HS has been getting on my nerves. He is pretty full of
himself, is unnecessarily sharp and rude if someone (like me) doesn’t follow
orders fast enough, and, certainly, always, assumes that any possible wishes
his crew might have are well beneath his consideration. Despite having been
with the boat for several months, for example, I do not ever get even a whisper
of input with respect to where we stop or how long we stay there. And, should I
dare be audacious enough to make a suggestion with respect to how the sails are
set, for example, I am treated with both caustic disdain and unmentionable language.
During the beginning of our last passage, just before the
auto-pilot broke, I when I was having a bad day, PMS or somesuch, I wrote the
following:
Sailing
SLOWLY from Recife south…
We are
plodding along at just under 4 knots with the sails set terribly. I know Nick
would have us going at least 5.5 maybe 6. HS just doesn’t care, at all, if his
sails are set poorly, if our speed suffers. I don’t get it. It drives me nuts
though.
I was
thinking that I had nothing positive to write in his ‘guest book’ (like Suzanne’s cottage book) but what I would
put, if he insisted I write something. I came up with the following:
“Herbert,
you are arrogant, abrasive, boorish, condescending, inconsiderate, and, oh yes,
don’t let me forget, petty. Both your lack of sailing skills, given your
experience, and your contemptible hubris ought to embarrass you. You said the
first day we met, in Ottawa, that you don’t like to sail. I didn’t believe you
at the time. I believe you now. My suggestion to you is this: find something
you do like to do, not only for your sake but also for those around you.”
Ohhh.
Ouch. So, the real question is this: Emily, why are you still on the boat? You
could have left in Gibraltar, in the Canaries, in Cape Verde, at Fernando de
Nohoria, in Recife… Why did you stay? Why do you let yourself be spoken down
to, debased and demeaned? Why do you give power to this ass by putting up with
his uncalled for rudeness? Why, when you are so sure you would not accept this
from your husband, or your boss, do you accept it from him? What is holding you
in this almost abusive relationship? Not the sailing, obviously, since it sets
your teeth on edge. Not the camaraderie of visiting land since whenever you get
somewhere you are there on your own. So why? Just because you started? What do
you have to prove by staying? It is truly a mystery that bears looking into.
I have to stress that this was written on a bad day.
Because, even if HS doesn’t like the sailing, I do. I love
being at sea, being on sunrise shift and seeing the sky turn all manner of
pastel colours before that big old sun peeks over the horizon, I love being always
aware of the phase of the moon and the rotation of the stars at night, knowing
when Orion will rise and where he will be at 3 am and when he
will set, I love watching the phosphorescence and the shooting stars and the dolphins, and having the wind, of all things, push us right across oceans, and waiting for the next island to appear…
And, even though HS has no interest in visiting anywhere new,
I do. I love arriving at a new port or anchorage or marina, reading the guide book,
going to the nearest tourist information station, choosing to wander the
beaches, or the town, or visit the museums or parks or fish markets, or take
the local bus to the next village over, I love stopping to chat with other yatchies or
other tourists or any of the locals, I love the surprizes and the discoveries...
I soak up - like a turtle basking in the sun - the solitude of being at sea, away from phones and
internet and everyone I know, but instead connected to, embraced by, Mother
Nature herself. Despite being very atheistic there is, for me, a huge spiritual
component to being at sea, sometimes the sky is so painfully beautiful it is as
if it were a huge canvas that God had chosen to paint for my pleasure alone.
I thrive on the adventure of making landfall somewhere anywhere new,
reading about its history on Wikipedia (sorry folks but it’s true), and then
venturing out to see what is actually there. Each new spot is a like different
chocolate from an expensive box-full of delights; some are better than others,
some unexpectedly sweet or bitter, but each one, always, exotic
and fun.
I was getting to the point, however, that I felt I had had the
Northern Magic experience, so to speak. When Sophie and Adelheid left in
Recife, to hitchhike south, they asked me several times to join them. I don’t
know if they meant it or not, as opposed to merely being polite, and, in
retrospect, I don’t know why I didn’t consider the possibility seriously.
However, I didn’t.
So. This morning I wrote:
I’m
considering leaving the boat. Like today. But I don’t really have a plan. Would
I find a hotel here? Bus to Rio and try to get an earlier flight home? Go to
the other marina and look for another position as crew? And then what? I wish I
could say I was looking forward to going home but even that is not particularly
true - the boys Literacy class. Oh Joy. And only part-time work so not even a
lot of money. And living on my own with no
kids and no husband and the days stretching endlessly before me. Hmmm. At least
here I have HS and his contempt. I understand, just a little bit, why people
stay in abusive relationships. The thought of leaving the known for the unknown
is a tad scary. Quite a big bit of me wishes that I had left with the girls; it
would have been fun and interesting and I would have seen a lot of the country,
met people, had experiences. Here, now, I have stopped living every day to the
fullest - yesterday I did nothing.
It is, I am pretty sure, time to take a
leap!
So I spent the morning investigating options; found a lovely Hostel in the safe part of town, learnt about buses to Rio, looked into
re-booking my flight home early. I arrived back at the boat at noon ready to
discuss with HS the possibility of my leaving. (I assume since he is driving me
nuts it must be mutual.) (But, then, there is the broken auto-pilot to consider.)
I had decided that, unless he actively
wanted me to stay, I would leave.
He was in a foul temper, something to do with paperwork
required by the military police, and antsy for us to do a shopping run
together. (He loves eating, and grocery shopping is an activity that calms him
down.) I said that there was something I wanted to talk about first and went on
to explain that I felt I had had the experience I had hoped for with him and so was
considering leaving, but, given the auto-pilot situation I wasn’t sure if he would
be happy for me to leave at this point or not…
He very, VERY, emphatically stated that he would extremely
disappointed if I chose to leave right now, that the auto-pilot company in
Australia had responded to his enquiry stating that they no longer
manufactured, nor carried spare parts for, the auto-pilot on his boat, that he
was going to try and fix one of the backup auto-pilot systems, but that he
didn’t know what the chances of success were, and that he would VERY much
appreciate it if I stayed with him as far as Rio, because, though he had said
many times he can sail this boat by himself, that statement had always assumed a
working auto-pilot, and that finding and training new crew, right here, right now,
would be a nightmare. It was a clear answer. A very clear answer.
So I agreed to stay with him as far as Rio given
the proviso that we try to make it there by the 20th in order that I would
have the option of trying to book an earlier flight home. He, willingly, agreed to
this. (Now who knows, it may be that a series of ugly storms comes out of
nowhere, like the ones that stopped us from leaving Gibraltar on time, and that
we are stuck huddled waiting somewhere in some obscure bay for ages, or that
something even more serious goes wrong with the boat, that we don’t make it to
Rio by the 20th or even the 30th, that I have to leave
him on his boat by himself and bus to Rio anyway… but, barring disaster, it is
looking good.)
So, for now I stay. (And will be interested to see if his
attitude mellows.)
Tomorrow morning we leave Salvador. We will do a short
10 mile hop to a nearby island to test out the new jury-rigged auto pilot
system and anchor there overnight. Assuming all goes well we will, the next day, once again, head
south. Rio, here we come!
