Seeker

by Rita Pomade

  “What if he has a weapon?” I asked. “He could have a machete.”

  Bernard shook his head. “He’s gone,” he said.

  “How?” I asked. “He’s not a phantom.”

  We kept watch for the rest of the night — just in case he was somewhere near.

  The next morning we discovered that Bernard’s camera and all his lenses were gone, as well as a small bag that he kept on the chart table that contained odds and ends. The chart table was next to the companionway leading up to the hatch, so the thief didn’t get far into the boat. He would certainly have taken more if Stefan hadn’t called out. On deck, Bernard noticed that our oars were missing.

  “He didn’t use his engine,” he said. “He rowed away. That’s why we didn’t hear anything.”

  “How could he go that fast?” I asked.

  It was still a mystery to me that there was no sound of an engine and yet, within seconds, the thief disappeared.

  Bernard and I took the dinghy to Bandar Labuan (Labuan Town) to report the theft, and were surprised to find ourselves in a spotless, modern city of high rise buildings that housed a multitude of banks, insurance companies and trust companies — all surrounded by wellmanicured greenery. In contrast to the rural landscapes we had been experiencing until now, it was obvious a lot of money flowed through this town. I knew Brunei was rich because of oil, but Labuan was in Malaysia, and I wondered what brought so many financial institutions here. We stayed only long enough to talk to the police, who told us there was nothing they could do, or would do.

  When we left the police station, Bernard told me that he had heard on our VHF radio, while we were still in the Philippines, that two weeks earlier another yacht had been robbed on the same spot where we were anchored. “It never occurred to me it could happen twice in the same place,” he said. “I should have locked the hatch.”

  “Do you know what they took?”

  “A camera and sextant.”

  “Maybe it was a pirate,” I said. “It couldn’t have been a regular fisherman. They don’t go out far enough to need a sextant.”

  Bernard didn’t answer. He never speculated. Either he knew something for sure or he didn’t know.

  In spite of the robbery, we didn’t want to leave without visiting the Sultanate of Brunei. Slowly making our way through a herd of gigantic oil tankers berthed just outside the port, we entered Brunei’s quiet harbour. Stefan placed fenders outside the yacht’s hull while I threw a rope to Bernard who had jumped ashore to tie us to the port’s cement pier. With parking done, we scrambled ashore to see what the region had to offer. The idea that we were about to enter a Sultanate conjured up images of arched windows, succulent bowls of fruit, and languid concubines reclining on brilliantly coloured brocaded pillows — romantic images I remembered from paintings I’d seen by Benjamin Constant.

  The visit killed any romanticism I had about a Sultanate. Brunei was afloat in oil and timber money, but the Sultan invested his immense wealth in odd pieces of street sculpture and chubby high rise buildings — the squat look stemming from the fact that buildings were not allowed higher than the mosque. Aside from its spacious, scrubbed clean streets, Brunei looked like a vacant, western city. The exception was the imposing and extravagant Sultan OmarAli Saifuddin Mosque crowned by a gold dome that dominated the cityscape. A number of multinational companies were housed in the low, high rise buildings, but there was no pulse of life on the street.

  Of more interest was a village near the mosque built on stilts over the water. Wooden walkways connected a hodgepodge of buildings — some shabby, some upscale with modern appliances. But from a distance, all of it looked look like a floating shantytown. Behind Brunei was a dense jungle that seemed impenetrable. The city bore no relation to the jungle behind, and gave the impression we were trapped inside a life-size architect’s model. It was hard not to think that at any moment the present mock-up would be whisked away and replaced with another. This was our first contact with a Muslim society, and I would have liked to have experienced more of the culture. But the people were distant and the setting didn’t feel authentic.

  That night we were awakened by loud scraping sounds against the hull. It meant our fenders were no longer protecting the yacht. Once again we flew out of the berths with our hearts racing. I was the last one on deck.

  “What happened?” I shouted.

  “The tide’s going down,” Bernard answered. “There’s a powerful current coming from the river, and it’s pulling the boat down. We’re starting to go under the pier. It’s going to slice off the top of the yacht like a can opener if I don’t get us out fast.”

  He raced behind the helm and started the engine in order to manoeuvre the Santa Rita into a position from where we could move out. Stefan grabbed the boat hook and was at the bow of the yacht using it to push with all his strength against the pier. A small cargo ship anchored perpendicular to us impeded our escape. It was a harrowing race against time trying to move away from the pier before going under without slamming into the other boat’s steel hull. With deft manoeuvring on Bernard’s part, and Stefan’s strength in holding the pier at bay, we managed to slip past the cargo ship.

  Earlier, we’d discussed visiting Kalimantan on the Indonesian side of the island. We were told it was difficult to get clearance, but we were going to try anyway — maybe even sneak in. “It’d be interesting.” I’d said. “The tourist book says that this rain forest is older than the Amazon, and we may even get to see some orangutans.”

  But after the low tide incident where we almost lost the yacht, coupled with the robbery, and our ongoing preoccupation with pirates, we’d had enough stress for a while. Dealing with local government officials was an unknown we didn’t feel like tackling.

  “Let’s forget Kalimantan and head straight for Singapore,” Bernard suggested.

  Stefan and I agreed. We all wanted a safer haven for a while. The incidents of the last few days had dampened our spirits.

  After five days of good sailing under a favourable wind, we passed through the Singapore Strait, dropped anchor in Changi on the eastern coast of the island, and headed over to Keppel Harbour to get our papers cleared. For months, our ports of call had been in relatively unknown, isolated places. Singapore was at the time the world’s biggest port. The frenetic activity around us felt like we’d been tossed into a film that was revved to fast-forward. I wanted to get behind the movie projector so I could slow down the reel.

  Tankers and cargo ships moved non-stop in and out of the harbour, while double-masted Bugis Phinisi ships with their graceful bodies and towering square-rigged sails glided between them. The Bugis were mesmerizing. I had never seen such beautifully handcrafted boats before. Many of these Indonesian vessels, built by the Bugis people of Sulawesi, constructed in the same manner they had been for centuries, still sailed without engines. I was later told by a fellow yachtie, anchored near us in Changi, that the Indonesians were superb sailors. Some sailed as far away as Australia without the backup of an engine. When they weren’t plying their wares in distant places, they indulged in smuggling contraband closer at home.

  The Bugis, always a sea-faring people, had a reputation for living outside the law. Fear of the “boogeyman” comes from when Bugis pirates plagued Dutch and English trading ships in the 18th century. Sailors returning to Europe told stories about the fierce Bugis that threatened their ships. It was amazing to see these ships with their swashbuckling history still being sailed. The tankers in the harbour looked like clumsy monsters next to these elegantly carved wooden vessels.

  Another yachtie in Changi, after hearing where we’d come from, related a story that took away any misgivings I had about not staying longer in Borneo.

  “There was this Norwegian fellow who’s just sailed out,” he said. “He came by way of Borneo, too. Told me his wife was coming out the hatch when a pirate shot her, blew her right off the boat into the water.”

  “Did she live?” I asked.

&n
bsp; He looked at me as though I was crazy. “She was gone.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “He had a small kid with him,” he went on. “But I don’t know the real story. Maybe he killed her and threw her overboard. He kept pressing his fingers into the kid’s shoulder while he told me what happened. Maybe he wanted the kid not to say anything.”

  “Or maybe it was a nervous thing due to living through that trauma,” I said.

  The yachtie telling the story just stared at me. He wasn’t buying my version of the shoulder kneading. I wondered if he knew what trauma was. He told the story in such a matter of fact way.

  When a dragon boat paddle that Bernard had found in Hong Kong was stolen from the dinghy, we decided it was time to leave Changi. We motored to Jurong, a harbour further along Singapore’s coast with easier access to the centre of the city. Jurong Harbour wasn’t a commercial port back then, and exactly what we wanted.

  “I can’t believe it,” I exclaimed as Jurong’s shoreline came into view. “Isn’t that the Elf Chine?”

  “You’re right,” Bernard said. “They made it after all.”

  We couldn’t wait to drop anchor and pay them a visit. This was the junk with the young French crew that we worried about when we left Hong Kong. They were supposed to follow behind us, but a typhoon hit just after we’d left, and we lost all communication with them. They never arrived in the Philippines, and no one we asked knew anything about them.

  Making contact again after so many months felt like visiting friends that we’d known forever. The bonding that takes place at sea is accelerated by common experiences and shared dangers. On shore it would have taken much longer to create this feeling of intimacy, and in most cases, it wouldn’t happen at all.

  “Where’s the dog?” Stefan asked. His question reminded me there had been one aboard when we were in Hong Kong.

  “He fell overboard,” one of the crew said. “Drowned before we could reach him.”

  It was the one sad note in a happy reunion. It reinforced for me that small children and animals do not belong aboard pleasure crafts on the high seas.

  “What happened after we left you?” Bernard asked.

  “We waited out the typhoon,” the young captain said, “and then I decided to bypass the Philippines. We were already behind schedule for our return to France.”

  Bernard turned to the doctor aboard. “Take a look at this,” he said. He showed him a small growth that had developed on his chest.

  The doctor gave it a quick perusal. “Not malignant.” he said. “When you have time, come over and I’ll take care of it.”

  Next day Bernard took the dinghy and motored over to the Elf Chine. He was back in less than an hour with a wad of white gauze taped to his chest.

  “Was it painful?” I asked.

  “It was nothing. He burned it off with a soldering iron from the junk’s toolbox.”

  “How could you let him do that?” I was grossed out and worried about infection.

  “Nothing to worry about,” he answered. “He sterilized the iron.”

  “Oh, great!”

  Many years later, Bernard discovered the Elf Chine moored along the Seine River in Paris. It had become a floating bar in its retirement. He asked but no one knew about the young crew that had dispersed on their arrival in France. He did learn, though, that the doctor suffered a collapsed lung while scuba diving in the Maldives during the junk’s return voyage.

  After the Elf Chine sailed from Singapore, the harbour was almost empty except for the Marley Coo with its crew of four Australians a short distance away, a few small fishing boats scattered about, and a tugboat nearby. We were intrigued by the tug with its German captain and small crew of Filipino sailors. The captain told us that the owner of the tug hadn’t paid them for delivery, and they had no money to live on. Every couple of days he sold another part of the boat in order to buy food. One day we watched as the crew removed the engine. Shortly after, a new owner arrived, and the crew left for home.

  One morning Bernard asked the four young sailors on the Marley Coo about the name of their yacht.

  “It’s to honour Bob Marley,” one of them said.

  That cemented a friendship. From then on the crew from the Marley Coo never passed the Santa Rita without calling out a hearty “Hi Mite.”

  “Why do they keep calling me Mike?” Bernard asked in frustration. “They know it isn’t my name.”

  “It’s mate,” I said. “You have to get used to their Australian accents.”

  The Australians told Bernard they were friends who decided to pool their money and come to Malaysia to have a boat built for them. They were now ready to sail home.

  Before they lifted anchor, they came aboard with some of their homemade saki. It was very good.

  “Easy to make,” one of them said. “Rice, sugar, raisins, yeast and water — three days to fizz and then leave it for a month.”

  The next day Bernard bought the ingredients and set up a little still on deck. He found a large plastic container and punched holes in the screw-top cover to let the fumes out. “Now, we wait,” he said.

  Fully rested, we looked forward to exploring Singapore before we moved on. I especially wanted to visit Bugis Street, after having seen the stately sailing ships in Keppel Harbour. Bugis Street was a tourist attraction in the Malay section of the island, and well worth the visit. Transvestites owned the street, and strutted and flaunted their wares in gay array. Tourists came in droves to gawk and/or sample a bit of the flesh that the transvestites were hawking. I read that the most beautiful transvestites in the world congregated here.

  I had seen them on city buses and at first thought they were incredibly beautiful women with too much make-up. They were like bright sparkles of light in the otherwise staid atmosphere of Singapore. The government has since demolished the old Bugis Street and rebirthed it with shopping malls. The name remains, but not the trade.

  In spite of the government’s aggressive efforts to homogenize Singapore, I still liked the city. Its tapestry of cultures — Chinese, Malay, Indian — lent an appealing charm that vibrated with life against the slick, no-nonsense architecture pervading the city. This intermixing of people intrigued me. Each group had its own quarters, alive with its own sounds, spice stalls, flowers, incense and food. Temples and mosques dotted the city.

  But we had arrived at the end of an era. The government was labouring intensively to make the city as uniform as possible by building non-descript apartment blocks throughout the island where its three cultures were proportionally represented. Each block was to support its own health facilities, food markets, and schools, so that each part would be an isolated, integrated whole with no personal identity. Nice colonial buildings were rapidly coming down. Newfound prosperity was transforming Singapore from an exotic blend of cultures into a sterile state.

  “What a boring place,” Bernard remarked.

  He didn’t like any of it. He found the city too clean and the laws too restrictive. There was a fine for peeing in the street, for spitting, for littering, for smoking in public places, for J-walking, and for walking away from a toilet without flushing. Possession of a pound of marijuana was punishable by death. It made him feel oppressed, but the Singaporeans didn’t seem to mind. They were a pragmatic, practical people, and less concerned with the idea of personal freedom than the West. So long as there was food and shelter, they liked the order. It probably helped that the country had the second highest standard of living in the East after Japan, and the people were proud of their progress. I felt no tension in the country. People were friendly, helpful, and good-natured.

  Food seemed to be the only sensual pleasure tolerated by the government, and even Bernard was seduced by the rich flavours and exotic combination of spices in the dishes. Each morning, we ate roti prata, an Indian egg-filled type of pancake, at a hawker stand a short dinghy ride from where we were anchored. For lunch, we often had Indian biryani, a spiced rice and meat dish, at the sam
e stand. I’ve yet to find a restaurant that makes a roti prata equal to what we ate at that makeshift place. Stefan became addicted to the biryani and still mentions it as his best memory of Singapore.

  In the evening Bernard, Stefan and I went to the larger food malls and indulged in Hainese chicken rice, Hokkien noodles, or nasi goring, a delicious Malay noodle dish covered with peanut sauce. Stefan, with a more adventurous palate than Bernard and me, sopped up the raw egg and raw fish congees, usually breakfast dishes, but he’d eat them anytime.

  The food malls were always crowded and noisy. People shuffled from stand to stand and sat wherever they could find a spot, while cooks worked at lightning speed keeping track of dozens of orders at a time. In spite of all the frenetic activity and bodies pressed against bodies, the kitchens were spotlessly clean with the cooks and servers all wearing hair nets. It was a miracle that the gradual sterilization of the city did not affect the cuisine. In contrast to the sterile, industrial look of the malls and hawker stalls, the food was richly coloured, highly spiced, and heavenly.

  Meanwhile, in the quiet seclusion of Jurong Harbour, without the threat of foul weather or roving pirates, Bernard was able to think and figure out what to do about the yacht. He’d been complaining since we started the voyage that the Santa Rita didn’t have enough speed under sail, and he wanted to solve that problem.

  “A bowsprit will do it,” he finally said.

  “What’s a bowsprit?”

  “It’s a wood pole I’ll attach to the bow of the boat. It’ll give us more sail, and we’ll go faster with more stability.”

  “While you’re looking around for material to make the bowsprit, can you think about a fridge?” I’d been asking for one since we left Hong Kong. “We’d eat a lot better.”

  To my surprise he did. The day he went out looking for stuff to construct the bowsprit, he returned with a compressor that’s used in air-conditioners. “I can use this for making a fridge,” he told me, “by attaching it to the front of the engine.”