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The life
& times
of
Warren Swil
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By Warren Swil
As we cleared the channel between Hook and Hayman islands in the Whitsundays Group off the northeast Australia coast, the weather
deteriorated rapidly. The sky darkened with heavy clouds portending rain. Visibility dropped as the light dimmed. The wind picked up to about 25 knots (almost 30 mph) from the southeast.
Jim Pekkala, 42, of Van Nuys was asleep on the foredeck of Scallywag, the 41-foot Sunsail Oceanis I was skippering. Hollywood residents John Lammi, 50, and Rob Howard-Flanders, 43, were both below in the saloon. I was the only one on watch, a major mistake.
I was searching the shoreline for the moorings indicated on the chart. Previously, I had always had other stationary vessels to guide me towards the moorings. There was only one in sight dead ahead, so I set a course for it meanwhile scanning the shore for any sign of an anchorage. A few hundred feet from my target, I saw it was anchored, not moored. I suddenly realized we had gone too far and swung the wheel hard to port, almost reversing direction but heading towards the shore. |
Me, cleaning the decks of
Scallywag at Palm
Hideaway on Long island, Day 5 of our adventure. |
A few moments later, there was a loud thud and a sickening, grinding sound. The keel dragged on the coral and Scallywag came to a dead stop as we hit the reef. It was like hitting a wall. My instinctive reaction was to give her full throttle and try to sail off the reef, but we only got more firmly stuck.
The crew bounded into the cockpit, yelling at me and each other. I gunned the motor but to no avail. I was at a loss, so panicked that my mind stopped functioning. This definitely was my darkest moment as skipper.
After perhaps a couple of minutes floundering around with Scallywag sitting atop the reef, Rob stepped into the breach. His vastly greater experience afloat was just what I needed. He grabbed the jib sheet and began to unfurl the sail. As the wind filled the jib, it lifted the keel just enough, perhaps only half an inch. I saw what Rob was doing and gunned the engine again, swinging the wheel with all my might hard out to sea. We sailed off the reef.
The relief was palpable. I hung my head in shame as the unspoken insults were silently hurled in my direction. I deserved all of them, I guess. Mentally, I blamed my failure to have anyone else on watch, but that was a feeble excuse. I had gotten lost, disoriented and screwed up. It doesn’t get any worse than this.
Fortunately, on what had already become the adventure of a lifetime, it didn’t.
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