From childhood, Graham Cox had dreamed of the ocean. Growing up in Durban, he’d spent his time hanging out near what was then called the International Jetty, where far-ranging yachts of all nations berthed to break their epic passages.

Sometimes he’d pluck up courage and ‘make his number’, to be well received by the generous tribes of the sea. His two volumes, Last Days of the Slocum Era, describe this dreaming time. The heroes he met come rollicking off the pages as though we were all in the pub together.

About halfway through Volume 1, Graham leaves home with his kitbag and emigrates to Australia. It isn’t long before he has acquired a small yacht to live on. Poeme is a 24ft, engineless double-ended ketch built in the old-fashioned way of larch on oak.

In 1974, the call of the sea becomes undeniable. Together with Colleen, a girl he hardly knows, he sets sail for New Zealand.

Things do not go well. We join them after a major hammering from a full gale, somewhere off Australia’s east coast, position unknown, with the wind blowing onshore.

Extract from Last Days of the Slocum Era

The one thing I wanted to do now was return to the safety of Australia. Go home. My longing for the sea had mysteriously vanished. The south-easterly gale was blowing us that way. It was only a matter of time before we arrived. I began staring at the western horizon, but my gaze was always met by an endless vista of large, foam-backed waves. How far offshore were we? 100 miles was just a stab in the dark. I’d literally lost the plot.

By the fourth day, I was becoming numb with despair. We were also soaked to the bone and freezing cold. That night, there was very little sleep. Surely the boat would crash onto the rocks at any moment? Shortly after dawn on the fifth day, we sighted land.

We had obviously been much further offshore than I had estimated. I immediately got sail up, despite the continuing onshore gale, and began careering in. It was a lee shore, but I was determined to plant my feet on it. Another night, I was convinced, would bring disaster.

All day we sailed, clinging desperately to the tiller, but when nightfall came we were still several miles offshore with no idea of where we were. Then a lighthouse winked. What a wonderful thing to reach out to wandering sailors, to shine a light on their darkness. I wanted to kiss everybody, starting with Colleen, but instead I got out my stopwatch and timed it.

The light was just south of Port Stephens. I knew the port well, but was uncertain about the shallow entrance in this huge sea. The decision was soon out of my hands, as the wind rapidly backed north-east, then north-west, increasing in ferocity as it did. There was no way we could get in now.

I should have just laid ahull, drifting quietly in the lee of the land, but shame at my earlier bad seamanship led me to commit another folly. I ran back out to sea for several hours, the wake ablaze with phosphorescence, looking like a rocket ship flying through space on the dark side of the moon. The sky had cleared, and the stars, vivid in the blackness, added to this effect. Eventually, poor little Poeme was overwhelmed once more by wind and waves, and I had to take all sail down.

A building sea

By dawn, the wind was in the south-west and solid. Colleen, an experienced motorcyclist, estimated about 45 knots. The waves were very steep. I have no idea how high they were, only that the sight of them was impressive. Later, I discovered a 4-knot current was sucking us south against the wind, but in the moment I just thought, ‘Queensland, here we come!’

Poeme was repeatedly knocked down, surfing sideways with the crests, masts almost horizontal, to judge from the angle inside the cabin. We had no intention of going outside to look. Anyway, we had more important things to worry about. The companionway doors had smashed. If Poeme capsized now, the boat could flood. I thought dully of ways to barricade the hole, but that would mean we were stuck inside, as the large hatch above had been screwed down.

Remarkably little water came in through the open companionway, but plenty poured in through the planks. Pumping was almost continuous. I then discovered the cabin top had shifted. You could see daylight through the joint.

In the wilderness

Land had long since been lost to sight, and we were alone once more in the watery wilderness. We ceased to wonder when the gale would end. We had been wet and cold for so long it seemed we’d been born that way. No attempt to control the boat was made.

We just pumped and clung to our bunks, except that Colleen cooked something every day. She even produced a special treat on my 22nd birthday. How I would have coped alone is questionable, as I was in a sort of trance by this time. I may have eaten but I would never have cooked and I would have had to do all the pumping. I may well not have survived. Colleen, a registered nurse who loved skydiving, was much tougher.

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Nightfall brought the added misery of blindness. The kerosene lamps would not stay alight in these conditions, and we had no electric torches. Enveloped in total blackness, the violence continued. The severity of this gale was later confirmed by reports from two yachts that capsized while lying ahull nearby in 70 knots. Unlike these heavier craft, Poeme, being tender and lightly ballasted, simply lay over and surfed the crests sideways.

Finally the wind began to ease. All sail was made over a lumpy sea, westwards without question. Anywhere in Australia would do. I steered and Colleen pumped. Poeme leaked more than ever.
At the end of a long day, a lighthouse came into view. Three flashes every 20 seconds.

I got out all my charts north of Port Stephens. It could only be Smoky Cape. Since the chart showed clear approaches, I decided to carry on through the night, but the seas soon became noticeably steeper, then steeper still, so we turned away. As we sailed back out to the east, the seas rapidly calmed. “Some current,” said Colleen, and immediately set to fixing us some dinner.

Since the wind was holding us off that patch of horrible, vertical water, we hove-to and crawled below to rest. By dawn we were becalmed on gently undulating swells. The coast was clearly visible in the distance, tantalising, evocative. Green hills never looked so lovely, but we were now becalmed within sight of land for four days.

With increasing frustration, I chased every zephyr. At night, a land breeze would fill the sails and Poeme slipped along quietly. By dawn, we would be close to the lighthouse on the top of the perpendicular cliffs, convinced we’d be at anchor for a late breakfast. Then the rising sun dispersed the wind and the current began to suck us south again.

Mystery visitors

On the second night, I began hallucinating. A small figure who looked remarkably like Rupert Bear swung merrily in the rigging. More insidious, the squeaking rudder pintles turned into carping voices, one of which said, ‘When he’s half asleep like this, it would be easy to stick a knife in him and roll him overboard.’ I woke up quickly that time.

On the fourth day, a moderate southerly finally arrived. Poeme raced north all day. This time we were going to get in, even though it was dark again.

I took a bearing on the light with my hand-bearing compass, estimated my distance off, marked my position on the chart, and drew a course that would take Poeme straight into the bay. I was astounded to discover, when I tried to steer this course, that Poeme was pointing at the cliffs. Swearing, I turned the boat away and returned to my chart but came up with the same result.

“Something’s happened to the main compass,” I said, “we’ll have to steer using the hand-bearing compass.” But that produced the same results. Increasingly frantic, I wrestled in the cockpit with chart, a kerosene lamp which kept blowing out, and pencil, trying to steer at the same time. Colleen, unperturbed as usual, handed up coffee and dessert.

There was only one rational explanation, both compasses had gone bananas. I decided to sail in by eye, guessing my distance off the cliffs. It was scary, but soon we were in the bay and breathing easy, safe at last. But where was the short breakwater mentioned in the Pilot Book? And the bay seemed a lot smaller than expected. I was just about to anchor and wait for daylight, when I saw boats moored ahead. ‘Good,’ I thought, ‘I’ll go over and anchor near them.’

Unexpected landfall

Just before reaching the boats, jogging along under jib and mizzen, Poeme struck the rocks. Elation evaporated as the hull pounded and staggered with each passing swell. The sound of splintering wood made me weep, but I mustered my last strength to try and save the boat.

Over the side went the dinghy and I rowed off into the night, dropping the anchor when all the scope had been paid out. Back alongside, the dinghy suddenly disappeared beneath me and I found myself swimming in the cold sea, with full wet-weather gear and boots on. It took all our combined strength to get me back aboard Poeme.

Every time the swell lifted the boat, the two of us heaved on the warp, but the keel continued to pound on the rocks. Mouths dry with fear, we re-hoisted the mainsail, to heel and reduce draught.

More warp came in, but still the rocks clutched at the keel. We later discovered we were hauling poor Poeme further up the rocks. In my exhaustion, I’d rowed the anchor out in the wrong direction.

Defeated, we lay on the deck, contemplating what to do next when a small rowing boat appeared. The two middle-aged men in it had simply rowed out from the beach. It was such a calm and peaceful night that there was no surf in the bay. They were fishermen, and one of them quickly took charge.

“What’s the matter, matey?” he said. I thought the problem was pretty obvious, but it must have seemed incongruous to them. How could anyone get into trouble on a clear, moonlit night like this, in a bay wide open for navigation except for one little reef, marked clearly on the chart?

The tide was rising. After laughing at the position of our anchor, the men cut the rope and towed Poeme off, putting us on a nearby mooring.

“Where are you bound for, mate?” our saviour asked.

“Well,” said the Great Navigator, “we left Sydney for New Zealand 12 days ago, but were driven back by a storm. Now that we’re at Smoky Cape and halfway to Queensland, we might just go there for the winter.”

“This ain’t Smoky Cape, mate,” he said. “That’s Cape Perpendicular out there south of Sydney. You’re hundreds of miles off course.”

“But, but…” I stuttered, realising suddenly why none of my bearings had worked out. “But I timed the lighthouse, three flashes every 20 seconds.”

“Yep, that’s Point Perpendicular Lighthouse. You’re lucky you missed all the reefs out there. They’re treacherous in heavy weather.”

He paused as Colleen and I looked at each other in sudden comprehension. Then he added, “Well, I reckon you’ve had enough by the look of you. Better come ashore with me for some breakfast and a shower.”

Later that day, we conducted a post-mortem. It had never occurred to me that there could be two lighthouses with the same sequence, one well north of Sydney and one south. There were marked variations in length of flash and gap between them, but the differences were too subtle for me to notice.

I’d also forgotten about the East Coast Current. While Poeme had skidded sideways down the face of waves, apparently being blown north, that insidious current had dragged us south at a rate the old boat would have been proud of. No wonder the waves had been steep.

“So, what now?” asked Colleen, forever game. “I don’t know,” I said, looking down. “I might just stay here.” My voice carried as much of an apology as my fragile ego could offer.

“Well, I’ll leave then,” she said, and within half an hour she was gone. I never saw her again.

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