My daughter's father-in-law was a most accomplished man in the practical sense . I have a great admiration for him , even though we were poles apart in our respective political and cultural views . To list all that he achieved would be a novel in itself , but the most significant one for this account was the building of a steel-hulled catamaran , Warriuka which was well over thirty feet long and beautifully fitted out ; an eight berth dream boat .

It was built in his backyard , at the top of a steep hill in Wollongong !

His greatest ambition was , on retirement , to sail the Barrier Reef from a base at Airlie Beach on the Whitsunday Passage . After a couple of preview trips he was ready to retire , and then disaster struck . As he crossed a busy road on a wet night he was struck by a car and badly injured , an injury which rendered his right arm useless , and which , in the end , necessitated its entire removal .

With dogged determination , he transferred his skills to his left hand , but it is not feasible to sail a large boat with the use of only one arm . He therefore employed various people as pick up crews , and it was soon after the birth of Vanessa's first boy , Garth , that she , Bruce and I became his crew on one trip .

Now , my wife and I had spent a fortnight with him and another companion sailing the Whitsundays a year or so before , but this was to be a longer sojourn on the boat . Bruce was the main crewman , his father helmsman and navigator , Vanessa took her turn at the helm now and then , and I was chief cook and bottle washer , with the odd stint at helping on other sailorly tasks .

But to the point of this tale .

Bruce , Vanessa and I hired a car and drove to Queensland along the New England Highway , and then partly through the backblocks of Queensland around to Airlie -- a saga in itself for me and worthy of another later posting . Partly because it was a hired car , and partly because Garth was only a small baby , we did not have a suitable car crib to carry him .

I therefore wandered up to a shop near where the couple were living and made some enquiries . I was able to obtain several different sized cartons of different strengths and qualities , and after a little cutting , reinforcing and other ploys , I constructed a sort of temporary crib into which we could fit the sprog.

Actually explaining why I wanted particular types of box caused great hilarity among the shopkeepers .

He got used to his sleeping place quite quickly , and when the days of travel began , he was quite content to sleep in his box , which was firmly strapped in with seat belts of course , with his mother beside him in the back while Bruce and I drove. Vanessa insisted on doing a bit of driving as well , for short distances , and I would then take a turn to sit in the back accompanying young Moses in cardboard . He was a remarkably well behaved child .

It was always a laugh when we stopped , to notice the expressions on passers by who seemed amused , surprised , and even concerned , to see a baby sleeping peacefully in a cardboard box.