Dove

by Robin L. Graham

  We were to spend two months here, readying Dove for the transatlantic voyage. With the cooperation of the friendly port captain, Major Douglas van Riet, we got Dove up on the ways. Technicians from Cape Town helped me fiberglass the deck to the hull and to paint the boat from stem to stern. Dove looked respectable again—and safe.

  Gordon’s Bay is a small resort, with cottages built of local stone and fringed by lawns. Usually Patti and I slept on Dove, but our second home was Thelma’s boardinghouse, where we took our meals. Most of the residents at Thelma’s were retired people, old enough to be our grandparents. We got to know them well, often playing canasta with them in the evenings. One man of eighty-five taught me how to crochet, and his wife, perhaps ten years younger, knitted me a sweater. They held hands and looked at each other like a young couple on a honeymoon.

  “Is that what love’s all about?” asked Patti, half seriously as we strolled back to Dove one evening. “I mean, two old people holding hands?”

  It was partly the married bliss of this old couple that made us think of our own marriage once again—or at least of making it legal.

  When we returned to the cabin, where Patti bundled herself up in a blanket against the cold, we talked about my parents’ belated consent to our marriage.

  “Maybe we should make it legal,” I said. “After all, I still have to explain you to people. That makes me sick.”

  “You prefer a wife to a mistress?” asked Patti, her eyes laughing above the blanket.

  “Mistress is a word which always makes me think of dirty old men,” I protested.

  Patti was suddenly serious. “Robin, perhaps what’s important is not the marriage certificate. But supposing we have children? Could happen, you know.” She paused and then added, “Let’s never hurt anyone deliberately, not your parents, not anyone.”

  That’s what made us decide to go to the magistrate’s office at Hermanus Bay next morning. There I handed over my parents’ written consent to a severe-looking woman with black hair and a sallow skin.

  The woman snapped, “When do you want to get married?”

  “Today,” I said.

  The woman looked us up and down critically, taking in my shoulder-length hair, our baggy sweaters, sea-stained jeans and bare feet. She pressed her lips together in disapproval.

  “You’ll need a hat,” she told Patti, “and we need twenty-four hours’ notice of a marriage. The magistrate has other duties too. You’ll also need a special license, which costs ten rand [fourteen dollars].”

  I handed over a ten-rand bill. “Okay, we’ll be here at eleven o’clock tomorrow,” I said.

  The woman did not smile.

  On leaving the magistrate’s court I said to Patti, “Let’s find a honeymoon hotel.” We rode Elsa a little up the coast and found the perfect place—the Birkenhead Hotel. It was named for the ship which went down heroically. As it was out of season, the hotel proprietor invited us to choose our own room. Like kids we dashed about the corridors, opening doors, testing the views and bed-springs. Then, in a corner of the second floor, we found a room so right that it seemed made for us. One huge window looked out across the sea and the other gave a view of the magnificent Hottentots Holland Mountains and a broad sweep of vineyards in the valley.

  “Well, which room have you chosen?” asked the girl behind the desk. We told her the number and she smiled, “Oh, that’s our special bridal suite,” she said.

  Next day we returned to the magistrate’s office, dressed in our most formal clothes. I was wearing my only jacket and had found a crumpled tie under the canned goods. I discovered too, my Darwin shoes—the ones with copper-wire laces. Patti put on an attractive dress but she had no hat so I lent her my watch cap. The magistrate was a cheerful and pink-cheeked Afrikaner. He put on his black robe and asked two of the girl clerks to come into his office and be witnesses.

  We stood there holding hands. At the key point of the short ceremony the magistrate asked me for the ring. Of course, I’d forgotten about that, but Patti pulled the Durban ring off her finger and gave it to me. I returned it to her finger and then we kissed. I think we kissed a bit too early because the magistrate cleared his throat. Everyone signed their names on the certificate. Even the woman with black hair gave us a sort of smile.

  Outside the office, I turned to Patti and asked, “Do you feel any different now?”

  She laughed. “No different from when we married ourselves.”

  Then Mr. and Mrs. Robin Lee Graham (officially) mounted their ancient motorcycle and drove off to their honeymoon hotel.

  It was the Cape’s midwinter and pretty cold, but at the hotel we thawed out in front of a huge log fire. When we went to the bridal suite we found hot water bottles between the sheets.

  In its own way our second wedding was pretty neat too.

  8

  The Third Quarter

  CROSSING THE ATLANTIC from Cape Town may be “all downhill,” as I had told the tape recorder, but it’s a very long hill. I figured it was five thousand miles to the north coast of South America.

  Concerned for my safety, National Geographic had given me an expensive piece of additional equipment—a two-way radio. When this was installed Patti helped me provision Dove with $120 worth of canned goods. She was careful to include special things we’d enjoyed together: artichoke hearts, sour cream mix, canned oysters and pickled fish—especially pickled fish.

  At Gordon’s Bay, Harbor Master van Riet, who loved animals as much as the sea, gave us two kittens, one orange and the other tortoise shell. We named them Kili and Fili, for the youngest dwarfs in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Hobbit book, which we had read aloud to each other in Dove’s cabin. The kittens were born with bad eyes and I don’t think anyone else would have wanted them. We’d taken them to an animal hospital where in spite of skillful surgery Fili lost her sight completely.

  There was no room on Dove for the motorcycle, Elsa, which had served us faithfully, so we gave it to Thelma’s son. The old people at the boardinghouse came down to the harbor to say good-bye. Their arms were filled with fresh fruit, candy and knitted things. Patti and I were really touched by their kindness and farewells. I don’t know how to explain it, but we have a special feeling for old people.

  When the radio was fixed up it was just a question of waiting in Cape Town for a fair wind—a wind from the south. We counted each of these last days together and we never spoke of the time when we’d have to go our separate ways.

  In Darwin Patti had bought a ticket to the Canary Islands, off Spain, at a very low immigrant’s fare. Patti had had a specially frustrating day when the shipping people at Cape Town told her that her ticket was outdated. She burst into tears—a rare thing for Patti to do. One of the men at the shipping office lent her his handkerchief and said he would do what he could to help her. Anyway, they stretched a point and fixed her up without extra charge in a three-berth cabin on the Italian liner Europa.

  The Europa was bound for Barcelona, and Patti now had enough cash for a trip through Europe before sailing to join me in Surinam, (Dutch Guiana). At least, that was the plan. It was a question of who’d sail first.

  On Saturday morning, July 13, we were walking along a beach with massive Table Mountain in the background when Patti’s hand suddenly tightened in my own. I followed her eyes to the land side of the beach.

  “Look at the trees,” she said quietly.

  The shorefront trees were bending to the wind. For the first time in two weeks they were bending to the north.

  Two hours later I was sailing Dove out of Cape Town’s harbor. I’d left in such a hurry that Patti had not had time to get all her stuff off Dove. But she did take my only comb and pen. Across the Atlantic I tried to control my hair with a primitive Fijian wooden comb and had to write up my logbook in pencil. I could find no use for her toothbrush, her bikini pants or her lipstick.

  Patti followed me out for a few miles in a friend’s powerboat. When her boat turned around she blew kisses across the w
ater. Thank God she couldn’t see me cry.

  My first logbook entry read: Damn it! Damn it! How I hate to leave!

  The Europa was due to sail from the Cape in three days, and with the liner’s radio officer I’d arranged for a schedule of times when Patti and I could speak to each other on my new radiotelephone. We’d figured out where Dove and the Europa would be close enough for good reception. This scheduled radio talk was something to look forward to.

  Those first days out of Cape Town there was much to keep me busy. I had to watch for shipping heading north and south in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. This meant staying up all night every night for the first week. In daylight, when I slept, I hoped Dove would be seen by the steamers and that they would give way to sail. A radar reflector on Dove’s mast should show up on a steamer’s screen. In the first six days I counted fifty-four ships, some so close that they rocked Dove in their wash.

  To pass the time I began to crochet a Balaklava helmet to protect my face against the cold. The wind seemed to be coming right out of the South Pole, and when spray came over the bow and swept across the deck it took my breath away.

  My first call to Patti was due on July 17 at seven in the morning, and I figured that if the Europa had left on time she would be only about two hundred miles away. The previous night I’d written down all the things I had wanted to say. As the hour approached I was so tensed up I couldn’t force myself to eat and at exactly 0700 hours I turned on my transmitter and spoke into the microphone:

  “Yacht Dove calling Europa. Dove calling Europa.”

  Silence.

  “Dove calling Europa.”

  Suddenly the radio crackled, “Europa motor vessel calling yacht Dove.”

  Then Patti came through loud and clear. But from the way she spoke it was obvious she wasn’t hearing me. She said, “Robin, where are you, honey?”

  I called back desperately, “I hear you, Patti; what’s the matter? Why can’t you pick me up?”

  Silence again, then Europa’s radioman cut in and told me to call on another frequency. Frantically I fiddled with the dial, but my radio did not have the frequency he’d asked for. I spent an hour trying to make contact. Finally the Europa said they would call again in two hours.

  At 0900 Europa picked up my call. It was fantastic to hear Patti. I’d lost the piece of paper on which I’d written the carefully thought out messages, so we talked about the weather and the cats. Then Patti said, “They tell me you’re only about 140 miles away.”

  “Close enough to swim,” I said.

  “Okay,” said Patti. “I’ll start swimming too. That’s only seventy miles for each of us. In case you don’t recognize me I’ll be wearing my red bikini.”

  “Without your pants,” I said. “You left them in the quarter bunk locker.”

  “Okay, without my pants.”

  The radioman interrupted to warn that we were speaking on an emergency frequency and that we’d be in trouble if we spoke longer. He promised to make contact again that night.

  I told my tape recorder: Just had a long really nice talk with Patti. Gee, it was nice. I really feel good now. I’m so happy I even sing a little. This call was worth all the work and the cost that went into this radio…. I love her very much.

  We had another long talk that night but next morning when we again made ship-to-ship contact Patti’s voice was unintelligible. It was the last time I heard her on this leg of the voyage.

  The kittens were good company. For hours I would watch them playing with each other, clawing at everything that moved, tumbling into their food. I taped: Fili, the blind one, jumps at Kili and misses by a cat’s length. She bumps into the bulkhead all the time, but even though she’s sightless she never messes outside the litter box. Kili’s eyes are troubling him too. I’ve just been doctoring him and with some tweezers I’ve plucked the inward-growing eyelashes from his eyes.

  Man, it was cold! I had built a cozy bunk under the poop deck in the area where the cockpit had been. Patti had dubbed this spot “the cave,” and although I couldn’t sit up there inside the cave, it was a warm spot and it gave me a sense of security. I spent a lot of time reading in the cave or simply thinking about the future.

  After a week at sea, and eight hundred miles from Cape Town, the shipping traffic thinned, then disappeared. On my ninth day at sea, Dove’s sails filled with the southeast trades and I put out a jib and a genoa on whisker poles.

  On July 27 I taped: Have gone three years from this date, but it seems like half my lifetime…. Last night I put up the man-overboard light, which really floodlit the sails and deck. Felt it safe to take a seven-hour sleep. Self-steering gear working perfectly. Weather has begun to warm up too and I’ve been able to discard my sweater and read again on deck…. Cats are always hungry but I find eating is a drag—even the special food that Patti bought me. Last night I tried some pickled fish, but it reminded me so much of being with Patti in South Africa that I cried like a baby. I couldn’t bear to eat the stuff and threw it overboard…. Loneliness is like a pain again.

  Next day I recorded: This morning I saw a brilliant orange thing floating in the water. I moved Dove over and scooped up a Japanese net float. Two crabs were clinging to it. I knew they would die if I flung them back into the water. The sea is a mile deep here and the pressure down below would soon kill them. I gave the crabs a rest on Dove’s stern and then made a miniature raft from the styrofoam top to my ice chest. I hollowed out the little raft and provisioned it with barnacles and then put the crabs aboard. I’ve just watched the little raft floating off behind me. I hope the barnacles will keep the crabs from starvation until they make it to a shoreline.

  The radio was important to me now. Although I could not talk to anyone I could listen to other ships talking to each other. A friend in South Africa had given me a collection of taped folk songs, but all I wanted to hear was a live human voice. I picked up the BBC overseas broadcasts and more rarely the Voice of America. I even enjoyed the commercials because they made me feel closer to people. When I couldn’t find an English broadcast I listened to people speaking in languages I couldn’t understand. I taped: At least I know there are other people around.

  In the monotony of these days the little things seemed big. With the care of a watchmaker I worked out a special plumbing arrangement for the cats, shaping two pans and perforating the smaller one, which carried the litter. All I had to do to keep the cats’ bathroom reasonably clean was to empty the bottom pan and wash it out over the side.

  As the days passed, my reflexes slowed down. I now spent twice as long taking a sun fix and working out my position. My tape recorder gives an idea of my mood: I lost my chronometer today and I panicked when I couldn’t find it. I can’t navigate without it. Then I found it among the food stores. I don’t know why I put it there….

  One afternoon when I was filling the canvas bucket with seawater before taking a bath, the handle broke and the bucket floated away aft. I needed that bucket, but it took me several minutes to find the initiative and energy to turn Dove around and beat to windward to retrieve it. The maneuver cost me my supper of dried fish. The strips of fish had been drying on the deck, but when I beat back to windward, heeling sharply, the fish slid into the water. I got the bucket back though.

  Saint Helena, where Napoleon had died, hove into sight on July 31. I was tempted to explore the island but knew that to do so would cost me a day or more, so I sailed on to Ascension, 635 miles to the north northwest. I taped: I’m not eager to go to Ascension. I’m just going there to get provisions. As each day passes I get a little more depressed and lonely.

  About halfway between the two islands I fell overboard. My fishing line had become entangled with the outboard shaft and in trying to get it free I lost my balance. Dove was moving at about five knots, but I was just able to grab the stern pulpit. Although I was wearing a safety harness I might not have been able to haul myself back on board at that speed.

  On this voya
ge across the Atlantic I read a lot. The book I enjoyed the most in a library that included detective stories, travel books and historical novels was Lloyd Douglas’s The Robe. It made me wonder if there was some sort of purpose to my life. Like many people of my age, I had dismissed God and religion “and all that stuff” as something packaged up with stained-glass windows, dreary organ music and an old man with a beard. The Robe kind of shook me up. It’s the story of the centurion who watched Jesus die and who won his robe in a lottery.

  After twenty-three days at sea I dropped anchor in Ascension island’s Clarence Bay. With its moonlike landscape dotted with electronic antennae and the “big dishes” of deep-space-tracking stations, the island looked right out of science fiction.

  As it was late in the evening, and too late to go ashore, I started to fish and at once hooked a good-size bonita. While the fish was still hanging over Dove’s side a hammerhead shark snapped it clean in half. When the hammerhead came back for second helpings I shot it through the head, but in case he had any brothers I decided against a swim.

  Next morning I pulled ashore in the dinghy and was given a ride to the Air Force base. The people there had heard about me and gave me red carpet treatment. This was rather embarrassing as I did not possess a pair of shoes (I’d thrown away the ones with copper laces) and, after so long at sea, I just couldn’t carry on a proper conversation. I think the Air Force people thought I was Dopey. It was good, though, to eat inch-thick steak again.

  I was so glad to get news of Patti and that she had arrived safely in Europe. Her cable said: “Still hoping to see you Surinam on time. Love you.”

  One of the technicians took me on a tour of the island. I was much more excited to discover a dump of ancient grog bottles—the relics of a seafarers’ party long ago—than I was with all the scientific apparatus which tracked the hardware up in space. I really wanted to be on my way again because Patti would cross the Atlantic a lot quicker than Dove. I stocked up with fresh milk, fresh vegetables and ice and set sail again on August 16.