‘You are on a sailing boat? Oh, that is exciting. That is how I’m going to leave Eritrea.’
‘Leave? You are leaving?’ I know it is almost impossible for the Eritreans to get visas to other countries.
Conspiratorially, he says, ‘Yes, yes, I have to leave, because they are looking for me. Otherwise I have to do seven years’ army. Only if you are at school can you avoid it. I don’t go to school, so they are looking for me.’
I stare. ‘How old are you? And how will you escape?’
‘I’m twenty-one. My friend on the sailing boat will hide me under one of the bunks. Yes, he is coming back for me – he is my friend, really, my good friend.’
‘But where will you go with no passport?’
‘Oh, the Sudan, or Egypt. I won’t need a passport – they don’t worry about those things there. I went to the Sudan with my uncle once. It’ll be okay, then I can get a job; I can’t get a job here, because they would find me and make me go into the army. Two years would be okay, but not seven years. That’s too long.’
The cafe opens, and we go to our separate internet desks in the hot muggy cafe. No sailor would risk such smuggling. I wonder how many sad stories there are in this newly independent country for which so many have given their lives. We have seen other young men serving their seven years with a smiling pride, and it is easy to condemn someone for dodging their draft obligations. But it is also very easy to understand a young soul who thinks of seven years as an eternity – indeed, it is exactly a third of his life so far.
For some time we have been urging my son Simon to come sailing with us for a few weeks. Recently he has emailed us to say that he could join us for some of the journey up the Red Sea. We decide that we could pick him up in Massawa and drop him off in the Sudan, which would suit the time he has available.
A few days after that email exchange, the satellite phone rings. It’s Simon.
‘Oh my God, how lovely to hear your voice,’ I say. ‘When are you arriving?’
His voice is strange, stress-filled, stilted. ‘Mum,’ he says, ‘I didn’t realise how crazy you are until today.’
‘What? What did you say? The line’s not good. When are you arriving?’
‘I have had a long talk with the travel agent.’
‘Yes, good, and . . . ?’
‘Mum, you should get out of there as soon as possible. How soon can you get out of there?’
‘What are you talking about? We’re sailing. We’re sailing north. Why? Do you want to come to Egypt instead? That would be okay.’
‘Mum, Australians are seriously warned against going to Eritrea and the Sudan. There’s a war going on – atrocities. It’s not safe for foreigners. The Australian government cannot guarantee my safety, they tell me. The travel agent doesn’t want to organise the trip for me. In fact, they have refused. They can’t believe that you are there.’
‘Oh, really, Simon, come on. We’re fine. All that politics has nothing to do with what is actually going on here. There’s just fighting on the border, that’s all. It’s fine, really.’
‘Mum . . .’ He’s lost for words.
After a few minutes of small talk, we exchange messages of love, and hang up.
The day comes when it’s time to be moving on. There’s a bright wind and a pale blue sea. There are birds aplenty – seagulls, boobies, terns, others I can’t identify – and lots of seaweed again: golden, like wheat, clean and floating. I am sorry that Simon is not here to see it.
Nothing can daunt us this morning. The crisp salty smell of the open sea sails with us and I am laughing with the pleasure of it. So many hurdles are behind us, surely nothing can stop us now. We’ve passed a few tests on the way, and though nothing is said, these days Ted never wakes to check on the boat. The thought of this makes me breathless with joy, and I glory in standing behind the wheel, feeling my lively Blackwattle respond to my wishes, swishing through the water, gamely stretching to perform whatever I ask of her. There are more challenges ahead, but now I look forward to meeting them.
The first challange is the wind. During this season, until reaching Massawa, which is about one-third of the way up the Red Sea, the wind has been behind us. From now on, in the 1000 nautical miles between here and the Gulf of Suez, the wind will be on the nose, and the Red Sea is notorious for its short sharp chop.
The second challenge is a labyrinth of coral to negotiate, which is either notoriously inaccurately charted or not charted at all. During daylight hours we must allow two nautical miles for chart inaccuracy, at night five. To see reefs in the water, every landfall must occur between 10 am and 2 pm, when the sun is high in the sky and reflections on the water do not make it impossible to see underwater reefs. This will require some very accurate timing.
And then we must avoid the coast between Eritrea and the Sudan, as it’s true that they are warring there. Getting a stray bullet or two into the hull of the boat is not what we came sailing for.
We decide to sail non-stop for two nights, a jarring, bone-crunching leg in the choppy seas. There will be no fuel until we reach the populated part of northern Egypt, maybe 900 miles away, so we turn on our engine only when conditions are so bad we are going backwards. The dusty yellow haze is back again, any blue in the sky is only visible by peering directly overhead.
Channel 16 on the VHF radio is more entertaining than in a comparatively empty ocean. It blares constantly with communication between unseen transiting ships, most negotiating to pass each other without colliding, or the Coalition warships that drone day and night, interminably challenging the identity of every craft. Most communication is excessively formal, but occasionally there is a lighter side. While munching sandwiches one lunchtime, our attention is drawn to a warning delivered in a very upper-crust English accent.
‘Ship Atlantic Express, at position x, this is Pacific Voyager on your port side. You are on a collision course with us. Which side would you like to pass, sir?’
Pause.
‘Do you read me?’
Pause.
‘Sir, do you read? Repeat, do you read?’
This message is repeated over and over with growing urgency.
Finally, ‘Ship Atlantic Express, this is Pacific Voyager off your port bow, we’re taking emergency action to avoid you, and we’re blowing our emergency horn, do you read me? Please turn your ship, sir!’
Silence for a minute or two, while Ted and I stop our munching to wait for the outcome.
Then, ‘Ship Atlantic Express, do you copy?!’
Finally, a heavily accented dark growl: ‘I read you.’
‘Well, why did you not respond to us? Were you asleep?’
Pause.
‘No sleep.’
‘Well, why didn’t you move?’
‘We move.’
‘You didn’t bloody well move until we blew our horn at you. Where is the captain!?’
Pause.
‘Cap’n he rest now.’
‘Well bloody well go and wake him up! I want to speak to him.’
Long pause.
‘No wake cap’n.’
‘Well, you’re not going to last long sailing like that. You’ll hit someone sooner or later. It’s a big ocean out there, there’s absolutely no need for us to be as close as this. I didn’t ask you to dance.’ (By this stage the crew of Blackwattle are chuckling in delight.)
Then there’s the transmission by Jeddah Port Control. (At places the Red Sea is narrow, and for commercial shipping it is arranged like a freeway, with a median strip called the ‘separation zone’.) Straining to understand the heavy accents, we hear:
‘Ship at poseeshun x, course y, speed z, zis iss Jeddah Control. Sir, you are on zee wrong side of zee separation zone. Do you coppee?’
Ted and I suddenly sit up straight in the co
ckpit and our eyes meet. This is the maritime version of driving down a freeway on the wrong side. I turn up the radio volume.
The transmission is repeated patiently over and over, until the voice becomes more urgent, and the message peppered with, ‘Do you read me, sir?’ and, ‘All ships, pleez be aware of a ship at poseeshun x on zee wrong side of zee separation zone. If you can see zis ship or read a name, pleez come back.’
Finally a ship returns the call with the ship’s number. Now he is calling:
‘Sheep number 533, zis iss Jeddah Control, do you read?’
After several calls, he gets an answer.
‘Jeddah, Jeddah, vanting sheep nummer fave dree dree, vee iz nummer fave dree dree.’
‘Sir, you are on zee wrong side of zee separation zone. Pleez adjust your course.’
Silence.
‘Sir, do you coppee? Zis is Jeddah Port Control. You are on zee wrong side of zee separation zone, pleez adjust your course. Do you coppee, sir?’
Small voice: ‘Ah, stan by.’
Pause.
‘Ah . . . hrm . . . copee, ve turn.’
Luckily, the separation zone, unlike a median strip in a road, is just flat water and he wouldn’t have busted his sump getting over it.
Gradually we make our way past exotically named islands and gulfs – or marsas, as they are called – Sheik El Abu Island, Difnein Island, Khor Nawarat, Talla Talla Saquir. The desert lands to our left are empty except for the occasional camel herder or military outpost. The left side is the only side that yachts anchor, as the Saudi Arabian authorities on the shore to the right are distinctly unfriendly. We share sundowners and fish we have caught with the other yachties. We walk the beaches, snorkel in the clear waters, stay on the boat in the marsas to watch the anchor when the wind screeches.
We reach the Sudan, though we know this only by our charts. It’s a lazy time with a surreal feel to it, as if we’ve been caught in the action of some exotic movie – we seem to float, rather than walk, the desert sands.
I love the uncertainty and never-ending strangeness of this life but Ted has found this aspect particularly difficult, as he is such a dedicated planner. So I grin happily to myself when I eventually hear him saying, ‘Well, we’re headed north, but we don’t know where we’ll end up.’ I realise he is changing too under the influence of this altered lifestyle, and while he doesn’t articulate it (being visual, not verbal, I have realised over time), his relaxed laugh, beaming eyes and boundless energy tell their own story.
The Red Sea Net on the radio every morning is our lifeline to our fellow humans – to share weather reports, maintenance knowledge and anchorage information. Spare parts and tools are loaned or swapped. A yachtie with a problem can count on five helpers to lend a hand anywhere boats congregate. One yacht is lost on a reef (they had trusted their charts too much) and the crew is rescued by another yacht sailing close by. Another of the boats, our old friend single-hander Bill on Saltair, can’t win a trick. His fiancée still hasn’t joined him, he has been attacked by pirates, and now he announces that his dinghy has become detached and floated away down the Red Sea. He is asking for all yachts behind him to watch out for it.
Then one day we hear, ‘Bill on Saltair, this is Bill on Apollo.’ We had met Apollo back in Darwin, and know the English skipper to be a boatbuilder.
‘Hi, Bill.’
‘Hi, Bill,’ is the reply, and they laugh. ‘We’re coming up the Red Sea behind you, and have been looking out for your dinghy without luck.’
‘Well, thanks for looking.’
‘That’s okay. Look, you’ll get to Abu Tig in Egypt before we do. If you can find some timber and a clear area to work, I’ll make you a new dinghy when we get there.’
Bill from Saltair is almost speechless, but this is typical of the Red Sea Net and, we now know, of the long-range cruising fraternity in general. The bonds have become so strong. We all know there’s no help of any sort except for the assistance of other yachts.
The Sudan’s ‘old town’ of Suakin was an island city built of coral in the harbour of Suakin, but the buildings are now empty crumbling ruins. These make a picturesque sight to the right as we glide into the anchorage. We stare, transfixed, at the curious shapes of the fallen arches and pillars, the half-crumbled towers, all made of coral and stone. It had been a grand city in its day, with impressive town gates and many minarets, mosques and opulent palaces.
Suakin’s past makes an exotic tale. When the Sudan was still a Nubian kingdom Venetian merchants resided at Suakin and Massawa in the fourteenth century. And it is thought that even earlier, in the thirteenth century, Suakin was a centre of Christianity and a departure point for Ethiopian pilgrims to Jerusalem. This ceased when the Ottoman Selim I conquered the port at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Suakin then became the residence of the pasha for the province of Habes¸ until the end of Ottoman rule.
As we round a corner past the crumbled island, to the left on the mainland shore we see colourful fishing boats, people in long robes, camels and donkeys. We can’t wait to go roaming.
Today’s Sudanese have built shacks of stone and animal skins among the debris of the grand old coral buildings, and if we thought Massawa was primitive, it was only because of our ignorance. We seem to have stepped back in time around 2000 years. The scene is biblical – reminiscent of the Sunday school photos of my childhood. One would not be surprised to see Jesus Christ appear around a corner.
Many of the men carry carved sticks or curved daggers at the belt, and a few stride around proudly with elaborately designed swords. The women are dressed in a rainbow of colours, contrasting with their grubby sandalled feet. Unlike Massawa, where we found such openness, the locals here regard us furtively, without a smile.
The street scene is enthralling – adolescent girls giggle behind their hands, women hold their veils sideways across their face as they move against the wind, old men have streetside chats, as old men do everywhere in the world, and small children skitter across the laneways. In the maze of streets there are clay-walled shops selling leather saddlebags, whips, camel harnesses, sandals, colourful fabric and straw coffee-pot holders. There are primitive grocery stalls, and a vegetable market. A lack of running water shows in the grubbiness of the mostly brown, khaki, yellow and white raiments, which flap and float around dusty feet in the breeze. There’s dust in the air, and dust in the nose, our walking sandals have turned ochre. It’s time to move on.
The Egyptian border is only 180 miles to the north. Only 180 miles, but all into the wind on a short sharp chop, and every anchorage must be reached between 10 am and 2 pm.
It is a time of great contrast, covering those 180 miles. Sometimes in the blissful mornings we snorkel, finding a bright kaleidoscope of fish anywhere in the marsa. During many halcyon afternoons we hike deeper and deeper across the old seabed of the desert, far west into the hills, into the silence. Has any human stepped just where I am stepping now?
But there are other times when we are startled and saddened at the state of the uninhabited foreshore. In some of the marsas, or gulfs, depending on the angle of the coastline, the sand is completely covered in half-buried plastic bags, polystyrene and old plastic bottles – thick bags and thin, colourless, bright blue, orange or black, all stuck fast in the sand, filling and covering the whole beach. The only explanation we can find is that the cruise ships and the cargo ships that ply the Red Sea must throw their rubbish overboard and the wind does the rest. I recall how saddened and appalled I was by the detritus on Possession Island, by the garbage strewn off the islands of Indonesia, and now this. I had known for a long time that plastic was a curse to the oceans and coastlines of the world, but these vivid examples are distressing in a way that goes beyond mere intellect. I have for some time been washing and reusing the plastic bags on our boat. Now – pointlessly, given the scale of this global problem – I b
egin to guard our plastic bags even more assiduously, adding more pegs as I hang them on the guard rail to make sure we don’t lose any overboard as they dry in the sun.
Often, when the wind comes up in anchorages, we have only fitful rest – spasms of sleep at night, sudden awakenings, the sweet hum of the wind generator turning urgently, the wind whining, the boat yawing, veering and leaning away from the blast. Then the mornings come in bleakly, rushing waves, no relief.
Blackwattle becomes covered with sand yet again, and we haven’t enough water to wash it off. The winches are scratchy, the jammers are themselves jammed with sand. Salt and sand mixed with dew has clotted across every level surface, even the stays and lines are caked. The sheets (ropes) are so puffed with salt and mud they hardly fit into the self-tailers.
The fresh vegetables are almost gone, and I start counting. We have four tomatoes and seven tiny capsicums, a cabbage and a little Chinese lettuce. The sprouts grow well – alfalfa and mung beans thrive in the humid air.
Finally, we cross the Sudan–Egypt border and arrive at our first Egyptian marsa, Sharm El Luli. We are desperate to take shelter, as the forecast is for rising wind, but we have been warned that Egypt is very bureaucratic, and we must never go ashore until we reach an official port of entry. This is not one, and earlier boats tell of unfriendly soldiers who tried to force them ashore. They left immediately, sending a warning to other boats. As we motor in cautiously, the mountains to the west look like a mouthful of very uneven teeth, with windblown sand, like blown snow, between the peaks. The deep bay is deserted, except for a few decrepit fishing boats, and a couple of simple huts on the shore.
The anchor is barely down when a well-painted blue, red and white fishing boat approaches. As I am wearing swimmers only, I rush below to don a sarong, and the boat ties up with about twelve people on board, some in desert fatigues, some in civilian clothes, some slovenly, like typical local fishermen. Multiple people board Blackwattle, and everyone is talking at once in Arabic. An English-speaking voice penetrates the babble.
Shooting Stars and Flying Fish: Swapping the boardroom for the seven seas Page 12