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

Page 16

by Nancy Knudsen

‘So, can’t you just cool them down again?’

  He leaps to his feet and grabs the telephone. ‘I’ll call Rob.’

  Rob Starkey and Donna Rohrs are friends from Sydney who are even now flying to Turkey to come sailing with us. Rob is a qualified electrical engineer, an experienced sailor, an IT guru and often Ted’s maintenance mentor.

  ‘Ted, that’s ridiculous! They’ve left home already. They’ll be somewhere over America by now.’

  ‘He’ll be able to diagnose it and tell me what to do.’

  ‘From the aeroplane? You’ve got to be kidding! Is it really so serious?’

  ‘We can’t even get these batteries in Turkey.’

  Now it’s my turn to get agitated. ‘But we’re meant to take them sailing for two weeks on Saturday. They’ve both taken holidays.’

  My wail is unheard. Rob Starkey calls back from Boston airport, in transit. The next forty-eight hours is a chaotic train of telephone calls with Rob in Boston, London, then Istanbul, as they get closer, giving advice. This is peppered with Ted’s frantic negotiations with the local yacht chandlers, searching for options, solutions.

  Rob and Donna arrive, and, almost before a welcome drink, Rob’s nose goes down for the next couple of days while different batteries, with a different system, couriered expressly from Germany, are installed. We eventually do sail the magical Turkish coastline, only a couple of days late, but you couldn’t blame them for choosing Sunsail next time.

  Now something happens which is to set in train a series of events leading to undreamed-of outcomes. We arrive in Twenty-two Fathom Bay, in company with friends visiting from home, Malcolm and Carolyn Kinmont. On the shore is a very poor farm, home to two brothers, a sister and a quietly commanding mother. The farm buildings are primitive shacks, with goats and donkeys, chooks and geese roaming free. The ‘restaurant’ is a tumbledown roof on sticks, supported mostly by an aged grapevine, with an eight-seat table beneath. We realise they have no restaurant licence when one night they say, ‘No meal tonight, polis come.’ The food, however, is superb – grilled fish, local vegetables. It’s too deep to anchor, so we’re tied to the wharf, and meet others of the yachting fraternity there, Turkish and Dutch and German.

  One afternoon, Malcolm and Carolyn befriend a group of young Turkish men on shore. We are all invited back to their chartered gulet (a graceful wooden Turkish yacht) for tea. It turns out to be the staff and president/owner of Bahçes¸ehir Üniversitesi, an Istanbul university, and we spend an easy couple of hours swapping Turkish and Antipodean stories. Ted is presented with the Bahçes¸ehir flag and, after a quick trip back to Blackwattle, he in turn presents the president with the Australian green-and-gold sporting flag. We are invited to Istanbul on the spot, and they offer to host Malcolm and Carolyn in Istanbul on their way home. Ted is even invited to join their Faculty of Architecture, an offer he laughingly accepts; we invite them all to Sydney to visit us, and they accept. There is much merriment and the afternoon finishes with goodwill and warmth all round. As they depart the anchorage, we raise their university flag on Blackwattle, they raise our green-and-gold, and we can still hear their horn tooting goodbye after they have disappeared around a corner. With such chance meetings is a life made rich.

  A few days later we farewell Malcolm and Carolyn.

  No doubt influenced by this reminder of our previous life, that night I write in my journal:

  Inside, away from the glorious hedonism of the idyllic cruising along the Turkish coastline, I am tumbling with uncertainty. I have always worked hard for holidays, relished the change in tempo, the lack of a daily program, the sun, the snow or the sights. But I was always glad to return to my reality, making my contribution to the human race, however minuscule. At work I felt useful. Now, held fast in the grip of unending leisure, I feel like the flotsam or jetsam of life, taking the cream from the milk without contributing to the milking.

  I don’t notice other yachties’ conversations filled with any dissatisfaction. We all share only one thing in common – a love of being on the water and away from the prison of pedestrian daily life. I am dreading the winter.

  A small group of friends and family gather at the ‘Alfreds’ in Newport, Sydney, on 16 March 2003. ‘We just wanted to make sure that Ted Nobbs actually left,’ said someone.

  We depart in sunshine with a gentle breeze and a friend singing ‘Now is the Hour’, but we have no idea what is in store for us.

  Every passing sailor to the uninhabited Direction Island, Cocos Keeling, leaves a memento of their voyage – one even made a welcome chair for future visiting sailors.

  Crossing the equator for the first time in the Indian Ocean, a badly dressed King Neptune appears on deck to bless our crossing. In the high wind he keeps eating and spitting out his beard.

  There are so many blissful days following the sunsets of the Indian Ocean.

  Blackwattle (centre) with other yachts and warships in the Port of Salalah, Oman. We are all about to transit the dreaded Pirate Alley of the Gulf of Aden.

  Nancy dresses for an Istanbul winter in the garden of our apartment block in Etiler.

  Ted, Nancy and son Simon in the tiny coastal town of Skala on the island of Lesvos, Greece.

  Our neighbourhood in Beyog˘lu, Istanbul – our new flat is just at the end of this street.

  Ted and Nancy have lunch in the unspoilt Greek village of Naoussa on the island of Paros.

  Ted’s requested birthday present – a ‘small’ aviary – seems to take up most of the forward cabin. We carry it back to Australia, across half the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Pacific.

  The Rock of Gibraltar on a rare sunny day with Blackwattle at rest in the anchorage of La Linea, just inside the Spanish border.

  The island of Graciosa, with one of its five volcanoes. Blackwattle rested here for several weeks, waiting for the hurricane season to be finished in the Atlantic.

  Ted at the wheel in happy mode surrounded by yachts after the start of the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, which departs every year from the Canary Islands heading for St Lucia in the Caribbean.

  Nancy in the daily scheduled HF radio communication (‘scheds’) with other yachts. Not only ‘What’s your position?’ but also ‘How many fish did you catch?’

  Swiss yacht Meitli during the Atlantic crossing, transferring fuel (and chocolates for the children) to Mary Constance – see the line in the air being thrown from Mary Constance.

  Too many welcoming rum punches – Ted and Nancy celebrate after arriving in St Lucia at the end of the Atlantic crossing.

  Beautiful Bequia (pronounced Bekway) in the Windward Islands of the Caribbean.

  Bliss after the Atlantic tension – Blackwattle anchors with other yachts in the Tobago Cays in the Windward Islands.

  Nancy wanders the beach in Tortuga, Venezuela. Apart from fishermen’s shacks the island is uninhabited.

  The coastguard arrives unheralded and armed with automatic weapons in Cabo de la Vela, Colombia. Worried about pirates, we are relieved when they say, ‘Welcome to Colombia.’

  A Kuna Indian woman stands outside her house on the island of Maquina, San Blas, Panama – see her fully beaded arms and legs. The molas hanging on her wall are used as bodices for women’s clothes.

  Ted and Nancy relax on an uninhabited island in the San Blas.

  Line-handlers Simon from Steamy Windows and Steve from Wakalele stand on Blackwattle’s bow as the lock gates of the Panama Canal open to the Paci
fic.

  Celebrating our successful crossing into the Pacific after transiting the Panama Canal. Left to right: Nancy, Steve, Simon, Ted, and Jos from Mary Constance.

  Happy to be at sea again, but there is little wind – Nancy in the Pacific sailing to the Galapagos.

  The GPS shows all zeros as we cross the equator into the southern hemisphere again, between Panama and the Galapagos – a momentous occasion. Ted Nobbs is asleep.

  ‘Company’s good, but not much conversation.’ Nancy with giant tortoises on Santa Cruz Island, the Galapagos.

  Tu’aro ma’ohi, the traditional games of Polynesia, have been revived and are being celebrated in Papeete, Tahiti.

  Bora Bora Yacht Club in French Polynesia – our second home during our stay in the island’s waters.

  Wheeling the groceries home in Raiatea, French Polynesia. How will we ever be able to give up this life?

  Children of the Marsters clan at play in Palmerston Atoll, the Cook Islands.

  Taia Marsters on Palmerston Island among other members of her extended clan.

  10. Turkish Seduction

  Istanbul

  The next day comes the telephone call.

  It’s our friend Malcolm, ringing from Istanbul, where they have been generously entertained by the Bahçes¸ehir Üniversitesi president.

  ‘The president is serious, Ted – he wants you to teach at his university.’

  ‘He’s serious?’

  ‘Yup, wants you to start in October.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘I don’t know – that’s what the translator said. If you’re interested, please give them a call. They’d like you to visit Istanbul to see the campus.’

  Ted puts down the phone.

  ‘Well?’

  His half-smile tells the story.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ I say.

  ‘But would you like to go?’

  I don’t hesitate. ‘To spend the winter in Istanbul as part of the community instead of locked in a marina or touring somewhere? Of course I’d like to go – but surely this isn’t real?’

  Ted makes the phone call to the president’s personal assistant and two days later we walk out of Istanbul airport to be met by a guide, driver and car. During a whirlwind three days of hospitality, our pretty student-guide whisks us through the historic and architectural wonders of the old city of Istanbul, Sultanahmet. The food is sumptuous. We are introduced to the wonders of the meze plate, the freshest seafood, the best local köfte (Turkish-style meatballs), eggplant in many different guises, along with mouth-watering künüfe (a honeyed sweet that defies description). We dine with the dean of architecture, and the university president shows us the new campus where Ted is to teach from October, in a fashionable part of Istanbul, perched on the edge of the Bosphorus. He promises to provide a flat close by.

  Still reeling from this onslaught of hospitality, we return to Finike to prepare Blackwattle for winter. We find some of our Red Sea cruising buddies have arrived. Back in the companionable surrounds of the marina, the word soon spreads that we are off to Istanbul for the winter for Ted to teach at the university there, and the other cruisers are as mystified as we are.

  ‘But you must have known them beforehand?’

  No.

  ‘And you’ve never taught before?’

  No.

  ‘Did they check your references?’

  No, don’t think so.

  While we scour, varnish, repair and polish, we insist to our fellow Red Sea survivors that it did happen just as miraculously as we have described.

  We are to live in a house in Istanbul. It’s hard to recall what it was like living in a house. As I scrub the cabin top in the sunshine, I remember my first visit to Hong Kong, aged twenty. I was shown the ‘suburb’ of Aberdeen, that long-gone curious world of boats and water. People lived there on boats from birth to death, I was told, never knowing ‘normal’ life in a house. At the time, I remember, I felt sad for them – so confined, so underprivileged.

  Now I see their small universe differently – the beauty and rhythm of life on the water, the conviviality of the bobbing boats, the subtle comforting slap of water on wood in good weather, the bucking and jolting of a storm, the ability to change ‘neighbourhoods’ with ease.

  The slight sway and lilt of our own watery home is hypnotic. At night, the reflections of the other boats shine and dance in the water, breathing and sighing secrets into the night. How dull the steady house now seems, clamped to earth, a dead weight buried as if in fear of movement. Movement is life, energy, an adrenaline flow. So I share in some small way the perspective of those Aberdeen-dwellers I once pitied. No matter how good Istanbul proves to be, I shall miss the boat and the wonderful life it has afforded us.

  Six days before our scheduled departure, a university administrator phones. After the call Ted hangs up, looking puzzled.

  ‘They say they cannot find an apartment “suitable to my position”. What does that mean?’

  We stare at each other, then start to giggle. Are they all too slummy or too grand? What is the ‘position’ of an academic in Istanbul? We have no way of knowing.

  Ted continues, ‘When I asked him what we should bring, he said, “Don’t bring anything – just your clothes. Everything will be provided.” What do you think he means by “everything”?’

  I have no answer. We buy eleven small zip-up suitcases at the local market, fill them, and catch a bus to Istanbul.

  The front door is opened by a thickset moustachioed man with a mop in his hand. He is quickly joined by several other moustachioed men holding vacuum cleaners, brooms and washing cloths. They are all smiling and begin to talk at once, waving their various implements around, but as it’s all in Turkish I don’t understand a word. They back away quickly to let me through with frantic beckoning movements that make their cloths and brooms flail around dangerously. I duck and weave my way in with an answering smile, and see I am in a small marble-floored hallway.

  Our university driver (no English) has met us at the bus stop and driven us, amused and silent, after one word only as to where we are going – ‘Etiler.’ Now he joins us at the door and there’s a rapid exchange with the moustachioed cleaners. The cleaners drop their tools where they stand and haul themselves out to help carry our eleven pieces of luggage into the flat.

  In the meantime, Ted and I tread forward uncertainly around the brooms and mops left on the floor, curiosity overwhelming. Around the corner there’s a flood of light, and the living room, with wide windows, reveals itself. Sheer white curtains frame the view, which is of some kind of sports stadium.

  I look around: glass table on wrought iron, high, narrow-backed, black leather dining chairs, cream leather couch, twin polished timber bookcases, a marble sideboard, mirrored walls. The room has considerable pretensions to grandeur. In the corner, a glass door leads to a small sunny terrace. I retreat down the hall – a kitchen, an impression of cleanliness and whiteness; one, two, three bedrooms; mirror-shiny black furniture and black carpets; elaborately carved ceilings. I breathe a sigh of relief – yes, it will be very easy to live here for the winter.

  Once the cleaners leave, however, and we have time to look around, we see there is no equipment of any sort in the kitchen, not a saucepan or cup. The stove is gas-fired, supplied from a Portagas cylinder, but there is no cylinder. ‘Bring nothing’? We are wondering what to do next, when my mobile rings.

  ‘Hello,’ says a softly accented Turkish voice. ‘I’m Osman, friend of your friend Ruth in Australia. Do you remember, I played backgammon with your friend Ruth?’

  ‘Of course, of course, Osman, I remember you. Ruth has emailed us about you – you�
��re an architect living in Istanbul, she said.’

  ‘I think you have arrived in Istanbul, yes? Welcome, and I hope that you are comfortable.’

  I laugh. ‘Well, Osman, I’m sure we shall be, but at the moment we’re a little puzzled . . .’ I describe what has happened. Osman is horrified.

  ‘Where are you? What is the address?’ he demands. ‘I will be there in ten minutes.’

  So, ten minutes later, our new friend Osman, a handsome and stylishly dressed man, is in our new living room. He barely takes the time to greet us before he is on the phone to the university. One doesn’t need to understand Turkish to know that he is giving them a thorough dressing-down.

  ‘It’s appalling,’ he fumes, when off the phone. ‘Just appalling.’

  I am fascinated by his telephone call and the tone he has used. ‘Do you know them at the university? How could you speak like that?’

  ‘No.’ He is vehement. ‘I don’t need to know them. They cannot treat our guests from another country like this. I told them I would speak to the president.’

 

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