Sailing Misadventures

By Hugh Brown

Sailing misadventures. Yes, it is unfortunately tautological. But if it's taught us anything, it's that anything is better than not sailing, I think.

 

Sailing Misadventures is the comic tale of three blokes on a 48-foot catamaran setting-out to sail from Cebu in the Philippines to Phuket in Thailand. Unfortunately, no one dies, gets injured or even has to be rescued; but all these diverting options, and many others, were variously in prospect on a daily basis.

 

Like many sailing adventures, it often starts out well. Well yes, that's usually the case before you start, otherwise you probably wouldn't. Although sometimes, even before you start, there are any number of embuggerances including equipment, bureaucracy, time (its ubiquitous absence) and people (oh yes, people – more of that later) and not excluding almost everything and anything else. No wonder sailing is full of misadventures. And when you add the sea, the weather and surprisingly, the land into all that, misadventure is almost an inevitability.

 

But, we still do it because.... 

 

Yes, that is a tricky one. I'll leave you to answer that one on your own.

 

But, if you're looking for misadventure, here are some options you might like to try.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brown Books
• Release date: Sep 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201225773

Hugh Brown

Hugh has been writing about life for a while now.  No, not since birth, but he was thinking about it.  He accepts that life is mostly strife, interrupted by periods of inappropriate laughter and senseless optimism. He has primarily expressed his conflicted character in comic endeavours (life itself) and in his comic writing and poetry.  The book ‘An Animal Life’ is largely anti-anthropomorphic: it’s not so much that animals have human characteristics, as that we are all characteristically animals. If you think that’s confusing, you should read the poetry.

Book preview

Episode 1: Escaped and Escaping

After escaping the Canberra heat and fly fiesta, I arrived on Mactan Island in Cebu, the Philippines, to join sailing mate Ben, who has finally taken delivery of his new Mumby 48 foot aluminum catamaran, Candeux.

Hugh ready to leave Mactan Island

I’m ready to leave Mactan Island

Ben loves a pun: two (deux) cans (hulls) and two people can... all they need is the can-do attitude.

Final preparations before sailing

The plan is to sail Candeux to Phuket in Thailand, picking up another mate, Duncan, on the way in Brunei. The route is from Cebu to Palawan Island in the Philippines, on to Malaysia (Borneo), divert to Brunei (for Duncan) then cross to the Malay Peninsula and sail up the west side to Phuket in Thailand.

Ben has been a bit frustrated with the build of his new boat but with a few things still to resolve, he decides that he just has to escape from Mactan Island’s stinking marina. After a celebratory dinner, we up anchor and are off. It should be a hoot. Funny about sailing though. It isn’t always what it seems.

The first leg is a short run to Tagbilaran on Bohol Island which recently experienced a significant earthquake. Candeux performs fine; but Ben thinks that there’s something that’s not quite right. Still, we arrive at 1500hrs with no problems. In our desperation to escape Mactan, we didn’t really provision as well as we might have. We are going to need more stuff (meaning, beer). We anchor off the main jetty and I run Ben ashore for shopping, with a plan to collect him in half an hour. Half an hour passes. No Ben. No mobile call. Hmmm. I go ashore. The (quite large) jetty is a little night spot and market all to itself. The young and amorous, families and hawkers are all here hanging out, and everyone is maxing-out on their mobiles.

Not to be outshone, I get out my mobile and call Ben, numerous times. No answer. Oh, oh. Dead battery, no service? Lost, robbed, car accident, murdered, sold into the pensioner slave trade? As much as there is a certain piquant pleasure in panicking, I give it a little while. Ben is a big boy; he’s travelled the world. Relax. Yes! Out of the gloom, a striding shock of silver hair. Well, that’s a relief. There will be dinner, and no need to do the rounds of police stations and hospitals.

The next morning, we make a 5.30am start for a 60 nautical mile (nm) voyage to Port Bonbonon on the south west tip of Negros Island. The winds are light from the SW. The direction we are going, of course. Our ETA is 1400hrs.

Relaxing on route to Port Bonbonon

We actually arrive at 1500hrs, not too bad. The entry looks a little tricky, via a fairly narrow channel along the coast on the southern approach. There is a shallow reef and nature reserve to port which is marked by small white buoys.

Entering the lost world of Port Bonbonon

Ben is on the helm and we are well positioned mid channel. However, for no particularly good reason, Ben seems to have developed a need to check the channel boundaries and water depth, and to do this with the starboard rudder. Whack. Yes, that will be the reef. Good. At least we know where that is. Fortunately, the rudders have a stainless steel stock, external stainless steering arm and aluminum rudder, so they’re pretty tough and there’s a sacrificial wood block in the rudder box if we hit hard. Still...

Port Bonbonon isolation

Port Bonbonon is a sheltered, rather idyllic, small jungle port in a winding river. We motor past an array of local fishing boats to drop anchor among a surprisingly numerous collection of other yachts in various states of disrepair. We are quickly greeted by Arlene and her husband Boy who arrive at our stern in their traditional narrow wooden outrigger. They own one of the three local restaurants/bars – bamboo and thatched pole arrangement suspended over the water. Food, beer (cold) and fraternity. Perfect. A quick tidy-up and we are off.

Extreme caution is required when arriving from the sea at Arlene’s Cafe

As we clamber up the ladder, we see one other Caucasian in shorts and no shirt at a wood table with beer in hand. He introduces himself as Rocket. Rocket (who doesn’t seem to have another name) is the archetypical Australian: the classic laconic drawl (for a minute I think it’s a joke to welcome the new Australian arrivals) and a sort of sinewy, leathery, tanned body. He’s a friendly bugger, as you’d expect, and we sit down and order beers ourselves. Rocket has come from Darwin and is a welder by trade. He arrived 5 months ago with his son (since flown back) and is now ensconced with his Filipino girlfriend. He’s on a 35 year old Crowther trimaran which is not that big – luckily, neither is he.

Me and Rocket at Arlene’s Cafe

After a few beers, Arlene comes to take our order. We opt for omelette with vegetables and Arlene sets off to make it all there and then (we can hear everything being chopped and cooked behind the bamboo screen).

As we relax, a few other locals drop in and chat with Boy, who seems pretty happy to watch Arlene do all the work. He is obviously the customer relations.

Next to appear is Glen, a 6’2″ American. He’s sharp, but easily in his late 70s. As we watch him arrive and climb the shambolic ladder to the elevated bamboo jetty, it is not entirely certain that he will actually get up. Rocket casually observes that Glen has previously fallen through the slatted bamboo walkway. Fortunately, a young Filipino mother with a three year old boy goes down to help and they all then return to Arlene’s. Glen’s family, for such it is, settles back down while he joins us for beer. Glen seems to have been sailing quite a while and, as he says, he is really too old now. He is planning to sell his yacht and focus on getting the 3 year old, George, into a good school in the US, New Zealand or Australia. It appears that the father of George died (it is not clear how) and Glen has taken over the orphaned family. It all seems a little sad, but the fact is that Glen is happy and energetic. George now has a father and they are all better off than before. Glen is escaping from loneliness and isolation; and George and his mother, from poverty. For his part, skipper Ben is making his escape from the Philippines and the life of everyday work and responsibilities. We each, on our voyages, make our own escapes.

Next morning we are on our way to Point Catmon, further north on Negros Island. Port Bonbonon has left us with a feeling of unreality – an isolated river village with enclosing jungle and an odd collection of people who have escaped and are escaping.

It is not clear whether or not Ben is suffering from this same sense of isolated unreality, but something's not quite right. Maybe Ben is feeling the need for some solid reality. I’m very aware that reality, in the form of a rock shelf, is just to port. I sense that the boat is edging too close to the shelf. Ben... Whack. Yes. We have hit the rock shelf with the port rudder. That’s reality all right. I hope Ben has not gone troppo so early in the voyage. Maybe Ben was just checking the depth with the port rudder because it worked so well with the starboard rudder on the way in. Yep. Just as good – a big loud bang sound. At least the reef hasn’t moved. Or maybe Ben just needed a bit of rock solid certainty amongst the Bonbonon unreality. Don’t we all?

Episode 2: Just when you thought...

From Port Bonbonon, Candeux makes its way up the west coast of the Philippine island of Negros to reach Point Catmon from where we will make a 65 nm passage to Manucan Island in the Cagayan Islands. This offers a possible good anchorage sheltered from the NE winds forecast to arrive in the next two days.

Unfortunately for our passage across the Sulu Sea, the NE winds don’t come in (we are actually a month too early in the season), so we are motor-sailing. As we eventually approach Manucan, we can see some of the larger local fishing craft, bangkas (which translates as water-spiders). They are anchored close-in, in about four metres of water, on the south side. We are motor-sailing 200m off the north shore having a good look.

One of the local bangkas

There are charted depths of nine metres on the Island’s west so we head there to see the full picture. It soon becomes obvious however, that ahead of us is shallow, breaking water, charts not always being completely accurate. Ben attempts to make a quick u-turn to come south via the deeper water on Manucan’s east side.

However, it appears to me that Ben is taking an inordinate, and somewhat untimely interest, in how well his new catamaran can execute a surprising number of sharp little circles. Given the increasing proximity (now 150m) of the coral reef lee shore, I stress the importance of going: ‘Back. Back!’ Ben now shares his little secret: We’ve no steering. Oh, bugger. Of all the times. Meanwhile, during Ben’s unscheduled circling, the trolling line has wrapped itself around the cockpit. I’ve been anxious about the rudders for a while now: ever since they had been whacked on rocks at Port Bonbonon (twice!), run over fishermen's nets (en route) and now the appearance of unhappy banging noises at the stern. I think that the rudders are seriously over it and that the trolling line could somehow have caught some fishing net debris which has seized-up under the rudders. I get a knife and cut the cockpit free of the trolling line and hopefully the rudders of debris. Ben’s attention is elsewhere. He has now opened the locker in the bulkhead behind the wheel. I don’t think the rudders are in there, Ben. However, Ben has found that the steering chain has come off the cog.  Oh, oh.

Meanwhile, we are 100m from destruction and we’ve sacrificed our best lure, but at least we now know what the problem is. It appears that the tension on the steering chain was too loose (as well as there