One Girl One Dream

by Dekker, Laura

  After trying to access my email from Guppy without any luck, I walk to the harbour office in the hope of finding an internet connection. Laura is still in the office and I’m able to use my own laptop to check my email. The WiFi here is perfect, even if the internet is very slow, but at least I can answer the concerned emails from my parents, grandparents and other family members and read the messages sent by friends who tell me that they miss me and want to know how I am. After this, I tackle the enormous load of entries on the guest-book page of my website. They’re great to read and it’s amazing how many people follow my blog and are supportive. This is why I’m so dependent on the internet. But there are often messages from the media and other people who seek to exploit their association with me. Luckily to a lesser degree than in the Netherlands, but it’s still annoying. When will they ever leave me alone?

  When Laura goes home, I walk back to Guppy and immediately fall asleep. It’s wonderful to sleep through the night, although I’m beginning to long for the sea again. It may, however, be a while before the hurricane season is over and I can cross the Atlantic Ocean safely, which gives me time to explore the Canary Islands.

  With the exception of the odd squall, it’s almost always calm and incredibly hot. I do my schoolwork in the mornings, go for a walk and spend the afternoons doing some chores on Guppy, or just read until the worst of the heat has passed.

  It’s market day on Wednesday and I decide to take a look. Unfortunately, it caters for the tourists and I quickly return to Guppy. Besides Laura from the harbour office, I don’t know any other people yet, but I have no problem being on my own.

  My dinner tonight will consist of mashed potatoes and green beans. Not having read the cooking instructions correctly, the mashed potatoes turn out more like soup. I chuck in the green beans for good measure and it doesn’t taste too bad. I’m often asked what it’s like cooking and eating on board. I’ve been able to cook for myself since about the age of six and, to be honest, it began with microwave meals. Dad had his own business and, however hard he tried to get home early, he was often away from home from early in the morning till late at night; which meant cooking my own breakfast and dinner.

  The 3-kilometre cycle to school was something I’d done since I was six, but only after Dad had shown me how to cross the more difficult intersections. Other parents frowned at this and we were looked upon with some disapproval. Dad didn’t like the situation at home either, and for years he worked extra hard to ensure that he was home earlier for me, but this only resulted in a burnout which forced him to give up his business. In the years that followed we had precious little to live on. After school, I’d use the scant money we had to buy some food. But I remember it as a good time, because from that moment Dad was always at home for me, and would be awaiting my return from school with a cup of tea in the shed next to the boat he was building. The shed was our home and I appreciated the fact that he was there for me, and in this way we managed to bolster one another.

  At first, I didn’t really understand what the problem was; he was often so down-hearted and angry at the slightest thing. Later he explained it all to me and apologised for his behaviour. I learnt to cope with the situation and helped where I could. In spite of all this, I managed to have a really good youth. If he had continued to work, I might have been one of those kids who only sees her parents for an hour before they go to bed. There wasn’t much money in our household, but Dad was always there for me. After a while, he did some work for the wharf where our boat was berthed. It was a great place to grow up as a kid. I could sail, build huts, climb trees and all sorts of other things.

  Now back to cooking. I could cook whole meals from the age of eight. I started with spaghetti and macaroni, and then ventured on to potatoes, vegetables and meat. I can now cook up a storm. It’s mostly common sense and easy if you follow the instructions on the packet. Not that that’s my strong point. I’ve had quite a number of ‘burning’ incidents in the kitchen I could tell you about. One of them happened on a holiday I went on with the previous Guppy in Friesland in the north of the Netherlands when I was 10. It involved making popcorn. I had the corn but didn’t realise that you needed to warm up some oil first. So I threw the corn into a dry pot, put the lid on it and went up on deck. Within minutes there were clouds of black smoke billowing from the galley. I covered my face with a towel and ran to turn off the gas. The pot was pitch black and remained that way for years. The burnt corn flew everywhere and little Guppy smelled bad for another three weeks — which was the worst part of it, but it was a good lesson for me.

  Cooking on board is much more of a challenge than it is on land. I have a cardanic gas stove with an oven. It’s suspended in such a way that it remains horizontal at all times and doesn’t follow the motion of the boat. It means that even when Guppy tilts on her side, the pots stay upright — with the macaroni inside them and not on the ceiling. Although I’m not a bad cook, I don’t enjoy cooking. When I’m in a harbour, as I am now, I can use my fridge and make elaborate meals with meat and vegetables, but to be honest I’m a little lazy when it comes to cooking. I usually make easy meals that are quick to prepare. At sea, however, I have all the time, but little variety. Under the bunks in the cabin there are dozens of tins that will keep for ages with a range of meals from chicken in satay sauce to all sorts of vegetables; bags of rice and . . . hmm . . . today, mashed potato soup!

  Sitting in the cockpit on a warm evening, I’m casually fiddling with the helm when I feel some resistance. Alarmed, I dive into the aft compartment to see if there’s anything obstructing the rudder head or whether one of the steering cables has worked loose. So far as I can see, there’s nothing wrong. I decide to check the entire compartment and all the steering cable rollers. When I have finally moved everything out of the compartment and into the cockpit, I come to the conclusion that the hitch lies elsewhere. I sleep on it for a night and then continue my search for the problem the next day. It seems as if the faulty rudder is getting worse.

  I can’t stand the fact that I can’t even locate the problem, never mind solve it. At noon, I decide to stop looking for it because I’ve promised to go to the beach with Laura from the harbour office. She fetches me and we drive past some villages and over some pretty high mountains. While we are driving, she tells me more about the island. I hear about the pirates who occupied Lanzarote centuries ago and about the volcanic eruption that created the islands in the distant past. This island has many small volcanoes, some of them still active, and I tell Laura that I’ve never seen a volcano in my life.

  ‘No? Then I will take you to see one,’ she insists.

  After a few hours on the beach and in the sea at Famara, some of Laura’s friends join us. Amongst them are a man and his daughter who is a little younger than me and speaks German. That’s not a problem; my mum is German and we always watched German television at home because it was free. The girl has a body board and I borrow it to try to surf the waves. At first it’s tricky, but I soon get the hang of it. My experienced nine-year-old instructor shouts her encouragement: ‘Yes, yes, yes, catch it now!’

  She’s been living on Lanzarote for a few years and has the advantage. When we’ve finished swimming, we join a party in the village of Famara, but the party seems to be dispersing. We hear some loud music coming from another spot in the village and follow our ears. We land up at another party and amuse ourselves watching the tipsy locals. Afterwards, we say farewell and pass a few small volcanoes on our way back to Marina Rubicon. At 19.00 I’m back on Guppy and have to face the fact that there really is something wrong with the rudder; I’d been able to forget about it for a few hours. It was going to be difficult to sail with it in this condition. I decide to phone Dad and ask his advice. He says he needs to think about it for a while and I realise that tomorrow is another day.

  How time flies. I can’t believe I left the Netherlands 27 days ago. Seriously, I haven’t missed it for a minute! I do miss my parents, sister and friends, of cour
se, but much less than I expected. I’m experiencing so much that’s new to me.

  This morning, I started with my schoolwork. I do it because I want to pass my exams, but can’t really see much fun in it otherwise. I think about all my friends who are forced to attend school every day, and this soon motivates me to complete my assigned task. I’m thankful that I can devote two to three hours a day to my schoolwork and not have to spend every day in a boring classroom. The way I’m living now is much more educational than spending a few years at school.

  Once I’ve finished my schoolwork, I start on the problem with the helm again. Sigh. It really is incredibly hot, and, after having polished off a carton of iced tea, I make my way to the aft compartment with new resolve to find the fault. I have armed myself with the tools to remove the cables from the steering quadrant. If the helm refuses to move from side to side, I really have a problem. After a while I manage to remove the cables and I crawl out of the compartment with grease-blackened hands. I say a quick prayer before testing the rudder: ‘Please God, let me be able to move the rudder with ease!’

  If this isn’t possible, it could be something in the watertight joint or the rudder head. There could be a leak in the packing and, as the rudder stock is made of steel, it may well have rusted and jammed because it hasn’t been used for a while. If this is so, Guppy will have to be hoisted out of the water. I don’t want Guppy on land, so here goes. I take the tiller in my hand and push. A little harder this time, but still no movement. Shit! Defeated, I move to the cockpit to think about what the cause could be. I eventually phone Dad and tell him the news. He isn’t happy about it either.

  ‘Well, Laura, Guppy will have to come out of the water. That means I’ll have to come over because you won’t be able to solve the problem with the tools you have on board,’ he explains.

  Thanks, I think, as if I can’t cope; but I do realise that this is a problem I’ll need some help with. The only thing I can do at the moment is try to get some movement in the rudder by squeezing in some grease. I hang on to the helm with all my weight and manage to get some play in it, but this doesn’t solve the problem, of course. Fortunately, it’s possible to get Gup hoisted out of the water here, but this is certainly not a good start to my voyage.

  Yesterday, Sylvia, who works at the harbour office with Laura, asked me if I would like to sail along with the kids from the sailing school, just for fun. Well, I wouldn’t be Laura if I didn’t jump at the chance. I had to be there at ten the next morning, so I got up at, hmm, a quarter past ten . . . fairly punctual for me. None of the five boys in the group speak a word of English; not even the instructor. So it’s a case of communicating with my hands and feet and it seems to work. I get the oldest and most neglected Laser with a worn-out sail minus battens. The others take all the best boats for themselves. Thank you, I think. They’re either worried about losing against me or think that I can’t sail. This is obviously not the case, as nobody seems surprised when I manage to get the boat safely down a slippery slope and into the metre-high swell.

  At sea, we compete in a few races, and after winning two of the six it’s clear why I’d been allocated this rotten boat, but it doesn’t worry me and I have a great time. As they say, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I recently read that since the news of my plans to sail around the world went worldwide, more kids have been joining sailing clubs. Good to know.

  When everyone has stopped sailing, I continue for a little longer. The wind picks up and I’m able to plane the Laser over the azure sea from one end of the bay to the other. When I eventually get back to shore, I’m soaked to the bone and thoroughly windswept. After a shower, I go back to Guppy to check my email. There’s one from Dad, telling me that he’ll be arriving on Thursday. I’m happy because I’m crazy about my dad; but at the same time, I’m only just getting used to living on my own and he could have stayed at home a little longer as far as I’m concerned.

  The next morning I test the rudder again and the problem is still there, so it’s really important that Dad comes over with the right tools and materials. He thinks there’s a chance we may not need to take Guppy out of the water after all. I dance for joy and tell Guppy the good news.

  ‘You don’t have to come out of the water, Guppy!’ I confide to my gently swaying home.

  After a week in Lanzarote I couldn’t have imagined how different my life would be over here. In the Netherlands I’d get up at six every day to take Spot for a walk before cycling 12 kilometres to school in the dark; sometimes in the rain and snow. Now I wake up at eight, climb out of my bunk and simply start my schoolwork. Sleeping in longer doesn’t work, though, as the heat is too intense. Temperatures reached 48 degrees Celsius this week!

  I follow a teaching roster from the Wereldschool, and the lessons I would normally get from a teacher are on paper. The schoolwork is actually the same. For chemistry and biology I need to do practical exercises and have brought along some substances and test-tubes for this purpose. I have access to teachers via the internet to answer any questions I may have, but this hasn’t been necessary so far. I’m way ahead of schedule for maths and I have my first test next week. The tests are on a CD. I could do them with my books open, which is what I used to do at school, but cribbing is no fun this way.

  Funny that I used to spend all day at school until four in the afternoon and now finish my schoolwork in two hours. It’s ten to eight in the morning and I’m busy with geography. Dad is scheduled to land in about an hour’s time. He arrives while I’m still buried in my school books. I fly into his arms. It’s so good to see him again.

  ‘Goodness, Laura, you’re so tanned!’ he exclaims and dives straight into the aft compartment to establish what the problem is with the rudder without pausing for breath.

  ‘Hey, Dad, would you like anything to eat or drink?’

  ‘Later’ is his off-hand reply. ‘Can you pass me wrench 19?’

  Back home, we’d often forget to eat when we were tinkering with my boat or Dad’s boat. Ten minutes later, we take a break, have something to drink and catch up on the news from the home front. I, in turn, tell him all about the experiences I’ve had while at sea and here on the island. After a while we get back to the work plan to get the rudder moving again. One solution is for me to start sailing non-stop, Dad jokes. And the other? Well, Dad has brought along a new grease injector. We’ll replace the old stuffing box. We seal it off with fresh packing, fit a nipple and fill it with grease but, once this is done, it looks like the new grease injector is leaking. Just our luck. We put back the old stuffing box. Now we try to squeeze as much grease as possible into the rudderstock bearings, hoping this will stop the leak and force as much of the water out as possible. While Dad works below, I’m up on deck moving the tiller from port to starboard for all I’m worth. The jammed rudder seems to be easing up a little.

  There’s a chandlery in the harbour and we go and see if they have a better grease injector in stock. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. We walk on to talk to Cecile, a Dutch woman who’s been living on the island for some time and works in the harbour, to find out if she knows where we can find a grease injector.

  ‘You’ll probably find one at the hardware store at Playa Blanca,’ she says.

  ‘Right, and where is that?’

  ‘Do you intend walking there?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ we answer.

  How else were we to get there? She answers that it’s really far and that she’ll take us there by car when she knocks off work. I actually hate walking, so I immediately accept her offer. Dad is too polite and tells her not to worry. OMG, I think. Fortunately, she insists and we agree to meet at the harbour office at six. We also meet Sylvia and a couple of others and I introduce them: ‘Hi. This is my dad.’

  It’s strange walking around with Dad when I’ve been here for a week and already know almost everyone. When we get to the hardware store at a quarter past six, it has what we are looking for, but this is not the Nether
lands and none of the kits are complete. We finally find one that contains the parts we need, and we decide that we can build one complete grease injector from two incomplete ones, but we’ll have to wait with the repairs as I have a busy social life. There’s a big Dutch motor boat tied to our jetty and we’ve been invited over for dinner. Gerda and Willem are very hospitable and the food is delicious, which means that I eat far too much. We get back to Guppy at 10 and I need a couple of hours to digest my food.

  We use the few days that Dad is on Lanzarote to complete a number of odd jobs on Guppy; such as protecting the sails where they rub against the stays and rigging with tape, as these are weak spots that tear easily. We mount some wheels on the dinghy so that I’m able to beach it easily and reduce the risk of it being swept out to sea. I also mark the anchor chain with yellow paint at 10-metre intervals. This will come in handy when I anchor offshore. When anchoring, most yachts pay out about 30 metres of chain, so that when anchored they all occupy about the same swinging room. If you let out more chain and the wind changes, then your boat will swing round over a larger area. You then run the risk of anchor chains getting tangled and, even worse, yachts colliding. If you pay out less chain, then your boat risks drifting in strong winds.

  I recover my roller blades when I tidy up the aft cabin. Skating is a lot better than walking. I skate over the boulevard to the hardware store, past the tourist shops and over the hill to a busy road. I’m no longer used to skating and soon have blisters on my feet. I so detest walking that I carry on skating regardless of the pain.

  We plunge into the pool at the marina between chores to cool off, and in the evenings walk along the beach to Playa Blanca. I don’t mind these tourist traps just once in a while, but you don’t get to see the real island that way. Exploring on your own is much more rewarding.