by Rita Pomade
Snakes, on the other hand, once commanded great respect. All cultures believed in the magical abilities, wisdom, and healing properties associated with the snake, an animal often thought to be mother earth herself. In short, I didn’t believe they deserved their bad reputation, and I admired Chor Soo Kong who felt a need to protect them.
Unfortunately, our encounter with the pit vipers at the Chor Soo Kong temple was a disappointment. As soon as Stefan and I entered the shabby, non-descript temple, a smoke screen of incense nearly drove us back into the street. After adjusting to the haze, we edged our way around the room looking for snakes. We finally encountered a few draped over umbrella-shaped bamboo ribs stuck into glazed pots near the altar. The snakes looked dead. On closer inspection they looked drugged — probably wiped out by the cloying incense. We found a few others scattered around, also in a trance. If I stepped on one, I doubt it would have moved. If we stayed any longer in the temple, we may have also ended up in a stupor.
When we returned to the yacht, Bernard was back with the prepared block of wood and ready to screw it into the interior of the mast. He and Stefan managed to finish the job in about an hour, but I was heartbroken. Every time I looked at the bolts, I felt the pain of the scarring. Our boat had been perfect. Now she was marked and crippled, no longer a flawless beauty.
Next morning, I watched with apprehension as Stefan helped Bernard lift anchor. Neither of them looked relaxed. Bernard’s repair still had to be tested. Ironwood may be strong, but it was still a repair holding together two parts of what once had been a solid piece. There would always be a weakness. Maybe it would hold up in a squall, but what if we were caught in something stronger? If the mast cracked in a storm, what would that do to the balance of the boat? Would we still be stable on the water? Only time would tell.
Bernard and I didn’t talk about it. I knew that, if I brought up my apprehension, he’d become agitated and answer curtly. I had learned to stick to the practical and stay away from the emotional, but I noticed he was drinking more and growing distant again. The evening before we set sail from Penang, he started to pick on Stefan.
“You’re lazy,” he said for no reason. “You’ll never be a sailor.”
Stefan kept reading his book and paid no attention. I couldn’t figure what he expected Stefan to do since we were at anchor, and he hadn’t asked him to do anything. I wondered why he’d be annoyed by Stefan’s reading, and surprised that Stefan showed no reaction.
He then started on me. “You regret coming on this adventure, don’t you? You miss being away from your friends.”
Neither was true, and I resented his telling me what he thought I was feeling. I took my cue from Stefan and didn’t respond, but I couldn’t understand what was happening. When we sailed, there was no tension. I didn’t question his authority, and followed orders without discussion. There could only be one captain on a ship, and I never took issue with that. We had met couples who were often locked in a power struggle. Both could sail and the female often felt smothered by “the captain” for not being given a big enough role in decision-making or the actual sailing. I wasn’t confident enough to put myself in that position since I couldn’t figure out wind direction or how to read a sea chart. But I had learned during our aborted crossing on the British couple’s yacht from Taiwan to Hong Kong that I didn’t panic in a crisis. Survival often depended on a clear mind, so I knew I was an asset. I had already witnessed seasoned sailors falling apart under dangerous situations.
Bernard’s outburst soured the atmosphere aboard the Santa Rita, so I was glad we were sailing again, our next port of call being Phuket, an island off the west coast of Thailand. It had little tourism in the eighties, and seemed like a good pit stop on our way to Sri Lanka.
Within hours of our being at sea, a squall blew in. The intense rain-bearing 35-knot wind came with almost no warning, the only sign of its approach, a streak of black racing across the sky. When I saw that line moving towards us, my heart started to beat faster. This would be the first test of Bernard’s jerry-rigged mast. I was at the helm when Bernard heard the wind, and raced on deck. The sails had to be reefed, and in order to do that, the yacht had to be turned towards the wind to slow it down. I joined Stefan in reefing the main sail, and then we lowered the sail on the mizzenmast, leaving the staysail off the bow for balance.
The Malacca Strait is narrow, which makes the waves erratic and choppy. Standing upright on deck was like trying to centre myself atop a basketball. I held tight to whatever I could grab, and kept my eye on the mizzenmast. Within a half hour the storm passed as though it had never happened. Our mizzenmast took the beating like a trooper. From then on, I relaxed. Still, seeing those ugly bolts screwed along the side of the mast never stopped bothering me. Everything changes with time. I had to learn to accept that.
Chapter 16
PIT STOPS IN SABANG AND PHUKET
Spring 1983: Indonesia and Thailand
Sticks and stones may break our bones,
but words will break our hearts.
— ROBERT FULGHUM
The heavy squall we encountered off the coast of Penang, coupled with concern over how well our jerry-rigged mast would hold up under the gale force winds, left us depleted. We re-evaluated our plans and decided to drop anchor in Sabang, a tiny island in Indonesia off the northern tip of Sumatra. Since it didn’t take us too far off course on our way to Phuket, it seemed worth the slight detour. We craved some light diversion, and providence delivered.
As we motored into Sabang’s harbour, an enormous whale shark rose out of the water like a surfacing submarine. The fish, almost the length of the Santa Rita, must have been a good forty-five feet long. It was dark grey with white spots and stripes along its backside. Its cavernous mouth looked as though it ran the full width of the broad head. But the most remarkable thing about this enormous fish was how sublimely happy it appeared.
A dozen or so Indonesian kids from about five to twelve years old sat along the edge of the pier, feet dangling into space. They clapped and whooped as the whale shark performed one trick after another. It swooshed around, first lifting its massive head out of the water and then its tail. It glided back and forth in front of the kids in a graceful dance, basking in the appreciation of its enthralled audience. I could swear it was smiling.
The performance went on for about half an hour, and then the friendly whale shark acknowledged the last bit of applause with a tail flip and disappeared. We learned that it performed everyday for the children, never missing its noon matinee. I was amazed that it knew how to come at the same hour every day.
I asked a local fisherman, who had been watching the whale shark’s antics, whether he thought the fish might damage our yacht. He said it was a gentle creature and would do no harm. “They don’t even attack humans,” he added. “They live on small fish and plankton.” I couldn’t believe there was enough plankton in the ocean to feed creatures that size.
We later learned these sharks suck in their food and expel the water through their gills. They have 36 rows of teeth, but don’t seem to have much use for any of them. I was starting to see how little I knew about the natural world and how fascinating it was in its diversity and possibilities.
We learned from the island’s movie man how whale sharks ate. He took charge of us soon after we disembarked and insisted we come to see a film in his lone movie house. I thought he wanted to practice his English. I was happy to oblige.
“No expense,” he said. “You’re my guests.”
He led us through streets heaped with cloves warming in the sun while waiting to be ground for cigarettes. The entire island smelled of cloves, and the aroma was intoxicating. Clove cigarettes, packaged under the name Garick and sold throughout the East, were Sabang’s main source of income. Bernard bought several packets to smoke on the boat. I liked the sweet scent that wafted through the air as we walked the streets. But later, inside our small salon on the Santa Rita, the invasive, heady aroma was overwhel
ming and gave me a headache.
The movie theatre was a square room in a square wooden building housing several rows of threadbare seats. We took seats in the middle — first Bernard, then me, followed by Stefan and our host. We were the only audience. As soon as the lights went off, Stefan jumped up and raced out the theatre. Bernard and I followed to see what had happened. My first thought was that he had been stung by an insect. The movie man stayed behind.
“That guy started to feel me up,” Stefan shouted. “He put his hand on my crotch.”
So, I thought, it wasn’t English practice he wanted. My first impulse was to confront the “nice man,” but I kept my peace. This wasn’t our country. Who knew what the fallout might be.
“We’d better go straight to the boat,” Bernard said.
I agreed. Bernard had a sixth sense about situations that could turn bad. I’d already experienced that when we lived in Mexico. We had gone with friends to a remote village in the Sierra Madre Mountains to witness an unusual Day of the Dead ceremony. The following day, some of our group wanted to stop in the nearest town for drinks. Bernard felt the local people were hostile to outsiders, and it would be dangerous. The others dismissed his feeling as paranoia; that is, until we were all ushered into jail at gunpoint on a trumped-up charge of drug possession. Had some of our party not had connections in Mexico City, we would have been transferred to the main jail in Oaxaca, notorious for the way it treated inmates. Since then, I’ve trusted Bernard’s instinctive capacity to smell danger.
Our only other local contact was another English-speaking islander named Dodent, who kept a scrapbook of foreign boats docking off Sabang’s shores. Dodent was a fisherman with a love and thirst for adventure. He motored to the Santa Rita and asked us for stories and a drawing to put into his book. We leafed through its pages and found the names of several yachties we’d met along the way, and enjoyed reading about their experiences at sea. We then added our own to Dodent’s collection.
“As a poor fisherman,” he’d told us, “I’ll never be able to leave my island. I travel through the adventures of others.”
We weren’t the only foreign boat anchored off the island. A small distance from us was a seventy-foot schooner that had been illegally boarded by an Australian named Captain Jim. We first met the Captain in Borneo and then met up with him again in Singapore as he was about to lift anchor for Thailand.
“I’m delivering the boat for an Italian consortium,” he had told us when we met him in Botneo. “They’re taking delivery in Phuket.”
“We might see you there if we make it before you leave,” I’d said.
Now it appeared the Italian owners had failed to pay him for delivering the schooner. They hired a crew behind his back to board the boat and sail her to South Africa. When Captain Jim learned that the crew had made a stopover in Sebang, he flew in to repossess the schooner until he received the money owed him. The day after we arrived, he went to Medan in Sumatra to find a lawyer. That evening he was back on board and announced over his short wave radio that he was armed. He warned that he’d shoot at any boat that came near and turned on every light on the schooner to look out for anyone approaching. From what we could tell, he was alone. We had no idea what happened to the newly hired crew, weren’t about to ask, and thought it would be a good idea to lift anchor and sail on to Phuket.
Leaving Sebang took us out of the Malacca Strait and into the Andaman Sea. At the point where the currents meet one another, the waves are short and create a zone of strong vertical waves. I was below deck making lunch when Bernard shouted down for me to come up to take a look. As far as I could see for miles around, it looked as though we were travelling over rapidly boiling water. It brought to mind my boys sailing their toy boat over soap bubbles in the bath, except the Santa Rita wasn’t a toy and we were living creatures inside. Excellent sailing conditions permitted us the luxury of enjoying the phenomenon without having to focus on the boat. I took in the unique scene and was thrilled that I had opted for this journey.
“It’s incredible!” I shouted over to Bernard who was at the bow with Stefan leaning into the water. “How many people will ever get to see a scene like this?”
Bernard turned and came over to the cockpit where I had braced myself, partially on the top stairs and partially out the hatch. He was smiling and obviously excited by the unusual event.
“You know what causes this?” he said. He then gave me a technical explanation for what created this odd condition, but all I could surmise was something about the current from the Indian Ocean fighting an opposing current coming from the Malacca Strait.
I didn’t totally understand the scientific part, but it impressed me. Bernard had a wealth of information stored in his head. His understanding of natural phenomena grounded me. It made me feel safe.
We arrived in Phuket in less than two days, but hours before seeing land the scent of frangipani crossed on the wind. It was the first time since we had set out on this adventure that I was aware of scent coming off the land before entering a port. The fragrant aroma of the flowers put me in a euphoric state. I felt its essence enter and spread throughout my body, and I gave myself over to the sensation. The sea was a scintillating, cerulean blue turning to aqua, and crystalline clear right to the bottom. We dropped anchor, lowered the dinghy, and headed towards the white sandy beach. It was silent except for the lapping of water.
A distance away we saw some thatch-roofed shacks selling fish. And within view there were a few odd-shaped islands, or rather large karst formations that rose gently from the sea and broke the line of the horizon. Everything was clean and bright and sparkling.
The Santa Rita had functioned beautifully under the southeasterly wind that brought us here. The repaired mast proved itself worthy of heavy storms. Since we had all performed well together under sail, I thought the worst was over. I was totally unprepared for what happened next.
Bernard was looking out towards the horizon, and I walked over to join him. “It’s so peaceful here,” I said. I slipped my arm through his and pressed close. It had been a great sail, and I’d hoped for an affectionate acknowledgement of a job well done. Instead, he pulled away and walked further down the beach. He remained apart from Stefan and me for the rest of the afternoon. I tried to shrug it off, and spent my time collecting shells while Stefan read.
I didn’t want to acknowledge that these odd moments of distance were happening more often, and I could never predict them or say why. There was never anything overt leading up to them, and they often happened when we were in a relaxed situation. It started shortly after we arrived in Taiwan when he snapped at me for using the word “bathroom” instead of “head” when referring to the toilet. He let me know that I didn’t think like a real sailor, and he was worried that I might be a liability on the boat. And then suddenly between Borneo and Singapore he announced that he would no longer be sleeping in the aft-cabin where we shared a double berth.
“I’ll be sleeping in the salon from now on,” he had said. “That way I’m ready for anything unexpected.” His moods never lasted. And when those moments passed, it was as though they had never happened.
Towards evening I approached him and said I’d like to go back to the yacht.
“Take the dinghy,” he said.
“You know I can’t start that engine.” The engine was a salvaged relic from World War Two. It needed to be primed with a string to get started, and I didn’t have the physical strength to pull hard enough to ignite the charge. Even he had to make several attempts to get the thing running.
“I can’t do everything for you,” he said. He turned back towards the horizon. “I should have never taken you on this adventure.”
I was stunned. Worse, I felt betrayed. His words were like a knife in my chest.
“You bastard,” I shouted. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I stood there with my hands in fists, absolutely tongue-tied, and wished I could crush him with the weight of my rage. I was aware t
hat Stefan was observing the scene, and I didn’t want to do anything that would make me look out of control. So I did nothing more. I just stood there with my mind racing. At that moment, I knew that I could no longer pretend that his growing distance was a momentary intrusion.
I had invested seven years of my life working hard and living frugally to make this dream a reality. And I had spent years prior to that dreaming about it. I wondered what happened to the man with whom I’d gone to New York to buy the yacht’s VHF radio — the one who, over a bag of shared peanuts while sitting on a bench in Central Park, told me how grateful he was that I supported him on this adventure that had been his dream since childhood.
“I know you’re doing this for me,” he had said. “And I won’t forget.”
But it was becoming obvious that he had. I wanted him to acknowledge that this was a shared adventure, and I wasn’t extra baggage he’d picked up on the way, even though he was making me feel that way.
Bernard didn’t respond to my outburst. He turned and strode towards the dinghy in long deliberate steps. Stefan came up beside me and the two of us followed behind silently.
It embarrassed me that Stefan heard me shout. Throughout the trip he’d been mainly an observer, helping when asked, and keeping his thoughts to himself. I knew when he left us for university, we’d never live together again as a family. I wanted him to leave with happy memories, but I was no longer sure that would happen.
The magic of Phuket was ruined. When I came into the galley the next morning to make myself a cup of coffee, I found Stefan at the table hunched over his book. He looked up when he heard me.