Attacked at knifepoint

I got up this morning and spent a bit of time at the marina office where there is free internet chatting on facebook and reading my e-mails, came back to the boat and ate breakfast with HS who was watching the lastest CBC news broadcast (bus accident in BC and snow storms in eastern Canada and hockey woes) then put on sunblock, gathered up my camera, and went out for a walk.

My express goal was to find a tourist information office and get a map of the area and some information on recommended things to do. I started out along the waterfront, walking on a busy sidewalk beside a four lane one way road, because HS had said he thought the bus terminal was in that direction, and I thought a bus map might be a good addition to the tourist map I didn’t yet have. There certainly were busses galore, and stops like literally every 50 metres, street side stalls selling sunglasses or ice cream or things to drink. It wasn’t really a tourist area but it was pretty busy and I have to say, I felt completely safe. It soon became obvious that if the bus station was nearby I had missed it and I was going in the wrong direction for almost anything else. I was sort of in one of those old industrial zones full of dead warehouses that you see in scary movies – should been my first hint. But even as pedestrian traffic thinned out I kept on going hoping that something more interesting would materialize. A tourist traffic sign said that the Church of Iglesia or somesuch was 3 miles ahead, I could see it up on a hill in the distance, and I thought I might walk there, sit in its square, have a cold drink, and then figure out how to catch a bus back. Then… well, let’s just say I didn’t make it to the church.

A kid came running up from behind me, a young teenager, maybe 14 or so, and slowed down to a walk just in front of me. His behaviour seemed suspicious, I have to admit, but at the time I really didn’t think anything of it. I noticed that he was barefoot and his clothes filthy. Not much else. There were lots of people about, pedestrians on the sidewalk on the other side of the road if not on my side, and cars and busses going by on the busy street. And then a whole group of young teens, brandishing large knives, came rushing up from behind. “Tudo! Tudo!” they were saying, which I took to mean, ‘everything’. I’ve never been threatened by a group of teens with knives before. I don’t know if they would have actually attacked me or not. In retrospect I assume not, that they were just threatening. But they certainly were threatening. They held the knives in two hands above their heads and brought them down in slashing motions towards me as if to do real damage. “Tudo! Tudo!” they chanted. I wasn’t carrying a handbag, a wallet, or even a money belt. I just had a few dollars tucked into an inside pocket, enough for a cold drink and a taxi home if I got lost. And my camera, of course. My lovely lipstick camera. I guess I should have stepped out into the street, yelled for help, done something, anything. Instead I was just so shocked that I stood there, quite scared actually, holding my empty hands up to show I had nothing. (I started taking a self-defense course for women in Deep River last year but only went to one session. I just couldn’t imagine, at all, a situation in which I would be in dire fear of being beaten or raped. Maybe I should have continued going.) Eventually they grabbed my camera bag, tore it off me, and ran back the way they had come.

For a minute or two I just stood there.

An older gentleman, who had witnessed the whole thing from the sidewalk on the other side of the street, came across to talk to me. I convinced him to walk with me back to where it was safe. In the end he walked all the way back to the marina with me. We talked non-stop the whole way. He would say something in Portuguese, who knows what, and I would reply, ‘I know, it’s all my fault, I should have realized that it wasn’t a good neighbourhood.’ Then he would say something else in Portuguese and I would reply, ‘Thank you. I really appreciate you walking with me. I ‘m actually feeling quite shaken at the moment and I feel much safer with you beside me.’ On and on like this we went walking at a fair clip for about 45 minutes and talking endlessly back and forth to each other.

When we got to the port he took me and talked to a security guard, who told us to go and talk to a policeman, who pointed off in another direction. But by then I just wanted to go back to the boat. What good would reporting the crime do? There was no way I could identify the teens. I was, actually, just glad not to have been slashed at with a large knife or two. I tried to give the gentleman the money I had in my pocket. ‘Obrigado’ which means ‘thank you’ is one of my few Portuguese words and I tried to convey that I just wanted to thank him for having walked me back. But he would have none of it. He really wanted me to do whatever it was the police had said but, by then, shock was setting in and I was, a bit belatedly, getting panicky. I shook his hand several times, gestured that I would like to hug him, hugged him. And came through the gate into the safety of the marina.

I loved that little camera. I’d only had it for a couple of months and it cost me less than a day’s pay but I was pretty attached to it nonetheless. I had been considering moving up to a better quality one when I got home and had wondered how I would justify buying another camera when I had so recently bought one. At least now I have a reason.

Mostly I am concerned at my lack of action or reaction when accosted by the teens. I was on a sidewalk beside a four lane road, traffic must have been going by, surely if I had stepped out on to the edge of the road and yelled for help someone would have stopped. I don’t know. Would the kids just have run off, or slashed at me first before they left. They seemed pretty determined. I guess a camera, even a red one, is a pretty good days haul for them. I wonder how much they can sell it for on the black market?

So. I am still a bit shaken. I think I’ll go and post this now. This afternoon I might go back up to the upper city tourist zone. I scoffed at it merely yesterday as being too artificial but it is looking pretty good at the moment. By good I mean safe. I think I’ll buy some post cards, find a seat in one of the many squares where local musicians are playing, get a cold drink and maybe one of the many exotic treats available, sit back and chill, safe as can be.

(Or, perhaps, I’ll stay online a bit longer and look for a flight home.)

Happy New Year!

Stuck in the Tourist District

What continent am I on?

First we were in Europe. OK, I get that. Cobblestone streets and architecture from a number of different centuries. Then we went to Africa, not the mainland but the coastal islands, and they were Africa but with heavy European influence. Now we are in South America, the city of Salvador, to be exact, of which our guide book says, “This is Africa transported, complete with all its ancestral traditions, culture, colours, music, and mysticism, brought here in times past by African slaves.” But it also seems very European, it is after all the city of 365 churches, one for every day of the year. And, though I haven’t personally counted them, I believe this statement; there are churches everywhere, like Starbucks in the states, sometimes you can see three or four around a single square. You wonder why they would ever need so many. But, more to the point, they were built in the 15^th to 18^th centuries by the Portuguese colonialists so the whole place looks very European to my eyes too. (The African slaves of course did the actual work to build all these churches being forced to ‘moonlight’ moving huge stones about after their normal work in the sugar cane fields all day!) So which continent is it exactly?

And is it safe here?

Our guidebook also says, “The visitor is instantly struck by the fascinating character of the city and the warmth and the welcome of its people…” which may be true but is hard to judge. I tried to walk around the ‘lower city’ yesterday but kept getting turned back by, what looked to me, to be homeless people. Though I speak very little Portuguese it was very obvious that they were saying, ‘No. Don’t go here, it is too dangerous. Go back.’ And who, I wondered, is going to attack me if you, who look so dubious, are being so solicitous. Eventually I gave up and went to explore the ‘upper city’. I successfully wandered a six block tourist region, complete with shops and restaurants and museums and market stalls galore, but, if I tried to venture out of this very artificial neighbourhood, populated almost exclusively by other tourists and those with something to sell to them, I met, at every possible exit, and I tried quite a few, armed guards, who, just like the characters in the lower city, said, very clearly, ‘No. Don’t go here, it is too dangerous. Go back.’ So? What? The people are warm and welcoming but yet it is too dangerous to even walk the streets by day? I don’t get it.

We may well be in Salvador for several days. HS is going to try and fix at least one of the auto-pilot systems before we move on and we have both a weekend and then a couple days of New Year’s holiday which will get in the way of his ordering new parts.  What he really wants he thinks he will have to get shipped from Australia. If so I should have the time to get this place figured out!

Hand-steering

Now BOTH the AIS and the auto-pilot are broken. Joy.

The AIS (which stands for Automatic Identification System) is a pretty neat system that tracks other boats and plots them on your electronic chart letting you know, for example, what speed and direction they are going and how close they will come to you and when that will be so you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are not on a collision course, or alternatively, if they are, you know this too and so can take evasive action. It was a very nice luxury to have, especially at night, and I miss it but can deal with not having it.

Having the auto-pilot broken is another whole kettle of fish.

HS has a back-up auto-pilot system, which, when he hauled it out was also broken and a back-up back-up system, a wind vane self-steering mechanism, but when he tried to put that into service found it totally seized up. He really did try to get one of the three auto-pilot systems going. He spent a whole day out in the hot sun trying various things, pulling out more tools and spare parts and swear words than I knew existed. It was not a fun day. One of his good qualities is that he is very mechanically minded and can fix anything. Almost anything I guess. He really did want to get one of the auto pilots going and he failed.

Therefore we are now steering by hand.

I have four shifts on the wheel, 3-6 am, 9 am – noon, 3 – 6 pm, and 9 pm – midnight. HS is on the other four shifts. When on shift hand-steering you are basically stuck, on the wheel, steering the boat, for the duration of your shift so remember to go pee first, get a drink and any snacks you may need, bring your sun glasses and sun block, because for three hours straight you will be there working hard.

Hand steering this old 19 ton full keel boat is NOTHING like steering a car. In a car you can pretty much hold the wheel straight and the car goes straight. This is not like that. No no. You have to be continually anticipating and correcting. You have to be hauling on the wheel almost continually. And when I say hauling, I mean hauling. I cannot turn it with one hand. I need two arms working hard. All the time. It takes both physical and mental energy to keep the boat on course. If you pay attention, concentrate that is, you can sort of, by hauling the wheel back and forth, keep her going straight, but if you take a break for even a few seconds, to look up and see if there is something ahead of you for example, she tends to get off course and then, as if in some sort of nightmare skid, she is swerving further and further out of control. And it is ruddy difficult to get her back in a straight line when that happens, which, unfortunately, happens way too often.

In the four three hour shifts you are off you can eat, drink, poop, shower, read, sleep, or whatever else you like, but when you are on shift you are at the wheel steering the boat. The boat has an old bell, theoretically used if sailing during thick fog, to be continuously rung so other boats know you are there. We use it to announce that our shift will be up in five minutes so the other person has a wee bit of time to wake up and get ready. It is considerate to arrive on shift on time and take over the wheel promptly. After three hours you are very ready for a break.

I try not to interrupt HS when he is off shift but last night I did anyway. It was blowing hard out, a steady 20 knots, and raining buckets, and there was something in front of me that I couldn’t identify. Its light had been on the horizon directly in front of us for ages and it was, slowly, getting both closer and bigger. I had thought at first it was a small fishing boat going the same direction as us and had then considered that it might be a big ship coming towards us but it didn’t seem to be either. (Small fishing boats tend to go in odd circular paths as they lie out or collect up their nets so they can be very unpredictable but they also tend to notice things like sailboats and not crash into them. Big ships, on the other hand, tend to be moving very fast in the direction they are going and might or might not see a small sail-boat so if you are on a collision course with one of them it is advisable to steer clear just in case.) It takes all my concentration and effort, both physical and mental, to hand-steer in heavy weather at night, keeping a keen eye on the compass and continually heaving the wheel back and forth to keep going straight is literally all I can do (I am thinking that I will be ready to take up any one of many wheelchair sports if we hand steer all the way to Rio, I will have arms comparable to those of my sons!). And as I said, if you even glance up for mere seconds, to see what it is in front of you, you tend to get blown off course and then it is difficult annoying hard work to get back on course. Eventually, as whatever it was in front of me loomed closer and bigger, still straight ahead of us, I found I just didn’t have enough concentration to watch the compass and this thing we were getting close to so I picked up the boat hook and reached forward and rang the bell. HS, who must have been sound asleep, got up, put on his rain jacket, and came out to see what was up. ‘What’s that?’ he asked immediately, ‘It doesn’t look like a boat. Is it moving?’ ‘My questions exactly.’ I answered. He got out the binoculars and peered through the rain. We discussed if it was or wasn’t moving, how close it was, how big it was, and if I should go port or starboard to avoid it. Usually boats sport red and green lights that aid you in figuring out where they are going but this had none. HS waited and waited and the thing ever so slowly came closer and closer all the while getting bigger and bigger. ‘Ah,’ we said, almost simultaneously, ‘oil rig!’ And so it was. Good thing we had decided to avoid it as it was unlikely to avoid us! Once it had been identified it was a lot less intimidating, I knew all I had to do was give it a wide berth and I would be fine – it was not going to change direction like a fishing boat or come at me with great speed like a ship. HS put the binoculars down, shook off his rain jacket, and went back to bed. I stayed out in the wind and the rain, continued on peering at the compass, heaving at the wheel, and counting the minutes till my shift was over…

You see odd things at sea when you are sailing close to land. In some ways it is more interesting than being in the middle of the ocean. Of course many of these, just like the oil rigs, are only odd until explained. Another night shift a very bright light appeared in front of me, lifted straight up, up up up, and then just suddenly dimmed but kept on going up. I thought at first it might be a flare because it was so bright and it went up so fast, but couldn’t explain the little light that continued to go up. A satellite launch? Now that would be exciting. Then there was a second one. And a third. All right in front of me. Far away enough not to worry but what the heck? Eventually I noticed that one of the little lights that continued going straight up was flashing and then it was suddenly obvious. These were just airplanes taking off. I was directly in line with an airport and the bright lights were the planes landing lights, which they apparently also use for take-off. Again, once explained, just another thing not to worry about hitting!

We continued to hand steer for several days as we went south. I got a little better at it as time went on and  my arms got stronger and stronger but it didn’t get any more fun. I was so tired that both dolphins, which used to fill me with joy, and squalls, which used to fill me with dread, each got nothing more than a nod of the head as they joined us and then passed on by. Nick, our first crew, had asked to hand steer and had been told NO. The German girls too had expressed an interest and been turned down. I, however, who had been all the while quite happy to have the auto-pilot working away so I could spend my night shifts looking for shooting stars, who had had no real interest at all in hand steering, am getting to do it 12 hours a day. Hmph.

Can anyone remind me why, exactly, I wanted to do this?

Christmas break

We are in Recife, our first stop on the Brazilian mainland, which is a huge city of well over a million inhabitants built on a perfect beach that stretches endlessly along the coast. It has million dollar condos overlooking the ocean, and, literally a stone’s throw away, shockingly ramshackle slums built on stilts in the inter-tidal zones of rivers and swamps. The contrasts are everywhere. We shop for our food at a pristine modern mall where security ride around on Segways and I visit the markets across the river where the stink of garbage, crime, and poverty batter my senses in equal proportions. Brand new luxury vehicles speed along highways past swarms of dirty barefoot children scouring the ditches for scraps to eat.

Sophie and Adelheid have left (sob) and HS and I are alone together on the boat awaiting the opening of the customs office after the holiday so that we can get the required paperwork completed and start to hop south towards Rio. While we wait we are staying in an upscale marina which has tennis courts and swimming pools, luxurious indoor and outdoor seating areas, quality snack bars and restaurants. It is reminiscent of a classy resort. It, again, has high walls topped with barbed wire and armed guards at the gate 24/7. I walk in and out, often wearing my tatty sailing outfits, without showing any ID, but am never questioned. How do they know I belong? Do I?

Christmas Eve I convince HS to go out with me to a free public performance - part musical, part unknown Christmas carols, part Cirque de Soleil take off – held outdoors in one of town squares. It is all in Portuguese, of course, and definitely a re-telling of the story of the First Christmas, and though we enjoy it thoroughly we cannot figure out for the life of us how the two slapstick comics who keep farting, the male cheerleader squad, the lone violinist who plays love songs, or the many LionKingesque animal characters fit into the story…

Christmas Day is slightly melancholy. I cannot quite shake my guilt at being here, south of the equator, so far from my children… I had understood from HS before we left that we would, without question, be at sea over Christmas and yet here we are on land. I could have flown home, convinced my kids to fly down here to be with me, but I didn’t know, and by the time I got here they all had other plans. I feel a bad mother for avoiding my parental duties of providing a family Christmas complete with parties and stockings and turkey and trimmings and I worry about the karma of this situation. Also I worry that I may have set a precedent of us not spending Christmas together that I will come to regret in future years. I have never not had Christmas with my kids. What was I thinking? How can I enjoy the loveliness of these surroundings, palm trees by the pool and a white gloved waiter offering me yet another cold drink, with this unease hanging over me? Will it pass?

I try to avoid my predicament by pretending that my biggest problem of the day is choosing a photo to post on facebook. I have decided, since I am not 16, that I can only post picture one per place that I visit, yet we have been in Recife for several days and my camera and I have walked miles together. Do I choose the exotic heron feeding at low tide, the soccer team playing on the beach, the beautiful old church with the evening sky in the background, the slums that fill me with despair, the couple choosing a plastic reindeer… do I choose a photo that typifies as best as possible the city, one that seems ‘artistic’, one that summarizes in some way my personal journey…

I had a very good chat with one of my kids just yesterday, and the other two have e-mailed to say that their internet is too intermittent to allow for skype so they will talk to me after New Years,,, hopefully tomorrow when I get up and Christmas is over I will be able shake off my malaise, hopefully when I get home they will all still be healthy and happy and making good decisions on their own, hopefully they miss me, if not as much as I miss them, then just a little bit. I think that, perhaps, is my greatest worry, that I am the only one who feels out of sorts.

Hope everyone else had a fantastic Christmas together with their family!

Olinda

Olinda is a fishing village sitting on a hill beside the ocean in the shadow of a huge city. It has narrow twisty cobblestone streets and lots of stairs, lush palm and banana trees, and a huge thriving monastery. Having been declared a World Heritage Site because it was once a grand place with 16 beautiful churches and even more lovely old houses, some of these, which are not allowed to be torn down, are falling into ruins, many others have been renovated and turned into shops or restaurants or art galleries, and a gazillion tourists turn up every day of the year to admire the architecture. If, however, you choose to visit at 6 am on December 24^th you will find that you pretty much have the place to yourself and can wander and admire at your will, but, on the other hand, not all of the shops and markets will be open upon your arrival! 

Heavenly Night Shifts

The last few days sailing towards Brazil are heavenly. The wind has risen significantly but also shifted more to the beam and evened out into a steady blow without nasty squalls so the boat is flying through the seas at top speed with a regular swinging motion. The moon, half full, is up till about midnight lighting the boat and the ocean almost brightly enough to read by and then sets in a blaze of glory leaving behind a pitch black sky filled with countless brilliant stars like jewels flung across a canvas. Being woken by Sophie to go on shift is a joy. (Also I have stopped asking HS for his permission to set or adjust sails. If he is asleep I just go ahead and do what seems appropriate. On more than one occasion the boat has sped up significantly enough that the change has woken him and he has stuck his head out through the top hatch wondering sleepily if the wind has come up. But shhh, don’t tell him this, our relationship is tenuous enough as it is.)

I spend my night shifts, as do Sohpie and Adi, perched like a mountain goat on the woodwork that surrounds the winches and cleats, holding on to one of the many stays, scanning the horizon for other boats (our AIS system has broken down), marvelling at the skies, and feeling a bit like Johnny Dep’s character in Pirates of the Caribbean. The three hours always fly past and it is usually so nice outside that it is almost with reluctance that I descend into the boat to wake up Adelheid to take over for me. I feel I could do this happily forever, sail on over across the oceans with one island receding behind us and another soon to approach over the horizon.

During the day we are communal. We get lots of fresh air, we eat healthy food, we read and talk and laugh and sing. Sohpie quotes poetry to us and I have taken to dredging from my memory all the John Masefield I learnt as a teen. When I run out of verses I can remember Adelheid tries to teach a song, in German, and my efforts have us all laughing so hard that we wake the captain. We point out schools of flying fish to each other and we all go and stand on the bow together each time a pod of dolphins comes to swim with the boat and we look forward to the next bird that will alight on our deck. We wait to see a whale. There is no stress; we cannot control the winds, just deal with whatever is there in the moment. Life is good.

During the night we are solitary. Everyone else on the boat is asleep. Everyone else, it seems, in the universe is asleep. We have not seen another boat for days. December 21^st is approaching and it feels sometimes as if the world might actually end on that date. Our connection to the rest of the world is so suspended that we can all imagine getting to the point where land is supposed to be and it just not being there, the world having ended while we were away. As the colour of the sky is picked up by the waves during the day highlighting them with blue so is the vastness of the heavens at the night picked up by the sea at night stretching it in our minds into unimaginable proportions. During our night shifts we each stand alone on deck, buffeted by the wind, doused occasionally by the sea, learning the names of the constellations and the myths that go with them, and though the darkness is wet and wild it is yet at the same time also soft and embracing, and the sensation of the world spinning beneath us while the stars spin above fills one with such peace as cannot be put into words. 

It doesn't get better than this

If you are a snorkeler or a SCUBA diver I recommend you consider putting the Ilha de Fernando de Nohoria, 300 miles off the coast of mainland Brazil, on your life list. The island and its waters are a protected marine park. No fishing is allowed and the use of boats is strictly controlled. It has relaxed friendly inhabitants, beautiful beaches, and amazing sea life. Also, everyone drives dune buggies everywhere and so hitchhiking from one place to another is easy and fun!

Sohpie and Adelheid and I were a tad disappointed, to put it mildly, to learn that we were only going to be stopping here for one night so we decided to put the time to the best use possible. First we visited ‘turtle bay’ and snorkeled with dozens of giant sea turtles, then we went and explored the only town, next we went to the museum. In the evening we had a picnic on ‘the most beautiful beach in the world’, went back to the museum for a park movie about the local sea life at 9 pm, out to a pub where salsa band was performing starting at 11 pm, and, finally walked to the lookout over ‘dolphin cove’ arriving there at 3 am! We slept on the benches and got up a mere three hours later to marvel at the 100 dolphins that gather in the bay at sunrise before heading out to sea – the dolphins that is not us.

At this point we stopped, ate a leisurely breakfast, and spent quite a bit of time leaning over the railing looking down at the cove. You could see, in the crystal clear water, a group of about 12 large sharks swimming in the shallows at one end of the cove, and at the other, a group of sea turtles. In the middle of the bay, quite far off shore but still near enough to swim to, there was a large lump of coral just below the surface of the water and in the middle, just out from where the breakers were crashing, a huge swarm of small fish. Occasionally one of the sharks would venture into this school and you could see it parting, avoiding him, or a bird would dive from the height of the cliff tops with the same effect.

The beach in the cove stretched, pristine sand, below a cliff between rocky headlands, and the only access was down through a vertical tunnel with a series of ladders in it. I thought, perhaps, we had experienced the cove enough by looking down on it but Sophie wanted to go down, so we did, 200 steps exactly – I counted, and, when we were there, we snorkeled, of course.

Holy Freaking National Geographic!! I have never had a better snorkelling experience in my life. The water, a crystal clear swimming pool turquoise, was host to more marine life than I have seen before outside of an aquarium: huge turtles, yes, we knew that, and sharks too, of course, but also fish and fish and more fish in all the amazing colours of the rainbow and a few extra iridescent shades to boot. Small fish and larger ones, clumps and groups and schools of them, vivid blue spotted with brilliant yellow, or black with silver stripes, or or or… go get a book on coral reef fishes and flip through it, they were ALL there! And the best bit of all, surprisingly, was the large school of what turned out to be sardines in the shallows. You could swim in amongst their millions and have birds diving mere feet from you, the WHUMP of their arrival in the water a physical shake, the sardines scattering, another bird arriving and trying to steal the sardine that the first bird had caught. It was amazing. Just amazing. Just totally amazing.

Eventually we stopped, dried off, and spent several hours hiking back to the boat, walking endless perfect beaches and hiking up up and over the rocky points that separated them. We stopped to chat with young boys who were catching crabs that they would then hold up for the gulls to take out of their hands, to older ones who were surfing on the ever building waves of an approaching storm, to young men who had moved here to this idyllic island, population 2000, from great crowded cities on the mainland, to other tourists who were as in awe as we were at our mutual luck to have happened here…

We arrived back at the dingy dock at 6 pm just as HS came to pick us up and we went back on board very ready for a shower, a snack, and a nap. We would have loved a week there but felt that we had experienced the best the island had to offer in the time that we had been allotted. Sohpie woke me at 2 am for my night shift, the boat was sailing well, the island was receding behind us, the moon had set, the sky was awash with a million stars, and, as I stood out on deck with the wind in my hair, the only question on my mind was should I have stopped there, bought a house, and just stayed forever…

Nasty Night Squalls

The weather changed. For the first part of this our longest leg across the Atlantic the weather was lovely. We had following winds of 10 to 15 knots and the boat just scooted along fast or slow with the waves gently lifting it up and putting it back down. Sophie and Adelheid and I spent our days very congenially outside together reading, napping, chatting, and enjoying each other’s company. We spent our nights taking turns doing ‘watch’ sitting in the cockpit by ourselves learning the constellations, watching for shooting stars, or admiring the trail of phosphorescence left by the boat, a sparkling green show mesmerizing as any campfire.

Then the wind shifted. For the past four days we have been sailing close hauled. The wind is still 10 to 15 knots during the day but the boat motion is choppy and abrasive. We had to take down the bimini, which created shade in the cockpit, and now it is generally too sunny to be outside during the day, so instead of lounging there altogether we tend to stay inside, spending most of the day lying alone on one bunk or another trying not to get seasick. It is a lot less pleasant. We still gather outside at 6pm to watch the sunset together but it is, every day, marred somewhat by the cumulonimbus clouds that are simultaneously gathering in the other direction and the coming squalls that they indicate.

At least four or five times a night serious squalls come by. These might, or might not, be accompanied by bucketing rain. The wind tends to blow a steady about 15 knots during the night, then, in the space of less than a minute it jumps to 25 knots. 25 is a LOT more than 15. Our instructions when on watch if this happens are to immediately bear away 20 degrees and then get the captain. STAT. Usually he has noticed the change, woken, and is on his way. This boat sails with full sails at 15 knots. Our rule of thumb is to reef at 18 knots so that we are reefed by 20. These squalls come in way too fast for that, so, almost immediately the boat is way overpowered. She heels over, her rails in the water, speeds up to her maximum hull speed, and then strains to go even faster. She shakes and shudders in her attempts to do so. The wind howls a painful screeching as it tears through the rigging. The prop, which usually goes wrrrrrrr wrrrrrr as it spins, starts to go WHRRRRRRRRRR WHRRRRRRR instead which adds a disconcerting intenseness to the situation. The captain bears the boat away another 20 degrees. Then he lets out the main so that it spills some wind. This means we slow down a wee bit but it is accompanied by a WHAPWHAPWHAP of the now flapping sail. Next he lets out the genoa so it too is spilling wind and making its own CLANK CLANK noise as the car the sheet goes through whips back and forth. We sit for ten minutes or so listening to the boat straining, the rain pounding, hoping the wind will go down. It usually doesn’t so the captain goes outside and furls in the genoa. Then he comes in and worries that the main is still too much sail. We watch the wind speed and the boat speed and he considers furling the main. Furling the main is a relatively straightforward job if done during the day but at night, with the wind already too high, the boat rising and crashing through the waves, the salt spray flying in great sheets, it is a) not fun and b) difficult and c) somewhat dangerous. We sit for ten or twenty minutes as the squall continues to blow. The captain does not want to go out and furl the main but he knows that if the wind rises any more he will have to. If the wind continues to rise the longer he puts off this job the worse it will get. So far he has not gone out and furled it at night. Each squall has been a tense white knuckle situation but each one has eventually passed, the wind all of a sudden dropping back down to 15 knots, the pounding rain just stopping, the boat leveling out and the most disconcerting of the noises quieting at least a bit.

The next evening, as the two girls and I sit and watch the sunset, HS pops his head up for a minute and I bring up the idea of furling the main during the last of the light, so that we don’t have to worry about it during any potential squalls at night, but the downside to this would be that we would lose speed for the remainder of the night, and so, despite the ominous presence of cumulonimbus building yet again on the horizon, the captain states optimistically that he doesn’t think there will be any squalls this night so there is no need to furl…  but yes, there are…

Balance in the Universe

Part 1 – Butting heads again why do I even bother?

The very first time I met HS he said, “I don’t like to sail.” I didn’t believe him. I like to sail. I knew he had circumnavigated the world once in a sailboat. It was inconceivable to me that he didn’t like to sail. I assumed that he meant that being at sea was not his favourite part of the experience. Well, I was wrong. He doesn’t like to sail. And, as are most people who don’t like to do certain things, he is not very good at it. And, he has no intention of ever becoming any better. And, he hates it when people make comments about how he set the sails that might, perhaps, be taken as criticism. I should have realized when Nick, our previous crew, got disgusted after 3 days, because HS didn’t know any sail theory and wouldn’t listen to even simple suggestions, that that was the way it was. I still had hope at that point. Now there is none. We are sailing in marginal winds, about 10 knots right from behind, and so it is critical how the sails are set in order to make speed. We are going about 3 knots. Nick could set the sails and have us going 5. I asked HS this morning if I could try letting the main out for 15 minutes to see if it would make any difference (it is set, as usual, for a close reach, the only position he ever puts it in no matter the wind direction) and within minutes he was swearing at me. I was trying, truly, to be diplomatic. I failed. We are still bumping along at 3 knots, the sails backwinding and flogging. Soon he will get tired of this and start the motor. And I will just keep my mouth shut. It is after all his sails that are getting ruined with the flogging and he who will pay for the diesel. It is just my own sanity that I have to worry about!

(PS Two days later… Another preventer broke last night, though not on my shift, another accidental gibe took place, and when I got up in the morning I noticed that the main had been let out a looong way. Hmmm. We are also going faster. I am totally certain that HS will not even mention this, let alone give me any credit, but I, nonetheless, feel vindicated!)

Part 2 – Wonderful new crew

This leg is super due to our new crew, Sophie and Adelheid, a pair of German sisters in their 20’s who are on a self-directed gap year having finished one degree and not yet started the next. Both are fun and intelligent.

For example, this morning Adi brought a plate out to the cockpit with ‘traditional rich German chocolate pudding cake on it’ and asked if I wanted to try some. It looked dark and delicious. I admit to taking quite a large forkful of what turned out to be yesterday’s left over coffee grounds! Gotta love that girl.

For example, Sophie, who speaks German and French and Spanish and Portuguese and is learning English, is reading Ken Follet’s World Without End in English and asked what the words prior and prioress meant. I explained that the prior was the head of the monks and the prioress the head of the nuns. ‘Hmm,’ she said, ‘so it likely comes from the same root word as primary or first.’ and we ended up spending at least half an hour discussing other words stemming from the same root. Gotta love that girl too.

 (PS Two days later… days slip by as lovely as could be. All three of us crew spend the days reading cheerfully outdoors, stopping occasionally to do laundry or have showers for ourselves or to get drinks or snacks or make meals for the others. We stop an hour before sunset and sit side by side watching the sky give its nightly performance before coming inside and having supper.)

Sad old dog

Sometimes there comes to the dog pound a sad old dog that has been abused just once too often in its life for it to be rehabilitated and put into a new family. It is likely large and may have, despite its previous neglect, a beautiful coat and, from a distance, soulful eyes, but this is not enough. Sometimes the pound workers will spend hours implacably trying to gain its trust. Sometimes they will even let it go to live with a patient dog-loving single man or a couple without children. But these efforts never work. The dog’s very nature has been scared beyond hope of salvation. It predictably ends up back at the pound, inevitably ends up being put down.

This is how I think of The Boat. I had hoped to fall in love with her. From a distance (of 3000 miles) I could sense the beauty of her soul. I was sure we were bound to become lovers. But now, after months of effort, I am ready to abandon the struggle. It is time to give up, to accept that I cannot salvage her, and that I have no other option than to ‘take her back to the pound’. She is an older boat, I don’t have a problem with that, but her interior layout, which was not good to start with, and which has become worse with changes made to her over the years by various owners, is positively ghastly, and her exterior deck and cockpit even worse.

For example, only one person can comfortably sit in the salon at a time. Anyone else who wants to sit must ask the first to get up and then do an awkward squeeze into a spot from which they are immediately trapped. This effort is so great that it makes using the salon – by more than one at a time – too much effort, so we don’t gather there to chat, or play cards, or even each do our own thing side by side in silence, which tends to isolate our crew members.

For example, my bunk is tiny. Its ceiling so low that I cannot sit up in it, and it is open, all the time, to the nav-room and the salon, so even as I am sleeping the sound of the radar warning bell and light of the nav computer are a few feet away from me without even a curtain between. And, on top of that, people, by which I mean crew on watch or going onto watch or coming off of watch or the captain at any time of day or night, walk by less than a foot from my head, their mere presence disrupting my sleep. And if it is raining out or splashing I get dripped on. And this is the second best place to sleep on the boat after the captain’s cabin!

For example, the cockpit is also too cramped. It is big enough but has been laid out so that there is not a single comfortable place to sit, winches and wooden cleats are forever poking into your lower back. You cannot stand up anywhere without being hunched over. Moving about is a challenge even for those with a contortionist’s inclination, it is difficult and awkward and requires patience and practice and a lot of walking while simultaneously stooped and twisted, which is a pain while at anchor and worse while at sea. My legs and feet are covered in bruises, the small of my back continually sore. And it does not have a dodger, cannot have one made due to the design and placement of the masts, so even in gentle conditions getting sprayed occasionally with salt water is inevitable, and in windy conditions sheets of salt water continually assault you, and, also for the majority of the day when you are outside there is no direct protection from the sun, and, worst yet, the cockpit cushions are always covered in a disgusting salty layer of salty goop. Also, it must be mentioned, the lines from the main mast are not led back. Putting up the main sails, or reefing them, or taking them down, involves leaving the safety of the cockpit and going far forward on slippery footing to do simple tasks that with any modern boat would not require you to put yourself in any danger of being splashed let alone swept off board.

And I could go on and on and on about the terrible galley layout, the miniscule head that always has liquid – water I often hope – on the floor, the numerous low doorways that we are all forever banging our heads on, the fact that the boat is infested with both cockroaches and bedbugs, and, somewhat ironically, the swaths of totally wasted open space in various parts of the interior…

Also everything keeps breaking down. Our engine broke last leg, was fixed, but is now leaking great gobs of oil and as BOTH the oil pressure gauge AND the low oil pressure alarm are broken as well the engine is, one again, effectively useless. We have broken TWO preventers in the last month, have had TWO electrical fires, have had TWO fridge breakdowns, have had the head need repairing TWICE, we continually get things like the topping lift tangled with the antenna just because of poor vertical layout, do not have a working sink in the galley, have had lines and wires and floor panels and doors and all sorts of other things break all over the place…. Each time HS sticks his head outside it seems that we hear the inevitable, ‘Oh shit!’ which generally means that, yet again, something else has broken.

I wanted to love her. I did. But she is like that old sad dog, too far gone, beyond hope of future renovations to salvage her, not good for anything except being put down. (After, I must point out, she has safely crossed the ocean this one last time with me aboard!)

Photos from Praia

I walked around Praia today... this is some of what what I saw...

Meals and Decisions

Alternate title: Making a mountain out of a molehill and relating the issue of the day to my life in general…

When you are living in close contact with another older set-in-their-ways person, particularly someone you have no emotional connection to, little annoyances can be blown out of proportion into issues. Meals on the boat have just become such an issue. Usually, on boats, in my experience, the crew take turns cooking and everyone just eats what is served to them. Favourites are ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ over and therefore more likely to be repeated. Disasters are conceded by the cook and shrugged off by the rest as stuff that happens. I had hoped that that was how we would work on this boat especially as HS had stated explicitly up front that he didn’t want us to each cook our own food, he wanted us to have communal meals. (For several real reasons – it is friendlier, it saves on the gas required to cook, there is only room for one in the galley at a time so it is just easier…) Unfortunately he is very particular about what he eats and he only likes German food which is both spicy and saucy. There are not a lot of such recipes in my repertoire. I cooked spaghetti one night, which he said had too many vegetables in it, and then chili another, which he said wasn’t saucy enough, and then grilled chicken breasts, which were too dry... I offered to make omelettes one night, but he doesn’t like breakfast for supper, or sausages, but he finds them too greasy, or curry, but he doesn’t like that, or stir-fried rice with meat and veg, which he claims is not a meal. I suggested he let me cook ten days in a row and he rate my meals but he said he didn’t want to eat even one meal that he didn’t like and he said he didn’t trust me to cook things he would like to eat. He suggested that he do all the cooking and I do all the dishes. I said that that didn’t sound fair to me, that it seemed more work for him, but that if that was what he wanted I would go along with it. Sigh. So then, everyday, he asks what I want for supper. I have taken to giving non-answers such as ‘whatever you want is fine with me’ because every time he asked and I gave a suggestion it was rejected. Today in port we were shopping and he asked, as usual, what we were going to do for supper. I suggested he discuss with the girls – our new crew - what they might like. He didn’t. Five minutes later he asked me again what we should have for supper. I had been very sea sick on our last passage, had slept about an hour during the night, was tired and not in a diplomatic mood, so I said, ‘HS, you don’t like anything I cook, I am willing to eat anything you make, but each time you have asked for input and I gave it you rejected it so I have decided to stop giving any.’ Oooh. Not, perhaps, what one is supposed to say to a captain. He was not happy with this comment of mine, wanted to argue it, and so I went on to summarize most of what is written above, which, of course, did not make him any happier. He said it was his boat and that he wanted to eat what he wanted to eat. I agreed that that was fair but repeated that if he was not going to accept any input from me wrt what we ate then I did not want to be asked for it. We might have started circling in our argument, but at that point he, perhaps more diplomatic than I, pointed out that we were both tired and stated it was maybe not the time to discuss the situation. Sigh. I had hoped to avoid any such confrontation and am not pleased that I allowed myself to be pulled into one. However, perhaps if we have a following part to the discussion, we will come to some solution that everyone is willing to live with. I am not sure, at this point, what that will be.

Next morning….

I don’t care, at all, of course, what the outcome to this issue is. I am on the boat for four months, half of which has gone by, and I am, truly, happy to eat anything for that four months. I am certain that HS and I will not carry on any type of relationship after this time, that I will not sail with him again and that we are unlikely even to maintain contact. This spiraling of details out of control into issues is however, unfortunately, the sort of thing that often happens in my relationships, my life, which is why I am looking at it. It starts, it seems to me, with me trying to please, being too passive, willing to do almost anything for the other party in the beginning, and yet, at the same time, resenting that I am, from my point of view, doing more ‘conceding’ to  make the relationship work… So what do I learn from this. I learn that I have to be, if not more assertive, then more self-assured, right off the beginning, start out, certainly, the way I want to continue, be more ‘honest’ if you will about who I really am and what I really want.

In other news I have decided (and am pretty sure) that I am going to stay in Deep River. Wherever you go, there you are, and I have a couple of good friends in Deep River, many acquaintances, and a few family ties. I also have, which is not irrelevant, a job there, several sports groups I have belonged to for years, and a favourite beach. It is the place I was born in, the place I grew up in, the place I chose to bring my kids up it. Its major downfall is that my past failures haunt me there; my failed relationships with my family of origin, my lack of success at building a career, and my inability to sustain a thriving partnership with a POOSSLQ. But running away from these failures would not, I have come to decide, in any way solve them. I can choose to face them, or continue to ignore them, but I might as well carry on my life there.

In other news, I have decided (and am pretty sure) that I am going to keep my job as a teacher at Mackenzie. It represents financial security, gives me a certain social standing I am comfortable with, and it comes with an unparalleled Friday lunch group who are happy to laugh with me but also willing to listen to me cry. That said, if it turns out I am redundant on and off for half of the next decade I will be just as happy!

In other news I have decided (and am pretty sure) that I want to travel significantly. I will regret to my dying day that I did not take my own kids and sail the world with them but I cannot change that and do not want my life to be shadowed by regrets. Instead I want to look at the present and future with optimism. I have very much enjoyed seeing the places I have seen so far on this trip; the architecture, the landscape, the living conditions of people who live there. I have very much enjoyed meeting the people I have met. This is something I want to do more of. I have the time, I have the money, I want to take my little red camera and wander some more, and if, one day, I happen to drink three cups of tea and discover a way to help out in one small corner of the world so much the better.

In other news I have decided (and am pretty sure) that I would be happier with a partner to share the next 25 years with but that that would only be true if it were someone with whom I could have an equal relationship. My situation with HS is extreme – his boat, his itinerary, his way of setting sails, of choosing meals – but, as mentioned above, a wee bit too close, nonetheless, to too many other experiences in my life in which I have been overwhelmed by the personality of the person with whom I have tried to get along. Geoff, for obvious reasons, would be my first choice as a life partner, but I do not know, at all, what his opinion on this might be. I will therefore attempt to rebuild my marriage in our new childless, and hopefully therefore more equal, state. If it works it does, but if it does not I will walk away content, carry on with my life, do the things I want to do, and see if there is anyone else out there who might want to join me in some of my experiences.

Today my goals are simple; obtain a Brazilian visa, sort out my super issues with HS, visit the little museum of shipwreck items recommended by the guide book. It will be, I am sure, a good day.

Friday we leave the last of the Islands in Cape Verde which we are going to visit and head across the ocean to Brazil. Yes!

Seasick

Wow. I was SO seasick. We were doing a one day passage (30 hours actually so leave early one morning and get there the next day) from one of the Cape Verde Islands to another one of them so I didn’t bother to put on an anti-nausea patch. I wasn’t even really sure if they work. Boy oh boy. Did I regret it! There was also, certainly, some miscommunication, between HS and myself wrt what the passage would be like, and, perhaps, he had also miscalculated how bad it would be. About an hour after we started I went to lie down. An hour after that I asked HS to get me a bucket. Two hours after that I knew I had to go pee. I had two choices: I could pee in my bed which was not really something I wanted to do or I could get up and go to the head which, I knew, would involve puking, which I also did not want to do. OOph. I chose to go to the head. I took my bucket and within minutes of sitting down in the head had liquids coming, explosively, out of all the holes of my body. And once I had started I couldn’t stop. Each hour, for hours, I vomited. Not normal puking which involves throwing up and then feeling better. Oh no. This was vile vomiting in which my body started with a weird wailing that I could not control before extended periods of heaving. Our new crew, a pair of sisters in their twenties, were discussing the noises I made and though they were talking in German I could tell that they were saying I didn’t even sound human but rather like a tom-cat trying to defend his territory. HS did my first shift for me. And then my next one. It was obvious, to everyone, that I was just not capable, at all, of doing anything. Also, unfortunately, we were heeling in such a direction that my bed was on the uphill side of the boat so I couldn’t fall asleep, because, if I even started to doze off I would loosen my hand hold and start to fall out of bed which would jolt me awake, and, since we have two new crew, there was not a downhill bed available. At one point salt water started dripping on me from above. I could reach a dry diaper from where I was and some duck tape, but I only had one piece of duck tape ripped off (to tape the diaper over the drip) when I dropped the roll of duck tape on the floor and it rolled to somewhere unreachable. One piece of duck tape was not enough to hold the diaper up so I had two options: get up and get the duck tape – and start puking again – or stay in bed and let the cold salt water drip on me. I chose to stay in bed and let the cold water drip on me. One of my sons has suffered migraines for years, several of my friends do too, I think for the first time ever I have experienced a bit of what they go through. 

Not here

The answer is not here.

I was lucky. HS needed a new part machined for the engine and so there were a few days in which I was free to explore the island of Sao Vicente. I got up early. I took the local buses everywhere. (They each have a sign on them ‘15 passengers’. In the west we would interpret this to mean 15 passengers maximum. Here it means the bus doesn't leave without at least 15 passengers, sometimes twice that, children always sit on someone’s lap and small women frequently sit on the laps of men, and then as the bus goes along it stops to pick up extra people, pigs, tubs of fish, etc..) The primary language spoken here is Creole so I negotiated my way about the island using a post card which I would show to the drivers getting them to point out where they were going. When they dropped me off I would walk everywhere, along the beaches, round the towns, sometimes, if I had seen everything there was to see and there was no evidence of another bus I would start to walk along the deserted cobblestone roads to my next destination. The island is barren. Nothing grows here. Our guide book says 90% of food is imported. I believe this. The sad looking bananas sold by women on every street corner are not local. The one riverbed is as dry as the surrounding hills.

I do not know, anymore, what I am looking for. I have forgotten the purpose of my quest. All I know is that the answer is not here in Sao Vicente.

I have talked to various locals who speak a common language, to a variety of very polite hawkers from mainland Africa, to other yatchies. I have browsed the markets, eaten and enjoyed local foods. I have joined in dances with school kids in the street and old ladies in town squares bringing grins to their faces and joy to my heart. I have tried to keep a photographic record of my visit (though I am not happy with the results of this).

Tomorrow we are going to put the engine back together and assuming it works we will go grocery shopping, complete the formalities required to check out of the country, and then leave for the next island. We are unlikely to have internet there and then we will be at sea for several weeks on the way to Brazil.

Hugs to all my friends... I am looking forward to seeing you in the new year!

Two towns

Sao Pedro, Sao Vicente, Cape Verde, west of Mindelo, is billed as a picturesque fishing village nestled at one end of a large sandy bay. To get there you take a small bus ($1) over a cobblestone road through dry barren landscape (think area outside Las Vegas). The town has no paved roads, the shop has no electricity, the houses are mere shacks without running water, and small kids play barefoot on the rocky pathways between them on which ‘honey pots’ of human waste have been emptied. 

Salamansa, Sal Vicente, Cape Verde, east of Mindelo, is similar. It is billed as having an activity center for tourists where you can rent surf boards, scuba gear, and take kite boarding lessons. The center does exist. I went there. There was a lone instructor playing a haki sack type game by himself on the beach and I was the only tourist.

On the other hand the government provides clean water at a centrally located tap in each town which girls collect in plastic tubs and then carry on their heads back to their homes, the boys go out fishing successfully – on both of my return trips our bus had tubs of fish loaded on top of it to be taken to the city to be sold – and the kids or all ages seem happy.

I feel, having spent the morning walking round these two towns, I ought to have a profound comment to make. Unfortunately, I don’t. 

Reluctant assistant

I arrive back at the boat quite late Sunday morning still buoyed up and happy from my encounter with the four kids. HS is grumpy. He made breakfast assuming I would be back sooner and my serving is sitting cold in the galley waiting for me. I eat it cheerfully and ask about his plans for the day. He wants to start taking the engine apart and, at very least, diagnose the problem, and, he states very clearly, he will need my help. ‘No problem,’ I say, ‘just let me know what I can do for you.’ For the next seven hours he works on the engine getting angrier and angrier and grimier and grimier. The language he uses goes from bad to worse and would make Suzanne’s ears turn very red. I am not really needed but get the impression that he likes to have me there as moral support or something. I will sit quietly, diligently, for twenty minutes, agreeing with everything he says – though we both agree on several occasions that I don’t have a clue what he is talking about – but doing nothing. Then, without moving, I pick up my computer to start organizing my photos or some such and immediately he needs me to go to the tool room to get a certain screwdriver. I am not sure if I am imagining it or not but it seems to me that, at least subconsciously, he is upset if he doesn't have 100% of my attention and consequently fabricates a wee task for me each time I divert a bit of it elsewhere. I get the screwdriver, or whatever, sit patiently for awhile, try to reach silently for my computer, and the pattern repeats itself. I wouldn't mind helping if I could provide real help, but, let’s face it, taking the engine apart and diagnosing the problem with the transmission is just not a skill I have, and, to boot, there is room for exactly one person down in the engine dungeon, and, also, he knows how to do this and loves doing it. Eventually the offending part is found, a broken buffer plate, which, apparently, is not too bad, and, a few hours later, after the engine has been raised onto blocks and the flywheel taken off and goodness only knows what else, we are, thankfully, done for the day. I hope I am not ‘needed’ everyday. I want to print off photos for the kids I met, find free internet and check my e-mail, explore the rest of this island, take the ferry to the next island over and explore it too. I do not, really, at all, want to help fix the engine, but, unfortunately, for me, if today is any indication, I will, lily-livered as always, spend my time here looking for screwdrivers and being frustrated. Two days, I determine, I need, for myself, to go off and be a tourist, or I will not sail with HS when he leaves here. (Oooh, maybe I should check and see if flights from here exist first!) Hopefully he will need to order a spare part or something and the two days will just appear. I don’t want to have to negotiate for them. I am such a wuss!