Dolphins Under My Bed

by Sandra Clayton

  Then, as suddenly as before, the wind veers, almost back to its original position. The rain eases. Light and visibility begin to improve a little. Through the bow windows I see two yachts. They look ghostly among the foaming grey water in the strange grey light, but their white hulls are discernibly solid. The one on our port side is on a course which must have recently taken it across our bows. The other is close in front of us, to starboard, and has obviously also just crossed our bows. We have probably missed one another by only minutes. As visibility continues to improve we can see that the Spanish ketch has maintained its course and is off to starboard.

  Moments later David is able to make out the lighthouse at Pointa Salinas. Safety harness clanking, he grasps the handle of the companionway doors but they don’t move. We put our shoulders to them and force our way out. There’s a mound of hailstones wedged behind the doors and the cockpit is slippery with them, like trying to walk on ball bearings.

  It is still raining and despite the change of wind direction, or because of it, the sea has lost none of its turbulence. Meanwhile, on our port side, shimmering against the coastline is the biggest, lowest, brightest rainbow I have ever seen. Far from hovering in some indeterminate, distant place like rainbows usually do, this one is between us and the land, not above the cliffs but in front of them. Only a short while ago I had contemplated death in that eerie, violent greyness and unaccustomed as I am to prayer it had been a genuine one. Now a long-dormant memory comes to mind and I realise with surprise that it’s an Old Testament one, of the rainbow as God’s sign to mankind, after The Flood had subsided, that His act of destruction was at an end and would not be repeated.

  Sight of Point Salinas lighthouse means it is time to alter course and while David makes the necessary change to the autopilot I observe the dinghy. The violence of our passage has loosened it on the davits, so that it lurches back and forth with every movement of Voyager. It is not helped by the fact that it is also much heavier than usual, being half full of hailstones. I can envisage us losing it.

  ‘I’ll see to it,’ says David, watching me watching it.

  ‘Oh no you won’t!’ I say. ‘Either I go or nobody does.’ I know which side my survival’s buttered. If I go over the stern there’s a good chance he’ll get me back on board. If he goes, we are probably both done for. I join my safety line to his and with him reeling me out I slither to the stern and tighten the davit handles. The dinghy weighs a ton and is still askew when I stagger back into the cockpit, but there’s no longer any threat of our losing it.

  The wind is gusting 38 knots and our new course brings it directly onto the nose. As we hit each fresh wave pattern Voyager judders, slows to 2 knots, then slowly gathers speed again just in time to hit the next big wave. As a result we are averaging only 3 knots. To continue to Colom at this speed will mean entering an unknown anchorage in rough weather in the dark instead of the mild sunlit afternoon we had been anticipating when we left Palma. It also means another three hours of very uncomfortable sailing.

  David consults the cruising guide and settles on Porto San Petro – St Peter’s Harbour. It is an hour closer, so we will arrive in the last of the light. We hug the land to take advantage of the slightly calmer water there and arrive just before 6pm. Several boats are anchored already. Faces stare out from them in that impassive way yachtsmen have when they have been safe and dry for some time, or have sat out the storm altogether, and a boat arrives carrying weary people in sopping oilies.

  Our anchor bites first time and in half an hour we sit down to that old stand-by, cheese omelettes, with fresh Palma bread and a bottle of dry white wine. I had planned a larger meal for this evening but we have no appetite for one. We have come through the worst experience of our brief sailing career and are exhausted.

  Over coffee we browse through our new Balearics cruising guide. It mentions, in passing, that ‘in Spring and Autumn water-spouts may be encountered’. It is silent on the subject of hail driven by Force 9 winds. We expect widespread damage from its intensity. In the event, the damage is restricted to the cockpit: the glass on the log is cracked, the top of the shore power socket has been sheared off, and our flexible solar panel is badly pock-marked. We have heard the Mediterranean described as sailing for non-sailors. This must have been one of its off-days.

  44

  Mallorca: Porto San Petro

  Porto San Petro is a glorious bay, and next morning it is bathed in sunshine. The village is at the far end of it and there are tiny, tidy boat houses fronting part of it. The local fishing fleet seems to consist of an elderly man in a faded blue shirt and a straw hat.

  We set about drying out our boat, carting out half a dozen wet towels from the bow windows and opening up every hatch and window to let in the sun and warm breezes. The other yachts in the anchorage leave during the morning and we move to the most sheltered spot, although we needn’t have bothered because the weather has become so mild. At noon we take the dinghy into the harbour. We tie it up between a small wooden fishing dinghy and a glass-bottomed tourist boat and go for coffee just above the ramp. Halfway through our coffee we leap from our chairs when a second glass-bottomed tourist boat arrives and heads straight at our dinghy. They are very good-natured about it, and hover patiently while we extract it.

  In the tiny ‘supermarket’ the proprietor is deeply suspicious of us. It is undoubtedly the backpack and the fact that we have split up, with David at one end of the L-shaped little corner shop trying to determine which white wine is secco and how much it costs, as there are hardly any price tickets; and me up the other end head first into the huge chest freezer among the calamari and shellfish. She keeps running between the two of us looking anxious. In the end, as a gesture of goodwill, we lean our backpack against the side of her counter and she relaxes. Then we get anxious about our valuables inside it every time another customer comes in and stands over it. We enquire about a post office, but the nearest one is five miles away.

  Despite being the only boat in the anchorage, when a German yacht arrives for lunch it settles only a couple of yards from us.

  ‘Why so close?’ I mumble at David.

  ‘I don’t know, Sandra,’ he mumbles back. ‘Maybe they put their beach towel on this bit of seabed before we got here.’

  There are four people aboard. As soon as they are anchored they turn on a radio, talk very loudly over the top of it, and take off all their clothes. One of them, the largest, keeps leaping into the water, clambering out, and leaping overboard again.

  ‘Call me a prude, if you like,’ I grumble, ‘but I can’t help thinking that most people look better with their middle regions veiled from public view.’ I’ve always felt that this applied especially to the overweight, the sporty and those well past the first flush of youth. The person currently throwing herself repeatedly off the stern of the neighbouring boat falls into all three categories.

  ‘You’re right,’ says David. ‘You are a prude.’ But I notice that he keeps his eyes averted from the over-abundance of airborne flesh alongside him.

  The yacht leaves after lunch and we have the bay to ourselves. It is a luminous afternoon. We rig the dinghy and take it for a sail. We drift in and out of the coves, feet dangling over the sides, with just enough wind to carry us along. It seems strange to be floating around this tranquil bay in bright sunshine and light airs after the nightmarish journey of yesterday. A few hours at sea can be a long time.

  45

  Mallorca: Porto San Petro to Porto Colom

  Next day we set off for our original destination, Porto Colom, five miles away. The cruising guide describes it as the best natural harbour and anchorage in Mallorca, its dogleg entrance effectively turning it into a sheltered lake. It has wooded hills all around it and the small town of Porto Colom at its western edge. We are anchored just off its town quay and plan to remain here a little while as we have some jobs to do.

  The area of Porto Colom’s waterfront closest to us has a general store, three cafés,
two banks and a traditional meat shop and deli which sells lovely cheeses and delicious homemade cannelloni and sausages. The sausages are chewy and so full of lean meat that they leave no fat behind in the pan.

  Further down the quay there is a terrace of small identical houses with wooden doors and window shutters painted dark green. One morning, hard up against the door of one of them is a van delivering a large quantity of parcels. The quay itself is spread with fishing net; miles and miles of it, in all shades of blue. It is a blue sort of morning, with the fishermen working on the nets wearing navy blue, the bright blue Campsa fuel kiosk and the blue sea and sky. I’m in blue, too: light blue shirt and dark blue sailing trousers. In fact, if I stood against the horizon I’d probably disappear. A little further on, at the small marina, we find an up-to-date weather forecast. Force 6 today, possible 8 later.

  On the way back to the boat we stop and read a very small notice on the terraced house door that had had the van backed up to it earlier. The notice says: 11.40am–12.10pm Mon–Fri. We have found the Post Office.

  Back on board, David tackles the leaking vent which let rain and seawater into the bathroom during the recent storm. We also have replacement kits we bought out with us from England for the four main hatches, so that they will stay open by themselves like they used to and we won’t have to prop them open with sticks any more. However, after considerable difficulty, with bits of metal and rubber that don’t fit where they are supposed to, and having to catch them in mid-air before they disappear overboard as they ping off again, we discover we’ve been sold the wrong kits.

  Leaving David to put the old bits back on the hatches again until we can get the proper parts, I write a birthday card and a couple of cheques ready for posting. I also finish a long letter on the computer to David’s brother Tony and his wife Pam. Affronted by the postcard David had sent them from Lisbon (‘This is Sintra. We haven’t been here. Hope you’re both OK. We are.’) I thought they might like a résumé of what we have been doing, as they are providing us with backup. While trying to print this letter off, however, the generator packs up, so that’s another job added to the list.

  Tired of maintenance at last, we take the dinghy on a jaunt to the southwest corner of the bay. The water gets shallower and shallower until it is barely a foot deep and the colour and clarity of green glass. We tie the dinghy to a tiny jetty at the end of a row of little white boat houses like the ones at Porto San Pedro, and walk up a small beach scattered with pine needles and wild flowers. Beyond the pine trees a road winds up a hill. At the newsagents half way up it, an English newspaper headline says: Government U-turn; another says: Palace Crisis. Nothing new, then, since we last bought a paper about a month ago so there seems little point in troubling ourselves with another one just yet. Distance lends perspective and while the detail may change the substance seems to remain the same. At the top of the hill we discover an SYP supermarket.

  Known to British expatriates as Save Your Pesetas, SYP actually stands for Servicio y Precio – service and price. And you really can’t fault the prices or the quality either. With regard to service, however, this depends on your criteria. In particular, speed does not appear to form part of the Spanish concept of service, while wrapping up fresh food nicely does. Unfortunately, for anyone with hopes of a life beyond a supermarket’s meat and cheese counters, this can be a source of some frustration.

  In Spain the butcher cuts your meat, weighs it, puts it on a slab, turns to a large roll of high quality paper behind him and tears off a strip. This paper has an attractive pattern on one side and is greaseproof on the other. The meat is put on the greaseproof side (in some establishments it is even put on a separate piece of thin greaseproof paper first) and the two long edges are rolled into a pleat. The short ends are then folded back to make a neat parcel. This is then put into a transparent polythene bag, along with the price ticket from the weighing machine, and the bag is tied up. It is all beautifully done, but not with any sense of urgency. The same process is then gone through at the cheese and the cooked meat counters.

  At the checkout, the cashier unties the bag, takes out the ticket, reads it, rings it up, tears it, puts it back inside the bag and re-ties it. Meanwhile the queue lengthens. This is not helped by the fact that most Spanish checkouts have rollers which do not roll, and means that the cashiers have to drag every item over them to the till. Today’s cashier saves a little time by not untying and retying the bags but slashing them with a long purple fingernail so that on the way home the mushrooms spill out and the chicken breasts mingle with the swordfish steaks. We have the swordfish for lunch, cooked in garlic, olives, parsley, lemon juice and with a few smoked mussels. It is delicious.

  In the afternoon I get out the computer again. Its opening sequence says that the clocks in England have gone back an hour, although in mainland Europe they won’t change for another week. I look up at the big brass clock on Voyager’s bulkhead. It says 5pm. In England, when the clocks go back for the winter, it is already dark by 5pm and, being late October, it tends to be cold, grey and damp as well. Across the way, between Voyager and the boatyard ramp, there is a lot of shouting. A small ketch has anchored there and two very overweight men and a plump youth are swimming off its stern in the warm sunshine.

  An hour later, as I am preparing dinner, there are male voices talking, very close to my ear. I look up. The ketch is now on the other side of us and slowly passing my galley window. The two older men are sitting in the cockpit chatting animatedly; the lad is fishing from a large dinghy tied to its stern. Next time I look up, the boat is well past us and heading slowly for a French sloop. The two big men still talk; the lad still trails his line in the water. I am filled with admiration for yachtsmen who can be so laid back about dragging their anchor.

  The next time I look up the ketch is drifting slowly but remorselessly towards the bay’s exit and the open sea and I wonder why they don’t do something. They are saved the trouble by the arrival of a tall, thin man in a dinghy. He stands at the tiller of his outboard engine but because he is too tall to reach the tiller from a fully-upright position he has to bend one knee. This gives him that forward-leaning pose most usually seen in statues representing heroic workers in soviet collectives. He tows the ketch back to a mooring buoy not far from us.

  The older man briefly stands to watch and I see him properly for the first time – not very tall, but so wide that he is almost a sphere. He looks like a sumo wrestler. At first I fear he is naked, then realise he is wearing a pale pink tracksuit. Their ketch is no more than 30 foot long and its old-fashioned design means there is not much room aboard. It certainly explains why the lad spends so much of the day in the dinghy. I wonder how all three of them get inside to sleep.

  After his fleeting interest in the mooring of his boat, the man in the pink tracksuit reseats himself and resumes his conversation with the younger man. The lad remains in the dinghy, fishing. When they reach the mooring the younger man goes to the bow and waves a boat hook ineffectually at the pick-up buoy, but misses. The tall, thin man in the dinghy picks the buoy up, hands it to him and watches him hook its rope over a cleat. Then he resumes his former heroic angle at the tiller and phutts away. The two men on the ketch talk late into the night.

  In the small hours the wind gets up and there is heavy rain. The promised Gale Force 8 has arrived. David moves to the saloon sofa with a book to maintain a watch. Left below in our bunk, and freed from any concerns about dragging as David will fetch me if I’m needed, I still can’t sleep. Apart from the gale, there is something loose in the rigging on the ketch and, tossed by the wind, it rattles and clatters against the main mast. Even after putting in earplugs to cut out the sound, my body still feels the toss and tug of the water against our boat. It is said that people flock to light comedy when under threat of war or economic depression, and only relish the dark and dismal when times are good. I only know that when the night is stormy, and a snatching anchor chain sets the nerves on edge, it is not a
psychological thriller I reach for but The Wind in the Willows.

  Next day, calm weather returns. David works on the generator and fixes the davits so that we can raise and lower the dinghy more easily. He also puts a shackle on our new spare anchor, with its shiny white rope, ready for us to use as a stern anchor at Porto Cristo’s town quay, our next port of call. I begin sorting through three packs of photographs.

  We put our photographs in albums; otherwise they end up as dozens of unidentified packs in a locker. Putting them in an album means we sort out the best ones or, even if they are a bit fuzzy, those that recall people and places we most want to remember. The rest we throw away, which saves valuable locker space from being filled with snaps we shall never want to look at again. We’ve found that the maximum number of packs it is prudent to accumulate before sorting for the album is three, somewhere between 70 and 100 prints. Any more than this and we get so confused about where the pictures are from that we put off sorting them. Then the pile gets so big that it becomes too onerous to even make a start. Even with only three packs it usually takes both of us to identify where all the pictures were taken.

  Determined to maintain at least a semblance of personal respectability, despite our new relaxed lifestyle, I also give us both a haircut. They are our first since leaving England two and a half months ago. We had begun to look a trifle … wild.