Sailing the Pacific. A Voyage Across the Longest Stretch of Water on Earth, and a Journey into Its Past 0312310811

Citation preview

-»^i

r

MILES HORDERN

Saili

tfi aciric A VOYAGE ACROSS THE LONGEST/

STRETCH OF WATER ON EARTH,

AND A JOURNEY INTO ITS PAST

— $24.95 /$36.95 can.

ISBN 0-312-31081-1

SAILORS ARE GENERALLY

SOLO to

KNOWN

be a breed apart, and here's an

unforgettable book that shows just

how wide selves

a berth they give them-

from the crowds. Several years

ago,

Miles Hordern, a schoolteacher by training

though he had run away to sea a few times before

— set

sail

on a twenty-eight-foot boat

from New Zealand

to

South America, the

largest uninterrupted stretch of water on

and the dominion of icebergs, cyclones,

earth,

and swells of monumental proportions. The

would take him through the

trip

fjords of

Patagonia, one of the last uncharted areas in the world, then

north on the Peru Current

before he began his

homeward voyage.

Sailing the Pacific recounts that trip in

prose so vivid you can

feel the

spray sting

your face and the deck heave beneath your

Here

feet.

back

is

hawser-taut prose that takes you

Conrad, Melville, and Poe, indeed

to

to all those writers

whose works about the

bounding main have launched countless imaginations.

Hordern pauses

who have gone

to consider those

before him, recounting the

stories that have given life to this lonely

and magisterial part of the world. Writers, adventurers, fictional characters, cartographers,

doomed voyages from history's pages

from the whaleship

S.S.

Essex to the

Bounty, the South Pacific drew them in their

way they

left their

mark on

HMS

all,

and

its

vast

surface.

Part sailing yarn, part adventure story,

part

homage

to

an unending but beckoning

horizon, Sailing the Pacific will appeal to the sailor in each

one of

us.

sailing the pacific

sailing the

pacific A VOYAGE ACROSS THE LONGEST STRETCH OF WATER ON EARTH,

AND

A JOURNEY INTO ITS PAST

MILES

ST.

MARTIN

HORDERN

S

PRESS

W

NEW YORK

SAILING THE PACIFIC. Copyright

©

2002 by Miles Hordern.

No

Printed in the United States of America.

part of this

All rights reserved.

book may be used or

reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations

address

St.

embodied

in critical articles or reviews.

Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue,

New York,

For information,

N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

ISBN 0-312-31081-1 First

published in Great Britain by John Murray (Publishers) Ltd.,

under the First

10

title

US. 9

8

Voyaging the

Edition:

7

6

5

Pacific.

March 2003 4

3

2

1

In

memory of Lucy

Illustrations

(between pages 148 and 149) 1.

Bill Peers

2.

After the

wreck

at

Contisplage

3

Our

4.

Abraham

5.

Palajito

6.

Approaching the Canal Refugio

7.

Icebergs in the

castaway

camp

at

Contisplage

Ortelius' world map, Theatrum OrbisTerrarum, 1570

houses, Castro,

Chiloe

Isla

Rio Tempanos

8.

Recrossing the Canal Moraleda

9.

Juan Fernandez

1 1

The church at Akamaru The altar at the cathedral,

12.

Taravai,

13.

Tahiti

10.

Rikitea

Gambier

14.

Tied to the wharf, Papeete

15.

Wreck of the Nicky

16.

Pete Atkinson

The author and

publisher

Lou, Beveridge

would

reproduce

illustrations: Plate 4,

11, 13, 15

and 16

by the author.

©

like to

thank the following for permission to

courtesy of the

Pete Atkinson.

Reef

New York

Public Library; 10,

The remaining photographs were

taken

J0°

the south

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ENLARftEMENT

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I

OCT

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CAPE^ MORN

sailing the pacific

Prologue

An ordinary, quiet night at sea. No waves beat against the hull. No spray peppered the sky. The ocean rose and fell stiffly, the con-

A

powdery wake spread behind the boat. There was a dryness to the silence. A breeze from the Colombian coast rippled the water, but was barely strong enough to heel the yacht. Thin cloud veiled the heavens, faintly back-lit by a quarter moon. sistency

I

sat

of

down on

beyond the still

ash.

the cockpit bench, rubbing

coastline

my

and dressed only in boxer

hot. I'd spent the previous

week

eyes.

shorts,

I

was

but

it

far

was

trying to escape the fickle

winds of the Gulf of Panama. Drifting on the calms, clumps of

and dead branches floated beside the boat. Ships passed

grass

times, steaming to

Panama Canal. was It

tired.

was

I

and from Balboa and the

Light, shifty

didn't

first

winds had dogged

know how many

a familiar routine: I'd

times

I'd

me

at

locks of the all

woken

the way.

I

that night.

climb leadenly to the cockpit, scan

the horizon for ships, and return gratefully to bed.

I

followed

my

body through the process, an unconscious accomplice. Standing on deck at night was little different from the oblivion of sleep.

Time was beginning I

line

sat a

to blur.

while longer in the cockpit.

between water and

many

years before.

I

sky,

The horizon was

a

chalky

smudged and faded as if drawn in its length one more time.

checked around

Sailing the Pacific

There was nothing

there.

ous balance might be

down

climbed cautiously back

I

the cabin, wary even of shifting

my

Then

lost.

I

weight for

into

fear the precari-

on the bunk and

lay lightly

while the boat ghosted south-west, out into the empty

slept

Pacific. It

was probably only

woke

saw the

I

a short

of

clear lights

There had been many

time

on many

ships

but the next time

later,

a ship

on the

I

eastern horizon.

nights, comfortless inter-

ruptions, engines grinding into the distance. I've never forgot-

on

ten those lights

coming straight

at

There was something odd

that night, though.

about them from the

start.

They were high

and

up, very bright,

me. There was no engine noise. Then the ship

altered course, heading to pass

behind

my

But

boat.

it

got

little

moving only very slowly towards me, being strangely Why was it taking so long? I turned on the radio in

closer,

attentive.

case there

The

was

a

problem.

ship closed

be following me. taken

them

me

on

No

one

for just

called.

under an hour.

read stories of acts of piracy

I'd

seriously.

Now

I

looked

shorts fluttering in a rising breeze, a

nearby. This was a

down

pulled a sheet over

my

at sea,

but never

my

myself,

to

boxer

I'd

never

felt

threat-

at sea before.

Finally the lights passed close across

were disappointed, or

seemed

few white horses tumbling

new sort of vulnerability:

ened by human beings

at

It

relieved.

I

my wake. wondered if I

I

climbed into the bunk and

What happened next was like the 1984 when Big Brother's voice comes

head.

scene in George Orwell's

out of the painting. Vessel

on

my port

bow, vessel on

my port

bow, this

is

United States

warship. I

sat

bolt upright.

Vessel

on

my

I'd

forgotten to turn off the radio.

port bow, vessel on

my port

bow, this

is

United States

warship. I

jumped up and went back

altered course again

and was

to the cockpit.

now

steaming

The

parallel to

ship

my

had

boat.

Miles Hordern

I

shadow of its outline

tried to find the

the ship was very unclear, except for Sailing vessel

Navy.

Do

on

my The

port bow, this

you copy?

is

against the horizon, but

navigation

its

lights.

a warship of the United States

voice was sharp and clipped, fuelled with

the authority of sitting atop thousands of tons of steel.

I

wondered

what he saw when he looked down from his banks of screens and keyboards towards me: through the pale green twilight of the

could he see me, half-naked, staring back from the

ship's bridge,

dark waters of the ocean? chart table, picked Sir, this vessel is

American I

gave

waters.

I

stepped over the bridge-deck to the

up the microphone and answered the

call.

part of an international patrol operating in Central

What

your

is

vessel's

name and port of Registry?

them both.

How many persons

are there

on board,

sir?

'One.'

What was your

last port,

please?

'Panama.'

Where

are

you bound?

'French Polynesia.'

How many

days at sea, sir?

'Six.'

ETA

in

French Polynesia?

'Four weeks,

Are you

maybe

five.'

carrying illegal narcotics?

'No.'

Are

there

any firearms on

the boat, sir?

'No.' Sir, I

Ym

requesting your permission to send over a boarding party.

paused

a

moment

thing. Boardings cut

sacrosanct

knew I'd

it

hoped

The

sailors

I

knew

hated

this sort

of

deep into the notion of sovereignty that was

yachts.

wouldn't

always

end up

on

here.

last.

I

felt a

knee-jerk obligation to

but

This was just the kind of alien visitation

to experience at sea.

a little longer.

resist,

Still,

I

thought

I'd

keep

my

Sailing the Pacific

'Am Yes,

in international waters?'

I

Sir,

sir.

I have advance authority

from your embassy

Wash-

in

ington to board vessels sailing under the British flag.

name of your

'What's the

tified

ship?'

I cannot give you that information at the present time. I have iden-

Sir,

myself as a United States warship. I have a coastguard unit stand-

ing by to board you. I

my

was growing into

A

oceans.

role as

David

dead night had come to

worried about

pirates.

They needed

to this Goliath of the

told the ship I'd

been

to identify themselves

more

life. I

clearly.

we

Sir,

will fly a

US flag from

and illuminate

the bridge

it

with a

spotlight.

They

did

this.

I

saw the

Stars

and Stripes high up

in the sky,

rich reds and blues against the colourless wastes of the night sky.

Behind

it

were

fragment of superstructure and a cluster of

a

aerials.

But I could see nothing more of the

happy.

Anyone can buy

a flag.

I

Stand by

please,

Only

few seconds passed.

a

wanted

ship.

I

said

I still

wasn't

to wait until daylight.

sir.

looked

I

around the

carelessly

cabin, past shelves of books, nets of vegetables, soot stains above

the cooker. Then, with a sudden flash, I

appeared to be daytime.

it

scrambled, breathless, back onto the deck.

white, the sky blinding.

bloody great naval lit

up the

ship

ship.

from stem

A

The

sea

was molten

hundred metres away there was

They'd turned on to stern,

all

their

deck

it

my boat. went back to I

lights,

hundreds of thousands of watts

cutting into the night. Three powerful spotlights blazed

onto

a

the radio.

I

tried to

down

make a joke of

and muttered something about, 'Under the circumstances

.' .

.

There was no hint of humour, nor any smugness. Just the same monotone drawl: Yes, sir. The boarding party is on its way. It

took

single spot

a

long time. The deck still

lights

played onto the boat.

consciously sipping

it

on deck.

I

Finally a

were turned

made

tea

off,

and

but

a

sat self-

second spotlight picked

Miles Hordern

out a large inflatable leaving the ship and heading

on board,

were

five figures

their

arms around each

the boat

slammed

sitting astride a central seat.

There

They had

and lurched in unison

other's waists

into the small waves.

As they drew

me through a megaphone.

robotic voice reached

my way.

as

closer a

'Are-there-any-

weapons-on-the-boat?' 'No.'

'You-are-not-armed-sir?' I

stood there in

my

underwear,

my

bare skin glowing in the

fierce spotlight.

'No, for Christ's sake!'

The launch fell heavily neath the surge of its

comb

of

barrel

off the plane and slopped alongside be-

own wash. saw the black steel and honeyI

machine-gun slung beneath an arm.

a small

the cockpit.

He

rubbery black

flak

squat

man climbed over the rail and stepped into

wore

a

heavy moustache, fawn

He

jacket with stub collar. radio

on the

'Evening,

sir.

aboard?'

hand-gun on one hip and

Coastguards,

Hough of the United States Coastpatrol. Our mission is narcotics. Permission for my men to

Hough turned back to

let's

see

you on

They shed

their

was

US

deck.'

the launch.

Three burly

Coastguard baseball caps, then their

starched and neatly pressed.

'Evening,

figures piled ox-

and we stacked them on the coach-roof.

I

I'd

already

legs filled the small cockpit,

knees contorted for want of space. Their

down

'Hubba-hubba

hot night and they were sweating

a

been deemed harmless. Ten bare

shorn

a

of an international

like into the cockpit. It

flak jackets,

a

a

Lieutenant as part

to curb the trade in illegal

hard.

had

and

other.

guard operating

come

fatigues,

A

shirts

our

and shorts were

smelt aftershave. Their hair was

to stubble. Their cheeks

were pink and scrubbed.

sir.'

'Captain.' 'Sir',

and they each

their chests identified

stole a glance in

them

as

my

direction.

Badges on

Mitchley, Rosenthal and Randall.

Sailing the Pacific

Lieutenant

my men

Hough

said, 'Captain,

requesting permission for

sir,

to search the boat.'

Rosenthal and Randall went

down

into the cabin. Mitchley

stayed with us in the cockpit. Lieutenant

form. 'Mind

if

I

ask

length of the boat,

you

a

Hough

pulled out a

few questions, Captain? What's the

sir?

'And the beam? 'Draft, sir?

'Tonnage? 'Engine

size?

'Engine make? 'Fuel capacity?'

Mitchley began vomiting.

Hough muttered been here

darkly, 'Christsake Coastguard,

Go do

five minutes.

we've only

that in the launch. You're dis-

Hough summoned the launch on the radio and Mitchley moved uncertainly away. The lieutenant turned back to me. 'Apologies, Captain. Goddam rookies, all of them. So the fuel missed.'

capacity was

.

.

.?

'Number of masts? 'Number of sails, sir? 'Water capacity?

'And how much food you got on the boat - approximately?' told

I

him

I

had enough for

six

months.

The professionalism slipped for just a moment. Coastguard Hough stared back at me, his pen poised above the pad: 'Six goddam months? You're kidding! You gonna be out here alone for six months?' 'I

hope

not.

It's

just in case.'

Hough looked past me the

companionway

figures

along the deck of the yacht, then

into the cabin,

of Rosenthal and Randall.

which was almost 'So,'

and he wrote the words on the page. a

few more questions.

I

he

We

said, 'six

filled

months,

down by the then,'

finished the form, only

asked the lieutenant

if

he would

like a

Miles Hordern

cup of

coffee.

Hough

went down

I

my

shouted over

into the cabin to light the stove.

down

head, 'You guys nearly done

The coastguards weren't having an easy time. Every crammed to bursting. Whenever they opened a door

there?'

locker was

the contents tumbled out:

tins, jars,

packets of pasta, dried beans,

root vegetables. Searching a boat at sea was an impossible task.

They knew

this.

was just one more for the log-book.

I

They looked

they wanted a drink too.

nodded

Hough

to

I

asked

if

then

first,

that they did.

We sat in the cockpit. The wind had fallen light again and the boat was barely making way. If the wind to take in the

and

sails

drift.

was glad they'd seen

I

way, one of the ordinary, quiet nights

They were yachts.

in

Hough

no hurry

said

it

further

fell

to leave.

I

still

my

I'd

need

life this

at sea.

asked

if

they boarded

many

'And

if you

was mostly small fishing

find that they are carrying narcotics,'

boats.

asked, 'where are they

I

headed?' 'Usually to a ship offshore.

West

Some go

direct to

Mexico or

the

Coast.'

Randall asked me, 'So where 're you outa anyway, Captain?' 'I'm sorry?'

'Where 're you I

You know — where

that near the sea,

you from,

sir?'

said

it

wasn't,

and

sir?'

that

he should

'You always been interested in Lieutenant

Hough

ship over there.

need any know.

said, 'Say,

Workshop,

have them bring

Randall was looking say.

at

it I

Captain, you

I

your boat, just

had everything

me

know we got a big it, we got it. You

you name

over in the launch.'

again.

'You know, Captain,

this bitty boat.

Miles. Miles?'

sir,

fuel, water, stores, spare parts for

I'll

thing to

me

call

sailing,

hospital;

Lieutenant Hough, but said

on

are

told him.

'Is I

outa?

sir, I

He

I

I

let

me

thanked

needed.

obviously had some-

don't get

mean, no offence, but,

like

You all alone - what the hell

it.

Sailing the Pacific

you doing out

are

forgotten that

here?' I'd forgotten

might need

I

kind of an adventure,

it's

many

'In

'Not

storms.

They

many

you

as

how

to

answer

so soon. Randall said,

this. I'd

mean,

'I

right?'

ways.'

of bad storms,

'Lots

The

to,

as

I

guess.'

always wanted to think,'

know

about the storms.

said.

I

'Don't you get lonely?'

'Not

really'

'But you gotta miss seeing other people?'

them when I get to land. It doesn't take so long.' RandaU still wasn't satisfied. 'I suppose so. But it's not the same, is it? I mean, you gotta miss having people around. You 'I

see

know,

close to

you.

What about women? Jeez,

I

couldn't do that.

You gotta miss women, Captain — the touch of a woman's soft body next to yours at night-time.' He paused for a moment. Then he gave me a sly look and leaned closer. 'Or maybe you prefer something different?'

Lieutenant guard.

You

Hough looked

stop right there. You're

'Hey, take

it

the guy, offered

him any

him while we're

Hough has

sir,

asking

from the

if there's

I'm just

ship.

anything

bit for

I

can do

here.'

rose abruptly to his feet. 'Christsakes, Coastguard, this

gone too

flak jackets,

We

way outa line.' You did your

stores or spares

Our mission

far.

here

to the ship. Prepare to disembark.'

guns.

enough, Coast-

easy Lieutenant, will you?

following your example, for

appalled. 'That's

and

is I

completed. We're returning

helped them back into their

to find their baseball caps, radios

gathered on the side-deck

Lieutenant

as

and machine-

the launch approached.

Hough said, 'Thank you for your co-operation Good luck on your voyage. Hope you find, you

tonight, Captain.

know, whatever.' They climbed into the launch and central seat.

Hough may

even have given

a

sat astride

prod with the

then they galloped off over the swells and into the night.

the

spurs,

One

My boat was boarded by the US had told Lieutenant Hough, French Polynesia.

I

Coastguard in

1

991.

As

I

was on passage from Panama to

turned out to be

It

May

long and slow

a

trip, first

through the equatorial doldrums, then running before patchy south-east trade winds to the Marquesas.

I

spent the next eight-

een months following the wind and other boats between the

shores of

home

By

of Polynesia.

islands

late

New Zealand.

in England.

I

1992

was

It

needed

had reached the northern

I

now two years

to stop

since

and work.

I

had

I

left

my

was twenty-six

years old. I

lived

Then

I

on the boat

moved

into a

removed from the weekends we beach.

When

sea.

Auckland harbour

in

flat I

ashore. Gradually

had colleagues, then

sailed to islands in the

they asked

me

my

voyage to

New

sea,

my

winter.

first life

made

I

Gulf and

about the

called the 'Coastguard Anecdote'.

about

for the

became

friends.

ate picnics

I

told

what

At

on the I

now

There were other anecdotes

Zealand, too:

my

life as

a

sometime

teacher in island schools, the strange companionship of the circle

of single-handed

sailors

about the sea were

and the occasional

were easy

I

found myself

traveller's tales, filled

farce

to describe.

a part of.

I

stories

with people and events,

of voyaging under

My friends and

My

sail.

These things

shared the same terms of

Sailing the Pacific

reference.

These were

but not

stories on the sea, or by the sea,

stories of the sea.

What was

I

could never

of

a description

tailor to fit the confines

place without people or events: a place

a

where the landscape was not simply

my human body is water. suspended in

I

my

journey on land. But in even begin to explain

this.

which had moved me.

I

I

I

my

told

of the voyage. and the

life

I

nine months of my

anecdotes

I

is

not the same

never found

that

by, the

recre-

handful of anecdotes that

I

had

tried to picture the sea, the water itself

I

had led on

it, I

could conjure in

my mind

details, like

only the

the earliest

On the wall of my room in New Zealand there was a map. of the Castiglione map, the

first

drawn by Diego Ribeiro

the Pacific Ocean,

mem-

recently completed the

would

take three

Islands; instead

leather.

it

first

weeks

s

was

in 1529. Ribeiro

who

had

circumnavigation. Magellan believed

to cross the Pacific

took four months, while

Ribeiro

It

European map of

based his work on reports by Magellan's survivors,

and

to

at sea

of childhood.

a small print

it

life

as a

way

no form of words could

became almost the only memories

When

a

could not describe the things

most simple impressions or routine ories

first

over water

As the years went

friends

backdrop. Seven-tenths of

believed that the sea existed only in the

moment that one lived there; ate the formless.

a

spent the

A journey

fluid.

of an anecdote

map shows

and reach the Spice

his

crew

ate

sawdust

the Pacific as endless, fading off

the sheet and into emptiness, as if the cartographer did not really

know what

On is

do with

it.

my window was a copy of another work wooden globe carved by Ruth Watson. 'The

the other side of

oi art.

Soul

to

I

his

was

a

the Prison of the Body' was inspired by Martin Waldsee-

innller's

grain oi

wooden globe, made in 507. Waldseemiiller used the the wood to portray waxes on the oceans; in Watson's 1

10

Miles Hordern

work

the grain forms a huge fingerprint, representing the rotat-

ing flow of winds and currents around the ocean.

My desk was beneath this window and when

evening

I

often

home from work. The

got

house was sunnier

I

time of day, with

at this

my bedroom suburban

had spent alone

I

window, because

street, rather steep,

it

at sea,

other side of the

view over

a

wild gardens and barely another building in because of the time

preferred sitting at

looked out onto an ordinary

descending from

left

to right. Kids

trundled past on in-line skates, then toiled back up the

another run.

was while

It

several

But, perhaps

sight. I

here in the

sat

sitting at

my

hill

for

desk, watching the street

scene between these two representations of the Pacific, Ribeiro chart and Watson's meteorological fingerprint, that

I

began

s

to

plan a second voyage. I

had been living

my

home.

other

was

It

case for

a start,

my

back to

fingerprint,

I

this

I

New

more

a

home

Pacific

for five years,

now

and had come to

thought of the South Pacific

—

did not have two years I

as

had found me, rather than the

that

voyage would be different in

thought

I

I

a

number

had been the

as

could afford

importantly, this time

point of departure.

The South by

I

my previous voyage.

the most. But,

ing to sailed

Auckland

home

a

way around. So

of ways. For

at

in

over that time that

realise

six

months

would be returnthat before -

had never done

I

port.

weather system

is

indeed

a little like a

winds and currents rotating anti-clockwise enclosed

Zealand, Antarctica, South America and the equator.

thought that in

six

months

I

could complete

a

circuit

of

the South Pacific by taking the westerlies across the Southern

Ocean

to the coast

to the tropics,

of Chile, following the Peru Current north

and then returning with the south-east trade winds

through the Polynesian islands. Looking through my bedroom window at the children playing in the street outside, believed could jump on the back of the Pacific weather system, the most powerful thing on Earth, ride it round my own back yard for I

!

I

I

Sailing the Pacific

home

the summer, and then be carried back

and

before

it

got dark

cold.

Over

the years

often, but

had lived in Auckland

I

timental relationship from the beginning.

perhaps conventional love with

mooring

I

had

sailed

my

boat

made few changes. That boat and I have had an unsen-

my

vessel the

against a

and so on. In

I

cannot write,

point of a sea narrative, that

at this

day

I

first

saw

I

as is

fell

in

her, pulling gently at her

backdrop of weeping willows and bulrushes,

fact,

I

bought the boat

in Bradwell

Marina, just

The previous owner was a Once the deal was clinched he

next to the nuclear power station. local Essex property developer.

told

me

he thought the boat hopelessly small and old-fashioned,

then drove off in a mauve Rolls-Royce.

The boat

bought

I

designed in 1963 by

do so much: with the

I

my

about yachts.

little

liked the

I

that could

marriage of the small Edwardian offshore yacht

a

of the synthetic

utility

of

knew

had never seen something so simple

the perfect machine in in search

twenty-year-old Twister,

a

I

boats since childhood, but

Twister because

was

that day

Kim Holman. had sailed dinghies and day-

which

a place to live.

I

age.

to

I

guessed that

make my way

would be

this

across the

ocean

have never been disappointed with

choice.

The timing to leave

for this

Auckland

second voyage would be

in the late spring,

passage across the Southern

December.

I

would spend

making the

I

planned

high-latitude

November and southern summer cruising in

Ocean the

tight.

to Chile in

Patagonia, then re-cross the Pacific in the tropics in the autumn,

by which time the

risk

of a cyclone would be reduced.

I

antici-

Ocean than I had on winter months before I

pated meeting heavier seas in the Southern

New

my

trip to

left

Auckland

I

Zealand, and over the

made

a

few

alterations to the boat, beefing

up the

hatches, bolting a sheet of polycarbonate over each of the six

cabin

windows

to reinforce the original glass, fitting

made bronze gudgeons on

custom-

the rudder, putting up heavy rigging,

12

Miles Hordern

ordering new sails. As the I

started to shed the skins

my job. Then

and quit to

make

it

I

tried to

my

of

ashore.

life

started to say

my

got rid of

I

goodbye

to friends.

I

car

tried

beginning on the outside with those

now and

saw only

people I

I

November departure date drew closer,

a clinical process,

walk.

again.

We met for a drink,

be matter-of-fact, businesslike.

or took a

wanted no emo-

I

baggage on the boat. But with each parting the enormity

tional

of the ocean came

a little closer.

A week before

I

left

someone

I

had met on the passage out

friends, I

i

admired him,

received a letter from one of my sailing

I

seaman, more than anyone

as a

wrote what was obviously he believed

to

New Zealand.

else

I

knew.

a carefully considered letter.

He

He said

my boat to be too small for such a passage, but susmy abilities. He argued that I

pected that he was also questioning it

was

hope

unrealistic to

months.

He

to

sail

so

an alternative, that

should

I

him — we could do some

sail

before

to the nursery at

the

diving.

left, I

I

and bought

soil

filtered sunlight.

I

I

up

I

as

to the tropics to join

was hurt by

his letter at the

had shrugged

down

young kowhai

it off.

to the boat;

tree,

which

I

I

went

planted

spent the rest of the day weeding

beneath the tree-ferns, bathing in the green-

wanted

to

cram

the land, then feed off it over the

Preparing

I

did not go a

bottom of our garden.

and turning the

exercise.

in a small boat, in only six

direct

time, but tried to persuade myself

The day

far,

was an underwater photographer: he suggested,

a

my

head with

weeks ahead.

boat for the sea

is

It

There

easy.

this

image of

was

a

is

hollow

nothing you

can do to prepare yourself.

On

the

last

evening

my

house-mates drove

boat with their two-year-old son, Ben.

Everything was

his size.

He jumped around

dens beneath the cushions.

When

they

pontoon

left,

Ben

to the boat.

I

me down

Ben loved

the bunks and

was

made

tried to chat breezily to his parents.

cried and wanted to run back It

to the

the boat.

a

scene that came back to

times.

13

down the me many

Sailing the Pacific

I

and

left

Auckland

dawn the following morning. It was a warm The waters of the Hauraki Gulf looked green

at

soft spring day.

and furrowed, an extension of the

found

between the

a path

would be

tied

up

at

islands,

home

villages.

when for when

never been to these places,

was one of those days

close. It

themselves

among I

I

could

I

wondered why

five years

had

I

had lived so

I

the land and sea present

one inseparable view, and

as

around.

all

inshore craft that

that evening. In the distance

and lonely

see ruffled headlands

rolling farmland

then

it

was hard to choose

between them. I

passed through Colville Channel, then sailed south of

Cuvier

Island.

There

began

it

to change.

A

longer, slower sea

spread beneath the boat, like a sheet billowing in slow motion.

The

rise

and

as if a great

fall

was measured, smoothly oiled and unstoppable,

engine were working beneath

time being, in the deepest passage in this

way

I

islands before

Ocean was

sleep.

different

had followed

I

could

start.

still

for the

lost,

I

was

had always been

sea.

The Southern

in the city

taste espresso,

I

a

hopped

or

coastline

a

heading onto the open

from the

and the next, when

or the boat were

had never begun an ocean

I

before. In the past there

period of transition:

between

me

of some planetary creature

sailing across the chest

one minute

was

sailing

out

into the blue. I

have never been able to quantify distance properly

knew

that

it

was

five

thousand miles to South America;

myself that the passage should take like

being told

it

I

the city with

left

six

was so many million

the distance was so great that

mind

it

weeks. But

ised

what

a

far distant

human

as a

told

I

was rather

became meaningless, and

no destination other than the

commonplace

could be used

it

I

light years to a far-off star:

For me, the sea represented an empty space. about the history of

at sea.

When

attitudes to the ocean,

belief this was.

The

thoroughfare to connect

a

I

in

my

sea. I

read

had

real-

idea that the sea

home

port with

continents only gained acceptance in the sixteenth

14

Miles Hordern

century, after the voyages of the

Age of Discovery.

Until then,

Europeans often believed the sea to be an alien dimension. Early Mediterranean of the

limits

societies

human

yond the ocean was nite, others that

fire.

it

anything, lay be-

Water

who

claimed that beyond the ocean lay a

itself

was

river divided their

Great Circular Ocean. sea.

if

Some believed that the sea was infi-

clearly

The

the centre of the world, with

on the

which marked the

barrier

world. Exactly what,

unclear.

but the sea was a mystery.

The

as a

voyagers risked falling off the edge of the earth.

There were those burning

saw

world

an essential element of life,

early Egyptians

saw the Nile

rich farmlands

its

in two, then swept

on

either side.

round

The Egyptian world was

Heaven was an island of reeds. Beyond

as

it

in the

a disc floating

that there

was

nothing.

The

ancient Chinese had similar ideas.

that the universe

was

a great sphere

with

The Chinese a

pool of water

bottom. The earth floated on the water. Beyond the

vapour

filled

the

believed

sky,

at

the

water

empty reaches of space.

The good weather did not last. Grey crept over the ocean on the south wind until it coloured everything - the sea, the sky, the clouds; soon it began to colour my mood, too. It is very hard truly to remember a piece of ocean - the shape and texture of the water itself, the sounds, the smell - for more than a few days. That

is

part of

its

mystery.

What

fixes itself

most

easily in

my

memory is the colour of the sea. Colour has the power to transport me back many years, tens of thousands of miles, to a certain stretch

of water on

a certain

day

I

remember the burnished

of dawn in mid Atlantic; emerald pastures piebald mirages

among

in the

silver

Caribbean;

equatorial squalls; that deep, eternal blue

of the Pacific trade winds; turquoise shoaling hundreds of miles

from land; the navy-blue monotony of temperate earlier passages

gales.

On my

colour had changed, bringing character to an

15

Sailing the Pacific

otherwise anonymous ocean. But in the south these separate

had been drained from the water. There was

identities

one

great, grey,

monolithic

could clear

my

into

my

Those

But

The weather was was

it

of touch. The but

still I

into,

and

and obstructive.

shifty this

five years since

fickle

never got I

could get inside the boat,

It

dreams.

about the boat, thinking that stood.

I

wind forced

was

all

had been sail

something

quite right. There was

it

hauled

sails left

I

my sat

my

hands red and

the

sails,

spent

under-

I

was out

to tap

sore.

me raw. Working When warmed I

as

much

it is

Then

time

I

sat

numbly

as

as

in the cockpit, nursing

possible in the cockpit.

back on the sea and create it,

rose

sick.

the easiest place to be.

there watching

wind

shrinking the exposed surface area so

and aching limbs, feeling

a passage

I

no pattern

the kettle, the tips cracked and bled. As the

down

to maintain control.

bruises

bustled

blundered clumsily around the deck in thick boots

the ropes and

I

and

to sea,

I

changes several times a day,

and heavy clothing, while the ocean rubbed

them over

Grey

days of the passage were plagued by setbacks and

first

frustration.

it.

last forever.

such that no wind

a viscosity

no optimism pierce

it,

food, and into

might

sea, that

clung to the ocean world with

just this

I

At the

start

of

had not yet learnt to turn

my own

world in the cabin. So

I

Flocks of shearwaters wheeled

distrustful.

overhead, hundreds of plaintive cries

filling a

cold and

flat sky.

They circled, crazy and disoriented, as if something had gone wrong with whatever drove them. Waves climbed into the sky as the birds dropped vertically towards the water. They appeared indifferent to the boat. Once I saw a pair of humpback whales barging through the swells. Seas broke heavily across their backs

and the wave pattern was cut up

all

around.

the image of an old whaling ship: the

call

I

tried to conjure

rush to lower the boats, the single-minded faces oblivion of the chase.

I

wanted

to

ary characters.

16

fill

up

from the lookout, the at

the oars, the

the emptiness with imagin-

Miles Hordern

After a couple of hours in the cockpit

took cover in the hatchway, with

hood and

I

felt

my view was

stood there for hours.

I

From

and down the

self-steering gear

wake.

boat's

first

woke

I

was

It

tiller

and

easier this

west the view behind the boat was always uphill.

settled in the

more

The

often during the night.

piest time. Half-asleep, in the darkness,

the boat

and

easily,

I

ate a lot

I

a single

could hide in it

night was the hap-

found

my way

of chocolate. But

at

around

dawn

I

is

first

climbed

I

impression was always the same:

manageable. Only

much

big so

pulled back

it's

not so bad I

feel the

my body. The swells

There was an energy

as long.

I

few minutes did

after a

heat of unease begin to creep back through

were not

I

my eyes to close again so from my bunk, knowing that by

would have grown heavy with damp. As

the hatch, the here, this

sleep.

I

wave.

feeling despondent, willing

nightfall

I

what had been accomplished. As the wind

was chased across the bottom of the earth by

woke

stiff.

the hatchway

always over the back of the boat, past the

way, to look back at

At

cold and

head beneath the spray-

the washboards in place, the opening sealed to chest

Sometimes

height.

my

here, a sense

would have felt even if I had never seen the size of the Southern Ocean on a map. I watched ashen seas rise up fully formed from a point beyond my horizon. The sky, with scarcely of exposure

a

I

pocket quarried from

slate-grey surface, pressed

its

down with

unnerving uniformity. Everything was empty and wasted, devoid of

space.

south there was

detail. In the

so long ashore

I

wanted

I

everyone

had forgotten to

know

who came

here

different? Polynesian

south,

if

a different scale,

to live

of

a

this

after

infinite

way.

Did

this

ocean was

canoe ranging

far to the

have to accept that

tells

and

exposed to an

had always been

it

first

legend

how

sometime around the fourteenth century. The navigators

describe

what seems

the Southern Ocean.

needed

to

make

you devoted

a

to I

be

a transition

whole

ice,

perhaps the

wondered

first

ever seen in

if these Pacific

voyagers had

each time they went offshore. Or,

if

culture to the quest for land in the ocean,

17

Sailing the Pacific

as

the Polynesians had at times done, could

'home',

My

you

call

them both

at will?

course was south-east. After a

week

at sea

crossed the

I

fortieth parallel for the first time. Sailors call these waters the

Southern Ocean, or

else personalise

Screaming

Forties, the Furious Fifties, the

are not strictly authentic.

each latitude: the Roaring

Most

Sixties.

These names

charts refer only to the parent

oceans, Pacific, Atlantic, Indian.

The

area that

I

was

travelling

through has gone by

many other

names. Most of them refer to the vast land mass that was sup-

posed to

was

exist here.

called Lokak.

The Great Khan

It

was rich

told

Marco Polo

in gold, elephants

this place

and game, but

the people were savages. Fra Mauro, cartographer to the Court

of Venice, believed

it

was called

Patal,

and

that the inhabitants

painted their bodies with maps of the land

through

it.

Cartographers in Dieppe

French explorers called called

it

it

named

as

they walked

Java La Grande.

it

Gonneville Land. English privateers

Davis Land and wanted to loot

it;

colonists called

it

the

Great Southern Land; the whimsical preferred more colourful

such

titles,

or the

as

New

the Painters' Wives' Island, the Lands of Chivalry

World

in the

Moon. The

grey waters around

boat were laced with the dreams of imaginary In

November 1726 Jonathan

an old to his

my

new homelands.

Swift received a letter telling of

man who, on reading Gulliver's Travels, went immediately map to search for Lilliput and Houyhnhnm Land. But

Swift had redrawn the waters of the Pacific landscape,

as

an imaginary

and the old man found nothing. Gulliver made

sea-voyages through what

are,

in fact, inland deserts.

fourth voyage his crew mutiny and he

is

cast

away

in the

of the perfectly rational Houyhnhnms. From here he

On

country sails

only sixteen hours and reaches the 'south-east point of Holland'. In Swift's day the south-east point of

18

New

his

for

New-

Holland

Miles Hordern

was not a cartographic

(Australia)

map of the East

New

Holland

Indies,

drew the boundary of his sheet most of

this to

Holland

is

far off Moll's

sails east

through the

my

surrounded

Yahoo

Moll's

consulted, It is a

though Moll,

con-

wisely,

about 180 longitude, leaving

The

New

south-east point of

map, somewhere in the South

Houyhnhnm

When

Pacific, across the

Utopia

Seas.

It is

Gulliver

at

is

South

40

same grey waters

that

boat. Gulliver enjoys a favourable wind,

covering more than a league and stitched

Pacific,

the origin of 'utopia'.

is

expelled from the uncharted

now

at

the imagination.

'no-where', which

he

On Herman

vastly bigger than the real Australia.

is

dominated the South

tinent that

certainty.

which Swift is believed to have

skins, before

a half

each hour in a canoe of

making landfall on the

coast of Terra

Incognita.

The wind gather way.

shifted to the north-west It

was warmer now, and

of fleeces and oilskins

I

with

it

this over-anticipation.

first I

at

some

time,

wore

deck behind

me

managed

more than

little

coach-roof. At night

nothing, and

To

felt

benign

I

sails,

could have

I

days of the voyage were tense

expected the worst it

to

daily.

be

reefed

I

my last food

harness and trailed a tether around the

a

in

layers

night to reef the

in non-existent squalls, ate often, expecting

for

voyage began to

soaked in sweat.

later

The

in shirt-sleeves.

my

was over-dressed. In

went on deck

only to return ten minutes

done

I

and

seas.

a sigh,

But the Roaring

and the patter of

Forties

rain

on the

got up often to look out for ships.

I

saw

worse.

the silence I turned on the radio. I carried a short-wave on the boat and tuned it to the BBC. I had not listened World Service for the years I lived in New Zealand. The

fill

receiver to the

voice of London was something first

I

associated with the sea. In the

part of the passage the radio was turned

Clinging to the

boom

on day and

in the darkness, reefing the

19

wet

night. sail,

I

Sailing the Pacific

heard from the cabin the faint monotony of football scores,

from

familiar accents

a place

was punctuated by hourly

I

no longer

blasts

called

home. Boat-time

of triumphal music.

much of my

Navigation in the south was very simple. For

voyage lite I

had navigated by

I

navigator, but

could manage without

occasional star sights,

At the time

miles.

I

igation

as

I

nometer

Taking running

alive,

and

fixes

found

on the

sun,

and

position to within ten

that this

I

was

was important. But

I

more about the history of marine navThe true tradition of the sea is to use every you can get your hands on, or

Cook was one aboard

at sea,

knew my

a satel-

I'd

read

scrap of technology

Captain James

England with

believed that by navigating celestially

realised this.

I

it.

usually

I

keeping old traditions

was wrong, and

sextant. I'd left

had broken, then broken again, and

it

last

of the

first

afford.

to use Harrison's chro-

HMS Resolution on his second voyage to

the Pacific. Harrison's chronometer was, according to

some

landsmen, a vulgar mechanical solution to one of the great questions

how

of the age:

the finest seaman

to find longitude at sea.

Cook, arguably

Europe has produced, observed

that Harrison's

invention had been the Resolutions 'faithful guide through

and

vicissitudes

age.

climates'.

The chronometer

revolutionised nav-

more profoundly than any development

igation

Cook

referred to

it

as

all

in the electronic

'our trusty friend the Watch' and 'our

The irony is that keeping old wholly modern idea, born since the twentieth century. Once I had

never failing guide, the Watch'. traditions alive at sea sailing

became

grasped

which

this

I

is

a

recreation in

bought

a

GPS,

a device the size

gives a position within metres,

of a mobile phone

and stopped playing games

at sea.

The only

features

of shoals about ticularly the

a

on the chart of these waters were

thousand miles to the

east

a

number

of New Zealand, par-

Sophie Christensen shoal. This part of the Pacific

has a higher concentration of 'vigias' than almost any other.

Vigias are shoals and reefs, hazards to navigators, that have been

20

Miles Hordern

some time in the past but which are now questioned. Some charts mark each vigia PD or ED, 'position doubtful' or 'existence doubtful'. The Admiralty pilot book for this area of

reported

ocean

at

lists

ten vigias in the waters around the Sophie Christen-

HMNZS

sen shoal, but notes that in 1973

whole

sector

and found no

number of possible reefs in

Tux searched the

of shoaling. The

signs

pilot gives a

explanations for the erroneous reporting of

otherwise very deep water: reflections from clouds, sub-

of

oceanic volcanic

activity,

where currents of

different temperatures meet, or discoloration

shoals

splashing,

fish

especially

caused by marine organisms on the surface of calm ocean. (The

Admiralty pilot does not acknowledge the possibility that

ships'

captains fabricated the existence of shoaling in order to get their

names on the all, its

Sophie Christensen shoal existed

chart.) If the

at

charted position might not be accurate.

Over

when

the course of one squally day,

raindrops glanced

through the companionway and spat in the frying pan,

I

sailed

immediately south of the charted position of the Sophie Christensen shoal.

The depth

metres, while the sea

over the shoal

bed

around

all

down. The shoal might only be it

took

me one whole

day to

a

is is

recorded five

few hundred metres

feel sure

I

had

nine

as just

thousand metres across,

sailed past

it:

but

pre-

I

pared three meals while ducking nervously between the cockpit

and the

galley,

watching for the curl of breakers on the horizon.

These were the landmarks

on the

chart, but

in the south: shoals

which might not

which were drawn

actually

be found in the

ocean.

Before

I

left

Auckland

a relative lent

never used one before, and

of the voyage.

I

already

I

me

felt

a lens

it

video camera. for the first

I

had

few days

exposed enough, alone on

this

my own

the

bare stage, without shoving a camera in

thought of focusing

his

forgot about

made me 21

nauseous.

face.

And

The camera was

Sailing the Pacific

kept in a watertight box,

wedged

where you put your

galley

feet

into the cavity beneath the

when

on the

lying

starboard

I slept on the opposite bunk, but I often lay on bunk during the day to read. Three days passed opened a book, three days before I felt strong enough

bunk. At night the starboard

before

I

to pull myself away

When

I

stretched

from the

my

box and

the camera

legs

sea

on the bunk

pulled

I

and create

out.

it

I

a little

my

entertainment.

came up

feet

against

experimented with the

video during the course of that afternoon.

By

nightfall

it

was

a

favoured toy

Film provided the camera it

up

as a diary.

window onto my solitary world. I set cockpit when the weather allowed and used

a surreal

in the

Playing back the tape was a revelation.

my

climbing and subsiding behind

shoulders.

horizon lurch giddily to forty degrees.

my

why

muscles ached and

each day was

had no conception of myself

I'd

I

at sea:

I

I

I

saw the

watched the

understood a struggle.

believed

seas

I

now why

Until then

was

a crea-

who stared at the ocean through startled eyes, but could not my own appearance. Now saw myself shouting at the camera to make myself heard. My face was pink, my hair pulled

ture

picture

I

absurdly to one side by the

me

away.

As

a character

wind as

on screen

if someone

was trying to drag

my own human form was rec-

ognisable, fighting to maintain balance against the roll of the

boat,

making bad jokes.

When

the weather

On

film

I

grew worse

was I

alive.

stood and filmed from the

hatchway. Flecks of spray were driven across the empty cockpit

and mingled with raindrops on the teak coaming.

A black-and-

white image perfectly captured the chilling simplicity of the ocean.

And

tune

out for most of the day, but on tape

it

always there was the roar of the wind.

harsh back-note to every scene. seas I

I

it

I

was able

was unending,

zoom

in

on

a

filmed out across the jumbled

behind the boat, and panned the folding horizon. But

tried to

to

when

the furthest point visible the picture dis-

solved, the lens unable to find any outline

22

on which

to focus.

Miles Hordern

Once,

tried to

I

and take off

leave the boat

what was

went

I

would

vertically

through the

sky,

internal world: the rain

I

grew

was creeping backwards into an heavier,

I

closed the hatch, and

began filming in the resonant box of the cabin. of cooking

I

recorded the

ceremony of navigation, and

at sea, the

afternoon Spanish lesson, chanting along to

a tape,

my

by wind and ing

There

sleep.

salt

heavy and

I

looked

lost.

of the cabin so the

it

from the ocean.

thrown by It

Most

a

I

I

ready.

a

I

grew

eyes

clamp in one corner

One

night, after reefing

returned to the cabin and

started to pull off

my

first

time

I

my

sodden

overtrousers,

wave onto the bunk.

was the

days

My

encouraging.

camera up on

set the

I

would always be

tangled in the braces of

mishap.

less

slithered breathless across the screen,

I

the stiffen-

sea,

had Great Hair Days in the south.

saw was

I

in the rain,

sails

rolling.

I

My face was grey, my chin appeared dirty, with My clothes grew salt-stained and more numer-

tired.

scrappy beard.

ous.

something about the

is

observed

I

never properly dry, was sculpted

hair,

and perpetual damp:

But otherwise what

a

My

body.

my

ordering cold

beers and tapas that never came. As the days passed

changes to

filming

grey.

Reality was very different.

circus

camera could

see if the

The boat disappeared within seconds, then

behind.

left

the screen

imagine what

I

set

the camera

wet and greasy clothes, but got

tripped,

saw myself laugh

had laughed on the

and was

at this silly

trip.

filmed something, usually just a monologue.

There were routine accounts of the weather, fluctuating moods, breakages, maintenance, meals, and doubts. cut

me

off in

tumbled

mid sentence

in the sink.

When

the waves and the cold,

about the distance,

how

was to go, there was

found

its

way onto

I

as

Sometimes

spoke of the strength of the wind,

I

was dispassionate. But when

far

a crash

the boat rolled and crockery

I

I

spoke

how far there still my voice. Emptiness

had come and

a different quality to

the tape, between each syllable and every

frame. Space was the one constant throughout the voyage.

23

I

tried

Sailing the Pacific

to rationalise this place

it,

was

to

be part of it. Most of all

wanted

I

to feel that

now my home.

The ambiguous geography of Terra

Incognita exploited by Swift

At 42 South Theopompos of Chicos, I was sailing

in Gulliver's Travels first surfaced in ancient times. in the Pacific, according to a

thousand miles inland near Anostos, the City of

which

is

tained

my

shrouded in mist by day and course

would

I

nations and city-states forests I

pass

No

by night.

fire

Return,

If

main-

I

through countless independent

where the poor govern the wealthy and

of giant orchids grow from earth rich in orichalcum,

crossed the

two

great rivers, Pleasure

and Grief,

until

that divide this

continent.

The Greeks

believed a vast continent must exist in the south-

ern hemisphere to counterbalance the land masses in the north

and prevent the earth wobbling off

its

They

axis.

called

it

the

Antichthon, or Counter Earth, a place ruled by laws antipodal to those

of the

known

world.

Theopompos saw Europe,

and Africa as mere islands, 'the only continent being which men place outside this inhabited earth of ours'.

that

Asia

one

Claudius Ptolemy's world map, drawn in the second century ad, includes a representation of the Antichthon.

A

vastly elon-

gated African continent stretches far to the south and then ultimately joining Asia,

making an enclosed

sea

east,

of the Indian

Ocean. The whole of this southern continent was named Terra Australis Incognita. Ptolemy's

map

exercised a powerful influ-

ence over geographical speculation in Renaissance Europe.

The maps crude.

I

I

used to

had about

the galley,

across the

South

Pacific

dozen, but they were

which beneath the companionway

'plotting sheets'. site

a

The

sail

chart table in

24

I

all

were

terribly

the same, called

kept them

hatch.

is

But on

oppoa small

Miles Hordern

boat the chart table has to do duty for other purposes, particu-

work-bench on which to prepare food for the galley, and as a day bed, where I lie with my feet wedged in the sink because it makes a change. larly as a

GPS was

Navigation with the help of a the focus

noon

I

it

gave to each day,

New

days from the coast of

Admiralty chart of the South less

see that

At twelve

a significant ritual.

still

got a fix with the GPS, took a chart from the

my day's run.

plotted the position, and measured

was

very simple but, for

than the width of

Zealand Pacific,

my

one whole day amounted

my bunk

and pulled out

A plotting sheet

is

I

For the

first

on which

a

good

day's

more

so deep

to such a small impression

I

on

stuck the Admiralty chart under

a plotting sheet.

nothing much,

graph paper will

and empty

run

was depressing to

a

blank sheet of paper that

can be used to represent any stretch of ocean. With only difficulty,

few

used the 1:20 million

finger. It

little

the ocean, and after three days

I

table,

that this

is

serve.

a little

The Southern Ocean

is

the best chart for navigation, and

transferred isolated dangers like the Sophie Christensen shoal

on

to one.

The

Every few days in a

I

plotting sheet sailed off the

new longitude

from the

across the sea.

edge of the page. Then

scale at the top

margin. That

left

moves with you

way

I

pencilled

of the sheet and started again

the chart could keep

up with

my

voyage.

For most of the passage

east the chart table

but plotting sheets. This part of the boat to flecks of spray

charts of Chile

from the hatchway, so

and the

bunk. The navigation

housed only line

until

I

came

Over weeks of

my

as a

contained nothing

occasionally subject

precaution

tropics in a watertight folio

station, the

I

kept

beneath

my my

hub of my proud vessel at sea, across which I drew a

few blank sheets of paper,

a

each day.

is

I

thought navigation

to the short lesson

at sea

I

a dull if necessary discipline

on the use of

plotting sheets.

crossed the page ten times or more.

The

lines

south-east course repeated the same diagonal progress

25

Sailing the Pacific

across the page, each

rubbed out but

its

imprint remaining on

the paper. Eventually, as each chart got dog-eared and torn,

courses stained with coffee rings and cigarette ash,

up and

Nothing

started afresh.

water better than the use of

most

we

practical chart

illustrates

my

screwed

I

it

the nature of travel over

Even

a plotting sheet.

have of the Southern Ocean

today, the

is

an empty

page that can be anywhere.

For the

first

ten days of the voyage

must be covered by

a layer

it

seemed the whole ocean

of thick cloud and that

here meant

life

learning to live without anything beyond the grey disc of water

surrounding the boat. This was

even features in the

sky.

my

my

changing moods, and the tiny

daily routine:

answering back to

a

with no landmarks, not

Time and distance were measured by the

passage of light and dark, structure of

a place

preparing meals, easing

made my

repeatedly crossing the same chart. Everything that a

sails,

Spanish tape, turning the pages of a novel, life

voyage rather than an episode of hopeless captivity was com-

municated through motion.

best in

my spine. The my muscles.

engage

it

roll

are

up

little

By

its

the sea through the corkscrew

a city-dweller the

understood.

towel on

felt

could never escape

I

either.

I

Southern Ocean was something

The ocean was only

but

it,

skills

I

I

knew

could not

of reading motion

the swing of a tea-

hook.

And then one morning, after ten days at sea, woke to find that The cloud had lifted. climbed to the I

everything had changed.

I

deck in strong sunshine. Everything was fresh and

clear.

Seas broke

innocently around the quarters. Spray took on a soapy quality that

reminded

me

of home. To the north-east

drawing back across the ate a

bowl of muesli

sky.

in the cockpit, but got

mouthful to explore the freedom of

Without

a slab

Elsewhere the sky was

a

deep blue.

I

up between each

a bright and dry world.

oilskins or boots, everything sped up.

26

of cloud was

I

careered around

Miles Hordern

During the course of that morning

the deck in delight.

the boat inside-out, pulling everything I

dozed on

internal

all

around me,

In the evening

mixed

I

first

time on the passage,

sky.

There was no

moon

chilblains tingling in the

my usual glass

comparison with the ocean. go.

Some

away. that

stars

However

a clear night

dominate the more

I

could see so

much of it

partial, there

Two

was

of scale,

a sense

thousand years

earlier

unknown

time. Before then

sea.

But

it

was not

all

we

a

it.

ing

sea

rum

a

I

a

Polynesian navi-

way

until the space missions all

of

it,

at

one

for sure,

a picture

you had

of

to set off

journey, a line of understanding.

web of lines, but

a handful.

(possibly rather too if all

know

to

became

may be

more than

about space

one

could do was take a tiny piece of water

you wanted

So the

Collectively there us have

in

completeness

and project, extrapolate, imagine, in order to create

across

all

to find their

of the 1960s that anyone had seen an ocean —

the whole. If

fragile

Space seemed so very easy in

sea.

had used knowledge of the heavens

across an

midday sun.

were brighter, some lower, some looked further

was fathomable.

gators

my

of rum but now, for the

was able to look out into

I

that night to

dome of the

around the

could up to dry on deck.

and they stretched, unbroken by skyline or

patterns of the stars trees,

turned

of bedding and cushions, the trappings of

a pile

world

I

I

As

I

sat

much)

could see of

it

I

individually

on deck

wondered how I would feel one time was a gossamer

at

thread weaving between unseen constellations.

27

few of

that night drink-

Two

It

was obvious

meter had been

weather was going to be bad. The baro-

that the

midnight.

falling since

was howling across the

A

dry north-west gale

sea.

The pace of the ocean world was quickening by the hour. The wind was doing things to the water that I hadn't seen before. The seas still weren't steep, but they were very, very long, and somehow non-liquid, like a range of shifting dunes stretching beyond the

horizon.

The

only slowly.

I

swells rose

up behind the boat and surged forwards

was running before the wind, almost

as fast as

the

waves. As the peaks approached, a portion to one side of the boat

sometimes burst forwards in boat

I

watched the green

man on lips

stilts.

crests lurch up, false

First the self-steering

of water, minty green,

quarter.

It

of

full

was mid morning before

of the boat, cockpit.

mass of white water. Behind the

a

The

a messy, spit-like

surprise

not be shaken from

light

a sea

blow

was to find

it

and wobbly

like a

gear disappeared, then twin

and

air,

ran past each

broke right over the back

that harmlessly filled the

was wet and cold, and could

my clothes. Then the scene of grey desolation

behind the boat was again momentarily revealed, before the next swell filled the skyline.

By noon the wave-crests were being torn apart by the wind. Spume spiralled away, helpless and exhausted, into the distance. 29

Sailing the Pacific

The cloud looked sore, where

its

down from

the sky and bit into the planet's surface.

stamped

will

been

Some-

surface swept painfully smooth.

to the south-west the knotted heart of a depression sank

its

on the ocean

onto the water:

stencilled

tuation

around, I

as if a

The system map had

weather

saw the fingerprint pattern of

bound, squeezing new

isobars, tightly

ocean.

all

from an

life

indifferent

The arrival of the depression was almost a relief, a puncmark in the timeless blur of life at sea. Even as the

waves grew, the ocean shrank.

whose movements were

ological structure

now

was defined

It

by

meteor-

a

predictable.

I

knew

bad weather was coming and could count down the hours. The emptiness was being

filled

by

events.

Throughout the day I made what few preparations were possible. There was a sense of fatalism about everything I did, that

someone

else

was responsible —

that other

guy

desk back home, watching the street scene outside, all

rose it

I

a

took in the

tight

more

sails,

with webbing.

so than for

hard. Fear at sea day,

who

thought

good idea. At sea I wondered if I were puppet being worked by my former self. As the wind

of this would be such

simply

behind the

sitting

seldom

many is

a force

a

handling the canvas roughly and lashing

Work was days.

something

which

easy.

felt

I

strong and focused,

was the waiting that had been so

It

that seeps into the boat day after

bursts in with a rush

and

a roar.

The boat was stripped bare now, except for a scrap of headThe deck was clean. The empty rig was wheeling amid the waves. I loved it this way. The boat was simply a machine for sail.

ocean

had no name, no character, no

travel. It

function of the voyage that

downwind clung to I

to say: This

is

what

In the cabin

books

I

in place.

I

the

am,

I

had

set into

boom, and I

motion. As

we

the boat beneath

it

was

a

careered

me seemed

can shrink no more - and

wedged cushions I

aesthetic:

I

won't.

into the bookcases to keep

my

bolted the forehatch, screw-sealed the vents,

and locked cupboards. Everything was finally fastening the

buckle of

tight

and pressured,

a leather strap

30

around

a

like

packed

Miles Hordern

suitcase.

put the

cooked

I

some of it from the pot and some reason I put on clean beginning of the voyage. As I

a large stew, ate

Then

rest in a locker.

for

clothes, almost the first since the

fastened the buttons and pulled up layers of zips

it felt

like

was

I

dressing for a big night out.

As the

light

the cockpit.

faded on that

first

evening

climbed back out to

I

was an exhilarating scene: everything was wind

It

and speed, water rushing

bowled down each

past as the boat

wave. In the cabin there had been

sense of this fairground

little

The north-west wind was hot and clammy As the boat surfed down

ride.

sweat, again over-dressed.

the biggest seas level, a

thick

I

began

to

the faces of

cut a deep furrow, at times buried to deck

it

plume of water

Too

cast to either side.

thick, really:

sometimes the motion was wooden and unresponsive. The boat

was going too that the nose

fast.

The danger when running

of the boat will be buried in the trough just

next wave breaks behind. goes end-over-end. in a

much

It

Then you

are pitch-poled

had happened

to

smaller boat. This time

carried a drogue anchor. canvas, shaped like a

on

the boat

a

before big seas

A drogue

is

I

a

wind-sock but

me

you surfing too

drag device

You

When

I

made of heavy trail it it

behind

works

like a

threw the drogue

over the side two hundred feet of line disappeared after seconds, while

I

slithered

to get tangled up.

warp was a harness cleats to

like a I

the

once before, though

shorter.

fast.

as

the boat

was better prepared, and

long rope weighted with chain and

brake, stopping

—

is

it

in

around in the small cockpit trying not

When the

drogue

water the nylon

bit into the

The end of the

rod of iron.

had made before the voyage

both winches in the cockpit.

line

was attached to

that linked the

Even

so,

I

two

stern

was not sure

that

four of these strong-points wouldn't be ripped out of the

all

deck.

Some of

complex now. I

the ideas

I'd

I'd

had before the voyage seemed too

never been in such big seas before.

could do no more, and bolted the hatch closed behind me.

Inside the cabin at night

it

was

a surreal

3i

world. Everything was

Sailing the Pacific

Any

sensation.

sense of direction, of a voyage, even of the sea,

had disappeared. The gale had bound the wind and the ocean into one. Black forces descended

no pattern

could read. As

I

from everywhere. There was

was trying to get out of my

I

clothes,

three volumes of hard-bound sight-reduction tables slid from the

bookcase and

fell

fended off the

first

nose. seas

Now that

me on the bridge

of my

more

two but the

broke over the

When

I

the boat was being slowed by the drogue, stern.

third hit

heard spray slosh heavily into the

I

cockpit, and sometimes land with a

ionway.

me.

near-vertically across the cabin towards

it

did, there

was

bang on the closed companthen

a split-second pause,

drops of icy water surged between the washboards and

few

a

fell

onto

the engine box.

my

lay in

I

bunk. This was the

safest place to be.

could

I

feel

the boat lifting to the seas, then the drogue biting into the water

and hauling backwards. The running through the boat. seas in this

way

that

I

felt

strain

was something

was only when

It

their

raw energy.

I

could

tried to resist the

I

pictured

I

on the black ocean: the drogue anchor represented digging in

its

could hear

my

spread through the

boat will,

was run through with tension.

it

teeth chattering, but

was shaking, vibration it

in

my my

hold back something unstoppable.

heels, trying to

The boat and everything

feel

it

was not

starting in the hull

cold.

I

Everything

and being amplified

as

rig.

Gales in a cruising yacht today are not like those in old-time

movies, with bearded

men

in sou'westers battling at the

while the grip throws buckets of water over them.

on

a self-steering system:

for

me

and

to

slept

with the drogue

do but get into bed.

I

set,

there was nothing

have had several bad gales

through most of them. But

as

I

was

a victim,

me, the

but not of the

sea.

I

at sea,

lay there that night,

shuddering in time to the vibration of the boat, I

wheel

My boat was

I

couldn't sleep.

was the victim of

that other

me who had sat staring at charts in Auckland and thought

that the ego-trip

of playing with the

32

largest thing

on

earth

would

Miles Hordern

be worth

up

to

But

it.

me had calculated that the boat would be me here right now who was going to find

That other

it.

it

was the

And somewhere

out.

between then and now, those old I

must have dozed There was

to reality.

off.

side to side.

while

I

I

woke

on

my jacket

could

I

feel the

I

climbed over the

floor of the cockpit.

I

I

took some time. Then

told

wind and

the

me

ride

the boat was

rolling

heap on the

in a

moment,

moving very

fast.

felt

I

to catch

the darkness. This

saw the X-ray image of the

slightly ridiculous

remove

sea at night.

now —

coaming

nauseous.

The

the fair-ground

had gone wrong.

Using

a torch,

I

saw

that even the tiny headsail

maintain some directional straining line

to

the seas rushing past the cockpit

whole thing seemed

on

right inside the boat,

and landed

lay curled there for a

I

back

lay

opened the

I

want

didn't

would break

top, slipped,

I

and overtrousers,

my breath and waiting for my eyes to adjust to Only

the deck.

struggled with those stupid wet clothes. As

the washboards for fear a sea

lost.

urgency beating overhead

hatch, the rush of the gale was blinding.

so

had been

certainties

in the small hours, shaken

new noise coming from

a

the cabin floor to pull

from

hundred miles of ocean

in the twelve

stability

I

was using to

was too much. The

sail

was

up and down, buckling out of shape. Part of the leech

had pulled out and was and

furling line

and then

stuck.

flailing in

started to heave. It

The

wouldn't budge.

the gale.

line I

I

came

uncleated the

in a

few inches

pulled again, but

it

was

stuck. I

needed

a harness, so

to

to free the line.

A sea broke

across

The water seemed

knees.

was already wearing

I

clipped onto the jack-stay and began crawling along

the side-deck.

my

go on deck

my back,

water foamed around

to capture light:

strangled and blue, searching forwards for a

was flogging hard, cracking in spasms cuted. If

I

didn't

destruction, and

I

as if it

do something soon couldn't afford to lose

33

it it

I

saw

new

my

grip.

hands,

The

sail

were being electro-

would

flog itself to

so early in the voyage.

Sailing the Pacific

I

followed the furling line along the stanchions and crawled up

into the

bows of the

ated here;

The corkscrew motion was exagger-

boat.

needed both hands

I

just to hold on. Seas surged

my

over the anchor lashed in the stemhead and parted round thighs.

traced the furling line to the

I

jammed,

forestay: the line wasn't

drum.

I'd

pulled the furler tight.

and had

to grease the bearings

But obviously not very drum, and the the

sail.

roll.

forestay,

fitted a

tight

my body

The clew was

around the

two

When floor.

on the

left

off in

Auckland

at the same time. enough rope on the

short of fully furling

rolls

my head now.

it I

took before finally

I

did

I

steel

D-ring

flying

had one arm wrapped

I

and with the other hand

furler

tried to drag the

lost

sail

count of how many

it.

got back into the cabin

I

collapsed onto the

Water streamed over the greasy plywood floorboards, then

chased gravity off my just

none

sail

swinging from side to side with

and untie the sheet from the D-ring.

attempts

the base of the

new line

head height, the

at

around somewhere behind

in

there was

taken the

well: there wasn't

had come

at

pulled myself up the furler, arms and legs wrapped

I

around the each

line

I'd

drum

up

as

the boat heaved, but never caught up.

wet clothes and

fell

into the bunk, exhausted.

done would only have taken

weather. As

it

was,

I'd

a

I

pulled

The job

I'd

couple of minutes in calm

been out there

for over half an hour.

My

Even a minor, selfinflicted problem had sapped my strength. I wondered how I'd get on if I needed to go out again now to do something else. The motion on a small boat made the simplest physical things a struggle, things like pulling on a jacket, moving down the cabin,

arms, legs and chest were

and

stiff

my own

maintaining balance, controlling

ocean were stripping

Mid morning on

me

sore.

limbs.

It

of the things which made

the following day the

ninety degrees and increased to

fifty

34

was

as if

the

me human.

wind backed through

knots.

There was

a

period

Miles Hordern

of heavy

and cloud

rain,

to sea level.

Then, with the new wind,

the rain stopped and a sheet of grey cloud again raced overhead.

The south-west wind was bringing to the

first,

cockpit

I

causing the boat to

hung from

the steel

a

new

swell at right-angles

on a difficult cross-sea. In the hoop of the spray-hood, supposroll

my role as skipper, my legs braced out to either side so that my limbs formed a letter X. kept it up for ten minutes, but there was nothing for me to do so climbed back edly asserting

I

I

to the cabin.

I

cushions until

wedged myself into I

was packed

the

bunk with

in tight, but

I

back and stomach from the pressure of each

An

hour

later

bags and

my

roll.

the boat rise to the next wave and track

felt

I

sail

was soon sore on

down the face, but then lose its way and slew round to the port side. The tinned stores beneath the bunks crashed with the force. I heard glass jars smashing. The roll was all one way now, the weight always on my stomach. The boat was no longer sailing downwind, but sideways-on to the swells, fully exposed to the sea, most vulnerable to being knocked down. I jumped out of the bunk and stared out of the narrow cabin window. I couldn't angle

my

head to see the top of the next swell

as it

approached,

but a few seconds later the boat lurched over the top.

I

climbed

and harness. The boat was wallowing

to the cockpit in oilskins

in a long grey trough.

I

leant over the transom.

paddle of the self-steering gear had

split

off the

The

fibre-glass

aluminium

pole,

perhaps weakened by the force of the cross-swell. Hanging head first

over the back of the boat,

The boat

the paddle.

head.

Once

the broken paddle.

work without it. a

fit it,

I

It

sat

spluttering

was

useless,

I

I

and the

my

wriggled backwards

on the cockpit

sole nursing

self-steering wouldn't

did have a second paddle, and three times tried

but sliding the old one off was

new one

minutes.

took the pin out of the stock of

the paddle was disconnected

up into the boat, then

to

I

pitched and the sea slopped up over

much

on, with the sea slopping into couldn't do

it.

My

ribs

35

easier than sliding

my

face every

ached with bruises

few

when

I

Sailing the Pacific

back into the cockpit. Worried about the boat lying

finally slid

broadside to the Self-steering

seas,

I

hand

started to

steer.

was something I had long taken for granted.

an Aries vane gear, a mechanical device that

wind

tive to the

a

in virtually

wind,

struggles at I

entity,

at

sat

its

centre.

the

tiller

the cockpit.

was steering by hand the

and

stiff

my

with

if

the

I lit

was lucky smoked them down to the

I

spray or rain destroyed them.

on

legs

filter.

I

piece of

a

cigarettes often, filter

before the

My teeth began to chatter and chew My course was

didn't bother with the compass.

determined by the

never seen the boat

seas. I'd

passed. I'd

so

roll

far,

scoop-

My arms ached, my fingers went

ing up water on each side-deck.

numb. Time

my own

braced across

become

solid: I'd

machinery, only there to do a job of work.

and

steered by the

a very simple place, with

that day

all

They locked

I

use

Vane steering makes

powered and

When

sailing over the horizon.

Southern Ocean shrank to

conditions.

all

boat an almost independent

I

boat rela-

steers the

now become

that caricature

from the

movies, the figure in oilskins fighting with the helm while water is

thrown

across his back.

But the

cinema image. The waves

down

sea

is still

different

the faces of the same wave and reform, the

lacerated

by the wind into

seemed impossible

from the

are smaller, but longer. Crests break

that I'd ever

whole

surface

of white spume. Sometimes

lines

found

my way

it

to this desolate

corner of the earth, son of a chartered accountant and

a

lawyer

from Birmingham. This was the furthest place imaginable from everything the

tiller

might see

I'd

been destined

that afternoon, it

as part

know our planet

of

its

I

to

know.

wondered

own

if

so well that people like

to have a relationship with the sea.

I

as

I

sat

shivering at

Ocean

the Southern

destiny that

have no time for such thoughts now.

at

And

one day we would

me would come

don't believe

But those were

it's

my

here.

I

possible

thoughts

the time.

As night

fell

the

wind

eased.

It

36

was

still

gale-force but the seas

Miles Hordern

were breaking more harmlessly, and the cross-swell had evened out.

I

simple and the

tiller.

knew

I

understood everything:

The

the boat to

I

small world.

My role

either pulled or

morning

would come

this

could have moderated and

seas

lie ahull.

I

could

normality would return. In the only end in sight.

By

be able to leave

then replace the paddle, and

sleep,

my

less. I

to an end.

I'd

was

pushed on

night was empty, but structured none the

that in the

morning the

a

my own

blackly locked into

sat

dawn had become seemed to be all but over. Only

exhaustion,

The passage I would arrive. That

few more hours and

night was filled with

time in a way that hadn't happened before on the voyage.

Through

the darkness and diminishing spray

crawl around the face of my watch.

became

In the gale, time

real.

I

watched the hands

The ocean was an easier place.

The hours had

purpose:

the development of the depression against them, and

With time

failing strength.

was sea

as

my

opened up around me. Then

Time

at sea

is

slippery.

gauged

my own

measuring-board, ocean

But when the weather returned

quantifiable.

I

its

to

life

normal the

true character was restored.

On the ocean everything shifts, it slides

and mingles and becomes part of something new. The world afloat

is

dulum

governed by

that

of timepiece, an ocean pen-

sometimes stops altogether.

dateless world,

rarely

a different sort

I

live in a

one punctuated perhaps by

by anything so concrete

as

light

drawn-out and and dark, but

night and day.

The poet Derek Walcott wrote 'The sea is history'. In the Southern Ocean I found it hard to locate myself in any meaningful

concept of the present.

est

thing in view.

I

On

It

was the

the ocean

liken the water to a vast,

I

feel that

I

was often the

am

a part

clear-

of history.

unwieldy tapestry wrapped around

The tapestry is made up of thousands of sepSome strands are gold thread, some silk, some some are bold and strong, others frayed and tatty. The

most of the

earth.

arate strands.

cotton,

past that

37

Sailing the Pacific

who has who have simply looked and And just a few of those strands

ocean tapestry has been woven into being by everyone ever been here, but also by those

wondered. are

It is

an inclusive cloth.

mine, bound up with Greek cosmologers, medieval map-

makers, poets, and whalers. Along the coastline the cloth

and heavy, in places

stiff with

oceans of the south

it is

strands

and nothing in between. There

when

times

understanding. But on the furthest

threadbare, sometimes just a

in fact. History at sea hasn't

the

are other gaps too

- holes,

the ocean was ignored or discounted, others

bottom of the world, was

Virgilius,

few lonely

been continuous. There have been

speculation about what lay beyond at

thick

is

a

home

waters,

dangerous

and

when

especially

activity.

Bishop of Salzburg, was condemned

as a heretic in

the eighth century for suggesting the Antipodes could be inhabited.

Christian teaching stated that after the Flood the habitable

world was divided into three continents, one for each of Noah's three sons.

Shem

got Asia, Japheth Africa and

The southern hemisphere

did not

exist.

A

St

Europe.

medieval Spanish

Benedictine abbot, Beatus of Liebana, wrote in

on the Apocalypse of

Ham

his

commentary

John: 'The Southern zone

...

is

un-

known to the sons of Adam. It has no links to our race. No human eye has seen it. Access is barred to men, and the sun makes it

impossible to enter this region.'

An

early Christian

named Cosmas

map of

the world was

to interpret the Bible physically,

tangular

box

believed that

drawn by

Indicopleustes in the sixth century.

a

monk

Cosmas

and portrayed the earth

representing the Tabernacle of Moses.

tried

as a rec-

Cosmas

on the underside of the earth, beyond the known where humans had lived before

oceans, there was another world the Flood. This continent was

and the oceans surrounding of poisonous

gas.

now uninhabited and unreachable

it

were on

fire,

shrouded

in a mist

Miles Hordern

It

at sea, and a gale, before I began to feel at home Those ten days were spent trying to adjust to life the empty ocean realm. I once met a French single-handed

took ten days

in the south.

in

sailor in the

Marquesas

understand the

knots and knows

tie

of rules and

who

told

me

that the English did not

'For you, a seaman

sea.

when

to fly each flag.

But

traditions.

someone who can

is

French

in

The

sea

is

a place

seaman, un marin,

a

is

someone who knows the sea and understands how to live here.' The Frenchman said these words as he served me a large gruyere and tender taro-leaf omelette in Hiva Oa. food

I

had had in weeks. As

a locker

He

beneath

my feet.

I

I

began to

It

eat

was the

he took

a

first

fresh

box from

could see several small bottles inside.

show very good

pulled a piece of paper from between the bottles to

was

me.

It

one

as it

a

hand-drawn map of the world, not

a

appeared that India had originally been omitted, then

squeezed onto an already crowded Indian Ocean. The This box and

marked with twelve prominent

crosses.

had been

his father:

a bon voyage gift

from

when

vintage brandy, one to be drunk

its

map was contents

twelve half-bottles of

each of the twelve way-

on this journey around the world was reached. The Frenchman now took a bottle from the box and un-

points

corked

it.

He poured us both a glass.

although there was a cross to the south-west,

I

at Tahiti,

I

studied the

map

again, but

another seven hundred miles

could see no indication that a bottle was sup-

He smiled, and showed He was not yet halfbottles remained. He said,

posed to be drunk here in the Marquesas.

me

the contents of the

way round

box more

clearly.

the world, but only three

'But father was also un marin. At sea you must the present. There

is

My father would be

bottles

would do when they had still

be in the

Pacific.

He

all

of brandy,

been

looked

39

I

me

my

asked

finished.

at

At

proud of me,

was preparing

think. SalutV Later that evening, while he

open another of the

completely in

nothing beyond the horizon. Learn to be

content with what you have. I

live

host

this rate

to

what he

he would

through watery eyes and

Sailing the Pacific

'Actually,

said,

Atlantic.

you know,

bought these

I

know

about brandy you would sea,

only the

moment

finished

I

flags

that this stuff

it

sound

from books. Learning

peace in the present

There

are

not vintage. At

is

easy.

You can

learn knots

to live at sea, learning to find

moment only, new voyage.

renegotiated with each the French

you knew anything

important.'

is

But the French guy made and

twelve bottles in the

all

in Martinique. If

process that must be

a

is I

guess the brandy helped

sailor.

two ways of looking

at

my

the routine of

daily

life

in

the Southern Ocean. There was the superficial routine, the one I

thought I

I

followed; and there was the routine

thought

had devised

I

care of the necessities of

a detailed timetable

life

and provide

a

I

actually kept.

of

tasks to take

minimum

of variety:

preparing food and numerous drinks; writing a log; navigation;

Spanish lessons; reading; certain programmes on the radio. These tasks

could usually be completed regardless of sea conditions

(there

were one or two other pastimes,

like

tournament, that were weather-dependent). this

timetable

a tiny act

strictly,

not

as

of defiance. In the

my I

on-going

wanted

to

darts

keep to

an act of mindless regimen but fluid

ocean world precision was

as

a

luxury, and a statement of autonomy. Like finding a small flower in the desert,

I

cherished the arrival of each appointed hour.

But the routine

I

actually kept wasn't like this.

appointed hour arrived

I

sometimes did not notice

it,

When and

the

failed

to progress to the next activity.

At

sea, alone,

I

was always

sailing the boat. In reality

focused on the wind and waves even

when

I

was

cooking, or writing,

or drilling Spanish question forms. Certainly while sleeping.

When sort I

I

started sailing

I

might have

of stuff that good seamanship

don't believe 'vigilance'

is

is

called this 'vigilance', just the

made

of,

and so on. But

now

the correct term. In the Southern

40

Miles Hordern

Ocean I saw no

ships

New Zealand and Chile.

between

Changes

weather were rarely sudden. There was no need for

in the

check on the sea and wind

went off-course,

the boat

altered motion.

me

to

the time. If the weather changed or

all

was obvious quickly enough from the

it

Most times, when I abandoned my books

me

cockpit there was nothing for

to do.

I

simply stared

at

for the

the sea,

moving at its best speed, that Hours passed like this: watching the waves, keeping an eye on the ocean, oblivious of the reassured myself that the boat was

the passage ahead was getting shorter.

task

was engaged in before.

I

the time trace

I

I

cannot give

spent in the south. There

from dawn through

of experience, of

tasks

is

account of

no seam of events

that

I

can

day.

Time was a patchwork

begun and then

forgotten, hot drinks

to

dusk each

rediscovered once they'd gone cold. If snapshots of my daily

a narrative

life it

I

would show

could build a collage of

me

reading and writing

and listening and cooking; but these images would be lonely pockets of detail in an otherwise empty canvas of sea and

sky.

When people say,

day

at sea?'

I still

For days

'Yeah, yeah, but

have to

at a

reply,

'I

what did you

just don't know.'

actually do

The

sea

is

all

a thief.

time in the Roaring Forties, the wind was in the

north-west. For most of the passage

between the South

Pacific high,

the Southern Ocean.

With

my

course lay sandwiched

and depressions tracking

across

the depressions further south, the

high dominated, giving trade-wind-like conditions, but the sea spray was cold and the ocean sparkled beneath a deep blue sky.

When

the depressions tracked further north, the sky clouded

over and a blustery northerly brought rain. This shifted to the north-west after a couple sionally I

wind

usually

of days, but only occa-

backed west or south.

kept the

wind on

mostly south-east or part-furled

genoa the

the port quarter, so

my

course was

With a double-reefed mainsail and a boat would run 140 miles in twenty-four

east.

4i

Sailing the Pacific

making deep rolls to starboard at the bottom of each sea. My bunk was on the port side, so at night I hung in the lee cloth, which was comfortable. During the day, to read, I lay on the starboard bunk with my legs curled up, because the foot-box was stowed with gear. The companionway was always closed to keep hours,

out the spray But I

when

the weather was fine, wearing oilskins,

could stand in the cockpit, holding the

spray-hood, breathing deep

as

the boat rolled with the seas and

chased cloud shadow over the horizon.

above

all

others,

moved

in

by the

first

It

and

felt

I

prized these times

when a new bank of wet

defeated

from the north and

handles on the

steel

cloud

was driven back into the cabin

I

drops of rain.

had been raining hard for two days when

I

first

noticed a

new sound on the boat. From somewhere indistinct I heard a twang. The knock of tins which had rolled loose or of other gear buried in lockers was

had

ing on the starboard

and

common

a

a resonant, vibrating quality

bunk

dressed and climbed to the

mist and rain.

The wind was

gusty and the boat's sea,

I

and nothing was amiss

roll steep.

wet clothes and

lay

page of my book before

I

down on

back

I

could hear no

it

becomes

where

sound-box,

the bunk.

heard the sound again.

the source of the noise, but a

a place

The

in the rig.

climbed back into the cabin and closed the hatch.

my

sound

and an occasional crack

from the deep reef hanging off the boom. But

off

this

been read-

some time, and my legs felt cold was coming from the rigging, so got cockpit. The sea was smothered in

only noise was the rush of wind and

twang,

But

interruption.

didn't recognise. I'd

for

guessed the noise

stiff. I

I

was

of the boat, and their significance

is

difficult.

noises

At

I

I

pulled

I'd

read a

tried to trace sea the cabin

echo inside the

shell

amplified by an unoccupied

mind. The twang seemed to be coming from somewhere overhead, but even this was difficult to assess because rolled, the floor

were not

and ceiling became the

clearly defined.

42

walls.

when

the boat

'Up' and 'down'

Miles Hordern

of wind and motion around the The sound was not regular. A minute or two

tried to read the pattern

I

twanging

noise.

might

pass before

which

are rolling, like tins,

But

rolls.

And

recurred.

it

it

was

a single

sound: things

knock in both directions as the boat only heard this sound when the boat came back

I

upright, and only after the deepest

rolls. I

started searching in the

compartment. There were spray cans here which

toilet

could account for the higher pitched, hollow sound

from

rolling I

side to side.

But the cans were

watched them quite stationary

now

thought.

I

went back

I

as

to the

all

at

I

wedged

in place.

bunk

for a

few minutes, and

if I'd left a

winch

the mast-step that was sliding around.

This went on cabin

thought

I

they were

the twang continued, louder

then climbed back to the deck, wondering handle

if

all

morning, and most of the afternoon. In the

could focus on nothing

The

else.

noise

seemed

to get

my head.

But each time I climbed to wind across limitless space, the twanging sound seemed a trivial concoction of

louder, drilling deeper into

the deck and heard the rush of

memory

of the

my mind. ings, tied

and

I

crawled up to the stemhead to check the anchor lash-

back the halyards, but

a short

it

was

a lousy

day with heavy rain

time on deck was usually enough to convince

me that

nothing serious was wrong. Over the course of the morning

I

emptied everything from beneath the bunks in the forepeak: the

main cabin

floor

of junk, and

was wedged with storm

thousand

a

feet

of warp.

I

sails,

felt

bags of parts, bags

with

my

over the inside of the hull, and then of the ceiling, still

seemed

to

as

fingers

all

the sound

be somewhere high up, but there was

really

nothing here that could move. In the afternoon

I

started

These had been hanging shelves

on

my

on the cabin

voyage.

last

sole,

on the

lockers opposite the lavatory.

lockers, but I'd divided I

them up with

pulled everything out and stacked

it

except for two anchors that were lashed to the

Then put it all back again. Then, after another ten minutes on the bunk with a book, decided that the sound was

bulkheads.

I

I

43

Sailing the Pacific

definitely a

coming from those

second time. Then

felt

lockers, so

carefully

a small vibration

each time

hands beneath the side-deck

heard the sound.

I

I

pulled everything out

around the hull and bulkthought

I

it

grew

a clear

could

I

When

heard the twang.

I

touched the chainplate there was time

all

Near the tops of the bulkheads

heads.

my

I

stronger,

buzzing sensation each

The

raced back up to the cockpit.

I

feel

moved and when I I

chainplate in question anchored the cap-shroud, the length of

wire running from the side-deck to the top of the mast. the shroud for

on

a

long

seemed

time, but nothing

roll to starboard,

on the shrouds stay

some

I

saw

to protect the

one of the

it:

sail at

fell

back

the spreaders rode up the wire the boat

as

standing on the breezy deck

it

was

thick,

could hear no sound,

I

and though I

was what had been resonating around the cabin.

up

to the mast-step

to

keep the

doing

this

and again having

disc

and flicked

pinned

a spare

down

previously had fallen lay

came

down the stay and hit the spreader. The disc was

only four centimetres in diameter, but

this

watched

plastic discs that sit

about a metre, pushed by the wind; then,

upright,

I

to change. Then,

down with

finally traced the

whole day searching

for

a

it

that

climbed

had been

(the tape that

When

off).

I

halyard round the spreader,

against

book

knew

I

got back to the cabin

there was

little

source of the twang.

I'd

satisfaction at

spent almost a

something quite unimportant.

many times on the The sounds of the ocean were one of my guides in trying understand my environment. Sound is a constant at sea. Silence This sort of wild-goose chase was repeated

voyage. to is

impossible. If only subconsciously,

From

It

rose

comfort

this

in the south: the

easy progress to the east. its

listening.

wind became

a

from somewhere beneath the horizon and

swept tunelessly over the ocean. In

of

was always

the deck, the sound of the north-west

dull throb.

greatest

I

I

barren sound

I

found

my

wind spoke of constant and

dreaded hearing

a

change

in the

note

drone.

The

sea itself, the water,

made 44

little

noise.

Waves slopped

Miles Hordern

around the transom, and heavy gobs of spray landed on the teak in the cockpit.

Individual waves just great rush that took

hatch

at

became away

night and again

me

that

approaching.

seas

part of that oceanic sound, the

my

when

breath

I

pulled back the

the force of global exposure.

felt

Inside the cabin, these sounds to surprise

sound of the

rarely heard the

I

were

In fact,

lost.

plywood washboards and

it

never failed

could

a teak hatch

so effectively shut out the great roving sounds of the ocean

make of the cabin a separate world of noises. The sound of the wind reached in here through the whine of the wind-generator climbing and subsiding with the gusts. Sound in outside the boat, and

the cabin was strangely dislocated, an abstract reflection of the

passage of a small boat under

sail.

was almost inaudible. Instead, gurgling whoosh

With

could only hear progress,

I

the boat rode

as

the hatch closed, the

down

wind

a long,

the face of each sea and

bubbles raced upward round the wine-glass-shaped section of the hull.

Sometimes,

crest

would

I

was,

tions. In

in

shatter

long seas

this

the boat was reaching in breaking seas, a

whump

a great

stiffen

into

its

is

and wherever

side,

with alarm. But these were excep-

most conditions, the sound of a yacht

sailing off the

wind

quite benign, like a child sliding backwards and for-

wards in the bath.

on

with

my body

felt

I

when

sound.

It

My perception of the marine world was based

varied only a

little. It

sounds of the ocean were

Some sounds

was

a

sound

that

conveyed

on which the more

limited information, a simple note

subtle

built.

heard from inside the cabin were identifiable. As

wind rose the main halyard started to bang against the mast. The other halyards were wound between the mast steps to

the

prevent free to

of

it

or occasionally tied back, but

this,

warn of rising winds.

beating

woke me from

It

was

a

I

left

the

main halyard

heavy rope, and the sound

the deepest sleep, a warning bell

from the watch-tower. The creak of the self-steering their blocks at first

was

different;

it

lines

on

rose in pitch slowly over several days,

an anguished yelp, then desperate, until

45

I

was driven from

Sailing the Pacific

my bunk,

usually barefoot in the middle of the night, with a can

of

the blocks.

oil for

Other sounds had

on the

disc falling stole

my

obvious source. Like the twang of the

They were minor proportion. Over the first

concentration.

grow out of tried to

a less

spreaders, these appeared

all

minimise the potential for these

found the

the rhythms of the sea.

I

the lockers and restacked

them

found the AA-size battery as

the boat rolled.

It

was

beneath some engine parts, at the

stood the

I

When

have

tins that

some

sailcloth

third locker sea

were

rolling in

Then

a friend

on

and

a

bag of I

and

ocean I

irritating,

who

weeks suddenly

refuses to

be annoyed by

tapping sounds begins he

side in a locker

and

pulls the

and together they blend into the

is

dis-

fabric of

life.

cannot do

keeps

toilet

best under-

towel out of the cutlery drawer, so that no single sound tinct

box

when the contents of a locker

stray its

I

was knocking

emptied.

silent for three

one of these

deliberately puts a coffee jar

I

I

stray intrusions into

that every ten seconds

filters,

bottom of the

knock.

such things.

days of the passage

in a small plastic jar inside a plastic

random nature of the

started to

could

irritations that

so they wouldn't budge.

had been bedded down and

that

from nowhere and

me

source.

this. It's

not the noise

itself that obsesses

me

and

chasing around the boat, but the need to trace

It is

the

unknown

that's

unnerving

46

at sea.

its

Three

woke early one morning with a start. The wind had been dying when I'd last looked out, and the sounds in the cabin had I

been only

slight:

the rustle of water flowing around the hull and

an occasional snap

when

the leech of the headsail collapsed and

re-set in the westerly breeze. Otherwise, inside the cabin,

been quite lockers

all

my

still,

troublesome stores

But when clanking; a

drawer.

for

had

finally at rest in the

around. I

woke

morning

that

on the

sounds: a pencil was rolling

its

it

I

heard

a

number of

stray

chart table; the bowls were

CD was sliding on the floor; the cutlery was restless in Then

the boat gave a heavy jar as the mainsail crashed

want of wind.

the cockpit.

I

pulled open the hatch and climbed out into

There was no rush of

air.

The morning

light

was

weak through wet cloud, the sun hidden from view. I looked at the compass. The wind was still in the west, but now very light. Over the course of that morning the wind veered 180 and ,

a

fifteen-knot easterly set

in.

and made the best course

I

A

headwind.

I

sheeted in the

could south-south-east, the boat

pitching bluntly and rolling through an uneasy heel in the sea.

I

went back

by the time

I

to bed. Perhaps a front

woke

sails

would go through, and would

the old pattern of north-westerlies

have returned.

47

lumpy

Sailing the Pacific

But the barometer was

By midday

throughout that morning. the east.

stripped the

I

trailing the I

and the wind rose

falling

from the

sails

was blowing

it

rig

steadily

from

a gale

and ran off to the west,

drogue anchor, back the way

had come.

I

hate going backwards at sea. I've only been forced to run off

before

particular malevolence.

engine box, throwing

remember each occasion with a for most of that afternoon on the

and

a gale three times,

sat

I

darts.

I

I

took to

my bed

before

it

was even

dark.

A voyage

a line

of wake which disappears seconds behind the boat, and a line

is

a fragile thing. It

of intention ahead which

impose

A voyage

it.

is

is

as

and people.

It

was

only a line across the water:

long and strong

a belief that

horizon days away, the destination age, a bar,

is

as

the

sailor's will

to

somewhere ahead, beyond the is

a real place,

with an anchor-

put these things on hold

difficult to

while the boat was blown backwards. Without progress the ocean

was bedlam, only noise and motion, no direction.

The gale blew for two nights. back towards a handful

but only

bunk

of times.

ran a hundred and seventy miles

I

drank water from

a

left

I

dozed.

my bunk only

mug and ate

and listened to audio books.

Mostly

I

of both. Each sticky meal was an

a little

read,

I

lessons.

I

New Zealand. During that time

I

dried

fruit,

effort. In

my

gave up the Spanish

My ears grew red and sore from contact

with the damp pillow. Before light on the third day the north-easterly moderated to

twenty- five knots.

I

slept

deeply for several hours, then shipped

The wind

gusted to gale

force several times over the next four days as the

wind backed

the drogue and set a course to the south.

round

to the north. Before this latest trough passed overhead

had spent the previous week of the passage 45° and 48

and

still

south latitude;

sailing east

I

between

now was well below the iceberg limit I

being pushed further south by the north wind.

The weather grew colder. The sky was still grey, but the sodden woolliness cracked and

went

still.

I

watched the block-like

jumbled around the boat and wondered 48

seas

how drift ice would look

Miles Horde rn

among them. When sharp creases after

as it

I

reefed the mainsail the fabric folded into

had when new. I warmed my hands on the kettle

working the

After four days

sails. I

was

at

When

and backed into the west.

Then the wind eased wind and seas steadied I

south latitude.

52

the

My mood was bright: New Zealand and Chile

poled out the genoa and ran north-east.

had passed the midway point between and, as

saw

I

simply out to I

would

I

sea.

was

now

sailing

As things turned

towards Patagonia rather than

was the furthest south

out, 52

on the voyage. It didn't have a great significance at it was just a point on the chart half-way across the ocean

sail

the time;

where

it,

I

changed course and

ate a panful

of corned-beef hash.

My journey

to this point in the Southern Ocean really began many years before I voyaged into the Pacific. In the English summer of 1984 a friend and decided to run away to sea, as one I

does.

We

rigged

as a

in a well

board. I

We

were nineteen, and none too smart.

sixteen-foot

open day-boat

ketch, and the spars

on the transom and could be replaced by

Our intention was

think this was

friendship was

bought

to

sail

for Africa

(I

can't

a Seagull

be

a strict

demarcation of

out-

certain, but

my idea). My companion was called Bill, founded on

a

The hull was fibreglass, were pine. The rudder was hung

in Falmouth.

and our

roles.

I

was

responsible for having hare-brained ideas, and for breaking things; Bill

to

goodnaturedly repaired the things

tame

my

though, and

romantic excesses.

we

My

I

broke, and generally tried

navigation was accurate,

arrived neatly off the Brest Peninsula after a

thirty-six-hour passage across the English Channel. in the river at

Over

We anchored

L'Aber Wrach.

the next six weeks

we

followed the French coast south,

intending eventually to reach Spain and Portugal and so cross the Strait of Gibraltar.

On

the southern part of the French coast,

between the Gironde and the Spanish border, the

49

coastline

is

an

Sailing the Pacific

empty

of dunes. The

stretch

then you reach

homes

here, a

few

was off Contisplage

is

we became

in breaking seas,

hoping

between two

a light.

and

that Bill

intended to spend that night the west and

a naval firing range,

is

Contisplage. There are holiday

clubs, a stream enters the sea

retaining walls, and there It

section

first

named

a village

at sea,

got into trouble.

I

nervous. Foolishly, to enter the stream

boat was pitch-poled in the

surf,

We had

but the wind was strong from

we

closed the shore

and find

shelter.

The

throwing the two of us into

shallow water. Both masts were destroyed

as

the boat

went end-

over-end, and part of the foredeck was ripped from the hull it

as

was driven into the hard sand bottom. Rather disoriented, we

dragged the swamped hull up on to the beach, then searched the

waves for our belongings,

and stared blinking

at

as

up from

their towels

and received

faithful help

sunbathers

sat

us in astonishment.

We lived on the beach for five

days,

man named Louie. Bill made two new masts for the boat, and we were able to replace most of the things we had lost. From Contisplage we sailed to Biarritz, then on to the Basque coast of Spain. But the summer was coming to an end now, and the weather was changeable. It rained a lot. In Santander we decided to give it up, and sold the boat to a dapper man in a from

a local

sports car. I've never

tered

little

been able

boat out for

a sail,

to picture

him

and suspect he just

taking that batfelt

sorry for us.

From Santander we caught the ferry back to Plymouth. The voyage we made that summer was inspired by Edgar Allen Poe's novel The Narrative ofArthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Poe's yarn

tells

of two boys, Arthur and

drunk and run away

to sea in an

into an alcoholic stupor, are carried away. his

and the boat

The boat

comatose friend to

well, though.

The boat

his friend

open

is

run

get

The

sails

caught in

a gale.

the seas. Arthur lashes

expecting the worst. All

down by

a

is

passing whaleship, and

the boys are resuscitated with flannels soaked in hot

50

who

falls

swamped by

a ring-bolt, is

is

Augustus,

boat. Augustus soon

oil.

Both

Miles Hordern

make

home

it

and

in time for breakfast,

their parents are

none

the wiser.

On

voyage Augustus dies and

a later

Arthur

on

sails

into Antarctic waters, further south than any

The sun

ship previously.

calm. There

is

eaten by maggots, but

is

no

is

The ocean

surprisingly strong.

ice in sight.

The temperature

is

and the

rises

current sets to the south. Close to the South Pole, Arthur discovers a temperate land peopled by black natives

who

speak

Arabic. His crew

is

manages

canoe and continue towards the Pole. The sea

to steal a

temperature

last

rises until it scalds his

more quickly

ever

butchered by these Tsalalians, but Arthur

white curtain and the canoe

inside a

hollow

hand.

The

to the south. Finally,

current carries

swept over

is

him

Arthur approaches the a vast cataract,

earth.

Poe's fantasy about the

South Pole was written

in

1838,

when the far South was the 'final frontier' of global exploration. The exact dimensions of Antarctica were unknown, although stretches

of the icy coast had been encountered. Poe's story was

partly inspired

had reached

by

real discoveries. In

a latitude

February 1823

a sealship

of 74°!$', nearly two hundred nautical

miles further south than any previous voyage.

The

captain, James

Weddell, recorded with astonishment that 'not a particle of ice of

any description was to be

and serene

.

.

.

He

The evening was mild

our carpenter was employed in repairing the boat,

and we were able to make Weddell

seen.

sailed to

several repairs

on

sails

and

rigging.'

within 855 miles of the Pole, and saw no land.

observed a south-setting current of thirty miles within three

days,

and calculated that the sea temperature was probably

rising.

Weddell believed the South Pole to be open water.

Poe was determined

that the earth should reveal

secret before planetary exploration

came

one

to an end, so

he

final

also

known as 'Symmes' Hole', Symmes of Ohio, who resurrected

tapped in to the hollow-earth theory the creation of John Cleves

the medieval notion that the earth was hollow, and

5i

open

at

both

Sailing the Pacific

Symmes supposed an opening

poles. at

four thousand miles wide

North Pole and six thousand miles wide at the South Pole. Symmes' Hole was a drawing-room joke throughout the 1 820s,

the

but widely publicised.

He

sent

throughout America and Europe life

in support

'institutions

of learning'

which he pledged

his

of the theory that the earth was 'hollow and inhab1822 he petitioned the

itable within'. In

exploring expedition to five votes

to

a letter in

test his theory.

US

Congress to send an

Symmes

received twenty-

of support.

Edgar Allen Poe was not the first to speculate about polar openMargaret Cavendish's Blazing World, published

ings.

de Nicolas Klimius

is

an account of

a

frippery concerns a

salts

known

as 'Fiddler's

and fly inside the and

and

are transformed into gulls

where they enter

a

One

related piece

of

myth. Nineteenth-century mariners

sailor's

Green', only accessible

to sailors with fifty years' experience at sea.

old

Voyage

journey from the North to

the South Poles, via the centre of the earth.

believed in a paradise

in 1666, des-

The eighteenth-century

cribes a journey inside the earth.

When they die,

fly to

these

the South Pole,

hatch spinning with the earth's revolutions

Green has pubs on every corner

planet. Fiddler's

free ale, tobacco, steak pie

and plum

duff.

we are already living inside a hollow earth. Their leader, Cyrus Reed Teed of Utica, New York State, drew inverted maps of this inside-universe. The The American Koreshanity

sect believe

outer world was destroyed in an apocalypse, and the few sur-

made an

vivors

epic voyage to the South Pole in order to gain

sanctuary within.

world, and our

The

last

far

Below

the fiftieth parallel

on the

passage.

The wind

sun was strong;

when

the spring

I

south

memory

I

is

both the gateway to the

of the

enjoyed some of the

stayed in the west for

finest

many

could wear shirt-sleeves on deck

wind was

light.

The

52

new

old.

weather

days. at

The

midday

cockpit was always dry. But

Miles Hordern

I

was

gales

distrustful at first,

would soon

weather could be

gloomily predicting that the rain and

return,

good

as

determined not to accept that the looked.

as it

I

on, and refused to wear sunglasses. But

held through the

morning,

was obliged to accept

I

The seas were slight, oily in the sun: a slick

the boat.

when

hat and jacket

the fine weather

my good

luck.

the water a bluish green, the surface a little

of heavy, calm water seemed to surround

opened both hatches and

I

my

and continued the following

night

first

kept

all

the locker doors, and let

the cool breeze flow through the fetid confines of the cabin.

took

my

a saltwater

teeth.

I

Some of the

my clothes, brushed

bath in the cockpit, changed

my remaining apples,

counted

carrots tasted

of

diesel.

I

oranges and potatoes.

Three butternut pumpkins

were dusted with a light mould on the outside of their thick skins. 1

placed them, and the carrots, on the cockpit bench and re-

crossed the

fifty-first parallel,

my

vegetables drying in the sun.

This was an easy place to be.

The

westerly breeze continued for three days and

steady progress to the north-east, the

genoa poled out. But during fail. I

the

was kept awake

sails

collapsing;

till

wind on

I

made

the quarter, the

that third night the

wind began

the small hours by the crash and jar of

many

times

I

climbed to the deck to make

small adjustments to the course or rig, but nothing worked.

2 a.m. the

wind died

to

altogether.

I

furled the genoa,

At

and dropped

With the main lying all over the coachwoken by it flapping if the breeze returned. But

the mainsail to the deck.

roof I'd soon be I

slept

longer and deeper than

passage,

and woke long

I

after the

had so

far

on

sun had risen.

the three-week

The

mainsail was

not even twitching on the deck. There was no cloud in the

and not I

I

felt

a breath

sky,

of wind.

drugged and

stupid,

unaccustomed

to such a

deep

sleep.

some time on the cockpit bench, trying to adjust to a where the sun was now burning my neck and the sea was

sat for

place

smooth; most of

all

I

needed

to adjust to the silence,

53

which was

Sailing the Pacific

complete except for the

slight

sounds of water moving against

the hull as the boat repeatedly lifted and eased into position the sea.

My

was

but the boat's gentle movements gave the

sea

flat,

was

flat

on

impression that morning had been that the sea

first

in relative terms,

compared

to

ceding weeks: for most of that time, had

over the pre-

state

its

dropped the

I

as to

prevent

sails

and

would have

so taken the balancing force out of the rig, the boat

been thrown around with such force

The

to this.

lie

me

standing

And even today, when the breeze was imperceptible and

upright.

commounds

the surface of the water without a ripple, the sea was not pletely

flat. It

never

As

is.

I

sat in

appear in the water, gentle

Those lazily

that

the cockpit

humps

it

and subsided.

to lean, then flop

back upright. There was no pattern to the movement of

up and down, very

slowly,

slightly.

One

feature of

calm waters in mid ocean

denly becomes such that

slight

that swelled

formed beside the boat caused

the sea: the water was simply going

very

saw

I

you can

see

a

at

any one time

is

so obviously con-

The wind might have

but somewhere to the north there's

and elsewhere

from other

that the sea sud-

very big place; the tiny stretch of water

around you

nected, a part of something vastly bigger. failed here,

is

a gale.

places.

When

You can

a steady trade,

calm, the sea becomes a messenger

feel these forces transmitted

through

the water from far away, as bulges and swellings spread over the surface

and push the boat sideways; you can

latitude gale

own

and the

erful in a

dead calm:

quality, a sense

when

still

The

sky.

the water

is

both the high-

same time

tropical trade, at the

breath feels intrusive in the

feel

sea

smooth

it

that

your

most pow-

is

has a global

of there being just one planetary ocean that

it is

impossible for the sailor to ever truly cross.

The

sea always has shape, but the shape

describe

when

it

of water

forms and reforms so quickly.

I've

regular lines of swell lying uniformly across the

one does

at

is

difficult to

seldom seen

open ocean,

as

the beach. Sometimes, far offshore, running before

54

Hoy d em

Miles

strong winds,

I

look sideways from the cockpit and get

view along the bottom of the trough of hundred metres or more. But in neat lines.

The peaks

you look

any

dis-

at different

at different stages, so that

one part of the wave which

there's usually

for a

Waves don't come

of the peak are building

they break, they do so

rates; if

unusual.

a clear

wave

especially are hard to trace for

tance. Different sections

ever

that's

a single

when-

is

burst-

ing forwards in white water, given a strong

enough wind. As the

peak passes beneath the boat and you

are for that fleeting

moment high enough

view out over open water towards

to get a

the horizon, the swells don't present themselves in ranks march-

From

ing towards you. to

be patterned in

the deck of a small boat the sea appears

of interlinked crescents,

a series

like fish scales,

each one independent and surging forwards in bursts, then

back

falling

as its

neighbour temporarily takes the

lead.

The wave

pattern can appear random, especially from a viewpoint that rarely sees the a stretch

whole

picture; but

of ocean from the

crest

when you do of

catch a sight of

a sea, the fish-scale

waves

marching forwards, autonomous but arm-in-arm, you see there

is

a single, repeated pattern at sea that binds together

that

thou-

sands of square miles of water.

The

pattern of the waves

but in fact

mind

it's

not what

I

is

a part

see

the shape of the ocean.

first I

of what gives shape to water,

when

look

at

I

try to capture in

waves from

point of view: the size and shape of the sea strength and sea state, to steer.

The waves

how much

sail

tell

to carry

carry information

I

my

a practical

me

the

wind

and what course

need, but give only a

limited sense of identity to the larger world of the sea.

A more

lasting

the horizon.

image of the shape of the

The horizon should be

fixed geometrical form,

only

as a flat disc.

lasting than

appear

sea

is

the outline of

a very simple shape:

and the sea from

a

it is

a

boat should appear

Perhaps the outline of the horizon

is

more

any other image because sometimes the sea does not

as a flat disc.

55

Sailing the Pacific

As

the cockpit that morning, just north of the forty-

sat in

I

ninth

with the

parallel,

slightly

on

bulging

a

had sharp edges.

sea,

seen pentagons and octagons

I've

most often the ocean

on deck and the boat moving only the horizon on every side of the boat

sails

shaped

is

as

was today,

it

tilted

along a broken

and

to the surface

it

slopes even

axis;

not

it's

contours

fluid

when

uniform

a

shift

The

calm.

the boat's

No

meadow

if I'd

like the isobars

I

the passage

this trick

of perspective from disc

flat

of

would probably have done

I

reach a point on passage, usually

ever doing

when

so,

and just accept

it

In the calm

I

cranked up the table baskets.

the

I

way

spent

I

as

it

must

be.

But

given up hope of

conform

at

the water. Instead,

I

and scrubbed the vege-

siphoned water from jerry-cans into the main

and

filled

it

with

had learnt to accept

man

I

spent the day

water around the boat

skins. After three

that the sailor,

of the true shape of the a

paraffin.

shifting, swelling

with dust and rotting onion

sees very little

the ocean

time staring

stereo, cleaned the toilet

I

housework, and the littered

days of

appears to be.

it

less

I

vision and

first

cease to care if the sea does not

tank, cleaned the stove

in the south

I've

head,

forced myself to

this:

when

my

my

In the

sea.

perceive the ocean according to the rules of how

was

looked up the

towards the sun, and could trace

blinked once or twice and shaken

again been surrounded by a

in

is

shadow downhill.

doubt

could have pushed

I

rectangle

slope, as creases swell

and mingle,

of an evolving weather map. From the cockpit slope of this oceanic

with

The ocean

the long sides at right-angles to the rays of the sun. has four corners, and

but

at sea,

as a rectangle,

sea.

I

from

weeks

his boat,

picture myself

on

stumbling about, holding back-to-front

binoculars to his eyes, trying to see the world.

I

tell

myself

I've

read the pattern, I've seen the fish-scales marching forwards across a rectangular seascape,

discovery.

At the same time,

sand metres deep, of which

and I

sail I

I

hold

know 56

this close as a

cherished

blindly over waters five thou-

nothing.

The

sailor

is

a

Miles Hordern

who

surface-dweller,

understands surface patterns.

see the

I

ocean in only two dimensions, and kid myself I've seen and read the global forces stirring deep below my feet.

I

remember the very first time I stepped onto

can't

its

a sailing-boat.

probably wasn't an event that was imbued with great

It

cance

at

the time.

was always

my

a

Channel

when he came

dinghy in the garage

we went

childhood

signifi-

My father was born in Jersey and lived on the

he got married,

island until

shape

to stay

at

to England.

There

home, and every summer of

with

my

grandparents in the

Their cottage was on the beach beside the

Islands.

slipway at Le Bourg. There was always a dinghy in the garage

We launched

there, too.

bounce the a

trailer

it

from the slipway

at

high

or could

tide,

over the smooth, round stones beneath the

couple of hours either side of high water.

A mile offshore there

were two Martello towers, Seymour and Icho, and we the area between the towers

— and

the beach.

ish green.

On

It

was usually

castles, as

I

sailed in

thought of them

a tranquil area, the sea a

clear days the bare coast

twenty miles to the

brown-

of Normandy was

visible

east.

own way

In their

— or the

these

in. The The sea-bed

were some of the more dramatic range here

waters I've sailed

tidal

at springs.

shelves only very slowly

is

high, twenty-five feet

and

is

strewn

with craggy rock formations and unlikely pinnacles. At high only

a

gulls.

But

Martello towers filled

There was at

tide

few rocky peaks appear above the water, stained white

from the stream

slip

is

with

low

at

dry,

tide the sea-bed as far out as the

except for rock pools and a salt-water

kelp.

sufficient

water to

sail a

dinghy for about four hours

the top of each tide. Taking great care to avoid the drying

rocks,

you could

much

care,

domes break

and

sail

for a

little

at half tide

longer than

watched rock

this.

spires

I

never took

and granite

the surface. Bouldery hillocks, covered in gulls, slid

57

Sailing the Pacific

from behind the

If

sails.

too long, which

I

forgot the consequences of staying out

managed

I

to

do with alarming frequency, the

dinghy ran bumpily aground on some rock half a mile offshore,

and

had to wade

I

home up

my

and kelp flowing round me.

I

never saw anyone

a child's

mind, took

it

towing the dinghy behind

thighs,

doing

else

to

the salt-water stream, the ebb tide

be the

this

but

by some

still,

norm with

sailing: if

trick

you

of

stayed

out on the sea long enough, a hidden landscape rose from

beneath the water

Apparently,

around the boat.

all

Christopher Columbus saw

Caribbean in 1492

when

I

voyage to the

re-creation of the story of Jason and the

as a

Argonauts, with himself In fact,

his

Jason and

as

Queen

Isabella as

read accounts of the voyages of the

Medea.

Age of Dis-

covery which brought Europeans into the Pacific for the time,

I

found

that

with child-like

Columbus

first

wasn't alone in associating sea travel

fantasies.

Sixteenth-century

sailors inherited a bizarre

view of the world.

Renaissance Europe was awash with stories about the ocean and

of sea-crossings such

of Jason and the Argonauts. Another

as that

popular collection was the Thousand and One Nights, which

who survives the most and returns home time and again

include the voyages of Sinbad the Sailor,

remarkable experiences

at sea

with unimaginable wealth.

The cartography of preceding sailors

might not only get

chance to

fulfil

human

Both the Cotton south, raised

Map

centuries raised the stakes:

rich, but

were competing

for the

destiny and locate the terrestrial Paradise.

and the Catalan Atlas show Paradise

up on great mountains or on

a vast

in the

continent that

circled the southern part

of the globe. Medieval theologians

believed that Paradise was

somehow

separate

world. Isodore of Seville saw the barrier

Venerable Bede believed

it

to

from the known

as a wall

of flames. The

be an impassable ocean: to arrive

58

Miles Hordern

more than a physical journey - it required an act of baptism. The sailors of the Age of Discovery seemed best placed to fulfil the quest. They could now cross the burning seas at

Paradise took

of the equatorial doldrums and navigate the unknown Southern

Ocean beyond. The baptism of sea travel would reveal the last and greatest prize to be found on earth. Another feature on medieval maps was Ophir, the biblical land of Solomon's gold. The quest for Ophir took the Spanish sailors

Mendaria and Quiros across the

Pacific three times in the

sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and gave a

Solomon landfall

Islands.

On his final voyage in the Pacific

name

to the

Quiros made

south of the Solomons in 1606, and believed he had

found part of the coastline of the mythical southern continent; he

day Vanuatu. Quiros described

w^as actually in present

place as Eden, and

larger than even the wildest estimates,

as all

Europe and Asia

The

navigator

hundred

souls

A

...

fifth

summoned

his

from three

ships,

'as

this

great

part of the Terrestrial Globe.'

crew before him, some three and founded the Order of

Knights of the Holy Ghost, in which every one of them was included. to the

He named

whole region, from the

the

South Pole, Austrialia del Espiritu Santo. The

rich in emeralds, sapphires

cinnamon were

The his

and

chrysolites;

rivers

were

nutmeg, pepper and

plentiful.

fact that

Quiros drew on the idea of the Holy

choice of name

as a

tropical islands

is

not

a

Spirit in

coincidence. Quiros saw his Austrialia

land of the future, a Paradise belonging to the final stage of

history.

Spanish explorers often had

theologian Joachim,

Abbot of

this idea. It

was linked to the

Fiore in the late twelfth century.

a third and ultimate era on Earth, the Time of Holy Spirit, when all races would live as one and the word of God would reach every continent and island. Christopher Columbus invoked the name of Joachim with each landfall and

Joachim foretold the

claimed that sea

Holy

Spirit.

travel

Many

was

his

response to the influence of the

Spanish explorers saw their voyages in the

59

Sailing the Pacific

same

light, as part

human

of a Joachite push towards the

Quiros founded the of the South

trees

last

and perfect

age. city

New Jerusalem among

of

He

Seas.

the palm would be human-

believed this

homeland. The long voyage back to Paradise had

kind's final

been accomplished.

When

I

more than

read about the

Age of Discovery, what impressed me way that navigators

the voyages themselves was the

simply imprinted their lines they found.

own

For the

mental geography onto the coast-

European

first

was an ambiguous concept. The

'place'

fixing their position and,

I

sailors in the Pacific,

difficulties

of accurately

something about the

like to think,

men to

very nature of sea travel and water, allowed these

find an

imaginary landscape.

I

sailed north-east over the

next three weeks, slowly climbing up

the parallels of latitude. There were

north-west wind was

a steady thirty

were two short calms, sea

was

still

more than

a

These were and

really the

the sky blue. Often,

when

had pictured

I'd

this part

with imaginary way-points.

degrees of west longitude would

way

run.

I

across.

mean

I

A

hundred and two

was three-quarters of

Ninety degrees would be the

used longitude to calibrate

my way my mind

to find

of the Pacific in

I

and the

dripped in the

been struggling

at sea again, it

sails

only events in the second half of the

duly entered them in the log.

I

Earlier in the voyage,

filled

There

left to right. Inevitably,

grey cloud surrounded the boat and the

passage,

though the

at a time.

few hours each, but the

warm and

days the sun was

boiling cumulus rushed overhead from

drizzle.

gales,

running and the boat crashed around helplessly on the

Some

swells.

little

no more

knots for days

start

a distance that

of the

home

was otherwise

too great to conceptualise, and so divided the journey into more

manageable chunks. But when

I

reached 102

60

West

I

completely

Miles Hordern

failed to notice that

The

sea

an event of any importance had occurred.

continued unchanged, time was

of place was beginning to go hazy. global ocean, other,

and the part

no more

significant.

ronment: the wind, the

I

featureless.

was on was no

I

different

My world was my

state

of the

My notion

was simply on the

sea,

the

from any

immediate envi-

the features of the sky,

sea,

my books and language classes, darts, and the now wrinkled, apples cushioned in tea-towels

three remaining,

bottom of

the

at

the fruit basket.

When

I

bought the boat and

terest in the sea itself.

first

went

saw the ocean

I

than a place, which would in time lead

had no sense of direction on

land.

I

offshore,

as a

me

was

I

had little in-

road, a thing rather

to a

new home. I had

a drifter.

I

responded to

some animal instinct to migrate but, not knowing where to go, I went to sea. Somewhere across the sea, I hoped, I would find a home. But the further I sailed, the more I found that my attitude to the ocean changed. To drift at sea was impossible, drifting was oblivion. I've always had a course at sea: it's easy. Under sail, a sense of direction became part of the fabric of daily life. As I checked the compass, drew lines across the plotting sheet and calculated each day's run, place,

not just

a road.

I

to recognise the sounds

I

began to build

a picture

of a small hull moving through water, the

place with characteristics peculiarly

and shapes changed over time, not I

purpose: to

was on the ocean, sail

Going back ing

at sea

as a

noticed the colours of the ocean, learned

The

texture of waves and the shape of the horizon.

whenever,

of the sea

it

the boat towards

its

own.

distance.

was

my

a place

Its

sea

was

But wherever, and

where

I

had

a clear

chosen destination.

to sea, after a long time ashore,

was hard. But

stay-

was not. In the second part of the passage to Chile

found domestic

bliss for

the

first

a

colours, sounds

time in

my

life.

I

nurtured

I

my

boat with almost parental concern, listening for stray sounds and passing sleepless nights in bad weather.

61

I

began

a

programme of

Sailing the Pacific

housework when the weather allowed, scrubbing the the lockers beneath the bunks with

salt

water. Often

bilge I

and

watched

the sea, from the cockpit or through the cabin windows, and

was going somewhere.

found easy reassurance

that

largely uneventful

of books and hanging about.

I

life

I

It

had climbed north-east up the chart of the South

closed the coast of Chile,

enough.

I

had

I

had learned

started to feel at

By

a quiet,

the time

Pacific

and

that these things could

home on

62

was

the sea.

be

Four

made landfall on

I

December,

after a

the coast of Chilean Patagonia in

six-week passage from

New

mid

Zealand. Late in

morning I sighted Isla Guafo through the haze. It appeared as a mud-coloured hump, suspended above a strangely flat horizon. At sunset I passed very quietly to the south of the island, making no more than two knots in a failing southerly breeze. I

the

sat in

the cockpit, gazing at the thrashed and scrubby bush, the

breakers at

on the rocky

and the dimly

foreshore,

visible buildings

on the north point. With binoculars I explored and gullies, the way the land rose and fell, but never

the lighthouse

the ridges

moved. That night

I

sailed

up the Golfo de Corcovado,

landlocked gulf that separates the mainland from

The I

night was pitch black, without

thought

I'd

moon or stars.

Isla

a near-

Chiloe.

In the evening

be becalmed right here on the doorstep, but about

midnight the wind freshened markedly from the south. surged

down

the side-deck as

didn't sleep that night, fuelled

I

Foam

bore north-east up the Golfo.

on

a cocktail

I

of caffeine, nicotine

and racing excitement.

The dawn was very Chiloe, I

a

cold.

On my

left

I

saw the coast of

black strip hanging beneath wet cloud. In the cockpit

gulped breakfast between

shivers. Finally the

63

sun climbed over

Sailing the Pacific

the

Andean

foothills

my

right

saw

I

its

and burned the cloud off the Golfo, and on

on the snowy cone of Volcan

rays shining

Corcovado. I

spent that

morning running up the

coast of Chiloe in a

thirty-knot southerly and strong sunshine. Early in the afternoon I entered the canal that leads up to the town of Castro, and worked slowly inland through green water, surrounded by roll-

ing farmland. After three hours

Peuque.

I

approached the

The water was deep

final

bend in the canal, Punta and

close to the point

about ten metres from the shore. Large

slabs

I

motored

of weathered rock

my

jutted out over the water, shaded by pines. At the sound of

engine

a

dog ran out from the shadows and stood perched on the

nearest bit of rock, barking at the boat.

dipped and

on the ebb

its

head jutted.

was almost

tide the boat

dog's nose.

I

With each bark

its tail

cut the engine revs right back, so that

I

stayed here for

some

stationary, ten metres

from the

time, just listening to the dog's

bark resonate under the trees and carry over the canal, both pitch

and frequency perfectly

regular.

And

commonplace reaction I'd made landfall

this dog's

properly realised I

have

moment

a

friend

of sea

who

travel.

it

to

was only now,

someone

passing by, that

I

at last.

believes that landfall

She has

when I saw

more

sailed

the defining

is

than forty thousand

miles in the Pacific, and likens landfall to rebirth. She believes that the emotional forces released by the act of

with practice, be harnessed

with each

as

making

landfall can,

agents of personal development. So

be reincarnated

landfall she strives to

as herself,

but

minus some aspect of her personality which she has decided

to

ditch. If this

is

true,

was born again dislike

and as a

landfall

Zombie.

is I

akin to rebirth, then in Chile

I

don't even like dogs. In fact,

I

them very much indeed. But

I

kept the boat in the same

position for several minutes, the engine idling, the mast just clear

of the pine branches, captivated by the sight and sound of the

64

Miles Hordern

first

said

land

mammal I'd seen for a month and a half.

something

Normally

then?'

This was

I

how

throw stones it

evening. Landfall found

dogs that bark

much of

me

me

even

I

me.

at

that afternoon

and

stripped of any ability to discrim-

and each wonderful, inconsequential

inate, left

at

continued for

believe

I

Where's home,

'Hello, boy! Hello there!

like,

detail

of life on land

dumbstruck, with delight and gratitude, but

also like

a fool.

Once I got over my fascination with the barking dog I rounded Punta Peuque and got

my first sight

of the town of Castro

at

the

head of the channel. The road south of the town was busy with traffic at

the end of the working day.

in the dis-

A truck gunned its engine. found the deepest satisfaction listening to each one. A traffic jam snaked down the hill past

tance.

in

Horns peeped

some

I

excavations:

of dust.

I

workmen waved

traffic

through in clouds

waved back happily. Corrugated iron roofs were stacked

chaotically

up the

handful of figures

the

hillside, ablaze in first stared,

grinning absurdly by I

the

low

then smiled,

as

On the wharf a

sun. I

motored past. I was

this stage.

anchored just beyond the wharf. There was that

moment of complete moving.

I

The

air

was

heard birds and insects

all

around me.

boat, coiling ropes

weeks

that

being

afloat;

I

calm.

I

was actually

At

floating.

such delicacies are

came, and

I

took

sea there's

lost

a step,

moved about

I decided to sit down. Along the shoreline rows of

I

first

could I

perfect

feel

it

not

idled about the

and clearing up, aware for the

Sometimes now, when that never

thick,

first

little

time in

sensation of

in the greater motion.

compensated

for a

wave

the boat in a series of clumsy

lurches.

the water

on

stilts,

their cypress timbers

the evening sun. Yellow front doors.

along the ibis

The

silty

houses extended over

palafito

tide

skiffs

were

burning

a rich red in

tied to railings outside the

was low and fishing boats were scattered

beaches, lying heavily

on

their sides.

Buff-necked

wandered through the shallows, wood smoke hung over the 65

Sailing the Pacific

water

On the far side

like mist.

land spread over gentle

of the

hills.

took the dinghy in to the Armada compound and knocked

I

on the

office

The

the courtyard.

ing on

By

The

it.

at

I

I

to the tiredness that

comes

long passage, you

my body.

that are

workout

needed here on different

So

I

land.

When

you

first

else.

when you walk on

to muscles else.

step

on land

your body has changed. land.

At

sea

of balance and co-ordination

You can stand upright in a world

agility, a set

are

still

of physical

You have become,

in

working against

skills,

some

that aren't

small way, a

kind of animal.

swaggered through the Armada compound and, with

loping, ungainly stride, arrived in the street. to town.

A

steep

hill

passage of feet.

I

wandered

hardware store

past dusty

the

shop windows and into

a

of farm implements, eight-inch

full

and ranks of wood-burning

nails

a

led in

The wooden board-walk was worn smooth by

ferreteria, a

copper

with

lack of sleep just

and sleep while your muscles

You have an

roll.

and smiled.

felt stiff,

There's a peculiar glamour

realise that

employed nowhere

that heaves,

I

The

There's a swagger to your stride a

kept stamp-

I

after the sea.

something

serves to disguise

you've given

vibrating.

hadn't slept for thirty-six hours.

aches and pains sunk deep in

after a

humming,

land was

officers occasionally lifted their eyes

time

this

my passport and papers. Trim men with my documents while stood giggling in

door with

moustaches looked

the

and wood-

canal, pastures

stoves.

I

stood in the

centre of the shop, scanning this wealth of information, then

roamed down the the shelves.

A ings.

I'd

It

my fingers

running

as

through the dust on dry

as dust.

stairway led to an upstairs bar with convex floor and ceil-

empty room looked Later some back-packers

The windows bulged outwards and

ready to pop.

came

aisles,

forgotten about anything

I

sat

on

a stool at the bar.

the

in.

was an evening of

people

at

flux.

I

knew

that

I

could not be two

the same time, both Jekyll and Hyde, and that the

66

Miles Hordern

me would not survive. So I sat on my bar stool, else who had drunk too much beer, reciting

sea creature in

someone

talking to a silent

eulogy to the dying

sailor, his sea

powers of balance fading away sleep also, because a little

more

knew

I

with each

that

everybody

like

muscles atrophying, his

longed for

I

else,

sleep,

but

I

dreaded

night's sleep I'd

walk

and the only true thing

I'd

brought back from the sea would have gone. Landfall sively

is

always a mess.

about those

At

inevitable.

It is

sea

I

dream obses-

days ashore, picturing fresh citrus, beer and

first

seafood, chance encounters that blossom into friendship, conversations lasting

deep into the night. But

way. In Castro

I

I

ate quickly,

could go and do

my landfalls

are a

around

like

is

real.

still

hill,

like

I

I

come to the conclusion that them that way: it's the mess where you can blunder

new

sensation, following

were

on the back-packer

call

attracted

in front

me

-just so

like

a place

is

slept quickly

stay alive.

South America, and People

Land

major port of

a

top of the

again. I've

an ox, bouncing off each

any whim, and

Castro

it all

mess because

makes them

that

had conversations quickly, got drunk

everywhere quickly, and then

quickly, left

never works out that

it

little

through

attention in the town.

of the church, there sitting

trail

is

a

At the

windswept

plaza.

around on many of the benches,

One

picking grit from ice-creams and examining guide-books.

day

I

young woman from Baton Rouge,

chatted to a

She was blonde and

frail,

her

lips

Louisiana.

cracked by the sun. She'd just

spent two years in Bolivia with the Peace Corps, teaching nutrition. said,

She didn't look 'I

village

thought is

a

I

night journey just to did

it

at first,

I

was that lonesome.

four-hour walk from the nearest road.

to catch a ride in to town,

I

what she preached. She

like she practised

couldn't do

- you know,

call

where

Then you have

there's a telephone.

home. The

a gringa,

villagers

It's

an over-

watched everything

they were fascinated. At night

67

My

I

saw

Sailing the Pacific

window.

faces staring in at the years,

But

gotta get out.

I

beings can learn to

it

thought,

I

passed.

live anyplace.'

I

do

can't

this for

She was on

a short

before going back to the village for another two years.

my

from Auckland had been very

flight

After the spotlight of

life

alone

spent the

plaza, eating

few days

first

after landfall

told her

I

slow, delays in Papeete.

on the ocean,

this

nymity among the crowd of travellers was the best I

two

human break now

think given time

I

kind of anorest

of all.

hanging around in the

bowls of greasy seafood stew from

nearby and

stalls

taking long walks through the countryside to neighbouring villages.

only

had no firm idea of where

I

knew

February to

I

that

I

had two months

I

would go

available.

in Patagonia.

By

needed to head north and begin the long passage back

New Zealand through the tropics. Two months

very long time, given the scale of

this coastline.

world.

A maze of canals,

the south.

I'd

fjords

and

esteros

I

assumed

as far

my

as

I

seemed

in

on the

abstract, a

Even in Castro I made few plans. town for a couple more days, then sail could in one month, before turning round and life at sea.

I'd rest in

south

Horn

occasionally studied charts of the coast

passage over, but from seaward the land had

from

in the

or inlets stretches one

Chiloe in the north to Cape

Isla

a

Southern Chile

one of the most complex systems of waterways

thousand miles from

seem

didn't

boasts

distraction

I

the middle of

the

coming back. But as things turned

out,

I

was very lucky

in Castro.

Anchored

off the palafitos was a forty-five-foot steel yacht called Teokita,

belonging to

Maggy and

Ian Staples. They'd been in Chile for

over a year, and planned to spend the

summer

sailing slowly

south, drawing charts of each anchorage they visited.

would be included visiting

in a pilot

book

The

charts

they were writing for yachts

Chilean Patagonia, to be published by the Royal Cruising

Club Pilotage Foundation.

They

often invited

already gathered

me

on the

over to look

canals,

and to

68

at

information they'd

warm up by

their stove.

Miles Hordern

Maggy was

an earth-mother figure, always in an oiled woollen

on Chiloe. Her straw-

pullover knitted by craftswomen here

coloured hair was perpetually blown wild, and sometimes actually

had

a piece

of straw sticking out of

been

a thicket

of

strutting

around the deck in fluorescent

quila grass she'd

After a few days they suggested

from

it,

a bird's nest or

was fond of

investigating. Ian

sail

I

tights

and sea-boots.

south with them and help

with the survey work. Having two boats would make

and possibly

safer.

I

was nervous of this idea

Ian were from Henley-in-Arden: they tious.

On the

a south-westerly gale

and cold temperatures

would be delighted

We made Castro.

bling

our

The

cliffs

would be slow and cau-

other hand, they had a diesel heater on their boat.

As Christmas approached, rain

easier,

it

Maggy and

at first.

from the ocean.

in

brought heavy I

told

them

I

to tag along.

survey in Estero Pailad, a day's

first

sail

from

entrance channel was two miles long, between tum-

of red

which

inland lagoon,

Then

clay.

split in

up two velvet-smooth

the channel

opened

into a

wide

the middle distance and disappeared

valleys.

Olive-green grasses climbed from

water meadows to the skyline, dotted with copses of cypress and

We

rambling homesteads.

anchored off

of the lagoon. In the morning

so

I

went

that

Maggy and

hamlet on one side Ian re-checked the

We could see that the head of the estero was shoal,

entrance canal.

looking for

a

way

me

as

with

my boat drew less water. tow rope

a

if

I

didn't

Ian said he'd

show

come

in a couple

of

we climbed the ridge to the east and Maggy sketched the outline of the whole bay, and in the evening on Teokita we married the various surveys with the plan drawn hours. That afternoon

from the for the

ridge.

When it was done,

Ian snapped

it

up:

'One more

file.'

They had

stockpiled a huge collection of information

coastline of Chilean Patagonia over the year they

This was

now

on the

had been here.

kept in six bulging folders above the chart

Some of it came from

their

own 69

table.

experience, most from talking

Sailing the Pacific

and other

to fishermen

sailors.

The

crammed with

pages were

often messy sketch-charts and written descriptions of anchorages

French and

in English, Spanish,

sources had provided

When we

bay.

that the

our

most

own

Italian.

two very

Sometimes two

of the same

we

often found

arrived at the place in question,

drawing was the most

basic

surveys,

and Maggy drew

a

new

useful.

We

Teokita.

made

a tracing

made

When pos-

of the bay from the radar screen on

Otherwise she drew an outline by hand. Her drawings

were bold,

of often compli-

in black ink, simple representations

cated topography. cated

then

chart, so that the car-

tography in the finished pilot would be standardised. sible she

different

different drawings

Any depth

over ten metres was simply indi-

as 'deep'.

We spent the next two days surveying the southern part of the coast of Chiloe, especially the area

around Quellon. The main

channels on the coast were already well-charted, but even on the

Chilean Navy sheets most of the

largest-scale

little inlets

coves are either not surveyed, or the cartographer has

with kelp and rocks.

filled

and

them

We found that these bays were usually clear

of obstruction, and made perfect anchorages for small boats. But there was almost

no

visibility

beneath the surface in these waters,

and we entered each new place nervously, dead we checked it out by dinghy first.

A

few days before Christmas Ian gave

survey,

and

I

set

out for

a cruise

among

me

slow.

a

list

Sometimes of places to

the islands alone.

I

sailed

north-east through archipelagos of undulating farmland and

misty sand-spits. In the afternoon

The

island

was about

I

reached

five miles square. In

lagoon with fingers of

salt

Isla its

Buta Chauques. hills lay a

large

water cutting deep into the bush.

Getting into the lagoon looked

difficult.

The

published chart

showed kelp and shoal water across most of the entrance. I inched my way forwards up the canal, but saw no dangers. Open fishing boats were pulled up along the shore. The tree-line was scattered with crayfish pots, buoys,

70

and

skiffs.

In the distance a

Miles Hordern

man was

On

casting a net into the water

from the prow of

a punt.

woman, stooped, barely moving, was them into a wicker basket on her smoke rose from several houses hidden in

the opposite bank a

gathering

shellfish, tossing

Along the

back.

ridges

the bush. It sail.

was

A

a peaceful place,

and I decided to make

my survey under

tender breeze was blowing from the south and

I

reached

through rich pastures. Cattle, hock-deep in

silently to the east

the water, were lowing close

on

either side.

A

dozen or more

Peale dolphins plunged beneath the boat, driving the depth-

sounder

Southern Ocean

crazy. After the

held a sketch-pad cradled in one

of the

bay. After a

mile

I

was

it

arm and drew in

a

like a

balm.

passed a turquoise church tucked

head of a cove. Then the lagoon divided.

I

I

rough outline

furled the

at

the

genoa and

The water was shoal, the channel no more than Beyond this, a hook-shaped fissure curled gently

ran to the north. forty feet wide.

behind

a

low

hill

and ended

mud beach.

at a

I

anchored here for

the night.

From

the masthead

I

sketched a more accurate outline of

inner branch of the lagoon. Then, ridge to the west, chart.

The

anchorage.

pilot I

I

sat in

as

the sun

the cockpit and

book required

a

fell

this

behind the

worked up

a finished

written description of each

put the chart to one side now, and began to write.

hla Buta Chauques: 42

17'S 73

08'W

Approach Chile chart #609 shows two kelp patches (Boca del

Medio and Boca

Pajaros) in the western entrance

from Canal Chauques. although the area

may be

No

kelp was seen in 1998

shoal.

The approach should

be made with caution from the northern part of the

Canal Chauques using the bearings shown in the diagram.

The lagoon

itself

is

7i

relatively free

of dangers.

Sailing the Pacific

Anchorage The

The

eastern part of the lagoon divides in two.

entered through a narrow channel

northern branch

is

formed by

spit.

a

sand

and has

tions

a

The channel is

minimum

depth of

clear 3

of obstruc-

m. Anchor

at

the eastern end of this bay in perfect shelter. 10m.

Mud.

The wind

fell silent after

As the

dark.

tide

dropped the drying

mud-flats along the foreshore sucked and popped in the

stillness.

The sounds of children and dogs drifted across the water. Cattle moved heavily through the grass nearby. The moon sent silver light

through copses of manioc on the west shore. Beneath the

weak glow of the lamp,

as

I

formed each clipped sentence

dry language of pilotage notes,

spend the two months that

I

I

had

understood

how

in the

wanted

I

to

drawing charts

in these waters:

of places that had not been surveyed before. Without

Maggy and

would ever have put the rush of the ocean behind me. Alone, I would have just bolted south through the canals, as if still surrounded by monotonous seas. Ian

I

We

left Isla

don't believe

Year's Eve,

I

Chiloe in two boats early on the morning of

and

set a

Corcovado. In the afternoon waterfalls and bare rock appeared out of the haze. This was

my

slabs

first

of black, boulder-shaped mountains that nearly

Hours passed

changed islets

and

before

On

as

we

in the landscape.

we

reefs just left,

sailed

down

cliffs

to a line

filled a

charred

the coast, but nothing

That night we anchored in

a

group of

west of Bahia de Tictoc. In the morning,

we drew

a chart.

the shores of the Canal Refugio

ment belonging

of scarred

close-up sight

of the mainland. Scrub climbed steeply behind low

sky.

New

course south-east to cross the Golfo de

to the family

we came

across a settle-

of Juan Carlos Schydlowski. Juan

72

Miles Hordern

Carlos was a Chilean aristocrat and junk that

bond

He

dealer.

he'd been Forbes Salesman of the year 1986.

Two

told us

years later

he was arrested and sued by the Internal Revenue Service for $28 million in unpaid taxes. Juan Carlos spent three years in

before being released and ordered to pay this

point the family sold the ranch in

New

where they now

the forests of Patagonia,

jail,

fifty dollars in costs.

Mexico and

lived in stylish

At

fled to

beach

houses, adorned with tapestries and contemporary art but built

from driftwood, without journey by

sea to get out.

had spent the

last

electricity or water.

The

was

It

a

two-day

was twenty-one.

son, Allen,

He

eight years living in the forest. Allen was build-

ing an underwater temple for dolphin worship, formed of upright floating

On

totem poles chained

to the seabed.

the wall of one of the beach houses there was an aerial

photograph of this part of the the photograph and

we

used

coast.

Maggy took

this as the basis for

Bahia de Tictoc and Bahia Mala.

We made

Schydlowskis' Zodiac, and in our boats.

marked

on At the

centre, in

from

our chart from surveys in the

The whole

the largest published chart, but

as shoal

was navigable.

a tracing

Bahia Anihue, there

area

much is

was of

it

a perfect,

all-weather anchorage.

We followed the Canal Refugio south through the mountains, then crossed the brown waters of the Canal Moraleda to reach the islands in the west.

We spent two weeks here in the Archipielago

de los Chonos, making surveys and drawing charts. There were more than one hundred islands forming a broken jigsaw pattern, the last outcrops between the continent and the ocean. They rose dome-like and mellow on every side and stretched unchanged beyond the skyline. Occasionally we saw evidence of a nomad fishing camp in the trees, otherwise the area was uninhabited.

Many

of the

We made a

new

canals

islands

were not named.

our most

island.

Isla

satisfying discovery in the Archipielago:

Valverde

and an inland lagoon.

is

in fact

On 73

two

islands,

divided by

the published chart the lagoon

Sailing the Pacific

is

shown

We named

as a lake.

the

two

islands Valverde Este

and

Valverde Oeste.

Among easy.

But

these

low

wind was

islands the

clean and the sailing

The world we

there was a sense of unease here.

still

saw around us was familiar from the Chilean naval a

thousand tiny ways

but in

very different. Headlands were more

also

more numerous, reefs non-existent, anchorages protected and more open by turns. The discrepancy be-

prominent, better

charts,

tween the

islets

charts

and

reality lent this

landscape a fluid quality.

wondered if we weren't in some ways still at sea. The charts we made formed a trail that could be followed by others, a twisting line of knowledge through a far wider stretch Occasionally

I

of geography that

We was so

we

never saw.

re-crossed the Canal Moraleda in fine weather. light

it

barely filled the

sails.

The

boats were side by side,

heeling imperceptibly, tiny white rigs picked out

empty bowl of the Patagonian village

skyline.

The wind

We were

as

specks in the

heading for the

of Puerto Aguirre, which according to the most detailed

Chilean chart does not

exist.

The

network of craggy channels and

village lay at the centre

bays. Small islands

of

a

guarded

worn smooth and

every approach, their sloping rocky shores

glowing yellow in the afternoon sun. Children were gathering

and jumping from rocks into the

shellfish

sea.

A lane of crushed shells wound up the hillside between creaking

wooden

cottages, their pastel

paintwork heavily weather-

worn. Fuchsias drooped from window boxes and bushes of red estrellita

saw

spilled

wearing if

from gardens out into the road.

a grey-haired a light

man who was walking

cotton jacket and carrying a camera.

he came from the

but came here every clinic,

him

On

island.

He

summer

said

he lived

for three

that

we were

leaving call it

tomorrow

weeks

I

asked

him

to run a dental

When

I

told

for the mainland, he said,

the "Continent".

74

I

Puerto Montt,

in

giving the islanders their annual check-up.

'Old people here

the beach

slowly towards me,

The

ladies

pretend

Miles Horde rn

never to have seen

them up

give

Two

it.

When young people leave for the city,

they

for dead.'

days later

we motored up Seno

lagoon behind the deep-water port

at

Aisen, and anchored in a

Chacabuco. The entrance

channel was narrow, with barely enough water to stay

afloat.

caught a mini-bus up the valley to Aisen to buy supplies.

I

Maggy and Ian were waiting for a friend who was flying out from London: they thought they would be here two weeks.

move

time to

As

on.

It

was

Maggy gave me a drawing name for the williwaws, the

a leaving present

of the 'Chacabuco Monster', her

wind

swooped from the mountains and made you wake with gritted teeth in the middle of the night. As if to emphasise what a sobering influence they had been on me, I left the anchorage too early in the tide and went aground in the entrance to the lagoon. Maggy looked up from her drawing on

violent squalls of

deck and gave pened.

I

me

that

a characteristic

off in half an

I'd float

spent five days

wave,

as if

hour when the

making surveys around the Estuarios Quitralco,

Elefantes and Cupquelan. Ian had given

chart that they so close

through

I

would not have time

could recite

this

nothing had hap-

tide rose.

it,

a

to visit.

catechism to

maze of land and

me I

make

a

list

of places to

kept the

list

close,

sense of voyaging

sea.

The defining feature of these waters was the San Rafael glacier, which swept between the mountains, then crashed

into an

all

but

The only entrance to the lagoon was up the Rio Tempanos, which formed a fracture-line

landlocked lagoon. eight-mile-long

through the surrounding marshland. I

made

a chart

of Bahia Quesahuen, the key anchorage

visiting the glacier, tide,

then entered the river

an hour before dark.

It

at

when

the start of the flood

could have been

a

muddy

creek in

Africa, except for the icebergs floating in the stream: blue bergs, in

brown

water, surrounded by green bush.

75

I

had to weave

a

Sailing the Pacific

course and shoot small rapids between larger bergs that had

grounded

in the river.

As darkness

fell

a cool

glow of light seeped

When

around the rocky buttress that obscured the

glacier.

entered the lagoon the whole basin was

with moonlight

reflected

filled

from the brilliant white sheet of ice

that

from unseen

fell

mountains and seemed to continue across the water.

way between glowing

I

my

picked

I

on the west

bergs to find an anchorage

shore.

morning

In the

made

I

survey of the lagoon.

a

floating icebergs, but otherwise free

was

It

of obstructions.

full

A

of

boat

could anchor off any shore, depending on the wind direction. Before beginning the passage back north thirty miles out west into the

I

made

a detour,

mountains of the Peninsula de

northerly.

down the long and lovely Estero Puelma in a light The last fifteen miles were uncharted. At the head of

the

estero,

on the northern

feet

of a

two

islands, steering

Taitao.

I

ran

circle

narrow bay pushed up

side, a

of dark brown

hills.

I

tacked gently inland between

my butt and drawing a pretty bad chart

with

along the way. Behind the second island anchorage, and

I

dropped the

This was half-way.

to the

sails

a reef

protected an

for the night.

Tomorrow I would begin the passage north

through the canals to Chiloe, then up the continental coastline towards the turquoise waters and wet horizons of the South Seas. I

celebrated this turning-point with a subdued party.

lonelier,

been I

and

this place

seemed more

distant,

Land

than anywhere

is

I'd

at sea.

made

fact, as

I

following morning.

a late start the

was

to find out.

now blowing

The

thirty knots

Much

too

late, in

sky was heavily overcast and

from the north.

I

hoped

it

was

to find an

anchorage that night somewhere in the Estero Barros Arana.

was forty-five miles, with

little

It

prospect of finding shelter along

the way.

As the steep sea.

light I

faded

I

was

was cold and

in the Barros Arana, beating into a

tired, fingers

76

clenched around the

steel

Miles Hordern

hoop of the spray-hood.

I

carried too

much

hoping

sail, still

to

find an anchorage before nightfall. In the distance a long bay

cut

up

into

Isla

McPherson. At

its

head there was the prospect

But I wasn't going to make it. The bay was would be dark before I even reached the entrance. The wind moderated after dark. The rain grew heavier. I

of finding

shelter.

uncharted.

reefed the

of the less

It

down and plugged over towards the far shore When I saw the darker black of cliffs in the moon-

sails

canal.

night sky,

right

I

went about and headed

north-east.

I

worked

to

the north like this for an hour, then turned and ran back south.

Then It

I

was

did

it

much

again.

I

imagined

Soon

would have

to

do

this all night.

too deep to anchor in the canal. But

ern end of the second circuit rain.

I

there was a

I

saw

a

guy standing

dim

at

the south-

light close

just next to

me,

by in the his

head

brown cheeks wet and shiny. He was standing on the gunwale of an open fishing boat, holding the rail of mine. There was a heavy crunch as the two boats met on a wave. Another figure sat at the engine. They told me to follow them towards the shore. The water grew calm and the wind eased completely in the lee of the land. I dropped the sails and fired up the engine. Then I saw rock and bush very close on either side. We were in a channel. I followed a bit further, both boats crawling, trees moving heavily in the wind all around, but the water was smooth. A voice floated out of the darkness, but I couldn't catch it. The fishing boat came back and the man in the hood rattled my anchor chain on the foredeck to make the point very clear. I dropped anchor and cowled

in a blue

hood,

his

heard their engine fade, then be cut. I

woke

early the next

axe in the forest nearby. I

morning

climbed to the deck. The cloud

had stopped.

I

to the chok-chok

sound of an

Men were shouting and laughing ashore.

was anchored

in the

still

hung

low, but the rain

middle of a small bay on

Isla

McPherson. The entrance was so narrow that on the chart the two sides touched. To the east, forest climbed steeply to the ridge

77

Sailing the Pacific

away

line.

In the west the land rolled

grass

and scrub towards the shores of the main

in thickets

scattered

nomad

Half

shore.

along the pebble beaches, lying identical, painted

bow, and

a

name on

Negro, Darwin, Patagonia, Several

wet

men were

bundles of float sat

men

I

was

down

at

a

A number

middle of

They were

angles.

was painted on each

Pacifico.

flags.

on

repairing nets, sitting cross-legged pots, coils

asked

I

The

him and

if

One

I

told

night.

I

couldn't find an anchorage.'

I

went

any of them had been the

of them waved towards

third asked

from.

the

of warp,

'Hoy!' shouted one of the men, and

beside them.

the camp. Another shrugged.

said, rather obviously,

'Saco de huevas [dickhead],' said the third

'I

in the

the stern: Mariana, RwAmarillo, Aguila

in the boat the night before.

me on

and

dozen boats were stacked

awkward

around were heaps of crab

shingle. All

and

feet,

yellow above the waterline, red below, double-

ended, with very strong sheer. flared

boat of forty

a fishing

fishing camp.

rowed towards the

I

canal. Small, stony

around the shores of the bay were the small open boats

seen from time to time in the canals.

I'd

a

Anchored nearby was

quila

Herons pecked among

cays broke the surface in several places.

the stones.

of coarse

where

I

had come

'Bad weather

last

man, and thumped

the back.

started too

late.'

'Belotudo [dickhead].' I

spent that evening in the camp.

stretched

dripped

on

between

down

crates

and

trees

and

piles

thing was damp.

forth,

rain

had

set in

They

hammock

men

again and sat

around

sucking on

mate pipes or

Many had wet hair and

clothes; every-

of fishing a fire.

didn't

day - Sunday - and their makeshift

The

torn tarpaulin had been

almost everywhere. About fifteen

tending kettles over

a

posts.

A

gear,

seem

spirits

out of

pushing himself with

to care.

Today had been

a rest

were high. Someone had made

a net and was swinging back and

a pole.

78

The men spoke

in energetic

Miles Hordern

language riddled with slang

bursts, their

couldn't understand.

I

They were from Aisen. They came out to camp for six I

weeks

didn't

in the

summer,

at a time.

draw

a chart

mass of fishing boats

of the anchorage on

Isla

McPherson. This

my charts of the 'unknown'

around made

all

seem absurd. These waters were very well known, but the

ermen navigated without Several times that night

I

looked

two who had helped

to find the

among the faces of the fishers

me

asked, four different people claimed

an old

woman. Then was over

latrine area

boulders that led

been taking

the

a leak,

the night before.

it

to the canal.

and seen

my

When

I

had been them, including

camp shook with

a shallow rise

down

fish-

charts.

The camp, among

belly-laughs.

behind the Presumably

lights. It

my rescuer had

could have been any

one of them.

On 24

February I saw the ocean skyline for the

two months.

It

was three hours

after sunrise.

first

time in over

The water

Canal Tuamapu was an oily green, the wind was

light.

in the

Granite

flanked the canal, burning amber in the morning sun. It was a perfectly clear day. To the east the snowy cones of Mt Melimoyu and Volcan Corcovado were visible sixty miles disislets

tant,

the

both wrapped in

cliffs

of

the Pacific,

Isla

a

deep blue

sky.

But

to the west,

beyond

Tuamapu, the view stretched unobstructed over

my first view

of the open sea since

mid December. Through binoculars the

I'd sailed

into the

canals in

a

strong southerly from

watched the

slot

Pacific

which

I

looked

was sheltered

looked to be twisted,

As

I

sailed

beneath the

lifted cliffs

from

this distance.

up and sloping towards the of

Isla

I

its

The sky.

Tuamapu a long, easy swell Once clear of Islas Bajas

crept around the buttress of rock ahead.

79

by

in the canal.

of ocean across the entrance to the canal,

surface rolling but the waves inseparable sea

distressed, driven

Sailing the Pacific

the sea cut up cliff tops.

all

around and

a heavy, dirty

wind

fell

from the

sailed for three miles across troubled waters, the

I

boom Then

occasionally crashing as the boat both pitched and rolled. I

found the cleaner flow blowing up the coast and

set a

course

north-west, reaching in thirty knots of wind and foaming

me

Behind I

seas.

the skyline was a jumble of blue peaks and ridges.

tried to find Isla Anita, the place

where

made my

I'd

final

survey in Patagonia the night before. Anita was just another small island in the Archipielago de

Los Chonos,

entered through a rocky channel.

by low hills and scrub - it But as I'd drawn the chart something to me: the

last

wasn't a particularly attractive place.

anchorage, the final survey

scape that travellers take the liberty of making.

now among

I

meant

... It

was

a foreign land-

tried to find Isla

the peaks and ridges, a final farewell. But the

of the archipelago had melded with the mountains of the

islands

mainland.

The

sunk within Isla

sheltered

the night before, this bay had

one of those peculiarly sentimental bonds with Anita

deep bay

single

its

The anchorage was

it

land was a monolithic barrier, and the waterways

were impossible

to trace.

From five

miles offshore,

Anita had disappeared.

It

was

a

wild ride to the north-west.

protection in the lee of

Isla

gained some fleeting

I

Guafo, but otherwise

my

course lay

exposed to the wind and swell coming up from the Southern

Ocean.

I'd

forgotten

-

so quickly

- what open water was

After the short, kicking seas of the canals, the

here seemed everlasting.

merged height.

to I

deck

I'd

already forgotten

level in a seaway,

stood for

all

wave

roll

how

crests

and plunge

the boat sub-

foaming

that first day in the cockpit,

like.

at

head

watching the

ocean landscape gather and subside. In the afternoon the south coast of Chiloe sometimes faded into

sunset

I

was

fifteen miles

and altered course

to

view through the haze. At

offCabo Quilan.

I

run before the wind,

poled out the genoa parallel to the coast.

I cooked dinner and drank beer, beginning wayward symmetries of deep, open water.

80

to readjust to the

Miles Hordern

I

The

slept infrequently that night.

coast of Chiloe lay twenty

miles to the east, unlit and unseen in the darkness.

strong at

When and

my

back.

I

felt

keyed-up, breathless. Everything was

and unfettered, the freedom of an

fresh

thought of the canals now,

I

The wind was

I

all-night sea lay ahead.

remembered only

the twists

of finding an anchorage

turns, the shifty winds, the pressure

before dark. Sailing back onto the ocean seemed like escaping

from clear,

a

warren of underground

my bunk way.

caves.

The

night sky was vast and

borne through the hatch and down inside the boat. From

I

I

could see the

moved

constantly

unable to keep

still.

stars

was

It

wheeling

across the

companion-

between the cabin and the cockpit, a sensation that

I

remembered from

passages long before: a sort of paranoid restlessness, a reaction to

the soft winds and star-studded nights of tropical waters. As surfed northwards towards the tropical latitudes,

I

knew

I

that

everything was about to change, and the boat was going to

become I

a

very different place.

saw shipping that night, coastal

vessels

working between

Puerto Montt and the Pacific ports further north. Their rolled heavily

on the

swells,

and those coming from the south

crawled past so slowly. After midnight ahead,

coming

chain from the at

90

me.

straight towards tiller

to get out

I

saw more

The

lights

dead

pulled the self-steering

I

and pushed the helm hard

of the way.

lights

over, sailing off

headsail cracked as

the boat rolling and seas slopping over the beam.

I

furled

it,

Within minutes

the ship was beside me, a cruise liner gliding past at twenty knots.

Each cabin had

a terrace:

I

saw

tables

and sun beds run by

in a

blur of lights and railings.

Dawn broke sticky and bitter-sweet. The stickiness was on my face, around my eyes, on my lips and in my mouth. It was February: high

sleeping-bag night had

summer

I'd

in the south. I'd

packed away the heavy

used since leaving Auckland and the previous

wrapped myself

jacket had been enough.

in a blanket

The

on the bunk.

stickiness

XI

On

was something

deck

a

else I'd

Sailing the Pacific

forgotten about living

warm waters. It's a feeling on your a human cocktail of sweat and salt,

at sea in

skin and under your clothes,

and

grime

that boat

that's

generated even thousands of miles off-

shore. In this sense the sea isn't a clean or cleansing place at

you wear

and over time you learn

day,

all

it

around you to hasten

The

to pull

all;

closer

it

sleep.

sweetness was in the

air all

around: the distant scent of

land. Far to the east, as the sun rose, headlands appeared in the

granular light. valleys that

The land looked dusty,

merged with the

arid plains falling to shallow

Throughout

sea.

that

morning

land ebbed and flowed without conviction. Sometimes

from view. Later hill.

rounded

it

the

faded

crest

of a

But the smell of the land was constant throughout those

first

a ridge line appeared, or the

days of the passage.

the southerly

made long, downwind tacks

I

on the

At the end of each offshore tack the coast was

No

distant.

I

wondered

and baked a spicy

if it

grasses.

was

Then

I

of land that

a desert smell,

thought

I

and dawn.

thirty to forty miles

land was visible, but the smell was

that light but unmistakable tang

nose.

offshore, taking

quarter, usually gybing at sunset

still

present, just,

hits the

back of the

or savannah, hot earth

smelt pine needles, and later

cinnamon.

Poets write of the smell of the sea, but really the ocean has smell. Far offshore,

the sea,

salt

is

on

a

long passage under

Offshore, the single-hander

across an

sails

ocean of his

and bad breath. What people mean when they smell of the sea

is

coast, the sea smells

land.

But boats

of kelp, dunes, mangroves,

all

forest

just

is

is

you.

own

BO

about the

actually the smell of the coastline.

On

the

and farm-

of grease and

burning meths and kerosene. The smell on

petrol station forecourts reminds

me

of the

lasting impressions

I

And of course,

sea.

mostly sailed alone, the sea also reminds

The most

talk

are machines, so the sea also smells

bilge oil, diesel,

as I've

the sea

sail,

bland, and the only thing that smells

no

me

have of the smell of the sea are

tinged with dirtiness. In the Southern Ocean,

82

of me.

when

I

curled

Miles Hordern

up

to sleep

sea smells

I

wanted

to

my head with

fill

comfort thoughts. The

conjured up then were always the same: the great,

I

stinking port cities of the South Seas. Papeete,

where

fragrant

copra wafts over the filthy lagoon from the warehouses

Ute; Apia

after

cyclone Val,

when

at

Fare-

the harbour was thick with

rotting vegetation and dead horses floated past the anchored

and most of all Suva, the angry melting-pot of the

boat;

where the concrete and the after

air

is

sea,

I

stew of harbour

Off the than

this,

of the market drain into the lagoon

laden with the stench of the landfill

when

the tropics,

left

I

about the

floors

Pacific,

remembered

life

in the islands.

Navesi.

many

forgotten

I'd

still

at

Long

other things

clearly the steaming, tropical

coast of Chile the smell of the coastline was bigger

big in a global sense, a wider, weaker smell, the stink

of humanity sanitised by the surrounding aroma of continental

Twenty miles

land.

offshore, the sea smelt

lands, perhaps alpine flowers

The

of

from the Andean

forests

and

grass-

foothills.

waters off the coast of Chile are a scream for a sailing boat

heading north. Ocean forces power up from the south. sand miles out to

sea,

the South Pacific high pressure system gen-

which funnel up the

southerly winds

erates

A thou-

coast,

trapped

between the anticyclone and the Andes, while beneath the keel the cold waters of the Peru current flow towards the equator,

adding fifteen miles to

day's run.

a

An

ocean conveyor-belt

sweeps up the coast of South America towards the sailing boat, these

The for

route that

must be some of the I

was

now

strait

these

crew

Pacific after the

as a

Age of Dis-

in the Victoria, having

impression

this stretch

Pacific got

its

found

a

sailed

name because of

the

of sea made on the Admiral-General -

83

a

gateway

through the Patagonian peninsula from the Atlantic,

same waters. The

For

waters in the world.

following had served

European shipping entering the

covery. Magellan's battered

easiest

tropics.

a

Sailing the Pacific

name many of where

had cause to dispute while

us have

of Chile

in the ocean, but off the coast

able term.

followed

sailing else-

'pacific'

a suit-

is

When Bougainville finally escaped from the canals and

this coast

These waters

north, his crew sang the Te

are thickly

Deum.

embroidered with European fantasies.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there were

numerous

reported sightings of the mythical Southern Continent. Theo-

A

dore Gerrards was sailing off the Chilean coast in 1599.

blew

he saw

a

gale

and he was unsure of his position when

his ship off course,

mountainous land covered

in snow,

'looking like

Norway', which appeared to extend north-west towards the

Solomon

Twenty-five years

Islands.

the ship Orange re-

later,

ported sighting the Continent twice in the same waters while on passage from

Cape Horn

to the Juan

Fernandez group. So wide-

spread was the belief in a huge land mass in the South Pacific that

when Tasman

sighted

Land, believing

it

to

New

Zealand in 1642 he named

Staten

it

be connected to the island of the same name

south-east of Argentina.

The

Spaniard Juan Fernandez sailed

in 1576. After

one month

what he described ited

by white people

cloths'.

at sea

as a 'fertile .

.

.

This report was

a

course between west

Our Lady of Remedy Fernandez made landfall on

and south-west from the coast of Chile

in

and agreeable continent

.

.

inhab-

.

very well disposed and cloathed in fine

made

in secret,

and was contained

Arias Memorial, a highly confidential sixteenth-century

in the list

of

Spanish discoveries in the South Seas which was lost until the late

eighteenth century,

a printed

in a

when Alexander Dalrymple

London

Fernandez was generally

bookseller's.

observer, but this landfall

on an

straightforward fabrication.

One

reached Easter Island, almost

a

recognised European

as

is

an exaggeration,

possibility

hundred and

visit.

a reliable

'agreeable continent'

greeted with scepticism, of course,

first

discovered

copy of the manuscript, supposedly while browsing

is

fifty

that

usually if

not

a

Fernandez

years before the

His reference to 'white people'

84

Miles Hordern

is

not

as

far-fetched as

it

Many

sounds.

of the

commented on how pale-skinned

the Pacific

Europeans in

first

they observed the

Polynesians to be. George Robertson, master of the Tahiti,

remarked of the

people has

a great

islanders that 'This race

resemblance to the Jews.'

made

gested that Fernandez in fact

while yet others

of

Mu,

It

has also been sug-

landfall in

New

he reached the shores of the

insist

of

the Pacific's equivalent

Atlantis,

ship at

first

of white-skinned

once

lost

Zealand,

continent

home

to sixty-

four million inhabitants descended from Celtic wizards.

Even the normally note of ambiguity a

starchy Admiralty pilot

when

caution to navigators

area,

from the coast

from time

to time.

almost

to,

Where

the seabed

W, have been reported is

mentioned

may be

to

submerge

or rock, or to thrust a hitherto submerged peak

islet

passage

as a

no uncharted dangers, but the

warning

may be found

that dangers

up the coast of Chile was the

longer voyage back to erly

uneven, the effect of

or above, the surface of the ocean. Subsequent exam-

ination has revealed

My

lapses into a

'Several outlying dangers in the

it states:

to longitude ioo°

seismic disturbances, frequent in the area,

an existing

book

describing the waters west of Chile. In

New Zealand.

wind and Peru current

first

reports are in this area.'

much

stage of a

hoped to carry the southhundred miles north to the Juan

six

I

Fernandez Archipelago, then follow the outer edge of the South Pacific high north-west

February.

By

up

into the tropics.

early April the risk

in the tropics, giving

me two months

through the islands and get

It

was

now

late in

of cyclones should have

down

to

to take the trade

New

lifted

winds

Zealand before the

onset of winter.

The Juan Fernandez group a

south latitude of 34

.

is

For the

three first

hundred miles offshore

few days out of the

stuck close to the coast. Sailing along a coastline sailing elsewhere. Regardless

is

85

canals

different

of sea conditions, there

is

a

in I

from

quality

Sailing the Pacific

to inshore passage-making that to see occasional glimpses

each inshore tack, or

of the lighthouses

flash

more

clearly

night sky. a

when

At night the

coastal haze.

I

constant.

is

at

my

strained

I

coastline

was

was only possible at

the end of

eyes to penetrate the

easier to define.

Punta Corona and

saw the loom of towns and

The twin

It

of the coast of Chile,

Isla

I

saw the

Mocha, but

hanging

cities

in the

settlements of Corral and Niebla presented

wide, watery streak of light to the

east, a false

dawn. Later

I

saw the loom of Lebu and Concepcion, simple reflected images of

street lamps, headlights,

component

human But

house

lights

and neon, thousands of

parts spread across the sky as

one mass

reflection

of

life.

really the

loom of the

land was always there

loom,

similar, a physical

couldn't see any evidence of land,

sailed

I

up

loom of lights, but Even when I

the coastline, even by day; not the visible

something

as

a 'presence'.

it

was always

Land has

there.

an invasive quality that creeps over the waters beyond the coastline.

A passage

sided,

along any coast

bordered by

similar in this respect:

is

ten or fifteen miles offshore, land a

comfort to have

its

it

is

a

conundrum:

my home

so close,

and

it is

lop-

when unseen. From

even

a force that's present

habitat;

dangers, coastal shipping, inshore fishing

craft,

it

the

scenario that in your comfort you oversleep and

should be

but land has

doomsday yourself

sail

onto the rocks.

While

sailing in the canals, I'd felt the traveller's guilt

about

family and friends back home. In Castro, Puerto Aguirre and

Aisen

who

queued

to

make phone

had been waiting for weeks.

when I

I'd

I

calls in airless I

felt selfish

boxes to people

and irresponsible

heard their voices. But something happens to the land

leave shoal water, perhaps about five miles offshore:

really

touch me.

It

to

a featureless barrier in the sea.

It

becomes

cities in

the night sky.

and I

cannot

power

see the faces of loved ones any

smells of air-freshener,

I

as

is

more; land

loses the

best seen in the lifeless

loom of

can picture the land from offshore, but

86

Miles Hordern

feel little for

Leaving land the

it.

Auckland, was

difficult;

but

first

after that

time on the voyage, from I

with few

sailed offshore

regrets.

On the fourth evening out from the Canal Tuamapu gybe

at sunset,

which had been

I

did not

my habit over the preceding days.

Instead of putting in a long tack back towards the coast

tinued to

sail

north-east,

on

a

course that should take

Juan Fernandez group within course that was

now

a further

slowly taking

me

two

I

me

con-

to the

to three days, a

further from the coast.

no shipping. By dawn

saw the loom of no settlements

that night,

the next day the land was well

below the horizon, and when

looked

at

the ocean

I

only ever looked ahead.

sea for three days, but

it

seemed

properly begun.

87

I

I'd

that the passage

already

been

had only

I

at

now

Five

Waking up at sea is like a distant wave rolling towards, very weak

then into,

sciousness: a slight sense

somewhere on the limit of conof activity that might come no further.

But soon

all

your body.

It is

swelling

it's

and movement and I

sit

up

in the

It

bunk and is

rail,

around.

I

a

stare

up,

its

down the

A

cabin.

It

looks cold and

surfaces slippery with the

damp of

chipped white paintwork and

a plain scene:

is

once-varnished trim. grab

around, unstoppable, a rush of noise

first light.

dirty before the sun

night-time.

up

at first,

grubby tea-towel

wooden spoon has fallen onto

swinging from the

is

the

bench and is

sliding

take in these details without interest. First thing in the

morning I'm focused on something bigger: the oblong sky visible through the companionway hatch.

Dawn grey. as

I

twilight

the boat

east

wind

rolls,

to

barely established, the sky

can only hear

knots, a

the blades spinning just

form

erator begins to I

is

can see the top of the wind generator,

little

a

white

fast

is

enough

disc in the sky. In strong

whine and the pole a fluttering

hum:

lighter than before.

It

fin

dipping

in the south-

winds the gen-

vibrates in the gusts. Today,

the

wind

is

a steady fifteen

has eased over the

four hours, and the outlook for the day ahead

This preliminary observation completed,

89

an even, dark

its tail

I

is

last

twenty-

so far good.

need some more

Sailing the Pacific

concrete reassurance that

compass.

It is

From

way.

plastic

mounted

inside the cabin

well, so

look to the

I

The

glasses.

can see through the back of the

I

that defines

other problem

my whole

numbers over the the blurred

of

oil.

smeared,

is

a

a

hundred

thousand:

I

the one before. In hindsight

out and just remember that I

it's I

my

head pool

different courses over the

had no

Some of these

idea.

on end without

less significant

easy to round

was

all

the

like this;

than

numbers

sailing south-east, or

seldom generalised

three,

swirl in their

stymied. Figures are swirling in

But on passage no course seemed

at sea

code

steered, the sacred

numbers on the compass card

might have steered

But

need

really

that I've forgotten the course,

is

courses lasted only a few minutes, others for days

west.

I

purpose here. There have been so many

voyage to date, perhaps

alteration.

three

little light, it's

months, so many combinations of

last

moment I'm

as

I

bowl

small, the

numbers of the course being

the three

that for a

is

right, at the

bulkhead beside the companion-

compass bowl. But only just. There's

metres away, the dial

my

all is

in the

north-

couldn't stand

I

back and see that larger picture of the ocean where multiple wind-shifts, tacks line.

go.

Precision

A

is

and gybes have merged

something

it

had three hard

section of the voyage.

book.

to

form

cling to, a life-belt,

ten-degree change in course might be

three days ago and today. west:

I

believed

I

I'd

all

I

rhumb

won't

let

that separates

My course was not south-east or north-

digits, a I

a single

and

bar-code that governed each tiny

recorded each one pedantically in the log

imprinted

it

in

my

mind.

You sit upright in the near darkness and try to remember where you are going. Exactly. The course is the only rationale, here. Remembering it after This

sleep it

is

the process of waking up at sea.

means again learning

means

to care

about ten-degree differences;

re-establishing the pedantry that has got

you where you

and will some day get you home again. From where was lying on the bunk was facing the compass from the wrong side, looking towards the back of the boat. So

are,

I

I

90

Miles Hordern

numbers

the

I

had

exact inverse

its

remember were not

to

on

From

the figures swirling

my mind

arated themselves in

was the course

m

light

I

m

and

With

the small hours.

it

my

haunches

to get a

into sequence:

when

the boat

I

And

the

I

wave of anxiety

I

m

had

on

no

.

little

moment

the same

since before

This

self-steering the

was an even swing to either

felt

I

turned out the

last

of the course. Nothing had changed: the boat was the desired direction. this,

but

the bowl, three slowly sep-

fell

had been steering

compass swung around, but

began

itself,

the opposite side of the compass rose.

squinted, and pulled myself up on closer.

the course

I

side

sailing in

still

that

I

opened

realised

my

eyes

to subside.

watched the compass

for a short time, then collapsed

backwards

The wind had eased a little, but was still steady in the south-east. The seas were shallow and long. I lay still for a few moments, feeling smug. The passage had been

onto the bunk.

It

was going

Another day had begun.

At

well.

quiet night.

night, with a lee-cloth tied

bunk becomes was

a

a cot.

I

up

to

sun would need to be above the horizon for before the surfaces dried out. In

was repeated almost

and dampness

daily

at night,

baking heat through the

under

my

feet

place, the

climbed over the cloth. The cabin tioor

of moist dust sticky beneath

slippery, a film

m

me

keep

on the

warmer

a

my

toes.

The

couple ot hours

latitudes this pattern

boat, a nncro-climate of

dew

evaporation in the early morning, and rest

of the day By evening

would have caked

this sliminess

hard, the timber floor-boards

greying through broken varnish. I

But and I

walked it

to the galley.

My lips were sticky

was too soon to drink. The

down

stare

the

first

too.

my mouth

dry.

thing was to go on deck

empty length of the ocean.

stepped onto the engine box and through the companion-

way. As

I

pulled myself from under the spray-hood

9i

I

saw that

Sailing the Pacific

the sky was

The

still

my

lowered

first

mostly grey, but yellowing in the

east.

Then

I

eyes to the sea.

how

reaction was

cold the water looked, and

how

strangely-shaped. Small swells formed, seldom for long, then collapsed sideways, or back the surface was

wave. At

smooth and

dawn

they'd come. In places the

never broken by

a

the ocean often looked pocked, distorted, not the

Through the hours of darkI'd felt the simple rhythm of sailing down- wind in small seas,

same place where ness

a cycle

up

way

raised, like scar tissue,

a

I'd

spent the night.

of motions and sounds that was largely predictable.

mental image of the sea that conformed to

dawn I was

waves and troughs in sequence. But

at

when

place

looked out and saw

I

this: a

was

still

only half-light.

yet broken the horizon.

I

built

often surprised

where there seemed

be no pattern, where waves rose apparently It

I

rhythm, of

this

to

random.

at

The upper limb of the sun had not

could only see about

a

hundred metres.

Beyond that, both sea and sky were equally impenetrable. So what I saw of the sea at dawn was greatly foreshortened: I was sailing over a circular sheet of black water, two hundred metres across. In these conditions the

didn't tally

with what

my body

ocean was very hard to

had been feeling

all

read.

night.

It

Once

the sun rose and the horizon receded far into the distance, then the patterns of the ocean this

would again be

visible.

broad canvas to properly understand the

endless horizon

is

full

water around the boat

There

is

sometimes

a

of easy reassurance. that's

state

It is

But

of the

I

needed

sea.

The

the small area of

unknown.

period of lighter wind

at

dawn,

lasting

about an hour, through the transition from darkness to daylight.

On on

the preceding days of the passage this hadn't this

night

morning

I'd sailed

headsail

a lighter

breeze did establish

with the wind on the quarter,

downwind,

fed

come

itself.

a light

about, but

During

by the half-furled genoa poled out

92

the

number one to

Miles Hordern

windward. The out the

to the speed

dawn, to

first

did on deck that morning was roll would make only a small difference but I liked to make such alterations at

thing

of the genoa.

rest

of the boat,

I

It

my command

assert

the start of the day.

at

I

wind vane

the cockpit for a short time, adjusted the

stood in

steering a

couple of clicks, and watched the headsails wobble in the uncertain breeze.

Then

and put the

kettle on.

I

know

the ocean.

little I

set

I

about

the fishing line,

fishing,

but

went down

doesn't

it

into the cabin

seem

There was no refrigeration on the boat, so

fish.

to matter

on

hope of only catching small

used small lures in the

wanted no

I

more than could be eaten before it went bad. The fishing line is kept on a heavy plastic hand reel. Once the line is set I wind its end the wrong way round a winch many times. When a fish takes the lure the winch turns on its ratchet, making a loud clicking sound. I can he^r this noise from anywhere on the boat, and it carries sufficient importance to wake

me from While

sleep. I

waited for the kettle to boil

after setting the fishing line there

Dawn

was

I

ate dates.

a sense

Immediately

of anticipation.

good time for fish: I sat expectantly on the engine box, listening for the winch to click as the line ran out. When was

a

the kettle boiled toast,

otherwise

made

I I

When

coffee.

of

ate a breakfast

was always playing. Sometimes

it

I

had any bread

biscuits

I

made

and jam. The radio

was turned on most of the

day,

an endless cycle of news and analysis. I've never been so well-

informed on world events ocean.

By

tening for

took I

me

by

so that, if and

good

alone on a small boat in

news

when

I

had forgotten about

a strike

came,

it

mid lis-

nearly always

surprise.

times mahi mahi.

a

when

the second round of fish,

mostly caught

for the

as

fish like I

bonito or yellow-fin tuna, and some-

might catch one

fish a

day for

same period of time catch nothing. Dusk,

a

week, then

like

dawn, was

time, but a fish could take the lure at any time of day.

93

Sailing the Pacific

Occasionally the line went screaming out and the winch roared.

This meant something large was on the other end: usually the

hook came free. But a smaller fish, say a bonito, might only be heavy enough to turn the winch a few clicks, or

line broke, or the

sometimes just the one. So means, but in

its

context

it

it

wasn't a deafening sound by any

was quite unmistakable: the greased

clunk of engineered metal slotting into place. Whenever

sound

that

I

froze

on

And my

reflex.

very

first

I

always the same: who's that? Despite the obvious logic that a fish,

my mind momentarily

of thought: the winch it?

.

.

.

how

did they

.

.

The thought was

is

the catch,

of

on an

my

I

was

operated by hand

.

.

.

whose hand

is

and

I

.?

over almost before

had to acknowledge

instinctual level

solitude

it

followed the same dead-end chain

scrambled into the cockpit to haul in the

sea,

heard

reaction was

had

started,

even

after four

I

cleaned

months

at

hadn't acknowledged the reality

I still

on the ocean,

that

it

line. Later, as

since

my

most immediate con-

clusion was to assume the impossible: there's another person

on

the boat.

The

lighter air didn't last

again blowing twenty-five knots. rolled out a

few hours

was

on the engine box,

partial

shade here,

shielded the sun. As

I

refurled the half-genoa

the rig strained and the

earlier, as

spread loudly behind the boat. sitting

By mid morning it was

through sunrise.

I

had

morning companionway There

spent most of the

my head in

when

I

wake

the

the boat rolled and the spray-hood

beams of sunlight

flashed across the page,

I

book regarding the group of islands I would sight tomorrow morning. On some level, I suppose, I was just holding out for the single click of the winch that would announce a

read the pilot

visitor.

At the very beginning of the voyage, Auckland,

I

sometimes imagined what

94

for the first days out it

would be

like to

of

have

Miles Hordern

another person on the boat.

how

I

room

would sit, make

pictured where they

I

could rearrange the stowage behind the bunks to

Mostly

for their stuff.

about - practising

thought that

if

camera had helped ease the

could talk to

I

was to

remember

sail

It

across

it,

a real

person about the sea and

the passage

wouldn't have been

packers in Castro. But after the this idea again.

would become

first

And now,

difficult,

among

I

from

With

a friend

my

I

could

I

the backI

never

surfed north-west across it

was the

mind.

once went on

I

I

how

easier.

week of the voyage as

the Chile Trench towards the Juan Fernandez group, furthest thing

talk

loneliness).

even entertained the idea that in Chile

I

look for crew.

considered

could

Spanish, and, later in the voyage, French (even

talking to the video

far there

we

imagined the things

I

a

very long walk which required

we needed in rucksacks. We started off with packs full of items we regarded as essential, but over the first few days of the walk we both lightened our loads by up to a third, discarding things that on reconsideration we didn't truly need. suspect that when I go to sea alone something very similar us to carry everything

I

happens, except that what I'm discarding over that trip

is

emotions. If

the boat now,

would

I

I

drink; the food they

me

makes

On

the ocean

ings,

I'm

The

part of a

thought about having another person on

did so in purely logistical terms:

would

eat;

all

a ruthlessly practical

the water they

the space they

up. Sea travel reduces people to the things they sea

first

machine of

would

take

consume. The self-repression.

can simply blank out whole categories of feel-

I

because they contribute nothing to the ongoing voyage.

a survivor:

I

travel light.

navigator Juan Fernandez was

quisition in

Lima

in 1570,

summoned

before the In-

on charges of sorcery. Fernandez ran

Our Lady of Remedy, between the ports of Concepcion and Callao with such speed and daring that his crew

a small trading vessel,

95

Sailing the Pacific

named him

Brujo'

'el

tors believed this

the navigator's alone.

-

the wizard of the Pacific.

nickname was too

fast

inquisi-

and

passages were not possible by natural

that

means

Juan Fernandez persuaded them otherwise.

Three years

later,

running the same route

stood offshore in the vicinity of 33

wind

The

close to the truth,

to fetch

down

the coast, he

of a

latitude in search

fairer

Concepcion. Four hundred miles beyond the

Pacific coastline

of Chile Fernandez did find a lighter south wind,

and

group of uninhabited

his

also a small

islands, to

which he gave

name.

That same year Fernandez obtained establish a

colony on the

islands,

a grant

from Spain

and took possession.

He stocked

the bush-clad hillsides with goats and rabbits, and stuck

two

years before the isolation drove

the islands

became

a

him back

favoured port of

to

it

out for

to sea. Thereafter

call for

European

ships

bound north into the Pacific after rounding Cape Horn. Provided the wind was in the south, ships could anchor in a sheltered bay on the main island. Ashore there was fresh water, meat (thanks to Fernandez's rabbits and goats), and plentiful timber.

The

climate was temperate and the sea a steely blue. Better

the Spaniards were four hundred miles away

The Juan Fernandez group became for English buccaneers,

who came

and to dream of meeting

a

a

still,

on the mainland.

favoured watering-hole

here to careen and carouse,

Manila galleon

in the waters further

north.

In the spring of 1704,

as

the Cinque-Ports was

making final crewman

preparations to depart the Juan Fernandez group, one flatly

with

and

demanded to be on the boulder beach,

refused to continue with the voyage and

put ashore. a

He was landed,

with

difficulty,

gun, powder, shot, tobacco,

a bible.

months

a hatchet, knife

and

kettle,

Alexander Selkirk was picked up four years and four

later,

when

the story of his solitary

life

on the

island fas-

cinated Europe and inspired Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe.

So was the castaway myth born 96

in the popular

imagina-

Miles Horde rn

of

tion,

a sailor, all alone,

surrounded by the ocean, learning to

survive.

The following morning soe, the

I

made

on

landfall

Isla

Robinson Cru-

main island in the Archipielago de Juan Fernandez. From

ten miles offshore the island

mark over mountains

hung

like

an inverted exclamation

Towering rock fangs and door-shaped

the ocean.

sky they seemed divorced from

bit so boldly into the

their foundations beneath.

I

sailed closer across a birdless sea.

breeze was dying and the boat shuddered

lower slopes of the island were

the

as

sails

flogged.

moonscape of eroded red

a

and perched boulders. At the summit, the

hillsides

crown of silver-green bush. Cumberland Bay was the only anchorage,

The The

earth

climbed near

vertically to a

island's lee.

sending

a

Groundswell crept around the

a

scoop in the

bay's shallow flanks,

A ribbon

heavy surf crashing onto the boulder beach.

of houses was just

visible

through the

spray, at the feet

of a string

of mountains and ridges. To the north the ocean stretched empty for tens

of thousands of miles. At anchor the boat

on

times heavily,

the day a sea-breeze set in, and the boat

heat-haze of the tropical Pacific to the north. At night in

my

here

bunk,

at

relax.

as if still

The

surf never stopped. Ashore,

island.

On

the boat,

I

I

spent

I

worried constantly

was impatient to explore the

This place was fraught with raw energy the boat 7

,

rowed towards the concrete wharf through

moored

I

rolled

could never properly

at

pinned somewhere nameless between the land and the I

I

under way. Throughout the days

the village of San Juan Bautista,

about the boat.

some-

rolled,

Once or twice during swung round to face the

the long oceanic swells.

a fleet

anchor

sea.

of open

They were painted white, the woodwork torn and scarred. The boat nearest my own was CmstAceo, dedicated to the lobster fishery which was the island's fishing boats

only industry.

I

in the bay.

landed

at steps

where the fishermen unloaded

97

Sailing the Pacific

their catch. Swells rose

and

five feet or

fell

more.

I

jumped onto

my

the slimy concrete landing, threw the inflatable dinghy onto

back and scampered up the swirling around

my

steps,

water chasing

my

heels

and

thighs.

The harbourmaster was you see them pulling the

trim and neat

- they

always were.

fishing boats

up the

ramps,' he told

me, 'you should leave within one hour. There's

a

'If

north wind

coming.' It

was

early evening.

through the

village.

strolled

I

The

island

down

the winding lane that led

had just got

its first

public tele-

phone booths, ultra-modern aluminium cowls beside the earthen road. There were few people about. In places the road was paved with worn bricks, but mostly

it

was

mud dried into deep runnels.

Pretty cottages stood back in gardens laid out with shells and

flower beds.

Beyond

this the hillsides

were scorched and bare

from erosion. At the western end of the

down the

village a small path led

towards the water. There was a bar here, predictably called

Robinson Crusoe. I followed a path down to a rickety deck on stilts overlooking the bay. Surf crashed continually into

built

the boulders below. a beer,

then went

The

air

was thick and

bitter

with

salt.

I

drank

inside.

The beamed ceiling was too low to stand upright. The windows were small and high. Light filtered through cracks in the walls. Even indoors I had to shout to be heard above the surf. A

woman I

ran through the

menu

for

me. 'There's

lobster,'

she said.

waited for the other items. She prompted me: 'You have to

choose.'

'Choose?' 'Are you going to eat or not?'

waited for my food. The furniture was I sat down while made from old pallets. I looked around the small room. The walls were hung with rusty buoys, harpoons, oil-lamps, a yellowing piece of scrimshaw-work, fish nets, a canvas hammock, decayed wooden blocks, a ship's wheel, frayed rope-ends, fish jaws, shells, I

98

Miles Hordern

a

wooden anchors with iron-bound and undistinguishable flag, worn lengths of chain,

model

straw hat,

stocks, a torn

ships,

a turtle shell, a binnacle, a painted figure-head.

So here found in to the

it all

pirate

South

was again: the assorted maritime paraphernalia

pubs and Chinese junk restaurants from Plymouth

Seas.

But there was

a difference here.

Crusoe was obviously authentic,

a living

The Robinson

museum of the

island's

most important staging-post for European shipping

past as the

heading north into the

unknown

Here was

Pacific.

that elusive

quality the fake places cannot reproduce: the sense that

one good

push would be enough to send the whole structure toppling forward on

its stilts

and smashing into the boulders below

in a

heap of splintered timbers and scuttling cockroaches.

During the course of the evening the bar were young runaways from Santiago

summer,

for the

the village.

filling a

who

filled.

Mostly they

had come to the

island

makeshift campsite on the hillside above

They were here

to live free

and have

a

good time. Even

entering the bar was hilarious fun. Wearing white T-shirts and jeans,

with red or blue handkerchiefs around their heads, necks,

arms and thighs, they bounced through the door in noisy groups of three or four, laughing and clapping, tousling each other's

Then

they shared a beer. Jovito had deserted from the army.

Esteban worked

having just

as a

stevedore in Concepcion. Gloria Ines was

a telepathic relationship

wore handkerchiefs and did

with Michael Jackson. Guillermo drugs.

I

drank too

much beer, and

spent a long time talking to Gloria Ines. She had written a

about her 'relationship' and gave

ocean in

my

on

Pacific,

my I

me a copy.

blue eyes, and that the

was with me. that

hair.

I

voyage

I

me

I

book

had the

of the waves and

stars

told her. Gloria Ines said

home through the constellations of the South when heard her voice calling

shouldn't be surprised

through the

spirit

shudder to think what

She told

gale.

99

I

Sailing the Pacific

I

dragged the dinghy up onto the wharf shortly

following morning.

with

It

coming down

little air

swell in the anchorage.

The

climbed the

I

was

was

village

here

at

lane, past the

much

still

too

early.

the

the

odd

window.

campsite and up above the

village.

had made

a film

was on

my way

to see

head of the

forestry

and parks service

conaf. To

in the islands,

silent, save for

My brother-in-law

Juan Fernandez and

contacts, Ivan Laeva, the

dawn

night, hot,

the hatches and persistent ground-

throat clearance behind a curtained

It

after

had been an uncomfortable

I

kill

time

I

strolled

down

one of

his

the network

of paths that followed the contours through the outskirts of the village.

An hour later

I

was shown into

Ivan's office in a prefabricated

conaf nursery and compound.

building overlooking the

Ivan

my hand warmly when explained who was, and showed me a chair. It was a small room, very hot and airless. began telling Ivan about my trip so far. He was a tidy man in a shook

I

I

I

snow-white linen

crisp,

shirt.

Although

than two months, Ivan was the

The

met.

headed

a

islands

were

a

first

I'd

been

in Chile

cosmopolitan Chilean

more I

had

unesco biosphere reserve, and he scientists on a big budget. He

team of international

wore round, wire-rimmed

His hair was razor-cut, and he

glasses.

used plenty of product. After a couple of minutes

I

Ivan wasn't listening to me. In his desk,

I

But

could.

to his seat, I

began to

another person, in such myself.

When

the

time,

to

first

me.

I

for four start

something was wrong.

he stood up, walked round

and opened the window on the north

Then he returned best

realised fact,

I

and

feel

a small

I

side

of the room.

continued with

my

story as

uncomfortable, so close to

room.

I

became conscious of

pictured myself in Ivan's office

where

I

saw, almost for

had come from and what the

sea

had done

maroon swivel chair, my hair and beard uncut I'd worn the same T-shirt and shorts since the passage from Patagonia nearly a week before, day and

sat

on

a

months.

of the

I

ioo

Miles Hordern

on my forearms. Clearly, opening the window hadn't been quite enough to clear the air. Ivan soon suggested that we go outside, and he would show me round the had dried in

night. Salt

spirals

nursery.

We walked down the netting cages

where

Fernandez

a

and fauna

me

that

is

are

hillside

seedlings

and entered one of several

were growing in

more than

many are now

forty per cent

passing sailors, and the area was

would be planted out

between the netting plants I

I'd

now

I

nodded

realise

severely eroded.

could

I

down onto

as

had been

The

seed-

followed

I

terraces

where

him

larger

and looked knowing, but

gravely,

how much knowledge

I'd lost at sea.

that morning and climbed into the cockpit, as I morning on passage. Only this time I kept going, into

the dinghy and onto the wharf.

found myself in crossed

I

forest

source of meat by

woken up

did every

on

as a

to stop further damage.

cages, then

were growing.

was beginning to

endangered. Ivan told

of the original

listened to Ivan as carefully as

I

Juan

unique environment. Most of the species of flora

endemic, and

destroyed by goats and rabbits introduced

lings

large

raised beds.

I

did nothing differently, and

where I'd forgotten the rules. It hadn't this morning I could wash my face and put

a place

my mind that

a clean shirt.

spent four days

at

Juan Fernandez, mostly in the company of

the island's fix-it-man, Ernesto Melgarejo, his wife and

young

sons.

days ashore,

The anchorage was uncomfortable so I spent being shown around by Ernesto, or at his house.

climbed up to

Selkirk's

lookout on

arid track across the southern flank

the point. All the goats

on

a

Ernesto about the Robinson Crusoe, the bar night.

He

said

it

was

a tourist place.

IOI

We

airstrip at

had been eradicated, but

the hillsides were running with rabbits. At one point

first

the

high ridge, then took the

of the island to the

this island

two

I'd

gone

That night

I

I

asked

on my went to

to

Sailing the Pacific

recommended, the one

the bar he

the locals preferred.

was

It

quite empty. I

hadn't intended to stay on the island for long, and

probably have flat

calm.

on the

left

An hour later

third day, but

was seated on

I

it

dawned windless and

a zebra-striped sofa eating

an enormous lobster for breakfast, presented to wife in consolation for the delay. in the family that

Once

or twice

as

ate they

I

me

by Ernesto's

became something of a joke the island until the wind blew.

It

couldn't leave

I

would

checked outside

to see if the cloud

was changing shape, or the leaves were moving on the

trees.

By

lunchtime the children were blowing raspberries every time they

saw me, then I

took

a

falling

about in hysterics.

path above the church and climbed steeply through

the bush to the west of the village. After thirty minutes' hot

climb slope fell

I

came out above

which

beneath

my

to the ridge.

The

feet.

making drop of

the tree line and began ascending a scree

up

stretched

ridge was very narrow, with a giddy-

thousand

a

A perpetual slide of stones

on the other

feet

side. In places a

cornice of rock folded away into the emptiness, pebbles rolling quietly over the crest and out of sight. Further along the ridge,

where the slope on the

village side

clung to the knife-edge.

and

sat

down

in the shade

There wasn't

seemed

island

height

it

sail

a

to

was

gentler,

with

a

water

bottle.

When

throb slightly beneath as

village.

I

if

two twisted pines

reached them about mid afternoon,

breath of wind.

appeared

houses in the

I

I

lay

my

down, the whole back.

From

this

the surf was breaking right over the

looked to the north-west, the way

once the wind returned. The ocean was

I

would

a rich blue,

and

rigid.

About

ten miles distant the view disappeared into the heat

haze,

and the

sea lost

it

met

its

becoming grey and grainy where place would reach within two hours

colour,

the sky. This was the

I

of leaving the anchorage. I

down from the ridge into Puerto Ingles, the The ruins of the fort were barely distinguishable

looked directly

bay to the west.

102

Miles Hordern

from the boulders around the

bay.

had tumbled down the eroded

that

hillsides

The Englishman Gerald Kingsland had landed

here in the 1970s and set up camp. Kingsland had heard the story

of Alexander Selkirk, and came to out his

been

wretched

a

was

desert bay quit

Isla

Robinson Crusoe to live His camp must have

own fantasy of life on a desert island. There wasn't

place.

Juan Fernandez, but was

and the

a tree in sight,

northerly sun. Kingsland soon

a heat-trap for the

later cast

away on Tuin

Island in

the Torres Strait, with a head full of erotic fantasies, and

Lucy

Irvine.

The

first

known

fictional

account of marooning

is

an Egypt-

ian papyrus fragment, Le Xaufrage, the tale of a solitary castaway

on

a beautiful island, learning to survive.

described

Le Xaufrage has been

the earliest written story of any kind: the

as

European fantasy was being

away on the ocean

cast

beyond everything you have ever experienced

When

I

of islands,

reefs,

and blue lagoons,

saw

I

with the courses steered by most of the

ships in the Pacific.

Some of these

vessels

the South Seas, foundering in cyclones or

weren't

in a place

before.

stared across the sea to the north-west, towards the

tropical haze line tangled

on any

chart.

The

tropical

South

concentration of islands of any ocean;

my rhumb-

first

European

simply disappeared in

on reefs and islands that Pacific has the highest

many are

atolls,

only

metres above sea-level, and very hard to see

at night.

through these waters without

was

Russian roulette. But

of the

sailors

whose

it is

unusual;

a reliable chart

now believed that some,

ships

were wrecked in the

drown, and that Alexander

later

first

what made Selkirk

Selkirk's

few

like playing

perhaps many,

Pacific did not

marooning was not

different as a castaway

a

Sailing

in itself

was that he was

picked up again.

The San

Lesmes was part of

a

squadron under Loaysa, in-

structed to follow Magellan's route to the Spice Islands. original seven ships that

only four

made

it

left

Of the

the Basque region of Spain in

into the Pacific the following year.

103

1

525,

These four

Sailing the Pacific

sailed

north up the coast of Chile until they reached

latitude,

then

temperate

a

mid

course north-west into the tropics. In

set a

ocean the San Lesmes became separated from the other ships in

and was never seen again.

gale,

at sea.

a

was assumed she had been

lost

But various discoveries over the years have suggested

that

It

the San Lesmes was actually wrecked

on Amanu

in the

Tuamotu

archipelago, a line of eighty coral atolls strung like a net across

the South Pacific.

appears that after striking the reef at

It

Amanu

Atoll the captain of the San Lesmes, Hiro, tried to lighten the ship

and so

float

her offby

dumping cannon and

stone ballast into the

lagoon, where they were found in 1929. Unable to free the ship,

Hiro then took the boat and

bouring and larger

atoll

sailed

with the crew to the neigh-

of Hao. Quiros, landing

at

found Spanish-speaking Polynesians and

years later,

Hao eighty man with

a

red curly hair, gold jewellery, and spaniels, the breed of dog typ-

on Spanish ships in the Age of Discovery. Later a was found in the same area, made of cedar, seemingly from

ically carried

cross

ship's spars.

The

way

in

(and Robinson Crusoe's)

is

probable fate of the San Lesmes exposes another

which Alexander untypical: the

Selkirk's story

myth of the

'desert',

peoples were too good

as

The Pacific many places

or deserted, island.

navigators to leave

untouched. During the centuries of the Pacific migrations the Melanesians, Micronesians and Polynesians found, and inhabited, virtually every island

and coral reef in the

tropical Pacific, north

An

alternative

image

itary castaway cutting a daily

notch into

a

and south of the equator.

like this.

The

less night.

ship

is

wrecked on

on the

islet in

the

tree

unseen on

probably spend the

rest

sol-

might go a

moon-

drowned in the surf dawn onto one of the

atoll.

As they look around

the exhausted faces of their surviving shipmates, they will

of the

aren't

coral stagger at

coarse sand beaches of an

coconut

a coral reef

Those crew members who

or torn to shreds

to that

know

they

of their lives here. That might not be

very long: they've arrived on an overpopulated

04

atoll,

where com-

Miles Hordern

petition for space, food

white

man

has ever

and water

been seen

is

where no

often fierce, and

before. Survival will require great

diplomacy.

Before

dawn

a large ship

the following

morning I saw the navigation

standing offCumberland Bay. At the same time

see figures scurrying about beneath the arc lights

dawn broke, of the

bay,

dropped anchor

a naval vessel

and

a

could

on the wharf. As embarked

officers

wharf and motored out towards the

ship.

paid a measure of attention to these comings and goings, but

was distracted by something bay

I

of

in the outer soundings

group of uniformed Armada

in a lighter at the I

lights

itself

the water was

still,

the

else:

but

I

wind had

returned. In the

could see an occasional small

white-cap half a mile offshore. There were patches of low cloud

scudding across the sky and, seen through binoculars, the

on the central I rowed to

ridge-line

the

wharf with

smaller, rusting supply ship

tied to the

wharf all

trees

were moving.

my

papers.

had arrived

at

The

previous day a

the island.

It

had been

night, crashing heavily into the timber piles

The water swirling around the piles was now littered with splinters. The work of unloading the ship had begun on the long

swell.

the day before. Crates were

now

stacked

all

over the wharf, to-

gether with fridges, televisions, furniture, mattresses, and another

new phone-box. A small crowd of people had already gathered on the wharf, looking for their new possessions or inspecting the grey naval ship anchored in the distance. The arrival of this ship marked island's calendar. It was the end of would take all the back-packers home to the continent, and also some of the islanders, who would spend the winter months with relatives in Santiago and Concepcion. The cargo ship at the wharf was still half- full. Every few

an important day in the

summer: the

ship

minutes the derrick hoisted another net onto the quay, amid

much

shouting of directions and advice. Ernesto was standing in

105

Sailing the Pacific

When

the centre of the hold directing operations.

put

hook of the

his foot into the

the quay. Ernesto and

know one word

however,

did,

to Selkirk's lookout

two days

Ernesto had panted, 'Oh, very

which was

.

a

now underdeveloped.

even

'very'.

earlier, toiling .

he

of English, which he repeated

word was

quite often, as a couplet. This

up

me

derrick and was lifted up onto

always conversed in Spanish,

my skills in it were

limitation because

He

I

he saw

.

.

very

,

.

The

'

.

As we'd climbed

through the bush, adjective

was

always missing, but could usually be guessed from the context. In

word was presumably

the missing

instance,

this

When we

reached the lookout he'd

sat

beside

me

'exhausted'.

and, gazing at

the view over the island and ocean, uttered a wistful, 'Ah, very .

.

.

,

.

very

the wharf,

returned.

where

hoped didn't

',

.

I

I

the missing adjective surely 'beautiful'.

told

was going.

I

I

said

make some

to

naming

Now, on him what he could see for himself: the wind had would be leaving the island within an hour. He asked

.

my

was heading for French Polynesia, but

I

sailing to

talking a

week?

gave

islands. It

me

a

I

could see that

should take about

a

a small

explained that

boat

was about

it

most south-easterly of the

month

to get there. Ernesto

sweaty bear-hug, and the Chilean handshake, which

my boat in

has three distinct moves.

He

looked

then out to the open

and

said slowly,

Normally

I

French Polynesia in

A year?

three thousand miles to Gambier, the

French

But

stops along the way.

destination didn't really answer his question. Ernesto

know what

meant. Was

I

I

sea,

at

the anchorage,

'Ooh, very

.

.

,

.

could guess what Ernesto was trying to

very

say.

It

was

obvious, from a shared knowledge or perception of the world, despite the linguistic gap.

But

this

time

I

didn't

know how he

had absolutely no idea what

would have

finished his sentence.

adjective he

might use to describe an ocean voyage.

I

made my way back through

wharf where the Armada answer to inside.

my knock

The

office

office

I

the

crowd

to the base

and, as the door was unlocked,

was empty. Presumably the Armada

1

06

of the

was located. There was no I

walked

staff were

Miles Hordern

out

the naval vessel.

at

I

see any of them, so sat wait.

To

went back onto the wharf but couldn't down on a bollard outside the office to

of Juan Fernandez,

clear out

I

needed

to see the har-

bourmaster. Boats have to get a 'clearance', in Chile a zarpe, from

each country, sometimes from each port.

new you

place

you hand

are given a

new

in the old clearance,

one.

The

depends on the country and visiting yachts. In

ance

soon

as

as

When

you

arrive at a

and when you leave

exact nature of these formalities

its

attitude to, or familiarity with,

some places, officials demand to see your clearyou arrive, and there are supposedly severe

penalties for those unable to in the Caribbean,

it

produce one; elsewhere, especially

can be hard to find an

official

who

has

the remotest interest in your clearance. Generally speaking, the

Chileans had belonged in the

category, but in this case,

first

because of Juan Fernandez's status

as

something of an annexe to

the mainland, the harbourmaster hadn't actually taken

me when

clearance from register I

my

I

arrival in a large

first

came

now

that I'd

made

my

had

I still

though he did

office.

I

was impatient to

the decision to leave.

asked had seen the harbourmaster, or back. As

old

book.

waited for ten minutes outside the

get started

ashore,

my

clearance from

No

one

I

knew when he might be

my last port,

I

could show

and not mention having stopped at Juan meant there would be no entry in the har-

that at the next island,

Fernandez.

It

just

book recording my departure. hung about for a couple more minutes, then carried the dinghy down the steps at the wharf and rowed briskly back out to

bourmaster's I

the boat. So in

one

sense, I've never actually left Juan Fernandez:

in bureaucratic terms at least,

I'll

spend the

rest

of

my

life

on

the island.

There was

a light

got to the boat.

I

breeze blowing across the bay by the time sailed off the anchor,

107

I

then under the western

Sailing the Pacific

headland of Bahia Cumberland. Directly in the

wind was Then,

as

and progress slow

dirty I

came out from

settled in the south-west, I

fifty

the island's

and

wind shadow,

was able to

I

island's lee the

north for half an hour.

sailed

I

was bound for Yosemite Rock, which

the breeze

my chosen course.

set

lies

two hundred and

miles north-west of Juan Fernandez. Yosemite was reported

in 1903,

and the Admiralty

pilot describes

some length with pointed heads

as a

it

white rock of

three to four metres high. Ships

searching for Yosemite in 1904 and 1909 found nothing; other vessels

have reported

a feature in the

ten miles further west. Yosemite

charted latitude, but up to

a classic vigia,

is

or rock which has been reported but tence, I

is

now

cloud,

an island, reef

position, or exis-

doubted.

made good

There was

whose

little

progress that morning, reaching in easy seas. sun, the sky being mostly filled with banks of

which made

it

cool to

sit

on deck and watch the

sea. In

wind freshened and I retreated to the cockpit. The cloud darkened and sank lower in the sky. As night fell, the afternoon the

I

thought I

it

found

much

would it

rain.

even a short stopover

The wind had beam, and

and was surprised

difficult to sleep that night,

my

in a rising sea.

anchor could

at

risen to twenty-five knots,

affect

now

passage to the north-west was I

lay

on

my bunk

that

I

becoming bumpy

tense than

when

I'd

closed

In the cockpit time passed

night there.

I

and must have

couldn't hear the

water rushing round the skin of the boat, and

more

my

more

expected the rain to

I

woke

window of ocean

easily,

start at

much of the any moment. The air

so

I

spent

separated from the blackness

all

rail,

the stanchions. In the cockpit

could stand comfortably,

on either bench, holding the

steel

108

swells a

around

occasionally pouring round

and raced beneath the leeward I

feeling

eyes.

was hot, thick with tension. As the boat pitched on the small

routine.

forward of the

for long periods,

dozed off at times, but never so deeply

my

how

my feet

handles in the spray-hood

Miles Hordern

frame. I

I

could see almost nothing of the ocean around the boat.

read the state of the sea by the combination of effort

it

took

my spread-eagled arms and legs to remain connected to the boat. That night

was an almost

it

wind swept sideways over

of gyrations,

restful series

the boat, soothing

my

as a

nerves.

some-

In the small hours lightning set in, bursting in sheets,

times

on two

lutely silent,

But there was no thunder:

sides at once.

and

not

still

a

drop of

saw that the horizon was very

I

back

down

When

to the cabin

of trying to get to

wa:>

*•

Recrossing the

Canal Moraleda

Juan Fernandez, birthplace of the castaway

myth

The church first

built

Gambier

at Akamaru, the by the Picpus Fathers

at

Mother-of-pearl inlay on the altar at

the cathedral at

Rikitea: the remains of the

'Mad

Priest'

in a crypt

Honore

Laval

lie

nearby

Taravai, Gambier: the first Europeans in the Pacific often

commented on how

pale-

skinned they observed the Polynesians to be, leading to

no end of speculation about the origins of the South Sea islanders.

William Dampier

suggested that the Pacific

peoples might be descended

from the

^

lost tribe

of Israel

Tahiti

Tied

to the wharf, Papeete

Wreck of the Nicky Lou, Beveridge Reef

Pete Atkinson with his

homemade underwater camera housing. The circular contraption

behind him cage,

is

a shark

made from

chain-

link garden fencing

and

of irrigation pipe. It was designed to 'concertina' for ease of a length

stowage on

a

36-foot

and used to photograph tiger sharks at Minerva Reef

yacht,

Miles Hordern

than

Terra Australis.' Campbell believed that Tasmania,

this

New

Holland,

Zealand, and Quiros's Austrialia were

the same land mass.

He

said

all

New

part of

of the British, 'We want not

we want not Power, but we want Will ... let us and we shall succeed ... If we search, we shall find; if

Capacity, deserve,

we knock,

Most

days

it

will

be opened.'

on the passage west

I

had

a sleep after lunch.

With

the

my night's rest so often broken, an afternoon nap When woke spent an hour or two four o'clock, which was the time took my daily

sun so high and

became an

inevitability.

quietly until

I

I

I

bath in the cockpit.

My bath became

one of those

rituals

after

some

sun was

trial

and

of

error, the best time. In the late

hot enough for sea water to

still

while with only little

around which

Four o'clock was,

part of each tropical day revolved.

a

a certain I

decided

afternoon the

feel refreshingly cool,

couple of hours to go before sunset there was

chance of getting uncomfortably hot again before the cool

Throughout the heat of each

nightfall.

target

I

set myself.

After that, the long

day,

4 p.m. was the

wind-down

into night

could begin.

My bath was

a

simple routine.

I

sat

on the cockpit bench and

my head and

slowly tipped half a dozen buckets of sea water over shoulders.

work.

didn't use any soap. So-called

I

On my previous

'salt

water soaps' don't

voyage through the islands

I

had discov-

ered Joy, the local washing-up liquid, which lathers well in water.

French

But

I

wouldn't be able to get any Joy until

islands,

beginning of the passage bucket to remove the

and anyway, It

how

I

I

and didn't regret the absence of

salt.

liked the

I

now

I

reached the

soap.

At the

after the last

didn't have a clean towel,

salt.

takes a certain period

the ocean feels

used to towel myself dry

But by

salt

of time

on your

at sea to

skin,

149

become

sensitised to

and the variations

that are

Sailing the Pacific

of the voyage away from the coast of

possible. In the first days

New

Zealand

was aware only that the sea was wet and cold.

I

Temperature appeared to be the

Ocean

the spray

felt bitter

over the side to scrub

numbed my

the water

it

Southern

sole variable. In the

and hard, and when

dipped

I

a

pan

hands. In those

on the cockpit bench washing the dishes, my shoulders were perpetually hunched in defence, waiting for the next sting of spray on the back of my head and the cold creep high

latitudes, as

I

knelt

down my

of water

neck. In the far south

I

battled to keep the

ocean out: outside heavy jackets with strapped washboards and bolted hatches. with the water, except for

my

face

and

my

in

had

I

little

direct

engagement

but constant slipperiness on

a slight

which never properly

hair,

behind

collars,

dried.

Sailing in tropical waters allows a different type of exposure

Washing

to the ocean. feels,

way your

in salt water changes the

skin

and so changes your perception of the environment. In the

short tropical evenings, after

on

ing into streaks

my

his sea.

in, as a

When

bath, I'd

arms and

prickling sensation that

comfort

my

I

legs.

learned

first

watch the

My

skin

salt

harden-

felt dry, a slight

to accept

and

later find

simple sign of connection between the sailor and

I

rubbed

my forearm,

the deck. In heavy rain squalls

I

white powder sprinkled to

stood in the cockpit feeling fresh

down my body. When licked my lips, the water running down my face tasted salty from my hair. When the rain

water stream

stopped, the silky,

But it's

I

I

my body

wind dried

my hair separated from a felt

no cleaner

after

an illusion of the lone

salty

in minutes.

I

felt light

mass into individuals strands.

No

such a soak in fresh water.

sailor,

but

I

never

felt dirty, far

The baths took in the tropics were not about getting much as staying cool and fresh, and feeling at home on I

At 24 south

latitude, the trade

there was a light

was again

fickle.

One

westerly - a headwind - an ominous

150

and

doubt

offshore.

clean so

the sea.

afternoon

sign.

Then

Miles Hordern

beneath the meridian

several short calms left the boat spinning

sun.

A

from

thousand miles from Easter Island

Henderson looked

a distance,

about

island,

six miles

by

I

made

uninviting.

with bare

three,

a raised coral

It is

and

cliffs

Even

landfall.

mop

a

of

green bush on the central plateau. Quiros sighted the island in 1606, and

it

was named

But Henderson

1800s.

Captain John Henderson in the

after

known

best

is

for the part

has played in

it

the story of Pacific castaways. It

began with the whaler Essex, an old ship by 18 19, 87

long, 238 tons, square-sterned with

head.

The

recently

first

Owen

mate,

been thoroughly

and was now,

no

gallery

Chase, recorded

refitted in her

and no figure-

how

the ship had

home port of Nantucket

sound, substantial

'in all respects, a

feet

vessel'.

The

Essex had been victualled and provisioned for a whaling voyage

two and

to last

a half years.

She

sailed in

August 18 19.

The Essex encountered heavy westerly gales in the Southern Ocean and took five weeks to round Cape Horn. The following year she arrived in the Juan Fernandez islands and took

on wood, water and captain,

George

fresh meat.

Then her twenty-eight-year-old whaling grounds

Pollard, set a course for the

at

the Galapagos Islands.

At eight o'clock on the morning of 20 November whales was sighted near the Galapagos. the crew gave chase in the boats taken), leaving the mate,

The

a large

blow

sperm whale about eighty-five

several times,

struck the ship

and swim

later published.

feet

on our

faces'.

beneath the

on the bow with

The

ship,

Chase's

He

saw

long leave the pod,

The whale the crewmen

straight at the ship. its

head, giving

onboard 'such an appalling and tremendous us

most of

three whales were

(at least

Owen Chase, on board the ship.

account of the events that followed was

pod of

a

captain and

jar as nearly

ship trembled like a leaf.

grazing the keel with

its

threw

The whale passed The whale was

back.

then seen again, apparently in convulsions, 'enveloped in the

foam of the

sea that his continual

151

and violent thrashing about

in

Sailing the Pacific

the water had created around him, and

I

smite his jaws together,

with rage and

as if distracted

could distinctly see him

whale then charged the ship again, struck and disappeared. Chase records times been

known to

it

for a

fury'.

The

second time,

that

though whales had some-

attack the small

open boats from which the

harpoons were actually thrown, and even to clamp these boats in

no whale had ever rammed

their jaws,

The

Essex rolled onto

its

side

were cut away, which righted the

The crew were now

level.

all

a ship before.

and began to ship,

in the

sink.

The

but she was awash

open

boats.

They

at

masts

deck

spent the

night tied to the half-submerged hulk of the Essex. In the

first

morning

a

hole was cut in the deck and salt-bread and casks of

Then the Essex was given up for lost. The wrong quarter to sail to the nearby Galapagos Islands. There was no other land close to hand. Thirteen hundred miles to the south-west lay the Marquesas - the most obvious islands to head for - but they were not even considered: they fresh

water retrieved.

wind was

in the

were thought

to

century

regarded the prospect of cannibalism with horror.

sailors

be inhabited by cannibals, and nineteenth-

Captain Pollard made the decision to

sail

south to about 25 ° in

hope of then picking up a westerly wind which might carry them to the coast of Chile or Peru. Twenty men embarked in the

three boats. These whale boats were light and fragile, designed to

be rowed

fast in

pursuit of whales.

Now overloaded, they were

quite unsuitable for such an ocean crossing.

The

boats

nearly a month.

'Our

They were

sufferings during these

The hot

belief.

degree

as

justly life;

frequently becalmed. Chase wrote,

calm days almost exceeded

of the sun beat

rays

down upon

human

us to such a

to oblige us to hang over the gunwale of the boat, into

the sea, to cool our

were

south-south-west across the Pacific for

sailed

strictly

ranked

weak and

fainting bodies.'

Food and water

rationed. 'The privation of water',

among

says

Chase,

'is

the most dreadful of the miseries in our

the violence of raving thirst has

152

no

parallel in the catalogue

Miles Hordern

of a

human

loaded

On

calamities.'

Owen

Chase guarded the provisions with

pistol.

20 December 1820 the crew of the Essex sighted un-

known

land.

calculation

Chase wrote,

...

not within the scope of

'It is

what the

to divine

Alternate expectation,

this occasion.

Henderson

was Henderson

that this landfall

much

didn't offer

in the

castaways found a few crabs and small

and

birds' eggs. After

in a cave that

terrible condition.

other's assistance in

we now

at

low

felt,

exertions.'

Island.

sustenance.

of fresh water

a spring

The men were

tide.

The

then ate peppergrass

'Our bodies had wasted away

and bone, and possessed so

Relief,

way of

fish,

two days they found

was exposed only

and

fear, gratitude, surprise

exultation each swayed our minds and quickened our

We now know

human

of our hearts were on

feelings

still

in

to almost skin

strength as often to require each

little

performing some of

its

weakest functions.

must come soon, or nature would

sink.'

Reluctantly, Captain Pollard decided they must again put to sea.

The

falling in

boats set

plan was to

sail

for the coast of

with Easter Island en route. sail

to the east

South America, perhaps

On 27 December the three

with seventeen

men on

board. Three

men chose to stay on Henderson and take their chances. Two weeks into the voyage Matthew Joy, the second

mate,

Owen Chase's Of the calms which

died of starvation and exposure. Shortly afterwards

boat became separated from the other two. followed, he wrote,

had abandoned us

'We began and

at last;

endeavour to prolong

now

a

to think that Divine Providence

it

was but an unavailing

effort to

tedious existence.' Occasionally

whales spouted around the boat. 'We could distinctly hear the furious thrashing of their

tails

in the water,

and our weak minds

pictured their appalling and hideous aspects.' Another

and

his

body was committed

after a night's deliberation,

to the sea.

of which Chase

guage to paint the anguish of our souls the survivors ate his heart.

153

man

died,

But then another died; says,

'I

have no lan-

in this dreadful

dilemma',

Sailing the Pacific

By

the middle of February the

men were

'Our

desperate.

cadaverous countenances, sunken eyes and bones just starting

through the

skin,

with the ragged remnants of clothes stuck

about our sun-burnt bodies, must have produced an appearance .

.

.

and revolting

affecting

17th, a

in the highest degree.' Finally,

was sighted. She turned out to be the

sail

Indian,

on the

Captain

whom we are indebted for every polite, friendly and

Crozier, 'to

attentive disposition'.

The

Indian

had been northbound up the

coast of Chile. Captain Crozier took

Owen

Chase and

his

men

They had made one of the most remarkable openboat voyages of all time, sailing more than five thousand miles to Valparaiso.

across

deep ocean. Chase's boat was

Captain

at sea for

twice

as

long

as

whose own open-boat voyage to safety became on the Bounty. two other boats that had left Henderson with Owen

Bligh's,

the stuff of legend after the mutiny

Of the

Chase, Captain Pollard's had already been picked up by a ship

south of the Juan Fernandez first

islands.

Three

men had

perished early in the voyage, and was eaten.

maining

died.

The

The

four re-

men then cast lots. A crewman named Coffin drew the He was shot by Charles Ramsdale and eaten. Ten

short straw.

days later another

devoured.

The

No

January.

The

found.

crewman died and

third boat

in

three

is

men

setting

left

on Henderson They had been

Island cast

I

its

turn

were eventually

away on Hender-

when

I

passed south of Henderson Island.

no bay or recognised anchorage of any

of the Essex had had the surf.

in

days.

The sun was There

body was

survivors were picked up, and the boat was never

rescued by the ship Surry.

son for

his

was separated from the Captain's on 28

once met

difficulty landing their a

couple in Tahiti

anchor their yacht precariously on ern side and

swim

ashore,

a

sort.

The crew

open boats through

who had managed

narrow ledge on the west-

though they couldn't climb the

154

to

cliffs.

Miles Hordern

I

looked up the west coastline through binoculars. The condi-

tions

were very

the trade steady in the south-east: ideal for

light,

trying to find an anchorage and get ashore, if only for a short time.

But though

I

watched the west coast

for

didn't take the tiller off the self-steering chain. to step foot ashore.

ued

sailing west,

The

With

the

wind

away from the

it

I

minutes,

I

wasn't tempted

in the south-east,

I

contin-

land, at four knots.

Henderson disappeared from

tropical night fell quickly.

view before

many

sank beneath the horizon.

and began to prepare an evening meal.

I

moved

Owen

into the cabin

Chase's journal

is

believed to have been one source for both Melville's Moby-Dick,

and Edgar Allen Poe's Narrative ofArthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. One more recent newsworthy event regarding Henderson hap-

pened

in 1957.

An American named Robert Tomarchin

landed on the island from

was

along with his chimpanzee

a yacht,

Moko, to recreate the castaway experiences of the three Essex whalemen who had survived for nearly four months on the island. The yachtsman and the chimp spent three weeks marooned together before the call came to take them off.

Two Pitcairn It

days later

was

sighted Pitcairn Island. In the

I

a bright

green

dome on

midday sun

the south-western horizon.

was on uninhabited Pitcairn that Fletcher Christian and

fellow-mutineers from the Bounty, together with a

beyond the reach of

Tahitians, established a castaway society

of their descendants

British justice. Forty-six

his

number of

still

live

on the

is-

land today.

approached Bounty Bay from the north. There was

I

breakwater here which protected the

anchorage

were very

on

a

day

chatter. else

at Pitcairn

light:

is

only landing.

The

notoriously poor but, again, conditions

the anchorage

like today.

island's

a tiny

Over

the

would never be more tenable than

VHF

radio

I

heard

a burst

of local

My radio reception has never been good, but something

was distorted about the voices

I

listened to:

I

thought

I

heard

the tones of archaic Somerset, transported to the South Seas.

155

Sailing the Pacific

seems that

It

away

is

not yet

Pitcairn's story as the

most remote

island hide-

an end. Six wealthy timber merchants and

at

a

tax judge based in Wellington have put forward an offer to

buy

the island and turn

The

proposal

Oeno,

is

for

two

it,

effectively, into a

corporate country.

one on Pitcairn and one on nearby

airstrips,

$50-million investment in tourist accommodation,

a

exclusive rights to the 200-miles fishing zone, independence

within five years, and Pitcairn citizenship for thirty company

The

shareholders and directors.

of Fletcher Christian

spirit

on.

lives

The deputy governor of part of the British

the

last

Pitcairn,

Karen Wolstenholme,

is

High Commission

in Wellington: Pitcairn

is

South

British colony in the

Pacific.

Wolstenholme

vetoed the independence, citizenship and fisheries parts of the but said the islanders had encouraged her to pursue the

deal, strips I

tiful

and

hove-to off Bounty Bay for ten minutes. The island

and dramatic: dark

partly shaded didn't

air-

tourist lodges.

cliffs

by cloud. The

sea

was the colour of the

anchor the boat. The wind was holding, and

to the north-west.

It's

sky.

life

the only important thing here.

But

that I

my

didn't

look back to watch Pitcairn fade on the horizon. Each time passed the land by

The next nation was

it

grew

easier,

and more

I

exhilarating.

and nervous.

My desti-

stage

of the voyage was

Isles

Gambier, the most south-easterly group

fast

I

course

set a

I

part of the illusion of ocean

own passage seemed to be

beau-

is

rising to a craggy green plateau,

in

French Polynesia, three hundred miles from Pitcairn. The wind climbed steadily through the

was

a forty-five-knot squall.

was running north-west

at

first

afternoon. At midnight there

By dawn

from the boom, occasionally cracking easterly swell the

wave

the following

over six knots.

crests

A

in the

broke with

a

morning

wind. In the large

wet thud under the

transom. With each one the boat rushed onwards in

of speed.

156

I

double reef hung

a burst

Miles Hordern

In the tropics these conditions are usually reinforced trade

winds

that can last for

thirty knots,

making

many

The

days.

trade

and furious

for a fast

steady at

is

up

to

with luck in

ride,

strong sunshine.

The

sky that morning was sleet grey, though, and patches of

came over the

glancing rain

ducked from unpredictable but could only

landed near

tell

my

eastern horizon. In the cockpit

assaults

of both

salt

one from the other when the heavy

mouth. Worse,

I

spray and rain, flecks

recorded in the log the lowest

I

readings for barometric pressure since leaving the coast of Patagonia.

seemed

It

that these

were not trade winds generated by

high pressure to the south, but an easterly on the underside of a

somewhere

depression

to

my

north, near the Marquesas.

Depressions in the tropics are bad news. That

There had been reports on the radio

all

made me nervous. summer of freak

weather around the globe. South-east Asia had suffered months of drought; bush forcing fires

traffic

fires

raged in Sumatra, Borneo and Malaysia,

to use headlights at midday;

drifted across the Indian

killed fifty-five

Ocean

smoke from

people in Poland and sixty in the Czech

public. Mud-slides destroyed

the

to the Maldives. Flooding

Re-

communities from the Mississippi

to California. I

listened to these

ment

at first.

of hours unfolds.

I

Over

BBC

reports with a sailor's

smug detach-

the time I've been at sea, I've spent hundreds

sitting beside

the radio listening as world history

have heard accounts of wars, elections, scandals, geno-

cide, liberation, earthquakes. After

weeks on passage through the

trade winds, the tropical seas can appear the

on earth by comparison. There small island that

is

the cruelties of the

far

is

no

threat here. I've

removed from both

human

most benign place found

natural disasters

a

and

race.

Reports of unusual weather right around the world contin-

ued through the tropics,

early

months of

1998.

news agencies were agreed 157

By

the time

that this

was

I

reached the

a systematic dis-

Sailing the Pacific

ruption to global weather. But

still I

longer to believe that

somehow

beyond the horizon.

was not

of

my

It

managed

for several

until late in

March

began to crack. Almost

island sanctuary

that the facade

after the event,

of ocean

had

I

just crossed, be-

tween the coast of South America and the Polynesian

When Nino:

it

I

in the Pacific,

name, they

a silly

El

some

that attitude

is

so-named, by the

Jesus. In this season, in a

sailors scoffed at El

By

the late

1

990s you

any more.

Nino begins around Christmas time

and Peru and

off the coasts of Chile

local fishermen, after the infant

normal

high pressure over the

year,

eastern Pacific generates trade winds from east to west. trades

is

used by those determined to

said,

explain every vagary of global weather.

seldom heard

islands,

volatile in the world.

first sailed

was

I

weather in distant parts of the world had

realised that the freak

started right here: the stretch

one of the most

weeks

was separate from the world

I

blow warm equatorial waters

same

in the

The

direction, allow-

ing colder water to well up from the sea-bed off the coast of

Chile and Peru. But for reasons that stood, in an El is

Nino

abnormally low in the

are not properly

still

year this pattern

is

reversed.

tropics, the trade

by long periods of calm, the

warm

water

winds is

The

under-

pressure

are interrupted

never pushed from

the coast, and sea temperatures are from five to ten degrees Celsius above normal.

From

of the

this part

Pacific, El

Nino

triggers a

of severe weather around the world. But the affected.

Cyclones

depressions

in the

South

form over warm,

cyclone season

lasts

local

domino weather

Pacific are generated

tropical water. In a

from November

to

effect is

also

when

normal year the

March or April, but most

storms occur in the western sector, in the Coral Sea and the waters around

Fiji.

end of March

to

Cyclones timed

relatively rare. I'd

my

in the east, in arrival in

minimise the

French Polynesia, are

French Polynesia for the

risk.

However, the previous major El Nino event of 1982-3 had 158

Miles Hordern

seen a different weather pattern. Five cyclones battered eastern first four months of the year. The last, Gambier with seventy-five-knot winds in

French Polynesia in the

Cyclone William, late April.

hit

My position now was a little more than two hundred

miles from Gambier.

The wind was

The

thirty-five knots.

sky

over the eastern horizon was black, and barometric pressure was low. All the signs

deep in the this

El

were

a

depression to

my

north,

warm enough in would develop into a

temperatures were

tropics. If sea

Nino

was

that there

year, this tropical depression

cyclone, and track south.

The day before I reached Gambier there were two more squalls with driving gale force

steep

rain. In the

and

I

night the easterly never dropped below

ran under bare poles.

and breaking. The

between

was

sea

tarry black cloud

By dawn the swells were The skyline alternated

grey.

and the advancing,

of

electric fuzz

rain squalls.

Late that

morning I sighted two black

to the south-west, the

Mokoto. Gambier

is

a

triangles

group of nine small

a partial barrier reef fifteen miles across.

on the horizon

Mt Duff

pyramid summits of

islands,

The

and

Mt

protected by

enclosed lagoon

is

On the

eastern

reef are several trailing sand islands, or motus; the largest

accom-

But the main

moun-

mostly navigable, but there are numerous shoals.

modates an

airstrip.

tainous, a volcanic knife-edge

Mangareva,

island,

of rock. At

its

is

feet there

is

lush

bush, surrounded by a palm-fringed shore and beaches the

colour of cream. veil

The lagoon

is

turquoise. Sea spray hangs as a

of mist over the reef

An hour of the

after sunset

reef. It

I

was two miles off the northern point

was ten miles

and knew

I

would not

and the lagoon inside

to the pass,

the reef was not navigable in darkness.

I

had arrived too

late,

find an anchorage until the following

morning. In the lee

into

seas became calmer. Then I sailed wind shadow and the gale was blocked out,

of the reef the

Mangareva

s

59

Sailing the Pacific

way

replaced by a dirty offshore flow. In this its

sphere of influence out over the ocean.

now under

quietly

some

making

a

Off the

At

i

I

down on

lay

a.m.

I

anxious about

this

and

Gambier.

I

a tropical

drift

up

sails

and

lay

two hours,

for

on the GPS. The

bunk and

set

the alarm.

and beat back towards the

sails

dawn.

till

I

reef,

slept little that night,

had practised so hard. But unlike Easter

for a

alternative to this stop at

month, and needed

so, this landfall

storm in the

to

was problematic.

fill

the

If there

were few good anchor-

islands, there

ages here. The main bay at the The person I had become over better to stay at sea.

no

there was

been offshore

tank with water. Even

was

of

rate

sat

interruption in the voyage and the thought of

life

Pitcairn,

I'd

I

about half a knot, away from the

at

the leeward

put up reduced

leaving the sea

along more

sailed

dropped the

I

current.

meal and watching the

then lay ahull again to wait

Island

pass

on the wind and

boat was heading north-west island.

I

a double-reefed main, parallel to the shore

three miles away.

ahull, drifting

the island extended

village

of Rikitea was exposed.

the

months

last

But the person

I

said

it

had been for

might be

all

my

life

before sailing offshore craved the security of land. At this point, after five

months of the voyage,

were equally ible

but

its

strong.

So

I

these

two

sheltering forces something

and the wave pattern

all

irreconcilable instincts

waited for daybreak, the island invis-

around.

I

could

I

tried to rest

feel in the

under

on the bunk, and more than once found an ugly

wind

a tartan

rug

solace in a bottle

of Spanish brandy.

At dawn the wind was the pass shortly after

with depths of twenty-five I

thirty knots.

first light. It

feet.

was

I

a

motor-sailed through

broad area of shoaling

There was an inflowing current.

entered the channel between Mangareva and Taravai.

fills

here were the steepest

I

have seen.

The two

The

steel

over-

buoys

marking the channel bucked wildly on heavy chains where steep swells picked

up by the

east

wind met

resistance

from the

took two hours to short-tack the four miles from the

160

pass.

tide. It

There

Miles Hordern

was

time to take in the islands around me, except for watery

little

impressions of bush at sea level and columns of black rock climb-

ing vertically into the mist and rain.

point of the island

Once

clear

of the south-east

could bear away to the north, then follow

I

second channel through coral heads to the village I

anchored offa small beach in

The wind was

water.

anchorage was

fresh

fifteen feet

and

reefs.

Rikitea.

of cloudy, disturbed

directly onshore,

by

partly protected

at

a

though the

Beyond, the surface of

the lagoon was almost completely white with breaking water.

Ashore, palms crashed and reared in the wind, their fronds blown submissively outwards like umbrellas in a gale.

The houses along

the water's edge were protected by a rough coral sea wall, but spray

still

reached their walls.

above the village

The

could see a

I

shutters

large,

were

closed.

On a hill

white church. Above

this

the island was lost in rain cloud.

From

the dinghy

I

set a

second anchor. The boat was nodding

on the regular chop. This done, I lifted the oars and let wind blow me ashore. I landed on a tiny beach, only a few

heavily

the

paces long.

The

was coarse and glassy

coral sand

painter to the trunk of a

mango

neatly folded into the crook of

A muddy

tree.

A

disposable

I

tied the

nappy was

two branches.

road ran parallel to the water's edge between

weather-board cottages, their gardens shaded by breadfruit and sour-sop

trees.

Bougainvillaea climbed over trellised porches.

The gendarme was

young French import in tight blue nylon shorts and a white shirt. His eyes lit up when he saw me. 'What about the World Cup?' he beamed. 'Only three months now, but England has no one to feed Shearer.' I

a

hadn't spoken to anyone for four weeks.

I

told the gendarme

I

had been worried about the weather. 'The sun certainly will not shine a

pen

said I

on the England across the desk.

would be faxed to

team,' I

he

wrote

Tahiti.

walked up through the

said,

my

pushing

details

a

piece of paper and

on the page, which he

The formalities were now complete.

village.

161

A large women in a floral print

Sailing the Pacific

dress,

completely sodden with

scooter, splattering

mud

towards the

meteorological

island's

on

building

the hillside

stepped inside.

a

called Henri. Charts

office.

beyond the

desk

came

I

motor-

directed

to a barn

at

the far end.

a set

me of

a

houses, knocked, and

last

The

I

saw

meteorologist was

and weather maps were pinned

There was

his desk.

The gendarme had

behind.

a

appeared to be an empty warehouse, then

It

someone wave from above

skidded past on

rain,

to the walls

of wind instruments and

a baro-

graph. Otherwise, the building was filled with the sound of wind

pummelling the corrugated iron

walls

and torrents of squally

rain

on the roof. Henri handed me the latest weather fax. The chart showed the spiralling form of a deep depression spread across the page, centred five

hundred miles north of Gambier.

I

asked Henri

what he thought was going to happen. 'England will lose,' he said innocently. I said I meant about the weather, what was going to happen with the depression?

He

sion had filled already and was

would It

stay strong,

said

moving

to the

but was unlikely to get worse.

was raining more persistently by the time

The

village.

There was

was deserted.

street

a post office

somewhere

to

The depreswest. The wind

not to worry.

hang

and

out.

I

got back to the

walked slowly past the houses.

I

a hall. I'd

hoped

there might be a bar,

Now that my feet were on land,

I

hated

the idea of going back to the pitching boat.

When

I

reached the

asked the Chinese

He

took

admired

me it,

owner

if

he touched

mimicking shooting

He

he would

out the back to look

my arm

My French didn't stretch to bullets.

of the two shops

first

said

I

me

at

let

me

and asked

I

and

have some water.

told

if

had any

I

I

bullets.

was achieved by him

him

I

didn't have

any

could not have any water.

The shop was next

to the beach.

I

walked back dejectedly and

The boat was still bobbing into the seas lagoon. The anchorage was churned up and

stood beside the dinghy

coming

off the

messy.

decided to look elsewhere for water.

I

inside

the rain water tank. As

'bullets', so this

in the face.

went

I

162

Miles Hordern

As at

I

turned back towards the road

me from

walked milled

saw

I

several faces staring

They waved, so I The building was open-sided, a storage shed for timber. About ten young men, dressed in damp pareus, the shadows of a building nearby.

over.

were lying around on the planks, drinking Hinano, the Tahitian

They made a place for me to sit and put a bottle in my The boys were brash and drunk. Laughter boomed from figures I could barely see in the half-light. The guy next to me

beer.

hands.

was called Matai. His arms and of coral

scars

hair

cuts,

legs

a Polynesian

an AK47.

By late

Nostradamus.

brown skin. His black Matai wore a scarlet singlet

almost white against his

was matted and chalky with

showing

were covered in the raised

salt.

god springing from

cloudburst carrying

afternoon he was offhis face, banging on about

walked out to the beach

I

a

several times to see if

conditions had improved in the lagoon, and stood pushing feet

through the sand until the rain forced

sion: return to the boat, or stay ashore.

timber shed.

It

was

warm and

company of drunks seemed Matai took after

me

to his

dark before

I

I

me

always

to

make

my

a deci-

went back

to the

comfortable inside, and the

a blessed relief after the passage.

home and his

sister

provided

a meal. It

was

returned to the beach.

One September evening in the ship that had carried

1834 three Picpus Fathers gladly quit

them

for the last four

coast of Chile, hoisted their cassocks

around

weeks from the

their thighs,

and

waded through the warm shoal water to a beach in the Gambier group. They had landed at Akamaru, a small island on the windward

side

of the lagoon. Their leader, Father Louis Laval, gath-

ered Father Caret and Brother

Murphy around him,

gave

thanks for their safe landfall, and prayed for the fortunes of the

Order of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and the Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament,

South

Seas.

[63

at last established in

the

Sailing the Pacific

Gambier was an independent kingdom at the time of the misThere were maraes on each of the main islands

sionaries' arrival.

adorned with

in the group,

were reputed

Human

to

idols to Polynesian gods.

among

be

The people

the most fierce in the South Pacific.

was practised and cannibalism was widespread.

sacrifice

Corpses of loved ones were only preserved by being buried in the deepest part of the lagoon, fittest divers.

The

access to the

main

to

work on Within

king,

beyond the reach of even the

Maputeoa,

initially

refused Father Laval

of Mangareva, so the missionaries

island

the smaller islands in the group.

were mass baptisms

a year there

marriage was introduced.

concept of original modesty. Despite

wretched

grass

sin,

The

and given

this success,

Aukena god Tu were

at Taravai,

and Akamuru. During Lent, stone images of the smashed. Stone churches were built on the tian

set

sites

islanders

of maraes. Chris-

were taught the

calico tunics to preserve their

Father Laval describes living in a

hut on Akamuru. Father Caret kept

a small

garden and Brother Murphy distilled alcohol from the ti plant. The missionaries enjoyed a glass after dinner. The Picpus Fathers were the fundamentalists of their day. They believed the perfect mission to be a replica of a medieval settlement, governed by Catholic orthodoxy, with a priest at centre,

propped up by the native monarchy and

was twenty-five years

old,

he heard about the South to Polynesia

and building

ocean was to be After

his

life's

some months

sionaries

had been

in

working on Seas. a

a

Making

remote

its

nobility. Laval

mission in Chile, the trade

wind

when

passage

island theocracy in a

pagan

work.

The miswhen Maputeoa

the king began to appear at mass.

Gambier

for

two

years

agreed to the destruction of the Te Keika marae, the largest in the group, built on terraces above the village of Rikitea. In Laval began largest

By

work on

church this

in the

the vast St Michel cathedral.

French

Pacific,

on one of the

It

its

place

was the

smallest islands.

time the missionaries had been joined by Count

164

Miles Hordern

Alphonse de Latour de Clamouze, skill as a

draughtsman

who

was

a

minor

aristocrat

with some

largely responsible for an extra-

ordinary series of building projects that transformed the timber

and

grass villages into

The

imposing settlements of coral and rock.

Mt Duff

stone was quarried from

islanders'

backs to the

make

lime.

On

Coral was cut from the reef

village.

Kamaka, then brought

to

and carried on the at

Mangareva by boat and burned

to

the waterfront beneath the temple Laval built a

stone palace with conical dining towers and

follies.

Triumphal

stone archways guarded the paved avenue that led from the

wharf

to the cathedral door.

Mt

At Rourou, on the slopes of

Two hundred nuns

was established.

the island's unmarried

women

Duff, a great stone convent the

filled

cells,

were compelled

and many of

to take

up

resi-

dence and tend the convent gardens. Virtually the whole population

worked

as

forced labour for the quarrying and building

programme. Some died of ships.

One

births

and deaths, suggests

to just 500

and many

starvation,

on

estimate, based

a study

on passing

of Gambier's records of

that the population

during the period of

fled

fell

from 11,000

Laval's rule.

Father Laval introduced the 'Mangarevan Code', a system of

governing

religious laws

all

aspects of

life

in the islands, based

on

those operating in a Jesuit convent. There were plans to build a

monastery, so that ate lives.

Many

men and women

islanders

could

took vows of

were punishable by imprisonment.

A

completely separ-

live

chastity.

Impure thoughts

religious police force

was

implement the Code. Laval was supreme judge

established to

in

the islands, by virtue of his powers of excommunication.

The sight to

islanders

of a ship

were taught

in the

that sailors

lagoon the

women

were and

devils.

girls

At the

first

were instructed

run and hide in the convent. Laval described one captain,

pearl trader

twenty local

named Jean Pignon,

years.

women

as

having been

his

a

nightmare for

Trading captains, used to receiving favours from

and living wild

in the

[65

outer islands, bitterly resented

Sailing the Pacific

When Jean Pignon's nephew Jean Dupuy

Laval's puritanical creed.

refused to sign the

Mangarevan Code he was sentenced

On

months' imprisonment.

his return to Tahiti,

Pignon and together they laid

forces with

a

to fifteen

Dupuy joined

complaint. Finally, the

Catholic Bishop of Tahiti recalled Father Laval to Papeete. report by the French

described Laval

Commandant in Papeete, M. Motte-Rouge,

unstable and authoritarian, carried away by

as

religious zealotry,

A

from having

for thirty-five years

on

lived in isolation

remote

a

was

island. It

from the world

also

found

that the

Picpus Fathers had conducted a highly profitable trade in nacre

- mother-of-pearl -

shell

Papeete in 1880, from

Part of Matai's

to finance their projects. Laval died in

went

a cat scratch that

my

drunken rambling on

woodshed concerned

septic.

afternoon in the

first

the island of Taravai.

He

and

his friend

Paul had a pearl farm in the lagoon there. Matai described the island as paradise, repeatedly.

He seemed

European

had to be searching for

When

I

South

I

He

was

I

I

them out

kindness

itself,

and

spent the next hour

I

choppy water.

When

They

insisted filling

The wind was

to the boat.

and by the end

Paul.

assume

to

that, as a

paradise.

landed the dinghy on the beach the following morn-

now

needed.

and

Seas,

found the Chinese shop-keeper had had

ing

I

in the

I

a

change of heart.

take as

much

water

as

jerry cans and shuttling

still

fresh off the lagoon,

was soaked with spray from rowing through the I

again landed

said they

on the beach

were going to Taravai

I

met Matai

in an island boat,

me to come and visit them there. The passage across the lagoon to Taravai took only half an hour. The island was shapely, three miles long and about one and invited

wide,

its

squalls

central ridge a thousand feet above the sea. Occasional

still

rolled in over the reef to the east.

of the island were the

softest olive

The colour of the lagoon

alternated

166

The

grassy slopes

green in the watery sunshine.

between black and sky blue

Miles Hordern

as

The

cloud obscured the sun.

side.

was on the windward

tiny village

There was no tenable anchorage here

down behind

in this wind, so

I

ran

the island's lee and anchored in a deep horseshoe

bay fringed by palms.

The wind was

almost

still

Hardly

here.

a

frond rustled.

That afternoon

I

climbed up to the central ridge, then bush-

whacked down to the thickets of bamboo.

village

There were four houses here full-time.

It

was

through aeho

Only one family lived place. The houses stood

in the village.

a simple

and lovely

A

beneath palms and breadfruit trees at the water's edge. track, the

and

grass, chest-high,

only road of any sort on the island,

grassy

now overgrown

knee-high, followed the shoreline, flanked by white orchids and maire ferns. Inland, yellow-flowered purau trees sheltered the old

gardens.

I

caught the scent of

At the head of the track

vanilla.

stood the whitewashed church built by Father Laval, the bell

tower climbing above the palms, dazzling in the sun. Inside, the

domed ceiling was inlaid with rosewood. Blue stained-glass filled the

windows. Sunlight the colour of the ocean flooded

must have reminded the

islanders

Outside the church was

in.

Prayer

of swimming underwater. of reclaimed

a large grassy rectangle

land pushing out into the lagoon, trussed up with coral boulders to break the seas.

At the centre of

stone archway thirty feet high.

much

The

this plaza

stood a forbidding

volcanic rock was black,

now

covered with moss, but the masonry was in good condi-

tion. Laval

had placed the archway here to dominate

the island, as this was also the wharf. into a theatre of forced devotion.

He

But

access to

all

had turned the

today, since this

island

was the

only area of clear, levelled land, Matai and Paul used the archway as

I

the goal-post for their afternoon soccer practice.

spent

a

week on

Taravai.

The weather cleared, though

never dropped below twenty knots. Three times

167

I

the

wind

slept in the

Sailing the Pacific

other nights

village, the

leeward

I

The

a .22 rifle.

carcass carried

back to the

down our backs. We and

in a pirogue,

One

He

I

was butchered on the

kill

sun

went

spot, the

blood drip-

village in old postal sacks, trolled for fish along the

slept in the

night Paul and

was high.

on the

We left before dawn one morning to hunt wild pigs

side.

with dogs and

ping

battled back to the anchorage

southern reef

the pearl farm.

at

laid a net in the lagoon,

then

we

moon

once the

fishing after dark,

dived to retrieve

the catch. In the moonlight the water was a deep, emerald green. I

could just see Paul working beneath me,

body

his

like a trail

of emulsion in the water. Beneath the waves he moved with agility, as if

he would never come back.

bite the fish

on the head before pulling them

from the

net.

through the

On my

This stunned them long enough to thread

cord

a

gills.

last

morning

arrived from Mangareva.

The

He

and

me how to

different grace

showed

a

Taravai a boat-load of picnickers

at

We made

a

long table in the clearing.

picnickers were led by a feisty old

woman named

Marie was small and uncommonly gaunt, wrapped purple pareu and matching headscarf. She called

me

Marie.

in a vivid 'little

one',

my ribs. They had brought fish, some baked, some marinated in coconut milk and

though her head barely reached

some

raw,

lime. Also pots of taro, yams, sweet potatoes,

and flagons of wine.

Bananas and pomelos were picked from nearby

About

fifteen

people

sat

down

to lunch.

A

trees.

few of the oldest

ones lay out on woven pandanus mats in the shade. Toddlers ran screaming in and out of the waves. Sitting opposite a

now

French guy from Toulouse,

woman. He was French nuclear

a civilian technician test

Gambier. Until the

my

visit,

yachts.

the

When

site,

test site

a

fifty

me

was

Mangarevan

on Mururoa

two hundred and

Atoll, the

miles from

was decommissioned the year before

whole surrounding I

married to

asked about his

of the houses are empty now.

area had

work

It's

been

off-limits to

the technician said, 'Most

a beautiful place, like this here.

168

Miles Hordern

This talk about nuclear pollution, that the into the

I

ocean —

it's all lies.

swim

I

atoll

is

leaking waste

in the lagoon every day.'

returned to Rikitea on Sunday morning.

planned to buy

I

things in the store the following day, then put to sea.

I

a

few

climbed

the curving staircase to the cathedral of St Michel for the ten

o'clock service. This was the centre-piece of Father Laval's pro-

and rock, with seating for twelve

ject, a great edifice in coral

hundred. less

The

entire population

than half the pews. Laval

mother-of-pearl

is

islands today

fill

buried in a crypt before the

neck-

shell

playing in a ukulele ensemble.

In the afternoon there was a football match. just

would

That Sunday the congregation numbered

altar.

mostly children. Paul was wearing multiple

thirty,

laces,

of the

beyond the

below the

cathedral,

The

pitch was

of the present-day

site

mission house. Paul and Matai were playing in the same team.

There were about

around the bank on the inland

The

water-logged: a bog. airborne.

As

slowly through the crowd.

He

priest.

ball

stopped

at

The

side.

wouldn't

watched the game

I

I

priest smiled as

from the told

He

pitch was completely

travel

any distance unless

him as

the island's French

each group of spectators, shook It

a

few

was obvious that soon he

get to me.

The I

cars or scattered

noticed a figure moving

recognised

I

hands, and sometimes stayed to chat.

would

on

fifty spectators, sitting

yacht,'

him

said,

'I

I

he

he

said.

sat

He

down

beside me. 'You must

didn't take his eyes off the

come

game.

thought the standard of play was very high.

think

we

have

a real

chance

this

year

at

the

cham-

pionships in Papeete.' 'It's

a

shame the ground

He shook face. It

his head.

is

so wet.'

'What we need

must have drainage and good

championships. That

is

something

69

I

is

turf.

a

proper playing sur-

Perhaps

would

if

we win the The

like to see here.'

Sailing the Pacific

ball

had gone into touch and he turned to look

moments, warming

to his theme. 'Le Stade de

few

Gambier —

yes,

come back and visit us again in five years. Perhaps we have built a new stadium by then. But first we must win the

indeed, will

me

for a

at

championships.'

170

Eight

There island

is is

nothing

many

horizon

there, just

days before

The

like sailing in to Tahiti.

The myth landfall. Maybe

reality.

beyond the range of

Perhaps the

vision,

appears above the it

has always

been

hanging over the

sea.

bow of every boat in history has secretly been point-

within the

ing,

world

in the

both myth and

sailor's heart,

towards some distant and better

place.

The myth of an

island paradise has

logical speculation; history,

poets.

been the subject of theo-

has shaped the course of cartographic

it

informed philosophical debate, and inspired writers and It

prominently in coconut confectionary

also features

advertisements. Tahiti has that placeless quality, like

Samarkand

and Xanadu: many of us would probably struggle to find the map. Tahiti

with tea and in

is

it

the stuff of rainy Sunday afternoons by the

toast, a fine

B-movie on

on fire

and Errol Flynn

television,

green tights and pixie boots, swinging through the rigging

with

a jolly cry.

Who

wouldn't smile? Errol's off for

the beach with a tribe of dusky nymphets, even

a

now

romp on

limbering

up beneath the palms.

Of course, we know the

it is

not

really like this.

condoms and hypodermics on

nialism, the

about

the beach, the nuclear colo-

techno drowning out the

171

We know

surf.

But

in the

European

Sailing the Pacific

mind, Tahiti

is

ends and our

ocean

It

I

steady

island,

and an

idea.

Where

imaginary geography begins

at

morning when

breaking water but seldom a

I

left

of

on

a line

the

Gambier. The trade clear.

I

of the noise of

sea, full

drop of spray. The genoa was poled

out to windward, the breeze on the quarter. tions

is

twenty knots. The sky was perfectly

north-west across a bold but even

I'd sailed

on

varia-

same course and tack since leaving the coast of

this

My

Patagonia.

the real island

have never properly crossed.

a fine, tropical

wind was sailed

own

suspect

I

was

both an

winched the

ship

sails

seemed

life

and

into place,

resume automatically

to

as

I

my view again became that off-

shore kaleidoscope of waves, sky, and the foreshortened rig

pendulum swing

describing a back,

my memory

When

across the sun.

I

looked

of time ashore was closed out by the ocean

even before the summits of

Mt Mokoto

Mt Duff

and

disap-

peared beneath the horizon.

The

fine

weather lasted through the second day

surged calmly onwards

at six

of Mururoa

a

Atoll.

It is

knots. That night

long

atoll,

about twenty-five miles, but

only a few metres high, capped in palms.

was

invisible, there

flow

is

wind is

dirty as

were no

lights.

and disrupted, but

could see nothing of the

I

could distinctly smell

it.

From

Behind

in the lee

clean as that blowing over the

I

the boat

as

passed in the lee

I

a

offshore the land

high island the wind

of a low-lying

atoll

the

open ocean. So although

island, for several

hours

after

midnight

Islands have a smell shadow, a trail

of

sweet fragrance, the sticky juice of coconuts, breadfruit, pandanus and mangoes, that spreads across the water final

of

extension to their territory.

a fresh

It is

downwind

as a

subtle, this smell; the effects

wind over such a distance make the perimeters of the When I woke at dawn the smell had gone and I

area unclear.

sailed again across a sovereign sea. I

saw

little

of the sun that

day.

172

By

lunch time the barometer

Miles Hordern

was

and

falling

of dry cloud

a sheet

the sky.

filled

freshened to thirty knots and the sea began to

popped that

a short

sail

seam

in the

and ran under

afternoon

about.

genoa running by the

I

lee, so furled

just the double-reefed mainsail. In the

passed in the lee of Tematangi Atoll.

I

The wind

fall

The

island

was

windward when I passed the northern point. From that distance no distinct features of land were visible, only the green fuzz of palm forests forming a broken line along the eight miles to

horizon.

By midnight

under bare poles

as

the

taken in the mainsail.

I'd

wind

rose to gale force.

second depression was forming to the north. a

rough but

It

It

The

boat ran

seemed

that a

was going to be

fast trip.

The wind had moderated morning and

I

to

thirty

knots the following

re-set the double-reefed mainsail.

I

ran this

way

The rain was often heavy, and both the Time moved slowly in the cabin. I fried

for the next three days.

hatches were closed. breadfruit chips stage in the

the sea a

and

tried to read, but

I

was bored.

I'd

reached

voyage when, unless conditions were good,

trial. I felt

that I'd

steep roll of the boat

time

I

be more intrusive than

to

grew

I

found

been on passage long enough. The

seemed

could remember.

I

a

tired

at

any

of doing everything with

only one hand, while the other alternately pushed and pulled against a strong-point in order to

never stopped. Wherever

I

me upright. This workout saw my rigid hand gripped

keep

looked,

I

around some bar or handle, arm muscles working in and out a piston, as if

clamped to

I

my

couldn't have functioned at

all

like

unless physically

environment. Sometimes the struggle to cook

some structure to time seemed quite pointless. The boat was running off a hundred and fifty miles at every noon fix. would be in Tahiti within a few days. The temptation was simply to crawl into bed and try to sleep it out. My bunk was

meals and give

I

the best refuge, but

still

there was

no escape from the sound of

running water: the constant, pressured rush of ocean parting

round the

keel; the flop

of spray against the washboards; the

173

Sailing the Pacific

drumming

on the coach-roof. The makeshift doublewindows on both sides of the cabin —

rain

glazing of the three small

the sheets of polycarbonate

— was

dirty

now

I

had bolted over them for security

with accumulated

and

salt

looked out to try to catch sight of the

sky,

I

the cabin the surfaces were damp. skins.

drinks.

spilt

I

and the contents sluiced

I

that

until they

I

across the already

might end the voyage

booted

me

a great barrier,

plained

why no one had been

in

wet and greasy

thought more than stay

on the

island

terrestrial paradise lay

perhaps an impassable one, which exthere.

was the ocean, and paradise an

Cathay, in an

I

of

out.

beyond

the Hereford

I

and

there,

Medieval cartographers assumed that the

shows paradise

When

a sheet

surface.

brought water

floorboards. In the ocean east of Tahiti,

once

saw only

Even inside on my oilFour days out from Gambier the toilet

running water over an already cloudy, scaly

leaked,

sea grime.

On

some maps

island. Fra

this barrier

Mauro's mappa mundi

an island in the most distant ocean. Likewise,

as

map represents Paradise unknown eastern sea.

The myth of a dream

island

as

an island off the coast of

was explored by the Portuguese

and poet Luis Vaz de Camoens. From 1553 to 1570 de Camoens made landfalls throughout the Indian Ocean, exploit-

sailor

ing the legacy

left

by

his forebear,

Vasco da Gama, whose voyage

around the Cape of Good Hope had pioneered the the

sea route to

east.

De Camoens'

epic

tribute to the sea. In

by Venus for tropical sea, rises

Vasco da

their trials

on

Lusiadas

On

is

a vast

and passionate

Gama and his crew are rewarded

the ocean by being transported to a

where they make

a

magical landfall on an island that

up over the horizon and moves

them. fruit,

poem Os

it,

across the

golden beaches, in lush valleys

filled

ocean towards with

waterfalls,

flowers and animals, the sailors frolic with nereids engorged

174

Miles Hordern

by

They

love.

Gama and

make

sleep in palaces,

music, and hunt game.

crew have discovered the

his

Now

the door to global communication. their voyages can lead to

sea,

Da

they have opened

the sailors learn that

more than commerce and conquest;

the South Seas their souls find peace, they live a

from

free

life

in

pain in an island-garden of other-worldly beauty.

on

After lunch

the third day

I

passed a group of three small

A

the nearest being Nukutepipi.

From

of Hereheretue.

open water

miles of

the cockpit.

It

here

my

to Tahiti.

day

later

was another miserable

knots, the breaking seas remorseless.

much of that day, the

I

wind

wore an

afternoon in at

over thirty

oilskin jacket

stood facing the front, holding the spray-hood for support.

very mild. After several hours

my

bare legs were

still

though they were wet from spray and occasional beginning to

working sick

of

sitting in the

and

the tropics

stuck

As

I

that

it

this

cabin. After

I

would never go

comes

best,

rain.

I

was

I

wanted.

weeks of easy I

I

was

living in

wondered how

I

had

to

is

high-latitude sailing again.

night, but in a gale, or even just in strong

that passage to Tahiti, there

which was what

I

wanted

tired

to

darkness.

I

made myself promise

the long nights. In fine weather the tropical sea

life at

had on

I

but also sometimes the worst, thing about sailing in

found on deck then. Standing be so

wanted

is little

in the cockpit

on

that

winds

pleasure to be

was

a

workout,

to inflict on myself that afternoon. I would sleep through the long hours of become so exhausted and cold that I could

wanted to

I

again face the thought of pulling the hatch closed behind lying

was

not cold,

and leg muscles always

was what

free access to the deck,

It

and

out in the cabin for days on end in the Southern Ocean.

the tropics

I

damp

my arm

and

stood in the cockpit that afternoon

The

as

feel physically tired,

to maintain balance,

atolls,

windward three hundred

sailed to

course lay across spent

I

I

me and

worn-out bunk, the thirty-year-old foam mattress

175

Sailing the Pacific

collapsed into a falling

ofFm

permanent hollow, the vinyl cover cracked and

quickly after that. If

my

meal

and damp.

shreds, the feather pillow prickly

On passage to Tahiti the sun set at 6:15 p.m. cooked and

I

ate slowly

eight o'clock. After that

till

Darkness

it

was

a

I

fell

very

could spin out

very long night,

and when the weather was bad there was nowhere to go but bed. Those hours until days.

I

hoped

that this

dawn had passed so slowly new strategy might allow

over the

last

for a better

night's rest. I

stood stubbornly in the cockpit until sunset. Afterwards, in

the cabin, stained

turned on

I

brown

my bunk

My

in.

Then

was eight o'clock.

I

dinner looked and tasted brown.

I

killed the last

flooded

ories, to suit this child's

lamp and

my mind

bedtime.

I

dawn. The rain began again, the pictured go-kart races felt

I

down

thought that in

risking a gybe

my

the quarter, In

my

thoughts

— then

But

On

I

as

I

I

this

memway

and sleep

a little quieter.

the boat surfed

my body

as

I

till I

down

the boat

second with the wind dead astern raced off with the breeze safely on

weight again

dered sore-necked tion.

a

it

place,

seemed

tension spread through

balanced precariously for

—

sea

the lawn

a

tried to sleep.

with childhood

might transport myself to another time and

the swells.

moved through

read for an hour, mechanically turning pages

I

hadn't taken It

glow.

the lights and

all

settling firmly in the lee-cloth.

dallied in tree houses

and rock pools, wan-

in a starchy collar at

some golf club func-

couldn't sleep, or convince myself that this dank

cabin was anywhere but here and now. At 10 p.m.

over the lee-cloth, and desperately gulped

brown cabin

a

mug

of

I

climbed

rum

in the

light.

In June 1766 the

Royal Society sent Wallis and Carteret

to search

for the Southern Continent. The navigators found no Southland, but in

June of the following year Wallis made 176

landfall

on

Miles Hordern

a spectacular volcanic

known

pinnacle in

Europeans.

to

He

mid

Pacific, previously

transcribed

the

un-

name

native

as

'Otaheite', so turning the mere mention of the island into an

expression of both longing and sadness: Oh-Tahiti. In his journal

crew

Wallis describes Tahiti as the 'Garden of Eden'. His

are

thought to have introduced venereal disease there.

But perhaps

it

was Louis-Antoine de Bougainville's

Tahiti a year later that,

more than any other European

arrival in

landfall in

the Pacific, defined the South Sea islands as an erotic paradise.

After clearing the Magellan Strait and sailing north-west for the Juan Fernandez group, Bougainville searched for the ical

He

Davis Land in the ocean west of Chile.

into Polynesia. in Tahiti

What happened

changed the

in the days following his landfall

He

island for good.

wrote:

'As

The

approached the land the natives surrounded the

ships.

of canoes about the vessel was so heavy that

we had

mooring amid the crowd and the "tayo",

of

it.'

which means

Many

of the

women

noise.

They

and giving us

friend,

a

all

woman,

to

keep

men

to follow her ashore,

at

hundred Frenchmen, young

women

to

be made

work, in the midst of such

for six

In spite of

sailors

...

I

ask

in

how

a spectacle, four

who

have seen no

months?

all

our precautions, one young

came aboard and got onto

woman

the poop, and stood by

one

of the hatches above the capstan. This hatch was

opened

to give

The young fall

girl

some

air to

those

who

were working.

negligently allowed her loincloth to

to the ground,

and appeared to

all

eyes such as

Venus showed herself to the Phrygian shepherd. She had the Goddess's

celestial

form. Sailors and soldiers

177

crush

trouble

came shouting

and unequivocal gestures demonstrated the manner

which her acquaintance was

we

thousand evidences

were naked, and the

pressed us to choose a

myth-

then sailed up

Sailing the Pacific

hurried to get to the hatchway, and never was the capstan heaved with such speed.

named

Bougainville

home of Aphrodite,

the island

'Nouvelle-Cythere', after

his discovery

the

Greek goddess of

love. Acts

of possession were buried in thirteen different places ashore.

One

of Bougainville's crew was

young

a

young

girls

who

if

was formed

I

During the sex

He

helped him undress.

'The whiteness of a European body ravished them tened to see

.

of up to

still

he wrote

at sea

Tahitians to

the

it,

men

knew no whole

were

home which was published in the 1769. Commerson wrote that the

a letter

November

other god but love; every day

island

is its

temple,

all

artist

women

is

are

on Captain Cook's second voyage

William Hodges, depicted the Tahitian

and the

women

astonishment

drew them

as

as classical

consecrated its

idols, all

how

at

men

as

statuesque heroes

fair-skinned the Tahitians were.

Hodges

almost white, and transformed their tapa-cloth

wealthy amateur, Joseph Banks.

'Arcadia', a land

Tahitians

to the Pacific,

nymphs. Europeans often expressed

cloaks, called 'ahu, into flowing robes like togas. a

ships

worshippers'.

its

The

was

land.'

The expe-

was Philibert Commerson. While the

Mercure de France in

has-

fifty islanders

gathered to watch, complete with nose-flute players. dition naturalist

They

.

.

wrote,

of their

like the inhabitants

that followed an audience

caught on

day,

Here he found

the island in a squall, he took shelter in a house. six beautiful

Prince

aristocrat,

Othon de Nassau-Siegen. One

Charles Nicholas

where 'we were

Greek names

to

like Hercules,

He be

Cook's botanist

described Tahiti

kings'.

show

voyaged to

Omai

gave the

Ajax and Lycurgus.

Both Bougainville and Cook returned from native islander to

He

as

Tahiti with a

off in their respective capitals.

London. Both men made

Aotourou a

remark-

able impact, being presented at court, attending balls

and the

opera.

Paris,

to

The Theatre Royal

in

Covent Garden produced I7 8

a play

Miles Hordern

about Omai. After Cook's return

of

a cult

things Polynesian

all

developed in Europe. Tahitian wallpaper, jewellery and toys were

Country

manufactured.

were remodelled

estates

Dr

Tahitian verandas and lakes.

Johnson's friend

include

to

Mrs Thrale

delighted fashion-conscious ladies by appearing in an island dress

made from

the tapa cloth of Huahine. Brothels performed

Tahitian dances.

Women were

Omai. While he was

in

Reynolds. The portrait

painted by Sir Joshua

Omai

caricature of the exotic,

a

is

both Aotourou and

said to adore

London Omai was

dressed in a robe, his dark curly hair

wrapped

in an outlandish

turban decorated with East Indian feather plumes and a jewelled Persian crescent. Later, he was safely returned to Tahiti, but the

expedition carrying Aotourou back to the islands

and he died in Madagascar, possibly of venereal

I

made

landfall

on

no change was

in the

noon on

Tahiti shortly after

out from Gambier. There was very

little

the sixth day

The wind

days.

in the south-east at near gale force. Visibility

still

miles, but less in the rain,

the land

moved away of Tahiti

is

with barrier coastline

and

from three miles a

rained frequently.

it

offshore.

As another

dark wall appeared over the

largely uninhabited, an area reefs

was

up

to a mile offshore.

featureless. It

appeared

disaster

There had been

to see.

weather over the previous

met

disease.

sea.

I

was

five

first

saw

rain

The

squall

east coast

of precipitous bush

From my position the lump of black

as a vast

rock rising from the ocean, disappearing in cloud two hundred metres above the

sea.

In the afternoon the land west.

With

the island to

one

fell

side

away out of sight

now the seas

the sky lightened above the boat.

It

to the south-

evened out

little,

was an easy afternoon speed-

ing north-west on a regular, powerful swell. At sunset lights

a

I

saw the

of Mahaena and of settlements along the coast road

nearby.

In the distance

ahead

I

179

picked up the lighthouse

at

Sailing the Pacific

Then

Pointe Venus. it

was

GPS

torrential.

the rain began again. Within a few minutes

sailed

I

west for the next hour, navigating by

on deck. Every twenty minutes

the rain was blinding

as

picked up the

GPS from

its

I

bracket under the spray-hood, then

pushed back the hatch and scrambled over the washboards chased by the

rain.

I

sat in a

puddle on the engine box, pulled

off my dripping jacket and carefully dried a

my face

tea-towel before plotting the position, so

paper chart. island,

but

if

The wind and

would

sea

Venus the

seas

heaped up and began

out of the darkness behind me,

my

calves.

I

I

me When

if

would

I

through the reef I

to break.

rounded Pointe

A

wave crashed

cockpit to the level of

filling the

stood gripping the spray-hood, shaking with sur-

around

prise, the sheets floating like tangled guts as

wondered

lights to take

passage and into the harbour at Papeete.

preserve the

ease in the lee of the

the rain continued like this

be able to pick up the leading

and arms with

as to

my

shins.

But

the boat tumbled into the lee of the peninsula the rain eased

and the wind was blocked out by the mountains.

Within

a short

time

I

saw the crawling red and yellow

Papeete two miles to the south, and

its

wet

strip

of

reflection in the night

Along

above. In the cityscape ashore everything was dripping.

the docks street lamps oozed yellow light into the darkness.

Beneath them the harbour was in crazy circles

on

the harbour very

loom from either side.

the highway.

easily,

motored

in gusts, the surface hull.

the

found the leading

lights into

I

saw white breakers over the coral on

across the lagoon, the

wind

falling

about

of the water rippled and slapping against the

Within minutes the sounds of the sea were drowned out

city's

hum

covered the water. Soon

engine of the boat cars

I

of gold. Headlights spun

and slipped through the reef pass. In the

the city nearby I

a sheet

as

I

I

couldn't even hear the

glided along the quay-side, mixing

and lovers and dudes on

I

was

at sea,

the next

I

it

with

blades.

There's no cushion in Papeete: landfall

minute

as

is

immediate.

One

had ducked ashore and was walking

1

80

Miles Hordern

along the boulevard Pomare beside a

of cafes and bars. There

strip

were drunken Scandinavian sailors, crew-cut Legionnaires, vestites, junkies,

trans-

tattooed bouncers, back-packers, stevedores,

bewildered passengers from a cruise

ship,

platform boots and leather jump-suits,

and beautiful women in

brown arms frozen

in the

strobe-light. I

On

followed the waterfront to an area of food land the gale had colour.

and diners called for more onto

The

rain

awnings slapped in the wind

lights,

tartare.

a stool at the counter.

A

near the port.

was illuminated by

fairy

palms thrashed overhead,

as

Chinese cook hustled

ate a meal,

I

stalls

me

then re-crossed the

a bar under the trees. I sat drinking beer until my began to droop - probably about half an hour. Then I

Boulevard to eyelids

wandered back

to

my

bunk.

The head-spin never that first evening,

on the

terrace,

of

a

really

I

and neon, an

lights I

sailed

on

west.

actually arrived in Papeete

Relatively speaking,

it

My impressions

heaving dance floor and rain

of strobe

the ocean, persisted until

the log that

stopped in Tahiti.

was probably

drumming

island nightclub in

However,

on

a

I

see

from

Sunday evening.

a quiet night.

woke early the next morning. It was difficult to sleep in Tahiti. The buzz of the city seemed to last all night. After the few, repetitive sounds of a boat at sea, I was woken that first morning by I

the warbling drone of

what appeared

to

be

merging over Papeete harbour. Container

Motu

Uta, the Empress Explorer from Nassau,

Panama. Their generators ran

Moorea

a

thousand noises,

ships

were

Pacific Star

night. Ferries to

all

tied

up

at

HI from

and from

passed every twenty minutes, their wash sending the

anchored boat into long, thin

city,

hung above

a violent roll.

I

rowed

ashore. Papeete

pressed out onto the coastal

the tiled roof-tops and

from the mountains.

The

strip.

wind and

rain

tree-lined boulevard

IXI

is

a

Today cloud fell

in blasts

Pomare snaked

Sailing the Pacific

along the waterfront, four lanes of traffic running day and night. Headlights had flashed into the boat's cabin long before dawn. Tyres hissed

I

A

on flooded tarmac.

and was flying

like a

cafe

awning had broken

walked beside the

was

traffic. It

still

already thirty foreign yachts were tied

Bronzed

figures

A

been here

a

rain in Papeete

of potter's

The

slip.

up stern

to the quay.

few of the French boats looked

like

long time: louvred windows were built

and herb gardens stood

into the wheel-houses

The

early in the season but

were stepping back on board with pawpaw and

baguettes for breakfast. they'd

free

streamer in the gale.

seemed

in tubs

on deck.

glutinous, almost the consistency

Boom awnings sagged under great pools of water.

boats looked wetter than they ever did at sea.

Two

seventy-

foot catamarans, hulls like bullets, waited for better weather to take tourists to

Marlon Brando's

bonito boats readied their lines left.

And

in the heart

of the

atoll retreat

- most of

I

much

the

tallest

stalls

last

the fleet had already

city the cruise ship Paul

towered over the palms and food Gauguin was

of Tetiaroa. The

Gauguin

and waiting coaches. The

structure in town.

cleared customs and immigration, then devoted the rest of

the day to sitting in cafes and wandering the streets, depending

on the weather.

On

the inland side of the boulevard a

back-streets surrounds the market, each stores

and pearl

dealers.

As

full

web of

of Chinese trade

approached the market the rain

I

set

Crowds ran for the shelter of its ornate verandas, hanging off the wrought iron pillars like passengers on an Indian train. I pushed through into the main hall, and nearly tripped in again.

over twin babies asleep in In the rue

Dumont

sacks of vegetables

and

a

barrow of watermelons.

d'Urville a truck was being loaded with crates

of dried milk. Three guys worked

in the rain, stripped to the waist. floral print frock,

wearing

brawny arms were covered

man

A

lipstick

in

fourth

and

man was

dressed in a

several days' beard. His

mud as he hurled a sack to the

in the chain.

182

next

Miles Hordern

Papeete was slippery

an

as

People pushed and jostled.

eel.

me

Scooters altered course to try to hit

(I'm sure).

along the boulevard to the post office to stood

at

against

I

walked back

phone

call

of

and

me

to

obviously off a yacht, wearing a red oilskin jacket

the rain,

exhausted.

a

man ahead

the outside booth waiting for the

He was

finish.

make

hair matted,

his

his

eyes

red.

He

looked

guessed he had just arrived after a rough passage

I

through the

He

gale.

help but overhear

had

a

broad Yorkshire accent.

couldn't

I

he bellowed into the telephone over the

as

traffic. 'Unbelievable! You can hardly hear yourself The racket goes on day and night. We've been here a week and we're more fooking knackered than when we arrived!'

noise of the think.

Landfall in Tahiti Particularly

when

is

different

you've

from any other

come from

the outer islands, having

been the only yacht

in the bay, the crush

prick the

At lunch time

ego.

sailor's

I

took

of the

woman sitting alone

in

comic

say,

at a table nearby.

'Oh, for God's sake, get

clothes.'

I

Her

ventured

a

a smile at

reaction was to stare

and snap her fork down on the

disbelief,

table as if to

shower, a hair cut, and some proper

This was the same attitude

island, in the

city serves to

a table at a cafe beside

the park and ordered steak and wine. Later a

in the Pacific.

I

met wherever I went on the on buses and

harbour-master's office and the bank,

in the market.

It

seemed

that the Tahitians

had long ago forgot-

ten to be impressed every time another sailor turned

up

in the

bay uninvited.

In Lord Jim, Joseph clerks

of

who

Sail.

As

firm.

Age

Jim represents the firm of De Jongh, his job to claim each incoming vessel for his

a water-clerk, It is

To do

this

foul weather, further rival

describes the profession of the water-

operated in the larger ports of the Far East in the

ship-chandlers.

own

Conrad

chandlers.

The

he must

sail far

offshore in a

skiff,

often in

and

faster

first

water-clerk to reach an inbound vessel

than any of the competition from

i

S3

Sailing the Pacific

secures for his firm the business of providing that ship with

everything

needs while in port.

it

Jim's profession

essentially

is

still

rather less formally nowadays. In the

of Dominica in 1991

than twelve

Indies,

was accosted by

I

towed him

and supplying

ventional

Rupert

island

retail outlets.

a

hundred

yachts, these people

fruit,

taking rubbish

available in

whole anchorage

for the

of

side

would be

by

I

long line of boats, opposite

a

side along the

very long shorelines,

them. its

My berth was the

a small

three times as

at

to be dis-

the boat from

monument to General de many yachts in the

orange pebble-dash there

moved town quay.

afternoon in Papeete

anchorage and tied up stern to the last

con-

solicited business so industriously

turbed by some puffed-up skipper shrieking abuse first

I

Bay. In the larger anchorages,

produce that wasn't

They

uncommon

wasn't

That

hands.

then clung to the stanchion while

first',

into Prince

did a thriving trade, fetching ice or fresh

it

most

boy of no more

down and paddling with his

where there might be more than

that

it's

crashing alongside, looking wild with exhaustion, said

determinedly 'I'm the

ashore,

where

operates

approached the

I

a

it

who came over the waves on a bare windsurfer board

half a mile offshore, kneeling

He came

West

people are called 'boat boys'. As

prolific, these

island

though

alive,

garden with an Gaulle.

By

July

harbour, packed

beach to the west of the avenue Bruat on

a raft

of reclaimed land following the shape

of the shoreline.

As

I

reversed in towards the quay

working out between the over

a

saw

a

young

Tahitian

He had folded his pareu

man

neatly

standpipe and was doing sit-ups on the rough concrete,

his breaths short rain.

bollards.

I

When

cate that

I

then went

I

and loud through

should throw silently

The quay

tight lips, oblivious to the

got closer he stood up and put out one

back to

in Papeete

to the water's

my shore lines. He

edge

as

arm

to indi-

tied these off for

me,

his exercises.

was

a

wild place. Tahitians came

down

they always had, and simply ignored the

184

Miles Hordern

of foreign yachts. They

flotilla

cast fishing lines

between

us,

boys

peed ostentatiously from rocks, children dived and bombed

hung dripping from

around, then

the shorelines. If they saw

all

me

watching through the companionway they dived back into the

Being

oily water.

anchor in

When

went ashore

I

He

workout.

his

me

asked

tied to the

quay in Papeete was

if

afternoon the guy had stopped

later that

took the painter and tied

had any spare rope.

I

same array of

to a tree.

it

West Indies and

throughout the larger ports in the

He

He

name was

Ata.

in prison.

Now he lived right here on the quay. Did

I

him

got

a

When

in

Moorea.

The

he worked out now, he hung

a crease.

As

far as

I

he owned. After dark he

could see

had spent time I

want

his pareu

this pareu

moved back from

beneath the statue of de Gaulle. ness. In fact,

His

a tart?

He

used

other he stretched between a railing and

second rope, occasionally stopping to make sure without

tropics.

couple of lengths of cord off the boat.

for skipping.

a tree.

had been born

Then he

turned out he offered the

It

services as the boat boys in the

their counterparts

one

dropping

like

municipal swimming pool.

a

He

it

over

this

was hanging

was the only thing

the quay and slept

never once touted for busi-

he was so cool, so dignified, so wholly Tahitian that

he could only just be bothered with

me between

his sit-ups

and

leg-kicks and crossover skipping routines.

When

the weather finally cleared, the heat and humidity in

Papeete became suffocating. There was not a breath of wind in the harbour, and without the

sound of

island's

clamour the noise seemed

and

the

fill

rainfall to soften the

to spread

from the shoreline

whole lagoon.

In the afternoon

I

walked out of town through the eastern

suburbs of Papeete. After passing the hospital

I

turned inland up

the Fautaua valley, a ravine cut deep into the slopes of

The

valley floor

was sweltering and

185

airless,

home

Mt

Aorai.

to concrete

Sailing the Pacific

housing projects daubed in

A

dying in the ground.

and exhausted palm

graffiti,

trees

chain-mail bridge spanned the black

Fautaua River, clogged with kitchen appliances and rubbish.

The rainbow

patterns of oil floating

shacks were trees.

The

all

melt into a mirage, ated by the sun.

as several

The

of a mape

scooters

made

the

whole landscape

the white-washed

villas

of

clung to the cool ridges.

river

I

passed the

was deep and

tree,

whined up

last

houses and came out

clear here.

at

A dozen scooters

down between

worn its bark ingrained with dust and mud. More

were lined up along the bank. flukes

Nearby, tin-roofed

days of heavy rainfall was evapor-

High overhead

After an hour's walk Loti's Pool.

the surface looked sur-

grass.

but buried beneath greying breadfruit and banana

trapped heat in the valley

Tahiti's elite

on

amid the swamp

prisingly beautiful

I

sat

the

into the clearing and groups of teenagers dis-

The pool itself was shaped like a treacherous muddy bank. Steps had

appeared yelling into the bush.

quarter-moon, beneath

a

been cut into the bank and

Young bucks

in

bermuda

a small jumping

platform carved out.

shorts did somersaults into the water

while their girlfriends looked studiously unimpressed. Alpha

Blondie droned from trapped beneath the

a ghetto-blaster,

The pool was named Marie Julien Viaud). a beautiful

young

the echoing bass-line

trees.

after the

was here

It

French writer Pierre Loti (Louis

that Loti

fell

in love

with Rarahu,

from Bora Bora, and succumbed

girl

to the

South Seas myth. In The Marriage of Loti, his autobiographical novel, he described the Tahitian landscape as one 'where misery is

unknown and work

and the shade, Loti was a Tahiti into

useless,

his place in the

member of

a

where each has water and

group of

his

his place in the

sun

food in the woods'.

literati

who

transformed

one of the great fictional landscapes. Herman Melville as a 'fairy land'. According to one biographer,

described Tahiti

Melville believed Tahiti should have been the place for the

Coming of Christ.

In

1

842 Melville had jumped from the whale-

186

Miles Hordern

ship Acushnet in the Marquesas

and

fled to the cannibal valley

Typee. In his fictionalised account of

of

this episode, called Typee,

Melville rekindled the spirit of Rousseau's noble savage in

describing his love, Fayaway,

as 'a child

of nature

.

.

breathing

.

from infancy an atmosphere of perpetual summer, and nurtured by the simple Jack

fruits

of the

London came

paradise valley, and

to

left

earth'.

French Polynesia

disgusted by

of Melville's

in search

what he saw

as

the corrupt-

ing influence of the white man. Robert Louis Stevenson, Somer-

Maugham and Rupert Brooke

set

the South Seas. James

all

answered the siren

Michener was annoyed when

his

call

of

account

of serving in Polynesia during the Second World War, which was intended to counter the myth of the islands dise,

was

later

musical South

adapted by Rogers and Hammerstein into the

Pacific.

Yet perhaps more than any writer Paul Gauguin

romantic para-

as a

who

left

it

was the French painter

the most enduring images of Nouvelle

Cythere. Gauguin used the south to turn his In his early thirties he

abandoned what he

life

upside-down.

called his filthy

bour-

geois existence as a stockbroker's agent, deserted his Danish wife

Mette, his five children and his home, and travelled

West Indies and then

to Tahiti in search

first

to the

of an island paradise he

could reproduce in paint. Inevitably, the Tahiti in Gauguin's mind

was very different from the settler live

reality.

He despised the genteel white

community of the Papeete of the 1890s and went bush

with

a thirteen-year-old girl,

whom

Tehaamana,

to

he often

painted

as

an Eve figure. Mostly Gauguin portrayed the island

women

as

impenetrable children of nature, but in the painting

Matamua he harked back

to the classical

imagery of the

first

Europeans in Tahiti with the figure of Hina, another resident of mythical Cythera.

This on-going saga of Tahitian fantasy has

a

strong connec-

tion to the sea, as indeed does almost everything else in Tahiti: is

a sailor's island,

and has been ever since the

187

first

it

migratory

Sailing the Pacific

Polynesian canoes

came

in off the ocean. Pierre Loti

was

a

mid-

a naval ship. Herman home for the sea aged nineteen, and voyaged on a whaleship around Cape Horn to

shipman, and arrived in Papeete serving on Melville fled his middle-class

two

years later

Polynesia. Jack

London

He sailed his own boat, Stevenson chartered

also

worked

as a

and

cold:

at sea.

he

in this.

later

in the

North

as a

had frozen

Sea.

So these

were men.

young man he'd voyaged over.

2.

in

There was some truth

novice on

merchant ship

a

on the French imperial yacht

men had one

didn't simply arrive in Tahiti, they ously, they

—

as a pilotin

did his national service

Even Gauguin had had

were blue-green, very hard

his eyes

was because

his eyes

Gauguin served

- and

life.

seventy-ton topsail schooner, Casco, in

Apparently

said this

high latitudes and

early in his

the Snark, to Tahiti in 1907. Robert Louis

a

California and voyaged to Tahiti in 1888.

experience

seaman

Women

thing in common: they made landfall here. (Also, obvi-

writers don't

seem

to have

been

very interested in the South Seas.) Late in the afternoon circled

my

blaster

was put

of the scooters. girls

were

began

it

knees and ankles.

still

in a plastic

I

to rain.

thought

I

bag and hidden imperfectly under one

The wading imperiously The

The scooter-riders were in shorts

Swarms of mosquitoes leave. The ghetto-

might

and

T-shirts,

all

water now.

in the

boys were becoming ever more energetic in their press.

of

Couples looped warily around each other

ritual

efforts to

as if in

some

dance. The boys' faces were daubed with mud.

imsort

One

couple half swam, half paddled, with their hands on the riverbed, to another, smaller pool downstream where they could be alone.

As the

rain

became

a

downpour they

sheltered beneath the

surface, only their heads above the water, angled forwards to keep

the explosive drops from their eyes.

On my

last visit

distant parts

I

had bussed to

sights.

Fd also walked

to Tahiti, eight years earlier,

of the coastline to see various

188

Miles Hordern

the two-day track through the island's vertiginous core.

why

easy to see

garden.

the

first

On either side

It

was

Europeans had described Tahiti

as a

of the track

gullies

were choked with the

red berries of mati and puarata, while ahead emerald slopes of

anuhe ferns, acacias, guavas and lantana swept

down

to the tur-

quoise lagoon.

But

was very

this visit

different.

I

made

little

effort to explore

the island, or even venture out of Papeete, except for the short

walk to

Loti's Pool.

inclined to witness further scenes

felt little

I

woke each morning

of natural beauty. Instead,

I

and exhaust fumes of the

city,

filth

and an

fresh

air. I

just ate

my

the jostling crowds, the tropical

Papeete was

espresso. After the ocean,

ate in the

the waterfront.

food

bought

I

and drank.

I

stalls

craving the din

around the port and in

breath of

cafes

along

and books. But mostly

clothes, shoes,

stayed less than a

a

week

in the city,

and

I

filled

time with an orgy of consumption.

In

this, at least,

nine days

I

at Tahiti,

was in good company. Bougainville spent just and was

criticised

on

his return for the

of the data he gathered relating to the island and

managed

a

more extended

stay

of

five

all

None

cooler,

time in the early evening.

and the children

who

the

less, it

was

the publicity.

Although I spent most of each day in the town, to the boat for a

poverty

people. Wallis

weeks, and conducted

various expeditions into the island's interior. Bougainville's voyage that received

its

I

By then

tried to return

the cabin was

played on the quay during the day

had gone home.

The

sunset hour in Papeete was bewitching. Flashing lights

from the container port and neon from bars ashore rippled weakly in last

the water ferry to

as

Moorea

smoke from

its

reef were

that

all

the scent of copra drifted over the lagoon. slipped through the pass, twin

trails

funnels just darker than the sky. Breakers

was

visible

of the

sea.

west, polished outrigger racing canoes

Their crews stood

at

The of

on the

On the long beach to the were pulled from

racks.

the water's edge wearing only a scrap of

[89

.

Sailing the Pacific

wooden

pareu, a single

paddle held across their shoulders like

a

yoke, stretching the muscles of their backs. As they pushed off

from the beach deep

chant was heard above the

a faint

then

traffic,

a

pump and sigh as they came rhythmically towards me across on

the harbour, like great multi-limbed insects stepping lightly

the surface. As the

last

yacht on the quay,

The crews

for these informal canoe races. front of the boat,

was the finish-point

I

drifted

around just

in

slumped forwards, breathing hard, splashing

water across their backs and

helmsman, and each crew

sat

'Hooooh!' bellowed the

chests.

up

stiffly

in

one movement, then

deeply pawed the water for the run home. As their chant receded into the west, the

last

of the sun

cast

Moorea's rocky peaks and

an outrageous silhouette.

spires into

Every morning the yachts in Papeete held love-in

At

is

all,

this

is

would

crackle into

the Papeete cruisers'

Then

life:

Net on

who we

Steve off of Serendipity. Okay,

Check

a 'Net', a

now,

please.'

by giving

their

name: Symphony.

A

Sanctuary. Southerly 's in Papeete

.

And

any boats leaving Papeete today?

.' .

.

you guys, have

fair

be seeing you further

check

in

now

winds and

down

fast

the line.

passages and

Any new

I

know

arrivals

—

please.'

Joy and Peter, fifteen days from Hawaii. Safari, and Becky, two days from Rangiroa, hi Steve, hi everyone.'

'Down

Zed

morning everyone.

couple of boats gave their names and destinations.

'Well,

we'll

to

I'm

.'

'Great turn-out, guys.

Go now

12.

got out there today?

today. Jonah. Kristiansund. Blue Horizon here, Rider. Superannuity

'Good morning

VHF channel

those boats participating checked in

in

Easy

kind of radio

an institution in every large tropical anchorage.

a.m. the radio

8

you

which

'Well,

Okay, so

Tide,

good to have you in port. Welcome to Papeete. moving on to the first thing we got today, that's the

it's

90

Miles Hordern

The

Weather.'

and was

depression south of the Marquesas had drifted east

filling.

A

ridge of high pressure was building south of

Rarotonga and there was

a shallow

trough west of the northern

Cooks. 'Any comeback on the weather?' 'Steve, this

is

Diane on

Sanctity!

'Go ahead, Diane.' got a

'I

weak

on

front

my

chart kinda connected to that

trough and lying west of the Societies.

We could expect that here

in Papeete within twenty-four hours.

You

'Sure, Diane.

copy?'

Nice contribution.'

The good weather was Steve off of Serendipity

Towards the end of April

short-lived.

announced on the Net

that a tropical

morning the

depression had formed north-west of Tahiti. That

system was upgraded to a tropical storm,

named cyclone

During the afternoon the wind

it

rose

and

conditions in the harbour were not too bad

cyclone was generating easterly winds

we were

at this stage.

at Tahiti, so

But

The

here in Papeete

which rose two coast. The wind was blasts. But the effect on

sheltered in the lee of the mountains,

thousand metres within

five miles

of the

gusty and glanced through the city in the anchorage was days after

my

little

arrival.

course the storm

now

came

A

as a result.

harbour.

Alan.

started to rain.

I,

like

worse than during the gale in the

Any

future threat was dependent

took, and changes in

wind

first

on the

direction that

north wind would blow straight into the

every other boat, put out extra shorelines to bol-

lards ashore, a cat's-cradle

of cordage that sagged and pulled in the

intermittent gale. It

dry.

blew hard

On

Raiatea,

the radio

two

wind very hot, and mostly reports of damage in Tahaa and

that night, the

all I

listened to

islands a

hundred miles north-west of

bore the brunt of the storm. Lives were five yachts as

at

were destroyed.

mud-slides, and

We spent an anxious night in Papeete,

one point the storm was

way. But by evening

lost in

Tahiti that

forecast to

come

on the second day the 191

directly

threat

had

our

lifted:

Sailing the Pacific

the system was

and moving out over the open ocean

filling,

to

the south.

Two

days later a yacht called Salamander arrived in Papeete.

They had radioed damaged.

the

sails

tender from one of the boats on the wharf

towed Salamander through the

pass into the lagoon.

been on passage from the Marquesas storm struck. The

down and

ahead: the engine was

A powerful

had been

trip

to Tahiti

difficult.

I

when

They had

the tropical

watched the dinghy

and yacht convoy move slowly up the harbour towards me. There

were three children on the foredeck: two coach-roof and

boy perched

a

furled with long strips of torn

in the pulpit, the sail

I

on the

damaged genoa

cloth hanging above his head.

Their parents were both in the cockpit. boat

girls sitting

When

they reached

rowed ashore and walked apace along the

Salamander was manoeuvred into an empty

my

quay.

slot

on the quay

by means of an ever-growing network of shorelines, boat hooks and helping hands. Several friends stepped aboard. The mother

now sitting on the cockpit bench, her face stained with tears. Another woman was hugging her. The father was standing bewas

hind the wheel,

on

away

for

standing around

me

dren were too sailors

his eyes

far

stalks.

me I

to see their faces.

saw something

They were mostly middle-aged

I

I

But

in the other

hardly recognised.

couples, retirees.

What saw was I

of mortality, the eyes of the hunted, seldom evident

a sense

among

In the near darkness the chil-

tropical sailors.

caught sight of the family from Salamander the next

sitting in a cafe

behind the boulevard Pomare. The kids were blonde hair

eating ice-cream, the

girls'

deeply tanned necks.

Mom

wore

a

She was reading the Washington

hair

had the price tag attached,

still

happily.

in a lurid

Hawaiian

shirt,

They were surrounded by

192

now

plaited

down

their

crepe-cotton sundress and

sandals.

Pop was

day,

Post,

and the shades

in case she

in her

changed her mind.

counting bank notes, smiling a pile

of shopping bags.

Miles Hordern

My

only previous experience near a cyclone had been seven

years earlier.

arrived in Vava'u in the north of

I

November, the there

next

reasonably well protected and

is

months based

six

in the group.

in

I

planned to spend the

Nine other boats had made

the same decision. As the remainder of the fleet places outside the cyclone region,

seemed portentous

Tonga

of the cyclone season. The inner harbour

start

for the

first

left

our decision to

much

The town of Neiafu was

behind

time: the anchorage suddenly

looked bigger and more exposed, the prospect of these melancholy islands

Vava'u for

stay

longer than

it

six

months

in

had.

sleepy and dusty.

The

ubiquitous

South Seas trading company of Burns Philp maintained a store on the

main

Gangs of schoolgirls with matching ribbons

street.

in

on the veranda. Inside were a few tinned goods, boxes of powdered milk, and freezer-burnt cuts of lamb and sausage meat. It wasn't long before some of the boats began to complain about the limited diet. Early in December a fifty-foot ketch, Flying Cloud, left for Pago Pago to stock up on food. It was a three-day trip across open ocean. There were two crew on the boat. They planned to spend a short time in American Samoa, where there were large US supermarkets, then return to Vava'u

their hair ate ice-creams

before Christmas with

On

the third

full lockers.

morning after Flying Cloud left the anchorage, went black from horizon to horizon. It was

the sky above Vava'u

blowing

a severe gale

and

seas

were breaking

in the lagoon.

We

heard on the radio that a tropical storm, cyclone Val, had devel-

oped north of Samoa and

that those islands

were being battered

by 130-knot winds, with most arable crops destroyed and twothirds

of buildings structurally damaged.

had met Flying Cloud ing storm.

The

at sea

A

long-line tuna boat

and radioed to warn of the approach-

skipper of the yacht, Steve, replied that they were

only eight hours from Pago Pago, the best natural harbour in the

South Seas, and would reach struck.

a safe

Nothing was heard from

anchorage before the storm

Flying Cloud again,

193

and no trace

.

Sailing the Pacific

of the boat was ever found. In Vava'u, the waiting was the hardest

At present the wind was not dangerous, but

part.

on the only

north,

On

knowing

likely to take.

of damage in

wanted

I

It

to

miles.

I

We

walked through

pick-up truck

sitting lin

on the

could

was too rough to a

cross the

lagoon

journey of some

and pumpkin plantations

taro

if there

when a

in

lift

reached the road. There were four of us

I

floor in the back of the truck.

was stretched over

six

palm

as

fronds were torn from the trees overhead, then hitched a a

lay

islands further

go into Neiafu to see

took the land route, which involved

I

group

soon we might be getting the same thing.

that

the second day

was any news and buy food. so

most

track that the system was

listen to the radio reports

this

heavy

steel

frame:

it

Above

us a tarpau-

squeaked and swayed

with every pothole. At the southern end of the lagoon the road passes over a

causeway two hundred metres long, with open

water on both

sides.

one

side

Midway

across the

causeway the wind

of the frame cover off the back of the truck.

It

lifted

hovered

moment, then the wind got right underhood from the truck, frame and all. We watched it sail off for some distance, then land in the lagoon. The truck bumped to a halt as the hood sank beneath the surface. We there for an agonising

neath and tore the

continued wordlessly into the town, our eyes

with

tears

from the wind, our

now

streaming

faces covered in dust.

We were lucky: cyclone Val took a more easterly course, over open ocean, and did not reach Vava'u. The islanders seemed unconcerned, and among the calm. Things continued

much

sailors, too,

as

there was a superficial

before in our small community,

man named John. With we knew each other only too

including the daily radio Net, run by a

only nine boats in the anchorage well: the

Net was redundant, but John wasn't worried about

His catamaran was anchored just behind me. eight o'clock

when

the

I

at

heard John practising. His voice wafted over

wind was

'good morning,

that.

Some mornings

light:

cruisers.'

'Good morning,

Then

cruisers.'

Eh-hem

the radio clicked and he

194

.

.

came

Miles Hordern

on

air

Good morning,

through the speaker:

No

cruisers.'

bothered to check in any more, and John did not ask

were 'Any boats Cloud,

He

was hardly

it

what had happened

leaving?': after

likely before the

if

one

there

to Flying

end of the cyclone

season.

did the weather, then ran through the usual categories.

'Okay,

first

up

is

Services Offered or Needed.'

Silence. 'Well, okay,

what about

Go,

Island Information? Places to

Places to Avoid.' Silence. 'Let's

move

until the

new

months out

Old Ones You're

Ideas or

.'

Willing to Share In the end,

New

to Hints, Tips, .

.

someone hinted

that

he should abandon the Net

boats started to arrive in May. So

until the

we

end of the season. As time

things returned to normal.

We

waited the

passed,

most

even began to gossip about the

missing yacht. Apparently Steve's crew

on

Flying Cloud

was an

ex-US Navy seal known as Dave Canada; they were carrying more than a hundred thousand dollars in cash, trusted to them by various individuals here to buy expensive items in Pago Pago.

somehow got ashore and disappeared with the money. But no one much believed this. We had all seen the black sky and felt the gale, though we were some three Some

suggested they had

hundred miles from the storm's faces

of the other

quay in Papeete:

sailors that

a frozen,

centre.

same look

bunted

just dissolved. This island life

sometimes saw in the

I

I

later

stare, as if

of palm

and sunset drinks had

trees

one thing

revealed a darker side. Cyclones were the sailors

agreed they were scared

It

was only

all

the

I

a short trip,

made

the passage north-

but the trade was forward

beam and the seas large. reached the east point of Upolu dawn on the fourth day. In the lee of the island the wind fell

of the at

Samoa.

that

of.

At the end of the cyclone season east to

recognised on the

old certainties had

still,

I

but the east swell was running high:

195

I

motored laboriously

Sailing the Pacific

down heat

the coast, the boat rolling from gunwale to gunwale, the

The harbour

stifling.

open

the reef and an

at

Apia

formed by

is

deep recess in

a

exposed to any wind or swell from the

bay,

Robert Louis Stevenson was so unimpressed by

north.

it

that

he

referred to the 'so-called harbour at Apia'. Since Stevenson's day it

had been improved by the addition of a short breakwater from

the eastern point, but

of this structure

as

I

approached

now was

saw

I

that

all

remained

that

awash in the middle of

a small section

the harbour entrance: the rest had been carried away by cyclone Val.

On

the far side of the entrance a bank of sand and coral

rubble the size of a runway had been thrown up by the

Whole

seas.

Ashore,

many houses had

stove in.

A warehouse complex on the east side had disappeared.

On

walls

had been

where once had been beaches of yellow

the south coast,

sand, sheets of

lost their roofs.

smooth black rock now

down to the sea, the And in the hills inland,

led

sand washed away by vast breaking swells.

thousands of trees rose without branches or foliage,

of telegraph poles, or

like a forest

scene from the trenches.

a

Robert Louis Stevenson

also arrived in

Apia in the aftermath

of a cyclone. This was in the days before such events were given names, and

this

one

generally referred to simply as the 'great

is

mid March seven

hurricane of 1889'. In

foreign warships were

anchored in Apia harbour, together with vessels.

six

other merchant

The storm came on during the night. By dawn,

son wrote in

A

Footnote

to

History, 'In the pressure

was

The Eberwas with the

loss

clearly if darkly visible first

of eighty

out to

sea,

lives.

By

'a

a great rain.'

and foundered on the reef

the time the

wind abated, eleven managed to limp

destroyed; only the Calliope

and survive

in

open

water.

The beach was 'heaped

high with the debris of ships and the wreck of mountain

and

squalls,

them

amid driving mist and

to drag her anchors,

more ships had been

Steven-

of the

the bay was obscured as if by midnight, but between part of it

as

forests',

horde of castaways'.

One

other vessel in

Samoan waters 196

at

the time of the cyclone

Miles Hordern

also survived.

A sixty-four-ton

rode out the storm

and

spars intact.

Reid, a

who

The

trading schooner

then put in

at sea,

skipper was a

at

named

Equator

Pago Pago with

all sails

young Scot named Edwin

arrived in Apia in the days after the storm, wearing

Highland bonnet and carrying

a cargo

of pigs to relieve the

tlement. Stevenson, in Hawaii, was so impressed

when he

set-

heard

of Reid's seamanship that he chartered the schooner Equator to carry the Stevenson family

on

their last Pacific cruise, to

Though Reid was only twenty-seven

years old,

On

Stevenson had great faith in his

abilities.

from Hawaii through the Gilbert

Islands the

Apia

seems that

the cruise south

two men discussed

going into the copra trade together under the name

&

it

'Jekyll,

Hyde

Reid because the Equator Samoa when so many other,

Co.' Specifically Stevenson picked

had survived the great cyclone larger ships

had not.

He

is

at

believed to have had a particular fear

of Pacific cyclones. Critics recognise that whereas Melville characterised the threat of the sea in terms of the creatures that

inhabited

theme

it,

had brought 'I

In

Stevenson's fear of tropical storms

is

a constant

He would only trust a skipper who command safely through a cyclone. He wrote:

in his Pacific writings. his

have always feared the sound of the wind beyond everything.

my

hell

it

would always blow

a gale.'

After the cyclone scare in Papeete several days.

met

There were

no one

Diem had

the anchorage for

on the quay

I

had

and currents means

that

several other boats

before: the rotating nature of winds

people are recycled.

left

heard on the Net one morning that Carpe

I

charts for sale ('Buy, Sell, Trade, or Part Exchange').

had previously met four boats named Carpe Diem, and

one of them: we had shared an anchorage Marquesas, seven years

earlier. It

was

a heavy,

ing boat popular with Californians. led onto the stern.

The winches and 197

this

I

was

several times in the

double-ended cruis-

An aluminium

gangplank

instruments were covered

Sailing the Pacific

in beige canvas, the spray-hood delier

and awnings matched.

A

chan-

of green bananas hung from the boom.

Zack climbed through the companionway and crushed look beat up, Miles.

of doughnuts across the charts

and

keep the

I

We

greed

own kind,

here.'

'I

me. Zack showed

me

the

You

don't want your money, son.

got plenty. These bloodsuckers will soon be

charging you harbour It's all

table towards

asked the price.

charts.

my

Mary was watching a video. She said, 'You Get some rest. Eat some.' She pushed a plate

hand. In the cabin,

and the

fees,

The

sailors

taxi drivers will take the rest.

were often generous towards

but distrustful of people ashore. Zack and

same time, standing

into Papeete at the

I

their

had cleared

in line together in the

customs, immigration and harbourmaster's

and

offices,

I'd lis-

tened to him grumble about the form-filling and bureaucracy that follows each landfall.

The government was out

to tax you,

customs

your boat, shopkeepers to

rip

officers to invade

boat boys to hassle you. Like boat. In Papeete until

you

left

you had

port.

to

many sailors, Zack had a hand any weapons over

you

rifle

off,

on the

to the police

saw Zack shuffling disconsolately along the

I

quayside towards the police station in flip-flops and sun-visor, a

gun-bag under

his

arm. Landfall meant an act of surrender.

Carpe Diem was

were on

a

big boat, twenty-five tons. All three

electric furlers.

Mary never touched

There were two

auto-pilots:

They had

the wheel.

sails

Zack and

a generator,

water-

maker, and radar with compatible electronic chart-plotter. They carried charts for the

whole world on compact

discs,

which was

why they were happy to give some paper charts to me. Zack and Mary were both in their sixties, and he was able to sail the boat alone.

The

cabin was air-conditioned, upholstered in leather,

with maple trim. The wrap-around galley worktops were formed

from

a single stainless-steel

he been born

a

stamping. Zack told

me once that had

generation earlier he wouldn't have been inter-

ested in the sea; he

along with everyone

would have else.

He

retired

some

place like Florida

thought he was lucky to have wit-

98

Miles Hordern

nessed the revolution in boat-building and navigational technol-

ogy

als as

to individu-

never before.

The is

two decades, had opened up the oceans

that, in

idea that Utopia might be achieved through technology

not new. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Claude

Henri de Saint-Simon recognised

how communication

net-

works could promote individual freedom. Starting with railways and

then telegraphs, telephones, and

canals,

in the free flow

Verne was

and the

but Verne's

sea,

worked

The

Many

sailors

were engineers

most

surely

of his

stories

concerned

were technocrats and

who

built

mines and

ships

scientists;

and

factories

to establish the perfect society. first

information super-highway was the system of sea

routes established in the

wide web of

lines

Age of

Discovery. This was a world-

of communication that crossed oceans and

linked continents as never before. sailed

lies

of people and information. The writer Jules

a Saint-Simonist.

his castaways

finally the internet,

freedom from tyranny

believers have argued that

Many

of these routes are

today by people like Zack and Mary. While

kept an eye

on

his air-conditioning

supply business in

which he accessed through short-wave

via the internet,

still

Zack San Diego

at sea

radio.

see the California yachts in the Pacific today as a continuation a

much

older

wagon

search of El Dorado.

They

play volleyball

on CD. For them,

time: a point in across the

evolution

when

is

rail,

not

and

libertarians,

latte.

They

who bank

couldn't stay long

Mary were going

are the

offshore,

Mary

a

individuals can set off still

have

live there as well.

that

morning. Zack and

ate the last

doughnut while

helped Zack get the dive bottles into the dinghy.

199

but

chosen generation of techno-

and

on Carpe Diem

diving.

in

listen to

a place,

ocean to the farthest corners of the earth and

hair-dryers and

I

human

paradise

still

on the beach, have

steel-dome barbecues clipped to the stern

Jimmy

of

train that's just kept rolling west, over the

Rockies, beyond the coastline, and out across the ocean,

Buffet

I

Mary

I

said,

Sailing the Pacific

'Diving

is

like flying, that's

how

it

feels

—

the same thing.' There are few goodbyes

the sea and the sky are

on

boats. Paths cross as

the result of a combination of the season, winds, currents, and

chance. As

I

walked

rolled beneath

home

my arm,

I

along the quay, six

US Navy

charts

saw them motoring towards the barrier

reef north of Faaa.

That morning

I

the market. Before

south-west

down

got a clearance and bought fresh produce

noon

I

was through the

the Chenal de Moorea.

200

pass

at

and heading

Nine

Tahiti and

Moorea were on

when

suspected that something was wrong.

first

I

the horizon to the north-east

The

islands

looked one-dimensional, quite black. They had taken on the quality of land in the far distance: seen

from the deck of a small

my foreground were

already threatening their

yacht, waves shores.

The

from

now

become disconnected from on the high seas, it would

land seemed to have

whatever once moored drift away,

it.

Floating

or be overrun by the ocean.

down on the cockpit bench and winced as my stomach turned. The weather was set fair. High pressure was re-established I

sat

south of Rarotonga and the trade was a steady fifteen knots.

beamed through

strong tropical sun

my

stomach was

that

all

was not

would be I'd

been

a

well.

known

a sickly

a passage.

but

slight, I

wished

quantity.

puff-ball cloud.

felt listless,

I

it

I

first

I

left

New

running before

a

big swell,

thick with cigarette

tinned

ham and

I'd

sit

days of I

felt

had no problem

below, the sealed cabin

smoke and fumes from

drinking beer.

first

On the recent passage to Tahiti,

could

I

for the

sailing

Zealand for Patagonia,

queasy until two hundred miles offshore. But

with motion sickness since then.

as that at least

went blue-water

crewman, often of little use

Even when

pain in

increasingly suspicious

was sea-sickness,

When

The

A

And

201

although

the stove, frying I

have never been

Sailing the Pacific

particularly careful with

any sort of poisoning

few

In fact, the

food on the boat,

I

had never suffered

at sea until this point.

experienced while living

illnesses I've

have resulted from contact with land. Perhaps

on

ing. Landfall reveals a filthy sailor

has spent the

last

weeks

afloat

this isn't surpris-

weary boat, but one

a

sailing a pristine sea.

You then

that

step ashore

into an urban ocean of viruses and germs, and the weakling seafarer I

going a

succumb.

to

is first

had celebrated

down with

my

previous landfall in Tahiti in 1991 by

bug

a flu-like

that incapacitated

week. All through the anchorage there were

state.

When

took

I

complained litany

my daily stagger along the quayside

up beneath awnings

figures curled

me

that they

were 'land

I

saw wan

The sailors The morning Net was a

in the cockpit.

sick'.

of disappointments, and cheerful remedies from those

already recovered. Papeete was torture for the sick.

wind was

often across the boat, so

I

endless.

Crowds wandered along

lay

my

light

bunk. The noise was

the quay: if they stood

and leaned forward, they could just take

the cabin to check out

The

breeze came through the

little

naked and sweating on

hatches.

tiptoe

for nearly

sailors in a similar

on

peek down into

a

what was going on. Children were put on

Then

shoulders for a better view.

they dived into the water and

on the

splashed round the boat, pulling

shore-lines so the boat

up over the

lurched, dragging themselves

rail

to stare through

the windows.

Of course, is

a sad irony.

South Seas

it

this threat

the islands

At the time of the was quite the

Within two generations

result

With

the

was

six

wind

and reach back

hours away

it

had

European voyages into the

I

fallen to

nine thousand, the

sailors.

when

in the south-east

to Papeete.

a sailor's health

The population of Tahiti is thousand when Wallis made land-

of diseases introduced by

Tahiti

first

pose to

reverse.

estimated to have been forty fall.

now

it

I

felt

the

would be

would need 202

first

stomach cramp.

easy to turn about

to clear

customs again.

Miles Hordern

and the thought of the noise and nosiness on the quay was comfort.

hoped

I

it

might be nothing, or

a hangover,

little

and per-

suaded myself I had drunk more the night before than was in the case.

I

sat

was

sick.

two hours,

try-

a little fruit tea,

and

self-consciously in the cockpit for

ing to monitor

my own body

state.

Late in the afternoon

I

drank

I

fact

crawled into

my

bed and

lay

there shivering.

My on

my

other experience of being previous voyage,

western side of Fiji.

at

The

I

left

I

on the boat had was coming

sailing season

most boats were preparing of the cyclone season.

ill

to

been

also

the end of a series of disasters

on the

an end and

to escape the tropics before the onset

was bound for

New Zealand,

decided to haul and paint the boat

at a

decrepit, small boat-yard at Lautoka. This

but before

new, but already

proved

a mistake.

The boat was hauled from the water by a flash new crane, and I painted it. Then the boat-yard went bankrupt and the crane, the principal asset, was impounded in a legal wrangle between the receivers

and the owners. Twelve boats were marooned,

away high and dry on the land, while the out of the cyclone region. to

me,

who

The

rest

English couple

understood such things, went on

a

of the

cast

fleet sailed

on the boat next

PR offensive. We

were paraded before television cameras and journalists, the cute children and affable grandparent figures pushed to the front. As a gesture

of good will the receivers took us on

a picnic,

but

doubled the guard on the crane. After several weeks and no end of angst

we were

allowed to bring local cranes onto the

bigger boats needed two to

lift

them;

I

The

site.

was picked up by one,

and swung with road contractor's verve over the quay. The boat landed with

a splash,

but without

thankfully out to the anchorage.

The

a scratch,

following day,

planned to be buying provisions and getting

down with dengue Lautoka Viti

is

a

and

I

motored

when

a clearance,

I

I

had

went

fever.

hot and dusty city on the arid western shore of

Levu, the coastal plains and

hillsides

203

around

it

planted with

Sailing the Pacific

sugar cane.

The farms

population. Each

were

relit.

By

are mostly

morning

the

run by

fires in

Fiji's

large ethnic Indian

the harvested cane fields

afternoon the coast was swathed in smoky cloud

and the sunshine was

In the evening the sun set crimson

silver.

over the baked concrete grid of the city and the scorched earth

of the

For three days to

around.

hillsides all

pump

out a

I

could not leave the boat. Getting to the sink

glass

of water

left

me

faint.

on

lay hopeless

I

my

bunk, often sleeping. The anchorage was exposed to the west

and in the afternoons

a stiff sea breeze set in,

pitch heavily and snag

on

chain.

its

apocalyptic vision of smouldering

When that

making the boat

At night the land was an fires

and bursts of flame.

got ashore after three days to see a doctor, she told

I

dengue fever is

a

mosquito-borne

disease:

I

me

might be fever-

more days, and weak for a long time after that. I spent two more days on the boat. The wind was lighter now.

ish for several

In the evening the calm water of the anchorage turned orange

with reflected

fire.

That night the

city's

windows were

with candles to celebrate Diwali, the Hindu

When the fever lifted

I

sailed three

and

diffident.

I

it

was already

spent

filled

light.

hours south-west to the

shore islands and anchored off the palms. leave the tropics:

of

festival

I

knew

late in the year.

many hours each day

that

But

I

I

felt

weak

in a lifejacket

straw hat, drifting round in the lagoon to cool

off-

should

off, frail

and and

afraid.

Now,

as

the sun

went down

that first day out

of Papeete, the

thought of going about and returning to be sick on land held appeal. sailing

to

it would mean staying awake and much of the night, when all wanted Conditions were very easy that evening. The wind

Most immediately,

back inshore through

do was

was

little

light

rest.

and

steady, the sea

I

made almost no sound.

shivering through trips to the

toilet,

while the boat sailed on west in

wearing more bedding than

I

I

and to the deck

a black hush.

slept fitfully,

to

throw up,

By dawn

I

was

ever had in the Southern Ocean.

204

Miles Hard em

Then

I

hours and

slept for several

woke

morning heat,

to the late

soaked in sweat. I

had eaten

sandwich for breakfast

a steak

avenue Bruat shortly before getting

morning

a

food was bad, or

in Papeete. Perhaps the

on the

at a stall

on

clearance

my

last

had picked

I

bug before leaving the city. But more likely it was the harbour. I'd gone into the water that last morning, to scrub off any weed or gooseneck barnacles attached to the hull before this up

a

towards

final passage

New Zealand. The harbour was brown, full

of storm water and no doubt sewage. The local kids all

I

nauseous. pit.

The

I

felt a little better,

it

noted that the boat was

one

to

and

needed

I

still

on

tired,

sailing west, the

reduced

this

breeze again very

number made no changes. engage the sea. The boat

to hoist the third

and disinterested to

tired

on beneath

wince.

the lighter

sail,

I

'hospital' rig for the

next night

day.

The stomach cramps and vomiting stopped night, but

need

had

I

after that. In truth, there

to recover. This

a reliable nurse. a little

and

I

On

made

free to rest. If

redundant

I

was

little

felt

urgent

was an easy convalescence, the trade wind

the second afternoon the breeze freshened

a slight I

after the first

of that second day and

a fever for the rest

some time

feeble for

was

but no longer

my face made me

be fed by the poled-out genoa. But

was too

rolled

hot and

drank some water and climbed gingerly to the cock-

I

strength of the sun beating

light. Really,

I

in

the time.

When woke

I

swam

adjustment to the

worried now,

it

sails.

Otherwise

was only from seeing

An invalid could sail this boat through

really was.

I

how the

tropical Pacific. I

tive

my

bunk. But in the

after-

westerly course, the small

awning was more

effec-

usually spent the

noons, on

and

glasses

I

this

mornings on

often lay on

of cold

reading a book.

nest of cushions in the cockpit,

a

fruit tea

When

from

a

pot wedged in

pouring

a coiled

warp,

the boat rolled the sun crept beneath the

iOS

Sailing the Pacific

awning and

When

flared across the page.

pinned the leaves back with bulldog

the

wind demanded,

clips, so as to free

Whether sick or in good health, I cannot read at same way that I read on land. Sitting in my house, myself in a book. But at sea it is the book that gets stantly

while

put aside pinned open with

sea in the I

can lose

lost,

con-

the story suspended

clips,

reader watches the waves or paces the confines of his

its

small world,

making tiny

alterations to the sails or fossicking

deep

in lockers to reassure himself about an item that isn't needed.

the ocean a

At

parts.

book becomes fragmented

sea, narrative

tained for longer than

I

few pages. The story

a

wide and deep.

from those

different

all

around.

these places, but their presence

in

but one none the

less

any physical sense, but

mood

I

plotted

reefs stretching

of Polynesia

lay

I would never see the majority of made a difference — a distant life-

within reach.

still I

now. This stretch

noticed

its

I

couldn't feel the land

proximity, in the lighter

my less cautious footsteps on deck. my course now, saw the names of islands and I

away

Mauke, Atiu, Takutea, no bigger than the dot on the

across the sheet:

Manuae, Mitiaro. The in

islands

past.

about the boat, and

When

i

and

atolls

this

Superficially, the seas

had been crossing for weeks

I

a different quality to the passage,

of water was bounded: the

beyond the horizon,

a

seldom sus-

scanned the horizon around the boat, the ocean in

But there was

belt,

is

this.

part of the Pacific appeared

were no

On

into a thousand different

reduced to multiple vignettes, some

is

paragraph in length, others

When

I

my hands.

islands are

some of their names, but

the

names themselves

on the page, curving upward or around bour. In this

way

I

When

fight for space

make way

the shape of the islands

ungainly echo of nomenclature. Australia,

to

I

is

tor a neigh-

distorted by an

think of Africa or

immediately picture the shape of the land

mind. But when

I

look

at

the chart of Polynesia

206

I

in

my

see only clus-

Miles Hordern

ters

of writing on the water. The land

itself

hidden behind the printed word. The sea

almost invisible,

is

is

full

of

text: a dis-

course of ocean.

From

the earliest times writers used the idea of an 'upside-down' as a setting for literary Utopias.

The Greeks

allegories describing ideal southern lands

with perfect

southern continent

produced

governments.

Mundus Alter et Idem of 1605 in the imaginary Southland. Hall plays heavily on the theme of inverBishop Joseph Hall

set his

sion south of the equator, portraying depravity as prudence and

wisdom

Included with the text are

as idiocy.

the southern continent,

which bear

being drawn by leading cartographers century such

as

fictitious

at

Quiros

Mercator and Ortelius. Hall has

Mundus was published

set sail in search

New Jerusalem

his narrator visit

in the

what he saw

same year

that

of Solomon's Ophir, and established

in the tropical

South

Pacific.

Robert Burton proposed building

a revitalised

and Utopian

English state in the southern continent, to be called Atlantis, a poetical

maps

the end of the sixteenth

the imaginary land of 'Fooliana' in order to satirise as religious folly

maps of

a great similarity to the

commonwealth'. In

his

'New

Anatomy ofMelancholy,

published in 1621, Burton speculates that the Southland extends 'from the Tropick of Capricorn to the circle of the Antarctic, and lying as in

it

doth in the temperate Zone, cannot choose but yield

time some flourishing Kingdoms to succeeding ages,

America did unto the

Huguenot

writers

as

Spaniards'.

penned imaginary voyages

to the

South-

land to found perfect societies free from religious persecution.

There

is

an emphasis in

the countryside

is

this fiction

regular,

on

equality and uniformity:

and regularly

fertile;

cities are laid

out in symmetrical patterns; languages are totally rational; dress is

standardised; education

is

valued above

107

all

else.

These were

Sailing the Pacific

ordered societies, an inverted image of the greed and debauchery of Louis' palace at Versailles.

Most of

the imaginary voyages follow a predictable format:

make

the sailors

a

long and arduous sea-passage, usually across

the equator to the upside-down Southland are reversed. is

Here the navigators meet

where

a terrible

wrecked, and castaways are washed up on an

Few of these

a literary device,

seems, on the assumption that every

and the

baptism,

as

shore.

itself

is

sometimes in a

wreck

cast away.

becomes an

act

of

the sailor inevitably finds himself struggling for sur-

destroyed. Landfall

life

it

good voyage ends

voyaging

this tradition,

stormy water, the ship and

vival in

employed,

only becomes interesting once he

sailor

According to

storm, the ship

unknown

writers were interested in the process of sailing

Sea travel was

a boat.

norms

social

is

all

the certainties of his old

the process of being

washed

naked

up,

and alone, on the shores of an unknown world.

In

1

569 an imaginary voyager

named George

is

reaches the coastline of the Southland. George

shipwrecked and is

washed ashore

riding astride the ship's bowsprit, an apt piece of phallic imagery

given his task ahead. Clinging to the bowsprit with

him

are the

only other survivors of the wreck: the captain's fourteen-year-old

more women. The castaways set up camp on the shores of a magical new land. The women each bear between seven and thirteen children to George Pines, who peoples a new daughter, and three

land in his

own

image.

Henry Neville's Isle of Pines was published in 1668, and became an immediate success. Neville was a Member of Parliament and

a republican.

His novel

is

inspired by the idea of antipodean

inversion:

George was the

now

liberated in a Utopian

he

Dutch

is

ship finally

captain's servant before the

world of opportunity.

wreck,

When

a

makes contact with the group one hundred

years later, George's grandson

is

208

leader of a society of 1,789

Miles Hordern

None

people.

of the old

of

sailor

this

is

group

enough

will leave Pines' land.

The memory

to maintain his creation intact.

My waypoint on this part of the passage was Palmerston Island, a large but

Cooks. ate

I

remote atoll on the western fringe of the southern made landfall late one afternoon. The trade was moder-

and a bright sea was running. There

are six

main islets at differ-

ent points around the diamond-shaped coral reef, and the central

lagoon

seven miles across.

is

Cook in

The

three years later,

when

island

was sighted by Captain

made until Cook's third voyage

1774, but no landing was

was found to be uninhabited.

it

Traders in Tahiti learned the co-ordinates of the island, and a

Scot

named Brander established an agent at Palmerston and occaand

sionally stopped to collect copra

beche-de-mer.

There

is

no

deep-water passage through the reef into the lagoon and the ship

had to heave-to in the

When

island's lee.

the agent

left

in 1863

named William Marsters, who had been living on

an Englishman

Manuae, took up residence with two Polynesian wives. William, a

carpenter and cooper by trade, a native of the Midlands, had

been

a

seaman

for

many

He

years.

soon took

fathered seventeen children altogether. three and established each wife

group of the tiny

much of

a

his families ruler,

sand

hill six

The

a

and

atoll into

a separate

lagoon of 3,500

acres,

highest point, called the

metres high, was where Marsters and

He

was an absolute

kingdom in accordance with strict religwhich banned marriage within one family.

his island

years after William died, squabbles broke out over his suc-

cession.

The

British Resident at Rarotonga,

appointed William's eldest son Joel the island. all

divided the

and her children on

surround

sought safety during cyclones.

running

ious and judicial laws

Two

that

turquoise shoaling.

it

Mountain,

islets

He

a third wife,

named

Today Palmerston Marsters,

is

as his

Colonel Gudgeon,

agent and magistrate for

populated by sixty-three people,

who occupy 209

the three original provinces,

Sailing the Pacific

depending on

their family

Marsters's arrival

is

of origin. The anniversary of Father

celebrated by competitions between the three

families in volleyball, ping-pong, cricket

and

More

darts.

than

a

thousand of William's direct descendants are scattered throughout the

As

caught ing

Cook

and

New

islet at

Zealand. the northern point of the atoll

After that, engaged in cleaning the

fish,

glanced only

I

periodically at the reef and island a mile to the south.

did

I

saw

a

hidden by

enough

a

mist of sea spray over the reef.

my

to ensure that

easy conditions

activities

anchor

When

on

this

I

course would take

passage

around the boat.

looked for long

me

clear

of any

fish.

prompted

a

few maintenance

had noticed when hauling the

I

in Papeete that the windlass action

was

sticky: the grease

had dried and gone hard, and the bushes were clogged with

The

ing the mechanism with

with

a fresh film

ever, there

spirit,

of grease.

undoing the

at sea:

and then smearing the moving

It

occupied plenty of time.

onto

its

bolts. It

would be hard

whole mechanism off without applying remove

to the cockpit

heat, so

I

to get the

needed

to

where they could be cleaned more

then reassemble the unit in

The

How-

the internal components, the cogs, pins and bushes,

them back

easily,

all

all

bolts, clean-

was one small complication: the windlass casing was

gummed down

firmly

take

salt.

windlass needed to be dismantled and cleaned.

Tasks like this were satisfying

parts

I

haze of silver palm fronds in the low sun, their trunks

dangers, then returned to cleaning the

The

I

heavy mahi-mahi and was busy for some time winch-

a

in.

it

Islands

approached the

I

swell

was

slight that day,

the great plain of water

on the foredeck was an

situ

only

bound by

easy, slightly

on the foredeck. a

handful of white-caps in

the horizon.

twisted

roll.

I

The motion made many

journeys between cockpit and foredeck during the afternoon, to get a tool

I'd

forgotten,

a cigarette, a

210

drink.

I

moved

easily

about

Miles Hordern

the hot, dry deck, bare feet finding sure footholds. Certainly

I

did not think to wear a harness.

When

I

first

sailed alone,

was acutely aware of the danger of

I

weeks, sailing across the Bay of

falling overboard. In those first

Biscay and

down

the time, even

image of

me

the Portuguese coast,

on calm

ocean

the finest weather.

marked the ing

limit

It

was an

I

a safety harness

woke

boat's navigation light

something

irrational fear,

around and crept aboard the boat

all

all

night to an

at

in

believed that the toe-rail around the deck

I

of my

was possible to

it

wore

watching the

in the water,

disappear into the distance. that lurked in the

I

Sometimes

days.

sailed into the Pacific

life. I

fall

off the edge of

my

still

believ-

world.

With each successive passage this anxiety diminished. I still wore the harness in heavy weather, and sometimes on squally nights I wore it next to my skin in bed so that I would be ready to

walk the deck from the

moment

Southern Ocean

to cross the

As

it

of waking.

But by the time

sense of strapped-in security.

I

was finding the tether an

dragged along the jack-stays behind me,

it

snagged on the jury mast or windlass and pull

So

that fine afternoon, after seven

of using

a safety harness did

My fetish was a New Zealand

left

I

months

not enter

was

me up

at sea,

my

mind.

irritant.

liable to get

short.

the thought

Had

I

been

would have said that I'd learnt to manage my fear of falling over the side. But in fact, that wasn't entirely true. My fear had simply changed its form. The sea can do this. It is not one asked,

I

place with

one

haunt you

when you

I

sat

characteristic:

cross-legged

it

can reinvent

on the foredeck,

pin from the windlass and dropped

keeping,

around.

I

had seldom

The

Auckland,

my back braced against

coach-roof to combat the

front of the

I

last

come back

itself,

to

think you have conquered your demons.

time

felt I

was an improvement,

as

a

it

As

I

slid

this job,

the deep water

on

my mooring

screwdriver over the

the time before that

21

I

the

each cog and

into a bucket for safe

more aware of

had done

had dropped

roll.

I

side.

But

all

in

this

had allowed

a

Sailing the Pacific

whole

me

tray

of tools to

fall

what frightened

into the sea. This was

now, the thought of dropping things from the boat, partly

because

have done

I

too often and each time

it

klutz, but partly because

happens, panic

I

more

I'm

a it

my

I

world so sharply

dread that fumbled transfer of

I

and the subsequent barely audible plop above the

other noises of the ocean,

know

of panic whenever

seeing the boundaries of

at

defined, and so easily breached. bolt or tool

moment

feel a

sea,

because

it

home

brings

the finality of the

so than any gale.

My track record

not good. In mid Atlantic

is

I

released a pre-

cious whisker pole into the briny. In the West Indies a fishing-line

and

reel.

pan while cleaning and In

it

OffVenezuela

Auckland

hood when

my

glasses,

true that as

It is

that afternoon

between

my

dropped

my glasses

dropped knives

again,

and again.

the boat heeled-to a gust. Fortunately, the baby

next to them did not go

sitting

I

my grip on the frying

washboards from beneath the spray-

lost all three

I

lost

in the racing swells. I've

spoon, two books,

a

I

I

astray.

have sailed further,

have dropped

I

on the foredeck with the bucket gripped

knees while

my

I

less.

securely

from

tiously,

then reassembled the windlass on the foredeck.

fingers. In the cockpit

my

I

cleaned the parts cau-

possessions at sea, to guard

them

wake

might flounder there

know life

I

have.

But

in

I

example.

I

I

wish

beaten the fear that one day

I

I

its

place, the fear

of dropping parts of large.

I

must throw over the

cannot guard them

safe

side.

Food

my

dread the

of anything floating into the distance behind the boat.

yet there are things

have

in those parting waters behind the boat.

intact. I've

overboard has become disproportionately

sight

I

safe in the

cabin and cockpit, to distrust myself near the water's edge. to preserve the

sat

dismantled the windlass. Nothing

slipped

learnt to corral

I

And

scraps, for

onboard the boat, rotting and

stinking in the tropical heat. Peels, cores, stones, leaves, remnants

must be thrown into the beneath, or behind, the

sea.

I

always watch until they disappear

lifting seas.

212

Miles Hordern

The

made in the Pacific were as crew on a fiftyketch. The skipper was of the old school, a ship's

voyages

first

foot Australian

New Guinea. We

from colonial

pilot

I

generated a lot of rubbish,

and with two children on the boat there were nappies Plastic

as well.

bin liners stuffed with rubbish were heaved over the

without

second thought. While

a

sat in

I

milk cartons and

the cockpit reading a

packaging would

book, drinks

bottles,

come

up through the companionway and over

sailing

into the sea as

the skipper

petual problem

on

worked

The

boats.

plastic

in the galley.

my

Rubbish

must choose:

sailor

rail

is

head per-

a

to pollute the

land, or the sea? I

practise

what

go over the

scraps

Other rubbish

side, that

accumulated in carrier bags.

stowed in the

full it is I

is

stockpile

my

isn't easy:

You must

it

guiltily ashore

each one

is

the atolls have

when

get the

I

nowhere

to

bury

wait for a high island that has public trash-

cans.

Near popular yacht anchorages

ing.

arrived in Tahiti with nine bags

I

When

sometimes for weeks or months.

lazarette,

rubbish and take

chance. Often this rubbish.

wake sailing'. Only food material which is biodegradable.

seafarers call 'clean

these are often overflow-

full

of rubbish, the

lazarette

stuffed to the deck.

Now the locker contained only one bag, but

the residual stench

still

both

his

because

empire and I

dump my

environmental intact

— but

lingered.

So the single-hander's boat

a rubbish barge.

I

garbage on land.

politics

in truth

my wake is clean

appear to conform to the

of my generation,

am

I

can claim I

is

I

do preserve

my wake

concerned with something other than

pollution.

My

original fear, of

has evolved.

It is

now

dropping the tools

I

watching the boat speed on without me,

hidden behind

need into the

human head, made of me. am

each the size of a the sea has

I

warder, a gatekeeper. terror.

I

guard

my

I

sea,

float

lesser versions

of itself,

like

or watching bags of rubbish,

away on the wake. This

is

what

the ultimate retentive, a hoarder, a

live a life

of ease and splendour, and abject

boundary, patrol the perimeter fence, not to

213

Sailing the Pacific

stop an adversary gaining entry to

thing escaping tell

I

myself that

sea conditions,

all

this boat.

know how

By

fear.

have become a

I

made my

It

to navigate a course across the abyss, but

consciousness of

it

fade.

day the conditions were again too

nightfall the following

light.

That evening the boat struggled to make way

Later

I

dropped the

to the deck.

sails

an easy passage from the

me

I

start,

I

a light trade

wasn't tired.

returned and

boat

bumped

frail

sea-scape, the swell slack

along

putting weight in the

rig.

had been

It

restless. I

course for an hour.

its

in failing airs.

and without the wind to soothe

struggled to sleep that night, hot and

Before dawn

that day

reads

sails,

lines

there.

of the abyss

this hasn't

my

bone who works the

on charts, and completes the log. But comes from an ever-present awareness around, and a terror that anything should fall from draws

is still

I

world but to prevent any-

have rationalised

I

better sailor, a device of flesh and

the doubt

my

it.

and

re-set the

sails.

The sun exposed

shapeless, the

wind

The twenty-four-hour run

was forty-five miles.

I

The a

barely

to

noon

tried to prepare myself for a

period of frustration. Sure enough, the passage was soon dogged

by calms.

dropped the

I

was becalmed for three a swirling

sails

on two consecutive

straight days.

When

the

nights.

wind

Then

returned,

world of white cloud encircled the boat and

I

spent

the night reaching to the south-west in a powerful, wet sea.

following day the sun was strong, the wind lighter knots.

The

sky cleared of cloud and the boat ran

steep, tight swells.

complete

now

had seldom noon, when

felt I

I'd

so

I

proud of

dropped

a

my

ship

-

Time

The

at fifteen

downwind on

found other, small maintenance

finished the windlass.

I

passed

tasks to easily.

I

until late in the after-

blade over the side while re-lashing the

life-lines.

•

214

Miles Hordern

As the sun

is little

end, but rather of a

new

kindled in the boat.

I

whole

end of the

pot, 1.5

a sense

the cycle of life

not stuck forever beneath

a

a

fell

then

from the

functional necessity

took long, deep, gulps

I

down my

liquid

coming

is

the sun

Drinking now, towards the

meridian heat.

of expectation: the night

moving on,

as

to an

energy seems to be

after five o'clock,

drank tea

litres exactly.

mug, forcing the

a large

I

was an inelegant process,

day,

to re-hydrate after the

from

A fresh

my bath later,

boil.

coming

sense of something

beginning.

took

put water on the stove to sky, a

and the day winds down on

sinks lower in the sky,

the tropical sea, there

on the ocean

is

burning sun on

There was

throat.

again, the passage

indeed

still

is

turning,

a harsh, singed sea.

By the time had finished drinking it was noticeably cooler. The sun no longer had the strength to pinch my skin with the I

force of

rays.

its

shadows form

I

behind waves

fleetingly

some

the cockpit for

sat in

as

time, watching

the sun closed in

on

the

horizon. Life returned to the boat on the seemingly chill breeze.

The sun

sets early in

the tropics and the night

west through the Pacific or so that the boat was

my watch

I

new

entered a

on

passage. In theory

back one hour each time

I

did

found

early,

made

this

long. Sailing

fell

the evenings too long, that

week

should have put

I

so. If

the sun set soon after 6 p.m., and darkness I

is

time zone every

kept local time,

I

quickly after that. I

went

to

bed too

and was awake by the small hours of the morning. So

the tropics

I

ignoring local time and watching the sun master of

in

delayed the onset of night by a couple of hours,

my own

domain,

In the early evening

I

I

cooked

set at

command

can

a

meal and

engine box, listening to the radio news.

I

about

8

p.m. As

darkness and light. ate

it

usually

sitting

on the

cooked and

ate

sometimes with a book open on the chart table as well. way the cooking and eating process might last two hours. Between mouthfuls, listening to news headlines and reading pages

slowly,

In this

of the

text,

I

often climbed to the cockpit and watched the ocean

world change before

my

eyes.

Ahead of the boat 215

the sun was so

Sailing the Pacific

large

the

it

full

seemed

to quite block the horizon, while directly astern

moon climbed urgently above the sea. As

the line of light that these

two bodies

I

on

true nature of ocean passage-making, as travel scale,

was revealed.

my

of

By

I

had grown used

my plate

put

I

had finished eating the

I

and the pot into

The

the bridge-deck into the cockpit. the day and the sea was

without

it

spray.

now and

took

I

a T-shirt

In the cockpit

was

bucket and

I

open the fore-hatch

to

a result, a steady breeze

It

was cooler in the cabin

my bunk. Then

dishes, intending to lie

saw

that the sun its

was

light.

setting, the

down and

this tide

Night had

fallen

whole of that

Astern, the crest of each

watched, the boat

I

of moonlight advancing towards the

western horizon. Twenty minutes passed and

and the sky was

full

I

forgot the dishes.

of stars. The tropical night

has this power: an ability to replace sleep as the only

thought

I

had been

tired at

mid

afternoon,

form of rest.

worn out by

stood in the cockpit for over an hour,

holding the

steel

the small seas

my

feet

on the benches,

handles in the spray-hood, the boat

and gliding westward.

It

was

the

now

long calm, and the boisterous reach the previous night. But I

over

it

As

beneath the climbing moon. As

silver

was overtaken by

I

lifted

had subsided during

after that.

sector of the ocean reflecting sea

a

swell

from the locker behind

climbed on deck to do the

soon

was fading from

last light

now calm enough

being vulnerable to

was blowing right through the boat.

I

a planetary

to a visual feast being part

meal. the time

the sky.

rest

ran west along

cast across the water, the

lifting to

some

like riding

great

beast across unseen terrain.

When trades,

I

look up, I

I

lie

on

my bunk

during those perfect nights in the

often doze off for periods of time. it is

come on deck

When

I

wake and

wind generator

ablaze in the moonlight.

for five minutes, to

check the compass and

to see the

search the sea for ships, and find myself

cockpit benches an hour

later.

When 216

still

the trade

standing on the is

established

and

Miles Hordern

the weather

am drawn

the night

fair,

irresistible.

is

to the cockpit to stand in this

Over and over

I

world of sea and night

and listening

sky, feeling the sails pulling cleanly against the rig,

of progress bubbling up from the

to the sounds

again

sea.

astride

sit

I

oceanic currents, ride winds that have circled the Pacific to reach

beyond the horizon. Perhaps,

sea the drop

boat

abyss, the

drop

is

a drug.

was

strings

broken

a

dawn

I

no

felt

my

everywhere, in three dimensions, while

is

as if

from heaven's shimmering hand. night's rest, disrupted

by

a series

ill-effects

from

this,

of journeys

when

at the sea and sky. But

to the cockpit to stare out at

mountain climber who

caught somewhere nameless, held in suspension,

is

hanging on It

like a

hang over the

returns again and again to

At

unknown

the foaming white crescent towards

this point, surf

lands

I

woke

only disappointment that

the night was over, and another day had begun.

Climbing the

to the cockpit,

wind around more

washed night's

dishes

was

I

set

the fishing-line and brought

finely over the quarter.

now wedged

The bucket of un-

beneath the spray-hood,

last

food dry and hard in the bowl.

Landfall

on

a

reef

is

different

from any

so often searched the horizon for

other.

From seaward

mountains and

forests,

I've

or the

formless grey mass of a city with the detail of wharves and ware-

when you make

houses in the foreground. But this

moment of revelation

Reef

it is

landfall

never comes. Sometimes

at

of the lagoon

possible to see the reflection

on

a reef,

Beveridge in clouds

overhead. But today the only cloud was a bank of torn cirrus far to the south.

I

heard the surf

faint report, like the roar

line

of breakers appeared

buckled ocean. Behind

There

is

at

from

a

almost the same time

stadium

as a cleaner,

this line, spray

no dry land

at

217

I

saw

blocks away.

it,

a

The

folded crease above the

hung immobile

in the

air.

a ring

of coral four

mid ocean. The

reef encloses

Beveridge.

miles across, atop a sea-mount in

many

It is

Sailing the Pacific

a

shallow lagoon, about forty-five feet deep. There

through the reef on the west

side, so

it is

a pass

is

possible to enter the

lagoon and anchor in shallow, protected water.

The

pass

about

is

fifty

metres wide. In

a

few short moments

the seabed rose from five thousand metres to appear

yellow

strip

of rock and sand just beneath the

foamed over the

cracked

as a

The

keel.

swell

on either side. There was little motored gently inside the reef. The

coral close

current in the pass, and

I

lagoon stretched ahead devoid of

scale, a disc

of hot

light re-

by the shallow sand bottom. The anchorage appeared

flected

to

be empty. I

had

a

very tentative arrangement to meet

a friend

named

Pete Atkinson here. Pete was spending that cyclone season in Vava'u,

some two hundred and

had faxed him from Tahiti

fifty

miles to the north-west.

Pete was an underwater photographer and often

had received no

I

to suggest a rendezvous at Beveridge:

reply to the fax.

From Vava'u

worked here. I would be an

it

uncomfortable slog to windward to reach Beveridge.

motored

I

over to the windward side of the lagoon and anchored in the shallows.

From

around me. As

the masthead I

did

so,

I

traced the line of the circular reef

three black squiggles appeared in the

water near the boat: the unmistakable shape of sharks. I

had met Pete eight years

a seventy-year-old sibly elegant,

The

Marquesas.

earlier in the

Fred Shepherd

cutter.

were painted

grey, patches

of fresh caulking

newer, lighter shade between pitch-pine planks. bare, greying teak.

was forced

sailed

but kept in workmanlike condition, unpampered.

topsides

between two

He

The boat was impos-

could be

It

atolls in Kiribati,

to

jump

a

a

The decks were

demanding boat

to

sail.

Beating

the hull leaked so badly that Pete

over the side to nail

a lead tingle

over the

garboard seam.

He

tried to

of water the

come

clarity, light

numerous

sharks

to Beveridge every year.

The combination

reflected from the white sand seabed, and

made

it

a

good

218

location for underwater

Miles Hordern

photography. But ful that

Pete

now that had arrived, I

would be here

empty and remote

as

at

it

seemed more doubt-

the same time. This place was

the ocean

all

around, only more

still.

as I

couldn't picture another boat in the pass, or motoring through

the mirages in the lagoon towards me.

Even

if

he did come,

I

didn't

know

what

exactly

Pete often sailed alone, but not through choice. tised in

sharks

He

to expect.

once adver-

Dive magazine for 'an underwater model: must

and whales'.

Bridgenorth.

He

met Michelle when she flew out

I

like

got four replies and took Michelle from

Auckland

to

to

join the boat. She was twenty-one years old. bright, pretty, and

had not been

She had no idea what she was getting

sailing before.

into. Pete told

her that the

hop from Auckland

first

would be an

passage

to Rarotonga.

an ocean passage of two

It is

thousand miles. The boat met fifty-knot winds. steering,

and the

boom broke.

of the twenty-two days

manded

He

to be put ashore in

lost the self-

Michelle stayed in bed for twenty

took to complete the

it

easy island

Rarotonga

as

soon

trip,

as

and de-

the boat was

anchored. Pete was always looking for crew, and you could never

be certain whether he would be alone or not.

That afternoon tide.

I

took the dinghy over to the

Patches of bare rock burnt

brown

reef. It

in the sun.

was

The

half-

surface

of the coral was raised into hundreds of pentagonal formations. Pools of white water were swelling

windward the

surf beat relentlessly

on the

flood. Sixty metres to

on the outer edge of the

reef.

The sky spread vast and lopsided across the sea. waded along the back-reef margin, snorkelling in the shallows. There were clams here among the coral, their lips twisted I

into smiling corrugations.

I

put several into

a

bag, then walked

south along the reef towards the wreck of the fishing boat Nicky Lou. from Seattle. years. In that

The

boat had been high and dry for about ten

time someone had

come

219

to Beveridge

and blasted

Sailing the Pacific

the four-bladed bronze propeller off the boat with explosives,

but the superstructure was sat in

I

lagoon.

them

still

largely intact.

the lee of this great carcass and looked back across the

The

atolls

and

from the

landfall here brings so little change.

boat are the same

when on

as

rock to walk along

have

reefs in the Pacific

apart. Paradoxically,

high

at

perspective,

sailor's

The

sea

an

atoll

it is

that

and sky around the

passage, only there

is

a scrap

of

Robert Louis Stevenson des-

tide.

cribed the sensation of living on Fakarava Atoll release euphoria,

a quality that sets

madness

as a

came with

that

kind of slow-

on both

living

the land and the sea at the same time.

was nearly dark by the time

It

got back to the boat.

I

clams marinated in lime juice. At high right over the reef.

The

In at

my fax to Pete

the reef, and said

a slight

would wait here

chop.

calms that had held

I

expected to arrive

I

was already overdue.

me up would

have eased

motored

passage in the opposite direction: he could have flat seas. It I

seemed unlikely he would

decided to

of the

reef.

fill

my

my passage

But

three days.

west through Polynesia had been slow and

The same

came

from the south-east,

had given him the date

I I

tide, small swells

trade was building

and the boat began to joggle on

ate the

I

arrive

his

across

now.

time the following day by making a chart

On the Admiralty chart Beveridge

is

shown

as a

dot

to

be avoided by navigators. There was no chart of the reef itself.

It

was

a

simple drawing to make.

With

a

handheld

GPS found

the position at various points around the reef and

shape onto graph paper.

The

I

mapped

its

coral formation was fifty to eighty

metres wide, the sand-flat behind the back-reef margin about two

hundred metres wide.

I

measured spot-depths

and throughout the lagoon and identified heads.

ward I

in the reef passage

a small

number of coral

The wreck of the Nicky Lou was prominent on

the wind-

side.

drew the reef as

marine

it is

at

low

tide.

This

is

the convention

charts: potential hazards like rocks are thus

220

shown

on

all

at their

Miles Hordern

most dangerous. But cal tide closed in

water.

I

it

struck

me

that

on the

had drawn

a

reef, there

map of a

'Of Exactitude

In his story

was no land

drawn on a scale of i

empire whose

scale

point for point with practical

:

i

a chart

slight, tropi-

at all

above the

place that wasn't always there. in Science' the Argentinian writer

Jorge Luis Borges describes the world's is

had never drawn

I

one before. At Beveridge, when the

quite like this

with the land

first

truly accurate

represents:

it

'a

map.

It

map of the

was that of the empire, and which coincided it'.

The map was accurate, and useless for any its great size. Maps are of necessity

purpose because of

When you condense information, you change it. Most world maps today are drawn on Mercator's projection.

abstractions.

Gerhardus Mercator cracked raphers since Greek times: a flat piece

problem

a

how to

of paper. To do

that

had plagued cartog-

represent a spherical planet

on

Mercator distorted global geog-

this

raphy. In effect, his projection exaggerates the size of countries in the

northern part of the northern hemisphere.

World maps have not always been oriented on north. Arab maps were traditionally oriented on south. Mappae mundi showed east at the top

of the sheet because

tion of Paradise. In fact there are

jecting the planet onto a

flat

was the supposed loca-

this

numerous

different

page. Stab- Werner

the earth as heart-shaped. Fuller's projection

is

ways of pro-

projection shows a series

of inter-

locking triangles that can be unfolded in different ways to

produce unrecognisably different images of the these sheets the planet appears as just scraps of land

earth.

On one of

one great ocean with

a

few

around the periphery.

The Greeks did not believe it was possible sea. The first aids to maritime navigation, were textual rather than graphic. There

to

draw

a

map of the

the classical periploi,

are other

examples of

non-graphic maps. In the second century, Dionysius recited an Alexandrian world describes in

map

form of

in the

The Songlines

how

through the outback by singing

a

a

poem. Bruce Chatwin

Australian aboriginals migrate

map as they walk. When Robert

221

Sailing the Pacific

Louis Stevenson arrived in the Gilbert Islands in the schooner Equator he was given what he assumed was nesian 'stick-map': a

sewn

Micro-

a traditional

woven frame of bamboo

twigs with shells

into place representing the islands of the South Seas. Today,

however, these stick-maps are thought to have been copied from

The

nineteenth-century European sea charts.

Pacific peoples

colonised their ocean without the use of maps. These navigators

understood which in succession

stars

followed the same 'path', those that rose

from the same point on the horizon and described

the same arc across the sky. steer for a certain island

Thus they knew which

by knowing which

stars rose

direction to

and set above

The star path was used throughout the South Sea islands. known as kavenga in the Solomons, kaveinga in Tonga, and it.

It

was

'aveVa

in Tahiti. Navigators in the Caroline Islands devised a star path that gave thirty- two directions. Star paths

graphically or in tabular form. Their use

committed

to

memory huge amounts

were not represented

meant

that navigators

of information, which

researchers believe

was retrieved by means of complex mnemonic

devices: these

ocean

first

sailors

chanted their way across the sea

towards a featureless horizon. Today, the most informative maps of the sea are the 'routeing charts'. as

These charts show the continents around each ocean

well as the principal islands. But routeing charts are mostly

crammed with information about the water itself, and conditions it: average wind strength and direction at numerous fixed points; ocean currents; mean air temperature and pressure; mean sea temperature; percentage frequency of fog and prevailing in and above

low visibility; bergs.

A map

The

tracks

of past cyclones; shipping lanes;

sea cannot

be portrayed in

way on

limits

of ice-

a single sheet.

of the ocean must defy cartographic conventions. There

are twelve routeing charts for

month of the

year.

have had too

each ocean: one sheet for each

The information contained on each

often very different, depending I

this

many

on seasonal

occasions to

222

variations.

bemoan

sheet

Even

is

so.

the shortcomings

Miles Hordern

of routeing

charts: the

wind

hasn't

blown from the promised

direction, the supposedly favourable current

was non-existent.

Routeing

charts are

acteristics

of the ocean important to navigators. They are

still

only approximations of certain key char-

but not wholly successful attempt to

fill

a

brave

the sea with knowledge.

Perhaps the ocean can best be recorded only in the form of text: a narrative

of a voyage describing

a single line

of experience that

might never be repeated.

But even given the inadequacies of cartography, the ultimate traveller's trophy: proof that places if

I

you

a

map

you have been

is still

to the

and know their relation one to the other. So map of the sea, it wouldn't be complete with-

describe,

were to draw

a

out some mention of the places

empty ocean. The

sailors

have dreamt up to

shorelines of imaginary islands

fill

the

and continents

would need to be faint, so as not to confuse practising navigators. I would draw them as a shadow beneath the waves, like the outline of a reef submerged at high tide.

On my

last

evening

dinghy over to the

Beveridge, shortly after dark,

at

reef.

I

put the anchor in

among the

I

took the

corals

and

wind hold the inflatable boat free of the rocks out in the The tide was coming in and there was a slight current across the reef, flowing around my legs. The reef's surface was uneven. Mostly I waded through calf-deep water, but at times it came to my knees. Several times I stumbled. I knew that my ankles were bleeding and I began to worry about sharks, espe-

let

the

lagoon.

cially in fish.

I

other.

the deeper water.

held I

a

I

was supposed

to

be looking for cray-

torch in one hand and wore a thick glove on the

realised

I

had never looked for crays alone before. Pre-

had gone with the

and listened

viously, in the atolls,

I

to their prayers for a

good catch whispered beneath the

palms before wading out onto the

223

reef.

islanders,

rustling

Sailing the Pacific

I

made my way

nate the path the water

as

slowly

much as

smooth and

to a deeper channel

down

the reef, using a torch to illumi-

to look for crayfish.

silky,

warmer than

The

trade was light,

the air above.

where the water reached

my

waist.

I

came waded

I

slowly forwards, half-way between the earth and the sky, the land

and the

sea.

Surf roared and sucked in the distance, the spray in

places visible as a ghostly ring I

saw one

crayfish,

After half an hour

The

I

but

lunge was tardy and misdirected.

returned empty-handed to the dinghy.

following morning

for the south-west.

my

around the horizon.

I

I

gave up on Pete and

found out

Vava'u several months earlier and

He

had never received

my

later that

left

Beveridge

he had got bored

set sail for the fleshpots

fax.

224

in

of Suva.

Ten

It

is

difficult to narrate the events of that final passage from

Beveridge Reef towards

the event In the

is

New Zealand. At least, the events them-

enough. But to recreate the logic of the sea

selves are simple

hard.

first

half of the voyage

Patagonia, too,

I

I

had written

on the return

journal entries were

less

But

also

my

I

I

frequent. Perhaps

had by

its

I

never did

sufficient

this

any more.

my

at sea:

is

a

I

sat

more

at

home

of the voyage grown

ex-

tired

to record a diary I

of

my

thoughts,

resented the camera's prying eye,

The boat was my home, and life at sea.

I

Since leaving

my

actions

become

instinctive. In the

narrower range of things which happen to

a

wind at sunset, landfall, calms. I had things on the basis of reflex actions.

the squalls, rising

learnt to deal with these

When

felt

on

my

written journal entries had been few. After

time on passage

tropics there

I

a diary to process the

craved the privacy to lead a normal

Papeete, even

boat

on

this stage

associations with a stage set.

now

visited

every feeling and impression. In high latitudes

had used the video camera

but

I

passage through the tropics

crossing tropical seas, so relied less

of describing

a daily journal. In

kept a detailed record of the places

the journey. But

perience.

after

down

to write an account

were no thought processes to explore.

225

I

I

sometimes found there

was

sailing

on automatic,

Sailing the Pacific

and descriptions of routine work about the deck and cabin be-

came

repetitive.

By

the time

left

I

stopped altogether. So I

made

my

Beveridge Reef I

journal entries had

have no direct record of my thoughts

the passage towards

New

Zealand.

I

as

have no first-hand

source to help reconstruct the rationale of that voyage, and

I

dis-

imposition of one from a different time and place:

I

dis-

trust the

any voice from the outside

trust

a difficult event at sea.

What

strange passage was that

my

all

the others

did

I

think

I

I

when

comes

it

to describing

can remember about that

decisions

seemed just

as

obvious

was

sailing untried waters. I

skirted south of Meyer

Reef and crossed the International Dateline. Early morning a trough went through with heavy rain from and the boat plunged westward

wind backed I put more south of Eua,

a

dipping in the

I

the next the south

in almost zero visibility.

in the course

southern outpost of the

the third evening

sail

as

had made over the preceding months. At no point

I

On the second night out of Beveridge

cliffs

last,

Kingdom of Tonga. On

saw the conical island of Ata,

swells. In the setting

As the

and sighted the dark

rising

sun Ata appeared

as a

and

giant

billowing up from beneath the horizon.

My

latitude

now was

close to the Tropic of Capricorn, to-

wards the southern limit of the trade winds.

took

me

The

course ahead

through an area of variable winds, the so-called 'horse

latitudes',

where calms and

shifting breezes

once forced square-

rigged ships to throw the horses overboard for want of fresh water. Every day the colours visible in the ocean world were

The sun had lost its intensity at midday, and when it wind felt chill. In these more temperate waters the sea

changing. set the

was

a richer,

creamier blue, and seemed

fuller,

more rounded, But when the

without the glaring reflections of the tropical sun. sky was

full

of cloud, that almost forgotten grey colour returned

to the water around the boat.

The one

record

I

do have of those days 226

is

my

log-book. This

Miles Hordern

is,

in

some respects, an interminable document, lists of figures and

observations of the weather. But using the log-book and the chart in combination,

it is

easy to reconstruct the courses

When

the prevailing conditions.

theory

I

was taught to make

a log

I

I

steered and

was learning navigational

entry every hour the boat was

on passage. This theory originated long before the advent of elecand only insomniacs

tronic navigation,

the tropics rather

had made about

I

more on

the passage across the Southern Ocean. But these

averages are misleading, because

were

are so diligent today. In

five log entries every twelve hours,

my

log entries over the voyage

erratic.

Looking

at

the log,

when my

anxiety

it

is

were more frequent. In places these

entries

entries are hourly, or

easy to see periods of heightened

even more often than

that: the first

week of

the voyage, at times of bad weather in high latitudes, before landfall,

in squalls,

throughout calms. So, flicking through the pages

of the log-book cult simply

I

can see those times

measured in the

was good and the outlook

allel

my

I

sailed

my

log entries

I

became

was forty miles

in these waters.

six nights

progress

the pages are almost bare.

Over

increasingly detailed.

with blustery

out of Beveridge,

recorded

it

times,

and they were of minor

The wind was

certainly less constant

the course of three days

to north-east,

I

two Minerva Reefs three

to the north

navigational importance.

from south

When

south-west out of the tropics over the 24th par-

position relative to the

though

fine,

passage was dim-

entries.

barograph of my moods.

Indirectly, the log acts as a

As

when the

number of

squalls

it

of

had

shifted

rain.

Then,

died completely. That was a

slow night, while the boat pitched and rolled on the

still

lumpy sea, the cabin filled with noise and restlessness. By morning a southerly had set in, but it was difficult to get the boat established on its course as the wind was light and the sea still awkward. When the seas started to smooth out later that morning, the wind began to shift, tending first west, then back 227

Sailing the Pacific

to the south.

I

recorded each of these

details faithfully in the

log-book. Despite

one setback with the weather, progress so

this

miles north of

expect steered.

I

Thus

on

the voyage

week.

a

had listened only

I

might

I

allowing a south course to be

set in,

should reach Auckland in

far

I

waypoint four hundred

New Zealand's North Cape. Around there

west wind to

a

a

on

wind continued

the passage had mostly been good. If this

planned to head west-south-west to

far

to

BBC

radio

more temperate latitude I changed this habit and tuned to local stations. Radio New Zealand International broadcasts to the Pacific, a mix of regional programmes and those lifted from the main domestic station. So I began to hear familiar place names and voices. I was keeping on short-wave, but

the same time

same news

as

as

I

sailed into a

New Zealand now:

bulletin

I

ate breakfast

I

tuned to the

had listened to before the voyage;

meant

the same jingle that had once

seemed much further than

it

was time to go

I

to

heard

work.

week away. I reached my waypoint north of North Cape on the tenth morning. The last few days had been slower, the wind southwest. I put the boat about and sailed close-hauled on starboard tack. This course would put me just to the east of Northland, That

life

four days' sailing in this wind,

But the log detailed.

knots

less if

a

things improved.

entries over that day continue to

Admittedly the wind was

at 7 a.m.,

gusty.

I

recorded twenty-five

the boat careering over the swells, the sun catch-

ing clouds of golden spray.

Two

hours

later the

knots and the seas were collapsing backwards. things with earnest precision.

drinking too

much

that night, blotting

my

be unnecessarily

I

I

fifteen

recorded these

had been nervous for some time,

for the last several nights. it

wind was

I

did the same again

out with cheap rum, but was shaken from

more than once by the need to reef or un-reef the sails in the gusty wind. At dawn the wind went westerly for several hours, but by mid morning was back in the south-west. reverie

22!

Miles Hordern

At noon on

windward wards

that final day

I

recorded beating

a

hundred miles

heard the long-range weather forecast on Radio

I

to

in the preceding twenty-four hours. Shortly after-

Zealand and recorded the

back of the

details in the

log: a

New broad

trough in the Tasman Sea should maintain a south-west wind,

would make landfall in three days. The facts are simple enough: two hours later I adjusted the selfsteering and sailed the boat away from New Zealand. This new though

it

would

ease.

I

course was east-south-east:

would, eventually, have crossed the

it

empty wastes of the Southern Ocean and reached the coast of Antarctica. But at the time my concerns were more immediate, and related only to the conditions on the boat there and then.

where

didn't care

patterns that

round on lunging

was going;

to the quarter.

The

now was fast and free, long, down the faces of the swells.

sailing

months of passage-making, twelve thousand was the way it had always been.

that this

my

in

simply wanted to re-establish the

the boat ploughed

to sailing towards a place that it

I

had prevailed for months past. So I brought the wind

rolls as

After eight

seemed

I

I

mind.

I

was so

had learnt to

far distant

I

I

miles,

it

had grown used

could not picture

only in the present, with no

live

destination other than the sea. I

day I

new

sailed this

made

I

recorded

course for the next three days.

position at

noon each

the

first

On the second and third

four entries in the log-book.

my

On

day,

and nothing

else.

I

remember eating well and sleeping well, and smoking and drinking

less.

felt

I

that the passage

had improved

back to normal. Certainly, progress was good.

I

recently. Life

was

covered 410 miles

in that three-day run. I

understood perfectly well that

forever, or

stores to reach

New Zealand,

of water would decided

With

the

I

I

could not

even for very long. In Papeete

also

with

sail this

had bought

a little in reserve.

course

sufficient

My supplies

soon begin to dwindle. After three days

in the west,

New

I

would make landfall. Zealand seemed far distant. The

must choose the place where

wind

I

229

I

Sailing the Pacific

obvious choice was to head for an island group in the tropics.

Both Tonga and Fiji:

I

passage north, I

carried

come I

easy to reach from here.

this

had been here

one night

The

was

boat.

I

commercial harbour, well marked and

to

several times before.

lit,

and

picked up the leading

I

in early June. a

is

watering-hole for expatriate soaks

rugby on television screens above the

The

rarely interact.

from those in Papeete: there in

chose

had not expected

way-station for offshore transients like myself.

of patrons

I

a straightforward

My island refuge was not on any map.

voyage.

yacht club in Suva

who watch

on the

charts of Fiji

a large

is

It

in westerlies, then in the re-found trade.

first

no

here on

But Suva

lights

would be

Fiji

wanted the chaos and the crowds.

The

also a

The two groups

cruising yachts here are different

are

Suva. These boats have been

never intend to leave.

and

bar,

more

and pot plants

rust stains

and some

in the islands longer,

club provides

sorts in the sprawling, shapeless harbour,

facilities

which

and

a

haven of

otherwise bor-

is

dered by commercial wharves, ship-yards, mangrove

flats

and

landfills.

In the club

sent faxes

I

family expected to

and made phone

been unfavourable, and

that

I

was supposed

explained that the conditions had

I I

was in Suva. Few of these people

the geography of the region well. For them, the South

Pacific

three

My friends and

me to be in New Zealand by now,

be going back to work.

knew

calls.

was an unknown ocean of many

weeks of my

passage to

The hoped

life

meet

at

Fiji

me home,

and

Pete's fax

was

I

fact that

received a fax from Pete, the friend

Beveridge Reef.

north-east of the to find

and the

New Zealand went unnoticed.

following day to

islands,

had passed unaccounted for on an abortive

group.

He

He was in Vanua

I

had

Levu, in the

had phoned Auckland hoping

my housemates had told him

typically authoritative: Til

I

was

in Suva.

be there in three days.

Stay there.'

Two

days later

I

saw

Pete's

boat in the anchorage. Almost

230

Miles Hordern

immediately

a

blonde

tall,

ionway and stood on the

Her name was

girl

stepped up through the compan-

counter dressed in

fantail

islands

when

several

months now, Pete diving

him up

met

she

dinghy

in the

a

pink pareu.

Kirsty She had been boat-hopping in the western

They had been

Pete.

when

sailing together for

in reef passages, Kirsty picking

the current had swept

him through

into the lagoon.

That night I

we went

had abandoned the and instead thought

been

landfall

me before

a shorter trip, straight

had

felt

adrift.

a

said, 'It gets a bit like that

up

I

I

It

who

was Pete

started the voyage, suggesting

I

make

to the tropics. Occasionally in the past

patronised by the

But

sometimes. You've

too long.' But he looked worried.

at sea

had written to

I

a few hundred miles to go, on a course to nowhere. I said I breakdown at sea. He didn't stop

with only

might have had

I

I

I

sailed for three days

Then he

eating.

When Kirsty left the table New Zealand. explained that

out for a meal.

told Pete about the passage to

way Pete viewed me

as

an innocent

was glad he was in Suva now.

me he planned to fly back to London, and that Kirsty to stay in the islands. He was sailing down to western

Pete told

was going Viti

Levu

in a

few

then he would

him, It

all

the

fly

way

days' time.

There was

out from Nandi.

to

autumn:

it

a

marina

at

Vuda

suggested that

Point,

go with

I

London.

was mid June. The weather in

in the

He

was not too

New Zealand

late to sail

down

is

often settled

south.

But

and needed to get off the boat.

trusted myself at sea now,

I

I

dis-

wanted

to

go home, and had to choose between flying to Auckland, or

to

London.

I

told Pete

I

would

sail

west with him, and

fly to

London.

We

left

Suva

late in

the afternoon and sailed through the

Mbengga Channel as the sun set. I watched Pete's navigation light all that night as we followed the reefs off the south coast of the island. At dawn we motored through a mirror calm, then back inside the barrier reef. Pete

was standing

231

at

the

tiller,

wearing

a

Sailing the Pacific

white

balaclava against the sun. Later

silk

lagoon

Mana

at

we anchored

in the

Island.

That afternoon we went

Most of Pete's underwater photography equipment was home-made. He had built the for a dive.

camera housings from Perspex sheeting cut and glued

in place,

turned down on the lathe in his father s garage in The Perspex domes for each housing were made from spare parts for marine compasses. The arms for the flashguns were

with

a flange

Ipswich.

microphone goosenecks covered

in heat-shrink tube.

When

I

first met Pete seven years before, photography was only a hobby and he supported himself by doing odd jobs, including a stint as a dredger operator. Making his own equipment had been

had

a necessity.

Since then, though, he had started to

make

a

good

He could afford to buy the best equipsome others afloat, still persisted in the castaway mentality, whereby sailors preferred to make things rather than buy them. Robinson Crusoe invented DIY. The fictional

living

from photography.

ment. But Pete,

like

castaway started by fashioning his

made

clothes, shoes, a table

dug

garden for his crops, built

a

and

own

pots and plates, then he

chair. After that a boat,

and

he

built a house,

finally a fortress to

defend his island home. Pete did have one concession to

moder-

Roland EP85 digital piano. He was fond of playing Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor on clear nights in the trades, with all the hatches open and moonlight flooding into nity

on

his boat, a

the cabin.

he

filled

The piano was an

our dive bottles using an ancient Briggs and Stratton

compressor he had found in

We

dived on a reef

market'.

exception, though. That afternoon

The

first

a skip

known

and

for

its

rebuilt.

sharks, called the 'Super-

animals appeared before

we

reached the coral

head, two grey reef sharks gliding in from the deeper water to the south.

The

shot he was working

close-up of a shark's mouth. the night before.

We

on

that afternoon

had both caught

He now opened

a

bag of fish

pieces of flesh in the water. Kneeling

232

was

a

fish at twilight

bits

and scattered

on the seabed he threw

a

Miles Hordern

small piece of

meat into the water above

was pre-focused on about

a foot.

When the shark came in to take

the meat he pushed the camera towards

motor-drive. a

The camera

his head.

mouth and

its

hit the

The shot showed the silky white belly of the shark, mouth at centre, backed by sunbursts, breaking

gaping pink

waves and cloud.

Two

days later

I

was waiting for

tube

a

at

Heathrow.

Pete only stayed in the the islands

I

shorelines secure.

Leaving a

it

UK a few weeks. When he returned to

got a fax saying the boat was fine: the bilges dry, the

knew

I

in the water over a cyclone season in the tropics wasn't

very good idea. But over that period easy to put the ocean

it

I

ing

in

from

my

I

spent in

London I found

mind.

arrived in late June and spent the rest of that at a

school in Hendon.

Covent Garden. And

had come Before

it

left

I

London I

went

buy lunch. found

to

to the

Little

a quiet

make

floor of

my

got another job,

now

sailors

the voyage to

sister's flat

at a

school

if the

wheel

New

for a publishing

now I walked past

their

Zealand

company

in

now-defunct Street to

had changed, except that I was older and poorer. corner of the Piazza where

and troupes of acrobatic dwarfs.

reflections

I

same sandwich shop on Bedford

away from the buskers, jugglers, away

on the

was easy to wonder

had worked

Henrietta Street. Each day I

slept set in

summer work-

full circle.

eight years earlier

offices.

I

Town. As winter

in Kentish

I

should be worried about the boat.

I

washed up

fire-eaters,

I

could

and

sit

eat,

Whirling Dervishes

And the stories I had read of cast-

in fabled cities that

appeared

as

strange

of the places from which they had started their jour-

neys didn't seem so entertaining any more. I

enjoyed the cold and dark which seemed to be the only defin-

ing features of the endless winter months.

They were

a

sobering

therapy after the South Seas. Before Christmas Pete paid another

233

Sailing the Pacific

London to

visit to

attend a wildlife photography dinner.

out for a meal in Soho, together with

his

We went

most recent crew. They

were bronzed and bleached, creatures from another world.

my

not been

voyage of self-discovery.

Zealand,

in

When

I

I

has a

thought of the sea now, of those

Reef towards

days of the passage from Beveridge

last

It

experience that single-handed sailing represents

saw the image of a person

New

did not know.

I

At the beginning of February I was offered the use of a cottage Cornwall for a couple of months. I took a train to Truro and

began trying to write an account of the voyage. place to work. There were few distractions

Within only

making, the physical gate,

The

more

I

missed London. There had been the unpredictability of journey-

street violence, scenes

I

had been in England for the same length of

had spent on the boat if

two

these were

in the Pacific.

voyage truly ends.

when

south,

its

I

I

literature

did not

it.

I

I

to say

But

Seas these aspects of

I

a

could turn the water

I

of

my own

the thread of

its

could read

of the South

sailed the waters

past, these strands

its

became bound up with

as

when

thought the history of the

and cartography, were things aside.

know any

one continuous

It is difficult

had once assumed

was finished with

about and then put

I

separate entities, or

voyage of sixteen months' duration.

off

of majesty and

at sea.

By February I

good

roving forces of the great city were the closest thing

here to being

time

a

the piles of rubbish bags at the garden

toil,

sudden eruptions of

history.

was

really

it:

few days

a

something familiar about

It

— none,

vast tapestry,

voyage, to form

a single cloth. I

am still a drifter. The idea that on my own course, made landfalls of my

suspect that even at sea,

the ocean

I

determined

I

own

choosing, was partly an illusion.

rents

around the planet; when they

Flotsam could have

made

I

followed winds and cur-

failed, the passage faltered.

the voyages

I

have made.

of every ship in history were drawn onto

-34

a single

If the tracks

world map,

Miles Hordern

would coincide with

they

found

rents

the diagrams of ocean winds and cur-

European voyaging, and

in Admiralty publications.

the discovery of our planet, has been an organic process in this respect, regulated

human-kind. In

by the global climate

this great

much

as

as

by the

will

swathe of tracks drawn by ships

The

however, there would be one marked exception.

of

at sea,

Pacific

peoples did not follow the forces of nature around the ocean.

The six

Micronesians, Melanesians and Polynesians sailed westward,

thousand miles against the trade winds,

time

at a

ern Europeans were struggling to keep coracles

My voyaging in the periphery. I

went

was drawn

I

Pacific has

unknown

in search of

been

to that place

a

I

journey to the ocean's

where the land and sea meet. uncharted

coastlines,

tional continents, island myths, the vigias exist.

when north-

afloat.

canals, fic-

which may or may not disturbed, and where

went where the water is cloudy and

new homelands

rise

out of the sea to

fill

the map.

I

thought

I

could navigate these waters, but was wrecked on the dangerous shoaling of the lone In Cornwall,

what

I

had

Zealand.

I

started,

made

I

at

of mind.

by making

landfall

on

my home

the decision quickly, with

beginning of April

The marina

sailor's state

decided to return to the Pacific and complete

I

caught

Vuda Point

a flight to

is

no

city in

regrets.

New

At the

Nandi.

a small basin

with concrete

walls,

carved into the land behind the mangroves, with a long channel blasted through the coral out to

dawn and At

first

I

caught

down

to the

I

found everything covered

couldn't immediately identify.

It's

a

at

compound.

glance the decks of the boat looked clean. But

moved about I

a taxi

deep water. The plane landed

in a film

as

I

of something

kind of tropical goo,

a

com-

bination of torrential rain, baking sun, and dust and soot from the cane fields inland, that builds up as these forces alternately

dominate the environment.

235

Sailing the Pacific

I

spent three days working

on the

boat.

The

basin was

airless,

worked pouring with sweat, my white the sun. All the winches needed to be stripped

the humidity intense. skin tingling in

I

and cleaned, the engine cooling was clogged. The had seized almost

When

solid.

self-steering

from the

released the lashings

I

wind generator, it too was gummed motionless. Even the genoa, which had been below-decks, had suffered. Some of the stitching had been so weakened by the trapped heat that it failed as soon as I handled the sail. I sat for several hours on the foredeck re-sewing lengths of seam. Only the anchor windlass was still in working order, having been serviced more recently.

On 7 April

I

caught a bus in to Lautoka to get

arrived back at the marina

the

tiller

gone

was shaking in

a small

put the engine

I

my hand.

In the nine

to vibrate

months

and

had been

I

eco-system of barnacles and weed had grown on

the propeller, reducing I

When

mid morning.

motor out of the berth the boat began

astern to

and

a clearance,

its

efficiency

many times. Even at full revs

was only just able to move the boat through the water. For

moment

considered re-tying the shorelines and going over the

I

side to scrape the propeller clean.

basin and the bugs

New

I

Zealand made

I

me

delay

I

breaking over

my

and

I

on the

head. As

It

no

sails

up

it

put on

I

was not able

it

itself,

but

a sea breeze

flippers, a

The

mask

boat was

dived on the propeller, the

I

up and down dangerously

to

my

remove

just getting

was lying beam-on to the

was moving

to

else.

short seas, white-caps occasionally

was hard to get

was more concerned with in the rig

into

Nandi Water

at fifteen knots.

steering paddle was chopping

water behind me. for long,

marina basin

in the

took a wire brush into the water.

pitching and rolling

filthy

decided to try something

came out of the channel

was blowing cross-shore and snorkel and

But the thought of this

might contract on the eve of the passage

There was no apparent wind

when

a

in the

hands on the propeller

all

the growth. In

fact,

I

back on the boat. With slight sea,

but the wind

slowly through the water. As

236

self-

I

worked

Miles Hordern

on the propeller

When

I

I

also

tried to get

had

to

swim forwards

back over the

rail

I

in order to

keep up.

failed several times,

floundering against the topsides, unable to get

a

proper grip with

my flippered feet, before finally slithering into the cockpit. It was probably the worst piece of seamanship have to my name. I

I

ran with the sea breeze on the quarter that afternoon, south-

west to the islands on the barrier

whole

hull properly,

home

to

New

reef.

Here

and watch the weather.

Zealand

late

I

the following day.

237

I

could clean the

began the passage

Sources

I

have tried to rely on original sources

book titles

J.

has also

as far as possible.

However,

been both inspired and informed by the following

were published

in

London

this (all

unless otherwise specified):

O. Bailey, 'Sources for Poe's Arthur Gordon Pym', in Publication of

M.

Modern Languages Association 57 (1942) (Newton Abbot, David and Charles,

Baker, Tlw Folklore of the Sea 1979)

J.

C. Beaglehole, Hie Exploration of the

Pacific

(Adam and Charles Black,

1966) Tlie Life of

Captain James Cook

(Adam and

Charles Black, 1974)

P.

Bellwood, The Polynesians: Prehistory of an Island People (London,

S.

Berthon

Thames and Hudson,

&

1978)

A. Robinson, The Shape of the World (Guild Publishing,

1 991)

C. Blacker, Ancient Cosmologies (Allen and T. B. Clark,

Omai:The

First Polynesian

Unwin,

Ambassador

to

1975)

London (Honolulu,

University of Hawaii Press, 1969) J.

M. Cohen, The Four Voyages

of Christopher Columbus (Cresset Library,

1988)

D. Cosgrove

(ed.),

B. Danielsson,

G. Daws,

A

Mappings (Reaktion Books, 1999)

Gauguin

in the

South Seas (Allen and

Unwin,

Dream of Islands (New York, Norton, 1980)

239

1965)

Sailing the Pacific

I.

Donaldson from

a

(ed.), 'Australia

conference

at

and the European Imagination' - Papers

the Humanities Research Centre, Australian

National University, 1981 J.

Dunmore,

French Explorers

in the Pacific

(Oxford, Clarendon Press,

1965)

R.

L. Eskridge,

Manga Reva,The

Merrill, 193

D. Fausett,

Forgotten Islands (Indianapolis,

Bobbs-

1)

Writing the

the Great Southern

New

World: Imaginary Voyages and Utopias of

Land (New York, Syracuse University

Press,

1993)

The

Strange, Surprising Sources of Robinson Crusoe

(Amsterdam, Rodopi,

1994)

R. Finney

B.

(ed.), Pacific

Navigation and Voyaging (Wellington,

The

Polynesian Society, 1976) V. Flint,

The Imaginative Landscape of Christopher Columbus

(New Jersey,

Princeton University Press, 1992)

H.

J.

Fry, Alexander

Dalrymple and

the

Expansion of

Commonwealth Society, 1970) Garret, To Live Among the Stars: Christian

British Trade

(Royal

Origins in Oceania (Suva,

University of the South Pacific, 1982)

A. Giamatti, The Earthly Paradise and

the Renaissance Epic

(New

York,

Norton, 1989)

R. Gibson, The Diminishing Australia (Sydney, Sirius P.

Paradise:

Changing Literary Perceptions of

Books, 1984)

B. Gove, The Imaginary Voyage in Prose Fiction (Holland Press, 1961)

M. Green, The

Robinson Crusoe Story (University Park, Pennsylvania

State University Press, 1990)

H. Henningsen,

Crossing the Equator

(Copenhagen, Munskgaard, 1961)

K. Huntress, 'Another Source for Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon

Pym',

in American Literature 16 (1944)

Gentner

E. Hutchins, 'Understanding Micronesian Navigation', in

Stevens (eds), Mental Models

(New Jersey,

L.

Erlbaum

&

Associates,

1983)

D. Lewis, The Voyaging Stars (Sydney, William Collins, 1978) J.

Macmillan Brown, The Riddle of the 1979)

240

Pacific

(New

York,

AMS

Press,

)

Miles Hordern

M. McKeithan, 'Two

D.

Pym', in F.

McLynn,

Sources for Poe's Narrative of Arthur

Gordon

University of Texas Bulletin, 13 (1933)

Robert Louis Stevenson (Hutchinson, 1993)

J.

Moore, 'The Geography of

J.

H.

Gulliver's Travels', in Journal of English

and Germanic Philology 40 (1941) Parry,

The Discovery of the Sea (Berkeley, University of California

Press, 198 S.

1

Rogers, Crusoes and Castaways (Harrap and Co., 1932)

M.

Stannard, 'The "South-east Point of

A

Possible Solution to a Textual

of Gulliver's P.

J.

Travels', in Notes

New

Holland"

Problem

as

No-place:

in the Fourth

Voyage

and Queries, September 1996

Whitfield, The Charting of the Oceans (The British Library, 1996)

N. Wilford, The Mapmakers (New York, Knopf, 198 1)

G. Williams

& A.

Frost, Terra Australis to Australia

(Melbourne, Oxford

University Press, 1988)

R.Wiseman,

The

Discovery L.

Spanish

Discovery

of

New

Zealand

(Auckland,

Press, 1996)

Wroth, Early Cartography of the Pacific (Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America vol. 38 No. 2, New York, 1944)

Her

Majesty's Stationery and

UK Hydrographic

Handbook (1979) South America Pilot, volume Mariner's

Pacific Islands Pilot,

volume

III III

(1987) (1982)

Ocean Passages ForThe World (1973)

241

Office, Taunton,

The

Acknowledgements

A

big thank you to

Maggy

Staples for

drawing the maps, and to Pete

Atkinson for supplying the photographs numbered 16,

and

also the jacket

Extracts from the Mariner's Handbook and

volume

Her

III,

are

10,

n,

13, 15

and

photograph. South America

Pilot,

reproduced by kind permission of the Controller of

Majesty's Stationery and

UK Hydrographic

Office.

HORDERN

MILES grew up first

in a landlocked part of England.

ran away to sea aged nineteen, when he

tried to sail a sixteen-foot

His

He

first Pacific

open boat

to Africa.

voyage involved working as a

deckhand-curn-nanny on a fifty-foot Australian ketch sailing between Tahiti and Brisbane.

He now lives on Waiheke where he continues

Jacket design by

Island,

New Zealand,

to sail. This is his first book.

DAVID BALDEOSINGH ROTSTEIN

Jacket photograph oj ship under full sail

© THE MARINERS' MUSEUM/CORBIS Jacket photograph of anchored ship

© HULTON-DEUTSCH COLLECTION CORBIS /

man adjusting sails © KURT HUTTON/GETTY IMAGES

Jacket photograph of

www.stmartins.com

ST. 175

MARTIN'S PRESS

FIFTH AVENUE,

DISTRIBUTED

IN

CANADA BY

NEW YORK, N rI H.B.

1001

FENN AND C ^MPANY, LTD. MER c () '

i

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TO

MAY

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2003

1-1 83 10407 "2514 3BALTIMORE COUN# IJblIC L^ARy4

S

FOR

Sailing the pacific "Hordern writes vividly about the rhythms and sighs of and about a landscape composed not of immovable objects but of ever-shifting wind and water."

life afloat,

— Daily

Telegraph

"As well as an enthralling adventure, the book chronicles an inner journey of self-discovery. Hordern captures the thrill, romance, and anxieties of ocean sailing. a highly readable book by a gifted new writer. Don't miss it." Yachting magazine .

.

—

"Not unlike Conrad, Hordern demonstrates that a sense of superfluousness often felt by the adventurous modern traveler can be at great personal risk transmuted into a kind of physical essentialism by excluding the rest of humanity and testing oneself, against oneself, in extremis."

—

— Times Literary Supplement "Full of

humor and historical

insight, this

book has the toughness of the

classic survivor. It's the next best thing to actually going yourself."

— Global Adventure

The

poet Derek Walcott wrote, "The sea is history." In the Southern Ocean I found it hard to locate myself in any meaningful concept of the present. It was the past that was often the clearest thing in view.

On

the ocean

I

feel that

I

am

part of history.

I

liken the water to a vast,

unwieldy tapestry wrapped around most of the earth. The tapestry

is

made

up of thousands of separate strands. Some strands are gold thread, some silk, some cotton, some bold and strong, others frayed and tatty. The ocean tapestry has been woven by everyone who has ever been here, but also by those who simply looked and wondered. It is an inclusive cloth. And just a few of those strands are mine, bound up with Greek cosmologers, medieval mapmakers, poets, and whalers. Along the coastline the cloth is thick and heavy, in places stiff with understanding. But on the furthest oceans of the south it is threadbare, sometimes just a few lonely strands and nothing in-between. — from Sailing the Pacific

ISBN

D

312-31061-1 52495>

780312"310813