自我介绍

My name is Jill Lundmark and I grew up in Melbourne where I did a degree in Agricultural Science. I met my husband Lex, who wanted to build a sailing yacht and sail around the world. That sounded wonderful, so we got married and began to build a 45 foot steel schooner, square rigged on the fore mast. It took us seven years. I had a job at a Horticultural Resource Centre, but my husband worked on it full time. Friends would occasionally visit us in weekends, but really it was just the two of us. I taught myself navigation and we set off for Bluff in New Zealand. About two thirds across the Tasman we encountered a huge storm which had us roaring down the seas in danger of end for ending and burying our masts in the water. We managed to throw out a hawser from a steamer that we had stowed on board that slowed us down to four knots. The weather improved and we tried to put a sail up, but a sheet was tangled in the propellor. Lex went overboard with a knife in his teeth to cut it free and shortly after I saw land. I assumed it was the South Island, but no; Solander Rock was missing. Luckily I had bought charts of Stewart Island though we didn’t plan to go there and once I consulted them I realised I was looking at the southern tip. We sailed around and anchored in uninhabited Port Pegasus. Next morning we heard an aeroplane. “They’re looking for us,”. “0h no, I didn’t send a mayday”. But they were. They had searched the west coast for wreckage and checked Stewart Island before returning. We sailed to Auckland where Lex decided to cut the boat in half so as to fit a much bigger engine as the 20 HP one we had could not have saved us from a lee shore in a storm. I became a potter and then a teacher and when I reached retirement age I decided to go touring around the world on an expedition bicycle. I made about sixteen three month trips until I had a serious accident in USA in 2015. Due to my injuries and lack of balance I bought a recumbent trike which I used in 2019 to tour in Mexico and Denmark.