Turtles in Our Wake

by Sandra Clayton

  As before, one dolphin swims inches in front of each bow, maintaining our boat’s exact speed. Neither of them ever appears to glance at the pointed bit of hull a whisker from its tail. Two others fan sideways, above and below each other, backwards and forwards under each hull. This is a refinement of what they did before, and it is beautifully done. But they have also added something entirely new. In the space between our hulls, directly below us, the dolphin smaller and darker than the rest maintains a constant course under water, while the dolphin larger and paler than all the others does victory rolls over it. The large pale dolphin does this continuously whilst maintaining the same forward speed as its smaller partner and, with each roll, an eye meets ours to observe our reaction. It is a display of symmetry and production values worthy of Busby Berkeley and by now we are cheering and clapping.

  When their performance ends, it does so with a proper finale. The six members of the chorus fan away under the hulls, one by one, until only star and partner remain. After one last roll they too glide away, one under each hull; first the straight man, and then the star – but only after one final, triumphant flourish.

  We will encounter dolphins many more times, in many other places, but never do we see the like of this again.

  The Balearic Islands

  32

  Menorca: Fornells

  We have a relaxed passage and a tasty lunch and arrive at Fornells at 6pm. It is always good to be anchored before dark and Fornells is the nearest safe harbour before we begin our tour of the Balearics. The harbour looks very beautiful in the early evening sunshine but instead of the little hamlet down the far end, we anchor off the village this time, it being handier for the pie shop next day.

  We rise early, do our chores and go ashore. David rows us back with me balancing a warm tuna pie and apple slices for lunch. The day is quite still and the morning very pleasant but later it becomes hot. We do nothing in the afternoon as the heat and humidity become unbearable and the decks burn your feet. The coolest place on board is the sofa with all the windows open. This kind of excessive heat and humidity, about which even the local people complain, frequently precedes unsettled weather; and so it turns out.

  We had been planning to leave tomorrow morning until we tune into Monaco Radio. The forecast is for near-gale-force winds from the north-east tonight and the bay David had planned to use for our first night’s stopover is not a good place to anchor in a north-easterly wind, let alone one near gale force. It seems sensible to remain at Fornells and, for added protection, we move across the bay late morning to be nose-in to a small inlet that will give good protection from a strong nor’-easter. There is a Dutch boat, a Spanish boat and us, and between the three of us we fill the available space.

  The wind rises around midnight, but comes from the north-west. We all swing round but are still well-protected. Half an hour later another yacht motors down our starboard side and begins anchoring virtually alongside the Spanish boat and directly in front of us. It is rude and dangerous. When the boat drags – as it must, since it is too close to us to let out sufficient chain – it will collide with our bows. On the other hand if the wind shifts, even a little, it will hit the Spanish boat.

  However, we are soon in no position to observe what will happen, since in laying his own anchor the newcomer dislodges ours and we begin to drag quite quickly onto the inlet’s rocky shore. There is a rush to switch on the engines and then raise our anchor in pitch darkness, a strong wind and a confined space. We are unable to re-anchor within the inlet as the position of the newcomer has ensured that there is now no room for us to do so safely.

  Our only option is to leave and anchor elsewhere, although it is difficult to see where we are going. The sky is heavily overcast and the night so black that a torch seems to compound the darkness rather than illuminate it. We try another inlet a few hundred yards away but it is very crowded. The anchor doesn’t bite immediately and we end up too close to the boat behind, its skipper flashing his torch at us to register his disapproval.

  Out in the main harbour it is also packed, and we spend some time motoring around in heaving water looking for a place to drop our anchor. Fornells is a popular refuge in bad weather and the forecast has brought in boats from all over looking for shelter. We decide to try the area near the village that we had left late yesterday morning. As we cross the harbour in the darkness there is a terrible howl as wind and water roar in through the heads.

  Gales are enormously stressful. It’s not just fear of damaging your boat or somebody else’s, although obviously that is part of it. It’s the noise. It scrapes at your nerve-ends. It drives you mad. The wind howls. The sea booms. Waves bang against your beam and up under your bridge deck. Water sucks and snorts in the cockpit drain-holes, rushing up when you least expect it, making you jump and soaking your feet. The wind whines relentlessly through your rigging on a single, unwavering note until you feel you would do almost anything to make it stop. At the same time, all the boat’s normal, easy rhythms vanish. Instead, you lurch and bounce so that at the very time you need to move quickly, all you can do is drag yourself slowly from handhold to handhold. Everywhere is ceaseless noise and erratic motion, as if every part of your boat is under assault. It is at its worst when you are unable to see what is happening around you, when you are enveloped in pitch darkness.

  When we arrive off the village it is not only very crowded but boats are dragging everywhere, torches are flashing and people are shouting at one another. Trying to find somewhere in this chaos is futile. Nor is finding a suitable spot elsewhere helped by the fact that a number of boats have no anchor lights showing. An anchor light is a legal requirement, but cruisers sometimes ignore the need for one in order to save battery power. So you get to what looks like an empty space only to find boats in it.

  The plan then is to try anchoring off the little hamlet down at the bottom of the bay where we had anchored during our previous visit; although inevitably that anchorage will be full, too. We are only half way there when we find that we are already in calmer water, well away from other boats and in a suitable depth for anchoring, so we decide to try our luck here.

  It is roughly half way between the harbour’s western shore and the larger of the two small islands off the eastern shore. This larger island has two lighthouses on it which act as leading lights for boats entering the harbour at night. It is an exposed position in a direct line with the harbour entrance and the opposite of everything David had tried to achieve in the way of protection for us by anchoring in the small inlet, but our anchor bites and holds superbly. Even so, with all the dragging going on around us we maintain an anchor watch and take turns sleeping. There is always an adrenaline rush until you get the boat to safety. Then tiredness overwhelms you.

  At least our watches are not boring. There is something constantly going on, accompanied by blazing torch beams, bobbing anchor lights and bad language as someone sees off an intruder and the outcast reluctantly seeks another place to drop his anchor. Gradually the sky lightens with the approach of dawn.

  It has been a bad night and most boats have had to re-anchor at least once; some of them more often. One poor man, a Scandinavian in an aluminium boat, has had his anchor drag at least eight times. By morning he looks demoralised and very tired. The wind has reached 32 knots during the night and continues into the day although it is quite pleasant sitting out in a sheltered cockpit. You can’t go ashore, of course. Wind and waves continue to roar into the bay, and in the daylight you can see that the waves are hitting the headland either side of the entrance with such force that sea spray is flying right over the top of the cliffs.

  We are a long way from the village. To try reaching it across the rollers crashing in through the heads in a small dinghy with a very small outboard engine would be madness, and we need to stay aboard anyway in case Voyager drags. So while David upends himself into an engine bay to find out why there is a small but persistent leak of sea water into it, I sit outdoors and finish
our latest newsletter home. Our position also gives an uninterrupted view up and down the whole harbour and there is much to observe.

  In the Bad Seamanship Stakes it is a tie between a French 36-foot cutter-rigged sloop and a similar-sized Austrian motor yacht which both drag their anchors up the length of the bay through dozens of anchored boats for hours. They frequently come close to colliding with other boats and constantly risk dragging up other people’s anchors with their own, not least the exhausted Scandinavian in the aluminium boat. They know they are dragging but do nothing about it. Periodically they emerge on deck, look around, yawn, scratch and go below again. The skipper of the motor yacht even comes on deck with a video camera as he travels slowly backwards. Unable to believe he can know he is dragging and do nothing about it I yell to him and signal his situation, but he simply films me waving and goes below again.

  Meanwhile the sailing dinghies come out. Despite a couple of superb manoeuvres, however, in a 31-knot wind it is effectively a mass capsize drill. They go down like nine pins, hauling themselves upright only to capsize again almost immediately. The two RIBs containing the instructors, which hurtle between them, spend much of their time above the water as they hit wave after wave at speed. Neither gets so spectacularly airborne, however, as a sailboarder just before he lands face first with an appalling crash.

  After about six hours and a distance of three-quarters of a mile, the owner of the dragging sloop finally pulls up his anchor and re-sets it. The motor yacht continues a further four hours and covers about one and a quarter miles before dragging to a stop at the far end of the bay. At the same time I can hardly believe how firmly we have sat out these testing conditions. Since settling alongside the island, Voyager has been rock solid. Can the English anchor, or what?

  On Saturday morning the wind drops, which is convenient as we run out of water washing up the breakfast things. We dinghy to the village to shop, post a birthday card and fill plastic containers with 28 litres of water at the public fountain. We also discover that it is Fiesta. The little village square is already stripped for action. There is sawdust covering the road for the horses and wooden stands have been put up around its sides.

  Menorca’s fiestas are colourful, traditional affairs encompassing parades of civic worthies, children, religious ceremonies and immaculately-attired riders on glistening horses which on command will rear up and prance on their hind legs. The horses have their manes plaited and are richly ornamented and there are usually quite a lot of them in a confined space full of people yelling, blowing whistles and strident brass horns as well as thrusting an arm at them to make them rear up onto their hind legs. A sort of horse’s Hell, really. This part is very popular. Its genesis, like that of the fiesta itself, is thought to originate in the Middle Ages. Its purpose seems to be to show what stupendous control the rider has in keeping a highly-strung animal up on its hind legs long enough for the drunken reveller lying under its front hooves to be dragged to safety by his friends.

  We take our shopping and water back to the boat and return in the evening. By then, the pie shop window has been converted to a Jug and Bottle, and one of the wooden stands is occupied by the most vibrant, irresistible band we have ever heard. Its Latin rhythms are conducted by a young dynamo using a whistle and a smoking fog horn which even set David shimmying, which takes a lot. The younger and more adventurous dance fully clothed into the sea.

  Observing people in a confined space repeatedly goading excitable stallions to rear up in front of them, you wonder if it might have been a form of medieval population control. Another possible form takes place after the band departs, when adolescents dive headfirst off the wooden stand and expect somebody on the ground to catch them. The ambulance sirens are still going at 4am.

  Before leaving the boat I’d smoked the last of my cigarettes. I’d tried to buy more in the village but none of the bars appeared to sell them. The barmen had looked irritated and one actually waved me away, as if I was trying to scrounge a smoke, not buy some. I didn’t mind. There are times in every addiction when, notwithstanding some painful effort on your part, escape is possible. Being distanced from its source helps and I returned to the boat empty-handed.

  When David hauls up the anchor next morning we discover why we have sat out gale-force winds so firmly. The anchor is very difficult to lift and, after a lot of heaving and straining, it finally breaks the surface with a thick black cable tangled in it. We have spent the last two days hooked onto the electricity cable (not marked on our charts) supplying the island’s two lighthouses.

  We have a windless motor from Fornells, along Menorca’s north coast. We are low on fuel as well as out of water so we head for Cuitadella’s fuel dock. It is Sunday and we arrive at lunchtime, too late to catch the fuel dock before it closed for the day at 1pm. We go and anchor nearby until it opens again on Monday morning. Despite the fact that arriving places at lunchtime has been a feature of life with David, this particular occasion enrages me. I am furious. My fury is out of all proportion to anything short of a major act of betrayal. It is more appropriate to soap opera: a character’s discovery of a partner’s adultery with a best friend, for instance, or arriving home to find the house trashed by a teenager’s party. David stares at me horrified. I am in my first day of nicotine withdrawal.

  Next morning when we return to the fuel dock we discover that it doesn’t do water. This makes me extremely irritable and I tell David that I’m not going to be able to cope with this sort of life after all. Getting the basics takes all your time, I complain. And there’s the heat. I had been looking forward to a bit of dry warmth, I grumble, not being cooked alive. I perspire all the time. And my hair is going mouldy. I’ve had enough, I say. Enough! I want to go home, only you’ve bloody sold it! My head is throbbing and my whole body aches. This is Day Two of nicotine withdrawal.

  33

  Mallorca: Bonaire

  Once we have left Cuitadella’s sheltered harbour we can see our next destination: Mallorca. Our first stop there is Puerto de Bonaire in a stunningly beautiful bay surrounded by mountain ranges and forests sloping down to the sea. To be truthful, we’d have come here even if it had been surrounded by spoil tips because the cruising guide says Bonaire’s marina has two washing machines.

  When I had bemoaned the dearth of launderettes in Spain to a friend at home during the winter, she had looked aghast. ‘I thought you’d spend your time naked like Rosie Swales,’ she’d said, her illusion of our unfettered life at sea severely impaired. Unfortunately, one tends to draw a bit of a crowd trawling the cheese counter at the local Spar in the buff. And even the most modestly-priced restaurant has a minimum dress code. There is also sunburn to contend with.

  It really does grow, laundry. Add to basic clothing the boat’s entire stock of towels and bedding and full bin liners start to encroach on your living space. And we have let it go a bit. In fact, another week and we really shall have to go native. It is all sorted and bagged, however. All it needs is the appropriate sound effects: the soft click of a little round glass door closing, and the clunk of a coin dropping into a metal box.

  We arrive at Bonaire marina around 6pm. It is an attractive place, but the high concrete sea wall behind which it shelters seems to have absorbed the day’s heat and be hurling it back out again. It is hot.

  ‘How many nights do you want to stay?’ the manager asks.

  ‘Are the washing machines working?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says.

  ‘Three nights, then.’

  ‘You have a lot of laundry?’

  ‘Yes. Could we have the key now, please?’

  The manager is a heavy-set man with jet black hair and a thick moustache. He wears official-looking khaki and has large, dark mournful eyes that suggest they have seen everything life has to offer. His heavy black eyebrows lift slightly. ‘All night?’ he says.

  ‘No,’ I reply, ‘but I’d like to start at dawn and you won’t be here then.’ He continues to stare up at me from his
chair and I add by way of encouragement, ‘The heat’s getting to me.’

  ‘The heat’s getting to all of us,’ he corrects sombrely, his eyelids drooping with exhaustion. But he hands me the key.

  The little room containing the two precious machines is at one extreme of the marina and our boat is at the other, so next morning my bicycle is invaluable. Unfortunately, heavy bags on both handlebars acquire a momentum of their own. Swinging haphazardly, they cause the front wheel to follow suit and I zigzag drunkenly back and forth across the marina. At one stage I narrowly avoid hurtling down the boat-lifting ramp and into the harbour.

  David, meanwhile, is using his bicycle to scour the chandleries of the neighbouring town. At Fornells he had finally traced the seawater leak in our port engine bay to a hole in the silencer on the engine’s exhaust, which discharges diesel fumes and the water used to cool the engine. Now he is trying to find a replacement exhaust box.

  I do seven washing machine loads. It takes from 7am until 3pm because they are elderly machines, small and very slow. Over an hour is also wasted when the one on the right refuses to open after its first load is finished and I have to wait until a marina attendant arrives for work at nine. Wordlessly he goes into a shed, emerges with a screwdriver, follows me into the laundry, rams the screwdriver in between the machine’s door and its rim, levers the door open and departs. On my next trip I take along my own screwdriver.

  And then it rains. This is the first rain we have seen in seven weeks. It is also the first time in two and a half months that I have had access to a washing machine. The rain is torrential and brings down with it all the airborne soil that the wind has carried up into the atmosphere over many weeks from all those arid, red-brown hills, so that when the rain lands it is red-brown too. I just keep going. The rain will stop sometime but tomorrow the machines might be out of order, the electricity might fail, or Annie from Humberside – that scourge of Alicante marina’s launderette – might arrive with a dozen bags. The rain does stop after 24 hours, although damp washing kept in plastic bin liners, even for a day, smells horrible. Once out of its bags there is so much of it that there is barely room to hang it all out in one go, even using the outhauls as well as all the rails and slinging washing lines between the fore and back stays. Voyager looks like a slum tenement.