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Scantily clad in the Whitsundays

SORRY I missed last week.

I was on a boat. A yacht, actually. Sailing down to the Whitsundays. And if anyone else tells me what a lucky bastard I am I’ll keelhaul them.

This wasn’t a holiday. This was work. Delivering a yacht back to its owners as quickly as possible. Three sweaty blokes trapped for seven days in a space the size of Holden station wagon, but without any of the luxuries.

And no bitumen under you. Just water. Lots of it. With holes in. I didn’t know that. I thought water found its own level, which is generally flat; but it’s not true. Out there beyond Magnetic Island the water is piled like chunks of granite. You plummet into holes; and lumps of it fall on your head.

There’s a load of tommy rot talked about sailing. I’ve seen the brochures. Scantily clad maidens lounging on sun-soaked foredecks sucking daiquiris through straws while their skins turn bronze.

Well, all right… the sun on the decks was true. It managed to strip the skin right off the tops of my feet. How come they don’t tell you that in the Slip, Slap, Slop advertisements?

All those warnings about wearing a hat and lathering your body in 30+ sunscreen, while the bit that really takes all the heat is the tops of your feet!

Your head, too, if you’re as bald as I am, but you can always wear a hat. And yes, you can always wear shoes. But on a boat — sorry, yacht — you don’t. It’s more nautical to go barefoot.

It’s also more stupid. My blistered feet now sport toes like plums. Do you know how many bits stick out of the deck of a sailing boat! And all of them made of steel. You couldn’t lounge on the foredeck of your average yacht unless you were made of treacle. There just isn’t the space. It’s taken up with inflatable dinghies, and sails, and eyebolts.

And I can tell you from personal experience that when you’re beating to windward in 30 knots of wind across water that resembles loosely heaped granite, a daiquiri is out of the question. We had warm water. And cornflakes.

That’s the other things about sailing boats – everyone wants to be on them; nobody wants to be in them. Not when they’re moving. And they’re always moving. Even when they tied up against the east coast of Australia they’re moving.

The only time they don’t move is when you take them out of the water and glue them to a slab of concrete. And, trust me: when they’re moving, no one wants to go below decks and concoct exotic cocktails. Opening a packet of cornflakes is about as good as it gets.

But I’m being ungrateful. We did get to do Scantily Clad. It’s just that neither Andy nor Dave are really that exciting when they’re scantily clad.

They say that after seven days at sea you can smell the land when you’re getting near it, But after seven days with Andy and Dave all you can smell is… well, Andy and Dave.

It was an experience, and that’s a Good Thing. We learn from experiences like these.

We learn to avoid them.