2000 Leagues across the Indian

By Thomas Frayne

The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion; it is the Living Infinite – Jules Verne (1870)

To Mr. Verne, writing in 1870, the sea is a mystery. It contains neither the occupancy of man, nor the savagery of his will. Over a century later, one young man shared this philosophy and set about on a voyage to sea that would forever alter his perspective and aspirations. Philip Frayne, born 1952, was the youngest son of Frederick and Rita Frayne, and second youngest of five children. At an early age Phil found his fascination with seafaring aboard his Grandfathers boat, of which his brothers would hear no end. The ocean played a vital role in phil’s formative years, he was taken with surfing and this free and welcoming lifestyle appealed to a young man who had grown up with the leftist ideals of the 60’s and 70’s. After finishing school, as most young men do, Philip travelled to Europe and Britain. While abroad, Phil’s ideals led him into a certain sort of perplexity with the world. America was fighting the impoverished nation of Vietnam in an unjust war, segregation plagued Africa and the Beatles had split up. Such was the voraciousness of the “civilized world” that the young man dreamt of an escape. After returning to Australia and moving to Sydney, Philip’s passion for sealife was once again re-ignited, racing yachts with an old employer around Sydney harbour just a small hint at things to come.

However, the Sydney life came with all the cluster and confinement one might expect, hunger for adventure began to call for action, and at the close of the 1970’s Philip made his way north, to Cairns in expectation of employment and with the ultimate goal of setting sail. One morning, an opportunity presented itself in the form of a want ad, posted on the Cairns Footloose yacht club noticeboard:  A young family looking for extra set of hands about 45 foot sloop, bound for South Africa then on. John Gardener, his wife and two young daughters shared Philip’s dream of travelling around the world through the waters, living at natures every whim, and escaping the hostile culture and endless politics the Cold War had fostered. The journey began in Cairns and took them north, along the East Coast until they reached Lizard Island. Whilst landed at Lizard Island, the first bump in the road appeared; John managed to break his leg whilst climbing on the rocks that scattered the beach. Phil and the family managed to sail the boat north to Thursday Island, where John was flown back to Sydney accompanied by wife and children. Determined to sail on after the injury healed, John entrusted the boat to an experienced seaman named Ray, who would take the boat to South Africa where John would re-join the crew. The drink had filled Ray with an overbearing attitude; he was quick to criticize and uncomfortable to talk to, though he took charge of the boat with determination. This hiccough also added another member to the crew, a rather listless man known only as Halliburton (or Halli as he came to be known). He was the easy going sort, though to Philip he seemed inane, a follower; one who would struggle to find his way to the top. Though the estranged pair provided company, it was not without a certain tension that the three co-existed.

With the new crew all attuned, the journey took them round the northern cape of Australia. Here, in deeper, more expansive ocean, the dream of the young man had become an envious reality. The open ocean, calm or seething, gave certain clarity on the scope of nature. The scale of the world and the insignificance of man on its surface, seemed a much more simple concept to grasp aboard a vessel of three, less than fifteen metres long. The troubles and calamity of the outside world drifted away and the sailor was lost in the routine of sailing. This feeling endured past the crews landing at Darwin and onto the open Indian Ocean. After the addition of several crew at Darwin, their journey through Australian waters continued North West to Christmas Island and eventually west to the Islands of Cocos before sailing across the Indian Ocean bound for South Africa.

Days drift by at sea. There is a routine one makes himself familiar with, it is this that captured Philips love for navigating the high seas. Each day the sails must be manipulated to stay on course and different winds call for different courses of action (beit far from this writer’s ability to try and guess at each manoeuvre), But to Phil it was the life. Sea air rushing through the skin as sails are furled and fixed, the ancient methods of capturing the vessels position on the globe with merely a compass and sextant. A life of substance and order, of methods utilized by the greatest navigators of all time, a life of peace, above all else. Far more that can be said for the world of the early 1980’s. Navigating from Christmas Island to Cocos Island, the West Indian culture showed itself in variety and contrast. From the free labour phosphorous mining community on Christmas islands to a culture, just throwing off the shackles of autocracy and feudalism under the Clunies-Ross family on Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The latter of these islands served as the final supply stop before crossing the Indian Ocean to Rodriguez, however very few Malay inhabitants of Cocos Islands were present at the island market, having been segregated to the northern (or Home) Island. This system of segregation would appear again in South Africa, however with more racist undertones, and would drive Philip’s ideals of liberty and equality even further to the left. However, leaving Cocos, the young seafarer was filled with enthusiasm and determination in the wake of the fare across the Indian Ocean.

The wide open sea, a 45 ft. boat in the middle of a 73 million square kilometre ocean, a simple shrug from nature and this tiny vessel might disappear forever, its fragments lost underneath the vast blue sea. Standing at the prow and gazing back over the boat it is this perspective that strikes the young Philip, worrying, yet at the same time exhilarating, to truly feel the scope of the earth. Are we not all at the mercy of nature? Has it not the ability to break open cities, to wash away towns? Yet it is so often taken for granted by its inhabitants. While credit is given to the calamitous wrath of nature, so to must it be given to the keen survivalism of man. On a bright day upon the ocean, a strong headwind required sails be furled and fixed to the boom. Whilst furling this sail, young Philip, leaning on an unfastened boom, was cast overboard into the windy seas. Fighting to remain on the surface and to find a way back to the boat, he caught on to a trail of fishing wire that leads back from the stern. The sensation of wire rushing through clenched hands can only be imagined and it soon had to be let go. Having been at sea for almost 8 weeks now, Phil knew, even as soon as he had touched the water that, if he lost the boat, soon after he might lose his life. Spotting a tiny figure in a vast ocean is a veritable needle in a haystack. Luckily, his grasp found the log (a long rope attached to the stern used to determine speed) and was carried under the waves until the boat came to a stop.

Unmarred by the near fatal experience upon the high seas, Philip was more than willing to get back on the horse, and, after 18 days on the open Indian Ocean, the little vessel made it back into populated waters. Their next ports before landing in South Africa were several small Islands off the East African coast. As the journey began to wind down, so too did the nature of the islands societies the crew visited. The boat was greeted by some hundreds of children at Rodriguez, fascinated by the only Europeans currently on the Island. Mauritius, a large tourist hotspot, began to feel more like home than those Islands in Australian water. By this time the crew had whittled its way up to five, and the mood on board took varying degrees of tension. Being confined for nearly a year on a 45 ft. boat certainly took its toll on relationships, but Philip kept his cool and diplomatically kept himself in favour with those that he could. But as the boat sailed on from Mauritius to Jeffery’s bay in SA, Philip had grown tired of subservience on another man’s vessel, he needed his own craft, his own crew, people he could relate to. Thus, it had come time for Phil’s journey to end; landing in South Africa, strict immigration rules dictated that the crew may only leave by plane back to Australia or to sail on. Opting for the former, Philip left South Africa some weeks after arriving, resentful at being embroiled in the savage racist affair of the apartheid by much of the population.

This departure from Johannesburg signalled the end of a beginning. After arriving back in Australia Philip would go on to write his own adventures around the pacific islands, with much more desirable company. It would not be until 1991, and the arrival of a son (the author of this story) that Philips sailing years would have to be shelved until a later date. But as he reminisces the old seafaring days, a certain desire seems to light itself once more. Memories of such adventure are not so quick to die, and it is with excitement that one might imagine that the greatest adventure is yet to happen.