Maiden Voyage

by Tania Aebi

  • • •

  Unlike the Panama Canal, the 120 miles of the Suez were divided up into two days of motoring on a channel dug through sand dunes that separated Asia from Africa. As we started the next morning, I could see the burnt-out spoils of the Six-Day War between the Israelis and Egyptians littering the banks of the canal. The scars reminded me of a story Asma had recounted about when the enemy had threatened Port Suez. The canal itself was only several hundred feet wide, and from Asma’s overlooking windows she had seen the Israelis approach. “I had to hold Didi in my arms,” she had said, “to show them I had a baby, so that they wouldn’t shoot at our house.”

  It was hard to imagine that Port Suez was a city fairly recently besieged by a war in which most of the inhabitants had been forced to flee. Port Suez had seemed to be simply a modernized version of Port Sudan. The people had more Arabic ancestry than the Sudanese but didn’t like to be called Arabs. “We are descendents of the Pharaohs,” some had insisted. Unlike the colorful clothing of the Sudanese, the habitual veils of most of the Egyptian women were black. Most of the men had turned to the Westernized fashions of pants and shirts. We carried on, remorseful that all we were to know of Egypt had come from the perimeters of some of the busiest shipping capitals of the world, Port Said to the north and Port Suez at the southernmost reaches of the canal.

  In Port Said, we met a couple on a Swiss boat who were heading in the opposite direction, down the Red Sea and eventually to the Philippines. Morris, the captain, was a bit apprehensive of what lay ahead and, like me two years earlier, not very familiar with the ocean. Olivier and I spent a few days with him and his girlfriend, Ursula, giving them charts, books and advice. Ursula asked for instructions on how to do the calculations for celestial navigation and I felt proud to be able to help. In return, Morris, who was a chef, cooked up gastronomic feasts with dried morel mushrooms and once even a beef Wellington. Thinner than ever, I was glad for the high-calorie repast we shared with our new friends.

  Ursula and Morris fell in love with Mimine during our days together and, after mulling over the Mediterranean and Atlantic crossings that lay ahead, and worrying about the cramped quarters on Varuna, I reluctantly let them adopt her. They asked for a list of her food preferences, and made a bed for her. I handed over her weekly contraceptive pills with some vitamins and cat treats, knowing she had found a loving new home. On Friday, July 3, we bid Morris, Ursula and Mimine farewell, leaving Port Said for the island country of Malta in the Mediterranean, 1,000 miles to the northwest.

  I didn’t think we would be flouting superstition too much to leave on this particular Friday—the first Friday departure since that fateful one in Mooréa—because it was also Olivier’s birthday. “His anniversary with life can’t possibly bring us bad luck,” I thought.

  Under a blinding sun, we tacked out into strong headwinds and Varuna heeled over 20 degrees, the conditions I had anticipated and had hoped would ease up as the day wore on. By nightfall, the wind had dropped off a bit, but was still on the nose, and I was exhausted from tacking and weary from the knowledge that progress had once again been miserable after a day of pounding. We were still smack in the middle of the worldwide shipping lanes bound for the canal.

  Traveling up the rush-hour highway of the Red Sea had boosted my confidence as far as shipping was concerned. Naturally, I could remember the occasional heart-fluttering near misses. But Varuna had always prevailed, so I figured the radar reflector tied in between her shrouds was alive and well, along with the bright light on the backstay that illuminated the deck and sails. Mistakenly, I thought Varuna was visible to everyone.

  In the evening, after I had been keeping a constant lookout in the cockpit, my teeth began chattering uncontrollably. A night mist had fallen, enveloping Varuna in a damp chill, and I stood at the spray hood, scanning the blurry horizon. There was a lull between ships and those that I could see were not heading my way, so I went below to boil some water for a cup of coffee before making a rendezvous with Akka. It was a quarter of nine and Olivier and I had planned to come togoether at the top of the hour.

  In the radiating glow of the kerosene light, I poured the alcohol into the dish, and its fire alone heated up the water enough for my coffee. Heaping a couple of spoonfuls of powdered milk and sugar into my favorite blue mug and pouring in the water, I stretched and took a sip. My legs and bottom hurt from sitting scrunched up in the cockpit all day, ready to grab the tiller in the event that a ship needed avoiding, and I daydreamed for a moment about Malta and the exotic ring of the name. . . .

  A blaring horn and the rumbling churn of a ship’s propellors blasted me out of the reverie and on deck in a flash. Pupils dilating to adjust in the darkness, I looked up and there it was, every sailor’s worst nightmare. Twenty feet away, the towering hulk of an immense cargo carrier was barreling down on us.

  “Oh my God!” I gasped, frozen in shock. “This is it.” The moment had finally arrived. My first reaction was to rush and turn on the engine. But, I didn’t have enough time! Should I grab my passport and Tarzoon and jump overboard? Or should I undo the self-steering and luff into the wind? No, undoing the bungie cord would waste at least five precious seconds. In any case, none of these brilliant ideas registered clearly enough as my mind raced from alternative to alternative, all smooshed together in the pandemonium of the moment as I watched the monster close the miserable distance, still honking.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Tarzoon,” I screamed at my buddy as the bow of the ship passed 10 feet in front of us and Varuna bounced around in the side wash of thousands of tons worth of displacement. As the midship wall passed, still without contact, and next the looming stern, I chanced the thought that we were saved. My jaw was hanging to my stomach as something snagged the forestay, followed by a resonant twang.

  Varuna’s mast jerked back and the jib flapped free in the wind. Somebody shined a light down on us and incoherently hollered, as the Arabic letters on the ship’s stern diminished with the growing distance, leaving us wallowing and crippled in the darkness.

  Running up forward, to my dismay I found that the steel forestay had been sliced and the jib was hanging from its head, saved from a complete loss by the attached halyard and sheets. We had been spared the catastrophe of a dismasting thanks only to another halyard that I had tied down to the anchor roller in the Red Sea for added security in case the forestay broke. With the advantage of hindsight, I realized that even if I hadn’t been so stunned, there would have been barely enough time to disengage the tiller, head into the wind and avoid misfortune. Tarzoon and I were lucky to be alive.

  I quickly tore down the main and jib to avoid any more strain on the mast and began to figure out a jury rig. Turning on the engine, I saw Akka’s kerosene lamp in the distance and motored down to Olivier, who was standing out in the cockpit.

  “Olivier, Olivier,” I screamed. “I just got hit by a ship.” Like a little girl, I was thrilled to have been spared the full potential of the calamity and was now on an adrenaline rush of fright and excitement.

  “Are you all right?” was his first worry.

  “Yah, yah. But, the forestay is completely broken in half. I think I better go back to Port Said.”

  “Oh no,” he cried. “We can’t. We’ll be stuck in that god-awful filthy harbor for another week, filling out endless crew lists again. Are you sure it can’t be fixed out here?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I said. “But if I can’t jury-rig something proper, then I’m going back. I can’t fix it myself.”

  “What do you think,” Olivier answered, “that I would watch you fix things from over here? Nothing would give me more pleasure than getting soaking wet and coming over to help fix your forestay in the middle of the ocean on my birthday. Come pick me up.”

  I motored past Akka in the dwindling wind and threw Olivier a line. He jumped, missed and ended up swimming to Varuna. Sitting on the rolling deck with my toolbox and Swiss Army knife, we played with the old half-broken
forestay that had been replaced in Port Sudan, and used it in place of the totally broken one. We threaded the wire through a hole on the masthead, pulling it through, and then, with an arrangement of wire clamps at the opposite end, we attached it to the turnbuckle on deck. All this was relatively easy now on a calmer sea. Climbing to the top of the mast to thread the new forestay was a little nerve-wracking, as the boat swayed from side to side, but after an hour it was over. Olivier was back on Akka and we were on our way again, bundled up in sweaters and socks. I remained wide awake until dawn; even the twinkling lights of far off ships set my heart to racing.

  For one week, we made a long tack north until the distant purple mountain ranges of Turkey emerged tantalizingly on the horizon. Then we tacked again, sailing past Rhodes and into the flat, calm wind shadow of Crete, where the winds that raced down from the Aegean Sea and through the isles of Greece were blocked by the landmass.

  I nursed Varuna along, trying to avoid too much strain on her handicapped rigging. Finally, pooped from endlessly watching out for each other, and with our fuel supplies exhausted, we decided to stop at Loutros, a wise decision for the sake of our relationship. During the last two days, every time we had brought the boats close together, we had been ready to bite each other’s head off if one of us so much as overselpt five minutes into the other’s watch or drifted the slightest bit off course. Loutros was the last village on the southern coast of Crete where we could reprovision, rest and get our thoughts and emotions back into perspective.

  Late in the afternoon of July 15, after a night of intermittent sailing with strong gusts flying down the mountains, we motored into Loutros’s beautiful little bay, which looked like an open-air grotto of steep cliffs and light blue and green waters. There was a handful of whitewashed buildings clinging to the side of the harbor, and stepping ashore, we discovered that most of them were rooming houses and the rest, with their checkered tablecloths, were tavernas.

  As we drained tall glasses of pistachio milkshakes at the first quayside terrace, we also discovered that the only way to reach Loutros was by ferry. There were no cars, hence no diesel. That we had chosen to make a landfall in a place so impractical struck Olivier and me as particularly comical, and we were forced to reassess our plans. We decided to take the ferry the next day to another village, bring jerry cans, fill them up with diesel and lug them back to the boats.

  In the meantime, taking advantage of the situation, we roamed the rocky beach, enjoyed the Greek taverna atmosphere and watched the young vacationers surrounding us, all with the latest hairstyles, fashions and trends. There were the modern Mohican punks, the laid-back bohemians, the rich young American girls wearing two watches each, giggling and flocking around one man, and the regular European families and couples out for a relaxing vacation. It was a happy return to Western civilization, and we found ourselves gaping. It was funny how they all seemed as foreign to us as had the skirted Balinese and the Sri Lankans with their stubby betel-nut-stained teeth only a matter of several seas ago.

  After scrubbing the boat hulls, on the morning of July 18 we were off again, bound for Malta 580 miles to the west. Olivier and I separated soon after leaving, and that evening I felt a certain amount of relief at being alone again. I understood Olivier well enough to know that he probably felt it, too. Whenever we sailed together, there was the constant pressure of watches, the constant dread of losing each other, and now that it was over, it was as if a heavy burden had been lifted. I had come to miss those idyllic days alone at sea, and as Varuna passed the wind shadow of Crete and we began to beat into a gentle breeze that was to stay with us until, a day away from Malta, my solitude and the sea were reacquainted.

  All was well aboard, except for my nagging dread of tankers that made straight nights of sleep a luxury of the past. As Varuna plodded west and the days wore on, an alarm clock beeped me awake every half hour for horizon scans. One morning, the diligence paid off. Stepping into the cockpit, I saw a fuel tanker heading toward Varuna on a collision course, with its bearing masts perfectly aligned. I turned on the engine and puttered out of harm’s way, just in case. When it passed alongside about 200 feet away, I hailed it on the VHF, wanting to hear that they had noticed Varuna, and give myself a little morale boost.

  “Hello,” I said when Sparky answered. “I’m the little sailboat on your starboard beam. Can you see me?”

  “Wait a second. Let me go look,” was the answer. He hadn’t seen me! Well, I sure wouldn’t be getting any peace crossing this Mediterranean Sea.

  On the morning of July 24, the city carved from the pale yellow rock of Malta rose from the haze on the horizon, and by noon I was motoring past the walls, buildings and fortresses into Valletta Harbour. I could see sailboats tied bow- or stern-to along a quay, and in the middle, Akka’s white masts and black hull stood out from the other less travel-weary boats. Happily surprised that he had arrived before me, I called out Olivier’s name but received no answer. There was some space next to Akka, and preparing the fenders and mooring lines, I motored up alongside her, threw the gears into neutral and jumped aboard. As I snugged Varuna up, I realized that this was my second to last landfall before home. If all went as planned, the last would be Gibraltar, the gateway into the Atlantic.

  Tidying up the sails and rearranging the mess in the cockpit, I chatted with my next-door neighbor and then heard Olivier call from shore. Excitedly standing up, I looked toward the quay and saw a vaguely familiar character standing beside him.

  “Hmmm,” I wondered, “who’s this guy? I know him from somewhere.” And then, I squealed out loud, “Oh my God, it’s Tony!”

  “Hey, little sister!” he answered, grinning, and I leapt over all the lifelines, stanchions and docklines separating me from shore and hugged my brother. The insecure, nerdy boy with a Beatles haircut actually had a beard and towered above me.

  “God, Tania,” he said. “Pops told me you were skinny, but I didn’t expect this. He sent me here as a surprise, to fatten you up and bring you a new forestay.”

  I turned to Olivier and hugged him. Tony had been waiting for two weeks in his hotel room, making daily jaunts down to the harbor to see if we were there. My father had told him to look out for a black ketch also, and that was how he had found Olivier that morning. Olivier had already had his shower and together they had checked Tony out of his room. He was ready to move aboard for his stay.

  Next, who strolled by but Alexio, whom we hadn’t seen since Port Sudan, with his girlfriend who had come from Brazil to visit. In the time it had taken us to get from Port Sudan to Malta, Alexio had spent several weeks in his birthplace, Russia, and several more weeks cruising the Greek isles. Just then, another sailing friend from Sri Lanka came by to welcome us to Malta. That first night ended up being an excited flurry among old friends and family, with Olivier and me as the bridges. Everyone had sea stories to tell, adventures and woes to recount, and tell we did over dinner. Nothing improves an unhappy turn of events or a soggy storm tale more than the retelling of it among people meeting again after their paths have diverged for a few months.

  During our four weeks in Malta, one cloud shadowed the royal blue sky and darkened my mood whenever I thought about the impending separation from Olivier. With a circumnavigation behind him, he was to refit Akka here in Malta and transfer her back to her owner. Yes, we rationalized, it would only be for two months while I finished my trip. He would fly back to Switzerland and then, if all went well, on to the States. But we had been together every step of the way for almost one year, except for the times at sea, and too many things could go wrong in between. It was hard to ignore the fact that ahead lay the most difficult part of the voyage, the approaching winter season on the North Atlantic.

  Oftentimes at night, before drifting off to sleep, we talked about the sea, what could happen out there and what we’d do if it did. Len’s misfortune had taught me not to take life for granted, and now I was scared because after so many close calls I no longer felt so luc
ky, and suddenly I was feeling very mortal. Varuna looked less like my first little secure home that I loved and more like a foe waiting to carry me out into a losing battle.

  The stress of the past several months, the lack of good food and proper sleep had exacted a heavy physical toll as well. I had already been perpetually tired in the Red Sea and afflicted with severe headaches and dizzy spells; things seemed to deteriorate further here in the Mediterranean. An excruciating European heat wave was killing off many older people in Greece, and articles in the Maltese newspapers said there were so many corpses that they had to be stored in freezers, waiting until burial plots could be found and clergymen had time to perform the ceremonies.

  Stricken by fever, deliriums and chills, day after day I lay prone on Akka’s bunk, unable to muster enough energy to move, while Tony and Olivier fought off the hordes of flies that crash-landed everywhere. It took a monumental effort to get up and walk the quarter of a mile down the quay to the showers and into town. The heat was claustrophobic and all-encompassing, even affecting Tony, who was the picture of health. Regardless, he got up every morning, hopped on the bicycle Olivier had bought in Egypt and rode into town to buy fresh bread, ham and milk for our breakfast. Finally, worried that this might be something serious, I went to see a doctor who prescribed rest, some strong vitamin supplements and big doses of iron. I was malnourished, he said, anemic and suffering from sheer exhaustion.