A Thousand Miles from Anywhere

by Sandra Clayton

  From Vallehermoso we spiral upwards towards Valle Gran Rey, where we plan to stop for lunch. Just past Epina, however, the road sign must have been knocked out of alignment because instead of continuing along the present road we find ourselves taking a sharp corner rather too fast over a large, loose, temporary manhole cover and skittering onto an unmarked dirt track that takes us down a very steep incline. At the bottom, a tiny village sits just above the water’s edge, on a black volcanic beach. One of the handful of buildings is a restaurant. We decide to lunch here.

  We cannot understand the menu board and the owner speaks no English, so I ask him in my most basic Spanish to choose for us. He looks startled, then says tentatively, ‘Fish?’ We say, ‘Si,’ and in time a large platter of fried fish, green chilli sauce, homemade bread, baked potatoes and salad arrives. The fish is salty and delicious with Dorada beer.

  As we walk back to the car we are approached by an elderly German tourist clutching a map, the only other motorist we shall see all day.

  ‘Where am I?’ he says.

  Like us he has been snatched from his intended route by the faulty road sign. David fishes our lunch receipt from his pocket, reads out the name of this tiny place – Playa de Alojera – and then finds it for him on his map.

  We leave him to ponder his own lunch and retrace our route back up the mountain track, back over the loose, temporary manhole cover to the junction with the treacherous road sign and then head for Valle Gran Rey once more. We descend a very long road into another tranquil valley. It is Utopia. Out of time. Still untouched. Except for the new road, of course.

  To return to San Sebastian and Voyager we have to go back up the mountain and into the national park, not just skirting the edge of it this time but deep into it. We abandon the car for a while and set off down one of its footpaths. Although you expect valleys to be fertile, the rest of the island surprises you. For while the soil exposed by these paths is thin and dry and the mountains are volcanic rock, every outcrop has trees clinging to it and the forest floor is thick with vegetation. Sunlight slants through the leaves of deciduous trees and palm fronds, fallen trunks have been turned pale green by succulent moss, a mountain stream gurgles over boulders.

  The car journey through the forest is cool and shady, until you emerge at the highest point, the road spiralling around a rocky summit. A little dizzy from our dramatic ascent and blinking into the sunlight, we gaze down upon the tiers of dark green ravines dropping away towards a glittering sea. As if to reinforce the loftiness of our perch, quite some way below us a solitary bird glides upon the thermals and we realise with a shock that we are so high we are looking down onto the back of an eagle. As the gods on Mount Olympus looked down, perhaps, admiring their creation before they played havoc with it and spoiled it all.

  With the long descent towards San Sebastian comes the gradual return of rocky barrenness, and a stop at a small empty café overlooking a treeless but nevertheless stunning panorama. Volcanic activity did not continue on La Gomera as it did on some of the other islands, so natural erosion has produced extraordinary profiles in places like this one. A stark contrast to the lushness elsewhere, its sculpted beauty is breathtaking. So has our day been.

  Back at San Sebastian’s marina next day we get news of another rally on its way. We have no desire to be trapped under the provisioning process of another three or four boats. Added to which, we shall need to think about provisioning our own shortly but see little point in travelling back and forth by ferry to Tenerife lugging foodstuffs. And it is easier to take on diesel direct from Puerto Radazul’s fuel dock than heaving it on board in cans and then decanting it into our tank.

  It would also be nice to have a sail again. So we decide to go back to Los Cristianos for a while, swing at anchor, gorge on English newspapers, have a sail when we feel like it, and then return to Santa Cruz to stock up at one of its large supermarkets. There is also that most essential of items when preparing for your first-ever two-handed Atlantic crossing – Christmas cards. We top up our water tank, pack up and with the first of the new batch of boats approaching the harbour, we cast off.

  TENERIFE

  10

  At Anchor Again

  We arrive at Los Cristianos at sunset and anchor in our old spot. This is largely because no-one else wants it. It is too shallow for the average monohull’s keel but ideal for our one-metre draught. It is heaven to be at anchor again and away from the madding crowd.

  Today is 11th November. Remembrance Day. I may not be in a place to buy a poppy any more, but I do remember their sacrifice. And what might have been, had they not made it.

  Next morning, in a blissful quiet uninterrupted by the ebb and flow of yachtsmen across our boat, we remove Gomera harbour’s black oily stains from our fenders and topsides and scrub the footprints off our decks. Voyager has also lost a certain amount of paint off her foredeck from unsuitable shoes and abnormal wear and tear.

  In the afternoon we paddle into Los Cristianos to buy our first English newspaper for a while. A beach party is just packing up as we arrive. When we return we find that rather than take their refuse home with them, the party people have dumped their food containers and empty bottles in our dinghy. I can only suppose that it is because it is aluminium that people would mistake it for a skip.

  Although we haven’t spotted so much as a small grasshopper yet, Navtex is still much exercised by plagues of locusts, to the exclusion of weather forecasts even. And David has finally noticed that the female anglers in the anchorage fish topless so I have hidden his glasses. He doesn’t need them for anything important at present.

  On a subsequent trip into town we bump into some of the Swedes from our previous time here and at Santa Cruz. As usual, the talk centres on weather, departure plans and boat insurance. There is a lull in the conversation following the latter as everybody ruminates bitterly for a moment on battles fought, and usually lost, with marine insurance companies.

  ‘Piet was thinking of taking Jan on,’ we say to lighten the mood. One of the men rolls his eyes eloquently.

  ‘Lazy, selfish and greedy,’ says another.

  ‘Lars was glad to be rid of him,’ says a third.

  ‘Does Piet know?’ we ask.

  There is a degree of chin-rubbing and gazing thoughtfully into the middle distance.

  Saturday 13th November turns out to be the date of the England v Scotland football match. Since first setting out I have wondered if, when recruiting agents, national security services should tap into the average football fan’s capacity to find a game involving either his national or his home team no matter where he is or what he is doing.

  David seems able to receive intelligence through the ether. His ability is positively uncanny. I mean, here we are, at anchor, on a small Spanish island out in the Atlantic, without access to local newspapers or radio, no television and not another British football supporter in sight, yet without any apparent effort he has located the only public venue in town which will be showing the match.

  Accordingly, in the afternoon David dinghies into Los Cristianos to the Full Monty Nightclub – no entrance fee and a pint of San Miguel beer at pre-war British prices – to watch the match live on satellite TV. England rewards his efforts to support them by winning 2-0. And when he gets back to our dinghy it is still afloat, but only just, no thanks to the small child currently filling it with poly bags full of sea water. One wonders about the parents.

  11

  A Tragedy

  A woman is taken from the sea today. I’d heard rotor blades passing over the anchorage earlier, en route to the harbour, and thought nothing of it. But when we paddle into our usual corner the helicopter is parked on the jetty while a large group of people stand around watching paramedics at work.

  It seems intrusive to remain and callous to walk away. With no way to be of use, however, we are simply adding to the crowd. We trudge off into town.

  When we return a covered stretcher is being lifted into an ambu
lance. In the helicopter a man in uniform is sitting in the front window seat, laughing with a colleague in between sucking an ice cream on a stick in a contented, leisurely sort of way.

  Before we can get into the dinghy and paddle away, the helicopter pilot starts his engine and leaving is not an option for a while. The pain on bare skin is intense but the threat to the eyes is of greater concern and all any of us on the beach can do is go into a crouch and try to shield our faces from the sandstorm caused by the downdraught from the rotor blades.

  Back on Voyager, as I shampoo sand and grit from my scalp, I wonder at the depth of my sadness and anger at the death of a stranger. Is it purely selfish, to do with my own mortality? Or the thought of her dying alone; yet in such a public way amid the indignity of attempted resuscitation and all those curious onlookers?

  Even in a culture where violent death is a nightly form of entertainment on our television screens, someone’s life suddenly snuffed out on a bright morning at a pleasure beach is profoundly shocking.

  Or was it the laughing man in the helicopter, enjoying his conversation and his ice cream? I have never saved anyone’s life so I am in no position to criticise. He may save hundreds in his working lifetime and recover bodies that families desperately want returned to them. A barrier for the emotions of some kind would be essential in a job like his. But the mechanism is better kept from public view.

  12

  Return to Santa Cruz

  It is now mid-November and officially the end of the hurricane season. Not only are we safe to set off for the Caribbean in terms of insurance cover for our boat, but the weather is becoming more stable. There are two things we want to do before we leave, however. One is to provision our boat for the crossing. The other is to take a tour of Tenerife. For both we need a car.

  David rings the marina at Santa Cruz to ask about a berth. They have a lot of boats in at present, a rally, but they can take us tomorrow. We decide to go halfway again, to Bahia de Abona, but leaving the mild conditions of Los Cristianos proves to be a mistake.

  The wind gradually rises and shifts to the nose. For a time it reaches 39 knots, the top of a Gale Force 8. Inevitably the sea becomes rather larger than is comfortable, with Voyager ploughing her way into it. We average only three knots and take eight hours to do 23 miles, arriving at 5.30, half an hour before dark. David looks tired. He’s stayed at the helm for much of the day.

  He tucks us as far into the north-west corner of the bay as he can but still can’t get us completely out of the waves currently surging in from the Atlantic. While he battens down the boat for the night I start an evening meal. The body needs food to maintain its energy levels and the brain is cheered up by it. But after a passage like today’s there is little enthusiasm for eating, and none at all for cooking. This is just the sort of occasion for which packet pasta and bottled Italian sauces were invented. The resulting meal is colourful, tasty and on the table in no time. The penne rattles metallically on its way into the boiling water, like the pen nibs it resembles. The chillies in the Picante sauce make their presence felt on lips subjected to wind and salt spray for most of the day. But it is hot and filling and most welcome.

  With so much turbulence in the anchorage we mount a night watch. I do the first one, at 7pm. There is supposed to be a meteor shower later tonight but with so much cloud about it probably won’t be visible.

  By the start of my second watch, at 1.15am, the cloud has all gone leaving the sky brilliantly clear. And when I step out into the cockpit I find David lying on his back watching the meteor shower. I grab a cushion from the saloon to put under my head and join him.

  According to the newspaper we bought yesterday it is the result of Earth crossing the path of the Tempel-Tuttle comet, a huge ball of ice and dust thought to have been orbiting the sun for over a thousand years. Its glowing silver head, shooting across the night sky, leaves a vast tail of red, green, blue and silver specks behind it which is known as the Leonid meteor shower. We only get this close every 33 years, apparently.

  At the end of my third watch, as I trudge wearily from bathroom to bed, I reflect that the trouble with night watches is that you either clean your teeth every three hours or not at all.

  The wind has lessened a bit by daybreak. It has also shifted direction, so when we set off for Santa Cruz after breakfast – despite ominous cloud cover and a pervasive greyness – we have a following wind, a following sea and a very much better passage than yesterday. As we approach the entrance to the marina a line of nine French boats comes billowing out.

  Something you become aware of here is the danger of following a calendar rather than the weather, of setting off into potentially bad conditions for all sorts of wrong reasons. For instance, even though a rally has a scheduled departure date, individual boats are under no obligation to set off then. But some people are driven by their place in the rally’s record book – nobody wants to be the last to arrive. Others have arranged for friends and relatives to join them for Christmas in the Caribbean and want to be sure of getting there in time and having everything ready.

  Another reason is boredom. A safe crossing from Europe to the Caribbean all comes down to timing and unfortunately a safe arrival at the Canaries is not the time to then embark on a crossing to the Caribbean. Not unless you are prepared to take serious risks earlier in the voyage, by attempting the notorious Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic coasts of France, Spain and Portugal at unseasonable times.

  The best time to sail from northern Europe to the Canaries is May to mid-August, which can result in a long wait in the Canaries. This is not to say that these islands are not a wonderful place to spend a winter in themselves. But for cruisers they are simply one stage of a much larger journey and the most challenging part has yet to come. As a result, impatience begins to set in and the urge to set off takes hold.

  Over time we will encounter more than one apprehensive crew member untying mooring lines, with the wind tearing at his oilies and waves crashing over the harbour wall and ask, ‘Do you really have to go today?’ In answer he will shoot a furtive glance at his skipper, busy at the helm. Then, with a sigh and an air of predestination, gaze mournfully back at you from his stern as the boat beneath him disappears into a roaring gloom.

  However, while sailing by the calendar can have a negative effect on the mental health of inexperienced crew, it can have quite the reverse effect on more experienced yacht owners. As with any situation involving a group of men, an external challenge and something under power that they can steer, a kind of group machismo emerges.

  A catamaran is at its best with wind and sea behind it, so as we approach the marina we are fairly bowling along. In contrast, the rally of French boats currently leaving it have wind and sea against them. We are surprised, therefore, that given the conditions they are all under full sail rather than reefed.

  Every yachtsman knows that vessels at sea are required to pass port-to-port and only then make any desired turns. To get out to sea, the French boats will need to turn to port and I watch them bouncing and billowing towards us with growing mistrust. The first boat in the approaching line is getting quite close. I have one of my bouts of intuition. Or maybe in this case it is cynicism based on growing experience.

  ‘He’s going to cross in front of you,’ I say.

  Despite all evidence to the contrary, David retains a maddening belief in another yachtsman’s intention to do the right thing.

  ‘No,’ he says confidently. ‘He’ll go behind.’

  ‘For crying out loud!’ I yell at him. ‘This is the French we’re talking about.’

  And sure enough, whoosh. Responding to a messianic wrench of its wheel, the leading yacht lurches left, straight across our bows. Inevitably, changing course slows a boat. Sails being changed over, as a vessel makes a 90° turn, inevitably lose their motive power until in a position to take up the wind again. Accordingly, the hull now very close in front of us shudders and wallows as the combined force of wind and wave hit it
s starboard beam.

  Vindicated, I listen to the sound of David cursing under his breath as he takes avoiding action while all nine of them – Adult Boy Scouts to a man, no doubt, with a penknife and a piece of string in every pocket – swerve left in front of us into a churning, battleship-grey ocean under a seething leaden sky.

  It is not unusual, when one of these jamborees takes place, for a boat to limp back into harbour a day or so later, a victim of too much pressure of wind on sail and in need of repairs to its forestay. Although when we enter the marina we become aware of one with something rather more serious than a damaged forestay. It is a large German yacht with a vibrant and quite unmistakable design on her hull and the last place we had seen her was La Gomera, from where she had set out on her Atlantic crossing some days ago. She has been dismasted and her once-exuberant hull, now much damaged, is currently patched with plastic sheets and duct tape to keep out the elements. He is not insured, her distraught skipper tells us later. It is going to cost $50,000 just to replace the mast.

  We are berthed on the opposite side of the marina from last time, against the sea wall. On our port side there is an expensive yacht called Carpe Diem, a 42-footer with an American couple aboard. Gene and Erica tell us they are lawyers. They are both rather aggressive in manner and Gene in particular has a very loud voice. He also seems at a loose end and tends to pop up onto his deck, as though by chance, whenever we emerge onto ours. Unfortunately, his attitude does not encourage either of us to linger, delighting as he does in anything negative he can find with which to confront us.

  ‘Jeffrey Archer’s resigned,’ he bawls, wafting the latest piece of British political sleaze across at us from the newspaper in his hand. Another less than endearing habit is to put a negative spin on anything we happen to be doing whenever he manages to take us unawares. As when we are bent double replacing a frayed shore line before it has a chance to break and send Voyager sprawling into either his boat or that of our neighbours on the other side. ‘Having trouble tying up your dinghy?’ he bellows, creeping up behind us.