Narrative by Meredith Stephens and photographs by Alan Noble
The moonbeam shone at the stern and flooded the black seawater behind us. All around us for 360 degrees was water, with no land or even vessels in sight. Due to my aversion to night-sailing we decided to anchor in shallow ocean waters. It was not an official anchorage — just a patch of open water that offered partial protection and was shallow enough to drop the anchor. Parts of the passage ahead of us were unchartered and we were unwilling to risk hitting coral, especially in such a remote location with limited recourse to assistance. The anchor chain ground downwards and the anchor grasped the seafloor. Alex checked the grip of the anchor and then made his way inside the boat to cook dinner in our isolated floating restaurant.
“This anchorage isn’t ideal,” he informed me. “But it’s time to stop, since it’s pitch dark, and we have been on the go since 4am.”
It was our second night since departing from the calm anchorage of Broome, where we had ridden camels on the beach. We were out of internet range, so could not enjoy streaming a film that evening. Even my Kindle had broken down so I couldn’t read. The only paperback I had brought was finished. We decided on an early night and headed into the cabin. Only the cabin was rocking much more than usual, and it would be impossible to sleep.
“I think we need to sleep in the saloon where the boat is most stable. Can you turn the lounge area into a bed?” I asked.
“I’ll give it a go.”
After twisting bolts with a wrench, lowering the dinette table, and realigning the sofa cushions, we had a bed. The only problem was the penetrating moonlight behind us and the loud sloshing noises produced by the rocking boat. I put a scarf over my eyes to shield myself from the radiance.
The rocking got worse. The tides and wind were pushing the boat around, but the anchor held. My head kept getting slapped by the motion. I decided to brace myself in the cold and retrieve an extra sofa cushion from the cabin to place under my head. I asked Alex if we wanted to share the cushion, but incredulously, he was fast asleep and I decided not to rouse him. Instead, I envied his ability to fall asleep so quickly in challenging conditions. I decided to give up on sleep and instead lay awake and tried to relax now that my head was cushioned from the slapping of the boat. My deepest sleep is usually from four am, so I looked forward to that precious slumber that I had been craving for hours. Alex, however, is sensitive to the wind direction, and shortly after four am discerned favourable winds. I could hear him raising the anchor and hoisting the mainsail, and soon I enjoyed the whooshing of the water as we picked up speed. Now that we were moving there was no more slapping by the tides. I continued to enjoy that delicious state of semi-slumber while Alex busied himself taking advantage of the winds.
I got up at sunrise around seven am.
“Would you like coffee?” Alex asked.
“Absolutely!”
Alex is a morning person. “Nothing beats sailing before sunrise with a full moon to guide you,” he said in his typically cheery fashion. All I could think was how hard it had been for me to sleep with that bright moon blazing and how much I needed that coffee.
He then proceeded to give me a technical explanation of the progress of our sources of power: wind, solar, battery, hydro, and the petrol genset when everything else failed. I was flattered that he thought I was capable of understanding the concepts that electrical engineers typically discuss and did my best to follow him. It was a relief to enter the space of a technical discussion rather than the ruminations my mind would typically sink to. Now that we were again in range, he was able to look up the weather conditions for that day and plan accordingly.
That morning we headed into Port Hedland, the largest bulk carrier port in the world, and suddenly we were surrounded by huge freighters taking iron ore to Asia. After three weeks of mostly anchoring in desolate and isolated seas, we were in the centre of industry on a scale we had never seen before. Alex took care to avoid the shipping lane as we entered the marina, although a pilot ship approached us just to make sure. The container ships entering the port dwarfed our sailboat, and it would be impossible for them to stop if we inadvertently got in their way.
We entered the marina berth safely with help from neighbouring boaties, as is the custom. They helped us tie the lines to the cleats. Being in a marina meant we did not have to anchor and take the dinghy to shore but could step off the boat onto the dock. The only problem was my short stature, so getting off the boat required precision so that I wouldn’t slip into the water.
We were longing for some comfort after the trials of living at sea, so we walked along the foreshore to the tavern as the sun set over the sea. It was a four kilometre walk along a wide footpath, lined with rocks for landscaping, set well away from the road. Joggers passed us in each direction. It was exhilarating to walk after the confinement of the boat. We passed a sign of a well-known mining company which processes and exports iron ore, in this town which is covered with a fine red-brown iron-ore dust.
As usual, the workers at the tavern were European working-holiday makers. The fellow diners were a young crowd of workers that may have been FIFO (fly-in fly-out). Some were wearing fluorescent working vests. We sat facing the horizon as the sun slipped beneath it and sipped our Guinesses.
We even luxuriated in the four kilometre walk in the dark to the marina. The freedom of unrestricted movement, the luxury of being served dinner, and the sight of the sunset, were enhanced by the sense of having left the hardships of sailing in unfamiliar waters.
Despite the presence of the working-holiday makers, Port Hedland is a working town and an uncommon place to find tourists. Even so, it is the closest town to Karijini National Park, which lies 300km inland, so we rented a car for a few days and went exploring.
We would be leaving Port Hedland for a month, in order to return home to attend to work and family in Adelaide. As unglamorous as Port Hedland had seemed on approach, it had given us the break we needed from our upwind sailing. Refreshed, we would fly back here, and resume our sail south to cooler waters, sighting whales at Ningaloo Reef, and stopping at townships on the coast en route to our next destination, Geraldton.
Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her recent work has appeared in Syncopation Literary Journal, Continue the Voice, Micking Owl Roost blog, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, and Mind, Brain & Education Think Tank. In 2024, her story Safari was chosen as the Editor’s Choice for the June edition of All Your Stories.
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