Maiden Voyage

by Tania Aebi

  “Forget it!” I screamed to Olivier. “Nobody understands me. Let’s just anchor next to that other sailboat. We can’t get into trouble for not understanding.”

  He anchored and I followed behind, capping off the last harrowing fifteen minutes of the nightmare by running aground in shallow sludge. I pulled open the cover to the sputtering engine, turned it off and sucked on the fuel line to bring back the flow, before realizing that a pipe had burst and my diesel was emptying into the bilge. With burns from the boiling exhaust pipe on my arms, a greasy face and a mouth tasting like a gas station, I sat down in the midst of the bedlam and cried, waiting for the customs man to come and ask for Playboy magazines.

  Baksheesh was the name of the game in Bali, and it began with our permission to go ashore. A sailing permit was required to stay in Indonesia, and I didn’t have one. Until Australia, I hadn’t even known that I was going to stop in Bali, much less the exact dates that were required for the permit, so our first bribe was for a hundred dollars each for permission to stay one week. After having spent twenty-seven days at sea, we couldn’t wait to get as far away from the boats as possible, and as soon as we handed over our traveler’s checks and our legality was established, we hopped on the first bus we could find for the twenty-minute ride to Kuta Beach.

  The island roads were bordered for miles on either side by the flat paddy fields, and stunning Balinese women dressed in colorful batiks, with their waists cinched in cummerbunds, walked along the roadside, balancing baskets of rice on their heads. Young couples, doubled up on their bicycles, steered out of the way as our driver zoomed like a madman through their midst. As we neared Kuta Beach, a huge billboard of Colonel Sanders emerged, with Ayam Goreng, fried chicken, written beneath his familiar face.

  The hive of venders, ethnic eateries and bungalow hotels with elaborately sculpted gardens drew an exotic mélange of visitors from all around the world. We strolled and let our eyes roam over the ornate Asian architecture with its serpentine trimmings, and stone temples with their open roofs, enabling the gods to come and go as they pleased. The Balinese were talented artisans and the streets were jam-packed with Indonesian wares: lacy cotton and rayon clothing, bolts of batik fabrics, jewelry and intricate balsa and wood sculptures of swirling snakes, dragons and mythical monsters. We spent a couple of days there, taking it all in while we bought presents, took hot baths, ate out and rested, with intermittent trips to check on the boats.

  On our fourth day, as I was filling out the required autobiography for sending presents overseas to the family, who should enter the post office but Fred from Kreiz. He had left the boat in Australia and come to Bali for a simple holiday. It was pure coincidence that our paths had crossed. That night, to make the coincidence one of the more bizarre variety, while we three shared a celebration meal, into the restaurant walked Fred’s ex-girlfriend, fresh off a plane from Singapore—another total coincidence. Now we really had to celebrate, so for Olivier’s and my remaining two days, the four of us rented a car and drove into the interior through a panoramic landscape of terraced rice farms up to an immense crater lake 7,000 feet above sea level.

  On the day before leaving Bali, in the market at Denpasar, we endlessly haggled down the preposterous original prices, and filled up the boats with passion fruits, avocados, grapefruits and pineapples. The next morning we cast off. Six hundred and sixty miles separated Varuna from her next destination, the tiny speck of Christmas Island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the most beautiful trip Varuna and I were to share.

  The wind was from astern at Force 3, gently prodding us onward at 6 knots toward the asylum of Flying Fish Cove. On the sixth night, December 2, a hump marred the perfect horizon and, after heaving to for the night, Varuna glided into the lee of the island to a cleft where we anchored. Six hours later, Akka’s black hull emerged around the bend of the cleft and sailed up alongside.

  Christmas Islanders, mainly Malaysian and Australian employees of a phosphate mining company, treated our welcome new faces like old friends. Stubby, a man from Borneo, was the proprietor of the island’s one free enterprise, a tire repair shop, and taking us under his wing, he showed us to lime trees, fresh fruit and vegetable gardens and his VCR for a James Bond soiree.

  Christmas Island had a mind-boggling population of red crabs, and during our visit they were in the process of migrating from the sea, where they laid their eggs, back up into the interior of the island. Everywhere we went, huge congregations of these crabs sashayed back and forth along the streets on tiptoe. The pavements were littered with a red carpet of pungent crushed carcasses that Stubby said played havoc with car tires, thus providing him with plenty of seasonal work. Crackling crab disturbed the quiet hours in between the Muslim prayers that emanated four times a day from a nearby minaret.

  From the moment I had stepped ashore, I was given a warning that was to be repeated often during my stay—first from the fellows from customs and immigration, and later from others; “Don’t you know that you’re very late in the season?” from one person. And from another, “Hurricane season has already begun. It’s dangerous here for small boats.” These warnings came complete with elaborate descriptions of the enormous swell that bombards the anchorage whenever a hurricane rolls over the island. To say the least, this information did not help to provide an overwhelming sense of security and a nagging worry began munching away at my nerves.

  A well-stocked supermarket provided for the residents was at our disposal, at government-subsidized prices, and we stocked up on all the goodies we wouldn’t lay eyes on for a while. My engine’s burst fuel line was repaired in a workshop and reinstalled. With hurricane season nipping at our heels, Olivier and I said goodbye to Stubby and the other yacht club members whom we had chatted with in the evenings after taking our showers on shore. Giving each other presents to be opened on Christmas, on December 8 we departed for Sri Lanka, 1,800 miles away as the crow flies, through the doldrums and over the equator.

  • • •

  Immense waves buried first the boom and, on the next roll, the spinnaker pole as 20- to 30-knot winds pushed us steadily forward for eight days—a far cry from the lax Arafura Sea. The strain on the rigging was relayed to my nerves, and finally, frazzled from the constant watches required to remain together, Olivier and I decided to separate until Sri Lanka. We screamed Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to each other and floundered apart. The next morning, a disagreeable drizzle settled in and I was alone.

  For two days Varuna slowly eased north toward the equator, as a menacing sky of lumbering black clouds closed in. Passing through the curtain of doldrums, we entered a world of flat calms, squalls, rain and meager advances of only 30 miles a day. I resewed the rapidly disintegrating spray hood, made a splint for a broken mainsail batten, cleaned up, knitted, read a couple of books, and on the third day of a glassy ocean, decided that it was time to try the engine. The starter turned for about thirty seconds, nothing else happened, and a day of mechanics was born.

  After a couple of hours of following and tracing all the fuel lines, after twice dismantling the second filter and sucking on the piping, I had an inspiration. When I opened the port cockpit locker, the hunch played out. The needle to the fuel tank gauge was on empty. Six hours later, after ten bloody cuts, many sweated gallons of body fluids, and three more dismantlings of the fuel lines, I discovered that there were two miniature holes in the second fuel filter’s casing. All but the two gallons of diesel I had in an emergency jerry-can had siphoned into the bilge. After duct-taping the casing, I was faced with the fact that with only barely enough fuel left for emergencies, Varuna was once again engineless.

  Every couple of hours, I climbed up several mast steps to see if I could find Akka. Sometimes a cloud would get my hopes up until it rose above the horizon and revealed itself, but I continued to search. I missed Olivier and wrote down little prayers in my logbook for him to have a safe trip while, over two weeks, we covered 600 miles, inch by aching inch. My hands de
veloped an elephant’s hide pulling the sails up and down to grab every last gasp of breeze.

  Books helped me to while away the time, and I read almost one a day. When it was hot and lethargic, I appreciated nothing better than a good spy story that spiralled to an exciting climax. Lusty romances were also a good distraction when conditions outside were meltingly hot and sweaty. I could become the lovely belle Lucinda, who runs off with the Marquis in lavish Nineteenth-century Gone With the Wind settings. I read about oil-rig crises in the North Sea, and followed a juggernaut’s progress through a fictional rebel-infested African country. I suffered in prison with Papillon and became an immigrant hobo in Montreal.

  As the calm days showed no sign of relenting, the book supply dwindled and I was forced to resort to loftier sagas like Les Miserables and hefty volumes of James Michener. But I didn’t much care about the sewers of Paris, nor did I really want to hear about a dinosaur during the Far West’s evolution. In the boredom of the doldrums, I wanted to read about terrorists blowing up Yankee Stadium. I needed excitement in my life.

  The dolphins were great, but they seemed to always come at night. The wind was pathetic and tore my sails more often than it gave any propulsive aid. For one week, three baby dorados used Varuna’s shadow for shelter, and flip-flop sandals drifted by with families of fish attached. The incongruous sight of floating logs, plastic bags and barrels were the apex of my excitement. Always anticipating a treasure or strange ocean life, I would alter course and drift up to the blobs until it became obvious that each one was just another piece of garbage in the middle of the ocean.

  One night, I was awakened by drops of water. Hearing no rain on deck, I reached up to turn on the light and there was a soaking wet Tarzoon shaking himself over me. The little idiot had managed to fall overboard and clamber back up somehow without my noticing.

  I thought often about Olivier, wherever he was, and how miserable he must be, certainly making less progress than I with the poky Akka. All day long, I played with the sails, coaxing Varuna along in vague breezes, and each mile was well earned. During the nights, unable to live with the slatting noise of the limp sails, I took down the slamming offenders and slept. There seemed to be no point in losing sleep for the sake of a couple miles made good. Twice, we were helped along by aggressive fronts with lots of wind. The second one fell on Christmas.

  Merry Christmas, Tania, and as a special present, here’s a nice gray sky, lots of rain and the gift of sorely needed exercise taking reefs in and out, in and out. I thought about my family back home gathered around another one of Jeri’s magnificent trees bedecked in cranberry and popcorn strings with presents heaped around the floor. Tony, Nina and Jade would be gobbling down a traditional meal of turkey, cranberry sauce and the works. I emptied cans of sauerkraut and hotdogs into my pressure cooker and peeled up some potatoes in the cockpit. I thought about Olivier, somewhere behind me, surely giddy after savoring the Johnnie Walker and getting sugar shock from the chocolates I had wrapped for him.

  Climbing below, I put the cooker on the stove, filled up the dish at the base of the burner with alcohol and put a match to it to prime and preheat the pressurized kerosene. Dreaming about a white New York Christmas, I waited for the alcohol to burn out and then lit the stove. The blue flame spit out and settled into a methodical hiss, as the cabin filled with the aroma of burning kerosene. When the pressurized steam in the cooker began spinning the escape valve, I waited ten minutes, then removed my meal from the fire. Christmas dinner was ready and I opened my present while it cooled off.

  Olivier had made a coral necklace and an earring from a feather he had found on the Barrier Reef. After I gorged myself on a culinary feast, I went to sleep that Christmas night thinking of him and the changes that had swept through my life since the Christmas at home with my mother one year before.

  • • •

  Throughout the passage, whenever a ship rambled across the horizon, if the radio operator was listening and comprehended basics and numbers in English, I’d get a satellite fix. The fixes continued to reconfirm my own navigation, which was indicating appallingly slow progress. I spent hours playing a game of make-believe with myself, trying to picture what Sri Lanka was like and imagining all the news in the mail that I hoped was awaiting my arrival.

  New Year’s came and went. I almost forgot all about it until I took out the Nautical Almanac to calculate a sight. On December 31, 1986, I decided I was better off on Varuna in the Indian Ocean than in New York with advertisements, television, radios and people telling me what fun it was supposed to be. I remembered sitting in front of the television at home, struggling to stay awake until the apple floated down in Times Square. Instead, I nodded off to sleep on Varuna to be entertained by dreams.

  Finally, after three and a half weeks at sea, we inched our way across the equator and back into our native Northern Hemisphere. On Nina’s birthday, January 3, a new breeze began to freshen the air and I knew we had finally left the doldrums behind. I began informing Tarzoon of our exact position and ETA every time a fix was plotted and assured him that we would soon arrive.

  The northeast monsoon lived up to its description on the pilot charts, and as we crept farther into its neighborhood it began blowing in full force. Varuna, reefed down and heeling over 30 degrees as she beat into the 30-knot winds, had little time to adapt to the conditions, and for four days I lived on the walls. I started to see a trickle of ships, and then a steady parade formed. On January 7, we approached a highway on the horizon, my first real encounter with a serious shipping lane.

  Twilight descended on an endless stream of lights from the enormous all-business tankers, square car carriers and gargantuan freighters. With only the little red and green masthead light, I felt inconspicuous and could only hope that Varuna was being picked up on their radar screens. I radioed a car carrier that was steaming by and the radio operator informed me that, no, Varuna did not appear on his screen. We were invisible. He only saw us after I blinked a flashlight in his direction.

  Clutching the transmitter and hollering left and right, I must have created an incredible ruckus on the airwaves, making sure that certain ships knew that I was there. Some of them ignored my calls, so I had no idea if they heard me or saw Varuna. Paralyzed with fear as they plowed by, at the most desperate moment I even drew Tarzoon close, grabbed my passport and boat papers and prepared to abandon ship.

  Dodging in and out of the moving obstacle course, I kept a lookout for the lighthouse on Dondra Head at the southernmost tip of Sri Lanka that would indicate we were only 28 miles away from our destination. Below Dondra Head, there was not a speck of land until the icy wastes of Antarctica. At 3:00 A.M., January 8, the beacon revealed its light, we sprinted as fast as we could across the rest of the shipping lane and set a course for Galle Harbor.

  Varuna sped along until hitting the shadow of the landmass that obliterated the wind, and once again, we found ourselves on a flat calm. On tenterhooks, I fidgeted as the sun rose and Sri Lanka emerged from the horizon ahead, shimmering like a jewel in the blue expanse of the Indian Ocean. It had been thirty-one days, my longest trip ever at sea. Waiting for a few gusts to carry us along, I was so ready for land that I thought I could taste it in the heavy morning air. Fishing boats puttered by, reminding me suddenly that I’d better get dressed.

  At about midday, after going absolutely nowhere except for the one mile the engine had covered before retiring, I scanned the beckoning shoreline and set a course for more affirmative action. Hailing the next fishing boat that came close, I hoped to stop and bribe them into towing Varuna to Galle. As it drew closer, the staccato sound of the green and yellow open boat’s engine reverberated through the air. As the first of the three men jumped aboard Varuna, I realized that none of us spoke each other’s language, and, resorting to sign language, I demonstrated a boat being towed. The men giggled at me as I ran below to pull out forty dollars and a bottle of rum.

  “Look,” I said, pointing at the loot,
waving my arms around exaggeratedly, “me give you this, then you tow me in? OK?”

  They haggled among themselves as I tried to fend off the larger boat that was gently rocking against Varuna’s hull. “Please,” I pleaded, the day was steadily drawing again to a close. They continued to talk, every so often giving me a once-over and readjusting their wraparound skirts that seemed to have wiped up many a bilge.

  “OK,” the leader said, pointing at my T-shirt. Anxious to make them as happy as possible, I hopped into the cabin, pulled out three T-shirts and distributed them. Finally after several hours of cajoling sign language and half the bottle of rum, they towed me 10 miles toward the coastline until a feeble day breeze picked up. Pointing to the ripples on the water and my sails, they motioned that Varuna could now sail herself and they would let me go. I nodded and thanked them as my two crew rejoined their vessel. Grinning and waving, they headed back out to sea.

  For three hours, I played with the sails and jiggled the rudder back and forth as we crept by sandy beaches lined with coconut palms. Following the landmarks with the contours on the chart, we were two miles away from the entrance of the harbor when the thunderstorms hit. One after the other they swarmed down, totally obscuring any semblance of wind, so I used the opportunities to scrub the decks and take a shower. All too soon, evening approached and there was no more hope for us to get in before nightfall. It was so close that I could have easily swum to shore had I not seen the enormous dorsal fin of a shark earlier that morning. Resignedly, I went about preparing myself for another night at sea, when a sailboat came out of the harbor and motored up.