Green Ghost, Blue Ocean

by Jennifer M. Smith

  As usual, Nik had not been affected one bit by the ups and downs of the news from the neighbouring boat. All he heard was, “Blah, blah, blah large croc on shore.” While I went to bed thinking the beach walk was off, he was packing his camera bag for the morning.

  We did walk the beach the following day and we did see the very large crocodile basking in the sun on the shore of the back-beach lagoon. Nik was in ecstasies filming the Atten-borough moment. We returned to the boat to enjoy a peaceful evening. Our neighbours had left. The howling winds had eased through the afternoon. By sundown, the anchorage was quiet and glassy and we spun on the hook to gentle land breezes and shifts of the tide.

  West around Cape Don and on toward Cape Hotham, we put our final day of sailing in and arrived in Darwin, our final port in Australia. We’d been on the move for forty-six of the previous sixty-five days. We’d had fifteen days at rest at anchor, only four of those days near communities, the rest in outlying empty places. We’d had the luxury of four nights in marinas: one in Airlie Beach and three in Cairns. Up the east coast, around the corner, and across the top, it had been a long lonely journey.

  As we pulled into Fannie Bay, Darwin, and set the hook among dozens of other sailing yachts, we looked forward to a more social scene and an Indonesian adventure.

  CHAPTER 19

  Indonesia

  (July – October 2011)

  The Timor Sea was kind to us. Light winds and calm seas made for an easy 450 NM crossing that restored our faith in our abilities. No drama. Just the way we liked it.

  It had been a long time coming. Green Ghost had not been in a new country for eight years, and it felt good. We arrived in the land of Islamic calls to prayer, corrugated iron roofing, multi-passenger motorbikes, tear-inducing spices, sleepy dogs, smiling people, and shouted greetings of “Hello, mister!” everywhere we went. Kupang, West Timor, was a loud alarm clock, awakening senses still drowsy from their long nap in stable, comfortable Australia.

  We tidied up the boat, took showers, and dressed ourselves decently while we motored up the calm waters of Selat Semau. Over eighty boats had arrived in Kupang in a twenty-four-hour period and the local officials were hopping. When the anchor was down and the quarantine flag was up, signalling our arrival to the officials, seven officers clambered aboard for the check-in procedure. Representatives from quarantine, customs, immigration, and the police barrelled down the companionway and packed in around the salon table. The body heat coupled with the Indonesian heat created a sweaty, sauna-like atmosphere.

  The paper started to fly. Copies of the boat registration, copies of our passports, copies of our CAIT (Clearance Approval for Indonesian Territory), our exit paperwork from Australia, arrival cards for immigration, and the crew list, all were requested in duplicate. Indonesians like their paperwork.

  The quarantine officer cornered me. With his pen and clipboard poised, he asked, “Do you have fresh food on board?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t bring to shore. Bad for us.”

  “Okay,” I responded.

  He placed a check on his form and asked, “Do you have medicine?”

  “Yes. Would you like a list of the prescription drugs we have on board?”

  “No.” Check.

  “Have you had vaccinations?”

  “Yes. Would you like to see the records?”

  “No.” Check.

  “Are you sick now?”

  “No. We are healthy.”

  “Healthy, good.” Check.

  Meanwhile Nik was interrogated by the customs officer.

  “Hantu Ijau,” he said. Nik looked at him quizzically, not understanding this phrase. “Hantu Ijau,” he repeated. “Your boat name, in Indonesian Bahasa (language) Green Ghost is Hantu Ijau.”

  “Oh!” Nik said, smiling, but the chit-chat was over.

  “Do you have guns?” he asked sternly.

  “No.”

  “Good. Do you have whiskey? Wine?”

  “Yes.”

  Eyes lit up all around. Now that we were talking about alcohol, three officers began speaking at once.

  “How many bottles?”

  “Show me the whiskey.”

  “Show me the wine,” they insisted.

  Suddenly, fourteen hands got busy. Every cupboard door, every drawer, every floorboard on Green Ghost fastens with a positive click. Each cleverly engineered fastener is carefully and aesthetically installed and each custom closure opens in a very specific way. I winced at the thought of which latch would be broken first.

  “Hati! Hati!” I said, telling them to be careful in one of the few phrases I’d practised in Bahasa.

  There was nothing systematic about the search, but at last they found it – in the liquor cabinet.

  “This bottle for me?” one of them asked.

  “No,” Nik said.

  “I want a bottle of whiskey.”

  “No.” Nik held firm. “The whiskey must remain on the boat.”

  They moved on from requests for full bottles to requests for drinks. We poured Coke over ice and water for those who preferred it. Some were satisfied, but others remained fixated on beer, whiskey, and rum.

  At first, we’d been taken aback by their determination, but we finally came to realize that it was all a bit of a game. It was more about the fun of asking for a drink than it was a threatening demand for goods. Nik was the first to catch on. He realized that they didn’t all want to drink; what they wanted was to see someone drinking. Nik agreed to pour a shot of rum for anyone who wanted it. One of the older and wiser men requested a small pour into his glass of Coke. Three others pointed excitedly at one of the youngest officers. They wanted to see him drink a proper shot straight up. The young officer held the shooter glass with apprehension, psyching up while his buddies egged him on. He downed the shot with an undisguised grimace. A cheer went up from the others. This bit of bravado settled the crowd; they laughed heartily at their friend, the designated drinker. They clapped him on the back, welcomed us to Indonesia, and disembarked, official duties done.

  We did not stay long in Kupang. A nation of more than 17,500 islands stretched out before us over five thousand kilometres along the equator. No two boats would have the same voyage through Indonesia – there was no way to see it all. From the first port of entry a crew had to start making choices. Like most of the boats in the rally, we chose the western route to Singapore. Unlike most of the boats in the rally, we chose to start by heading south to Rote Island.

  Rote was a 60 NM journey in a slightly backtracking direction. The island has a world-class surf break off a little village called Nembrala and Nik had his heart set on surfing it.

  The break was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Here, long wavelength swells push in from the Indian Ocean, rising up as they meet the reef where they become huge left-hand breakers. The strong southeast trade winds roaring over the topographically low limestone island made for a constant offshore wind, blowing the tops off the breaking waves and sending the spindrift up into the air and out to sea. The spray over each successive wave formed a rainbow in the sunlight, which disappeared with each passing trough, then reformed as the next crest was atomized by the trade winds. The surf was both daunting and beautiful.

  The thought of Nik on these powerful waves frightened me, but there were a dozen other surfers in the water and I knew there was no stopping him. He left me alone on board at anchor and went off in the dinghy, anchoring just beyond the break to paddle in. He caught the ride of his life on those sizeable waves, and better yet he caught it all on his new GoPro camera. He contemplated being satisfied with his one spectacular ride, but his surfer’s heart got the better of him, begging just one more.

  Back in the break he paddled hard to catch another but his timing was off. He couldn’t drop in on it and missed the ride. In his attempt, he’d been pushed fifty metres inshore toward the reef. He turned to paddle back out only to see a huge set approaching, larger waves that would break in de
eper water. He was exactly where he didn’t want to be, caught on the inside. He was hammered by the surf, relentlessly tumbled and held down by the weight of the water pounding down upon him. His leash snapped. His board was gone. In that frothing low-density whitewater he was sinking – without his board he had nothing for flotation. His lungs were burning as his head broke the surface. He sucked in some air and was hammered down again.

  After being repeatedly slammed down and held under by the force of the breaking waves for what felt like eternity, he found himself at the surface again, this time yelling for help. But of course, there wasn’t any. He gulped some air and floated on his back, pushed ever closer to the reef by the onslaught of the surf. Finally, he was able to put his feet down on the bottom. His board had snapped in two. The back end of it was tangled in the seaweed beds near shore, but the nose of the board was gone with the camera and the footage of the ride of his life.

  Back on board, I sat in rapt silence as he relayed the details of his misadventure to me. Before he could finish his story, a dinghy approached Green Ghost. Another surfer was driving it and, reaching into the bottom of his boat, he yelled out, “Is this yours?”

  Unbelievably he had found the nose of Nik’s surfboard. The camera was still on it, and it was still filming! Over the next couple of days, Nik’s longboard was expertly repaired ashore. His Rote adventure had a happy ending after all.

  The Sail Indonesia Rally organization had planned cultural events on many of the islands the fleet visited. In Larantuka on the northeast coast of the island of Flores we found a waterfront that was the local garbage dump but we gladly stepped over it to engage in the festive reception awaiting us on the wharf.

  Drummers, dancers, and greeters treated us like visiting royalty, crowning us with palm frond headbands as we came ashore. We were handed mock weapons and encouraged to join in a ceremonial battle dance. As the drums beat out a rhythm, the dance became a parade and we were swept up the street, our headbands bob-bobbing in step, the mock swords in our hands chop-chopping the air. We hopped and whooped our way the two or three blocks to the Regent’s house where a welcome ceremony of traditional dance and a buffet gala dinner of traditional dishes was presented to us by the Regent, Vice-Regent, and local government officials of the East Flores Regency.

  We sailed west along the north coast of Flores and anchored off a resort called Sea World, not far from Maumere, the largest town on the island. It was the best place to access Kelimutu, the volcano famous for its tri-colour lakes. Our arrival in the anchorage was perfectly timed for happy hour. At four p.m. thirty yachties stormed the beach and drank the bar out of cold Bintang beer in less than two hours. Even so it was a productive time. We caught up with other sailors we hadn’t seen in a while, hearing stories of one another’s travels, discussing future plans, and complaining of the poor anchoring conditions in the steep-bottomed bay. We learned that earlier in the week three boats had dragged their anchors after a change in wind direction. We compared notes on weather forecasts and teamed up on plans for shore excursions the following day. Shared taxis were discussed, groups were formed, and phone calls were made. By the end of happy hour, we’d organized a dozen people for a four a.m. wake-up call and five a.m. departure for an all-day tour to Kelimutu.

  Our day trip was an eleven-hour commitment and I was hoping there would be some eyes left in the anchorage to watch the boats while we were away. With the anchor-dragging stories in the back of my mind I asked around to see who planned to stay in the anchorage, but my attempts at locating a boat babysitter were fruitless. Many of the boats had already been there for a couple of days and planned to move on. The remaining boats were newcomers like us with plans to see Kelimutu.

  We’d arrived in what was an unusual onshore breeze, albeit a light one. As a result, in order to anchor we had to point our bow out to sea and back down on our anchor with our stern towards shore, setting our anchor uphill on the steeply sloping bottom. As a result, we weren’t completely confident that we’d set the anchor well and knowing that a moderate offshore breeze was the norm in this anchorage, we were particularly concerned about what a 180-degree wind shift would mean for our ground tackle.

  In the morning, we did something we’d rarely done before. We left the keys in the ignition. We closed hatches and portholes and doors, but we left the boat unlocked. We wrote on a sheet of paper our cell phone number followed by step-by-step instructions on how to start the engine, how to turn on the navigation equipment, and how to operate the windlass. We taped the note to the binnacle and left Green Ghost for our day trip.

  Our four-car convoy took in the countryside between the anchorage and the crater lakes as the sun came up. At the top of Kelimutu, we marvelled at the tri-colour lakes and rejoiced in a nearly forgotten sensation – although we sat at the hearth of the planet, we were wonderfully cold.

  We returned at day’s end to find that there were no dramas in the anchorage while we were away. My concerns were for nothing. Green Ghost waited patiently for us in the now offshore breeze.

  The following day we went to the town of Maumere to do some shopping. It was rumoured that a store in town called Roxy stocked dairy products, such as long-life milk and canned butter. Oh, for whole milk on our cereal and buttered popcorn on the afternoon watch! It was a twenty-minute drive. To get there we could hire a private taxi (Rp50,000, about C$6), get on a local minibus (Rp3,000, cheap at about C$0.35), or wait for a local to stop and offer us a ride.

  Motorcyclists, seeing a tourist on the road, were very likely to stop and let you hop on the back for a price even lower than bus fare. You may think I’m adventurous crossing oceans on a small boat, but hopping helmet-less on the back of a motorcycle driven by a total stranger weaving through traffic in a foreign town did not appeal to me at all – a girl has her limits. I voted for the minibus. At thirty-five cents, I argued we could afford it.

  On the path up to the main road, some young English-speaking resort employees offered us advice about the owner-operated minivans, locally called “Beemos.” They kindly helped us flag one down, translating for us, explaining to the driver that we were headed for Roxy.

  Content we’d be dropped at the store, we sat back to enjoy the ride, crammed in with local passengers in the back of the pimped-up vehicle. An extended rap version of “Brown Girl in the Ring” thumped over the stereo system, threatening permanent hearing loss. Conversation wasn’t an option. Zoned out in the onslaught of music, we were slow to realize that the shopping district had come and gone and we were driving through a suburban no man’s land.

  “Roxy?” Nik yelled forward.

  In the rearview mirror, we saw eyebrows shoot up and an Oh, shit expression cross the driver’s face. He indicated with a twirl of his index finger that we should stay on board until he completed his loop through suburbia and circled back into town. Finally, the Beemo jerked to a stop, the driver called, “Roxy!” We piled out and he peeled away.

  The large store was across the street from the bus stop. We approached expectantly only to find it dark, the door locked. CLOSED. Although every local we’d spoken to had provided us with assistance on how to find Roxy, not one person mentioned that the shop was closed on a Sunday afternoon. This was so very Indonesian; always very helpful, never wanting to disappoint, not one kind person dared to burst our bubble.

  We decided to make the most of our excursion and find a place to have lunch. We spied a squeaky clean, air-conditioned fast-food joint hilariously named Amazy Chicken, marketed as The Most Wanted Crispy. It was the Indo equivalent to KFC. We were finger lickin’ after our Combo #3s when Nik’s cell phone rang.

  “Is this a joke?” he asked. “Come on. Are you kidding me?” he continued, not giving me a clue as to who was calling or what they were calling about. “No. Seriously? Shit! Thanks!” Looking slightly panicked Nik blurted out, “We’re adrift! We’ve gotta go!”

  Mike and Kim on Cheetah II were underway along the coast and overheard some chatter on
the VHF radio. They’d called to tell us that Green Ghost had dragged anchor and was drifting out to sea. We ran out of the restaurant onto the street, finding a mass of parked motorcycles and a couple of Beemos with their side doors open. Nik ran to a minibus and asked the driver, “How much to go to Sea World, straight there, very fast?”

  Seeing that the van was crammed with people and picturing an endless series of stops and starts, I blurted out, “No! Nik! Not a bus! It’ll take too long!”

  We must have looked pretty desperate because within seconds we had three men around us, each astride a motorcycle with a vacant seat on the back.

  “Two people, how much to Sea World?” Nik asked them.

  “10,000 Rupiah,” a driver answered.

  “Too much,” replied Nik.

  “Seriously, you’re haggling?” I said.

  “Oh, right,” Nik came to his senses, “ 10,000 Rupiah. Okay! Let’s go!”

  How quickly my concerns about motorcycles evaporated. Faster than you can say hati hati, we were each on the back of a stranger’s motorcycle, our thoughts racing and weaving like the motorbikes themselves as we flew through traffic out of town. My thoughts vacillated; in one moment, I feared for my safety, in the next moment I revelled in the beauty of it all, speeding down a tropic road, warm air rushing past, my hair flying, a volcano in the distance. Flores was a beautiful island. I both believed and disbelieved, hoping the Ghost was okay, convinced there had to be some mistake. The song from the blaring Beemo continued to play in my mind, taunting me with switched-up lyrics, “Green Ghost on the run, tra-la-la-la-la …”

  I snapped out of the earworm and willed the driver to go faster, to get there in time. In the next moment, I wished he’d slow down – I wasn’t wearing a helmet. My thoughts went ’round and ’round, flying past like the scenery, a blurred rush. It was farther than I remembered – a long ride for a buck twenty. Nik was bartering! What the hell? Was the Ghost okay? Be there. Please, be there when we get back. I willed everything to turn out all right. Hurry! Faster, I thought, as we peeled down a straight stretch. Then on a corner – My God! Slow down!