Sail away from it all
Recently, Ron and Petrina Coomer and their four children, from Mackay in North Queensland, took a holiday that whisked them as far away from their busy lives as was possible, and yet they only had to travel two hours north to Shute Harbour. There they hired a wind-powered catamaran from one of the many charter boat companies, and set sail for six nights for one of the most peaceful weeks of their family life.
Instead of updating their status on social media, they tuned into the mainland’s radio support of a morning to charter their day’s course and receive the daily weather and sailing report. Instead of logging on to explore the cyber world by search engine, they dived deep with snorkels to explore underworld by flipper and duck dives. And instead of setting an alarm clock, they rose with the sun and went to sleep under a blanket of bright stars, drugged drowsy by a long sunset and the gentle lapping of calm waters.
“We had a lovely and quiet six days aboard our eight-birth catamaran,” Petrina said. “And we often had to work together to chart our course and work the sails.”
“We barely used the fuel on board and managed to sail where we wanted to go by the power of the wind,” Ron said. “It was a pretty affordable and easy holiday for a family of six.”
“We had plenty of things to do,” Amelia, the oldest, said. “We played cards, strummed our guitars, and just sat back and stared at the sky and the endless water.”
“The boys loved the snorkelling and fishing and were so tired at night they devoured their meals and went straight to bed. It was the earliest we had gone to bed of a night and then rose of a morning, in years,” Petrina added.