The Triangle and The Mountain: A Bermuda Triangle Adventure (21 page)

He speed dialled again.

“Magda, twenty two just rolled on the R357 close to Gert’s
farm. Alert the traffic police. The crew is ok. They can send an ambulance as
long as I don’t have to pay for it. I do, however, need you to get a vet there
to check the cattle. We will need a report for the insurance. Let me know when
he is leaving.”

“Second one in a month,” commented old man Malan.

“Yes, second one. Last one was four weeks ago. At this rate
nobody will want to insure me anymore. We already pay incredible premiums. Damn
roads.”

“You haven’t started paying VAT again?”

“No, Dad. I refuse to. I will not pay VAT, if I can get away
with it, until these roads have been fixed! One way or another they will pay
for my damages.”

Phone to the ear, he retraced his steps back to the office
where his double cab pick-up was parked.

***

Five years later, at age sixty five, Braam Malan put his
business in the market. He just could not take any more, he said. Malan senior
had passed away and there still was no heir from his unmarried daughters.

“We’ll split the proceeds of sale of the business in three,”
he announced to his offspring, “and then you are on your own.”

As for himself, he and his wife packed their most treasured
belongings and moved to the coast. They bought a house twenty minutes away from
False Bay’s fishing waters. Being well-off, they settled in a suburb that spoke
of money, one with big houses, big lawns and a wonderful vista over the sea and
far-off Table Mountain. Their elevation was provided by the slopes of the
Kamberg.

***

Grant woke up in confusion. He had no idea where he was
until he sensed the lee cloth at his back. He was on a yacht. He was sure it
was his own but something felt strange. He looked up at the skylight and saw
semi-darkness. Then he figured out what was strange. There was pressure on his
feet. He slept with his feet facing forward. He had reasoned that this was the
right way, because if, heaven forbid, there was a collision on the high seas,
his feet would take the shock instead of his head. Now his feet took steady
pressure from the bottom of the bunk. How was this possible? They yacht must be
pointing straight downwards!

Another thing that was very strange, was the noise. It was a
kind of boom, but unlike anything he had heard before. An engine? No. A jet
engine, perhaps. That was the instant in which he knew. The storm! It had caught
up with them.

He did not bother with a shirt but clambered aft, up the
sloping passage that slanted heavily to port at the same time, using both hands
and feet. The steps to the companionway were almost vertical but he used the
handgrips and came through. Madeleine was at the wheel in the doghouse but on
the other side of the Acrylic behind her towered a mountainous sea. Grant knew
at once that he had not seen anything like it before. It was approaching,
threatening to engulf them.

The rigging made an overpowering, unearthly, screaming noise
that he had not heard before either. Not this loud. His attention, however, was
on the wave. Even over the inferno from above he could hear it make swallowing
noises as it approached. The wake of the boat led diagonally across it, upwards,
to the point where it disappeared in a loose jumble of tumbling white water
that rolled down the crest of the wave toward them. There were tons of it. He
whipped around and looked in the direction in which they were sailing,
following the line of the boat to the bow. His blood froze.

There was no horizon, only green water. The yacht was boring
deep into the valley between the monster at their back and the wave in front.
He looked straight into the heart of the ocean! It was utterly scary.

With a Herculean effort he wrenched his eyes from the
mesmerising sight and looked up at the sails. The first thing that he realised
was that the breakers had popped on all the sails. Three sails were up and they
were pressed flat to the port side, leeches flailing incredibly fast in their
efforts to spill the tempest.

And tempest it was. Beyond the crest of the wave in front of
them the sea was pitted as the wind impacted on the surface.

Further out sea and sky melded into a single slate grey entity.
 Above them the clouds were black and in motion. Madly writhing shapes shot
over their heads at incredible speed.  Electrical discharges flickered in the
dark clouds but over the howling in the rigging he could not hear any thunder.

He wondered what time it was and how long he had slept,
because it was dark, as in an hour before sunrise, although it should have been
much later.

He made all these observations in the space it takes to
breathe in sharply and to hold it in shock or surprise. He breathed out with a
shout.

“We are going to pitch-pole!” He grabbed the wheel from
Madeleine.

Madeleine did not release.

“Leave it! I know what I’m doing,” she shouted back.

“Let go! Now!” roared Grant. “The mate of the monster of
last night has caught up with us. I need to handle this.”

Sensing that he was not going to relent, Madeleine lifted
her hands and the boat was his to command. Instinctively, he sought out that
fine line between being overwhelmed by the steep wall behind them and getting
stuck in the wave in front.

“Go below!” he shouted. “We might not be able to manage
this.”

“We can do it!” shouted Madeleine. “There are many that
passed through already. I managed them all.”

“What?!”

“I managed them all. You have to let me steer so you can take
the sails down. We are going too fast!” She put a hand back on the wheel.

“I don’t know if I can let you.”

“I’ve been doing it. I can surf.”

“So can I!”

“I’ve surfed waves as big as this.”

“So have I. Camps Bay, Cape Town.”

“I’ve won many surfing competitions in Bermuda. What have
you
won?”

“What have I won? Ask casino managers in half the countries
on the planet. Some won’t even let me in anymore.” It was absolutely not the
place to talk about casinos but then he was still trying to get a grip on what
was going on. A lot was happening at the same time.

The monster roared behind them as it closed in. Grant
swivelled around and back again. Madeleine had a point. He could not do
everything himself. Besides, this was not the place to argue. He composed
himself as best as he could.

“OK, I have no choice. Let me just finish this ride and then
you can take over. Look at the speed! We are doing twenty knots! Where is your
safety harness?”

“I had no time. It all came so suddenly.”

“You should have called me immediately!”

“I could not leave here. The wind and the waves came at the
same time. It surprised me.”

“I’ll give you the wheel once you have your harness on.
Whoa, how long was this? Half a minute?” he shouted as the mountainous wave at
last passed under them and they slipped back into a gully behind it.

“My longest surf so far this morning was fifty five
seconds,” said Madeleine, who was finishing off the straps of her harness. It
was a hectic morning. She had a rude awakening. The first big wave that hit
them almost rolled the boat and washed her out of the cockpit at the same time.
There was no time to think, only to act. She rode the second wave from the open-ended
cockpit and then scrambled for the wheel in the doghouse, throwing the hatch
shut behind her.

“Clip yourself in right here by the wheel,” said Grant. “You
are in danger of falling into the saloon. Use the short tether. Do you see
those eyes in the floor? That is what they are there for.”

“I did not know,” said Madeleine as she took over the wheel
again.

“Yes, they are not there for you to stump you toes on,” he
said. Having mastered the wave he was all bravado on the outside. It was a
mixed emotion, because inside he was still shaking, mainly from looking into
the deep of the ocean a minute before.

The sails had to come down. The sails with roller furling were
first. Working from the cockpit he started with the mizzen. Contrary to his
grim expectation it rolled up completely. The headsail also responded as
required. He trimmed the sail to a quarter of its size. He guessed that he
needed it to lift up the bows, so he did not take it all in. The big challenge,
he sensed, was getting the mainsail down. No roller furling there.

Having loosened it from its cleat, he paid out the main
halyard. The mainsail it did not drop a millimetre. The horizontal force of the
wind simply prevented it from coming down. What now? If plan A did not work,
try plan B. What was plan B? He quickly tried to make a run for the main mast.
As he stepped outside the cockpit the wind took his feet from under him and he
ended up on the lifelines. He knew that he was just lucky. If his feet had not
buckled and he went over the lines he would have been lost. Madeleine watched
with big eyes but he suspected she had enough sense not to have tried to turn
the boat around, should he have gone overboard. Any attempt at turning in these
conditions would mean broaching to and rolling, as sure as night followed day. It
felt as if the wind was skinning his skull. In an instant he understood why
seafarers wore beards. Looking into the wind was simply impossible. He clipped
the tether onto the handrails on the side of the coach house. By clipping,
reaching and unclipping a few times he reached the mast.

He tilted his head up to see. It was quite clear what the
problem was. The big sail got snagged in the spreaders and the shrouds. He had
to straighten it. He knew, however, that it would take wind, instead of
spilling it, the moment he attempted that. They were going to speed up as a
result, which could be just the edge they needed to pitch-pole. Was there a
plan C?

The stern lifted as the next big wave overtook them from
behind. How fast did these waves move? He estimated thirty knots. He kneeled at
the main mast, not looking back, not wanting Madeleine to see the fear in his
eyes. Neither did he look over the bow into the deep again but kept his eyes on
the deck until the wave had passed. What to do? They were surviving on a
knife’s edge. Every surfer knew that no matter how good you were, it was only a
matter of time before some anomaly of nature dunked you. It was part of the
challenge. The difference was that a surfer came up again, unharmed in his or
her wetsuit and looked for the next one. He was not so sure that they were
going to get up again in his boat after going down head first. And if they did,
not without a mast or two and probably a few other things as well.

Step by step he fought his way back to the doghouse. “The
sail is stuck,” he shouted. “How is the speed?”

“We are not much slower,” said Madeleine.

“I need to pull the mainsail back to get it down,” said Grant.
“It will speed up the boat quite a bit.”

“What can we do?” asked Madeleine.

“Pray for a miracle,” said Grant.

Just then there was a lull in the wind. Quickly, Grant slipped
out, fed the mainsheet into a motorised winch and tightened it. A minute later
the whole sail dropped down through the Lazy Jacks.  He tied it down and made
his way to the main hatch. Once inside he ran down the companionway, found
their stash of heavy weather sails and came back with a storm jib.

He set the storm jib on an inner stay and furled the
foresail. Grant was totally flabbergasted by the fact that none of his sails
were torn. He had heard so many stories of shreds flying from the main mast or
the forestay. Sail materials are just getting better and better, he reckoned. Paying
a premium for the best was paying off. Also, the built-in popping mechanism
that kicked in when the pressure on the sails become too much must have saved
them. He had come across only a few yachts that had them, but he decided that in
future he would recommend them wherever he went.

Grant had been back in the doghouse for less than a minute
before the wind returned and slammed them with incredible brutality, as if it
had been gathering itself vengefully, just for this blow. The yacht heeled over
and continued heeling as Madeleine turned it to starboard to ride the next
onrushing wave. Grant resisted the temptation to grab the wheel as she
corrected, bit by bit, like a surfer fighting for grip on a big curler. He
marvelled at Madeleine and at the human spirit. Pander to its every whim and
you had a being that appeared weak and helpless. Threaten its very existence
and it could rear up and do battle with nature in all its naked fury.

It was a long surf once more. “It’s not better,” shouted
Madeleine, “the speed is less but I don’t have the same control.”

“Let me get some mizzen sail up,” called Grant and stepped
out to unfurl what he deemed prudent, which was not much.

“How does it feel now?” he shouted through the open hatch.

“Oh yeah, much better.”

“It doesn’t seem a lot slower.”

“No, I’m surprised by that, but I have more control.”

“I think we got into the lee of these large waves before,
which is why there is not much of a change. I will get a drogue out to drop our
speed.”

The air had been wet with rain and spray since the time that
he came up on deck but the rain suddenly became a massive factor. It was as if
they were being sprayed by a ten dozen fire hoses at full tilt.

“I can’t see,” shouted Madeleine.

“Must I take over?” asked Grant.

“No, I can still feel.”

Grant watched with Madeleine. He stood in the companionway
looking backward and made suggestions while she peered ahead. When visibility
was marginally better he went below. When he found their store of sea anchors
and drogues he was momentarily stumped. He never had occasion to use one
before. He knew that the sea anchor was a kind of parachute that had to be
deployed from the bow when you faced the weather. He got it from the same
dealer that provided the running rigging and the sails. It was in the bag on
top. In another bag there was a long rode for it which was part nylon, part
chain. It was not what they needed right now. They needed a drogue that could
be deployed from the stern. The dealer told him that they needed two types. One
was supposed to reduce speed to one knot and the other was intended to slow it
down to six knots. He tried to remember exactly what the guy told him but it
was a bit of a blur. What he shook out of the bags were little cups on a line.
Then there was a single bottomless cup, but much bigger. Which one did what? He
performed some mental arithmetic and calculated that the volume of the little
cups exceeded that of the single bigger one by far. Which meant that the single
bigger one with the hole was the right choice, because they did not want to
stop. They wanted to slow down. He dragged it up to the doghouse and out into
the madness on the deck. The mizzen mast provided a convenient anchoring point
for his tether but the drogue almost flew away before he could thread its end
through the quarter blocks. The boat was bucking like a bronco, intent on throwing
him off.