The log for the following day contains just one word: Ironed.
I don’t mind. I need to keep busy. And with electricity and unlimited water available, after ironing everything in sight short of the sails, I throw myself into boat-cleaning, vacuuming and polishing. After the hyperactivity comes a day of exhaustion so total I barely leave my bed.
When we had approached Bonaire marina we had tied up on the reception dock, at its entrance, while we waited for a place to be found for us. However, we were told to stay where we were as there was no space available on the pontoons. There wasn’t much room on the reception dock either, as most of it was taken up by a very large, new and expensive motor yacht, with a large new dinghy and a new and expensive jet ski tied to it. There hadn’t been room to pull onto the dock without damaging the jet ski, which was a bit of a temptation but we thought better of it, and as there was a pair of legs hanging over the stern I called out the name of the yacht. The legs over the stern were pulled in and a large German lumbered upright, moved the jet ski, tied us up and then prostrated himself again.
Within a short time five much younger Germans return to the brand new motor yacht from a jaunt ashore. A trapdoor in its hull opened and a brand-new quad bike emerged and they trooped off down the quay with that. We would spend the next three nights in close proximity to them as our boats were very close, stern to stern, and their cockpit loomed over ours.
They seem to be on a business bonding trip and after their evening meal sit on their afterdeck, directly over our bed, talking and playing music – Edith Piaf and The Mamas and The Papas – until 3am and never breakfast before eleven; whilst we’ve been working since seven, quietly so as not to wake them, because in every other respect they are considerate, whimsical, oddly affectionate and despite being German never once take off their clothes in public.
Apart from their skipper, who may also have been their boss, they know nothing about boats and approach each new task in a polite, curious group, the way very young children do, or very bright people taken from their natural orbit and without enough to occupy their usually busy minds.
Although they speak English, we don’t converse as such. We save their jet ski (God help us) from damage under the concrete dock when their boss is out and they have forgotten to tie it up properly and they rush for their boathook when our bucket falls overboard. We take their lines and tie them back up when they return from a sail and they all stand along their rail in a line blinking amiably at us the way people unacquainted with sailing always do; until their boss shouts at them for not hopping ashore and tying up the boat themselves instead of keeping us out in the rain, and they all clamber over the rail together in a heap.
We emerge into our cockpit on one occasion as they are hosing down their afterdeck. They look down at us and wince. ‘Are we splashing you?’ enquires one anxiously. We emerge again later to see three of them directly above us solemnly waving a blue and gold European Union flag on a pole, probably to dry it. I don’t know why I do it: partly, perhaps, because they look so comically serious that I decide to interpret their flag-waving as a challenge; and partly because for me the large EU flag currently wafting over my head, with its circle of little gold stars on its insipid blue background represents the increasing assault on Europe’s great variety of national identities and cultures by a relentless central bureaucracy.
Whatever the reason, I go below for our red ensign, stand in our cockpit and wave it aloft in a cross between a football match and Last Night of the Proms and sing, ‘There’ll always be an England’ to them. Unfortunately for my grand gesture I only know the first two lines of this rhyming jingoism, so after exhausting them and la-la-ing the rest, I fold my flag, give a low bow, and return below to loud applause.
If their being there was a bonding session it is an unqualified success. Had they had burnt joss sticks and ohmed, or smoked enough pot to envelop our boat as well as their own, there could not have been a greater sense of harmony on that cramped reception dock.
Or maybe it is my own state of mind, for I am feeling indescribably happy. Euphoric, in fact.
The weather meanwhile has become settled and quiet. We have no need to look for protected anchorages at present and after leaving Bonaire are able to loiter in a number of beautiful bays. At San Vicente we lie between two extremes of leisure craft. Just off the beach there are little pedalos, with a chute on the front for children to slide down into the water while their parents pedal. In contrast, at the bay’s entrance the Marie Cha III rides at anchor, the transatlantic record-breaking 147-foot ketch which in October last year crossed the finish line at Lizard Point in southern England just under nine days after leaving New York.
When her RIB passes us on its way back from shore-leave its young skipper smiles and salutes us and I am touched to the heart by his gesture. When David puts on a 1960s compilation tape and the late Karen Carpenter sings the opening bars of ‘We’ve only just begun to live,’ I begin to weep for her. This is my sixth day without nicotine. So far I have passed through rage, irritability, hyperactivity, exhaustion and euphoria. I have now entered the maudlin stage.
34
Mallorca: Sóller
Our next destination is Sóller but on the way we stop for lunch at Cala de la Calobra. It is a beautiful bay with a dramatic split in its high cliff face through which a water course called Torrente de Pareis flows down from the mountains and joins the sea. It is not even a trickle at the end of July, let alone a torrent, and people are sunbathing on its pebbles; so many of them in fact, sitting shoulder to shoulder and looking resentful, that there is barely room for us to land our dinghy. When a tourist coach or ferry takes you somewhere, you have sometimes seen and done all you want or are too hot and tired to do more, long before you are collected again. One of the privileges of private transport is that when you have had enough you can leave.
From the small pebble beach we walk through the great cleft in the rock into a lagoon, although it is green sludge today. Even so, the geology of the place, and indeed the whole coastline, can only be described as spectacular, with stunning rock formations among towering cliffs.
As we resume our journey to Sóller something seems to happen to the light. As I stand on our stern and look back, harsh brown rock has softened into muted shades of blue-green and its ragged edges have melted into curves. I take three photographs. When the prints come back from the developer all the other images have normal colours and sharp outlines, but these three are ethereal. They are monochrome, the colour of jade, and harsh peaks have become sinuous lines.
The port of Sóller is in a huge circular bay surrounded by mountains, its dogleg entrance making it very sheltered. You enter this stunning harbour between two lighthouses while ahead of you is a beguiling waterfront of village shops with wooded hills behind and mountains beyond. As we anchor around 5pm, the first distinctive sound we hear is Poop! from an Edwardian tram sparking its way across the front. It is brown and orange, with three open-sided carriages, and it runs two miles uphill from the port’s delightfully old-fashioned village to the old rural town of Sóller, which was built well inland from the port as a defence against pirates. We take a trip there next day.
The two-mile tram journey takes 20 minutes, through orange and lemon groves, smallholdings and allotments; alongside dry river beds; past people’s patios with terracotta pots of Busy Lizzy, wrought iron chairs and tables and green wooden window shutters; gardens of dahlias and roses; runner beans; lime trees and bamboo.
Where it poops its way into the old town of Sóller it reduces the pavement to little more than a couple of feet. Then it cuts straight through the town centre and up to the narrow-gauge railway which runs between Sóller and Palma and the small station that houses its Victorian electric train.
Just before it reaches this railway station the tram rattles through the middle of the big leafy square that dominates the town’s centre. It slices between the chairs and tables of the cafes under the trees, and it is a ma
tter of fine judgment – at those tables nearest its rails – as to when and how far you extend your elbow when raising your coffee cup to your lips.
Today is our 35th wedding anniversary. We still exchange cards, but stopped buying each other presents some years ago except those things which can be eaten, drunk or arranged in a vase. To have bought each other non-consumables just meant something else to put in store or give away. Instead, we would have an outing to somewhere we had always intended to go, do some chore the other disliked doing for a month, or try to change a habit. This year I have given David something for which he has never asked, but which I know he has wanted for a long time because he wants us to spend a healthy, active old age together. I once read somewhere that nicotine can be as hard to give up as cocaine. I don’t know if this is true or not, but if it is I have gone cold turkey and, though still a bit unstable, my gift to him this year is that I have become a non-smoker.
We celebrate our anniversary by taking the Edwardian tram into Sóller and then the Victorian train to Palma. There is a slight delay in the train’s departure as our carriage has broken a spring and a large group of stocky men in blue work clothes and industrial gloves descend on it. Some become lost from view underneath it while the rest form a watching arc around the spot where they disappeared. The carriage interior is dark mahogany with brass fittings and the kind of reversible seats remembered from the trams and trolley buses of childhood, where the back of the seat swings on sturdy iron hinges depending on whether you prefer to travel with your back to the engine or not.
The journey to Palma takes an hour and crosses the Tramutana mountain range: past terraced hillsides, checkerboard olive groves, secluded farm houses and tidy fields with short-legged chairs under shady trees. A few miles out from Sóller the line curves around the hillside and you look back down onto the old town that you recently left, cradled by the mountains, its stone buildings glowing gold in the sunshine. The name Sóller comes from the Arabic word Sulliar meaning golden valley.
Now and again the train clatters into tunnels. They are short and airy and almost immediately you smack out again into bright sunshine, except for one long one which causes the carriage’s ornate ceiling lights to come on and sends a strong smell of mould from the tunnel walls rushing in through the open windows.
It is a delightful journey. At one end of the line a sleepy rural town, and at the other a bustling city, for despite its narrow streets and shady squares that is just what Palma is. We collect our mail from the poste restante section of Palma’s vast marble hall of a post office, get five rolls of photographic film developed at ruinous cost and have a celebratory lunch.
35
Mallorca: Andraitx
Our next stop is Andraitx, which somehow we only ever seem able to pronounce as Anthrax, but that may have something to do with our feelings about the poisonous nature of its fishing fleet. We try three times to set an anchor outside the harbour but it won’t bite into the rocky bottom. So we go onto the public quay. A group of Spaniards tie us up, and then we do the same for a Dutch family.
There are no lazy lines at Andraitx so you have to use a kedge anchor to hold your boat off the quay. We haven’t done this manoeuvre since the charter sailing holiday in Yugoslavia nine years ago which started all this, and never with Voyager. It involves dropping an anchor off the stern several boat lengths before your bows reach the quay, tying up the bows and then hauling on your stern anchor rope until your bows are close enough to the quay to allow you to get on and off but not close enough to make contact with concrete. And you really need three people to do it without stress. It seems a nice little place with a splendid supermarket and we have fresh salmon for dinner.
Our kedge anchor comes adrift sometime after 3am and we are woken by our starboard bow nudging the quay. We get up and I pull the anchor in while David lowers the dinghy and climbs into it. I lift the anchor into the dinghy and David rows two boat-lengths out and drops the anchor again. By the time he has returned, made sure the anchor is set, ensured that we were well off the quay, and pulled up the dinghy it is 4am. We are about to return to bed when the town’s 15-strong fishing fleet, trawler-size, roars out causing a wash you would not believe. Standing on deck looking down the row of yachts along the quay it is like watching giant piano keys during a particularly frenetic piece of music. The boats plunge and crash. The kedge anchor of one of them is pulled up and its pulpit hits the concrete dock on a downward plunge with such violence that even four boats along it makes our teeth rattle. Had David still been in our small aluminium dinghy at this moment, re-laying our own kedge anchor, I could probably have said goodbye to him, never mind our bows. We decide not to stay a second night.
After a longish period at anchor, however, we are now on our second tank of water, so before we leave we walk over to the marina to see about buying some. As we approach the pontoons a number of yachtsmen are returning from the supermarket carrying large quantities of bottled water, which is never a good sign. We ask them about the stuff that comes out of the taps here and they say to forget about it. Our next destination is Ibiza but the cruising guide warns about water quality there, too, so we decide to stop off at Palma for some.
36
Mallorca: Palma
It is a windless journey to Palma in a calm sea. The only things stirring are very large, expensive motor yachts. As well as being the last word in luxury, they also have massive engines. They are designed for speed and their speed creates a massive wash.
The fundamental difference between those who own motor yachts and those who own sailing yachts is training. You cannot simply climb onto a sailing yacht and expect to sail it. In particular, there is a skill to setting canvas in relation to wind direction and strength that has to be learned. And while you learn how to handle the boat, you will also be taught the rules of the road and your responsibilities towards other craft.
Those who buy motor yachts often don’t feel the need to take any lessons as the controls of a motor yacht are not unlike those of a car. They can simply step aboard, switch on the ignition, take the wheel and open the throttle. Before driving their car, however, they needed a license for which they had to pass a test, which included knowing which side of the road they were supposed to be driving on. Too often motor yacht and motor boat owners do not appear to know on which side of a channel they are supposed to pass another vessel, or that they are required to give way to certain types of craft under certain conditions. Their worst offences, however, relate to speed.
Some of the blame must lie with some of the manufacturers. They market their boats on their speed and the impressive amount of wash they leave in their wake, and their hulls are shaped to provide both, regardless of the threat to other boats or the erosion of waterfronts and river banks. On top of this, at slow or even moderate speeds some power boats handle so badly that they embarrass their drivers. The result is that they roar from A to B in a straight line as fast as possible while being entirely indifferent to, or even immensely proud of, the wash they create. They are at their worst when they travel in packs, and when two or more of them roar down either side of slower, smaller or lighter vessels it can sometimes be a matter of survival for those left in their wake.
The earlier part of our journey to Palma is blighted by power boats. Despite weighing 11 tons Voyager is not immune from their wash and is bounced like a cork in a barrel when two boats, travelling in tandem, roar down either side of us. David instinctively rises to rescue a coffee mug and is thrown backwards against the arm of the helmsman’s chair, scraping off a layer of skin all down his upper spine.
Happily the boats disappear at lunch time and apart from us little moves. The August afternoon is hot and windless and the few people in the small leisure boats we pass are languid and lazy. It is an afternoon to simply drift, and those we pass are doing just that. One small yacht is wallowing with its sail up, but it can only be for the shade. Another yachtsman is in the water cooling off, while his dog sits patiently
in their dinghy, watching him. People lie on their backs in day boats under umbrellas with their feet hanging over the sides, and small children dangle fishing lines. We already have all the hatches open but it is so hot in the cockpit we open the two front windows to create an artificial breeze. It is very pleasant.
We have just entered the Bay of Palma when, out of nowhere, a very large new motor yacht roars straight at us, its black fenders bouncing along its gleaming white sides. Its speed alone would have been bad enough, but it passes so close to us that we catch its wash at its very worst. As David grips the wheel to steady Voyager against the onslaught I see the man on the motor yacht’s flying bridge turn his head briefly to look down at us with vague indifference as he passes. But by then the realisation of what he has done has sent me running for the saloon to slam down hatches, grab towels and try and minimise the damage as much as I can.
The wash hits us with such tremendous force that it rises eight feet high, the biggest we have ever experienced, and sends seawater pouring in through the open bow windows and ceiling hatches into the saloon. It soaks the sofa, carpet, the coffee table, books, charts, audio tapes and the hugely expensive photographs we had had developed in Palma. Worst of all, our costly radio with its SSB facility that provides weather forecasts on shortwave and will be our only source of information during an Atlantic crossing, has caught the full force of the water.
Turtles in Our Wake Page 14
