Dolphins Under My Bed

by Sandra Clayton

  At 1.30 pm there is a cry of ‘All ships, all ships’ from the VHF. We sit through the Spanish broadcast but the only words we recognize are ‘Menorca’ and ‘ocho’ – eight – presumably a warning for Menorca to expect winds up to Gale Force 8. But we are not going to windy Menorca, we are heading for Mallorca, the largest of the Balearic Islands. As well as discovering the beauties of the island, we have also arranged with David’s brother Tony to have our mail arrive there at the same time we do.

  Mallorca has been inhabited for at least 6,000 years, the earliest traces having been found in a cave near Sóller. Around 1200BC the Talayot, or tower culture, flourished. Then came the Phoenicians, Carthaginians and Greeks. The Romans arrived in the 2nd century BC and stayed until 5AD when Rome itself was overrun.

  The Romans called Mallorca ‘Major’ and Menorca ‘Minor’, hence the names Majorca and Minorca familiar to many visitors. The Vandals and the Corsairs ravaged Mallorca after the Romans left, but prosperity returned in the 10th century with the arrival of the Moors. The combined armies of Catalonia and Aragon drove the Moors out in 1229 and destroyed the Muslim capital of Palma.

  The thirteenth to fifteenth centuries were Mallorca’s golden age and many buildings from this period, including the cathedral begun in 1230 on the site of a former mosque, survive. By the 15th century Palma had become an important trading post between Spain and Africa but as the ‘new world’ opened up so the island gradually declined into a backwater and succumbed to pirates.

  Arriving at most places by sea is pleasurable because the harbour is often the oldest and most interesting part of a coastal town or city. Settlements tended to originate at the water’s edge and then spread inland later, the sea providing food, trade and transport long before agriculture and land routes had had a chance to develop. Approaching Palma, from the huge Bahia or Bay of Palma, is particularly impressive with its castle up on a wooded hill, the vast Gothic cathedral towering above the old town and the remains of medieval walls.

  The late afternoon is still warm and sunny as we mill around a bit, hunting the waiting dock of the Réal Club Náutico marina. We need fuel as well as a place to stay for the night. Finally we spot the fuel dock, and beyond it, invisible until you actually reach it, a sign saying ‘Visitors Quay’. A yachtsman tells us the fuel dock is closed until nine tomorrow morning and that there are no berths available. He suggests we raft up to somebody. A marina attendant in a yellow T-shirt arrives by bicycle and says we can stay on the fuel dock until it opens at 9am. David goes off to the office with his wallet. The woman inside says, ‘Full up!’ We can’t stay.

  In any country, on land or water, in hotels, offices, shops or marinas, you are fairly safe in assuming that discourtesy, unhelpfulness and arrogance by staff will increase in proportion to the affluence of the clientele. In this marina the clientele is best described as rich. It is also predominantly absent; most luxury boats being occupied for only a few days a year.

  David and another yachtsman persuade the receptionist to reconsider and she demands our ship’s papers. David has forgotten to take them with him, and he makes the long trek to Voyager and back to the office again.

  We are allowed to remain for the night but there will be no time to look around tomorrow morning as hoped, so we postpone our evening meal and head for Palma’s old town instead. It is gorgeous. Sometimes a couple of hours in a place can be as enjoyable as several days when you get a series of beautiful mental snapshots to take away with you. On this occasion they are of lovely old buildings, secret cobbled courtyards, and some stunning restaurants with cavernous interiors and great church-like doors that suggest that they were once wineries; a green pool with black swans; beautiful trees and elegant boulevards. There is a Sunday evening service in the enormous cathedral, a busy little square in front of it and a maze of alleyways behind it. This old town, behind the cathedral, contains the few remaining streets and buildings from the Muslim period. We also work out the fastest route to the main post office, and note its opening time tomorrow (8.30am), so that David will be able to collect our mail before we have to leave.

  I cook a supper of monkfish in a tomato and basil sauce with large sweet prawns added for the last few minutes, baked potatoes and broccoli. We dine under the stars and admire the floodlit castle on the hill to our left; and the floodlit cathedral to our right; a panorama of the harbour and the town, the town quay and three cruise ships with all their lights on. It is a warm still night, dry and bright and very lovely.

  Unfortunately, at 4.30am Palma’s fishing fleet goes out at speed, a dozen large boats, one after the other in a line - wap, wap, wap, wap – directly opposite our berth. Their wash is extraordinary. I fear our mooring lines will snap. We have only just stopped bouncing off the dock when another four rush out. When their wash finally subsides I make us a cup of tea. At 7.45 I set off for the showers. They are closed for cleaning. So, for £14 we have had no water, no electricity, no showers and broken sleep. David returns from Palma with our mail, fresh bread, tonight’s dinner and a day-old English Sunday newspaper.

  Meantime, the pump operator has opened his kiosk and I am taking on fuel. Water, he says when David picks up the hose, also has to be paid for. ‘We’ve paid,’ I say, waving our berthing receipt at him. I’ve read the back of it – including agua it says.

  ‘That’s theirs,’ he says. ‘This is mine.’

  I feel we’ve had little enough for our money here – not even basic courtesy – so David and I drag the boat back from the fuel dock to where we can reach the marina’s hose. We are accosted by a marina attendant, a different one from the previous evening.

  ‘Already paid,’ I say, waving our receipt. He inspects it and then checks every detail on it with the office via a hand-held VHF. ‘OK,’ he says, and then we must go.

  The weather forecast at the marina is two days old. Navtex is giving forecasts for Toulouse, Biscay and the Adriatic. So, again resorting to local knowledge with a vested interest, on his way back from the post office David had enquired at a local yacht charter office. The man there had said confidently, ‘Not much wind, thunderstorm possible, but if it’s not here by 10am we won’t get one.’

  It is well after ten by the time we have filled up our fuel and water tanks and washed the dirt from the fuel dock off our decks. There has been a brief rumble of thunder in the distance and a cloud has passed over us delivering a spatter of rain drops but now the sun is shining again. The barometer has fallen only 3mb since our arrival the previous afternoon in a light breeze from the south-east. There is no wind at all now. Given these factors we feel safe to set off for Porto Colom. A number of other boats set out at around the same time, one of them a ketch flying a Spanish ensign.

  Mallorca

  43

  Palma to Porto San Petro

  About an hour out of Palma we are romping along on a broad reach under full genoa and main in a strong easterly wind gusting up to 22 knots when the VHF crackles ‘Securité, Securité, all ships, all ships . . .’ but when we retune to channel One Zero as advised there is nothing there. The barometer shows no change, and we are not concerned since whenever we have listened to these local warnings they have always been about windy Menorca.

  By 1 o’clock the wind is in the mid-20s and rising, so we reef the genoa. Several monohulls around us are still blithely un-reefed, although heeling madly. The radio crackles another ‘All ships, all ships . . .’ We turn to Zero Three for Palma Radio as instructed – nothing. We alter course past Cabo Blanco, which brings the wind to less than 45° off the nose so we take down the sails and motor. The Spanish ketch behind us, still under sail due to a slightly wider course than ours, gradually overtakes us but remains in sight. The other yachts fall behind us and gradually disappear from view.

  The radio crackles with another ‘All ships, all ships …’ We turn to One Three as instructed but there is only silence on Channel 13. The barometer is reassuringly steady, having dropped only 1mb since we set out. However, w
ith a following sea on our starboard quarter, and the wind almost on the nose, it is not a comfortable passage. I raise a speculative eyebrow at David. ‘Nothing doing here,’ he says, so I go below and stretch out on our bunk with the Sunday newspaper he brought back from Palma this morning.

  In time I become aware of distant thunder and that it is getting choppier. But an eleven ton cruising catamaran doesn’t roll much normally, so when the view through the window at my feet begins to lurch from leaden sky to deep troughs of equally leaden sea I stagger above to see what is going on. David is standing in the doorway, blocking my view.

  ‘Everything OK?’ I ask clinging on to the companionway doors for support. Pencil-thin lightening is zigzagging into the sea around us.

  ‘Yes,’ says David, in a small, strained voice that is struggling to sound normal.

  A couple of miles off our stern, and visible over his right shoulder, is a waterspout. It is a mortifying sight; a smooth, black column spiralling up from the sea and joined at the top to a black storm cloud. Grey spray rises from its base up a quarter of its length. The spray is jagged from the violence of the energy propelling it upward. It is one of those things you never wanted to see. You only find brief references to them in books, usually followed by a comment about yachts having been lost in them. What is most worrying is that it is getting larger and this could be because it is getting closer to us.

  It’s the sort of thing you keep looking over your shoulder at and wondering what avoiding action you can take. But when something appears to be travelling at you against the prevailing wind, and is huge and powerful, what can you hope to do?

  After about ten minutes it splits into two unequal columns and the thinner of the two collapses like a fountain suddenly switched off. Shortly afterwards the larger column, also losing its energy, buckles and falls into the sea.

  Relief is short-lived. Around 15 minutes later another water spout appears in roughly the same place behind us. The wind has risen to 35 knots and the sea is now tumultuous. Our progress slows as we rise on each crest and crash into each trough.

  On our port side there is a long, dense, grey cloud, stretching as far down the coastline as the eye can see. From its depths it spews rain from some parts of itself and lightning from others. It is very low, scraping across the top of the cliffs, and travelling with the wind; that is, in the opposite direction to which we, and the waterspout, are moving. It is eerie and elemental and we can only stand and watch in awe. It is one of the images that comes to mind now whenever people in television studios talk about ‘controlling nature’. This cloud is darkening by the minute, as its convulsive, seething ferocity prepares to unleash itself. We are just grateful that it is moving down the side of us and not into us. With that directly on our bows and the water spout behind our stern we should soon be reduced to very small flotsam. As the monumental cloud grows ever darker, David says sympathetically, ‘Looks like Palma is in for a real humdinger.’

  Immediately above us, however, the sun has broken through and when we look behind us the waterspout has disappeared. The barometer is still steady, and the sky ahead of us appears to be getting lighter. Admittedly the cloud to our left is now deepest black and has obliterated the coastline, but it is three miles off and travelling away from us. We seem to have passed south of the threatened storm and be leaving it behind us.

  At around 2.30, however, the wind backs suddenly through 130 degrees so that instead of being just off our bows it is now directly behind our stern. It also brings with it the cloud that has been hanging over the land. Like some monstrous, computer-generated demon making a U-turn to pursue some small item of prey, it is now following us. Gradually it begins to overtake us. As it gets closer, the rain contained inside it spatters us. It quickly becomes torrential and, with the force of the wind behind it, horizontal. An open wheel-house can provide no cover from it and it beats remorselessly at our backs. With 39 knots showing on the wind speed indicator, we leave the steering to the autopilot and retreat to the saloon to keep watch from there.

  The wind increases. Above its howl there comes a rattling sound which takes a moment to identify; the rain has turned to hail and is pinging off Voyager like grapeshot. Visibility drops to a few yards. If anything is ahead of us, we have little chance of avoiding it. We turn on the radar and can make out the coast on the screen, so we know we are maintaining our course. Unfortunately, it is not identifying the location of other vessels and thus the possibility of a collision. The problem with radar is that it produces echoes from heavy rain, hail and a troubled sea which then appear on the screen as a mass of dots. It is, therefore, impossible to tell if one of those dots is a boat, and we know there is at least one out there: the Spanish ketch. The sea is heaving now, churned up by the violent change in the wind. After being pushed by strong winds from the north-west all morning, the water is now being driven back on itself by a gale from the south-east. The wind rises to a roar. The hail stones hammer against the companionway doors.

  David is checking our course on the GPS so, when its screen shows a sudden change in our direction, he is immediately aware that the autopilot has given up the unequal struggle to hold a course in a quartering sea and we have taken a 45° turn to starboard. He rushes outside to steer manually but the autopilot regains control as he reaches the helm and he stumbles back inside almost immediately.

  ‘I think I’ve an idea now,’ he says, rubbing his face, ‘what it feels like to be stoned to death.’

  In the few moments that the doors have been open for him to go out to the helm, and then to return inside again, the saloon has resembled one of those glass paper weights you shake to make ‘snow’ fall softly on the scene inside. Only this is hard and painful as hailstones the size and texture of marbles shoot horizontally into the saloon and ricochet off the bow windows. While David keeps watch again I scoop them up from the chart table and upholstery and throw them down into the galley sinks before they can melt and soak everything. With this one exception, our autopilot has functioned in all conditions, but we have sailed with friends in monohulls whose autopilots could not withstand heavy waves on either quarter. We wonder about the helmsman on the Spanish ketch, standing exposed at his wheel.

  The hail becomes so heavy that it flattens the sea, and with a gale-force wind behind us we begin to pick up speed. Staring out through the bow windows it is like being transported into the unknown inside a small, dark, grey cocoon. Even the vague outline of land has vanished from the radar screen.

  David checks our course on the GPS again and plots it on the chart. We are being pushed slightly off course but fortunately out to sea and not towards land. As a land creature there is a tendency in dangerous weather to feel you would be safer closer to land, but on a boat you are safer well out to sea: away from hazards such as shallow water, rocks and reefs, and especially other boats. When he has reassured himself that we are not being driven ashore David stands by the companionway doors with his back against the bulkhead. From here he can keep a look out on either side of us, watch the GPS and radar screen, and also make a fast exit to the wheel if necessary.

  Confronted with something you can’t control, there is comfort in focusing on something you can. A crash of thunder overhead stirs in me a memory about the safety features David had valued when we had chosen our boat.

  ‘Don’t we have a big steel A-frame supporting the mast behind that bulkhead you’re leaning on?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes,’ he says, lightning forking past the window beside his left shoulder.

  ‘And don’t lightning strikes usually hit the mast and travel down?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says.

  ‘Well, do you think you ought to be leaning there, then?’

  He takes a step forward and leans against the side of the chart table instead. I go back to staring out through the bow windows and watch the anchor gloomily. I had tied it onto the port bow roller after our last anchorage. It is now lolling over the side of the roller and my knot appears to be sl
owly unravelling. All we need now is an anchor crashing about the foredeck. I am also worried about what is behind us; whether the waterspout has re-formed again and is about to overwhelm us, carried along by this horrendous wind. How much worse, I wonder, is this going to get?

  The hail gives way to rain. Without the hail’s calming effect, the sea rises again. We resume our violent, hobby-horse motion, rising up onto the wave crests and plunging down into the troughs, while the spray from breaking waves washes over the deckhouse roof. The constant slam of our hull against the sea makes my back and head ache. Holding on with both hands, I flex my knees to reduce the impact on my spine of each succeeding crash and stare out at the few grey yards of foaming sea that is all that’s visible in front of me. The wind is ripping the white crests from the wave peaks and running them in long thin streaks of white foam ahead of us down the dark grey sea. I have only ever seen this kind of sea once before, in a photograph in Reed’s Nautical Companion illustrating a Force 9 Gale driven by wind speeds up to 47 knots.

  I turn and look at David. He is calm, watchful, ready to act. I dread panicking; letting us both down. ‘Dear God,’ I say silently, ‘forgive my sins and if I’m going to die please let me do it with a little grace.’

  The wind increases. The white crests become longer and deeper and indistinguishable in the gloom from yacht hulls crossing our bows. But each time one seems to have solid form and I go to shout ‘Vessel ahead!’ it rolls over and disintegrates, and another forms somewhere else. I try to remember what the next photograph in Reed’s looked like, the one illustrating Storm Force 10. I can’t, but it doesn’t matter. I feel sure now that we shall not come out of this alive, but at least I am calm. I recall reading once the different sounds the wind makes at different speeds. The one that has always stuck in my mind was Force 12, the hurricane. It was said to scream like a single note on a crazed church organ.