#2

December 1988

I knew almost immediately that I had a small life growing inside me, I had this small ache low down in my tummy which I had not experienced before. With the frequency of our love making I guess it was inevitable that I would crack the jackpot so to speak. Even with my advancing years and the fact that I was only fertile for a brief few hours each month, I had given a lot of thought to the remote possibility of becoming pregnant and believed that I was old enough and tough enough to be able to cope on my own.

I kept my thoughts to myself as each day passed, I still had the small ache low down and guessed that I would know soon enough as my period was due at the end of the month. If it did not appear well then I would definitely have to face the fact that I might probably be a mum in a few months time. Co-inciding with this exciting prospect was the fact that I was going off on a sailing trip from Melbourne across the Bass Strait to Tasmania with a good friend of mine - yes you know him.

We set off on a wild and windy morning; it was Boxing Day 1988. We set off from Warneet, travelled down past Hastings and Flinders and out into the Strait. The seas were quite rough but the yacht was made for these conditions and M is a fantastic and experienced sailor. We were intending to sail day and night to reach Flinders Island and some relative calmness in shelter there, but we did not make it ....... not that day. I had been sailing in dangerous conditions before but after 12 hours sailing we encountered gale force conditions, 65 knots of wind which meant that we were sailing into real storm weather. All around us were grey mountains of water topped with flying windswept spray, toppling and pushing us in all directions as we relentlessly went up, down enormous walls of lumpy water.

I went below on one instance, to relieve myself, it took half an hour to go down below, make my way to the head, undo my clothing and wedge myself against the walls to do my business, dress up again, make my way back again through the companionway to up top again. I looked at the portholes on the starbord side and found myself looking into dark green water .. we had been knocked down flat. Our yacht was a beauty, a S and S 34 footer and sturdy in these treacherous seas, bobbing safely along like the proverbial cork. She came up again - I don't remember how many times we were knocked down but never once did I lose my faith in both the boat and her owner.

Hours and hours passed, conditions worsened and darkness was four hours away when M decided to turn back and make a run for Waterloo Bay on the other side of Wilsons Prom. We gently turned so that instead of going up and down the waves three quarters on, they were at our back, so the movement of the yacht was more comfortable for our poor tired bodies. Sitting in the cockpit looking back, or actually it was behind and up, the tops of the mountains behind us were at least 60 to 70 feet high, it was akin to riding a roller coaster backwards whilst going forward at the same time. Pretty exhilarating while being in a precarious situation. We soon saw some rocky islands such as skull rock and recherche and knew our ordeal was soon to end, but the seas had not finished with us yet. Obviously the water was becoming shallower and the wave action was shorter and sharper than before. I remember we were absolutely screaming down the side of a huge wave and down in the bottom of the trough there was an enormous whirlpool, way larger than our boat and I remember thinking to myself as we were hurtling down, out of control, that if we got into that we could literally just fall down to the sandy bottom then get covered up with thousands of metres of water, never to be found again. We were fortunate enough to just skim the lip of that thing then we were swept up another mountainous wall. We looked at each other and never spoke of it to each other .. ever, even to this day.

After two or three more hours we went around the side of Wilsons Prom and found shelter in Waterloo Bay, the sea was calm. We caught some flathead for dinner then had an early night - every muscle in our bodies was exhausted from the battering we had received for the previous 24 hours, I think we were very lucky that day. The next day dawned calm and sunny, it was totally unbelieveable after the day before. The seas were almost flat with only the tiniest swell so we almost effortlessly made our way across Bass Strait to the east coast of Tasmania. I will continue with your early days next letter.

love from Mum XXXXXXX