Unexplained Disappearances On Oceans When Sailing

Sailing is both a serene and potentially dangerous pastime. When a yacht leaves the sight of civilisation, anything can happen. No one can help, and no one is there to witness anything. If someone falls overboard, no one can confirm how it happened. Bodies are rarely found.

Was there an accident at sea? Could it have been a deliberate act of murder? Was it suicide or an error of judgment?

Let’s not get too dramatic too quickly. No one died while I was on the water. I’ve sailed past that horizon and lived to tell the tales in my books. I’ve seen the open sea’s vastness. I’ve been alone for extended periods, with no land or anyone in sight. Life turned out okay.

Dark fiction and sea-deaths aside, I went out there to seek the endless horizon, to experience infinity for myself.

But it was a sample size of infinity. I went just far enough to get a feel for it.

I spent my solo time just off Queensland’s coastline. As long as I stayed within 12nm of Australian shores (and had my VHF radio close), I felt okay continuing to sail by myself.

Sailors reading this know that this is the equivalent of taking a car out of its garage and driving it to the end of the street. You can’t see home, but you could walk back if you had to!

Moreton Bay was my training ground. It’s not quite an ocean, but due to its size, it behaves like one. I managed to clock up 200 sailing hours within the bay before I decided to head out and do what’s known as a coastal trip.

(My next two novels include Moreton Bay sailing narratives; see bottom of this post for info.)

Coastals are said to be safer than ocean crossings. Remaining in sight of familiar land gives sailors a sense of security. I wanted that. I wanted infinity AND safety.

Is that too selfish to ask for?

I planned to live on my 27-foot sloop, Last Laugh and sail her around Australia while writing my novels.

A short voyage to Fraser Island would be my trial long voyage, a way to measure fuel, electricity, and water consumption while I was at sea and experiencing life in confinement. I could sail to Fraser Island in a day and then sail back the next day.

That wasn’t how I’d do it, but it gives you a sense of the distance and how safe the location is. In reality, I wanted to stay there for ten days and then head back if the weather allowed.

I did just that; the first part of it went according to plan.

The trip out of the bay went well. It was a pleasant twenty-four-hour voyage, with about eighteen of those hours spent on the open water. Another port lay along the way, but I was determined to forgo a stopover and push on to the Wide Bay Bar and Inskip Point.

I knew I’d achieved a significant milestone by making it through the notorious Wide Bay Bar unscathed.

I thanked the ocean’s grace for the safe passage as I settled into the placid waters beyond the potentially turbulent undercurrents (and overwash) associated with the bar.

It was time to take a deep breath and enjoy the moment. And it was worth it doing it.

The straits were calm and picturesque, offering cosy nightly anchorages along Fraser Island’s entire length. For two weeks, I explored them, the island’s shores and all its sights.

And then playtime was over — the experiment came to a close. I turned toward home and dealt with the Wide Bay Bar a second time. That’s when everything unravelled.

I made a terrible mistake and chose the worst time to cross the bar and re-enter the open sea. It wasn’t windy when crossing it, but it had been windy overnight and for many days before. The waves take time to settle and I didn’t know that.

It got hairy, and I couldn’t stop once I started. I had to deal with the consequences of my mistake and keep going. Those waves came out of nowhere. Some were higher than my mast.

And they kept coming.

I couldn’t turn and outrun them. Once the first one presented itself, the next followed. They were relentless. So I pointed the boat’s nose over the first curling wave and felt my yacht lift to the sky and then fall seven metres off the wave’s back.

This sequence repeated itself for twelve more hours!

I was committed to battling that raging sea whether I liked it or not. I became mentally and physically exhausted. I didn’t think I’d make it. Only adrenaline kept me going.

In retrospect, I decided that solo ocean sailing wasn’t for me. It takes a special kind of person to sail alone. Patience and psychological endurance matter. I’m patient, but fear prevails. I didn’t want to drown, and I don’t like living with fear.

It would’ve been days before anyone would’ve known to look for me or my boat if something went wrong. By then, my body would’ve been lost to the saltwater and sharks. Fragments of my vessel might’ve been the only memorial to my existence.

I didn’t die. I lived. I sold the yacht and went on to write novels anyway.

SEETHINGS 2 came out of my sailing experiences, and it’s now available to be read on SMASHWORDS.COM. Someone on a yacht goes missing. Another sailor discovers a body caught on his yacht’s propeller at an anchorage. The body wasn’t supposed to be found.

But it was.

The rest is mystery, sex, and dark adult fiction.

–Michael (Dark Fiction. Author of SEETHINGS (the first book), free for a limited time)

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