Cythera: Cythera, #1

By Patricia Fenton

This book has never been on the New York Times Best Seller list, or any list for that matter. Nor has it been evaluated by any critics. Some suggest that, in and of itself, is not, necessarily, a bad thing.

It is a factual recollection, written at the time, by a woman raising a child and doing her best to support her husband's dream of building a boat and sailing around the world, while cooking meals, doing laundry and laboring to keep their "home" maintained A mammoth undertaking.

There are no murders, albeit seriously considered, upon occasion! No crimes, although crimes were committed. No gratuitous sex. No pornography.

Much research was done to include as many photographs, taken at the time, to illustrate and illuminate the text, which gives the reader a sense of "being there", on this incredible journey.

It is, however, a Journal of the routine (and not so routine) of a small family of travellers and their encounters along the way. What was done in the early 60s is nothing like it may be done today…no smartphones, no GPS, no internet! How did they manage?

Find out in this gripping tale of persistence, determination and piracy, Imagine if it were you…what would you do? Read how this family overcame all adversities! And thrived!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penelope Fenton
• Release date: Jul 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223628095

Book preview

Preface

I feel compelled to include this preface for those who are much younger than I, to provide some perspective for the risk, danger and hardship of a voyage like ours.

There were no cell phones, no GPS, no computers, no landmarks…nothing but hard work, poor sleep, crappy food and lots and lots of water!

The first satellite was launched in 1957. The first telecommunications satellite was launched in 1965. The first satellite for public telecommunications was launched in 1989, the same year of Motorola’s first satellite phone.

The first personal computer became available in 1981 and the internet became available to the public in 1993.

Prior to these technologies, all that was available (and essential) was a reliable clock, set to Greenwich Mean Time, Martelli’s Navigation Tables (updated annually and first published in1873), a reliable compass, a sextant (to measure the distance of the sun/star to the horizon), a radio to receive the Greenwich Time Signal (to factor clock gain/loss), an understanding of spherical trigonometry, mathematics, a log line (to determine speed and distance travelled), grit, determination, resilience, teamwork, self-reliance, youth, health and a ridiculously insane desire to go down to the sea in ships.

And, most importantly, trust. In the abilities of our Captain, to get us safely to our destination…we placed our lives in his hands. He did not disappoint.

To all who came before and those who have done so since, I dedicate this Journal…I think my parents would have liked that.

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2023

© Copyright 2022, All Rights Reserved

Prologue

My parents are amazing people. Fearless. Independent. Stubborn and just a little bit crazy. (Well, OK, a lot crazy. Why else take small ships on vast oceans?)

My Father was born in England and came from a career navy family. My Mother is Australian. They met after my Father returned to Australia, having been there during the second World War. I am the product of their marriage, born in Australia.

Reading my Mother’s Journal, some thirty years after she wrote it, brought back many memories that had long been forgotten, or were dimmed by the passage of time. Upon reflection, mine was a difficult childhood. Since my parents had chosen a life outside of the norm, it necessitated that my life, too, was outside of the norm. There was no-one else I knew who lived on a boat. No-one else whose responsibility, after school, was to locate the hidden oars, unlock the dinghy from the dock and row said dinghy halfway up the harbour, in preparation for my Father’s return from work. No-one else who was going to travel the world, via the sea.

None of this was a bad thing, merely different, which was to set the course of my own life, inevitably, on the path of different.

By the time I was a teenager, I had seen and experienced more different things than most people experience in an entire lifetime and normal became suspect, because of its lack of originality.

CYTHERA (/ˈsaɪθərə/ SY-thər-ə) is a transliterated rendition of Kythira, Kythera and Kithira, an Ionian island in the Aegean Sea where, according to Greek mythology, Aphrodite (when cast adrift in her shell) finally came to land.

This ship was the core of our lives. We worked for her and she kept us safe through many miles of travel. She was our home, our transportation and our haven.

Many years later, although no longer in our family, she is still in our family of seafarers. Now owned by a fine man who is taking great care of her, chartering in the Virgin Islands. Since our travels, she successfully survived two hurricanes.

I think the strength of the ship is not so much in her steel fabrication but, in the love with which she was built and maintained. Proving that some inanimate objects do have souls.

I am grateful to my parents (although I wasn’t at the time) for all that I was exposed to, as a result of their lifestyle. If it weren’t for them, there’s no telling how boring I would be. (My friends assure me that, although I may be a lot of things, boring is not one of them!) The opportunity to be open-minded is probably the greatest gift of all.

How insignificant one feels, when witnessing Zulu warriors accomplish superhuman feats, through sheer willpower. Or the great herds of dolphin travelling across your path, because they know there’s a storm coming and you don’t. Or, when you see a small atoll where, on one side, all is grey rock, pounded by a relentless sea and uninviting, yet on the other side, it’s white powdery sand and a calm green lagoon. The distance between the two extreme contrasts is less than a quarter of a mile. Or when you encounter begging for the first time and discover it is a profession. Children maimed at birth, so they’ll have a career.

The total dependency you have on each other, on an ocean crossing, is the absolute ultimate of teamwork.

And, the various random acts of kindness, along the way.

It causes one to pause, before passing judgment. All is not necessarily as it appears to be, at first glance.

For the pauses in my life, I thank them.

Penelope Fenton, 1998

After my Father died, at almost 78, in 2002, The Mother (as I call her) remained in their home until Hurricane Irma hit SW Florida in 2017 and she decided she could no longer cope, alone, and relocated to my home in Birmingham, Alabama, in January, 2019. We shared much of our story between us, as none were left to remember with us. It occurred to me that we had never recovered from the theft of our yacht. A kind of PTSD, you might say. I built the Wikipedia site as homage to my Father in 2010.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cythera_(yacht) Yet, even when I read it now, so many years later, I weep as I am weeping now, writing this. It is 2022 and The Mother died June 27, 2021, at almost 89. She said she never wanted her journal published in her lifetime…it was too painful…I publish this as homage to her.

As Norman Maclean so aptly phrased, in A River Runs Through It: I am haunted by water.

Chapter One

The year was 1959. I was tired of buying other people's boats, and trying to adapt them to our needs. Our daughter was growing and needed a cabin of her own, so I decided to build

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my own boat, just what I wanted.

This little idea was going to take time, so I mulled it about in my mind, first writing to all the leading yacht designers in England and America, receiving some of their plans, AND THEIR PRICES, and readjusted my thinking. I would have to design this boat, since plans were so very expensive. I would sketch little things on pieces of paper, change this idea, adding that feature, altering this bulkhead, adding strength here, all culminating in my final plan.

For the two years prior to 1961, when I actually commenced building, the main saloon of our ketch TRADE WINDS was filled with pieces of paper - all types of paper - large sheets, small scraps, pieces of cross section of design, rough sketches of profile; pencil stubs and shavings.

The table always seemed to be occupied, and whenever Pat wanted to iron, there were major upheavals.

Well, it is MY turn to use the table.

But I want to work on the design. How can you expect me to get this finished if you keep disturbing me all the time.

I'm really sorry, but I need to iron our clothes.

They can wait.

No they can't. You have no shirts left, and if you don't let me iron, you can't work for this damned boat.

This happened regularly once a week, but it seemed to me, every time I settled to work, someone had a perfectly logical excuse for using the table and moving me.

After the design was all set for building in wood, I went talking with boat builders, settled on one, and was almost ready to give him the first payment, when the grape vine passed along information that he was planning to build a second boat at the same time as he was building mine, and of course, the cost would be added into my bills. It seemed a good time to stand back and think once more.

Why did do-it-yourself boats have to be built in wood? Why couldn't they be successfully built in steel? Of course, wood is easier to work with, and there would be a whole lot of problems working with steel, but the only major factor against a boat built in steel would be corrosion.

If careful attention could control that, we would have a boat of immense strength and oh, so dry. There would be no dry rot, no worm to eat out the bottom, no wooden decks which would leak at the drop of a hat (or without dropping the hat); no pitch to run everywhere, no deck caulking to spew, and best of all - the bunks would always be dry with a steel deck on a steel hull. I was convinced.

I needed a steel hull, and scrapped all the work which I had put into the wooden design and recommenced planning from an entirely different angle.

Pat saw me tear up the design, and very foolishly asked why. Suffice to say that six hours of further discourse did not entirely convince her that I was not crazy.

Our local experts advised me that this was utter foolishness and according to Sydney's leading Naval Architect even my thinking wasn't straight. Strange how I read that as a challenge. I set to work and drew the design to which I have built. A clean run, easy buttocks, good bilges, a firm counter, and not too long, and a bow which, although