Tag: South Australia

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Slices from Life

From Gatwick to Kangaroo Island

Phtographs & Narrative by Meredith Stephens

When I recently flew from Australia into Gatwick Airport, London, I was struck by the ease of passing through customs and immigration. Once I exited the plane, I was ushered to an empty lane and directed to a machine to present my passport. As I had nothing to declare I walked through the green lane. A group of four customs officers were engaged in conversation and did not notice me. I had entered the UK seamlessly in about five minutes without making eye contact with a single person.

Not so when travelling within my home state of South Australia. Alex, Verity and I were on our way from Adelaide to Kangaroo Island, situated across Investigator Strait off the southern coast of South Australia. We would have preferred to sail there, but Alex’s boat was high and dry, awaiting repairs to the mast and windows in Yaringa, eight hundred kilometres away in the state of Victoria. We had made a booking for the three o’clock ferry from Cape Jervis to Penneshaw, on Kangaroo Island. We left Adelaide at 1 pm, allowing ninety minutes for the drive and thirty minutes to board, as we always do.

Half an hour into our trip, we were stuck in a traffic jam along the arterial roadway heading south. We had never been trapped in a traffic jam in this direction before, because it was leading away from Adelaide towards sparsely populated farmland.

“Oh no! It’s the Tour Down Under! The road is closed for the cycling race,” lamented Alex.

He did a U-turn and headed west to the side streets in the hope of finding an alternative route along the Esplanade. After winding through the coastal suburbs, we arrived at a T junction facing the Esplanade, and were greeted by a woman in a bright orange vest holding a prominent sign saying ‘Stop!’

Onlookers lined the streets holding their cameras ready to snap the cyclists. We waited, all the while nervously checking the time on our phones, wondering whether we would miss our ferry. A few minutes later we heard an excited murmur run through the crowd, and sure enough, a group of cyclists whizzed past.

We glanced at the woman in the orange vest, hoping she would let us pass. She was on her walkie talkie and shook her head at us. Soon another group of cyclists raced past. Then the woman let us on to the Esplanade and we headed south. Soon after we were stopped by a police officer on a bicycle, who directed us away from the Esplanade. We turned east to weave our way back to our original route.

“We won’t make it to the ferry on time!” complained Alex, pressing heavily on the accelerator.

We arrived back on the highway that we had originally departed from and tried to turn right so that we could head south to Cape Jervis. A line of cars from the north were trying to turn right into our street.

“We’ll be here for hours. Best turn left and then do a U-turn,” announced Alex.

Alex turned left, accelerated, and braked when he found a gap in the oncoming traffic. He quickly did a U-turn and then headed south, passing the line of cars waiting to turn right onto the road where we had been waiting.

Would all of this be in vain? Would we get to Cape Jervis just after 3 pm to watch the ferry departing, on its way to Penneshaw? I held my phone to check the distance to Cape Jervis and noted that the estimated time of arrival was 2.54 pm. Alex tried to make up time by driving to the speed limit. A truck was labouring up the hill in front of us. Alex waited until we reached a passing lane, and then floored the accelerator. The estimated time of arrival was now 2.52 pm. Sitting next to Alex as he sped along the highway was more exciting than rides on a fairground had been when I was a child. I trusted his judgment and felt safe all the while enjoying the exhilarating speed. Next, there was a red car dawdling in front of us. Again, Alex waited until we reached a passing lane, and overtook them. The estimated time of arrival was still 2.52 pm. At least we had not been losing time as we were delayed by the slow coaches ahead of us. We entered the township of Cape Jervis, rounded the hill, and then descended to the ferry port, arriving as predicted at 2.52 pm. We expected boarding to be well underway. Instead, four lanes of cars were waiting in the line-up to board the empty ferry, which was running late. We slid into the shortest lane and turned off the engine. A biosecurity officer approached Alex’ window, his curly auburn ponytail blowing in the wind. Alex wound down the car window.

“Do you live on Kangaroo Island or are you just visiting?” he asked.

“We’re just visiting.”

“Oh, lovely! Do you have any honey?”

“No honey.”

“Do you have any bee-keeping equipment?”

“No, definitely not.”

“How about fruit?”

“We have some apples.”

“Are they from the supermarket?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you buy them?”

“In Adelaide.”

“How about potatoes?”

“No.”

“Do you have any plants?”

“We have some caper plants in the back.”

He looked at the back of our vehicle in acknowledgement.

“Oh capers! They look nice. Where did you get them?”

“From a business in Port Adelaide.”

The biosecurity officer seemed satisfied and waved us on.

“Have a lovely trip!”

Shortly after we boarded the 45-minute ferry for Penneshaw. We had been asked more biosecurity questions than at any other place on our travels, and we hadn’t even left our home state. I yearned for the ease of passing through immigration at Gatwick Airport. I had felt perversely miffed at Gatwick for having been ignored by immigration and customs officials.

No sooner had we arrived at our destination though, did we spot a marvellous mob of kangaroos bounding across the property.

Then the following day we had a charming encounter with a Rosenberg’s Monitor looking for a drink of water – a species that is endangered on the mainland.

Rosenberg’s monitor lizard

Verity later came across an elusive short-beaked echidna.

Short-beaked echidna

At last I could appreciate that protecting the fauna and flora of Kangaroo Island was important and necessary, and well worth the interrogations of a biosecurity officer.

Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her work has appeared in Transnational Literature, The Muse, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, The Journal of Literature in Language Teaching, The Writers’ and Readers’ Magazine, Reading in a Foreign Language, and in chapters in anthologies published by Demeter Press, Canada.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Categories
Slices from Life

My Contagious Birthday Party

By Meredith Stephens

“How about you throw yourself a sixty-first birthday party?” Alex asked me.

It was hard enough having thrown myself a milestone sixtieth the year before. That had been fun, so on second thoughts I decided to throw myself another party. This time I would just ask extended family and a few close friends. I had finalised the RSVP when the day before the party my old friend Madeleine sent me a text: “Do you mind if I come without Gary? He has a clash….” I responded saying that that was fine and was looking forward to her company. Madeleine and Gary were anti-vaxxers.

I rescued the fairy lights Alex had bought for my party the year before and fixed them above the blinds. We had to leave the blinds open because our border collie had destroyed many of them when she had been left alone inside one day. We prepared the food and drinks, and my sister Rochelle brought the birthday cake. All the guests arrived except Madeleine. The evening wore on and I was getting a little tired, but as our guests were mainly around sixty like me, or young children, they excused themselves just at the right time. We don’t have stamina these days for long nights out.

Only when the last of the guests had gone home did I check my phone. Madeleine had sent me a text message excusing herself saying that she wasn’t feeling well. I knew there would have been a good reason for her not to have turned up.

The next day my adult daughter Eloise texted me to say her younger sister Annika was feverish. I went to visit her and discovered that she was motionless in her bed. I gave her a RAT[1] test and the result was negative. She was too sick to move and so I booked a locum. The receptionist told me the locum would be there in four hours. I spent the next hours bringing her water, serving her medicine to reduce her fever and passing a cool flannel over her forehead. Four hours later the locum had not arrived. So, I phoned the receptionist.

“He only has seven more calls before you,” she explained.

It was nearly midnight, so I decided to go to bed and wake up when the doorbell rang. Within thirty minutes the locum had arrived. I took him upstairs to Annika’s room.

“The RAT test was negative,” I explained, thinking he would administer a second one.

“Negative is negative,” he demurred. “Open your mouth,” he ordered my daughter.

He probed his torch inside her mouth and made her say ‘ah’. Then without any further comments or questions he announced, ‘It’s tonsillitis.’

He wrote out a prescription and was on his way, after having spent just a few minutes examining her.

I spent the rest of the night administering regular medicine to relieve her temperature. Even though the doctor had pronounced tonsillitis I had my doubts and kept my mask on. Until I didn’t. Annika was finally able to walk to the bathroom and back and seemed to have recovered slightly.

I wasn’t sure whether I should return to Alex, just in case I had caught something, but he rang me and told me it was ok to come back.

“We won’t get Covid. We’re invincible,” I asserted to Alex.

He looked at me quizzically. “Anyone can get it. Even people like us, who are triple vaxxed,” he countered.

As the day wore on, I had an unusual sensation of the onset of a fever. Unlike his usual robust self, Alex started to sense a dryness in his throat.

“We’d better go and get a PCR test,” he suggested.

We drove off to the testing center. Within twenty-four hours the results came to our phones: ‘Negative’.

Over the next day I continued to sense the onset of fever and kept taking my temperature. The thermometer confirmed what I had been suspecting. It was rising. Alex and I decided to go and get another test.

We drove to the testing center later in the evening when it was likely to be less crowded.

“Have you had a Covid test before,” the nurse questioned.

“Yes, we have.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

The nurse looked surprised but administered the test anyway.

The next morning a different message came to our phones: ‘Positive’ followed by an admonition to remain in our place of residence for seven days. This was followed by a message saying that if we required online counseling for the stress this would be provided.

I had to tell the party invitees about the positive case. I texted Grace and Jeremy. Negative. Next my sixty-three-year-old friend, Sally: Positive. Next my sixty-year-old friend Katie. Katie was dreading a positive diagnosis because she was looking forward to a trip to Bali with her best friend. Positive. Katie canceled her trip to Bali. I was relieved that my anti-vaxxer friends Madeleine and Gary had not attended because it would have been much worse for them had they contracted Covid.

Over the next few days the temperature persisted and we felt too tired to do anything. This was followed by a sore throat so severe that we could not even sip a cup of coffee. I suddenly craved a smoothie and remembered a recipe a friend in Japan had given me when my children were toddlers. This was made by combining a banana, some milk, and slices of canned pineapple in a blender. I told Alex the recipe, and he substituted yogurt for milk. I suggested adding feijoas from the garden.

 The result was something that even those with taste buds damaged from Covid could appreciate.

By Day Five our appetites had returned, and our taste buds restored. It was boring having to be confined indoors until the end of the week when we are not required by law to stay at home. It felt like the aftermath of a storm. I was grateful that the fever had gone and I could swallow again, but my body took days to recover from the shock it had had to endure.

(Photographs provided by Meredith Stephens)

[1] Rapid Antigen Test

.

Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her work has appeared in Transnational Literature, The Muse, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, The Journal of Literature in Language Teaching, The Writers’ and Readers’ Magazine, Reading in a Foreign Language, and in chapters in anthologies published by Demeter Press, Canada.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Categories
Contents

Borderless, October 2022

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

The Sky … Click here to read.

Conversations

Anthony Sattin, an award winning journalist and travel writer in conversation about Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped our World, his recent book published by Hachette, India. Click here to read.

VR Devika talks of the dynamic Muthulakshmi Reddy, the first woman in the world to preside over a Legislative Assembly who sought justice for Devadsis and prostitutes and discusses her book, Muthulakshmi Reddy: A Trailblazer in Surgery and Women’s Rights published by Niyogi Books. Click here to read.

Translations

Daridro or Poverty by Nazrul has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

The Browless Dolls by S.Ramakrishnan, has been translated from Tamil by B Chandramouli. Click here to read.

Two poems from Italy by Rosy Gallace have been translated from Italian by Irma Kurti. Click here to read.

Flowers of Love Bloom Everywhere, a poem for peace, written by and translated from Korean by Ihlwha Choi. Click here to read.

Aalo Amar Aalo (Light, My Light) a song by Tagore, has been translated by Mitali Chakravarty from Bengali. Click here to read.

Pandies Corner

Songs of Freedom: Moh-Reen is an autobiographical story by Amreen, translated from Hindustani by Janees. These stories highlight the ongoing struggle against debilitating rigid boundaries drawn by societal norms, with the support from organisations like Shaktishalini and Pandies. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read

Michael R Burch, Kirpal Singh, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Jonathan Chan, Ron Pickett, Saranyan BV, George Freek, Pramod Rastogi, Mike Smith, Gayatri Majumdar, John Grey, Vandana Kumar, Ahmad Al-Khatat, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In Crossing the Date Line, Rhys talks of his fascination with this imagined construct. Click here to read.

Essays

Epaar Bangla, Opaar Bangla:  Bengals of the Mind

Asad Latif explores if homeland is defined by birth. Click here to read.

The Wabi-Sabi of Making a Living

Aditi Yadav calls for taking a break from hectic work schedules. Click here to read.

Just a Face on Currency Notes?

Debraj Mookerjee writes of Gandhi’s relevance and evolution. Click here to read.

A Mother, a Daughter & a Demon Slayer?

Meenakshi Malhotra checks out the festival of Durga Puja, declared the a heritage festival by UNESCO. Click here to read.

The Observant Immigrant

Candice Lousia Daquin explores festivals and the God gene in We had Joy, We Had Fun…. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

KL Twin Towers near Kolkata?

Devraj Singh Kalsi visits the colours of a marquee hosting the Durga Puja season with its spirit of inclusivity. Click here to read.

A Five Hundred Nautical Mile Voyage to Tasmania

Meredith Stephens writes of sailing to Tasmania when the pandemic had just started loosening its grip. Click here to read.

Keep Walking…

Ravi Shankar recommends walking as a panacea to multiple issues, health and climate change and takes us on a tour of walks around the world. Click here to read.

The Matriarch of Hirronk

Ali Jan Maqsood introduces us to a strong matriarch from a Balochi village. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Drill, Fill, Just Chill, Devraj Singh Kalsi gives us humour while under a dentist’s drill. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

Suzanne Kamata writes of her A Ramble on Bizan, focussing on a writer, also by the surname of Moraes, who lived on Mount Bizan more than century ago, moving to Japan from Portugal having fallen violently in love. Click here to read.

Short Stories

Half-Sisters

Sohana Manzoor explores the darker regions of human thought with a haunting psychological narrative about familial structures. Click here to read.

Homecoming

Rituparna Mukherjee gives a poignant story about missing home. Click here to read.

The Phosphorescent Sea

Paul Mirabile journeys with his protagonist into the depths of the ocean. Click here to read.

The Literary Fictionist

In Deathless are the Words, Sunil Sharma explores madness and ideators who believe in the power of words. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Taranath Tantrik and Other Tales from the Supernatural by Bibhutibhushan, translated from Bengali by Devalina Mookerjee. Click here to read.

An excerpt from A Handful of Sesame by Shrinivas Vaidya, translated from Kannada by Maithreyi Karnoor. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Somdatta Mandal has reviewed BM Zuhara’s The Dreams of a Mappila Girl: A Memoir, translated from Malayalam by Fehmida Zakir. Click here to read.

Basudhara Roy has reviewed Taranath Tantrik: And Other Tales from the Supernatural by Bibhutibhushan, translated from Bengali by Devalina Mookerjee. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha has reviewed Satyajit Ray Miscellany: On Life, Cinema, People & Much More, a collection of the maestro’s writings and illustrations. Click here to read.

Categories
Slices from Life

A Five Hundred Nautical Mile Voyage to Tasmania

Meredith Stephens writes of sailing to Tasmania when the pandemic had just started loosening its grip

Neither the wind speed nor direction were favourable as we tacked our way upwind. It was my turn to make the soup. I headed into the kitchen, grabbing rails and fixed furniture to steady myself. With each wave the boat lurched violently. I opened the fridge and a bottle of drink torpedoed across the galley. Then, on my hands and knees, I opened a bilge compartment trying to find the root vegetables. As I stood up, another wave surged and I nearly fell into the bilge. As I was trying to find cutlery I heard Luke’s voice offering to help me. I gladly accepted and found refuge after retreating to my bed. Luke’s steady sea legs meant the soup was ready in minutes.

We were sailing from Granite Island to Robe, in South Australia, on our way south-east to Tasmania. A four-hour journey by road would turn out to be thirty-six-hours by sea. Alex and Luke took three hour shifts at the helm overnight. The waves lurched beneath us. The sails were disobedient. Alex attached the tether to his belt and the rails, and headed out to the foredeck to fix it. Luke was at the helm and I held a rope at the rear deck. They shouted directions to me to pull and then release the rope. Alex fixed the sail as the boat accelerated.

That night the bed in my cabin surged with every crashing wave. There was no relief in the morning when the harsh Australian sunshine pushed its way into the cabin and gave me a resounding migraine. Trying to find relief from the skylight above my bed I staggered up the stairs to the saloon, lay down on the sofa and hid from the sun under a hoodie and coat.

Alex entreated me to lift my gaze to the horizon and so I peeped out and reacquainted myself with the shoreline. My normally healthy appetite disappeared and I had an overwhelming desire to sleep. But Alex was an experienced sailor and never gave up on encouraging me, pushing me beyond what I imagined I could do. Rather than curling up into a ball and giving up, I heeded his encouragement, and my seasickness gradually dissipated. I was well enough by the evening to accompany Alex on the twelve am to three am shift, but noting my tired expression, Alex told me to take leave and go to bed at two thirty am. Luke took over the three to six am shift, and then Alex took over from six am. When I woke at eight the waters were calm. My seasickness had gone and my appetite returned. I enjoyed a hearty breakfast and we calmly motored on to Robe.

We had to sail continuously for two long days and nights on the voyage from Robe to King Island, Tasmania. Alex consulted the app Predict Wind for the weather forecast and assured me that there would be little wind. He, of course, was disappointed because he wanted to sail, but I was quite happy to motor on calm seas if it meant I could be spared from seasickness. He is a climate warrior and wanted to rely on natural sources of energy such as wind. I knew we shouldn’t use fossil fuels, but I decided to tease him, urging, ‘Let’s use diesel!’, knowing full well how it contradicted his principles. He put my needs first, foregoing his love of sailing to motor on calm waters instead. 

I only knew about King Island because of its specialty cheese production, and looked forward to some cheese tastings. Alex asked me to do some research on King Island, and soon I learned that it had been the site of around 800 shipwrecks. This was not what I wanted to hear. I knew Bass Strait was notorious, but not that this single island in the strait had been the site of hundreds of shipwrecks. Nevertheless, Alex had equipped himself with state-of-the-art navigational equipment, and had the assistance of sailor Luke who had once sailed across the Atlantic, and he was unperturbed. I trusted Alex, and his confidence was contagious.

“It’s pretty shallow here,” I announced to Luke from the cockpit during my shift. “Only twenty-five metres.”

Luke and Alex guffawed. “That’s only because it’s too deep for the instruments to measure. It’s actually 1500 metres,” Alex explained.

I had a book ready to read for my three-hour shift but I left it unopened. I was enraptured by the milky and glassy surface and the ripples that glistened in the sun. I scanned the horizon for vessels, and tried to discover the ones that appeared in the monitor reported by Automatic Identification System (AIS). Unlike us, the other vessels on the monitor were container ships. Black birds perched on the surface of the water and took off as we approached. 

“Where are the dolphins?” I quizzed Alex.

“It’s too deep for them here.”

We repeated the shifts. As Alex’s research had predicted the waters were calm. My seasickness had disappeared altogether.

Two days after leaving Robe, the township of Currie on King Island came into view. Anchoring took a while because of the many submerged rocks. Finally, Alex was satisfied with the anchorage, and we decided to hop into the dinghy and go ashore. First, we had to register online with the Tasmanian e-travel. I completed the documentation on my laptop and finally was required to receive a verification code by SMS on my phone. I kept requesting new codes but none came. It turned out that there was no reception on this remote island for my phone provider. I gave up.

The four of us lowered ourselves into the dinghy with our bags. Alex pulled the cord to start the outboard motor, and we weaved between the other berthed boats to the shore. A police vehicle was parked on the shore facing us. A barrel chested police officer in a fluorescent orange vest motioned where we should land. At the wharf he was accompanied by a biosecurity officer.

The police officer greeted us politely and asked whether we had the necessary paperwork for entry. Luke and Alex had theirs, but Verity and I did not. Despite numerous reminders from Alex I had procrastinated and now I was paying for it. We clambered out of the dinghy to the wharf, and the officers took down Verity’s and my details. 

I had not been able to complete my application because my phone would not receive signals in this remote location. Alex tethered me to his phone, because his carrier had coverage. I fumbled around in the sunshine to download various apps to process my application. The phone screen was too small and the glare from the sunshine disturbed my vision even further. Even though I was traveling domestically, it was like trying to enter a foreign country without the right visa.

“I don’t want to hold you all up,” I said to the others. “Let me go back to the boat. I don’t care. I can read a book.”

Alex would have none of it. Then the biosecurity officer briefly disappeared, and reappeared with paper forms. 

“You can fill these out instead,” he offered. “Then you will have to take Rapid Antigen Tests back in the boat and wait fifteen minutes for the result. If it is negative you are free to travel. I’m just going to make a detour to the airport to pick up the tests for you.”

The biosecurity officer made the eleven kilometre trip to the airport and back to retrieve the Rapid Antigen Tests. Meanwhile, Luke cleverly engaged the police officer in banter, trying to find out the best places for tourists to visit on the island.

“The races are on this afternoon,” he kindly informed us. “They are held four times a year over summer.”

If it weren’t for the banter with the police officer we could never have learned this. We scrambled back into the dinghy with the Rapid Antigen Tests. Or to be more precise, the others scrambled into the dinghy. I lost my footing on the tires on the way down and collapsed in a heap into the dinghy. The mask had obscured my downward vision and I couldn’t see where I was placing my feet. I was rattled after having been greeted by a police officer and a biosecurity officer on the shore of the quiet fishing cove nestling alongside Currie. The others gasped as I fell and then fussed over me and I soon recovered. We sped back towards the boat.

“What else did the police officer tell you, Luke?” we probed, once in the dinghy.

“He said that the other day another vessel had come here from interstate. They too had had trouble getting internet access on this remote island and did not know that the entry requirements for Tasmania had changed while they were on board. They were so upset at being greeted on the shore by a police officer and a biosecurity officer that they started an altercation and had to be locked up.”

Hearing this I felt grateful that we had been treated with such civility. Again we clambered back on to the boat. Exhausted but relieved that we had been able to go on land in Tasmania, we decided to celebrate with Luke’s bottle of Chardonnay. Then, we proceeded with the tests.

As expected, we all tested negative and we took the dinghy ashore to explore Currie. We followed the police officer’s advice and walked through the town to the races. Alex and I were sitting in the stands, enjoying not only the horses but the spectacle of the local crowd in their finery. Alex abruptly looked up to the end of the aisle.

“Is that the police officer?” he asked me.

I studied him chatting to other racegoers in full regalia of his flack jacket, guns in his holster and fluorescent orange vest.

Alex turned to me and quipped, “Maybe that is why he seemed to be in a hurry to process our entry? He wanted to be at the races.

I had been struck by the story that Luke had heard from the police officer that the other interstate visitors had acted defensively when they heard about the new complicated entry requirements to Tasmania. Why had we been treated so differently? We were simply sent back to the boat and the officers had trusted us to act appropriately on the basis of the results of the COVID test. The officers seemed to be in a bit of a hurry to let us get on our way. Now we had an inkling why.

*All the photographs have been supplied by Meredith Stephens.

Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her work has appeared in Transnational Literature, The Muse, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, The Journal of Literature in Language Teaching, The Writers’ and Readers’ Magazine, Reading in a Foreign Language, and in chapters in anthologies published by Demeter Press, Canada.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Categories
Musings Travel

The Ocean & Me

Meredith Stephens writes of her sailing adventures in South Australia

The international borders are finally opening, but we still hesitate to embark on overseas or even interstate travel. The travel ban has afforded us the opportunity to explore our home state of South Australia, which until now we have largely ignored. After so long remaining here in this drawn-out pandemic, and the constant uncertainty about changing travel requirements, we lack the courage to venture abroad again.

Just as well, because after our local hiking adventures to Eyre Peninsula and Yorke Peninsula, Alex announces that next we will be sailing to Kangaroo Island. We will stay at Brian and Rochelle’s shack on Emu Bay. Alex drives Verity and me down the Fleurieu Peninsula, south of Adelaide, until we reach Carrickalinga Beach. Alex has taught me how to hike, and now he wants to share his excitement about sailing. He spends time on the long drive to Carrickalinga testing me on my sailing vocabulary. I have learnt words such as ‘headsail’, ‘mainsail’ and ‘jennika’. (Well, I thought it was ‘jennika’, but Alex tells me it is ‘jenniker’.) Meanwhile we pass through the sleepy towns of Myponga and Yankalilla, each boasting country bakeries with an array of doughnuts, buns and pasties which I try to put out of my mind. We successfully navigate these towns without stopping and I make do by simply remembering the array of treats at a sumptuous cafe in Moonta from our last trip.

Photo Courtesy: Meredith Stephens

“Just wait a little longer,” Alex entreats me. Brian and Rochelle will have some really healthy food for us at their shack.

Brian and Rochelle are waiting for us at Carrickalinga with sparkling smiles and generous hugs. We maneuver ourselves and our luggage into the dinghy and head out to the boat. It’s moored in deeper water, and I have to scramble out of the dingy and onto the boat all the while making sure my laptop does not drop into the ocean depths. I clamber in and place the laptop inside the boat where it can’t get wet. Then I move outside to position myself at the bow where I sit with Brian and Rochelle. Alex is at the helm.

Photo Courtesy: Meredith Stephens

The others had busied themselves unfurling the sails but Alex tells me that my job is simply to look for dolphins. Before long five of them are approaching the front of the boat. They proudly swim in between the two hulls, gracefully easing themselves in perfect arcs in and out of the water to catch a breath. One turns her head around, her body at an angle, so we can make eye contact.

Photo Courtesy: Meredith Stephens

Once away from the shore and leaving the buffer of the hills, the wind picks up and Alex proudly announces that we are sailing at 16 knots. Carrickalinga has receded.

Photo Courtesy: Meredith Stephens

I sit at the bow for hours, trying to hide from the punishing Australian sun, wrapping my hair around my neck. It’s too choppy to risk walking along the side of the boat to retrieve my cotton scarf. Water splashes on my legs but I dare not move.

As the hours pass Emu Bay looms into view. We spot the bright yellow ball on the ocean surface which signals the mooring below. Alex directs the boat toward the ball while Brian extends a long pole towards it and hooks it up. He then drags it on the boat and tethers it to a cleat.

When alighting the boat onto the dinghy I will have to make sure once again my laptop does not drop into the ocean. Alex detaches the dinghy and loads our provisions onto the front end. Then he pulls the motor cord repeatedly but it does not start. Brian and Alex confer but the motor refuses to be coaxed back to life. The sun is retreating. I can see Brian and Rochelle’s shack on the coast tantalizingly close.

“Shall we paddle in?” I suggest.

“It’s a bit choppy,” explains Alex. “We could wait until the waters are calmer tomorrow morning. We could sleep on the boat.”

I yearn for a bed on dry land, but there are five of us and I have to consider what the others might want. We all seem to be concerned about imposing on the others. Verity comes up with a solution.

“Let’s have a secret ballot,” she suggests.

Verity tears up some paper into five pieces. We each write down our preference, “boat” or “shore”. I write “shore”. Rochelle seems to be taking a long time writing down her preference. Verity collects the pieces of paper and spreads them on the table. Two say “shore” and two say “boat”. The remaining one says “I don’t mind sleeping on either the boat or going to shore.” It’s evenly split. Meanwhile sunset continues to approach, the wind is picking up and the water starts to look foreboding. Could we safely put four adults and their luggage into a dinghy? Verity seems to have read my mind.

“I think Meredith wants to go ashore,” she announces.

“That’s our decision then,” confirms Alex. “We will paddle to shore in the dinghy.”

Alex asks Rochelle and me to hop into the dinghy. He places our laptops and phones in a waterproof bag. Brian enters next and Alex detaches the dinghy from the boat. Then we maneuver the dinghy close enough for Alex to slide in. Meanwhile, Verity kayaks to shore.

We each have a paddle, Rochelle and I on the left of the dinghy and Alex and Brian on the right. Alex identifies the safest place on the cove to reach land.

“Girls paddle harder,” he urges. “Meredith, you’ve got the paddle the wrong way around.”

I look down. Typically visually unobservant, I look down at my paddle and turn it around.

We labour, pulling the paddles more firmly and deeply, until we reach the rocks. We disembark and pick up our luggage. I gingerly tread over the craggy rocks in my sandals.

“Where’s the shack?” I ask Brian.

Brian points ever upwards. I follow the direction in which he is pointing and drag myself up in my wet sandals while carrying as many bags as I can. Finally we see the house on top of the hill, and gratefully allow Brian to usher us in. Brian immediately pours us some tonic water decorated with a slice of dried orange.

Photo Courtesy: Meredith Stephens

After nibbling on some nuts, cheese, hummus and crackers, Brian appears with home-made lentil burgers that he has revived from the freezer, topped with smashed avocado and haloumi. We devour these greedily as reward for our long sail and trek up the hill with luggage.

Photo Courtesy: Meredith Stephens

 I find myself enjoying a spacious bed with clean sheets. Sleep is as delicious and pleasurable as a drink when I am thirsty, or a longed-for meal when I am hungry. I savour these moments of the comfort of the bed and suddenly it appears to be morning.

The sunshine forces its way into my bedroom. The silence of the corner of this remote island is punctuated by the lively tones of Alex, Verity, Brian and Rochelle’s voices. How could they have recovered so quickly? Despite the sunshine penetrating my closed lids, I persist in a somnolence which is just as delicious as the evening before.

Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist in Japan. Her work has appeared in Transnational Literature, The Blue Nib, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, The Journal of Literature in Language Teaching, The Writers’ and Readers’ Magazine, Reading in a Foreign Language, and in chapters in anthologies published by Demeter Press, Canada.

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