Sailboats, beer cans and subs

It's not only birds that seasonally migrate to and from Darwin. Sailing boats 'migrate' too.

The Dry season attracts sailors. The number of boats moored in Fannie Bay explodes during the Dry. Now, at the tail end of the Dry, there are still quite a few boats on the water ... seen here at very low tide in Fannie Bay. (In fact the tides were so low this week that Darwin held its annual Sandbar Party. This is a dance party that's held in the middle of the harbour, on a sandbar that appears at spring tide. But I digress.)

Gradually, as the Dry season ends, the boats thin out and eventually disappear. Friends in Darwin have a 25-foot sailing boat. They put it into the water in May for the Dry, then take it out in September and store it in their shed during the Wet.

We went sailing with them, on a day when there was a sailing regatta (or two) in the bay. Steering is not a clear-cut task in a small vessel on the open water, particularly when there are boats coming the other way.

My takeaways from four hours of sailing are as follows:

(a) Getting from the beach into the tinny is easy. Tying the tinny to the mooring buoy is manageable. But getting out of the moving tinny moored to a moving buoy onto a moving boat is a little more challenging. Then you reverse the process at the end of the day. Ken mis-stepped at one transfer point and had a little unintended dip.

(b) It’s hard work sailing a sailboat. It’s a lot easier to be a passenger.

(c) I was grateful not to have to raise the sail, unfurl the jib, adjust the sheets, winch the ropes, raise the thwarts, pickle the blubber or flibber the gibbet. I think I remember most of these nautical terms correctly.

(d) I now understand the literal meaning of ‘on an even keel’. A sailboat is seldom – if ever – on an even keel. The keel (and you) are always tilted one way or the other. It’s fun to be on the high side of the boat. It’s a lot less fun being on the lower side at a 40 degree angle. Bill kept assuring me that the boat wouldn’t capsize, but I found that hard to believe when my elbow was dipping into the water.

(e) Have you ever thought about 'steering' a sailboat back to a mooring buoy – a tiny buoy in a big bay – without bashing the tinny that is moored to the buoy or missing the mooring buoy altogether? No? Neither had I. It’s a fraught process.

Here's the track of the sailing we did.

Our friends have a great sailing story about tying up in a cove prior to overnighting on their boat. As the stars came out, and the light shone on the dark water, Bill was admiring the picturesque surroundings. Then he noticed a rock move. Turns out they had tied up amongst a few crocodiles. He woke up Diana, who then spent the rest of the night on deck armed with a speargun.

Another regatta that was taking place near the beach while we were out at sea was the annual Darwin Beer Can Regatta. As its name suggests, competitors use beer cans to build vessels and the challenge is to see which is the fastest – or frankly, to see which boat actually floats. There are also events like the noble sport of thong-throwing.

The US Marines team has won the regatta for the last two years. Well, as their website says: Looming battles come in many forms and occur on many fronts, but each comes down to a critical choice: to demand victory or accept defeat. To pull together or fall apart. To give in or cave in. If we can win the Darwin Beer Can Regatta, we can crush the world. (I might have added the last bit.)

And finally, while we are on the subject of things maritime, Exercise Kakadu is happening in Darwin right now. It's like Pitch Black, but on the water. And bigger. Exercise Kakadu is a naval exercise involving more than 20 countries, more than 15 vessels, more than 30 aircraft and around 3,000 personnel. It's less public-friendly than Pitch Black, i.e. no public open days, but we can observe some interesting (and unidentified) ships in the harbour ... including a submarine sitting in the harbour for more than a week.

The sub was in the distance and very indistinct. When I asked some colleagues about it, I discovered the Darwin submarine protocol: Never confirm any submarine sighting. It's a humour thing. It goes something like this:

Me: Is that a submarine in the harbour?

Darwinite 1: Submarine?

Me, pointing: Over there!

Darwinite 1: Well, if you think you can see a submarine, then it must be there.

Me, trying again: I think I can see a submarine.

Darwinite 2: Australia doesn't have any submarines. [Note: Australia does have submarines.]

Me, confused: Well, maybe it's another country's submarine.

Darwinite 2: What would another country's submarine be doing in Darwin?

Eventually I gave up and took a blurry photograph from my desk (above). Then we went on a sunset cruise and we got a bit closer ... and yes, it definitely was a submarine.

Or was it? ;)