Fiji

1991 -- Again, we got ourselves high and dry here, and this time it was at Suva, the capital. My father didn't see the lights properly, and instead of going to the right side of them, he went on the side that had coral. There are photographs around showing this … and yachties at Suva who had seen us at Bora Bora. They thought it rather humorous to happen twice in a row—undoubtedly thinking Phil a bad sailor.

Another thing that happened here is that my brother fell down the hatch and hurt himself—a jagged cut all of the way down the right hand side of his right knee. It was to the bone; I could see the white cartilege before it started to bleed all over the place. As soon as it happened I ran to the VHF radio and called for help, but unfortunately was rather hysterical, and people didn't understand me. Eventually someone with an outboard motor chugged over and took my brother ashore. When he came back, he had big stitches in his leg. It was up to me to tend to him after that, for my mother went green at the very thought. It remained purple for the longest time after it had healed.

At another island, we stayed at a marina with a number of other yachties, which also had children. They were all older, and one boy appeared to be interested in me. Again I went into ultra-violent mode, and left him with a scar. He didn't seem too put off by it though.

This was in late October, for I clearly remember having a Halloween—one that I didn't participate in. My brother went as a very sorry-looking clown, but had fun. It was a cut-my-nose-off-to-spite-my-face sort of thing, and I didn't go because of feeling a bit distanced from the others. Before that, I hadn't even heard of Halloween, and afterwards, expected that all Australians celebrated it. As I was to find out, this was not the case.