Liz all at Sea

by Liz Young

(Based on Mark 4:36–41; Acts 28:27-44)

I’m glad to welcome in Matariki, the Maori new year, with a reflection that starts by honouring the reappearance of Matariki, the Pleiades – stars honoured by cultures all over the world, particularly by sea faring nations in the Pacific. Each island nation celebrates certain stars or characteristics of the Pleiades in their own way. Today is also ‘Sea Sunday’, when we reflect on the glory and beauty of the sea, both during the day and at night. I loved watching the movement of the stars when I was on my night watch, 2-4am, and I’ll talk about the seas’ benefits and its dangers.

John and I were moved to sail the South Pacific by reading We, the Navigators, on the epic Polynesian voyages that took place hundred of years ago.  
But I’ll start by reflecting on the Gospel reading, which tells us how Jesus calmed a storm on the Sea of Galilee. Galilee is an inland sea, a lake, just over a quarter the size of Lake Taupo. How many of you have been frightened by the weather when you’ve been sailing there?
I was introduced to yachting as a twelve-year-old in Malta (where St Paul was wrecked in the epistle reading). And I happily sailed the River Thames at Oxford, hitting the bank every few metres. I’ve sailed across the English Channel in a clinker built 29 foot yacht, continuously leaking, because it had spent two months on the French canals, and had dried out above the waterline. I was very cross with my father.

I’ve felt most comfortable sailing the whole of the South Pacific with my husband John in a steel yacht, built of steel; as, when you’re sailing in the tropics, it’s not that you might hit coral, it’s when are you going to hit coral? But even so I can remember being anchored in a small lagoon when the wind direction changed 180 degrees, at 3am, and we spent the hours till dawn watching the anchor, with the engine idling, prepared to quickly up anchor if it started to drag: and we had anchors that we could trust.
I don’t know how many of you realise that it wasn’t until the last century that anchors were designed that wouldn’t drag. Have you heard the podcast on the lost anchor in Doubtless Bay? Four anchors had been put out that 18th century night, and still that boat blew ashore. So, no wonder the disciples were terrified during a storm on Lake Galilee.

Putting out to sea requires trust, trust in your boat, trust in the skipper, and trust in yourself and your ability to react calmly and appropriately. You learn to trust in God.
And I could trust John because he was always prepared for the worst; for example, although John had learnt to navigate using a sextant, and we always had a sextant on board in case the electrics failed, we also carried three GPS devices.

When there’s an earthquake, it’s best to be at sea. We were sailing towards Western Samoa when the tsunami struck their west coast, and were able to call in at the Red Cross centre and pick up blankets and supplies to take to Nuie Tongatapu, a small island south of Samoa, although we were surplus to requirement as the Tongan navy sailed in right behind us.

We were at sea off Whangarei heads immediately post the 2019 Kermadec trench event, and watched the sea level rise and fall only by a metre, while five kilometres away boats moored in Tutukaka harbour were pulled from their moorings and smashed against the rocks.

We do benefit from the bounty of the sea. We all know that eating fish is good for us; but what is a sustainable limit for us to eat? Two fish a week? The Marlborough Sounds is the only area in New Zealand with a sustainable catch limit of two fish per person that is adhered to. We all recall the local red fish story when a bus load of immigrants caught huge amounts of unprotected red fish (pink maomao) and were stopped by a local hero. And we know that beaches just north of Auckland have been stripped of all edible life by uninformed immigrants. I think that Air New Zealand should add to their obligatory messaging our fishing limits and why we have them, and other conservation information.

John and I also visited Pitcairn Island – the refuge of the mutineers on the Bounty. Do you remember, at the time of the mutiny, Fletcher Christian put Captain Bligh and six other sailors in a dinghy and Bligh navigated them two thousand miles to safe haven in Java? When we were on Pitcairn the only school-aged child was a girl, and the teacher was a Kiwi male, so a local woman had to be there, the whole school day.

John and I enjoyed diving. There are many beautiful dives around New Zealand. Our favourite was at the Mokohinaus, where there is a beautiful hollow rock pillar which you can enter about three metres down and swim down through to exit about 25m down, near the sandy bottom. (I would only go up and down ten metres on the outside of the pillar, but I still called it my Jacques Cousteau dive.)   We visited Fiordland twice. There is ten foot layer of fresh water on the surface that provides light protection, allowing coral (that is only visible at a depth of a hundred feet at the Poor Knights) to be visible at thirty feet there. Magic!

So we’re blessed in New Zealand to have so many wonders of creation to see. In 2000 we sailed to the Chathams. Two memories stand out from that trip: the first, sailing up huge rollers from the south. I likened it to sailing up four double decker buses, dropping down the other side, before climbing up the next one. The second was visiting the ‘Pyramid’, the southernmost rock, uninhabitable and the southwestern-most point of land in the world outside of Antarctica.  It used to be a rite of passage for young Chatham Islands men to climb up to the cave, twenty metres up, and dive off.

We are so fortunate that Sir David Attenborough and his teams have photographed so many of these wild places, both above and below the sea, so we can experience them in the comfort of our own homes. As I said, you learn to trust God while you are at sea. And also to be thankful to all those boaties who are prepared to join the Coastguard and rescue people who get stranded, or experience some other difficulty.
I would also like to mention The Mission to Seafarers in Auckland and Wellington, who provide places to stay for lonely seamen, along with food, comfort and libraries.
Fifty years ago I was grateful to another yachting family who rescued our son and my nephew, as they were drifting from Slipper to Mayor Island in a dinghy without oars, while we were off walking on the island.

So, when you go down to the sea in ships, be safe and enjoy. Wear your life jackets, listen to the marine weather forecast, be prepared – and trust in God. And I hope and trust that the fish populations of our warming seas will have the time to adapt. While we welcome more tropical fish coming to our local waters, species that thrive in cooler water will hopefully move south and continue to thrive there ….