Rainbow Rainbow goes to Sea
Roger Miles
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Rainbow Goes to Sea Published by: Way of the Heart Publishing Australia, 2007 Available from: Way of the Heart ELOHIM Journal PO Box 958, Nerang QLD 4211 Australia Australia Phone: 07 5563 0036 Internationl Phone: +61 7 5563 0036 www.wayoftheheart.net Copyright held by Roger Miles ISBN: 978-0-646-49440-1 Written by Roger Miles Copy editing by Rebecca Zimman Designed and typeset by RIS Designs www.risdesigns.com.au Cover art by Marissa Tilden Nautical line drawings of ‘Rainbow’ by Christine Hill Printed and bound by digitalprintaustralia.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retreival system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without permission of the publisher in writing.
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___________________________________________________ “Her current voyage gives me uneasy feelings. The guardian angel must have to work hard. Nevertheless, the voyage is something I would dearly like to do. Imagine sailing amongst the Tuamotus, to Bora Bora and the Samoans – and on to my beloved New Zealand...” ___________________________________________________ - Christmas, 1973
This is a note on Ben Sivertz’s card to John Rodd ~ one of the original owners of the Rainbow. Forty years earlier Ben had borrowed the boat from John and lived on her while he taught school in Ucluelet, a small town on the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island. He was right. The guardian angel did have her work cut out for her.
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This book is dedicated to Evelyn, my partner in life and afloat for this amazing adventure.
I could never forget to acknowledge my partner and the true captain of the Rainbow – Evelyn. Without you, Evelyn, and your willingness to follow my mad ideas, schemes and dreams, to share in the good and the bad times, the grand adventure, and the times of desperation and worry, none of this – or the subsequent 25 years, including our children, Natasha and Justin – would have happened. Your indomitable spirit through thick and thin and, of course, not forgetting the seasickness, was incredible. We did have fun though, didn’t we? Although we are both having other experiences now, I will never forget, and I will always cherish, the times and the experiences we shared. If at the end we are asked “Did you have a good life?” I think we can honestly say, “It was awesome.” Thank you for being so much a part of it.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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PREFACE
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REFERENCE MAP Sailing around Vancouver Island
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CHAPTER 1 FINDING THE RAINBOW Discovering that life was not what we thought; seeking an alternative; finding the Rainbow.
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CHAPTER 2 THE LADY HAS A PAST A place in history; a romantic past; getting to know “her” intimately.
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CHAPTER 3 BUT WILL SHE SAIL? Rainbow gets to know us and we get taught how to sail by her.
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CHAPTER 4 GETTING REAL Circumnavigation of Vancouver Island: our first taste of the ocean in a boat without a keel.
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CHAPTER 5 THINKING BIG A dream, or nightmare, being realized: so much to learn and no one to give advice.
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CHAPTER 6 ON THE WAY Scroungers, shipwrecks, and the first taste of fear.
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CHAPTER 7 A DUBIOUS DEBUT Losing sight of land; a wild ride; abject terror, and no turning back.
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CHAPTER 8 THE GOLDEN GATE AND GUINNESS A strange port and a warm welcoming. Realising the extent of our new found freedom.
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CHAPTER 9 SOUTH TO SAN PEDRO Where we experience the movement from rags to riches in complete innocence.
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CHAPTER 10 COMING UP ROSES Having that sinking feeling and discovering that miracles are indeed true and possible.
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CHAPTER 11 STILL AFLOAT AND THINKING MEXICO Innocents cause trouble to the U.S. Navy and find friends with a Canadian submarine.
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CHAPTER 12 CHRISTMAS IN BAHIA SANTA MARIA Christmas dinner turns into stormy nights of fear and loss in the surf.
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CHAPTER 13 A BULL IN A SAILING STORY? Stranded mariner meets wild bull.
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CHAPTER 14 MAZATLAN TO MANZANILLO Beached to clean: Rainbow leaks; more leaks, and our serious misgivings.
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REFERENCE MAP Sailing through the Pacific
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CHAPTER 15 THE MILK RUN Escape from land; doldrums; thirty-two days at sea, and eventual landfall.
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CHAPTER 16 NUKU HIVA – THE MARQUESAS The French navy to the rescue, and we join the club of ocean sailors.
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CHAPTER 17 OF LOBSTERS GOATS AND ATOLLS A tale of goats, gendarmes, tamarae dancing, and lobsters in the South Sea Islands.
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CHAPTER 18 TAHITI Discovering the secret stores of abundant food and wine; hauling Rainbow, and dealing with the garboard seams.
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CHAPTER 19 ISLAND HOPPING – LES ISLES SOU LE VENT Moorea, Bora Bora, Huahine, Maupiti – of dreamy islands and coral reefs and small boat passes.
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CHAPTER 20 TONGAN TREAT - NIUATOPUTAPU A strange landfall; a feast; captured and held for extreme hospitality. Aground and laughter on a reef.
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CHAPTER 21 FIJI Danger among the reefs; Fijian friendship; encounter with officialdom and complications.
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CHAPTER 22 GREEN IS BEAUTIFUL A collision at sea; a lightening strike; our fear, restlessness, and ultimate landfall in paradise.
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EPILOGUE
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THE LAST WORD
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__________________________________________________ Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolute nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. __________________________________________________
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Since the year 1587, when Sir Francis Drake sailed a small fleet of ships to fight the Spanish in Cadiz, there has been a Rainbow in the British Navy. That tradition continued to include the light Cruiser, HMS Rainbow, built in 1891, which was sold to form the Canadian Navy and to take up station on the west coast of Canada, based at Esquimalt on Vancouver Island. Subsequently, the name passed to the time of this story, with the 1942-built submarine, HMCS Rainbow. 11
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________________________________________________
The Strange Land This strange and familiar land calls to me across the veils of illusions I once drew ‘round myself in expanding circles of amazing complexity. In that land I once lived, with you. If we dare answer the Beloved’s call will not the veils be shattered and dissolved in the last tears of the Imposter? Then the ocean between this dream-world and the Beloved’s Garden will be crossed in an ark made for us, but not by us. Not of wood or steel is our vessel made but of Love. And the land to which we are delivered is the Real World, shimmering beyond all boundaries, Here. ________________________________________________
Recline in My Soul by Jayem 13
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Acknowledgements
I
would like to acknowledge, with huge respect and appreciation, John Meagher, who originally conceived the idea of documenting the Rainbow story. As part of a Masters thesis, back in the early 1970s, John collected all the letters, postcards and audiotapes that were made during the voyage and sent to our respective parents, and carefully recreated the experience that was lived by Evelyn and I over those years. The thesis obviously satisfied the literary requirements for a Masters degree in English, and John went on to become a professor at a B.C. university. My sincere thanks, John, not only for the work you did so beautifully capturing for all time the moments in this story that would have been long forgotten, but also for the invitation to that party in London in 1967 when I met my first Canadian. I loved your openness, your sense of fun, and the way you created in me the desire to explore Canada, which led to my migration and the journey that is recounted in this book, and from there to opening into a whole vestige of new worlds with 15
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never ending new horizons to reach out towards. It is simply amazing the amount of loving effort that is required to fully commit and bring the memories, the inspirations, the purpose of a book to reality. The greatest gift came to me in the form of two special people without whom none of this would have been possible. Often the unsung heroes in the process are forgotten, in this instance I am bound and delighted to show my appreciation by acknowledging Rebecca Zimman who has unstintingly given of her time and energy, wisdom and literary skills to help me properly formulate this story, all through her love of anything to do with rainbows. And, my sincere thanks to Marissa Tilden, who has taken such care of the layout and design of this book, among all the other graphic work she does for me, always supportive with suggestions and ideas, extremely patient and bringing forth a wonderfully professional quality. My thanks to each of you. It’s been so much fun! �
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Acknowledgements
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Preface
Rainbow W
hen I first considered putting this story into book form I had several reasons for thinking ours was an adventure worth narrating. We had just sailed a very old wooden ketch six thousand miles from Vancouver Island to New Zealand, a feat we felt was singularly impressive since we had, virtually, to learn how to sail and navigate along the way with no charts and inadequate sextant knowledge. It was a journey of faith into the unknown that really became an adventure; exciting and sometimes terrifying. When I started to put the words down on paper, I began to fear that perhaps it wasn’t so dramatic after all. For one thing, we made it safely. No tragedy. No pirates. No collisions (serious ones anyway), stowaways, capsizing, or anything of that nature; only a year and a half of sometimes marvelous, sometimes downright miserable, experiences aboard a very ancient, thirtyfoot sailboat; experiences we shared with a cat named Gypsy, who liked swimming. But maybe that, in the end, is what makes it worth the telling. My wife, Evelyn, and I were fairly representative of a good many young couples no different from today. We began this venture with no money, no definite goals in this life, no special 19
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talents, just lots of dreams. We plunged without much thought - and it changed our lives. Interestingly, although Evelyn and I are no longer sharing our life’s journey together, we can never be truly apart because of the experiences of that time aboard our boat, and the twenty five years that followed. It is only now, with thirty years hindsight and a new perspective, that I can evaluate the experience. I see now the hand that sculptured our circumstances and experiences along the way, I feel now the Presence that gave us the courage, and I have come to know the gentleness of the wings on which we sailed. While the basic and obvious story is in itself an amazing adventure of courage and determination, now I can tell it from the higher perspective, sharing the unravelling through these pages, of what the voyage and our adventure was really all about – a complete metaphor for life, all packaged into one circumstance of time and space, and our human relationship with all things, including an old wooden boat. I offer this story to the reader, and especially in tribute to my beautiful partner in this adventure, my now ex-wife, who at the time, like me, unknowingly participated in an awakening in consciousness, the full effects of which are only just now being truly felt at the level of the soul, some 30 years later. Part of our story deals with: escaping the ‘rat race’, how we came to make the voyage, the places we visited, and the multitude of amazing circumstances that happened along the way. Perhaps you, the reader, will enjoy the tale and be inspired one day to also drop everything and do something equally outrageous and rewarding; and perhaps, like me, you will come eventually to see the hand of God upon whose palm you journey without any awareness that you are at all times held – even on an old 20
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Preface
wooden boat in the middle of the ocean. Mostly, this is the story of the Rainbow, a converted Royal Navy ship’s pinnace, built in Newcastle on Tyne in 1891, that became the magic carpet for a couple of young people who were willing to forgo a life of safety and security to find themselves through a voyage to the land to which we were delivered, the Real World, shimmering beyond boundaries, here in the South Seas.* Come join with me, to scheme and plan and voyage together – to the South Seas – in this tale of youth, adventure and old wooden boats. ❊
*Recline in My Soul, Infinity Publishing (Dec 2002), “The Strange Land”, by Jayem, page 37.
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Rainbow Goes to Sea
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Sailing Around Vancouver Island
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___________________________________________________ Men go abroad to wonder the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering. ___________________________________________________
St. Augustine
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1 Finding the Rainbow
H
ave you ever flown over the coast of British Columbia on a cloudless morning? If you have, I really don’t need to explain how we came to take up sailing. From the moment I saw the Gulf Islands spread out beneath me on a crystal spring morning, I was convinced Evelyn and I must have a sailboat. Returning to Vancouver that night, I talked more of the possible delights of sailing in these waters, with their countless bays and inlets, than of the job interview which had been the purpose of my visit to Vancouver Island. I took the job, and sailing became the chief rationalization we used to convince ourselves that the move to the Island would be advantageous. I suppose sailing always had some of the same magic quality to it that skiing had for me. I had a passion for skiing from years in the Austrian Alps, and a little more in Ontario, and more in Vancouver, but sailing was still the big untried adventure. In one respect it was much like buying a house for us: we assumed that one day we would do it. However, the idea of combining the projects, house and sailboat, had certainly never occurred to us. 25
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If someone had suggested to us then that within a few months we would be chucking our jobs and pouring all our savings into overhauling an eighty-something-year-old, thirty-foot ketch, we would have exchanged knowing glances and polite but condescending laughter. Yet within six months of moving to Vancouver Island, with virtually no sailing experience and not much of a down payment, this is precisely what we did. What possessed us? I’m not sure I can answer that in any clear fashion. At the time, at least, there seemed nothing particularly symbolic in the fact that our first meeting was in a Toronto swimming pool atop a thirty-storey high-rise, yet throughout our twenty-eight years together, the sea played the dominant role. During that first summer together on the shore of Lake Ontario we did manage to go out on a boat a few times in return for helping with some odd jobs of painting and varnishing at a yacht club. It was our first sailing adventure. This was our clever alternative to fighting the weekend rush from the city of Toronto north to the lake district. At this point, having known each other for at least a month, we had already planned to marry and move west to British Columbia, but the attraction was mountains and snow rather than water. I don’t think Evelyn or I were particularly security conscious – or security unconscious; at least no more so than the average couple in their twenties who were looking for a place to put down roots and join the comfortable middle, or preferably upper-middle, class. Initially, I had ideas of making my fortune in Canada in the ski industry, with eyes on the developing, new-at-that-time, resort at Whistler Mountain. Our move to Victoria on Vancouver Island was a forward, or upward, one for my career. I was leaving a job in Vancouver with the Grouse
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Chapter 1: Finding the Rainbow
Mountain Ski Resort to take a managerial position with a hotel in Victoria, while Evelyn was transferring to another travel agency. Even more important at this juncture, than the urge to get ahead financially, was the desire to get away from city life. I spent the first twenty-three years of my life, or most of them, in London, England, and in hotel training in Austria, before coming to Canada in 1968. Then it was Toronto where I met and married Evelyn, and a few months later that we moved to Vancouver. A year in a Kitsilano apartment convinced us that, beautiful as it might be in some ways, soggy Vancouver was still too much of a city for our liking, and so we decided on Victoria. We were still thinking in conventional terms in our efforts to escape some of the annoying features of city life, but the real deeper meaning of escape had not yet surfaced to become a major factor in our lives. With two good incomes, we quickly adopted a very good lifestyle: we had rented a spacious, new apartment, bought new furniture, had the best stereo equipment, a new car, and could afford to enjoy the good life. For our first year together we were doing just great. Fulfilling our promise to ourselves came next: and we bought our first boat three weeks after settling into our new jobs. A cursory search had taken us to the Van Isle Marina in Sidney where we found an attractive eighteen-foot English sailboat with shallow draft twin keels – perfect it seemed for those notorious high and low tides that are the bane of full keel boats trying to get anchorage in the many inlets of the British Columbia waterways. She was a pretty blue (the big selling point), fibreglass, and well kept up. The owners wanted three thousand dollars for their little Alacrity. Every penny we had went into
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the purchase, but with adequate cash flow that was not a serious consideration. We had the boat taken around to the Oak Bay Marina, which was close to our apartment in Victoria, and, overnight, we metamorphosed into sailing enthusiasts, with much more enthusiasm than actual know-how – a pattern that was to prevail and was perhaps an essential ingredient in much of our sailing lives in the future. Our first sail involved sailing across the bay right through the middle of two big racing fleets of yachts coming towards us, onto the beach on the far side (courtesy of the twin keels), tying to a tree, and then taking the bus home for lunch. We then went back in the afternoon and sailed the boat back to the marina. Eventually, though, we did learn to turn the boat around while under sail. In my life, getting comfortable and complacent is a sure invitation to change, but, of course, then I was too young to see the patterns under close scrutiny. And so it was that Fate took a hand that summer at the hotel where I worked. My integrity was brought to the fore by the behavior of the management. I decided that the writing was on the wall and one more confrontation with orders to comply with what I felt was unacceptable would lead me to being very quickly unemployed. Having personal principles and being willing to defend them in middle management is not an appreciated quality and clearly there was little chance to replace my job in hotel management in Victoria with the income stream we had become so quickly used to. Not enjoying being vulnerable made it clear that, if we were to stay on the Island, a reduction in outgoing living costs was
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Chapter 1: Finding the Rainbow
going to be a priority and that it was better to do so in advance of the potential income loss. So although we had enjoyed the ‘high life’ for a while, it was with little regret that we started to down size. Looking back now, I see how downscaling has become a theme in my life. I have no trouble acquiring, and it appears that the universe and my soul have no trouble creating scenarios whereby I am called to ‘let go’ and start again. This was just one of those times. You might think, then, the reoccurring nature of this experience calls for careful introspection, and I assure you that it does receive a lot. What I have come to realize more recently is that each apparent setback in my life has been, or is, in fact, a setup to move me to another level. This is not usually apparent when I am attempting to get something, or to have things ‘my way,’ and life has other ideas. I have learnt slowly that the eventual outcome is perfect, although at the time it seldom appears so. Sometimes I wish for a quick overview of what the ‘big picture’ looks like – I am sure this would solve a lot of pain, and, many times during our time with Rainbow, an overview of the outcome would have been a real gift. The new TV went back, the new car was next, removing the car payments and leaving us with an economical ‘banger’. We set about looking for cheaper accommodation, which led us to the little sailing town of Sidney, and Mrs. McVeigh’s ground floor apartment, enhanced with lawns, complete with ducks, stretching down to the water’s edge. It wasn’t all bad after all. In July of that year, a friend had discovered a family living aboard a 38-foot sailboat in one of the Sidney marinas. This was the first time we had heard of combining house and boat
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as an option, so we went to see how that concept played out. The very fact that a family of four could lead such an existence intrigued us. After a couple of visits we were invited out with them for a long weekend. What a setup that was. We sailed around Salt Spring Island, an easy, leisurely sail, with Evelyn and I lazing while our hosts did the work. In one sense, I guess Michael and Jean Betts have to take the responsibility for leading us astray. We were totally seduced by the freedom and fresh air; by sails drawing the boat past beautiful and alluring islands; dropping anchor in deserted bays; evenings spent with the gentle lapping of water against the hull; gimbaled oil lamps casting flickering glow on the varnished bulkheads; of being captivated by romantic stories of Mike’s navy days aboard submarines, tales interlaced with mystery and rumors of ghosts in Malta and Scapa Flow. We will be forever grateful. That is when it all began to take shape, this wild notion of getting out of the apartment and living aboard a sailing boat with low costs and cruising wherever and whenever fancy and the winds dictated. But it was still decidedly in the dream stage, the sort of fantasy we all nurture and keep in reserve to help us get through the grey days of winter. Right after that weekend I was at the brokers in Victoria sharing the dream and getting really involved with the new language that goes along with any new idea. The kind of boat we talked longingly of, when we dared verbalize the dream, would have taken years of saving. Often we toured marinas and picked out likely candidates; they were always sleek, new, shiny yachts capable of sailing anywhere.
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Chapter 1: Finding the Rainbow
Generally, it was something in the neighbourhood of forty feet which caught our eye. Then somehow, as the weeks passed, this little game of makebelieve altered in nature. We were meeting more people like the Betts who were actually doing what we were only pretending we might one day attempt. A few were living aboard their vessels. Some were renting lodgings while they worked to save enough for their next voyage. Others had just tied up for awhile for a change of pace and to make repairs. Most of these people had boats that were far from new, sleek or shiny – but many of them had sailed just about everywhere. Interestingly, we noticed that the more basic the boat, the greater the adventures being experienced. Our dream ‘yacht’ began to take on new specifications – ‘boat’. We began thinking in terms of a down payment the size of our tiny savings account, and of living aboard while we fixed up a boat and paid off the balance. This is where our story really begins, when we started looking in earnest for a larger boat. In September of 1970, we found her. I won’t attempt to describe the disappointing, frustrating weeks of searching, of looking at boats that had a year of mortgage payments for every foot, of days when we were determined to let the whole business slip back into the realm of fantasy forever, and we would slip back into the tide of the sane and sensible. I am sure anyone who has looked for a piece of property, a house, or that Porsche they would have to be utterly mad to even think of buying, has experienced the same feelings. Most of us have tastes so far beyond what we can truly afford that it becomes comic. It’s funny because, just as Evelyn and I had reached an all-time low in our search, and had just about abandoned any serious notion of finding a boat we could afford, we went to
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visit the Betts again. After listening to us bemoan our plight for awhile, Michael slipped in a sneaky question. “Just how much can you afford to pay?” See how they trapped us, the devils? We hadn’t dared name a figure before, that way we could always fall back on the old “it’s too much” ploy. But Michael would have a figure. “Maybe we could go as high as five thousand.” I’m sure my voice barely made it over the four feet separating us. “It’s not much to pay for the kind of boat you’re after,” he replied, adding, “A reasonable sailboat usually runs around $1,000 a foot.” Then he sat there thinking for a moment. “But there’s always the old Rainbow.” “Old what?” I asked. “Old Rainbow,” Jean piped up, getting in on the plot. “You’ve seen her over on A Dock; the blue one with the black masts.” We had walked by the boat they referred to – without considering her for a moment. But then, she didn’t have a “For Sale” sign on her, so maybe it wasn’t just because she looked so bedraggled that we had ignored her. “Come on, let’s go take a look.”
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