Maiden Voyage (40 page)

In town, rickety old cars, buses, Bedouins on camels and carts pulled by braying donkeys kicked up clouds of dust on the dry streets, with groups of men smoking molasses-dipped tobacco in their hookahs on every corner. Astride donkeys and camels, men from different caravan tribes loped into town to provision, just as we were doing, before heading back into the desert.

Blocks and blocks were lined with old men in front of foot-pump sewing machines who created caftans and vests, with scraps of material blowing in the wind. The scent of henna, which is used to dye the hair and skin, overpowered everything, even the market overflowing with spices, oranges, grapefruits, nuts and vegetables. Without enough money to buy the universal Tang, Olivier and I bought two pounds of the cheaper fragrant rose tea.

In the livestock section, beheaded sheep, cows and chickens hung from meat hooks, blood draining from every orifice, while the live ones milled around in panic. The piece of meat you received depended on the time of day you arrived. As orders were placed, first the hordes of flies were waved away from the hanging carcass, then a piece was hacked off with a blunt ax. Observing these conditions, we weren't inclined to feast on rare steaks. Rather, we boiled the meat up thoroughly into soups and stews.

Olivier and I visited the ancient port ruins of Suakin, 30 miles
down the coast, to see the remains of a stone-and-mortar desert village, abandoned and fallen to bleached rubble. Caravans used to stop at the busy waypoint of Suakin, bringing their wares to trade with ships bound for India; it was the last point in the Red Sea where seasonal south winds existed so the ships continued no farther, unequipped as they were to beat against the blasting headwinds to the north. Today, with the development of Port Sudan, Suakin was deserted and crumbling, and as we explored its alleyways, we imagined how lively it must have been in the times of the caravan.

The unexpectedly exciting part of the excursion came when we had to take the bus back to Port Sudan. A group of people stood waiting in the main square, and as the transport made itself visible in the horizon, they took their positions like runners at the mark. When the bus came to a stop, bodies flew in through the windows and door, everyone scrambling for a spot. It took Olivier and me several buses to get the hang of things, until, luckily, one stopped right in front of us and we were in, helping the other bodies through the windows when the door jammed up.

In general, the Sudanese were a kind and proud race. Although the country was poverty-stricken and in billions of dollars of international debt, beggars were virtually nonexistent. Instead, people would stop us in the streets just to smile and practice their English, saying, “Strong, strong,” when they learned that I sailed alone.

One day in town, Olivier and I were hailed by a shoeshine boy sitting in the shade of a tree and surrounded by cronies who watched him shine the occasional shoe. A few instantly got up and offered me their chairs. In sign language, we talked and laughed with these young guys, and one ran out to buy us some Coca-Cola, while the shoeshine chief pointed at my leather flip-flops, insisting on waxing and polishing the half-inch strap while the others taught us how to say “thank you” and “you're welcome” in Arabic. When we were ready to go, I tried to offer some money to the leader; he furiously refused, shook our hands and waved us on. I couldn't believe it. These people were dirt poor, yet they had bought us drinks, performed a service and, even so, wouldn't accept payment.

“Shukran,”
I thanked him with my new word.

“Afuan,”
he replied in welcome.

•   •   •

Penny
and
Annatria
had arrived on our fourth morning, and later on, with Bernard, we set to fixing the engine. Throwing it overboard and replacing it with an outboard was out of the question in Port
Sudan, a city in which it was a challenge to find even a roll of toilet paper. Also, the new starter problem ended up being minor; the only cable that hadn't been changed in Djibouti had a rusty connection and needed cleaning. We made several tours of the harbor to check out the stuffing box and it remained in its place. The epoxy that we had used in Dijibouti had done its job well and
Varuna
once again had a working engine. Then Olivier climbed the mast to check the lights and found several strands on the forestay broken; we replaced the stay with a spare and stowed the frayed one as a reserve. He also fortified
Akka's
rigging and spreaders to prepare for the ferocious winds, while I borrowed
Penny's
sewing machine and patched up our sails with old scraps of sailcloth.

By now, we were well into the month of April and the clock was ticking. I was supposed to be back in New York within six months, before the winter season could begin to roil the North Atlantic. Ever since Australia, as a result of the occupational hazards of contrary winds and calms, engine problems and days often lost to my own reluctance to head back out to sea again, I had fallen further and further behind schedule. I had made a commitment to my father to do this trip in a certain amount of time and was determined to see it through as we had planned and get on with my own life. But now, over every move and every decision as Olivier and I prepared for the unpleasant trip up the Red Sea to Egypt, hung the omnipresent worry that time was quickly running out.

After one week in the Sudan, Alexio was finally ready and set out, followed by
Christine
with Henry aboard as part of their crew, and then
Penny
and
Annatria
, leaving
Akka
and
Varuna
as the last stragglers. Just as Olivier and I were finally ready to go also, the fearful winds piped up to a 40-knot sandstorm, screaming like a banshee and covering the town, the boats and rigging in a fine yellow dust. When the winds finally diminished to a more reasonable 15 knots, we motored out of the harbor the 14 miles to the cleaner water of Sanganeb Reeb and anchored to clean the boats and scrub the scummy keels.

The next morning, the wind howled again at 35 knots, dragging the boats and holding us at anchor for six more days. We twiddled our thumbs as the whining wind grated on our nerves, and anticipated a wonderful trip north if this was any indication of weather to come. Beating is already a dirty word in the sailing world, let alone beating into such heavy winds as these, accompanied by steep waves stacked one on top of the other.

On April 30, the wind eased to 20 knots, and we sailed off making
40 miles in the right direction during the first twenty-four-hour period. The second evening's sky was laced with racing mare's tails, and Olivier pointed up drearily and called over that they usually forecast heavy winds. Sure enough, dawn revealed a frothy sea, kicked up by the cantankerous winds we had been dreading.

Maelstrom or none, I put up the tiny storm jib Olivier had given me in Djibouti, and with triple-reefed mainsails,
Varuna
and
Akka
began to beat painfully into the teeth of a monster. Day in and day out for two weeks, always keeping an open eye for the laboring tankers and cargo carriers, we slowly tacked our way up through the beastly chop, inching past Jedda, Saudi Arabia, sometimes with exasperating advances of only 10 miles a day in the right direction. The wind was either strong or very strong and, from time to time, depending on the velocity, I would have to take out the third reef for the second or vice versa, in the process ripping the sail to shreds.

As it stood, the entire main was in such a sorry state that holes were easily made whenever I exerted too much pressure on it with my finger. Holding onto the pitching deck, with scissors, spare cloth and rubber cement underfoot, and thread and needle in my mouth, I spent half my time quilting the main back together, while getting drenched by every other wave. After all the patching, I discovered that sewing only made the situation worse, giving the sail an invitation to tear along the dotted lines. As I continued to patch over the patches, I desperately hoped that my father had received my last letter from the Sudan in time to arrange for a new sail to be waiting in Suez.

Cooking regularly was out of the question;
Varuna
was heeled over so far that more time would have been spent wiping the spilled meals up from the floor than actually eating. When I felt too weak to continue, I'd boil some rice, tuna and tomato paste and share it with Tarzoon. In the early mornings, I'd curl up on my damp bed, aching for some peaceful sleep, as
Varuna
lurched and thumped into brick walls of water. On deck, the spray was blinding as it flew off the crests of steep swells, mixing with the raging winds filled with sand. Sometimes visibility was good and other times, with landbound dust storms, the horizon was a burnt-yellow hue. We tacked east and west, coast to coast, through the north and southbound ships and, every so often, there would be the harrowing near miss. As the smokestacks paraded by, I saw the Russian Hammer and Sickle, the Japanese Rising Sun, and the red, gold and green colors of the African countries that we were passing to port and Arabia to starboard.

Whenever my anxieties and frustrations reached a climax, I
would unleash all my pent-up venom onto the Red Sea. My gratification was almost indescribable after I had spit a hysterically vulgar screaming fit at the bastard. It brooded and growled back while I stomped around in the cockpit, ranting and cursing at everything I hated about the trip. From his corner on the bunk below, Tarzoon watched with philosophical amusement, and finally it got to the point where I too began to enjoy the outbursts. After I'd lost control, I would relax completely and cuddle up with my buddy until the aggravation accumulated all over again when the sea reached a new threshold of malevolence.

As the crow flies, it was 250 miles from Sanganeb Reef to Ras Banas, our first planned anchorage in the territorial waters of Egypt. After two weeks, with our zigzag course of tacking into the wind,
Varuna
must have covered 1,000, and finally I awoke one morning to see the island marking the way to our haven. As we approached the anchorage, we watched the wind die down to a flat calm, which ironically was how it was to remain for our two days of rest.

Akka
and
Varuna
arrived in company with another familiar boat, the
Broad
from Sri Lanka, and Olivier and I eagerly tied our two boats together and jumped into the dinghy to go and say hello. After the abominations of the trip, it was a godsend to see old friends again, especially Dean and Faye, who were easygoing and had a cheerful sense of humor. Dean, an American in his early sixties, and his Australian ladyfriend, Faye, had just arrived from Jedda, and we all bewailed our adventures since forsaking the tranquil Indian Ocean.

Olivier and I remembered Dean telling us about his November romance with Faye when we had gone with Don Windsor and his son to meet my father three and a half months before in Sri Lanka. Dean had sailed the
Broad
to Australia with friends and family, and Brisbane was where he met Faye, who was about the same age as he and worked as a waitress at a local restaurant. He invited her to sail with him into the sunset. She gave away her house plants and off they went to see the world, trailing their dinghy, the
Tender Broad
, behind them. Adopting us here in Ras Banas, Dean filled up my empty coffee jar and presented us with a real delicacy of canned smoked oysters, while Faye baked a cake and some bread, which served our stomachs well after we had been accustomed to far more basic fare for so long.

We were graciously invited for tea and dinner by some Egyptian soldiers stationed in simple barracks on the beach. Because we were forbidden from venturing inland before procuring a visa, they then
insisted on helping us provision, and one man hiked five miles to the nearest village to do the shopping for us. After all we had heard about the legal rigmaroles and difficult attitudes of the Egyptian bureaucracy, the generous soldiers of Ras Banas were a happy find. The negative reports that had filtered down from other boats had probably come from the sort of people who must have had bad experiences wherever they went.

Hurghada, situated at the southern tip of the Gulf of Suez leading to the canal, had become our mecca, and it was also where we all planned to enter Egypt officially. Bidding each other fair winds and goodbye until then, Olivier and I sailed out with the
Broad
, then separated. We pressed north to Ras Toronbi as I prayed to my mainsail, “Please, last until Suez.” In the distance, more Egyptian soldiers on camels rode slowly over the sandy plains.

During the nights, when the wind died and we began to motor, the air was always thick with moisture. It collected on the mainsail, dribbled down along the boom's groove and dripped on my head as my hands grasped the tiller and became numb with the engine's vibrations. Tarzoon hated the rumbling monster and hid under a sail on the bow, as far from the noise as possible, leaving me alone and wet in the cockpit.

As the boats hugged the coastline, I stared endlessly at the progression of spooky grayish mountains that walled in the Red Sea; they looked ominous and arid, without a single blade of grass, and made me think that they might have been what inspired the ancient Pharaohs to build the pyramids. Almost every peak resembled a monstrous triangle, and the view was awesome enough to alleviate the tension of the next couple of days while we waited for the antagonistic winds to return. Sleeping in fitfully short intervals, Olivier and I tried to keep watch for each other, but it was impossible to relax with land and its perils so close.

Finally,
Varuna
and
Akka
arrived at the coastal fishing village of Hurghada and anchored close to a nearby mosque wailing its usual litany in yet another Muslim country. That night, the cord on Olivier's dinghy snapped, and the wind carried it off along with my favorite shoes, right back down the Red Sea from whence we came.