Shooting Stars and Flying Fish: Swapping the boardroom for the seven seas

by Nancy Knudsen

  When he is able to get a word in he says, ‘You have to give me credit for a little judgement.’

  ‘No, no, no, no! No credit for anything! Many, many of the people who are lost overboard are lost because they bent over to pick something up off the deck and the boat lurched. If that happens when the other person isn’t on deck it could be up to three hours before I know you’re missing!’

  ‘You’re making a big thing out of nothing.’

  ‘Oh no I’m not. Look, I know that when you started sailing there were no lifelines and no harnesses. I know you danced around the deck knee-deep in monstrous waves with a rope slung around your middle . . .’

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘I’m wrong? How?’

  ‘I didn’t have the rope around my waist on the foredeck – it was when I was on the helm. We used to wrap the mainsheet – not a rope – around our waists to avoid being washed over while steering.’

  ‘Whatever. It’s not funny. You survived. That’s fine. I actually don’t care if you want to take risks, but I’m here too, and I don’t want to have to explain to the next customs officers why there is only one of me on this boat.’

  But then I can’t help seeing the humour of it. ‘They might arrest me for murder. In fact, if you do that again, it might just happen. At least I’d be doing time for something I had actually been responsible for.’

  He grins, and then I do too. We argue back and forth, and he agrees that he won’t do it again. But can I trust him?

  As we thread our way through the coral reefs in the pass that leads into into a lagoon at Cocos Keeling in early morning, we already know something of the amazing history of this remote group of islands. Alexander Hare, formerly a British soldier, and by all accounts a miserable man, moved there in 1826, importing slaves from Malaya and Africa to work his copra plantations. A clever Scotsman, Captain John Clunies-Ross, moved there also, and, by offering better working conditions, he enticed the slaves to run away from Hare and work for him. Thus began the Clunies-Ross family’s ‘ownership’ of the island, which lasted for nearly 150 years until 1978, when the Australian government, which by then had control of the islands, forced the family to sell.

  During the Second World War, the group was a strategically important outpost, with one of the islands – Direction – being vital as a telegraph station. The tale of the atoll’s involvement in the Second World War is a cloak-and-dagger story of Japanese occupation, submarine attacks, battles fought and lost, German ships sunk and mutinies quelled.

  The current population of Cocos Keeling comprises descendants of the original slaves, together with a contingent of Australian government employees. The Malay people live on an adjoining island, Home Island, and the Europeans live on yet another imaginatively named isle, West Island.

  As we enter the narrow pass, we see nothing but a long island of coconut palms, so low it hardly breaks the horizon line, but vivid green and dense with foliage. In the distance are some other landmasses, vaguer in the misty salt air. Three yachts are already anchored in pale aqua water – but it looks shallow, much too shallow for us, and we daren’t enter.

  Hovering in deep water, we call Customs by VHF radio, but there is no answer – well, silly, it is dawn on Sunday morning – so we hoist the quarantine flag and sneak warily into the ‘quarantine area’ according to the chart, watching the depth counter, to anchor by the coconut-smothered Direction Island of telegraph-station fame.

  Suddenly the microphone crackles across the cockpit, and we startle, not having heard another human voice for so many days.

  ‘Yacht just entered Direction Island lagoon, this is Sortelege on Channel 20.’

  There are three boats already in the anchorage – Tree of Life, Giselle and Sortelege – and between them they tell us how to enter, that the customs man will turn up when it suits him, and to please come for sundowners later in the day.

  This welcome sets the scene, and after the long sail we enjoy the companionship of swimming, snorkelling and enjoying beachside barbecues with the other three yacht crews. We are anchored behind the coral atoll without inhabitants, but with seashell-strewn beaches, sandy paths twisting under the thick palm-tree jungle, millions of crabs, and feral chickens cackling and pecking. In the clear water are fish and coral, and one can swim among the sharks with impunity. They are very shy and dart away unless you swim very softly and carefully and don’t splash.

  Passing yachties have developed a long tradition of leaving some token to note their passing – a piece of driftwood, a flag, a bamboo pole, emblazoned with the name of the vessel and the date of the visit. We get busy with driftwood, soldering iron and varnish.

  We find the individual stories of the yachts we encounter a never-ending source of fascination. A couple of single-handed sailors arrive a day apart – a young Frenchman in an engine-less twenty-three foot boat, with a windsurfer taking up most of the cabin space, and a Pole who has sailed direct from Fiji in forty-four days, headed for Cape Town, with just a two-night stop here. He has run out of money, cannot pay port fees, and therefore must keep sailing. He survives by catching fish.

  Astonishingly, we are invited to the wedding of two Australians living on West Island. ‘Well,’ we are told, ‘it is a community event and the bridal couple feel that passing yachties are a part of the community.’

  The wedding venue is Prison Island, a circular spit of sand with a jungle of greenery at its centre, and surrounded by spreading aqua shallows. It was here that Alexander Hare lived in virtual imprisonment for years after John Clunies-Ross took control of Cocos Keeling.

  Dozens of dinghies and small runabouts converge on the island. The bride arrives by small motorboat in a traditional white dress with a bunch of flowers and bare feet. The groom wears dark sunglasses, a five o’clock shadow, casual white shirt with long shorts, and bare feet. The guests are arrayed in a wild confusion of colours, flowing sand-length caftans or tight shorts, with broad-brimmed straw hats or baseball caps, all with bare feet. Even the marriage celebrant, a huge-bosomed woman in black and red taffeta, is barefoot. Throughout the service the champagne flows, and kids shout and squeal in the shallows.

  A tropical storm hits the island just as the big woman says, ‘I now declare you husband and wife.’ This sends everyone scurrying and laughing to their runabouts. Dozens of small boats rocket through the building waves and rain to the cover of the palm trees on our own Direction Island. Here the party continues, regardless of the fact that all are drenched with either rain water or salt water or both.

  We are soon sobered by a drama unfolding in the anchorage. We had all but forgotten Bob on Tasneem, the English ex-avionics engineer who gave us anchoring advice in Seisia and sailed west without us when Ted developed a hernia in Darwin. But now, he enters our lives again.

  On arrival in Cocos Keeling, we had been told that Bob had left for Chagos two days prior. Now we learn that at night in an angry sea, a gybing boom knocked him across the cockpit. When he recovered consciousness he could see a large lump protruding from the back of his shoulder – was it broken? He didn’t know. A full drama is unfolding as Bob, now a single-handed single-hander, tries to sail back, against the wind, which, unfortunately, is coming directly from Cocos at gale strength. Giselle, with Tree of Life and Blackwattle joining in, is in touch with him on a twice-daily basis on the HF radio to give encouragement and relay medical advice from the local doctors.

  Some days he makes no progress, simply drifting, or hove-to, resting, sleeping fitfully to try to gather some strength. In the bucking sea he has difficulty eating, let alone setting sails. Finally, after several days, he is just eight miles away, and it’s getting dark. Most yachts would never try to enter the unlit lagoon in the dark, but we cannot have Bob wait all night. Volunteers from the yachts in the anchorage go out in dinghies with handheld VHF radios into a dishevelled sea and a high wind. Two intend t
o board his boat, and others wait to shine torches to show the way into the lagoon. Those of us left in the anchorage wait anxiously by the radios.

  By 9 pm, the boat is anchored successfully. Bob has sailed against the wind almost 400 miles to Cocos in six days, in severe pain, with little food and scarcely any sleep. Later, Bob says that the sight of flashing torches and two silhouettes climbing onto his boat from the darkness, taking the wheel, telling him his job was over, to lie down, all was well now, was one of the greatest moments of his life.

  It’s not the end of the story for Bob as he is in need of much medical treatment.

  We yachts, however, need to push further west. With the approach of the monsoon, the season for travelling is fast ending. Bob will be unable to sail to Europe this season. The skippers of Blackwattle, Sortelege and Giselle sail Bob’s boat to Home Island, and the gentle people of Home Island move the large ferry boats along the dock to make way. Their concern for him is touching and we feel certain that he will be well cared for. Since we left our previous lives I am constantly in awe of the generosity of spirit of people with little material wealth. But when will we see Bob again? In this transient life, one never knows what may be in store.

  This is the big one – westwards again and 1500 nautical miles to the Chagos Archipelago. We’re both charged with excitement as we ready the boat. There’s a range of submerged sea mountains in the way, and we must go through a pass in the range to avoid bad seas. Apart from that there’s nothing – nothing at all – between here and Chagos.

  We’re away. It’s a flat-sky brittle day, the water outside the lagoon slate-coloured, hard-looking, like melted granite. The sun is a limp thing, trying lamely to break through the barricade of clouds. It’s sad to leave this small paradise. Trepidation is there – we must not make any mistakes out in that watery desert.

  It’s a couple of days later and the 2200 change of watch.

  ‘I’ve put our six o’clock position on the chart, Nance. You’ll do the midnight?’

  ‘Sure.’ The routine is starting again on our long journey to Chagos.

  But at midnight I can’t find the chart. Ted, always meticulous, has prepared all the charts. I go through them again and again – but there’s a big hunk of the Indian Ocean missing, and no chart.

  I start looking. I search everywhere – the bunks, the chart locker, the cockpit, the aft tunnel. It must have slipped under the table. I get down and crawl deep under the table, feeling around for the touch of paper.

  Just on the other side of the table, there’s a body movement – Ted going to the loo? By looking under my armpit, braced against table to counter the tossing of the boat, I can see the silhouettes of Ted’s legs going up the gangway.

  ‘Nance!’

  ‘I’m here!’ I reply, but he can’t hear me over the wind.

  ‘Nance, where are you? Nance!’

  It’s hard to crawl backwards out from under a table fast in a bucking boat.

  Louder: ‘I’m here!’

  He’s still calling, and now I can see a torch flashing around the cockpit and outside on the deck.

  I scream, ‘I’m here, here, on the floor, here!’ We’re both calling out together. It’s only seconds, but seems so long.

  Suddenly there’s a torch aimed straight at my derrière.

  ‘What the f&%@ are you doing there?’ I can hear him breathing heavily. His voice is angry. His anger is disguising his fear, but I know we won’t be mentioning this. Some things are best left unsaid.

  I get up with as much dignity as I can muster under the circumstances.

  ‘Searching for the chart which you seem to have hidden.’

  ‘Why are you looking under the f&%@ing table? It’s on top of the f&%@ing table.’

  He hands me the Maldives to Sumatra chart, and sure enough the tail of the chart extends far enough down into the Indian Ocean to include the part of ocean we are in.

  ‘Go to bed,’ I say trying to stay haughty, but laughing anyway. ‘You’re not supposed to be awake. Give me a hug and go back to sleep.’

  Maybe he won’t be so cavalier now about going on the foredeck without me present.

  ———

  If visitors from outer space landed on this part of the Indian Ocean any early morning, they could be forgiven for thinking that flying fish are the dominant life form on this planet. Gutsy little critters they are, too. Faster than speeding bullets, they fly in great squadrons for up to half a minute, in perfect formation, their bodies shining silver in the sun like tiny jet fighters. Not all of them would make the Red Arrows, however. Some make exquisite landings, shooting without a mark into the depths. Others do less-than-exquisite belly flops, probably causing great smirks and guffaws among the flying-fish community below.

  Faster than a speeding bullet they may be, but it’s those little superfish who try to leap tall sailing boats in a single bound at night that end up coming to no good. We discover their poor little bodies early every morning, sans kryptonite, and dead on our deck.

  In the days of the Ancient Mariner they called it the Doldrums. In these times of flashier science it is called the ITCZ or Inter-tropical Convergence Zone. It consists of two zones of confused air on each side of the equator, distinguished by flat calms (Coleridge’s ‘painted ship upon a painted ocean’) and violent thunderstorms at night. These zones move north and south more or less regularly as the seasons change, and it behoves all good sailors to avoid them wherever possible. In sailing for Chagos, our original plan had us well clear of the ITCZ. While we are a little late in the season because of our delayed start in Darwin, we have always thought that we had time to get to Chagos before the ITCZ moves south. Now, from our daily weather reports, we find to our dismay that the dreaded Doldrums have moved south earlier than usual.

  It’s my morning watch, with a nice twenty-five knots of wind behind us, and I go below to the sleeping skipper.

  ‘Wake up, Ted,’ I say, rubbing his hand. ‘There’s a storm about half an hour away. I think we should gybe and run south to clear air before it gets too close.’ I now do most sail adjustments on my own, but a gybe in a strong wind isn’t one that either of us do alone, as the swinging boom must be controlled at all costs to prevent potential damage.

  The sun has gone, the water has a sly glint, and it’s grey and heaving from the thunderstorm activity in the area. We’re tense. A storm not only means higher wind and rain, but potentially lightning, which could destroy our navigation equipment. We run south and watch the storm carefully on radar. It is unfurling like an angry animal awakening and getting to its feet, ready for action.

  ‘Oh no, the bloody thing is coming with us.’

  We gybe again quickly and run north like a mouse fleeing from the monster cat. This time we’ve won, but we are now right in the path of the Doldrums. Mornings the sky is alive with deceptively white fairy floss. By late afternoon there is a growing underbelly of pewter, until the pewter fills the sky, and the sea is like wetted lead and pregnant with the coming fury. Then, in the late evening, the storms begin dumping their loads of wind and rain on us. Night after night, we watch their development on the radar, and then twist and run, playing dodgem, taking off in any direction to avoid what we fear most: lightning.

  Apart from the squalls at night there is no wind. Every morning the water is heaving, with a grey hungover look, exhausted from dancing to the tune of the symphony played out each night above us. We haven’t seen another vessel for many days. Becalmed during daylight and running in many directions at night, we are hardly making fifty miles a day.

  We lean over the charts and the weather reports one morning, searching for good news, but it’s getting worse. Now the Doldrums stretch a full 400 miles from where we are – right to the Chagos Archipelago.

  Ted says, ‘Look here, Nance. If we turn right and head north, we should be out of the Dol
drums within a day.’

  I glance back at the chart. ‘Well the Maldives sounds rather nice,’ I say, and with a grin we go on deck to change course.

  Sadly, no Chagos, the uninhabited archipelago of atolls we have dreamed so much about, for so many years. But within twenty-four hours we have a nice ‘just before the beam’ reach, and we’re heading directly for the Maldives. With the new course we feel the world around us again – a world of rainbows and dolphins, of shooting stars and flying fish. The cornflower-blue sky is swathed with white lace or a filmy negligee of tulle and decorated with mares’ tails of high wind. Then the sea is a rich dark indigo and spread with white horses.

  The sea now streams away fast in our wake, wind shrieking or whining, wind generator humming. The sea rushing along the side of the boat is like the sound of surf, the wind in the ears stops all thought. The exhilaration is intense, and the self seems to merge with the universe. I am in you, you are in me, we are one. This is what I came sailing for.

  Inside the boat it’s a different story – cosy familiarity and quietness, teak bookshelves and soft cushions, domesticated smells of coffee brewing, bread baking or soapy water at shower time, and it’s hard to accept that it’s blowing outside. The noises are different too; the slosh of water and fuel in their tanks, the tinkling of waves on the hull, clanking within the mast; these are comfortable friends, like favourite old shoes. And pervading everything, above and below, the sweet, sweet smell of salt air.

  I feel that I could go on sailing forever, but remote Addu Atoll, the most southerly atoll of the Maldives, is just before us, waiting to be discovered.

  If I’d known what was ahead, we might well have kept sailing.