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

by Nancy Knudsen

  Beyond the two locks Blackwattle can see her first sight of the Pacific in the clearing air. I am sure that strong engine heart of hers just skipped a throb!

  Soon it’s all over, and effortlessly we glide into the tidal (five-metre) waters of the Pacific. It’s time to open the champagne. We are extremely grateful to our international team of line-handlers, Englishman Simon from Steamy Windows, Belgian Steve from Wakalele and Australians Mike and Jos from Mary Constance.

  We’ve reached our home ocean.

  19. The Home Ocean

  Into the Pacific

  This Pacific Ocean doesn’t feel much like home – the sea is flat as a lake, the pelicans are brown, the beer costs thirty cents a can and everyone around me is talking Spanish.

  The thought that I am in my ‘home ocean’ causes repeated bouts of dismay. Is there a life that I want to return to, and can I return to being the person I once was? I try to be rational. I don’t have to answer this now – there’s time, there’s time.

  Getting a boat ready for a long sea voyage is a nail-biting affair, and the Pacific is the biggest ocean of all, with mostly only unsophisticated islands as stopovers. The navigation computer is four years old – what if it fails? (We buy another quickly.) Do we have enough spares for electronics, mechanics, snatch blocks, cabin globes and lures for all the fish we are to catch? Will the Vegemite last? Lollies for the island children? Check the red wine! My sailing gloves have a hole! How’s the medical chest – short of anything? It goes on and on interminably, and that’s before you get to the provisioning.

  It’s a floppy listless sea as we motor away from Panama City. The air is thick and sweaty and the sky is a forlorn mess of grey stains and dirty whites, like some of Ted’s favourite cruising shirts.

  But after a few minutes the alien world of bland water and sky turns electric with life. Marlin jump straight and high from the water and fall with dramatic belly-flops. Dolphins galore soar in graceful arcs then swoop below the boat, dozens of slippery bodies – here! There! Look quickly! Who cares what the future may hold when the present is so blissful?

  Soon we are surrounded by thousands of migrating pelicans flapping lazily close to the water in long even lines . . . glide a few, flap a few, glide a few, as they do. We love the sight of these dark brown-grey birds, so plentiful now, though they were endangered during the 1900s (the DDT used to eradicate the malaria mosquito during the building of the Canal almost completely destroyed this fine bird species).

  Ted catches our first fish, and we are both so excited I forget to take a picture! It was just a small bonito, but the expression on Ted’s face would have been worth it. The Las Perlas Islands are just off the coast, a good place to anchor to wait for the wind. We motor-sail to Isla Contadora, an attractive island ringed with sumptuous villas around its high and undulating shores.

  We enjoy the island. Its winding hilly streets lined with mansions, its dry tropical forest with termite nests and nameless birds serenading us along the way – but then, with a good forecast, we set off to cross the Pacific.

  It’s a grey morning. Black-edged clouds descend over us ominously as we leave. Then a squall strikes and we are in heavy rain and driving wind. The sea quickly becomes wild on this southern shore of Las Perlas – crashing against the black rocks, climbing the cliffs, whitening them with foam. But above us is the migration, and the pelicans keep on flying, flying. Through the hard slanted rain, across the swell, just missing the tops of the lead-coloured waves they fly, hundreds at a time, thousands in a day, in line, easily, precisely, lazily. And we are here with them in the flying mist and the wild water. What a privilege to be allowed into their world for a time.

  Inside the kettle is on, the smell of coffee wafting around – enticing, domestic, real. By the time we have drunk it, clasping the mugs in our hands as we watch the rain and swell, we are well on our way with the bright following wind that was forecast.

  But the wind doesn’t last – another forecast wrong – and after twenty-four hours we are in a closed envelope of windlessness. The world is luminous with reflected light, horizon vanished, sky and water as one, no definition. I continually mop my sweaty face. The water is oily, swaying with lewd reflections of wobbly light, like crazy mirrors from a funfair. We wait, and sometimes motor, turning the engine off with irrational optimism every time there’s the tiniest ripple of breeze.

  For two weeks we are caught in the dreaded Doldrums. Even more miserable is the south-east setting current, and sometimes during the day we even go backwards! As night gathers – sheet lightning all around – we watch the long funnels of cloud hopefully, their angry black undersides boiling towards us and growing monstrous as they loom closer. They are our only source of wind.

  When a squall bangs in with twenty-five beautiful knots behind us, we race along gladly in the flat sea, and there’s cooling relief with thudding rain. But it never lasts long, and soon the cloying humidity is back. Blackwattle again sits forlorn and mystified, like an abandoned lover who can’t quite believe the promises weren’t real.

  Finally, one day, it happens. During the morning, the sullen grey sky starts to peel slowly back like a banana skin. Far ahead we can see touches of old remembered blue, and some dithery white fluffs breaking the blueness. The oily water seems to get goose bumps with excitement, with small pointed wavelets in every direction. There’s a fresh feeling in the air, and Blackwattle motors forward, slow as a grub, towards the lightness. Over a period of a few hours, she emerges out of the torpid belly of the chrysalis of the Doldrums and changes into the butterfly that she always wanted to be. The wrong-way current is gone too, and the wind is with us!

  It’s a few days later – a silent world this dark morning, not a sound, except for small clanging noises from Blackwattle, swaying and drifting in the windless air. I am not worried, as I know the wind will pick up later in the morning. Right now there’s not even a bird sound. A lilac promise is in the east, turning the water to mother-of-pearl, the sea radiant with hushed light. Even the tiny wavelets, like thousands of sooty eyelashes breaking the shine of the sea, are silent.

  So when I hear the first heavy breath of a sigh, it’s very loud behind me. I swing, startled, towards the direction of the noise, and there she is, quiet, as if she had always been there. Just ten metres off the port stern. A whale. Part of a whale. The long, so long curve of the back, dark grey and slippery as it arcs gently out of the water. I am alone, Ted’s asleep. There’s no one to tell! So I freeze, frightened to move in case I disturb her (ridiculous). Now she’s gone, and that glimpse may be all.

  But no, there she is again, a little further away, arcing again, the great whoosh of her breath loud and clear in the still air. And again and again. Now she is between me and the dawning day, and I can see the high spray of her breath, glittering in the early-morning sun rays. Further and further away she moves, and now it is the sound of her breath that draws my attention to her new position, and finally, I can see nothing yet still hear her great breaths, and then . . . nothing . . . she is gone.

  20. The Demise of Fantasy

  The Galapagos

  We reach the Galapagos – instant thoughts of Charles Darwin: unique iguana . . . sea lions . . . giant tortoises . . . remoteness . . . evolution . . . These images are so strong that other aspects of the Galapagos are rarely spoken of.

  Arriving into Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island, we find a frenetic scene, as this port is the tourism centre of the archipelago. Large and small motor cruisers, big inflatable superyacht tenders and small taxi boats mix with sailing boats arriving and leaving in a confused melee. The wash created is worse than that of Sydney Harbour. There are also pelicans gliding and squatting, seals squirming and sleeping, seemingly oblivious to the hubbub, on every level surface, and especially on the trampolines of catamarans.

  Puerto Ayora is a charmingly unspoiled village. While the culture is overpoweringly Spa
nish, and most locals are Ecuadorian, a cosmopolitan mix of other languages can also be heard. Kids run and play on the foreshore at all hours, and football and volleyball are played there every evening. The cobbled streets are flowing with bikes and people and dozens of white four-seater trucks are used as taxis. The skyline is dominated not by high-rises but by monstrous cactus trees which sprout in every garden, park and footpath. And beneath all, the black lava rock is an ever-present reminder of the origins of the islands.

  Some people dream for a lifetime of going to the Galapagos – for us, well, it just happens to be on our sailing way across the Pacific. Nothing prepares you for the reality, and we love the week we spend there, doing all the things that people do when they visit the islands – strolling among unafraid lizards and birds, among seals and turtles, marvelling all the while. Then we sail with friends on to Puerto Villamil on the island of Isabella, a short day-sail before the ‘big hop’ of 3000 miles to the Marquesas, the longest journey of our circumnavigation.

  We are five boats – two Belgian boats (Bauvier and Wakalele) and three Australian boats (Fantasy1, Mary Constance and Blackwattle).

  On arrival into Puerto Villamil, a small boat with Puerto Villamil written on the side approaches to welcome us and show us where to anchor. The small bay is crowded in the navigable areas, and we are glad for the local knowledge. (‘Ask the local – the local always knows best’ is a cruising sailor’s frequent mantra.)

  In the evening, we are halfway through watching the fine DVD The March of the Penguins when, at exactly 8.46 pm (I glance at my watch), I feel the gentlest, oddest bump. Maybe it’s the anchor buoy thudding against the hull? Maybe I imagined it . . .

  When the bump is repeated, it’s firmer, and we both spring up and race onto the darkened deck.

  ‘We’re on the bottom,’ Ted says, ominously quiet.

  After that nobody’s speaking or breathing much. We start the engine and go forward, slowly increasing revs. Nothing happens. The boat doesn’t move. It must be jammed on the sand by the end of the long keel, and the thumps are the bow lifting and dropping. The thumps start coming frequently. Ted radios Fantasy1, who is near us.

  ‘Are you floating?’

  ‘No,’ is the calm answer. ‘We’re on the bottom.’

  What follows is six hours of nightmarish proportions, as the tide ebbs and then flows, and the big swell in the anchorage lifts the boats up and then drops them regularly on the hard sea floor. Soon Mary Constance is also thudding alarmingly on the bottom.

  As the thumps on the bottom increase, Blackwattle shudders from her davits to her forestays, from her rigging to her cutlery drawers, long painful vibrations. Each wave lifts the bow, which crunches the stern of the boat, then drops like a stone into the trough.

  Fantasy1’s anchor gives way and she crunches backwards gradually onto the reef, wrecking both her rudder and her keel. Belgian sailors Bart and Steve of Bauvier and Wakalele speed to Fantasy1 to help. In the darkness of a night lit only by an icy sliver of moon, they attach another anchor to the bow, and pull the stricken yacht off the reef with the dinghy, and with great effort get Fantasy1 into deep water. The boat is not taking in seawater, but they have lost their steering.

  Mary Constance, in slightly deeper water, fares better, merely losing her snubber. (There is actual structural damage, but they don’t know that until they arrive in Australia, months later.) The little girls on Mary Constance squeeze into small corners of the cockpit closer to Mum and Dad, who do not sleep.

  Bart and Steve turn their attention to Blackwattle and, as the tide comes in, pull her with their strong dinghies to deeper water and safety. We have no idea of the damage, but we are saved before the boat reaches the reef, and we are not taking on any water. There’s nothing to be done tonight – it’s almost 3 am before the boats are settled, and we sink into bed exhausted from adrenaline flow.

  In the morning it is time to take stock by diving beneath the boats. Blackwattle merely has some gouging on her keel, and the GPS which connects to our electronic charting system has shuddered to a stop. We will be forced to make the longest crossing in our circumnavigation without it. Fantasy1 has lost part of the boat’s skeg and rudder, both broken off by the rocks, and Karl has an injured hand.

  Sandy, the never-flappable, says woodenly, ‘There’s no way of fixing the boat in this remote place. Maybe we will have to abandon her.’

  We are all devastated by Fantasy1’s situation. Our boats are our homes, and for some of us our only homes. In spite of the heroic attempts by the two Belgian skippers, Bart and Steve, who worked most of the night trying to help the Australian boats, Karl and Sandy’s dream of crossing the Pacific this year seems to be at an end. With no access to equipment to lift the boat here in the Galapagos, it is not possible to examine the damage to the boat closely. And with 3000 miles between us and the next islands, the remote Marquesas, where there are likewise no lifting facilities, it is not feasible for them to go on.

  With the help of local people, they decide to jury rig a frame around their rudder to restore some steering. This is to be done underwater in the anchorage and then, bravely, they intend to sail 1000 miles to windward back to Ecuador for a repair.

  As we four remaining boats leave the anchorage to start the long journey to the Marquesas, our hearts are heavy at leaving Fantasy1 behind. We all admire their bravery. Who knows what damage lies undetected? Who knows whether the rudder stock will last? There are further questions that we dare not ask.

  We have no idea when we will see Karl and Sandy and their lovely, now crippled, Fantasy1 again.

  21. Heaven, Hell and Too Many Bananas

  The Galapagos to the Marquesas

  Shaken, sobered and saddened, we start the longest journey of our circumnavigation. On completion of this 3000-nautical mile voyage from the Galapagos to the Marquesas we will be halfway across the Pacific. I can’t stop the thought from re-emerging: Halfway home to the family, the friends, familiar places . . . and what?

  We’ve been told that this leg is ‘sailing heaven’, and for a few days it is fifteen to twenty knots on the quarter, serene seas, huge swell rollicking under us and away to the north-west, and a knot and a half of current speeding us on our way. Even the weather is perfect. Clouds waft over us in innocent swathes of white tulle.

  It’s dead boring.

  We dealt with storms in the Indian Ocean, constant wind on the nose in the Red Sea, the capriciousness of the Mediterranean. Surprise and exhilaration were in equal mixture, and adrenaline flow a frequent friend to expand our abilities.

  Now? Like a couple of comical afterthoughts there’s nothing to attend to but our selfish and homely needs, while Blackwattle does her stuff like the well-trained performer that she is. And if the boredom isn’t enough to drive you bananas, there are the bananas – the bunch that a seemingly innocent marketeer assured me would be green for two weeks. They start ripening rapidly after two days. So here we are in the middle of the Pacific with all these rapidly ripening bananas, and an upbringing that had me thinking constantly about starving children in a place called India. (India, I thought at the time, must be somewhere down the road a bit, and I was shocked to find in my first school geography lessons that my mother had been agonising for somebody’s children on the other side of the world.)

  With thoughts of starving Indian children hardwired into my over-filled brain, which could have been otherwise more productively used, I set out to make sure we don’t waste the bananas.

  It all works very well for a time. Ted quite warms to the idea of mashed bananas for breakfast instead of cereal, so I can get rid of half a dozen every morning. And fried bananas go well with freshly caught fish, and with pork chops. You hardly taste them in a stew, and salads are enhanced by the addition of a couple of bananas before you add the dressing. Banana bread is a firm favourite, and it isn’t until I introduce banana san
dwiches for lunch that I find Ted staring at me with something that you couldn’t quite call adoration.

  The situation changes radically when one morning the shackle on the mainsheet unhitches itself without warning. The boom goes swinging out to starboard, and the mainsheet shoots after it, swinging the block with it. The block swipes the bunch of bananas across the abdomen, scattering squelched bananas all over the deck, and detaching most of the rest from the bunch, some of which end up as soup for Neptune while the others belch into the gunwales like a flock of flying fish.

  We both stare for an instant at the turmoil, before rushing to replace the lost shackle, as the main, reaching straight from the winch to the boom, is seesawing the rest of the banana bunch in half, mulching wet banana skins onto the cabin top. In a couple of minutes, the main is together again, and we set about cleaning the deck of mashed banana.

  ‘Well,’ says Ted, while picking up sloppy banana innards, ‘at least I don’t have to eat the f&%@ing things!’

  For eleven days after the banana explosion we don’t see a vessel – any kind of vessel; all those horizon searches every twelve minutes for no result. Neither have we been able to hear the BBC, so we don’t have any idea what’s happened in Israel or Turkey, or whether there’s some new world concern that requires our opinion. So the conversation, which is never hurried given there is so much time available, gets to be strange sometimes.

  ‘Oh, look,’ I say.