Dolphins Under My Bed

by Sandra Clayton

  In the evening we walk into town for that shellfish we have been promising ourselves. The place hasn’t changed in the intervening years. The table legs are still uneven and the chairs don’t match. The seafood is even better than we remembered; a great platter piled high with scallops, king prawns, snow crabs, cockles, mussels, crab claws and barnacles all freshly-caught and cooked, and served hot with crusty bread and green wine. As you dine, the local fishermen pass along the far wall of the dining room, between the entrance and the kitchen, to hand over a bag of mussels or a lobster to the chefs. Back on board it is another choppy night of snatching ropes.

  We wake next morning to a beautiful, sparkling, sun-shining blue day, the Bayona of happy memory, and set about some of the more critical areas of our laundry. Another French boat with a baby on board has arrived and both mothers put small baths under the two taps and set about their laundry.

  We do ours aboard then fill up our tanks again later when they’ve finished. It is much easier than crouching on a pontoon anyway. I wash. David rinses and wrings. The boat rails are soon festooned with it. By the time we have cleaned up Voyager’s interior, and showered, the laundry is dry enough for ironing.

  In the afternoon we wander around Bayona. It is a lovely old town of narrow cobbled streets and long narrow shops of the bit-of-everything variety. It also has an impressive fortress begun in the 15th century, some wonderful old churches and some strange legends.

  The last two combine in the ancient Santuario da Santa Liberata. According to the breviary of Tuy, the Roman emperor Hadrian installed Lucio Catilio Severo as governor of Gallicia in 119AD. Both he and his wife were pagans. The legend, recorded on the door of Liberata’s sanctuary, says that Lucio’s wife gave birth to nine daughters in her only pregnancy. Believing her husband would suspect the multiple birth (I have yet to work out the logic of this reasoning) she ordered her nurse, Sila, to get rid of them.

  Instead, Sila found separate homes for them all, where they were christened and raised in the Catholic faith. When Hadrian later ordered the prosecution of Christians all nine of them, along with the nurse Sila, were brought before their father, the governor, and ordered to abandon their faith on pain of death. All refused and fled in different directions but were caught and martyred.

  Liberata was the last to die. She was crucified in Lusitania, a Roman province on the Iberian Peninsula during this period. She was the first Christian woman to be crucified. One of her arm bones rests on the altar of her sanctuary in Bayona and every July 20 the people of Bayona honour their patroness.

  A reminder of more recent events is berthed in the harbour: an exact replica of La Pinta, the caravel which arrived at Bayona on the first day of March 1493 with news of the discovery of the Americas. Bayona thus became the first place in Europe to learn of the existence of the ‘new’ world

  When you look at this replica caravel, built for the fifth centenary celebrations in 1993, it seems hardly less unbelievable than nine children from a single pregnancy. When setting out to cross the Atlantic nowadays the modern sailor has charts, weather forecasts, GPS, self-furling sails, dehydrated and frozen food, one or more diesel engines and the certainty that there is actually something out there.

  None of these things was available to Columbus and the crews of the Pinta and her sister ships, the Niña and the Santa Maria. And looking at the Pinta it does seem so very small for a voyage of over 2,800 miles in uncharted waters. Where on earth did they fit the crew needed to man a sailing ship, or store all the food and water required for them all? And yet people who know about these things maintain that the ships were ideal for their purpose. And all three of them did return, after all.

  In between browsing through Spain’s cultural heritage we do a little shopping. There is no wet fish shop, but we are able to buy huge frozen scallops and prawns for supper at sea the following night; and being frozen they will keep well.

  We also need a post office, but the building shown on our map has no sign on it to say it is a post office and it is locked anyway. As we stand hovering, a spry, elderly man comes down the road towards us. ‘Do you speak English, Señor?’ I ask. He inclines his head and flutters his fingers near his mouth to indicate very little. ‘Post Office?’ I say, ‘por favor.’ He is tiny and probably in his eighties. His very little English emerges. ‘Tomorrow morning,’ he says, ‘8.30 until 2 o’clock. It is here.’ He turns and indicates the anonymous, dark, glass-fronted building behind him. ‘Muchos gracias,’ we say. His smile lights up the street.

  Spanish post offices are something of a challenge. Like supermarkets, they often have no sign on them, as if trying to keep their existence secret. Even when a resident points one out to you, its opening hours or even which days it opens may not be shown on its frontage. You just keep turning up with your postcards and hope to catch it unawares.

  The counter clerks are invariably thin and stressed and use rubber stamps with a degree of violence that is quite unnerving. Even apparently simple transactions, like dispatching an ordinary-looking brown envelope, requires them to consult huge directories, their supervisor, and each other, in low whispers while the queue on the other side of the counter droops in the airless heat behind a yellow line painted on the floor. The culmination of every transaction is signalled by slamming a rubber stamp from ink pad to envelope or document half a dozen times with a force that makes the windows rattle but also brings a brief tremor of hope to the wilting queue of people behind the yellow paint.

  The most memorable one was in an old worn building in a narrow street. The big, square room had a bare wooden floor, flaking walls, a large old-fashioned, slow-moving ceiling fan and looked like a scene from a 1940s movie set in war-torn Europe. We couldn’t work out what was happening at the long, high wooden counter ahead of us where several elderly people stood hunched in front of the right-hand clerk. They had younger members of their family with them, apparently to take it in turns to wait because periodically a couple of them would go outside for some fresh air, leaving other members of the group to take their place at the counter; holding vital documents aloft, baton-style, like in a relay race only waiting instead of running.

  Meanwhile, at the left-hand side of the counter, a middle-aged man had waited so long for his envelope to be processed that as soon as the clerk raised her rubber stamp he lurched away, blank-eyed, towards the door and had to be called back to pay. The fee had been overlooked among the whispered consultations, enormous directories and hammer blows of the rubber stamp. It was all probably futile anyway, since the contents of his lumpy manila envelope would never have survived the rubber stamp. We took his place at the left-hand end of the counter, hoping the foreign destinations of our envelopes would not consign us to a fate similar to that of the family on our right, and flinched in spite of ourselves when the rubber stamp finally fell.

  With such hushed, bureaucratic complexity on one side of the counter, passive endurance on the other, and the execution-like effect of the rubber stamp, I have since wondered if Franz Kafka got the idea for his novel, The Trial, from a Spanish post office.

  We never did work out what the family at the right-hand side of the counter were trying to achieve. Whether it was registering a birth or a death, buying a marriage license or querying their social security cheque, their documents were still unstamped when we staggered out into the sunlight with our letters pummelled and a vague feeling of relief to find ourselves still alive and at liberty.

  David finally manages to get some gelcoat repair into the gash in our port bow. Unfortunately, with the water so choppy and the boat plunging up and down so much all he can really do is aim the filler at it. The result is a bit like a small carbuncle, but it will do for the time being. The marina attendants also come by and say we can stay on the pontoon tonight and not have to move to a buoy after all, and that they will only charge us half price. That really means full price if you are a monohull. Like many marinas, it has charged us double for being a catamaran, even though V
oyager is only a couple of feet wider than some monohulls of an equivalent length.

  We dine out again in the same restaurant, this time on sea bass. Voyager snatches at her mooring lines all night again, and before we can leave next morning we have to take a hammer to them. The bowline knots, normally so user-friendly, have been pulled so tight that loosening them with a hammer is the only way to prize them off the cleats. As we set off the wind is moderate and near the nose. We are able to beat but need an engine to help hold our course. The sky is heavily overcast.

  PORTUGAL

  25

  Bayona to Leixões

  The border between Spain and Portugal is defined by the River Miñho, and as you leave Spain’s Galician coast you also leave behind its rugged mountainous coastline. From here southwards, as far as São Vicente, the coast gradually flattens into sandy beaches backed by dunes.

  This northernmost region of Portugal is known as the Costa Verde, the green coast, since behind its endless miles of deserted beaches it is lush and green. Contributing to this lushness are the vineyards which produce vinho verde, the young, dry and very inexpensive green wine that is so refreshing on hot, summer days.

  Among its many pleasures, cruising is a living geography lesson. It is not like a series of airports nor an atlas showing different colours. When viewed from a boat the land – as Native Americans and Australian Aborigines have always known – transcends the ownership of man and his artificial borders. And although I get a childlike pleasure from standing on the foredeck watching Spain morph into Portugal I know that the distinction is entirely arbitrary; just as the distinction between land and sea is arbitrary. For land and sea make one living planet. The sea is not the finis terrae of those expeditionary Romans whose world ended where the land did. The sea is, after all, from where we all come. It produced the oxygen that led to life on land, provided food to support it, and it continues to produce the rainfall which sustains our daily existence.

  It begins raining about noon and visibility is poor. Our destination is Leixões, a big commercial port and only a bus ride from Oporto. A famous advertising slogan from our childhood was ‘Port comes only from Portugal’ and Oporto is home to the world-famous port cellars. Yachtsmen wanting to visit them take the bus from Leixões because the River Douro, on which Oporto stands, has a ferocious current at its height and only those who know the river attempt to sail up it.

  Something else we have heard about Portugal since childhood is that it is England’s oldest ally, although neither of us can remember anybody ever saying why. So David looks it up. Our special relationship dates from 1385 when English archers helped free Portugal from the Castilians at the battle of Aljubarrota. It was put to the test in 1807 when Napoleon gave Portugal an ultimatum to declare war on Britain. Since Portugal was dependent on Britain for half her trade at the time, and on the Royal Navy to protect her trade routes, the Portuguese refused. The French invaded. Britain sent Sir Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) and he defeated the French.

  Around 2pm we are approaching the entrance to the Portuguese town of Viana da Castello and, because it has been such an unpleasant, choppy journey we decide to go in there for the night. By the time we have taken down the genoa, however, the rain has stopped, visibility has improved, and we decide to carry on. We soon wish we hadn’t. Within half an hour the rain and visibility are as bad as ever, and we now have the added hazard of hundreds of fishing buoys. Watching for obstacles over a long period in poor visibility is very tiring on the eyes.

  We arrive at Leixões at 8pm. The large harbour there contains an anchorage, a marina and commercial docks. The anchorage is very crowded. We can take our chances rather too close to the sea wall, or drop our anchor behind all the other boats. David chooses the latter. By the time sufficient chain has been let out, however, I am unhappy with our position. I feel we are too close to the shipping channel between the commercial docks and the harbour entrance. My skipper disagrees, probably because he is too tired to try somewhere else.

  ‘See,’ he says, pointing a finger over our stern in justification. ‘There’s a tug boat over there. If he was bothered, he’d come and tell us to move.’

  I am to become on quite intimate terms with that tug boat during what turns out to be a long night.

  Sometime after midnight I am woken by Voyager vibrating to a loud throbbing noise and stick my head out through the hatch. A huge – and I mean HUGE – container ship is turning round only feet from our bed. I get a crick in my neck just trying to look up at its vast rear end as it circles above me, blotting out the stars. It is so close I could lean out and scratch my initials on it. Having turned it, the tug boat guides it slowly out through the harbour entrance.

  ‘David,’ I whimper, shaking him.

  ‘Gotosleep,’ he mumbles and sinks back into oblivion.

  The arrival and departure of container ships continues throughout the night. It doesn’t help that the outgoing tide has left Voyager lying even further out into the shipping channel than when we’d anchored. I have never been this close to big commercial ships before. I never want to be again.

  26

  Leixões to Cascais

  Next morning a number of yachtsmen go ashore to get the bus for Oporto, but the forecast is good and conditions perfect for a passage down the coast. Even Navtex can only come up with one hazard – a ship anchored off Cascais, our destination, which is carrying vinyl cyanide and not to be approached under any circumstances.

  It turns out to be the most brilliant sail of the trip so far; all sails up in a northerly 15 knots and a following sea which gives us 8 knots. And it is sunny into the bargain. I do the 8pm to midnight watch and it is sail-only all the way.

  Sometimes, night watches can be magical, and this one down the Portuguese coast is one of them. Without an engine on there is just the occasional sound of a wave splashing against the hull. The sails sway gently in front of you and the sky is full of stars. Two hundred billion of them, I read somewhere. And on a clear moonless night at sea, miles away from land and all its electric lights, you would swear you could see them all. They sparkle like diamonds scattered on dark blue velvet and the Milky Way just blows your mind.

  With binoculars you can see the red of Mars and Orion’s Betelgeuse and the beautiful shimmering star cluster in the Pleiades. Even with the naked eye you rarely look up for more than a few minutes without seeing shooting stars. And I once saw a dozen glittering specks of silvery blue, but what they were is still a mystery. Another mystery was a green planet I watched with a mounting sense of awe until after a good ten minutes it revealed itself to be a distant airliner when it turned to port and its green starboard wing light changed to red.

  When Venus is low in the western sky, during the last watch of the night, it is the colour of old gold and so bright that its light reflects off the sea like moonlight. Named for the Roman goddess of love, Venus is the Sun’s second closest planet and comes closer to Earth than any other heavenly body except the Moon. As a consequence Venus shines very brightly and its presence as the Morning and the Evening Star has made it an object of affection among sailors from time immemorial.

  As the Evening Star, the planet appears as daylight is fading and provides a cheerful light through the gathering dusk before any of the other stars become visible. As the Morning Star, it is at its brightest just before dawn when the night is at its coldest and greyest.

  The fact that Venus’s surface temperature is between 400° and 500°C, with an air pressure more than 90 times that on Earth, is irrelevant. Its bright golden light gives comfort to the long watches of a dark and solitary night and its morning brilliance heralds the imminent return of the sun and the start of a new day.

  27

  Cascais

  By 3 o’clock the following afternoon we are in the large bay into which the River Tagus runs. On the north shore of this bay is Cascais (pronounced Cashkesh). A few miles up the river lies Portugal’s capital, Lisbon, but Lisbon has no
anchorages, only marinas. So, after giving the ship carrying vinyl cyanide a wide berth, we anchor off the rather lovely resort of Cascais. The waterfront has a wonderful mix of architecture: towers, loggias, fort, modern hotels, classical palazzo, French chateau, stucco and terracotta, stone and tile. There is also an apartment building which from a distance looks as if it is crumbling at the edges, but as you sail closer you see that each storey has a terracotta roof over the corner apartment, creating a sloping, tumbling effect. We anchor beside a 45-foot yacht flying an American ensign so faded that all its stars have disappeared. We are tired and stay aboard. The temperature at 6pm is 32°C.

  We take the dinghy in late next morning, motoring between the supports of a large pier and into a small, high-sided pool with some small local boats in it and a railing around the top. While David holds the dinghy steady I get out and begin to climb up the pool’s steep side. As my head rises above the quay a fisherman with a mass of black curls tinged with grey and a strong, weathered face leaves his nets and approaches. Given the cruiser’s relationship with fishermen I assume he is going to express the Portuguese equivalent of ‘Sling your hook!’ but instead he puts out his hand to help me over the railing. It is a lovely welcome to a new country.

  For a very modest amount of escudos we have lunch near the quay at an open-air restaurant. The wine arrives with crusty bread, soft white cheese and green olives, followed by fresh sardines grilled in brown sugar crystals, salad, and boiled potatoes the colour and texture of butter. Then we set off for a look around the town. It is attractive and busy, with trees everywhere and pavements treacherously shiny. Portuguese pavements are made from tiny squares of polished stone laid as mosaic. It is delightful but your shoes can skate over it. This might explain the amount of people in the town on crutches or with their arms in slings. One man has a sling like a string shopping bag, and has tucked his newspaper and other odds and ends inside it.