Seven Years Bikes Babes, Booze and Boats

Seven Years

Second book in the Bikes, Babes, Booze and Boats Series

Randall Hammond

Copyright by Randall Hammond 2012

ISBN 978-602-18733-1+1

Author's note

Randall Hammond left Australia with his wife and her two children on their yacht on August 1st, 1998. He had US$1.200, his old guitar, his tools, and confidence that he could make his way.

On arrival in Indonesia Randall's life changed, he found that there is another way to live. He had escaped his violent past, but more importantly, he had escaped the constant onslaught on personal liberty instigated by the Socialist Governments of Australia.

My life, my attitude, my rules

CONTENTS

Publisher details 1

List of Illustrations 5

Chapter one: Wanderlust 8

Chapter two: Incredible Journey 11

Chapter three: Never to return 72

Chapter four: Singapore and beyond 100

Chapter Five: Phostcard from Phuket 111

Chapter Six: Seven Years 136

Chapter Seven: On the Change 164

Chapter Eight: My Drama Queen 204

Chapter Nine: England 239

Chapter Ten: Busted Ass 249

Chapter Eleven: Decisions Decisions 255

Chapter Twelve: Wavedisaster 267

Chapter Thirteen: Singapore 322

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1: Fourth from the left, second row. Mixed up kid with wanderlust

Figure 2: Elephants Crossing. Bahang Malaysia

Figure 3: The Biker

Figure 4: Whitsunday Fun Race

Figure 5: My little yacht nearing completion

Figure 6: My little yacht on the hard. Whitsunday Sailing Club

Figure 7: Married at the Whitsunday Sailing Club

Figure 8: Name Changing Ceremony

Figure 9: Refit complete

Figure 10: Cruising the Queensland Coast

Figure 11: Red Girl in the Whitsunday Fun Race

Figure 12: Having fun on a deserted island. Queensland Coast

Figure 13: One of many hazards one encounters when going ashore. North Australia

Figure 14: Lizard Island, Queensland Coast

Figure 15: Stormvogel repairs. Boat Lagoon, Phuket

Figure 16: On-board Red Girl

Figure 17: Kupang, Timor. Indonesia

Figure 18: Alongside the Rangers' jetty, Crocodile River. Kalimantan

Figure 19: The whole village came to say goodbye. Flores Island, Indonesia

Figure 20: Pantai Cenang. Langkawi

Figure 21: The Anchor Bar

Figure 22: Christmas Day at the Anchor Bar

Figure 23: On-board Silver Cloud with Don and Mimi

Figure 24: Casual dress. Laem Phrao, Phuket

Figure 25: Anchored in paradise. Laem Phrao, Phuket

Figure 26: Burma Immigration Post

Figure 27: Victoria Point. Burma

Figure 28: Long tail Captain, on the way to Burma

Figure 29: Long tail boats. Ranong

Figure 30: We moved into our new address at the Yacht Haven Marina

Figure 31: Tied up to the floating Gazebo, Langkawi, Malaysia

Figure 32: Racing the big Sparkman and Stevens Sloop

Figure 33: Christmas Day, Heby Haven Hong Kong

Figure 34: Beautiful Heby Haven Hong Kong

Figure 35: My Drama Queen

Figure 36: He told the elephant to go back, but it went forward

Figure 37: My trusty, rusty steed

Figure 38: Playing tunes to my Drama Queen in our Jungle House

Figure 39: Hot water springs river. Ranong

Figure 40: I imagine she would slip away, one night, at peace with the world, whilst the music of the river smoothed out the silence of the jungle night, her spirit would be free

Figure 41: Teak super yacht, Surat, Gujarat, India

Figure 42: Drinking my 1.1% bottle of Kingfisher Beer at day's work

Figure 43: Taxi at the railway station, Mumbai, India

Figure 44: Two happy boys back in Singapore from India

Figure 45: Mr. P and the London girl. Laem Phrao

Figure 46: The clients arrived from London, soft music played, cold beer.......

Figure 47: Drummers about the big Phinisi. Laem Phrao

Figure 48: Anchored in Nai Harn, west coast. Phuket

Figure 49: Seven Deadly Sins party aboard the big Phinisi

Figure 50: Something about this little Indonesian girl fascinated me

Figure 51: Mohammed Hammond marries his girl Indonesian style

Figure 52: Applying a teak deck. Singapore

Chapter 1

Wanderlust

My story begins back in '64; I was a mixed-up kid in a small town where I attended a primary school of perhaps 200 brats. The buildings were of British architecture, brick, painted white, and were typical of the local, colonial buildings. To the left, stood tall pine trees we loved to climb, to the rear of the classrooms, were large wooden verandas that lead onto a vast playground where we all yelled, and screamed, and ran amok among the giant roots and in the shade of the one-hundred-year-old, Fig trees. Each morning, we would gather at a large open fronted shed at the back of the playground, for milk; we each received a quarter-pint bottle and giggled like crazy, as each kid would end up with a creamy moustache. Once a summer, we would, as a group, line up in front of the Kindergarten to Third Grade building with its tall, narrow windows, frowning down upon us, like devil's eyes, as we clustered, in order, for the class photos. Mr. Martin, the lower primary teacher would stand at attention to one side. He was a fastidiously tidy man; his hair slicked back with tonic, and he was slightly bald at the temples. He had a stocky build and was a little scary, but I am sure he loved us all in his own way. There I stood, the curly haired, blue eyed, daydreaming boy. To either side of me stood the other large kids like the Hanson twins and further off to the left and to the right, the size of the boys grew less, as was the way, it seems with 60s group photos. In front of the boys, were the girls, the back row standing, the front row sitting, primly, with skirts delicately arrayed, shiny black shoes, white socks, smiling, some demurely and some, just grinning.

I often wonder what became of Barbara J who I was madly in love with at the time, and I have thought as much about the very English Mary M. Perhaps Mary and I were soul mates from those early years. It was on one of those marvellous Christmas days long ago, when Great Granma, Granma and my mother spent all morning preparing an enormous baked dinner, complete with bread pudding and other assortments, for Christmas dinner, when I received my Christmas present, a world atlas. It was to be my constant companion, and I carried the dog-eared book with me to school and showed it off in Social Studies classes. The pages, that displayed the continents, and island nations, sported a grid of lines, drawn like those on a sea navigation chart. These lines were of course the result of my own hand, whilst daydreaming of imaginary voyages along uncharted coastlines. I regaled my travel intentions to classmates about the countries I would visit; these dreams, stories and plans, were the beginnings, I am afraid, of that curse, that is most aptly described by the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary and Thesaurus as a: strong longing for or impulse towards wandering; WANDERLUST

Travel, I am sure is the best medicine. Travel wets the appetite for an endless amount of different things to see and do; travel opens up a continuous variety of opportunities to the point where one tends to get quite blasé about it all; however, at other times taking full advantage. Travel: along with the passing of time, opens up your mind to other opinions and allows the reactionary ways of one’s past to be swept away without too much pain and humiliation. In my travels, I was opportune to meet some rich folks, Australian, Thai, Arab, Chinese, Japanese, America, English and more, but it seemed that the life of the rich is far too restricted by their social obligations. There are some, who take full advantage of their prosperity and do some good in the world, and I take my hat off to them. Most of the folks I met are poor, struggling from day to day just to survive.

The majorities were Asian, from Kupang to Kuala Lumpur, Gili Ayr to Gujarat, and Singapore to Shanghai. Among appalling poverty, I experienced generosity; in desperate hopelessness, I experienced strong family values, and in a world that is full of hate and bitterness, I found people with generous hearts. Unfortunately, there are just as many, if not more shameless fiends with no love or empathy for their fellow man, and if there is hell, I do hope; not to be burning alongside them. Living and working alongside the poorer folks has taught me some valuable lessons in this journey of life, respect, family values, and selflessness. I am not a rich man, nor do I think I shall ever be, but I have been exceedingly fortunate. I still lead an eventful life, and I am happy to

Chapter 2

Incredible Journey

One Sunday morning way back in '91, I awoke early with an intense feeling of unease that I just could not explain, like there was a power guiding me along, as if in a dream. On most mornings, I would be up at first light enjoying a cup of coffee, on my veranda, facing the ocean and watching the birds scurrying among the branches of the tall paper bark trees, that stand tall, and wide among the coconut trees scattered along the shoreline. On this particular day, I just went downstairs, got in my car, and drove off.

There was no traffic as I pulled my old Ford wagon onto the Bruce Highway and passed the infamous Leap Hotel, where I occasionally enjoyed a beer or two on the wooden veranda in the shade of the giant mango trees. Besides the weatherboard Pub, there is an oversized statue of an Aboriginal woman holding her baby. The story goes that this poor woman, with her baby, jumped to their deaths from a nearby cliff rather than be captured by the troopers, a long time ago; hence, they called the area, The Leap.

I liked driving my old Ford wagon and enjoyed the early morning drive past the all too familiar landmarks, sugar mills, endless cane fields and little

settlements of red roofed houses, surrounded by mango trees; and off to the side of the houses, were the lofty corrugated roofed sheds that housed the machines that harvested the sugar cane. I automatically slowed down at the 80 Ks sign on the approaches to the town proper. I was just going with the flow and let the invisible hand guide me through the quiet streets of Mackay, and eventually hit the road that led to the Harbour; the deserted four lanes, heading east, into the rising sun, gave me cause to lower the visor. To my left, and right, the tall palm trees swayed to the slight Southeast trades, and that sweet, rotting seaweed, salty, aroma drifted along with me until eventually I could see the waves surging up against the harbour wall, where a couple of fellows were fishing, with long fishing rods. I turned left and cruised slowly past the slipways and shipwrights’ sheds that lay idle at this early hour, these sheds had always seemed a mysterious place to me. I had never gone there, however I did later, dragging yacht parts from the loft, of a disgruntled Shipwright. Perhaps he thought he had better give up the things that I demanded, rather than argue with this tattooed biker with determination in his eyes.

I parked my car and walked towards the open gateway of a boatyard; the South Easter was picking up and was promising 35 knots by noon, I knew. The sound of the waves was muffled, a soft distant booming, and the salt air assaulted my nostrils, whilst the invisible hand, guided me along. I ventured into the yard and walked straight up to a small yacht lying on her side, abandoned and deserted.

She was fibreglass and seemed sound enough; she had no mast, rigging, no fittings; she was free of any furnishings and indeed was just a shell, but I knew in my heart, that I had to have her.

From fervent inquiries, I soon learned that the little yacht belonged to a biker whom I knew well; this was a little surprise to me, as I could not imagine what an ex-Hells Angel would want with a small sailing yacht. I went to see Rocko; he was the manager of a drug rehabilitation Centre. His appearance was, as one would expect an outlaw biker to be, with greased black hair, moustache, pockmarked face, short but solid build and wearing the leather, biker, cut-off jacket. The buildings were a mess; there was lots of trash and a poor folks stink about the place. When peering through a dirty window, within, I half expected to see junkies loitering.

Hey Rocko, what’s the go with this little yacht; I hear you own? I inquired. He answered with that Clark Gable smile and told me that sure enough, he owned the yacht, and he went on to enlighten me about its colourful history. After he was through with his barely believable story, he agreed to let me have the little yacht for what he owed the boatyard. The next day, I paid the boatyard $1,800; hired a flatbed truck and with my little ship secured to my liking, I followed the truck along the highway. The convoy arrived at my house after negotiating the narrow streets and overhanging tree branches, much to the amusement of my friends and neighbours. It drew quite a crowd that day; I hired a crane to lift it off the flatbed and onto my front lawn. The local residents came to watch, but kept their distance, and they amused me with their small talk as I set up the supports that I had hastily built the previous day. The excitement grew inside me as I worked quickly; the neighbours were a little afraid to come too close to this crazy person fussing around his latest project. I was happy, yes happier than I had ever been. I had tapped onto some unknown energy source that drove me on until I finally launched her one year later. The Southeast Trades eased, as they do in the evenings; the sea was a darkening deep blue as the first stars twinkled between the dark tree shapes, and I sat there in the front yard, with a beer in my hand, just looking at my little craft. The nights were too long; I would be up with the first rays of light, and with coffee in hand, go downstairs to my garage and get stuck into the work. I had no plan, no drawings; just guided by a mysterious force that just filled me with a sense of calm confidence. Never once did I doubt my ability to complete this boat, it as if I had been a boat builder in another life; I was being driven, by an unknown force. I did not challenge this, nor did I try to analyse it; I just went with the motion and followed my dream. After all, it was my long-time desire to build a yacht, and navigate the world.

I was extremely happy to learn from that first meeting with my old friend El Rocko that the little yacht was at one time complete, however, the parts were scattered all over the city: including the Drug Rehab Centre. With Rocko's reluctant cooperation, I managed to salvage the rigging and some sails, that I am sure, were in this den of inequity for many years. I went searching for the rest of the parts and found about half of what I should have; the rudder, I located in the Shipwright’s loft I mentioned earlier. Many parts were missing, presumed stolen, or just lost in time, but I had the basics.

Some years Prior, I attempted to restore an old Hereshoff yacht, Huon Pine on Kwela wood frames, flush decked, a dreamy sheer and the famous Hereshoff transom, nicely put together she was. Economic circumstances at the time put an end to the project, and so I decided to dismantle the vessel of all that was useable, the hull finally came to rest in a children's playground; just the thing to inspire some budding pirates from the region's youth, eh. I salvaged the engine, portholes, bronze deck fittings, and boxes of parts that I stored at a friend's farm near Brisbane. It was an exciting day, when I returned to Ball Bay with the Ford, and my monster trailer, full of the parts, and the mast on the roof racks, all destined to be useful once again.

There was, at that time, quite a colourful cast of characters who made up the inhabitants of this quiet, little seaside village, an odd mix of former cane farmers, fishermen, drug dealers, coal miners, single mothers, and former armed force's people. In fact, there was only one retired military man, he looked like someone from a Paul Hogan movie and his wife was a skinny version of Lucile Ball; she kept a low profile and was a soft-spoken woman with impeccable manners. Proper old-fashioned retired Australians they were, they both smoked Rothmans, and I am sure, enjoyed too many Gin Tonics for sundowners. They had a sprawling, low fibro place on a hill overlooking the sea and the driveway was shaded by Paper bark trees. Someone had graciously volunteered my services, to improve that driveway. At the time, I had at my disposal some earthmoving equipment; I had volunteered to take care of the machinery over the Christmas holidays; the machines were all parked in my front yard. One was a small excavator with a dozer blade, quite useful and suitable for forming up the road. My mate Mick, who was always on the lookout for a bit of enterprise, arranged a couple of trucks to haul some gravel from a nearby Council Quarry. He did not provide the holidaying council staff any form of payment, but of course, he charged the ex-army hand a packet, 'seeing as how it is the Christmas holidays, and things are expensive at this time, etc. My old mate Mick explained. We got the nod from a local cane cocky (cane farmer) to drive the truckloads of gravel through his property, for payment, we patched up some of his farm roads. Two houses to my left lived a retired, cane farmer couple, in their 70s but looking fit and well. On some days, they would haul their aluminium, centre console, fishing boat past my place on the way to the beach using an old farm tractor, and my dog would always fly out and bark at them. Oh, shush China, the woman would say to my dog whilst looking quite charming with her scarf over her broad hat and standing on the platform behind the tractor seat, they both looked dead serious about the whole affair. There was talk that the government, in its‟ infinite wisdom, was planning legislation to prohibit the use of these old tractors on the beach. It was, of course, an absurd piece of bureaucratic bullshit as the practice of launching one’s fishing boat from the beach in this fashion at the time was necessary, due to the distance one had to tow your boat at low tide. So, my neighbours seemed to be making a statement as they seriously tractored" by; I wonder what they thought of their wild neighbour, who lived on the corner of their grassy street, and who now had a yacht, in his front yard? They did not say much to me about it, but they were friendly and courteous, and I had the pleasure of an invitation to join them for Christmas Eve drinks on the lawns behind their two-story beach house. Across the way, to my right, lived an old digger who had served time in Korea; he had an enlarged heart, thrombosis, and had a lovely wife who cared so much for him. They would invite me into their house for tea, and I would marvel at the out-dated furniture and her kitchen, cluttered with everything that I remember from when I was a boy at my grandma's house. Their house was a redbrick, English design, and the old gent, like all old, Aussies, had a shed out back where he tinkered with this and that. Like most places in this village, their house had no fence, and neighbours would just walk through their yard as a short cut to wherever they were going. It was that kind of place; everyone knew each other, and they were tolerant of each other. It was normal for someone to wander into their neighbours‟‟ shed to look for something that they might need, regardless of whether the owner was home or not. They did indeed, take what they wanted and return or replace it later, and there were never any quarrels. At times, the old digger would proudly display some project or device and he offered to help with the little yacht.

At the southern end of the village was another street of grass shaded by huge trees with low branches. On this quiet grassy street lived an old fisherman and his Torres Straits Islander wife. He looked like an old prize-fighter with huge shoulders and a broken nose; from the look of his bulk, I could see that he would have been a dangerous adversary in his day. Softly spoken, good hearted and hands as large as I had ever seen. He had a heart of gold and although he was poor, he had a generous nature and cold beer in an old fridge strategically placed on the front veranda. I loved his wife, she was a large woman, and her skin was really black. She had gollywog hair, a big smile, and a generous heart. I would laze away some tropical evenings, chewing the fat on the broken wooden floorboards of their veranda under those big trees, drinking beer, and just feeling that this is how life should be.

I had it in my mind that I wanted to sail the small yacht to Darwin, I mentioned this to my old fisherman friend, and his wife, and soon my intentions became the gossip topic throughout the village. I would often wonder where this suggestion came from; it was not as if I sat down and weighed up the pros and cons or anything of the like. A decision made somewhere in the realms of fate, or maybe I might have just thought it a decent enough story. Who knows?

Perhaps it was just chance that pushed me, accompanied by my girlfriend and baby daughter towards Ball Bay six months prior to all these events. We turned up in this lovely place after deciding to escape that scar on the arid semi desert of Western Queensland, called Mt. Isa. I spent a year working there as an earthwork's supervisor for a construction company. Mt. Isa is a rough and tumble mining town, more times than not I used my fists to sort out work-related problems. The company decided to cancel my contract prematurely after I punched the workshop superintendent in the face, the stress levels at this time were excessive. We packed up the Ford wagon, hooked up the trailer and headed along that long, narrow strip of bitumen back to the coast. I later joked with my friends 'the best thing out of Mt. Isa is the road to Townsville'. We stayed with my good mate, Mick for a while until a place for us to live was available. However, after a short time, my woman decided that she had had enough of me and left, the relationship had taken a turn for the worse. I was a dreadful father, too selfish and always dreaming of things I wanted to do like sailing around the world. The experience left me with an empty feeling that affected me more than I realized, but one does not die; one just carries on regardless. I needed a project, and I needed to get my girlfriend out of my head. I packed up all her remaining possessions in a box and called a freight company to come and take it. Of course, it did not work, and I still felt empty for a long time. I wrote letters to her and asked her to come home, I called her and asked her to come home but deep down, inside I knew I did not want her to return. Thinking back, I am sure she was aware of my true intentions, I needed my freedom to do what I wanted, and now that the hand of fate had me firmly by the heartstrings, there was no turning back.

I was alive again and the creative juices started flowing, I wrote poetry on my front porch whilst sipping my morning coffee, inspired by the beauty of this place and of course, by the task I had undertaken. There was a time when I dreamed of staying here in this beach paradise forever, but in the back of my mind, I knew my restlessness would take me away from this place one day.

Not long after my woman and daughter left, I received a letter from a newly formed government department called, The Child Support Agency; they were demanding that I pay them more than $3000 along with a percentage of my salary for the next eighteen years and were threatening all sorts of action if I did not comply. If I had a gun that day and within the range of anyone from this new department, there would have been blood in the street; this feeling has not left me to this day. I realized from that day on; I would become a fugitive and would eventually leave my country; for me, it was the last straw. My ex-girlfriend agreed with me and did not like this bureaucratic interference in her life any more than I did, and she did not want me to pay maintenance at all. We contacted a politician in Western Australia who was against this new organization, and whose office assisted people to fight them. He arranged so-called End forms for us to fill out, and we submitted these to this abominable department. Their reply was sorry; you will pay. I wanted to fight them; I thought that surely, I would not be the only person against this unflinching new department, and of course; I was right. I soon found a lobby group called Lone Fathers or something to that effect, but after a while I was far from impressed with this lot of losers. Instead of focusing on putting a stop to this bullshit altogether they wasted time discussing petty aspects of the legislation. It did not take long at all for me to realize that their cause was lost, and I was on my own.

I pressed forward with the boat, set up a wood shop downstairs and proceeded to build the interior. I had heaps of Mackay Cedar wood, the interior was taking shape rapidly, and it looked fantastic. I lined the outer cabin sides with the Cedar and installed the bronze portholes; I built the lazerette hatch, companionway-sliding hatch and forward hatch from the cedar, and they all looked great with a few coats of carefully applied varnish. I have never felt such a sense of achievement in my life, and at the end of each day, I would sit there with a beer in my hand and look at what I had done, and it felt very good.

I would occasionally leave the little boat standing in her cradle in the front yard, lock the house, and go off working construction; I needed to pick up the funds.

My best mate Mick became confused; he could see strange, changes in his Gypsie mate and was more than a little worried. Used to be a time when I would come to your place Mick said on more than one occasion, and there would be old Triumphs and Harleys in pieces, now it is all wood. He was right of course; I was going through a life shift and had changed from a wild partying biker to a strange but still violent person who wrote poetry in the mornings and was building a boat in his front yard.

Mick worked with a pipeline company that was busy connecting water to the houses of the beach communities along the coast; he started pestering me to come and drive a small excavator for the company, but I just wanted to build my boat.

One day he turned up with the boss of this outfit, they both climbed the ladder at the transom and sat themselves in my newly constructed cockpit. Then to my horror, my old mate Mick fired up a joint, so I had no choice but to stop the work I was doing below and join them. So, there we were, sitting in the cockpit, passing a joint around whilst Mick told his boss that I was going to work for them and so sure enough I found myself operating a small excavator, digging up the yards of the neighbours‟ houses. We had a motley crew, and we had some terrific times, drank a lot of beer, but I kept up with the boat. The people would come around on the weekend and sit around drinking beer while I worked, Mick's little son Jack was always playing with my tools. He loved to play with my planer machine; he would stick a few bits of wood into it and make planning noises. Neeeeoooooowww he would go; I had to make sure the thing was unplugged, a bit of a worry, but looking back it was a splendid time indeed. Like most boat construction jobs, the progress is not too visible to ordinary folks until the last few weeks. This stage of the build is a tremendously exciting time when one can bolt on all the shiny bits. I finally painted the hull, the decks with non-skid, installed the engine, stanchions, pulpit, push pit (lifelines) and all the deck hardware. I would sit there at days end and just look at this project, revelling in what I had achieved, and I am sure many folks around that small coastal village were doing the same. It was getting close to launching time, so I arranged a trailer to take my vessel to the water; I advertised free beer and a barb que for all helpers. Christ, one young fellow turned up at eight in the morning, still drunk from the night before, and wanting beer; I whacked him in the mouth and told him to fuck off until later.

Eventually, they all arrived, my biker friends and the local hillbillies and what a motley crew they were. At the end of the day, they managed to drink every bit of alcohol in my place, ate all the food, left an absolute mess, and blew up my stereo. We dug the trailer into the ground and winched the newly painted yacht onto it with a Come-along (endless chain block). Then we hooked up a borrowed tractor and towed the whole shebang down to the large grassy area next to the beach where I spent the next week stepping the mast, installing the jib furler, anchor and chain and a multitude of other tasks. I worked tirelessly well into each night; I knew, deep down, that this latest achievement was the biggest ever in my life.

I towed the rigged yacht on the trailer out to the low tide watermark, unhooked the trailer, returned the front-end loader to the shore and waited for the flood. The excitement boiled inside me as I watched her float; I started the engine and was amazed to see the water exhaust actually working. I motored away from the sunken trailer and headed out to deeper water, put up the mainsail, unfurled the jib and turned off the engine. I put the helm over, and she was soon bubbling along as I brought her hard up into the light southeaster. My actions were automatic, handling the sheets and tiller as I checked out the slight luff of the mainsail that told me my shiny new yacht was sailing as high into the wind as she would go. I glanced around at my little yacht and the feeling of achievement, the exhilaration, and the sheer joy of the experience was incredible. I did this; I built this; it works, I said to myself over and over again as I tacked out to sea to clear the point before easing the main and jib sheets to run downwind towards Seaforth Creek where a mooring lay waiting. I saw a few people watching from the point, and I was a proud man indeed, very proud.

Before finally sailing away, forever, I packed up all my tools into my trailer, hooked it up to my car, and left the lot on a farm for safekeeping. Meanwhile, things had deteriorated with my friend Mick; he had his own problems, and so I saw less of him. I gave my dog to some folks to keep, let the house go, rowed my dinghy out to my little yacht with my stores, slipped the mooring, and got underway.

I was cruising; yes, I was cruising. I was sailing my own yacht, now low in the water with my own stores, independent of the land, and I was a happy boy. I sat on the push pit seat,