Shooting Stars and Flying Fish: Swapping the boardroom for the seven seas

by Nancy Knudsen

  While the prospect of the pirate zone is daunting, we are a more settled team on Blackwattle. I am more confident of my ability to handle the boat alone under most circumstances, and Day 244, when we almost lost the boat, has given us a new unity and more trust in each other.

  Saturday dawns like any other dusty morning in Salalah – the mullahs are calling, the roosters crowing, the port is a hubbub of activity. But it’s not like any other morning. For six years we have consciously or unconsciously waited for this moment.

  The yachts dribble out of the port and head west for the Gulf of Aden. It will take a day and night of sailing before we get to the danger zone. Soon, contrary to the forecast, we are becalmed, and must motor to keep our rendezvous with the other boats at a prearranged waypoint.

  At night the water is like a dark mirror, with every star reflected individually. With stars above and below us, the Milky Way completes its own circle, and sails with us as well. Then there is the phosphorescence. As we throb softly through this all-around sky, the wake we make is brightly, solidly luminous – the colour of white shirts on a black-light dance floor – trailing out like a bridal train. A riffle in the water heralds the breeze creeping in, and the ocean comes alive with luminous small waves, making it difficult, if not impossible, to reliably make out ship lights as they pass. We turn on the radar.

  Constantly now we hear Coalition warships challenging every merchant vessel passing through the Gulf. The voice drones on impassively, almost like a recording:

  ‘Position latitude x longitude y, speed x knots, course y degrees, this is Coalition warship. Do you read me?’

  This repeats over and over. If the ship doesn’t answer, it gets more urgent.

  ‘Position etc etc, this is Coalition warship and we are off your starboard bow, do you read?’

  Then, ‘Position etc etc, this is Coalition warship and we are on your starboard bow. We are the vessel shining searchlights along your ship. Do you see us?’

  Eventually every vessel answers, and gives the details of its journey.

  We have three boats in sight – Destiny, Solara and Free Radical – when, at 1.30 pm, we hear a mayday from American-flagged Klondike, which is far ahead. They are being followed by two boats and are having difficulty outrunning them.

  Canadian-flagged Solara has phoned the piracy emergency numbers we’ve been given. There’s no immediate response to the mayday, and soon Klondike reports that she has outrun the chasing boats. They have been sailing alone, so drop their speed now to join our group. As evening draws in we four boats travel without lights, keeping track of each other by radar. By morning Klondike has joined us, shaken by the experience, but unharmed.

  It’s around 11 am when the helicopter arrives.

  ‘This is Coalition helicopter,’ the VHF radio booms. ‘Please state your name, boat length, number of crew, port of registry, last port of call, next port of call.’ They are looking for Klondike, who had called the mayday, but a response twelve hours after the mayday is bemusing. We don’t express our frustration, however. We have chosen to be here. We could all be back in our homes, doing safer things than transiting known pirate zones.

  Later, around 3 pm, we notice a warship in the distance. A VHF radio exchange starts up between our five yachts.

  ‘Well, it’s reassuring to see a warship around here.’

  Then, a few minutes later, ‘You know, I think she is going to come quite close – great to get a picture.’

  ‘She sure is getting close, she’s going to pass right by our convoy.’

  ‘Ooooh, she’s getting very close, we’ll definitely be able to take a photo.’

  ‘Hey, I think she is going to sail between us!’

  ‘She is – how amazing. She must have known we wanted to photograph her.’ (Giggle.) ‘Anyway, she’s slowed down, so she won’t give us a wash.’

  ‘That’s considerate.’

  She is so close we can see the crew on the decks, and we wave like maniacs.

  ‘But she’s not passing us.’

  ‘Well, what on earth is she doing now? She’s travelling at the same speed.’

  On Channel 16, we hear: ‘This is Coalition warship,’ and the captain takes our details again, just as the helicopter had. We hear no more for a while, but the warship keeps pace with us.

  Then, ‘My God, they’re putting down a rubber duckie – what are they doing, conducting exercises?’

  ‘Why would they be conducting exercises in the middle of a bunch of yachts?’

  ‘Well, look there – they’re definitely putting down a rubber duckie, right near us on this side of their ship.’

  We watch, fascinated. ‘Maybe they’re going to pay us a visit.’

  ‘Sure – coming for a cup of tea.’

  And so it happens.

  An inflatable with twelve seriously spunky Spanish sailors visits each of our boats. Three come on board, while the inflatable hovers close by. They say they will be watching us all the coming night through the danger zone. They will fly helicopters over us, they are ‘here to protect us’. To prove it, they present us with a bottle of ‘very good Spanish wine’, to ‘make us feel better’. Then they scream off to join their ship, which immediately departs at speed, leaving five very stunned boat crews behind.

  By dusk we reach the waypoint that signifies we are about to enter the danger zone, and decide to motor in chevron formation, Klondike ahead, then two and two behind, 500 metres apart. We all have radar, and will run without lights. Like migrating geese, we fly through the long, long night, diesels purring. Eyes are riveted to the radar screens, staying in formation. It’s boring, it’s not sailing and it’s not fun, but the sun rises without a whisper of trouble.

  Realisation comes slowly. We’re through, and unscathed! After talking about it for years, we’re through! We still need to be careful, and may not run lights tonight, but we’ve made it through Pirate Alley.

  Three yachts in our convoy go into Aden for fuel and a rest. Two of us, Canadian yacht Solara and Blackwattle, don’t need fuel, and we’re keen to get the next infamous hurdle – Bab el-Mandeb Strait, entry into the Red Sea – behind us.

  At night now the phosphorescence is increasing, along with the wind and wave action. Sometimes the sea is glowing white to the horizon, a million heaving glow worms dancing under the night sky.

  Soon we receive a report on the radio that a French boat, Notre Dame, has been attacked by pirates with automatic weapons and robbed of everything saleable, from computers to spectacles, cash to radar equipment. They’re heading into Aden and our colleague boats there are ready to support them.

  Solara and Blackwattle pass deftly through Bab el-Mandeb Strait into the Red Sea under bright moonlight without incident, and sail on through the heavy ship traffic at the southernmost end of the Red Sea. We’re heading for Eritrea.

  It’s different in the Red Sea. The salt haze is even thicker than it has been, the sun a bleak thing, easily watched with the naked eye. I feel as though we have entered some secret other-world. There’s seaweed in the water, big orange floating sponges, and flocks of birds – white birds, black birds, small birds, large groups floating together, elegant single birds swooping above us. The water is paler and brighter green, there are waves but no swell, and the smudges on the skyline – Yemen on one side and Djibouti on the other – are a constant reminder that we’ve left behind the great oceanic spaces. We catch a mahi mahi, big enough to give us ten fillets of fish, small enough to land it on the deck, our best since Christmas Island. We cross the shipping channel, and for a while are surrounded by great leviathans going both ways.

  We now have around 1200 nautical miles ahead of us to reach the Suez Canal. What we know about the passage is daunting: it is mostly to windward, a difficult point of sail; it is inaccurately charted and full of treacherous coral; and it p
asses through war zones. But we survived the pirate zone unscathed, so why not the Red Sea?

  7. Wild, Wild Desert and Flying Sand

  Eritrea to the Sudan

  The Eritreans fought for independence from Ethiopia for thirty years before gaining their independence in 1991. Border conflicts had begun again, however, as early as 1998, keeping the country poor, even by African standards. Eritrea had been made famous in Australia by Fred Hollows, who restored eyesight to many Eritreans with his inexpensive cataract operations, sometimes carried out while patients sat in the open air. We’d read a little of the history, but nothing prepared us for the reality.

  As we enter the port of Massawa, once known as ‘the Pearl of the Red Sea’, we stare open-mouthed, Ted on the bow, me at the wheel, at mile after mile of devastated buildings. Obviously once a graceful harbour ringed by elegant palaces, mosques and mansions, the place is now in ruins. As we sail closer we see the roofs and walls have been destroyed by ferocious bombing and are riddled with bullet holes. Villas of a bygone era with high arches covering shady verandahs lie wrecked along the shore. Crowds of large fishing dhows and steel ships lie half-submerged and rusting on the shallow harbour edges.

  The sun is scorching as we are instructed by Port Control to dock, and Ted takes the wheel. I stare in consternation at the indicated wharf, meant for supertankers. Tractor tyres line the side of the wharf, suspended perpendicular to, not parallel with, the concrete wall and nearly two metres below the top of the wall. The challenge for the crew is to leap from the yacht onto the one of the tractor tyres, then up onto the wharf, lines in hand and pull the yacht to a standstill. I think of calling, ‘All hands on deck!’ or ‘I’m off-watch now,’ but the skipper clutching the wheel is looking stern and unamused. Suggesting we swap places does not seem an option.

  My chest burns and my arms prickle . . . What if the tyres spin as I leap onto them? The answer is obvious. I’ll just spin with them into the water and be crushed to death between Blackwattle and the concrete wall. Even if I make it onto one of the tyres, can I really climb to the high concrete wharf? Our lines are long, but not for this wharf. What if they don’t reach? Trying to look cool and matter-of-fact, I line the Blackwattle’s topside with fenders – and leap.

  Well, the tyres don’t spin, and after a flurry of gangling effort I come to rest spread-eagled on the hot concrete wharf in my shorts. Looking back, I can see the tyres have spat out our small fenders and left huge black marks along the side of the boat. I scramble with the beam lines to a remote bollard, and go into squat position to hold the too-short bowline until the skipper can throw an extension. I am sweating from both nerves and the humidity, my hands are covered in tyre black and my knees and chin are gravel-rashed like a six-year-old kid, but we’re here and nothing is broken. Welcome to Eritrea!

  Formalities are conducted in the lower storey of a bombed building which has been repaired with corrugated iron and some pale blue paint. The officers are handsome and friendly, with a twinkle in their eye and an easy laugh. Young men and women in desert camouflage gear are everywhere. Compulsory army service is seven years, they tell us.

  ‘It’s very good here. You will like Massawa – everyone like Massawa,’ they tell us smilingly as we are passed from officer to officer for ‘clearing in’.

  They direct us to a large land-enclosed anchorage. The same afternoon we hear on the Red Sea Net radio ‘sched’ that Bill – single-handed Bill on Saltair, whom we met back in India and before then in Christmas Island – has been robbed of all his electronic gear by pirates and is putting into Aden. That’s the second pirate attack. There’s nothing to say, nothing to be done. We have an afternoon siesta, wake for a meal, and then sleep again. The Gulf of Aden is behind us . . . The Gulf of Aden is behind us . . . Between sleeps, it’s like the refrain of a song in my head.

  Curiosity overcomes lassitude, and we begin to explore. The people live in the remains of their bombed-out buildings, like mice among the debris. The dress they wear is half traditional, colourful African/Arab swathing, and half chic Western or jungle fatigues. Many buildings have been razed, leaving large areas of rubble and dust. Among this dereliction, the people walk with pride and patience. They meet in streetside cafes, which are little more than groups of white plastic chairs spread around on the gravel roadsides.

  We dine on the local fresh seafood, which is simply grilled and excellent but comes without garnish or vegetable of any kind. The local grocery stores are darkened, lacking electric light and refrigeration, and, except for a few mouldy lemons, there are no fresh vegetables. Other supplies are meagre, and mostly unidentifiable. Half the shelves are bare. The shopkeepers greet us hospitably, eagerly. We find some soap, and buy the lemons.

  At night we wander the streets, still warm from the unrelenting heat of the sun. We stop, like the locals, at the makeshift bars under the night sky, enjoying the bonhomie and music which defy their poor surroundings. The girls are dressed and made-up elegantly and the boys are looking their macho best. From the giggles, sly glances and rhythmic tapping to the Western music, we know there’s also romance in the warm evening air.

  Eritrea, with more important things on its mind, has no formal yacht agents. But that doesn’t mean they’re not needed. Mike is an entrepreneurial Eritrean who has set up his own informal business, caring for yachties’ needs. He is our lifeline to all things – not only fuel and water, but money-changing, laundry and general information. He invites us and another couple home for coffee. We find his family in the faded remains of a grand home, with lofty ceilings and high arched doorways, now crumbling and mildewed. They live, as if camping, with little furniture, their meagre belongings at strange odds with the cavernous spaces around them. Mike is rightly proud of his large and loving family of teenage girls, who appear and disappear while we share coffee; they are full of chatter, dressing for a party.

  As we sit, included for a while in the warm embrace of the family, and watching their dynamics – the happy ribaldry, the jokes that swing around the room – I am flooded by recurring images of Oman, so singularly lacking in humour or gaiety.

  When we leave to stroll back to the dock in the warm air of sunset, Ted is quiet.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask.

  He grins. Then there’s a long pause before he answers slowly, choosing his words. ‘Look how they live. They have nothing. But, you know, they really have everything, everything in the world that is important.’ A big statement from a former Porsche driver.

  As we wander the streets on another evening, we are attracted by the smell of roasting coffee to a big attractive woman of fifty, maybe sixty, sitting on a small timber and plaited-leather stool outside her modest stone house, knees apart, skirt hitched up, bare feet in the dust at the edge of the road. This is a common sight in the town, to see women sitting or squatting on the street outside the houses, chatting.

  Around this woman squat some locals, watching. We have happened on a coffee ceremony. She has a very small tapered saucepan with green coffee beans joggling and roasting over coals in a burner. She seems in no hurry as she converses with the watchers. With smiles she beckons us to join them, and we sit on similar tiny stools, quickly provided by her family.

  ‘How much will it cost?’ We ask this by showing our wallets. She waves the question aside regally, with a smile and toss of her chin.

  After a time she heaves her large frame to a standing position, and parades around the circle of watchers, sweeping the saucepan under our noses to enjoy the aroma. She could be a Shakespearean actor or an opera star, such is her performance. Now she produces a pestle and mortar, long and elegant, made of stone. Sinking again to her squatting position, she grinds the roasted coffee beans, chatting all the time in her native Tigrinya with members of her household, who also sit, wait, come and go, as she continues her tasks.

  In the meantime water has been heating in an engraved ceramic coffee pot, it
s shining glamour a sharp contrast to the dilapidated walls and dirt of the street. The freshly ground coffee is dunked into the hot coffee pot – never boiling, she mimes with gestures. Now she waves the pot over the coals, round and round and round. Mesmerised, we watch.

  As the coffee threatens to boil, she pours some into another pot to cool, then back again, over and over, for maybe half an hour. The resultant coffee, drunk in tiny handle-less ceramic cups, is sweet and strong, without bitterness.

  To obtain our Egyptian visas, in company with other cruisers we make a visit to the elegant city of Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, which, at 8000 feet, gives us a welcome break from the humidity of Massawa. We enjoy the rich Italianate architecture, the cappuccinos and chic black leather jackets of the locals, residue of the Mussolini era. This visit is traditional for yachts transiting the Red Sea, for Egyptian visas have a very limited duration, and must be obtained close to arrival. On return, laden with armfuls of fresh vegetables from Asmara’s markets, we find Blackwattle and the other boats are covered with fine yellow sand from some newly arrived desert wind.

  The sand fills the air, turning the sun into a silver disc no brighter than the moon. We rarely see the high plateaux towering above the coastal plain now; they are veiled like the women of Salalah. Brief rain turns the yellow sand to dark yellow mud. We hose with salt water, wash with precious fresh water, carried in jerry cans from the shore. The humidity is one hundred per cent, we sweat freely and our tap water is hot.

  ———

  One morning, while waiting for the local internet cafe to open, I pass the time with a young man who is also sheltering under the small awning, out of the heat of the sun. He is thin and bendy like a reed in the wind, and glances from side to side as he talks, as if watching for someone. He smokes, squatting on the pavement, hunching over his cigarette as though hiding a secret.