Maiden Voyage

by Tania Aebi

  I stared and whooped along with the dolphins all afternoon, and around six o’clock fell asleep dreaming of them. At one o’clock in the morning, I awoke again; they were still with us, calling, trilling, cooing. That they stayed for ten entire hours was pretty incredible, but I prayed they would stay until the Marquesas. I drifted back to sleep and when I awoke again, there was only silence.

  One morning, I made out a pinprick of a sail way off on the edge of the western horizon. We were still 1,229 miles from land. I grabbed my binoculars, ran to the foredeck and, leaning against the mast, strained my eyes trying to figure out the boat’s details. Turning on the radio, I called and called, “Can anybody hear me? Can anybody hear me? This is the sailboat Varuna. Over.” Nobody answered. For the better part of the day, the boat remained visible about 6 miles away, yet deaf to my calls. I wanted so badly to talk with them and verify my navigation. All my lines-of-position, LOPs, were working out, but there still was that little nagging self-doubt. To have had somebody back up my position would have boosted my confidence. But, there was no response. I felt a little pride in thinking I was keeping a better watch than the other boat but, mostly, I was disheartened; I had been looking forward to that human contact, knowing it was so close. The next time I checked the horizon, it was empty.

  On the morning of the sixteenth, I roused myself and went out to check the horizon just in time to see a low-hanging black squall drawing up from astern. I watched as a straight curtain of rain on the calm waters shielded the patch of angry waves. The breeze suddenly quadrupled and gusts lifted Varuna out of the water and carried her reeling along as the wind-vane paddle and tiller slammed from side to side, trying to control a completely overcanvased boat.

  Veering up into the wind, the mainsail backwinded and the boom strained against the preventer cord that held it from a slamming jibe to the opposite side of the boat. The preventer was vibratingly taut and I rushed to uncleat it. Let out slowly, the boom worked itself to the other side, making the boat heel over all the more, dragged down by yet another problem. The mast and rigging were shaking in the wind with the spinnaker pole and genny dragging in the water. The mainsail boom joined the gear party skinny-dipping over the lee side. I ran to the cockpit and freed the halyards to let the main and genny go, hastily pulling them down and securing them. The havoc finally subsided and I climbed back belowdecks to survey my wet bed and belongings strewn about the tiny cabin. It had hardly been a life-threatening situation, but now, with my curiosity satisfied, I decided that from now on it would be better for all concerned to just shorten sail immediately before a squall hit.

  The wind continued to play hide and seek for several days. On and off, it would wane, then pick up to a moderate puff, push us along, and then wane again. Regardless of strength, it always blew from astern. Sometimes we would crawl forward with slamming sails shaking the rigging and jarring my nerves. Whenever the taffrail log’s ticking slowed down, I would gloomily reassess my average speed for the day, fidgeting and poking holes through the chart, and wait for more speed.

  In the logbook, routine entries on navigation and weather conditions were broken by idle musings on this and that, or the lyrics to songs that kept running through my head. During the long nights, the dolphins returned to visit, announcing themselves with their familiar playful whistles, their paths lit by moonbeams. I never tired of staring into the phosphorescence that lit my sometimes speedy, sometimes poky, nighttime wake as I dreamed about the Marquesas and the South Pacific landfalls that loomed ahead. We were almost there.

  On Tuesday, October 22, at eight-thirty in the morning, I pulled out the chart and crossed out Monday the twenty-first, and mile 2,800. There were only 165 miles to go and I knew that every bird flying by had recently seen land. Outside, the increasing heat of the day slowed my actions in response. Even though Varuna was making an average of 4 knots, the rolling, slamming motion gave the impression that we weren’t going anywhere. Every ten minutes or so I climbed outside to scan the horizon, but there was only water—calm water. Climbing back down below into the shade of the cabin, I prayed for enough wind to let us get in the next day. It had already been twenty-two days and I was desperately anxious to confirm my landfall.

  “I’m going crazy!” I scratched across my logbook as the wind dwindled to nothing and the day began to drift ever so slowly into night. “We won’t get in tomorrow.” Pulling down the sails to stop the slapping noise, I brought my mattress up to sleep in the cockpit for relief from the heat.

  In the morning, I awoke to a breath of breeze against my cheek and the wind greeting us from the north. Quickly raising the main and jib, I set the Monitor and once again pointed Varuna’s bow toward land. A last sun sight confirmed our position and, optimistically, I began to clean up the boat. All morning long, I looked for the telltale cloud bank that hangs over islands. Although the vision of it eluded me, I was undaunted, knowing that my calculations were correct; we had to be about 55 miles away. I left my perch, leaning against the spray hood, and went below to make a batch of popcorn to ease the tension.

  This was the big test. If I found Hiva Oa, my navigation was spot on. I sat at the stove, jiggling the pressure cooker so the kernels of corn wouldn’t stick to the bottom, and thought about Thea. Luc and Jean Marie had already eaten their steaks and salads days ago, I figured, and were waiting for me. Were they worried? I pulled out my logbook and mapped out my first minutes on shore.

  “My plan is, as soon as I begin to make landfall, I’ll cook up a flan. Then, when I anchor, I’ll celebrate with Luc and Jean Marie and share the Bailey’s with them. If they’re not home, that’s all right, I’ll celebrate alone. Then I’ll inflate the dinghy, go ashore, check for mail, make a phone call. . . .”

  Simple plans for a landfall of such personal triumph, but I wasn’t feeling as victorious as I had thought I would. If anything, I felt sad that a passage of such beauty was actually behind me. The past twenty-three days had been the best part of my trip since I had sailed out of New York, and I already felt a tinge of resentment at having to leave my ocean behind.

  I headed out on deck with the popcorn to resume my vigil and, climbing through the companionway, thought I saw another sailboat. “Come here, Dinghy. Do you see what I see?” I grabbed my buddy and held him up toward the other boat. Totally uninterested, he pulled away and leapt below onto the bed to escape the piercing sunlight. In my haste to get to the VHF and call the boat, I spilled popcorn all over the cockpit.

  “Westbound sailboat on the horizon, westbound sailboat on the horizon. This is the sailboat Varuna. Can you hear me?” I called.

  “Salut, Tania. How are you?” said a familiar voice.

  “Luc?” I was shocked beyond belief. “Luc! What are you doing here? What happened? Is everything all right?”

  “Yes, yes. We’re fine,” he answered. “It has just been a horrible trip. There wasn’t enough wind and we’ve been eating rice for four days. We have no more food. Do you have any fresh vegetables? We are desperate for some. How was your trip?”

  “Well, my trip was good. Sometimes not enough wind, but it was nice,” I answered. “I just cooked the last of my fresh vegetables yesterday, but I have some canned food. You’re welcome to it. I don’t think we’ll make it in tonight. Do you?”

  There was little chance of it, he said. We briefly summarized our voyages and Jean Marie grabbed the transmitter to say hello. We decided to keep on sailing through the night and when we arrived outside the entrance to the anchorage, the two boats could drift until daylight.

  Now I was thoroughly excited, and everything I did for the rest of the day was with trembling hands and eager anticipation. Preparing the cockpit so I could take a bath, I put the slats in the companionway and moved the cat litter from the floor. Throwing buckets of water over my head, I scrubbed my hair, imagining what the Marquesas were like. I had found them! The longest projected passage of my circumnavigation was over.

  During the night, I steered the bo
at by hand part time, cooked the flan and tossed a canned vegetable salad. In unison, the two friends, Thea and Varuna, sailed into the lee of the island. As previously planned, at 3:00 A.M., the twenty-fourth of October, we arrived in Baie de Traîtres, Traitor Bay, and tied a line between the two boats, waiting for daybreak.

  The moon was beginning to wane, but it still illuminated the outlines of volcanic peaks towering above and lining the bay. Stars twinkling in a velvet sky were the backdrop to the black outline of Hiva Oa. The pungent smells of vegetation and smoke from native hearths wafted out to Varuna. The only thing left was to see what I could only feel and smell, and with bated breath, we awaited morning.

  Luc came aboard Varuna and we talked for a couple of hours, ate the salad, passed some to Jean Marie, and toasted our landfall. Jokes and laughter shot through the night air between the two boats. I heard about how they had played Scrabble every day and how Jean Marie had won only once. On the last day, Luc finally admitted to cheating the whole time and laughed at how Jean Marie never noticed. With the reunion and the banter, I was catapulted out of my peaceful solitude and placed irrevocably back in touch with humanity.

  A hush came over us as the breaking dawn colored in the blackness of a world without sun, and our two drifting sailboats stood in quiet awe of the scene. Slowly the lights of the day were turned on, unveiling lush vegetation cascading down the rugged mountains that pawed like giant bear claws into the bay.

  A beach lined in a thicket of coconut palms lay directly before us. Off to the right of the bay, three sets of masts were visible behind what looked like a small jetty protruding from the outer finger of land. Luc jumped back to Thea, threw me a line and, steering with the tiller to remain directly behind my tug, Varuna and I were towed through a narrow passage, between the end of the jetty and land, into the protected little harbor of Baie Taaoa. The enclosure was surrounded by more wanton tropical plants fringing the tops of little cliffs. A slight swell rebounded off the rock walls into the harbor and we joined a lone sailboat at anchor, gently rocking in the early morning calm.

  What a feeling it was to cast off from Thea, let loose the anchor and have it hit the ground after twenty-four days and 2,965 miles. Murky brown water flowed past Varuna’s hull, testament to the heavy rainfall and runoff from the lush Marquesas. I inhaled the perfumed air, musky with the underlying essence of smoke from the morning fires, and remembered that this was a place where only a few people had the luxury of a stove. Tied stern to the jetty were two other sailboats, brightly painted fishing boats and the local sailing pirogues. Double-checking to be sure everything was secure aboard Varuna, I dived into the water and swam to my friends.

  • • •

  My images of the South Seas had always been colored by childhood picture books—exotic beauties carrying trays of fruit and pirogues racing through turquoise lagoons as laughing girls looked on. Almost all the portrayals of the Polynesians were of a handsome, smiling people, always giving, welcoming and acting like eternal children. Now that I was really here, I would find each of these images to be the rule rather than the exception.

  Since the first explorer disembarked from the blue void to feast his eyes on these pagan South Seas islands, the palettes of our imaginations have been changed forever. The painter Paul Gauguin reached his zenith here; the poet and singer Jacques Brel, when he learned he had cancer, came here to die; and explorer Thor Heyerdahl came to Fatu Hiva, an island just to the south, in search of an isolated place to create his own utopia. The Marquesas have the power to make men dream of paradise, and their dreams have shaped those of generations.

  The first legal course of action upon arrival was the obligatory customs check-in with the local gendarmerie in the village of Atuona, about three miles around the harbor and up a hill. My legs wobbled and my balance was way off kilter after so long at sea. Trudging into town on a dirt road covered with snail shells made me remember how little exercise the lower part of my body received on the boat. Only certain muscles had developed, while others had turned to Jell-O.

  The mountain road was lined by orange, mango and tamarind trees and spattered with the riotous blooms of hibiscus. As we walked, the tap, tap, tapping of little hammers could be heard everywhere as women crafted the beautiful tapas they stretched from the pulp of trees before decorating them with intricate geometrical designs. Closer to town, shy groups of ravishing vahines, the beautiful women of Polynesia, stood around giggling. “Bonjour,” they said as we passed. This was French territory, and the Gallic influence was evident in the language spoken all around and in the tricolor flag hanging in front of the post office and gendarmerie.

  Phone calls were placed through the post office, and I went there first, anxious to talk to my family at home and tell them I had made it. Jeri was first. The eleven digits of her phone number code left our small building, crossed the Pacific to California, zipped through the Midwest and, when the man signaled to me, I picked up the receiver and heard a ringing sound all the way back on the East Coast of the United States.

  Jeri’s voice was music to my ears. I had missed her and told her all about Panama, my trip, my birthday at sea, the Galápagos, the weather during the passage, the animals. She caught me up on all the local news at home and I was pleased to hear that not much had changed. Fritz was still his kooky self. Christian was preparing to come into the city and live at the loft with Tony and Jade because my father was planning a trip. How was my father? The same, she sighed. Although their relationship had ended the year before, she was still very much a part of us. After six years of being there when we needed a mother figure, she considered us her children.

  “So who’s Luc?” asked Jeri.

  “He’s just a friend,” I answered.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, well . . . really.”

  Next I braced myself for the call to my father. According to the itinerary, I should have been in Fiji by this time and still hadn’t talked with him about staying in Tahiti for hurricane season. The man at the post office put the call through and my father accepted it jubilantly.

  “Hey, Ding-a-ling! Happy birthday! How was it?”

  Answering him in a flurry, I tried to make him feel my excitement. “The trip was great, Daddy. And guess what . . . Varuna crossed the whole 3,000 miles in the same amount of time as Luc’s boat, which is double her size. I even got here before them. They had to catch up to me in the end.”

  “Wow, pretty good. Now, what are your plans for leaving?”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” I stammered. “I just got here. Come on already.”

  “Yah, yah. I just want to know if you’re planning to stay one week, three weeks, two months . . . what?”

  “Well, I haven’t figured that out yet . . . probably two or three weeks. Anyway, there’s something I want to talk to you about. What do you think about my staying in Tahiti for the hurricane season? The engine is totally broken, there’s a lot of things that need work on the boat and I have friends who’ll help me do it all. And plus, I have to wait out hurricane season somewhere, right?”

  “Achh. The chances that you get a hurricane are slight. And even if you get one, big deal. You’ll have a great story to write about.”

  “Ha ha. Very funny. Seriously, I really have to stop somewhere and do all the work. Don’t worry. I’ll be home on time. I have two years, remember.”

  No matter how lighthearted, our conversations always ended up making me feel as if I were shirking my duties. I’d just spent the past five months learning how to survive on a sailboat at sea, making daily decisions that directly affected my fate, yet every time I talked to my father, he made me feel like a child, causing me to seriously question my decisions. Regardless of the value of a good hurricane story, I finished the call deciding that the refit time would be spent in Tahiti.

  I wrote down the number of my mother’s apartment in New York so the man at the post office could put through my last call. Judging by all past experiences, this call would be
a long one. When my mother used to call us in New York from her home in Switzerland, she would have talked all day if my father hadn’t just hung up the phone after an hour.

  Wondering what she was doing, I gazed idly from the doorway at little children playing with sticks and running around in the backyard. Their skin was a beautiful café au lait, their brown eyes stealing quick glimpses at me from under their mops of black hair. I waved and they ran away giggling. The man behind the counter finally signaled and I rushed to pick up the phone. It rang four times, then my mother’s voice came over the line.

  “Do you accept a collect call from Donia?” asked the operator.

  “Donia? You must mean Tania.” Her voice, feeble as it sounded, still held the imperious bearing toward people in her service that had always embarrassed me as a child.

  “Donia, Tonia, whatever,” the operator’s voice crackled.

  “Yes, she is my daughter. Of course I accept the charges. . . .”

  “Hello, Mommy,” I said slowly. “I’m here in Hiva Oa in the Marquesas. I made it.”

  “Oh, my dear Tania. I’m so happy to hear your voice. How are you? Do you wear the undershirts I sent you? Are you protecting yourself with sunblock? Are you eating all your vegetables?”

  “I’m fine. I had a really incredible trip. I’ll tell you all about it. But first, I want to know how you are.”

  “Oh, I am very weak, but Tony and Jade are being very nice with Mommy. Will you please tell Daddy not to disconnect my phone? He is throwing tantrums only because I am trying to tell him the truth. He is threatening to cut me off. Tania, Mommy loves you. Mommy knows what is best for you. Daddy doesn’t want to know the truth. I am trying to tell him but he refuses to listen. . . .” And off she went on one of her nonstop litanies about my father. Often, she would go on for so long that I sometimes felt like leaving the phone dangling and coming back later to see if she would even notice.