Solitaire Spirit: Three Times Around the World Single-Handed

by Les Powles

  On October 26th I cut my feet, swollen like glowing balloons, with a razor blade to release the fluid. Later Orland arrived with the doctor and for the first time they saw me in shorts. The condition of my legs seemed to make them angry but lying on my bunk I had the feeling that it had little to do with me. Now and again I tried to explain that there was something wrong inside my head, that I could no longer understand anything. I kept making circular movements by the side of my head saying, ‘Loco.’

  I was asked again if I would go to the hospital, and again refused. The doctor cleaned me as best he could and angrily pointed to the swarms of flies. ‘Englishman loco,’ he agreed. They left, none of us happy.

  I spent a restless night, my only relief to keep the blood from my feet by holding them above my head. In the morning I asked Tony to fetch the doctor, who inspected my legs.

  ‘Hospital,’ he said again, shrugged his shoulders and closed his bag. ‘Fini,’ he said, which I took to mean the poor man had had enough of me.

  It was my turn to say ‘Hospital’ and I even managed, ‘Please, doctor.’

  Satisfied, he gave me some tablets that seemed to ease the pain. Later he returned with Orland and a stranger. John, who had been in the Merchant Navy and had spent a good deal of time in British ports, spoke excellent English. The fault was mine that it took so long to explain things.

  Tony, who had been pumping Solitaire dry every day, would now live aboard and look after her. I was asked to write a brief statement to the Captain of Ports, along with a sketch of Solitaire’s damage and a rough chart of my voyage, which I duly did and included a thank-you note for all the kindness and hospitality of the people of St Lucia.

  It was arranged I should enter hospital next morning. I spent those last few hours on Solitaire with my feet above my head before being carted off to hospital on October 28th, Tony canoeing me to the jetty to save the long walk. Our trail up the cobbled streets was marked by flapping bandages I could no longer be bothered to tie, and the bottom of my pumps dropping off as I staggered into the village square. I went forward bare-footed, vaguely aware of a green building on my right, a church in the left-hand corner with two buildings alongside.

  Tony pointed to the far one and said, ‘Hospital’, towards which I stumbled drunkenly.

  As I entered I looked up, my embarrassment at finding myself in Brixham about to be surpassed. Over the door for all the world to see were the words Hospital Maternidade. I considered trying to return to Solitaire but a light nudge from Tony pushed me into Tutóia’s Maternity Hospital!

  Maria da paz Rodrigues – a long name for someone so gentle and pretty, so I shortened it to Maria that first day. She started working on my suppurations as soon as I arrived. The bed had clean white sheets and since I could not wear pyjamas because of my weeping sores, I lay on top of them clad only in boxer shorts. Maria had her back to me when I suddenly drew in my breath as though hurt. She looked round, her large brown eyes full of concern, until I started laughing, at which point she joined in. When she had cleaned my face, I made signs I wanted to shave off my beard, which she did for me. Already I was feeling much better.

  The first week passed quickly. Tony turned up each morning to report on Solitaire. Orland would visit and the teachers and girls from the school stayed with me until lights out. After their departure the main entertainment was provided by bats performing acrobatics in the open rafters to the screams and groans of pregnant women – so much better than any late night horror film, with the added spice of finding yourself a blood donor if the bats included you in their act.

  During the second week things improved and my head pains eased. I learned a few Portuguese words – and the names of the girls who were visiting me. The doctor’s wife would sit with me at night and we would read together from an old English textbook of hers, trying to increase her tiny vocabulary. Little old ladies would stay for hours without speaking, just holding my hands. Lovely young ladies would lean over, their black hair cascading down the sides of my cheeks, and would slowly moisten luscious red lips and expect me to repeat some Brazilian words after them as they tried to teach me their language.

  The night before my release a fisherman, a new patient, came to my room to complain about the noise. Although I thought it a bit of a liberty, I asked the young ladies to take away their tape recorder. I would learn the Bossa Nova another night, I explained.

  ‘What’s your next port of call?’ the fisherman asked.

  ‘Barbados,’ I answered.

  ‘How long will it take?’ he queried. When I said two days, he told me it was impossible. We argued awhile and he left, saying he would give me some charts. Next morning he handed me two of Brazil which I promptly gave back, saying I had no intention of going there. He looked at me as though I’d just landed from another planet and pointed to a chart showing Tutóia.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘We’re on Saint Lucia.’

  He pointed to a town 80 miles away called Sao Luis. For a moment I stared at the charts, expecting my head to explode.

  I was in Brazil.

  I was 1,000 miles south of the Caribbean St Lucia and had sailed over the Equator to hit a reef 100 miles south of the Amazon. How could I have made such an incredible blunder?

  On my return to Solitaire, I re-read the instructions for taking a noon sight for latitude. ‘Declination, North and South. These two elements are additive or subtractive according to the following simple rule. Same names add. Different names (one N and one S) subtract.’ On September 23rd, when halfway across the Atlantic, the declination had changed from North to South (the sun moving south of the Equator) and I had added instead of subtracted it.

  The day I hit the reef the declination was 8°S, so from 16°S should have been subtracted the assumed latitude 14°40´N for that day. I had hit the Brazilian coast about 1°20´ south of the Equator! Eighty miles further south is Sao Luis, the capital and port in that area of Brazil, its call sign SLI. Had I carried the Admiralty List of Radio Signals I would have found that St Lucia’s call sign in the Windward Islands was, in fact, SLU! But the elementary error that had brought me to this pass I now found difficult to live with. In a sense that second week in hospital saw the start of my wish to make a second, non-stop voyage around the world.

  Before Solitaire could continue I had to do something about her broken bottle-screw and loose rigging. As I had no spares I removed one from the twin backstays, replacing it with four links of anchor chain, and used it on the forestay. Once more Solitaire had tight rigging.

  Feeling pleased with myself, I heard a disturbance on the shore. A man in brightly coloured shorts ran up and down waving his arms and jumping in the air. We watched him awhile until I concluded that it might be a new dance craze and sent Tony over to see if he would like a partner. He was captured and brought out to Solitaire where his crew-cut and accent proclaimed him an American. He revealed that he was the aircraft pilot for the Captain of Ports in Sao Luis. When the Port Captain received my letter acknowledging the kindness of the St Lucian people, he could not read it so passed it on to the American to translate.

  ‘Jesus Chriiiist, this guy doesn’t even know which hemisphere he’s in,’ he had exclaimed and came to inform me.

  I thanked him for his trouble, claiming that I had now recovered my marbles. After a couple of shots of my whisky and his camera, he was gone.

  I had just got my breath back when Tony returned with another visitor who looked like Rock Hudson, except that he had thick grey hair and a deeply tanned face and his baritone voice hinted of a French extraction. Lord knows what effect he had on women, but they were out of luck for he was a French-Canadian priest, Father Le Brun, who had heard of my troubles on his aircraft radio and had flown down to see me. I now had visions of the village airport starting to look like Heathrow.

  He asked two questions, why did I wish to sail around the world alone? And would I go to church that night? I told him about solitude and contentment: of sailing into setting suns,
of shoals of flying fish lifting from the bows, of colours beyond the skills of camera or painter which only God could have created. I had been having trouble finding words so, to make him understand, I had been using my hands to show fish in flight and dolphins dancing. Yes, I believed in God, but I considered the world to be His church, it was what was in your heart and mind that made you a Christian. There was no necessity to go into a stone building to pray. If Father Le Brun did not understand my reasons for avoiding church, he nevertheless seemed content.

  Later that afternoon I faced another mystery: jazz music blasting from the sky, over as quickly as a squall. That night I was invited to dine with the doctor and his wife and a few friends whose house adjoined the church. We had been enjoying both food and conversation when the musical earthquake struck and windows started to shake. I looked at the walls expecting to see cracks appear before the house disintegrated, calming down only when I noticed that the other guests ignored this interruption. Conversation continued, but now we were lip reading. Then I solved the mystery of the heavenly music. To call the faithful in a 100-mile area, the church was using four loudspeakers instead of bells, one speaker directed into the doctor’s window and my left ear.

  His wife was trying to persuade me to take her to church that night, pretending she was unable to appreciate my reasons for not going. In the end she employed the normal feminine method of getting her way. Earlier I had refused more food although still hungry. She overcame my objections by saying I did not like her cooking so, not wanting to give offence, I had allowed my plate to be filled again. Now she claimed I was ashamed to be seen with her so I had to agree to accompany her to church.

  The village square was crowded and I thankfully turned to go back but mysteriously a path opened up in front of us, people stepping aside as we moved towards the church. Inside it was packed, but again the people let us through. For a moment I panicked, thinking they were going to marry me off to one of the nurses but finally I found myself in front of the pulpit, looking up at Father Le Brun, who was smiling at me. He preached in Portuguese but I recognised my own name and Solitaire’s, after which the congregation repeated them the way you might say ‘Amen’, echoing through the speakers to the crowd in the square. Then he used his hands like flying fish and dipped them like dancing dolphins, having clearly understood what I had told him that morning. The scheme to get me to church had been a well-contrived plan involving Mrs Doctor!

  After the service he explained how the villagers wished to bless my voyage but had not anticipated the problem of getting me into church. Had he explained the reason I would have been delighted, I replied, adding that he had pinched all my best material for his sermon for which I would forgive him if he would pay another visit to Solitaire before he flew off.

  This perfect day was still not over. Back on the beach I found six of the school ma’ams waiting for me. Aboard Solitaire they produced a guitar and tape recorder and started recording the songs of Brazil, in the intervals one of them reading from some pencilled notes in Portuguese. The performance ran for half-an-hour or so, whereafter all gave our Christian names just before the tape ran out. I have no idea how long it took them to perfect their timing but it must have been hours. It was a tape I would keep all my life and play a thousand times. I cherish it still.

  Next morning Father Le Brun and I discussed my ports of call en route to the Panama Canal. Cayenne in French Guiana – 650 miles to the north – seemed a good prospect, and English was its second language. There I could pick up stores at reasonable prices. Shortly after he left, a light aircraft flew over Solitaire, dipping its wings. A kindly man was off to see if any more of his flock had strayed.

  Food in Tutóia was hideously expensive and in short supply, but I still had £200 left so I indulged in a couple of tins of spam and sardines and 10lb of potatoes and bananas to add to my store of three jars of marmalade, six tins of mixed vegetables and a bottle of salad cream and another of mustard. Orland presented me with a sack of oranges and 5 gallons of diesel while Tony was asked to fill my water containers. Later in the day I watched a football match and, on the way back, was shown a ditch filled with water in which children and dogs were playing. A woman filled a jug from it and Tony made a drinking movement with his hand. It seemed I would be carrying 30 gallons of well-used bath water!

  I was delayed for a few days awaiting my papers from Sao Luis, which did nothing to help my nerves. Like being thrown from a horse, the quicker you’re back in the saddle the better, although I wasn’t keen on coming within a mile of the horse or the sea in case I received another kick in the teeth from sun, sea and reefs.

  At first light on Tuesday, November 18th, I switched on the engine, but the diesel grumbled and showed her displeasure at being ignored for so long by emitting clouds of blue smoke before screaming at full pitch to shatter the quiet of the morning. Crickets in the mangroves on the far bank stopped their insistent chattering and the birds took flight, screeching at the noisy intruder. Pushing the throttle forward, the sound reduced to a slow, sexual throb. Tutóia slept on, palm trees lying limp with bowed heads. Over the dew-covered roofs I could see the steeple of the church in which I had received my service of blessing, and nearby the maternity hospital in which I’d spent two weeks flat on my back. Would Tony arrive to help lift the anchor or could I play safe for another day?

  No such luck! Already he was making his way down the beach, followed by his wife and children. Orland, in full uniform for the occasion, was there too, with his wife and young son, scuttling any chance I had of not sailing. Tony came aboard and quickly pulled up the anchor and, on his return to the cockpit, I gave him the parcel I had made up for his family.

  ‘Adios, Leslie.’

  ‘Adios, Tony,’ I said, and then he was gone.

  As I rounded the bend in the river, I looked back to wave farewell to my friends, a final glance at the kindly village of Tutóia, the home of Samaritans.

  Chapter Three

  The Hallelujah Chorus

  Tutóia – Fatu Hiva, Marquesas Islands

  November 1975 – May 1976

  Slowly we motored through the watery forest into a nightmare of shallow brown waters, waves breaking over the sandy islands that threatened our passage. I raised sail, trying to lift the keel by heeling but without success. Ahead I could see the black marker buoy that had greeted our arrival, towards which Solitaire made her way, picking her steps as though walking through a minefield, with nothing showing on the echo sounder. She lifted and dropped heavily on hard ground, her mast shuddering, and I was promptly and violently sick over the stern. Slowly, so very slowly, we struggled to the buoy.

  The sea was still brown but Orland had shown me on the chart in his office that if I sailed north I would soon find deep water. Moreover, I now had the two charts the fisherman had given me and a list of RDF call signs all the way to Panama. Although I had no harbour charts, the ports I was considering would be well-buoyed, with Cayenne, 650 miles away in French Guiana, the first.

  The first 24 hours were nerve-wracking, what with gusting winds, choppy seas and the bilge pump packing up, thanks to a ripped diaphragm. Solitaire needed pumping dry twice a day so I made do with a bucket and sponge until I contrived a new diaphragm from some plastic ‘rubber’ left over from the seat covers.

  My noon sight on November 19th, put us 22 miles below the Equator and as we made our first intentional crossing that night, the wind came light from the east enabling Solitaire to broad-reach contentedly for Cayenne, dozing along under main and working jib. I should have put up a larger headsail but relaxed with 80 miles a day, plus another 20 miles or so from the favourable current. My nerves steadied, the cool sea breeze refreshing my scarred skin. To celebrate crossing the Equator I dined on spam and chips.

  As the days slid by the winds continued to decrease but I refused to fly more sail for I was enjoying this voyage too much. I found some flour in a plastic bag inside a box of sponge mix, and made my first-ever pancakes,
spreading them with my favourite marmalade as the radio started to pick up delightful French music.

  One morning I saw what I first thought was a low flying aircraft coming over the horizon, followed by another and another. As they neared, I could see they were modern fishing trawlers with their arms extended. All day, stretching from horizon to horizon, they streamed by Solitaire. With darkness they became a blaze of lights, making me think I was sitting on a main street. Then, like a body of soldiers, they turned together, headed out to sea and disappeared. A last arrival came scurrying by, late for parade. ‘Get a move on, you hoooooorible little man...’ I cried in my best sergeant-major voice. When he had gone we had the night to ourselves, and a French woman sang me to sleep with love songs.

  On Tuesday, November 25th, Solitaire lay a couple of miles off Cayenne. I could see trawlers heading inshore but could pick up no RDF signal, although Paramaribo in Dutch Suriname was coming in loud and clear from 160 miles away and, since it had a lightship to help with the landfall, I decided to sail there instead.

  We arrived late on Thursday and lay off, keeping the lightship in sight until morning. Although I had tried to hold our position, Solitaire had drifted to the north with the current and had to be forced back. Again the waters were chocolate-coloured but a clearly-buoyed shipping lane made navigation easy. A strong outflowing current slowed progress and as ocean-going ships were using the main channel, I pulled to one side, dropped sail and anchored for the night. Food was getting short so dinner consisted of a tin of mixed vegetables, salad cream and an orange, as did breakfast the next morning.

  We arrived in Paramaribo fairly quickly and rode the broad river on a favourable tide. The port seemed prosperous enough, with clusters of docks housing fleets of shrimp trawlers, the town a mixture of old Dutch buildings and modern stores, a bustling fruit, fish and vegetable market on the dockside. Flags and bunting were everywhere as a week earlier Suriname had gained its independence from the Dutch. The harbour itself was spoilt by a massive cargo ship parked in the middle, upside down, scuttled by the Germans during the last war. I felt Solitaire shudder when she caught sight of it but I hastened to disclaim any responsibility.