cockpit seating in deference to my ageing back,
installed an electric f lushing head, solar panels
and headsail furler and renamed her Placebo to
ref lect the drug-free health benefits I imagined
would result from owning and sailing her;
correctly as it turned out.
My first passage in Placebo in 2011 began in
Cardwell, sailing across the seascape that had
reawoken the sailor within the previous year. What
a joy it was to cast off on my own little boat again
after all those long landlubber years, especially
with Christina and our, by now a 20-something
adult, daughter and her partner also onboard.
I experienced that long dormant mixed
emotion of excitement and anxiety that
accompanies the start of any voyage. Especially
on a vessel I had never sailed before.
We had planned to reach Gould Island ten
nautical miles off the coast on the first day, to
set up a base camp from which to day-sail over
the four day Easter weekend. However, the road
journey and all the shenanigans of rigging and
loading up a trailer sailer for the first time took
longer than anticipated, so it was late afternoon
by the time we motored out of the Cardwell
harbour at Port Hinchinbrook.
The nearest anchorage was just two nautical
miles away at Scraggy Point on the northwest
coast of Hinchinbrook Island, an ideal
destination for a travel-weary crew and a slightly
diffident skipper. Except that the passage
to Scraggy Point lay directly into the brisk
afternoon trade wind, causing me to postponeRIGHT: View of
the Family Islands
from the summit
of Dunk Island.
BELOW: Placebo
under spinnaker
through the
Family Islands.“AS SHE CAME NEARER STILL I COULD MAKE OUT A
RECTANGULAR SIGN ON THE PUSHPIT EMBLAZONED
WITH THE WORDS ‘FOR SALE’.”
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Cruising Helmsman June 2017REFLECTIONS