As some of you who have been reading my post would know, I have the tremendous luck to sail on many wonderful sailing ventures and one of them was from New Zealand to the UK aboard the topsail schooner ‘Tradewind’. This all occurred end of 91 and lasted for nine and a half months.
I was very fortunate to be a part of this expedition and literally just made it aboard as I believe I was the last crew member to be selected. It started off with my being in the middle of studying for my Master Class four ticket (marine qualifications start off at Master five and progress upwards to the penultimate Master One). I was in need of some clarification with certain points of celestial navigation and so went to see my friend Pete Manthorpe a great bloke and as it happens a master mariner as well as a tall ship devotee. He was fortunately able to help me with my navigation problem and while we talked about sailing he mentioned that Mark Hammond owner/master of ‘Tradewind’ in need of a mate for a trip to the UK via Cape Horn, Antarctica, Caribbean and taking part in the 500th anniversary of Columbus discovering America regatta. I think it took me all of two seconds to decide and I now wonder why it took that long.
Next four weeks were busy applying for the position, studying, renewing passport, applying for visa’s, tickets and wet weather gear to be purchased. As you could well imagine it all culminated in a big rush. On the Wednesday two exams, Thursday two exams, Friday two exams and the oral exam at the port authority. If that was not enough I had two hours after the last exam to say good bye to everyone and make the plane to Sydney. Stayed over night in Sydney and then on the Saturday flew to Wellington NZ where I joined the ‘Tradewind’ after lunch. Sunday noon we sailed for the Chatham Islands and the adventure had started.
Now the reason why I am writing all of this is to introduce one of the crewmembers who sailed with me, a fellow Kiwi, Trevor Ross. Trevor was the youngest crewmember aboard and was not only a first class sailor but also a top bloke as well. In his early twenties he had already led an interesting life and continues to do so, which rings a similar echo with myself.
I had not heard from Trevor for the better part of seventeen years, when out of the blue I get an email saying remember me? No problems there, you can’t forget a bloke who has been a fellow crewmember on a journey such as we had. Apparently he was surfing the web and came across this blog site and lucky for me decided to get in touch by email. Life has definitely changed for Trevor and I am not going to write here about what is happening to him, you are far better off visiting his own blog site at http://trevorandbreda.blogspot.com/
Needless to say I was keen to catch up but as with all these things it took a while to organise us both in the same spot at the same time. Last week it happened, I was in Perth for reasons of work and contacted Trevor in the hope to catch up for a drink. We gathered at the Melbourne on Hay St and the conversation just flowed, I had a great evening and felt a great connection despite all the years we have been going our own ways. The beauty about it is Trevor is in to writing as well and there is a hint of a possibility we may do some collaborating and write more about our journey aboard Tradewind, it would be great to see the trip from two different perspectives. Who knows what will happen.
Mean while I continue to have stories gathering up in my head, just need time to type and edit them. It will happen just need time.
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