I
watch”.
’d started sleeping with a knife
under my pillow when the
skipper said, “I could cut you
up into little pieces and throw
you into the sea. I’d say you
fell overboard on your night
Perhaps it was because I’d had such
a hellish journey to get there that I
found Indonesia such a delight. I had
planned to relax and enjoy the beau-
tiful islands as I sailed past on my
way from Malaysia to Australia. The
500cc Enfield Bullet which I’d bought
three years previously in India and
now could not bear to ditch would be
safely tucked into the transom of the
23’ aluminium catamaran as I sipped
tropical fruit juice and lazily adjusted
a sail or something. As usual, led by
heart and not head, I’d jumped at the
offer to crew on a small yacht bound
for Australia with the skipper. I would
pay half the expenses and do half the
work. But as the weeks of preparation
went by I had serious reservations
about his intentions, temper and com-
petence.
The weather was hot and humid.
Working to convert the catamaran
from twin outboards to an inboard en-
gine was sticky work when I wasn’t up
to my neck in water underneath the
boat bolting on the propeller shaft.
I’d been granted permission from the
Australian authorities to temporarily
import the bike but after two months
and the boat still not ready, the Carnet
de Passage (the Enfield’s passport) ex-
pired making it impossible to land it
in Indonesia. This upset the skipper
who was as keen to experience motor-
cycling as I was to have a try at sailing.
I found the skipper unattractive and
miserable. The tree-hugging, vegetar-
ian pacifist he said he was, became a
bellowing tyrant when things went
wrong as they frequently did. What
we had was a situation where the gear-
box, propeller, auto-pilot, rudder and
TRAVERSE 87