CRUISING HELMSMAN readers of a certain
age may recall my articles in the late
1980s and early 1990s based on adventures and
misadventures on my junk-rigged Manitou 32, Erus.
She had taken me on an eight year odyssey
from Brisbane northward to Torres Strait,
westward to Darwin, north again through the
Moluccan Islands of Indonesia and finally south
again to far north Queensland.
Along the way, Christina, a backpacking
German tourist who gained her sea legs on tall
ships in the North Sea, joined the voyage and
the skipper. Our 18 month old daughter signed
up for the passage across the Arafura Sea in the
1986 Darwin to Ambon race and later proved
to be the ideal cross-cultural ambassador when
we dropped anchor at Moluccan villages on the
slow, island-hopping journey back to Australia.
Having settled on a block of land on the
Bloomfield River between Port Douglas and
Cooktown we juggled the multiple demands
of parenthood, including the arrival of a son,
home-building and boat ownership for a
couple of years, using Erus (an acronym for
'environmental research under sail') to ferry
supplies up from Cairns every few months;including a memorable voyage with six caged
chickens lashed to the aft deck.
Eventually the realities of life on land out-
competed the fading remnants of the cruising
life and my last passage on Erus was a day-sail
to Port Douglas to deliver her to a new owner.
I did not expect to see her again.
Partly in celebration and partly in mourning for
the end of my cruising life, I concluded my last CH
article in 1991 with the following chorus from Eric
Bogle’s emotive sailing ballad ‘Safe in the harbour’:But to every sailor, comes time to drop anchor
Haul in the sails, and make the lines fast
You deep water dreamer, your journey is over
You’re safe in the harbour at last.
©ERIC BOGLE 1984.Over the next two decades, the sparkling
memories and images of those cruising years
were replaced by the equally wonderful and
memorable chaos of parenthood, work, travelReturn to the sea
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