Decisions

20/7/2016  Hinchinbrook Channel

It’s not really surprising, why I’m dragging my heels at this particular point in time. A couple of days’ rest and more information-gathering has helped put things in prespective.

It has been rather a relentless push to attain the physical and psychological landmark of Cairns. Cairns was where the solo circumnavigator, Webb Chiles,  whose blog  I have been following, re-entered the Great Barrier Reef.  Sailing outside the reef (which I did consider doing) took him only 6 days non-stop from Bundaberg.

For me, going through some of the islands of the Whitsundays, it has taken over twice as long and I am still another 3 or 4 days away from Cairns. I am increasingly aware of the time pressure to be out of Darwin by the end of August. (Webb is well on his way across the Indian Ocean now.)

http://self-portraitinthepresentseajournal.blogspot.com.au/

I sat down for a few hours yesterday and plotted courses and waypoints to Darwin.  It took Webb 14 days, sailing almost every day to reach Cape York. From there he sailed 7 days and nights non-stop to Darwin, which I would also need to do.

Cairns is a line of demarcation for other reasons.  Reading Alan Lucas, “Cruising the Coral Coast”, he writes about the weather patterns that really do make it a point of no-return: “Balancing probabilities against uncertainties, it can be said that the SE trade wind will prevail on this part of the coast for all of winter, much of summer and may or may not give way to northerlies at other times.”

Facilities get scarcer and there is a sense of entering “no-man’s land” where one must be totally self-reliant.  Step across that line and one is committed to going on.

So it is time to sit and take stock of my situation now.  The risks of continuing on alone include fatigue, mistakes, discomfort, hardship, possible injury and death.  Of course I dismiss all of these out of hand the moment I start to feel refreshed, but it is important to acknowledge them and to make a rational, rather than emotional or dogmatic decision.  Ok to be dogmatic but not "pigmatic". A certain amount of pig-headedness must accompany any extreme endeavour, simply to stick with it, but it’s also important to maintain some sense of balance. This is where the two sides of oneself conflict, bringing confusion and analysis paralysis.

Sometimes, it is as if moves are simply made for us.

Sitting quietly by myself in the calm anchorage amongst the mangroves of Hinchinbrook Channel, I picked up my phone and sent a text message to my friend Colin Grazules, who lives in Townsville, asking him if he would have time to install a new fridge for me.  He instantly replied “it would be a pleasure”. Then I rang the Yacht Club and asked if they had room for me for a couple of weeks, which they did.  The SE wind is abating this weekend so I shall head back south and take the time to finish these extra jobs, like the fridge, the HF radio and Pactor modem, the dangerously jamming reef lines. So just like that, I am back to where I was a few months back, realizing that Darwin, and the world, will have to wait.  This decision, which I have been bucking, sits easy with me now.