Green Ghost, Blue Ocean

by Jennifer M. Smith

  Although we’d passed through Vanuatu years apart, we’d both pulled into the same anchorage in Port Sandwich and we’d both had the very good fortune of meeting Ezekiel and receiving his generous gifts.

  I loved the braided social structure of the cruising life, the way our path crisscrossed with other cruisers, the way we had experiences – unique, but shared. We headed upriver the following day, still hoping to catch a glimpse of the elephants, while Cop Out carried on downstream, heading back to Phuket where they would sell their boat, to begin a new phase of their lives.

  The many boats we’d met in the Sail Indonesia Rally had by now fanned out across Asia, each one with a different plan. Fellow sailors came and went, sometimes crossing our bow, sometimes disappearing in our wake. Although we came from diverse backgrounds, we had much in common. We didn’t just love sailing – we loved adventure. We weren’t dreamers, we were doers – always finding new ways to sample more from the smorgasbord of life, forever in pursuit of change.

  In September 2012, Nik and I could feel a new phase coming too. As much as we loved Asia, we were on the other side of the world. Trips back to Canada were expensive. The falling markets had us thinking of going back to work. Concerns for our ageing moms tipped the balance and we decided on our next plan.

  At Sukau, where overhead wires prevented us from exploring farther upstream, we turned Green Ghost around. We never did see the elephants of the Kinabatangan, but that was okay. We knew elephants were in our future. We were Africa bound.

  Figure 3. Indian Ocean Route Map

  CHAPTER 22

  Crossing the Indian

  (October 2012 – May 2013)

  We checked off all our remaining bucket list items in Asia, climbing Mount Kinabalu, the highest peak in Asia for my fiftieth birthday; visiting Brunei; and enjoying a month of land travel backpacking around Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar before the end of 2012. We packed it all in.

  Then, in order to get ourselves into position for our crossing to Africa, we retraced our steps, sailing Green Ghost back across the top of Borneo, past Singapore, up Malacca Straits through Christmas and the New Year, and back to Phuket, Thailand, our stepping-off point.

  We had to psych ourselves up for this one. The Indian Ocean was a big step out, the kind of big step we hadn’t taken in over a decade. We were younger when we set out to cross the Pacific. Green Ghost was younger then too. Upon our departure from Vancouver, between the boat and the crew, the Ghost was better prepared than we were. On the edge of the Indian, the opposite was true. It would be foolish to deny that you become a little complacent after so many years and so many miles. The boat was not as precisely tuned as it had been for the Pacific. Our gear was no longer new – it was well worn in but then, so were we. We were far more seasoned and that had to count for something.

  A couple on Sea Bunny kept a spreadsheet of all the boats that planned to cross the Indian Ocean to South Africa in the next year. If you wrote to them and asked to be on the list, you’d receive a monthly e-mail to keep up to date with the changing fleet.

  In the Pacific, almost every boat had been headed to the Marquesas. From there, all the boats cruised together throughout the relatively narrow corridor of French Polynesia. The Indian Ocean was different – cruisers had a choice of routes. From the west coast of Thailand or Malaysia some chose a northern route, heading for the Andaman Islands, then Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and the Seychelles. Some chose the middle route over the top of Sumatra, striking out from the Sumatran west coast directly for the islands of Rodrigues, Mauritius, and Reunion. Still others sailed south from Singapore, down the eastern side of Sumatra, then west through Sunda Strait and southwest for Australia’s Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Some sailed directly from Australia, possibly visiting Christmas Island before heading to Cocos (Keeling).

  While most vessels eventually turned up in Mauritius or Reunion, there were about 3,000 NM to cross before all westbound vessels converged upon those distant locations. From Mauritius or Reunion there were further routing decisions to be made. Madagascar was in the way. Vessels had to choose whether to go up and over Madagascar or under it before reaching the ultimate destination of Richards Bay, South Africa, the usual end point for a southern Indian Ocean crossing. We’d chosen the middle route because the west coast of Sumatra is a surfer’s paradise and Nik was hankering to get his boards wet again. We scanned the field of forty-two boats on the Sea Bunny spreadsheet to find there were only four other boats going our way.

  Through March and April, we enjoyed a fantastic seven weeks, sailing from Phuket, Thailand, up and over the top of Sumatra, and then lazily cruising the east coast and the outer islands of Simeleu, Nias, Sipika, and Tanahbala in the company of Moonfleet and Larissa.

  We checked out of Indonesia at Padang, a chaotic grimy city of over 800,000 on Sumatra’s west coast.

  Over our few days in Padang, our boat boy, Rio, helped us. We purchased diesel which, for some reason, had to be delivered under cover of darkness in beat-up jerry cans paddled out to us in a leaky dugout canoe. He set up a taxi to take us into town where we filled our propane tanks, bought groceries at the shop and veggies at the market. He explained that on our final day we would check out with the immigration officer, the customs officer, and the port captain. While the offices were clustered together south of town, Rio explained that we would have to make a trip north, across the city.

  “The immigration officer is out of the office,” Rio said. “But it is no problem, he has given the stamps to his son. You will go to his house for checkout. My driver knows the way.”

  Not your average set-up, but hey, this was Indo, so we went with it, knowing that all the driving would make for a full day of checkout procedures.

  On our last day in Padang, Rio organized a taxi for us first thing in the morning. As we dinghied by the Canadian-flagged catamaran, Tara, Captain Jimi waved to us from his cockpit.

  “Where are you off to so early? he asked.

  “We’re heading in to check out,” we called back. “Departing tomorrow.”

  “I checked out yesterday,” he called back. “I’m leaving tomorrow too.”

  We waved and carried on to shore where we jumped in the waiting taxi and eased into the busy Padang traffic. Our driver found the immigration officer’s house without trouble.

  We arrived at the front door and knocked. A heavyset young man greeted us as we entered the scantily furnished room. He was fat, no surprise. After many months in Indonesia we’d noticed the trend. While most Indonesians were slight of build, government officials and their families were universally fat. More money, I suppose. More disposable income.

  “Selamat pagi. Good morning!” I said as I reached out my hand to shake his. I looked up to meet his eyes then looked away quickly when I realized there was only one – eye, that is.

  “Pagi,” he responded, but I barely heard him. I was ashamed at how quickly I’d looked away from his face. What had happened to him, I wondered. His left eye was white – no iris, no pupil. I didn’t dare steal another look for fear of staring.

  Thank goodness, Nik’s reaction was more direct and more caring. He shook the young man’s hand and said, “My goodness, that’s quite an infection you have there. Have you seen a doctor?”

  Where I’d shown my horror, Nik showed concern. Why was that so hard to remember? When lost for words, think of a kind one. Yay, Nik, I thought to myself. Well done.

  The home office was no different from Indonesian government offices. A big screen TV was blaring a daytime soap opera from its prominent position on the wall. We were introduced to a cousin who was hanging around. The cousin answered Nik’s question.

  “Yes, he has seen the doctor. He has some medicine now.”

  When I regained my composure and looked again, I realized that Nik had nailed it – the trouble was an eye infection. The young man’s entire eyeball was covered in a yellow oozy pus. When he blinked, the pus squeezed out a little, but it didn’t run down
his cheek – it was too thick to flow.

  “Well, that’s good to hear,” Nik responded.

  We made small talk while the young man seated himself and opened our passports to cancel our Indonesian visas. Despite being unwell, he applied his stamps to both the ink pad and the passports with vigour. Bam! Bam! There were numerous papers to be filled out, signed, and stamped as well. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

  Now and then the young man would stop what he was doing, grab his T-shirt below the neckline and pull it up over his face, wiping a great smear of pus out of his eye. I watched from across the table and tried not to grimace. All I could think of was that glob of pus on the inside of his shirt sticking to his skin.

  “Okay, sign here, here, and here,” he said to us, pushing the papers across the table.

  I cringed when Nik asked, “Can I borrow your pen?”

  I signed too. Quickly.

  We sat in the southbound taxi wishing we could be more than an arm’s length away from our own hands. We still had the customs office and the port captain to go.

  Hours later, our checkout paperwork complete, we dinghied back to our boat, through the harbour, passing Jimi on Tara again.

  “How’d it go?” he yelled over to us.

  “All good!” we said, giving the thumbs-up.

  “You saw the immigration guy?” Jimi asked.

  “Yep!” we called back over the noise of the outboard.

  “How was ol’ pus-eye anyway?” Jimi barked back. “Come over for a drink later! But wash your hands first!”

  We were all thinking the same thing: with a 2,600 NM journey ahead, none of us wanted any part of ol’ pus-eye along for the ride.

  Ready for departure on the day we checked out with officialdom, we had a frustrating ten-day wait before the weather cleared for a go decision. We couldn’t complain too much. We were anchored about 20 NM south of the city, off the lovely Cubadak Island Resort with Moonfleet and Tara. We ran out of time on our cell phone, we ran out of local currency, and we ran out of fresh fruit and vegetables too. Fortunately, WiFi at the resort kept us connected to online weather forecasts and strong radio signals allowed us to use our Sailmail on board without difficulty. In the evenings, we idled away our time in a most incongruous way – watching season three of Downton Abbey on DVD.

  The Passage Weather website indicated a suspicious pattern developing that could become a tropical revolving storm (TRS). In the Bay of Bengal, north of the equator, the TRS formed slowly over the next several days, tracking towards Sri Lanka. A second low formed south of the equator and tracked south. We were right not to trust the two bull’s-eye shapes. The depression evolved into a named storm, Jamala, with winds over forty-five knots. So we waited.

  Tara departed on May14 and a day later at 10:45 a.m., in the company of our friends aboard Moonfleet, we set out to cross the Indian Ocean.

  We had a lovely sail through the afternoon, as a gorgeous moderate wind on our stern whisked us south and west away from the coast of Sumatra. After sundown, the wind died and we began motoring. Squid boats with their lights glowing over the horizon were a reminder that we were not yet far from land.

  As ex-Jamala moved westward, a huge vacuum was left in her wake. We motored through the windless first night and through to the next morning, through the whole next day and the following windless, starry night. At low rpms, we made only three and a half knots per hour, heading more south than west as we sought out the trade-wind breezes that would fill in south of the equator.

  After three days of mostly motoring, Nik emptied the sixty litres of diesel we’d stored on deck into the tanks. We were in good shape to continue motoring for another fifty or sixty hours, but after that we’d be getting antsy for some wind. In the meantime, we marvelled at the liquid surface before us – not even a ripple. We watched transfixed when six beautiful dolphins came to swim at the bow, perfectly visible through the glassy sapphire surface.

  The longer, faster Moonfleet had pulled ahead, reporting back to us that they had light trades in their area of the not-so-high seas. Our hearts lifted when, after eighty-three hours of motoring southwest off the Sumatran coast, we too found wind.

  Nearly a week out I began to think some part of ol’ pus-eye had found its way on board after all. I’d scratched an itchy area on my right forearm and it became infected. My skin became red and inflamed and soon developed patches of white pus. Antibiotic ointment didn’t help. A fluid-filled pouch formed around the infected part of my forearm. When the infection began to spread and two more areas of inflammation cropped up on my hand and my bicep I started to worry about sepsis. Hundreds of miles from medical help, I didn’t want to take any chances, and I began a five-day course of the roxithromycin we carried in our medicine kit. Fortunately, it did the trick, killing off the bacteria that had been flourishing on my arm.

  Our weather became squally and grey and the sea became lumpy and unpleasant. On the upside, we were doing over six knots in the direction we wanted to go, but the nasty weather began to take a toll on Nik. From his Pacific sailing days, he’d finally learned – without hesitation he applied a scopolamine patch and hung on for the ride.

  In the more boisterous conditions, we thought we’d hit the luxury of the trade winds, but the bigger winds didn’t last. As the system moved over us, we were again left in a windless vacuum, bouncing around on confused seas, having to start the engine again to make miles.

  Our friends aboard Moonfleet were ahead and farther south. They reported forty-knot winds from their position. No thanks. We preferred too little over too much, but we made slow progress and the Captain grew impatient.

  “We should have paid the forty grand,” he complained. “We’d be in Turkey by now.” He was referring to the number of people we knew who had paid the big money to have their boats loaded on a freighter in Thailand and shipped to the Mediterranean.

  “More than half a year’s budget? For shipping? I never could have lived with that,” I reminded him.

  Still, it was frustrating. We were having trouble getting it right. At the edge of the trades we were experiencing drizzling rain and listless winds. At six to ten knots there was no real heart in them. They were directionless – now abeam, now on our quarter, now off our stern. With the lack of consistent pressure on our sails, Green Ghost was rockin’ and rollin’ in the equally confused seas. We did all we could to catch the zephyrs that came our way, but the lame wind was dumped from the sails every few seconds. The canvas slapped on the collapse and snapped back harshly on the fill. It was horrible to listen to and unnerving to contemplate the relentless shock loading on both the sails and the rigging. It was tough on Nik too. He always did more of the deck work than I did, which was not easy in his mildly seasick state.

  Little did we know things were about to get worse. On our eighth day at sea, and just under 2,000 NM from Rodrigues, our planned destination, Nik woke me up in the late afternoon, jarring me out of my off-watch slumber.

  “Jenn,” he said, “we’ve got a big problem.”

  “What?” I mumbled, swimming up through the fog of sleep to the surface of consciousness.

  “Our transmission,” he said. “It’s flooded with salt water.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Wait and Hope

  (May – June 2013)

  “What?” I said again.

  “I was checking all the fluid levels on the engine like I always do. There’s no oil in the transmission. It’s full of salt water.”

  I sat up. Nik’s tense expression frightened me.

  “So there’s salt water where it isn’t supposed to be?” I said, trying to understand.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Can more get in?” I said, with a rising wave of panic.

  “What?”

  “The salt water, can it just keep coming?” I asked, still trying to understand what was happening.

  “No.”

  “So we’re not sinking then?”

  “No, we’re not sinking.�
�

  “Not sinking. That’s good.”

  “Yeah, but without oil in the transmission, we can’t run the engine.”

  “Right. That’s not good. But as long as we’re not sinking we have lots of time to think about it.”

  “True.”

  On a sailboat, one might think, who needs an engine when you’ve got the wind? But the engine does matter. It matters because it charges your batteries and your batteries run your systems and your systems keep you safe and well. On most modern cruising boats, sailors rely heavily on their power supply. We had a major problem on our hands.

  I got out of my bunk, Nik got out the engine manual, and we started brainstorming together. Nik explained that he was pretty sure that the copper tubes inside the heat exchanger had failed. A pinhole leak must have developed, allowing the cooling salt water that surged through the heat exchanger to enter the transmission while allowing the oil in the transmission to flow out. He stared into the engine compartment in the bilge. An idea for a solution came to him quite quickly.

  “Maybe I can rig a bypass,” he suggested. “That would remove the transmission oil cooler from the raw-water cooling circuit. If I rig a bypass, I can isolate the transmission and then we could still run the engine, just not in gear. We’ll have no propulsion, but if we can run the engine, we can charge our batteries, and if we can keep the batteries charged, we’ll be okay. But before I isolate it, to save the transmission, I’ve got to get the saltwater out.”

  To rig a bypass, he needed a length of hose with the right inner diameter to join the engine output directly to the raw-water exhaust. I went on watch in the cockpit while Nik put on a blue spandex body suit, donned a red cape, and set to saving the day. He dug deep into lockers of spare parts. He had purchased some spare lengths of hose before we left Thailand. A section of hose he had intended to use as a chafe guard on the anchor bridle had been squirrelled away for that someday project. It was the right diameter and the right length. Thank goodness for the bits and pieces crammed into the lockers. That one piece of spare hose saved the day.