adventure was in store for me in the wilds of Tasmania. More stories from the road to follow soon…lots of love to everybody back home.