by Liz Alden
“A long walk.”
Elayna sighed dreamily and Jonas grinned. “That one I can deliver today, I hope.”
It gave me more energy just knowing we would be in port soon, stepping on land and getting out of this space that had once seemed so large to me.
Climbing out onto the deck, I looked ahead to Eik’s bow. Beyond it, on the horizon, Fatu Hiva towered. The island was steep, and cliffs dropped dramatically to the ocean. While it was still too far away for me to make out details, the island was a splotch of green—green!—in an eternal sea of blue.
Eventually the rest of the crew joined me and we watched the island approach. Eivind and I sat on the edge of the deck, hands gripping the lifelines and our legs dangling over the side. Occasionally the water tickled our toes when the boat rolled a bit deeper.
“What do you think?” Eivind asked.
“The island’s beautiful.” And it was. Now that we were closer, we could see the details: individual trees poking above the rest and shorebirds wheeling around the peaks.
“Would you do this again? Sail across an ocean?”
I wrinkled my nose. “It has been a very long trip. I would need a hell of a lot more books.”
Eivind smiled out at the sea. “The next few weeks will be a lot better. We have small islands to visit, beautiful places, lots of snorkeling to do.”
My stomach fluttered. In Panama, we had always said we’d part ways, even if we made it across the ocean together. But our relationship had grown and changed so much. Would he still want me to leave?
Jonas started up the engine, and that was our cue. We all worked together to bring the sails down. We motored into the Bay of Virgins. The steep walls surrounded us and the sea calmed.
Thirty-Five
We piled into the dinghy like wiggling puppies, eager to walk on land. We tied the dinghy up to a concrete wall, and one by one stepped onto shore.
I took a few shaky steps and almost face-planted into the grass. Elayna grabbed my arm and, with a gentle “oopla,” guided me down.
“Whoa. Why does it feel like this? It’s like I’m drunk and dizzy.” I flopped down hard on the grass, but the world kept spinning.
“Your brain got used to being at sea. Give it a few minutes to recalibrate,” Jonas said.
Elayna sat down next to me and lay on her back. She sighed. “Grass.”
The rest of the crew lay down too, whether landsick or not. We all spent a few minutes lying back in the grass, staring up at the trees.
“It used to be the Bay of Penises,” Eivind said next to me.
“Why did they change it?”
He shrugged. “Missionaries.”
After a few minutes, I rolled over and experimentally sat up. Eivind watched me carefully. I made it in a few steps but managed to climb to my feet and dust myself off. “I think I’m okay.”
“Great,” Jonas said, and climbed to his feet.
We walked along the only road and stopped at a bulletin board with some postings on it. One was a map to a waterfall, which Eivind took a picture of with his phone.
Continuing along, we walked past small houses with lush gardens. We were in the jungle, where everything was thick and green. Fruit grew everywhere—massive breadfruit and mango trees, papayas, coconuts. Kids played in the streets, and dark-haired Polynesian women swept their gravel driveways.
Most people called out to us: “Bonjour!”
We all called back, but Elayna would strike up a conversation in French. Often, she pointed at plants and asked what was growing. At one of the houses, some older boys ran around, and after a conversation with the woman of the house, Elayna consulted with Marcella.
Marcella had packed a backpack with bottles of water and snacks for us, but also a few smaller items. “For trading,” she had said.
Elayna pulled out some small baggies of rice and sugar. She conversed with the woman and pointed to the boys. The two women agreed and Elayna waved goodbye, leaving the sugar and rice behind.
“This woman will have fresh coconuts for us to drink when we walk back. Her son will climb up the tree for us.”
Yum, I thought.
We continued on the road. Chickens pecked around the underbrush, and deeper in the woods wild pigs occasionally grunted.
A man ran past us—pale and blond. Eivind and Jonas shared a look.
“Gendarme?” Eivind said quietly.
“Maybe.”
“What’s a gendarme?” I asked.
“The local French police. We could get in trouble for being on this island without clearing into the country first. Everyone does it, but occasionally they do patrol and fine you.”
A few minutes later another European passed us, a woman.
“Gendarmette?” Eivind whispered, and I giggled.
At the side of the road, we found our first cairn, a stack of rocks marking a path for travelers. We veered off the roads and into the jungle, following the well-worn path. Huge hibiscus flowers polka-dotted the trail beneath our feet.
We followed cairn after cairn, climbing higher and higher. The whole time, we couldn’t help pointing things out to one another; we were all so wide-eyed with wonder, hardly anything went unnoticed.
The thunder of the waterfall crescendoed just before we turned the corner and spotted it. It poured down off a sheer cliff, easily a hundred meters high. At the base was a small pool with clear, cold water, deep enough for us to swim.
We stripped down to our underwear and splashed around in the pool. It was about ten meters wide by fifteen meters long, and by swimming across the length we could duck under the falls and look out from behind the curtain of water. Everything was slick with moss or algae.
When we tired—which was quick—we sat on rocks, drying ourselves in the warm air.
We walked back lazily, finding the house with the coconuts. A small pile of husked coconuts sat on the lawn. The boys hacked at the shells with machetes, cutting a square out of the top of the coconut and prying it off.
When we each had a coconut, I wondered how to gracefully drink it. Eivind put his mouth on the opening and tried to drink quickly, spilling it all over himself in the process. The boys giggled at him, and the lady scolded them in French.
The boys then went to a nearby papaya plant and pulled off leaves from the trunk of the tree. Snapping the leaf from the stalk, they presented us with the hollow petiole.
Elayna exchanged a few words. “Ah! Straws!” She put the stem in her coconut and sipped the water up through the straw. “Voilà!”
We followed her example and the coconut water hit my tongue, slightly tangy and refreshing. Eivind was the first one to chug his down.
With the machete, one of the boys took a big swing and cracked the coconut in half. He showed Eivind how to use the top square as a spoon to scoop out the flesh. He repeated his machete-swinging skills for all of us, and we ate the soft jelly from the inside of the coconut.
Before we could leave, the woman went into her house and returned with a small plastic bag full of mangoes. She gave Elayna the bag, and we all thanked her in our limited French: “Merci!” Elayna kissed her cheeks and we set out for the dock.
Unfortunately, we could not rest any further. Jonas wanted to get under sail again after dinner, which would allow us to arrive at Hiva Oa early in the morning, where we would clear in.
Over dinner, Marcella put her fork down.
“I have been thinking a lot about the upcoming time in French Polynesia. I have enjoyed being with each of you, but I think it is time for me to move on and leave the boat.”
Everyone froze. Jonas and Eivind exchanged glances.
“Is this because of the spinnaker situation?” Jonas asked.
“In part.” Marcella inhaled a shaky breath. “The sailing, with watches and sail changes, is too much for me. I don’t know how you do it, Jonas; it’s too much pressure.” Her eyes filled with tears, and Elayna pulled Marcella into her side for a hug.
Jonas sighed and s
queezed her hand. “I understand. When do you want to leave? In Hiva Oa?”
Marcella composed herself. “When do you think Eik will arrive in Tahiti?”
Jonas ran his fingers through his hair. He hadn’t had a hair cut in a long time and it was shaggy. “Three or four weeks, I think? I am sorry, Marcella, I cannot guarantee—”
Marcella interrupted him. “I know how it goes. That is fine. I will start to look for a new position, or maybe ask around some boats near here. I will find something.”
Eivind cleared his throat, poking his food around with his fork. “It’s not usually this hard. We do not—” He swallowed. “We do not have a big sail like that again. This will be better.” His voiced cracked and he glanced up, but not at Marcella. At me.
The rest of dinner was quiet, with Eivind’s palm a heavy weight on my thigh. I looked up several times to find him watching his brother, concern etched deep into his face. Sometimes our eyes met; he watched me. We cleaned up, keeping our voices low, and got the boat underway again just before sunset.
For the first time since we’d departed Panama, we didn’t watch the sunset together, instead retreating to our own corners.
I stripped down and crawled into bed, Eivind close behind me. He ran his palm, his nose, his lips up my curves. We lay face-to-face as he slipped into me, deep wet kisses and tangled legs.
The moment I felt a tremor deep in my belly, the first tear slipped down my cheek. Eivind kissed it away. Rolling me onto my back, he kissed each tear, murmuring to me in Norwegian words I was sure would break my heart.
Marcella’s confession had opened the floodgates, allowing me to realize the deep sense of relief that the journey was nearly over. I sobbed and clung to Eivind, and we held each other till we fell asleep, too worn down to think of anything else.
Thirty-Six
I hadn’t joined Eivind for his watch the night before. Physically and emotionally exhausted, I’d slept straight through it.
When I woke up, the brothers were dropping anchor at Hiva Oa.
Once settled, we piled into the dinghy and went to shore. Our yacht agent met us at the wharf and drove us over to the town in the back of her pickup truck.
“How much does an agent cost?”
Jonas shook his head. “A few hundred euros. But the agent will get us paperwork for duty-free fuel and exempt us from having to post a thousand-euro bond per person.”
We slipped into the office with gendarmes and filled out paperwork, had our passports stamped, and practiced our polite French, though everyone spoke English.
Our agent dropped us off at the top of the hill overlooking the anchorage. There was a small shipping container and some picnic tables set up. During the day, the agent would open the container and turn on the Wi-Fi for the cruisers to use. We settled at the tables and soon the air filled with a chorus of dings as notifications began flooding in.
I quickly scanned my emails, looking for anything important. My phone pinged with all kinds of social media notices, which I ignored. I fired off a few emails and pulled up a flight website to check for rates and schedules.
Flights were expensive, but I knew that would happen. I sat staring at the purchase button for a while, playing the last few weeks over and over in my mind. So many emotions flooded through me as I finally booked my flight—sadness to be leaving Eik and the crew behind, the heartbreak when I thought of Eivind. I tried to focus on the relief. I could stretch my legs, walk every day, meet new people, get back on track with my plans.
I would fly out the next day to Tahiti, and then two nights later fly to Lima.
I started packing up my stuff. Eivind was out on deck with Jonas, doing some project, so I had the cabin to myself. In the small space, our stuff had comingled, and separating my things from Eivind’s was making me angry. Here was Eivind’s jade-green shirt that brought out his eyes, the top that Eivind had practically ripped off me during an afternoon “nap,” the sweater he’d lent me when I was cold on night watch.
When Eivind finally came in, I had lined one of my backpacks with a bin liner and tried to shove my dirty clothes in. The backpack was mostly zipped, but I shoved a finger in and wriggled, trying to make room for one last pair of undies.
He looked around at the mayhem for a few moments while I tried to ignore him. Sweeping some of his clothes aside, he sat down on the edge of the bed next to me.
“You do not have to go, you know.”
I let his words hang for a moment. “Well, it seems like I’m not a good enough sailor to be here.” I hated the way my voice came out, petty and hurt.
“What? Wait, Lila. No, that is not true.”
“It is true. I’m not a sailor, and I’ve just been a liability and an added stress. Look, Eivind, this was the deal, right? I stay to sail across the Pacific, I get my adventure in, and I move on. Mission accomplished.”
“We did not really mean it. The last few days have been stressful, and everyone is tired.”
“What, you think Jonas didn’t mean it when he said he wanted things back to normal?”
Eivind winced. “He is just—”
“Don’t say he’s stressed, Eivind!” I threw up my hands. “This is his boat, he’s the captain. We’re all tired. I’m tired of being here.” I went back to work trying to close the zipper of my backpack.
“It was not just stress. He was just agreeing with Elayna. Things have been hard enough with her as it is.”
“I just don’t understand that. I really like you, Eivind, and I think you really like me. I don’t understand their relationship, but they aren’t even together. So why try to make Elayna feel good while throwing me under the bus? Why sacrifice our relationship?”
“I do not know,” Eivind ground out, frustration edging his words. He ran a hand over his head and stood up to pace. I watched him for a moment, arms crossed, but he was at a loss for words.
“I think,” I said, “that you are trying so damn hard to sacrifice yourself for any tiny chance to make your brother happy. But what about you, Eivind? You put your whole life on hold to help your brother sail across oceans. What makes you happy?”
“I did not put anything on hold. I had no real job, a shitty apartment, it was no sacrifice.”
“Ah, so you needed a worthy sacrifice.”
Eivind stopped pacing and looked at me.
“And that’s me.”
His eyes widened, and he rushed toward me. “That is not true!”
I held a hand up, holding him back. “If that’s not true, then come with me. We can go backpack together. Jonas has Elayna, he can get more crew members; he can sail with them to New Zealand. It would give us a real chance.”
“We could have a real chance here on Eik.” Eivind ran a hand up my arm and, without intending to, I leaned into it. Eivind took the opportunity, and we swayed into each other.
Eivind’s arms wrapped around me, solid and warm. But I could feel the strain, the weight of sadness pressing down on him. I gripped him hard, pressing my face into his chest.
He inhaled, deep and shaky. “I want you here with me.” His voice broke, and we held each other tight.
When I finally pulled back, we were both sniffling.
“Take me to shore?” I asked quietly.
He nodded.
Thirty-Seven
The crew said goodbye to me at the dock, and we all exchanged contact information. The agent had arranged a car to take me to a local hostel. Jonas and Elayna pulled me aside before Eivind said goodbye.
“Eivind told me you heard our conversation,” Jonas said. “We just wanted to say we are so sorry for suggesting you were not good enough. You were really great.”
I smiled weakly. “For someone who doesn’t know how to sail, right?”
Elayna grimaced and looked down.
Jonas leaned in. “Do not break up with him because I said something I should not have said. I mean it, Lila. You should stay.”
I looked away, and after a beat, Eivind moved i
n to hug me goodbye. We embraced, and I inhaled deeply, taking in those scents of lemon and sunshine, hoping to imprint them on my memory. Eivind gripped the back of my head before I could pull away, planting kisses on my hair, my forehead, and down my face. He allowed himself one press to my lips then took a step back. I pulled away quickly and climbed into the car before I could change my mind.
At my hostel, I immediately crawled onto my bunk bed in the dorms. The bed was rickety and narrow, even compared to Eik’s crew bunks, where I’d only spent one night. It was too early to expect anyone to allow me a moment’s quiet: the doors constantly opened, conversations carried on around me, and something reeked horribly from the far corner of the room. Perhaps I’d just gotten used to the fresh air and sea breeze.
After a few hours of that, bone-weary but unable to ignore the stimulation around me, I got up and trudged into the common area. I turned my phone on and connected to the free Wi-Fi.
A chorus of chirps demanded my attention as a series of messages from my mother arrived.
Did you leave the boat okay?
Was your flight today?
Are you in Tahiti?
Lila?
Lila, I just emailed with Jonas. He said you got to the hostel okay. Where are you?
And one from Marcella.
Hi. We miss you already. Have a good flight.
I tapped over to my mum’s messages and her increasing panic. I sighed and tapped the phone icon.
She answered on the first ring. “Please tell me you are off that godforsaken boat.”
I burst into tears.
My mum, God bless her, cooed into the phone while I scrambled to collect myself again.
“Your father’s here. I’m putting you on speakerphone.” The phone emitted some muffled noises while Mum figured out the app. She said to my father, “Lila’s upset.”
Dad’s voice came on the line. “I told that young man I’d cut his balls off.”
