Transformation: The grip of Oz

By Cindy Sawyer, photographs by Ty Sawyer

updated 6:17 p.m. ET March 2, 2006

The wind was like medicine. There were only two of us on deck. The captain, Nick, had the good sense to stay in the pilothouse of the square-rigger, the Coral Trekker. Every now and then he’d pop his head out the door to check the sails and rigging. When he did, the squall would whip his hair into a frenzy that looked like a hundred coiled snakes battling for space on his head. He’d look at me as if I were crazy, rub his hands over his mutton chops as if considering my rescue, then shake his head, shiver off the chill and slide the door shut.

I stood beneath a jungle of halyards and sheets that whistled and rippled with the gusts. Massive ochre-colored sails, whose square shapes seemed more appropriate for a ship at Captain Cook’s command, filled taut with an unseasonable gale, a “bit of a blow,” Nick had said with grinning understatement. But he’d laid out canvas from the topgallant to the mains with the wild relish of a sailor ready to outpace the wind, and now the 75-foot Norwegian-built vessel was jumping and skipping through sea, well on its way to victory. My own hair danced around my head and my jacket flapped angrily. Salt spray stung my eyes and dripped from my cheeks, and I could feel the pulse of the ocean as the ship sliced a deep path into it. But I felt alive. I felt cold and wet and gloriously alive.

I’d only been in Australia for three days. Three days removed from the nonstop swirl of motherhood and Palm Pilots and play dates. Three days removed from the chaos of schedules and meetings. And I was just beginning to submit to the grip of Oz.

In 1770, Capt. James Cook made his epic voyage through these same waters discovering what had been known to the Aboriginal people for thousands upon thousands of years: The eastern coast of Australia and the continental islands bordering it are about as close to heaven as it is possible to be while still on this Earth. I, however, live in Florida, and spend a good deal of my life in minivans.

Ty Sawyer / Islands Magazine

Then came the day my husband, Ty, arrived home from work and informed me with a silly grin that I was no fun anymore and I needed to get away. My balm would be “a few hours” to the southeast of our Orlando home.

“Just you and me on this trip,” he said.

“Just you and me?” It was a concept I had almost forgotten. Right up there with peace and tranquility.

A few weeks later we were bound for oz. Now, I don’t know exactly how Australia got the nickname “Oz.” But when we arrived on Hamilton Island, in the Whitsundays just off the coast of Airlie Beach, Queensland, there was something immediately intoxicating. Something authentic, romantic, perhaps feral and, though I didn’t know it at the time, transforming. As I stood on the balcony of our room at The Beach Club hotel, the sea danced in the early morning light as if it were alive with tiny, delighted pixies celebrating the dawn. A couple walked contentedly along the shore.

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Before we set sail like Cook on his epic voyage, we boarded a helicopter to see the 74 Whitsunday Islands spread out on the horizon and the Great Barrier Reef. Cook named the passage between the reef and the mainland “Whitsunday Passage” because, as he said in his log of June 3, 1770, “This passage was discovered on Whitsunday.” (Whitsunday is the British name for Pentecost.) Ironically, Cook had unknowingly crossed what would later be called the International Date Line and it really wasn’t Whitsunday at all, but the name stuck nonetheless. The Reef spreads out across the horizon in a kaleidoscope of greens and blues, in water so clear you cannot imagine that it is actually over 120 feet deep in places. Several fascinating formations can be seen from the air, the most famous of which is Heart Reef. But I was drawn to the islands, which erupted from the sea like emeralds.

“They’re so green,” I shouted through my headset. It was a dimwitted thing to say, but my brain had not yet recovered from the shock of relaxation. What I really wanted to say was that they looked so completely unspoiled. The land looked as untouched and serene as it must have thousands of years ago.

“Almost all the islands are designated a national park,” our pilot answered. “Only nine are inhabited.”

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