OUT OF THE BLUE

A TERRIFYING MEDICAL EPISODE IN A REMOTE ANCHORAGE TESTS LIVEABOARDS MIRANDA BAKER AND ELLIOT RUSSO - BUT REVEALS THE STRENGTH OF THE CRUISING COMMUNITY

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Friday evening, 21 February, 2025, and we are anchored inside a reef lagoon in a remote part of Raja Ampat, West Papua, Indonesia. The entrance to the lagoon is narrow, and uncharted. It’s the type of approach that needs daylight and two people to navigate: one on the bow directing the course, the other steering.

This isn’t new to us. Elliot and I have been living aboard our 1985 Mason 48, Fortaleza, for four years and in that time we've wiggled our way in and out of some tight spots. Through trial, and a couple of unmentionable errors that have left us grateful Fortaleza is steel hulled, we've developed our own reef navigation signals to communicate from the bow to the cockpit, as well as a capacity to forgive each other's swearing.

Elliot's Kiwi/Aussie. I am British/Kiwi. We met in New Zealand, and Covid lockdown had us move in together on our third date. Quite quickly we bought Fortaleza before spending nine long, filthy months living aboard in a boatyard, refitting her with the capacity to be self-reliant for long periods of time. We rewired, replumbed, re-rigged. We added solar, a watermaker and a sail plan for almost every eventuality.

The ambition was to spend 5-10 years exploring the world in a westerly direction until we ran out of money. We had no real plan, except to live off-grid, avoid marinas, find remote beauty and do a lot of diving. We left New Zealand in June 2023 and, sailed through Niue, Tonga, Fiji, New Caledonia, Australia, Tasmania and up into Indonesia, clocking up over 14,500 life-changing miles and hooking our home into hundreds of anchorages. This one, in Raja Ampat, like many we've spent time in, is extremely isolated.

UNEXPECTED EVENTS