The full moon shone brightly over the beach and its breaking waves, as the taxi headlights showed the silvery reflections of the crew's life jackets. My flight from the Medical Coordinators' meeting in Fremantle had been 40 minutes late, and then I had been stranded at the airport for another hour waiting for a taxi on a busy Friday night in Broome. The special beach pickup had been arranged by another RCS faculty member, and I had not wanted to inconvenience the ships crew. So it was with relief that I stumbled out of the cab with my single bag and walked down onto the sand. We wrapped the bag in plastic and waded into the sea. Just as I reached the zodiac, a huge wave came in and all hopes for a dry pickup vanished in a wall of water. Laughing, we hurled ourselves into the boat, and headed the mile across the sea to the Leeuwin. The wet arrival was compensated by my first view of the ship at anchor, masts lit from below, riding the moonlit sea.

We signed up to join the Leeuwin cruise at the suggestion of a friend in the RCS. Leeuwin is a Tall Ship, its major mission is educating young people. It's a member of the Australian Sail Training Association. The idea is to put diverse young people together on a Tall Ship for leadership training. From the ASTA website:

Sail training is an outdoor adventure activity for young people. Its purpose is not to teach young people how to sail. It is principally to help them learn about themselves, to discover hidden strengths and talents, to understand the value of others and of working as one of a team. It requires an individual to confront many demanding challenges, both physical and emotional. It is an activity that inspires and develops self-confidence and responsibility, an understanding and acceptance of others whatever their social or cultural background, and a willingness to take a calculated risk. For many it can be a life-changing experience.

Our particular voyage, Broome Leaders, included 29 teenagers, aged 13 to 19, and 5 adults plus ships crew. The kids were from various Kimberley communities: Broome, Derby, Mowanjun, Halls Creek, One-Armed Point, Mandurah, and one from Kalgoorlie. They were about half of European and half of Aboriginal descent. We were bound for Sunday Island, at the mouth of the King Sound (see map).

The Bardi people, the traditional owners of the Dampier Peninsula and many of the islands of the Buccaneer Archipelago gave permission for the trip. Wossie, a Bardi man in my Watch, was our guide.


The first day out we spent literally "learning the ropes". We were divided into 4 "Watches" which worked as teams. Watches set and furl sails together, and take rotating shifts running the ship. You can bet that taking the 0400 to 0800 nightwatch on a sailing ship was a novelty for many of these teenagers. Add that to 35 people sharing 4 toilets, bunk rooms with 4 to 6 in a cabin, and a small deck with no place to hide and you have an intimate experience.

We also learned to climb rigging, with safety harnesses. And there was the ultimate challenge: climb to the top of the 33 meter mast and read the plaque at the top. The climb is steep, and near the top the rope ladder so narrow that I can barely fit my toe into the rung. The tip of the mast is swaying back and forth in the ocean swell, and the narrow ladder twists- suddenly I understand the meaning of the phrase "twisting slowly in the wind".

Each day began at 0630 with music playing throughout the ship. We had morning yoga and exercises. An educational director led both games and informational sessions. We spent a fair amount of time on deck just enjoying the sunshine and the wind. The kids were especially good at spotting wildlife- sea snakes, dolphins, whales, a couple of hammerhead sharks, turtles and schools of tuna. I was amazed by the flying fish- which actually do appear to fly 10-15 meters over the waves.

Night watches were spectacular, with the soft hum of the ships engines, and slap of sail and water against the hull, the huge starry sky overhead. We enjoyed moonrises and sunsets. An unlisted aspect of the voyage was being outside most of the time, working with nature to sail the ship, living the rhythms of the sky and sea.

Dawn of the third day and we were at anchor off Sunday Island. In 1899, several "beachcombers" encouraged members of the Bardi tribe to settle in a mission on the island. This isolated community lived a mostly traditional lifestyle with limited interaction with mainland people until the late 1940s, and was finally closed in the 1960s. The children were forced to move to Derby for schooling, and the elders ended up in One Arm Point. Later many of the younger people moved from Derby back to One Arm Point, but today there are still many family connections between the One Arm Point mob and the Aboriginal communities here in Derby.

We launched the dories from Leeuwin and landed on a beach on the Northern part of the island. This area has rock formations unlike an I have ever seen. It is a conglomerate of small quartz crystals, like coarse rock salt, and very sharp to slide over or sit upon. The tides there are huge. Vicki and I climbed to the top of the rocks and spent an hour or so watching sea turtles feeding just offshore on the reef. Around the corner standing waves were forming as the ocean rushed into King Sound. Despite the tide rising at a rate of about a meter an hour it didn't seem to bother the turtles any. We all had a short swim, with "croc watchers" posted on the rocks around our beach. We took turns being the most seaward "bait" swimmer. I did a bit of swimming with goggles- the tropical fish were abundant.

After lunch we took the dories around and climbed into the central valley of the island to view the ruins of the mission. While it is a special place to the local people, it is also a sad one. The valley is essentially rock- so hard and with so little soil that even septic tanks could not be built. Everything has gone to ruin except a few tin shacks. Its a sad legacy after 100 years.

Earlier one of the boys from One Armed Point spent an hour telling me about learning to hunt turtles, dugong and fish with his grandfather. He clearly was skilled and enjoyed living the traditional lifestyle, as much as is possible in the modern world. Cape Leveque and One Armed Point communities now survive with tourist campgrounds and operate boat charters as a way of earning a living.

We found the young people to be a study in contrasts. One one hand, some of the Broome kids were very worldly, and some of the Aboriginal kids had met Michael Jordon and were fans of the latest hip hop songs. Yet they were simultaneously naive and much less mature than the teens we are used to. At age 17 to 19 many are "just starting to think about what career I might want to have" as one young lady put it. One girl from a remote community confessed to Vicki that she "wanted to be an astronaut". Another told me her plan was to become a mechanic and work in NASCAR. Many of the Aboriginal kids are clearly caught between two worlds, with no good options in either the White world or their own homelands.

We spent Tuesday sailing back from Sunday Island, around the Lacepede Islands, a group of formerly-guano encrusted sand spits that the United States briefly tried to claim from Australia at one time. This bit of trivia led to the quip that, "as usual, the United States wants everyone else's shit", to which we could only smile. Tuesday night we had a Ship's Opera, complete with musical acts, acrobatics, humorous skits and songs. I presented a short lesson on "How to Talk Like a Pirate", complete with red bandanna and eye patch.

We were all pretty tired by debarkation Wednesday morning, but there was also a sense of accomplishment. As the Voyage Certificates were passed out, each person said a bit about what they learned on the trip. We had begun the trip with an interest to see the coast, the wildlife, and the beautiful Archipelago. But we will remember the journey most of all for the young people we met. We wish them well, and hope we contributed some small thing to their life's voyage.

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Leeuwin