Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
We started gradually to lose our wind again. Just when we thought we had left the ITCZ,
it reached up and snuffed out our wind. I was getting quite irritable with this continued,
muggy heat and the weak wind conditions. It was maddening to have to sit at the helm hour
after hour. I tried to be grateful for many things, and I was. I was grateful to have the com-
panionship of a twin brother and not a nettled woman or some crew I had found in a bar
somewhere. I was grateful to still be alive, to be in good health, and to actually be out here
in this amazing, open ocean. Why, I could be sitting in a traffic jam in a bus on the way to
an office job somewhere in South Africa. I could also be battling the high seas in an ugly
storm. I was truly grateful for all these things, but, for Heaven's sake, could you spare us a
little wind, what's the big deal? Just a bit more, for Christ sakes!
One afternoon I hit my sunburnt head on the boom returning to the helm and went down
in absolute agony as fire seemed to spread over my entire head. I clutched my head for a
while until the pain subsided to a dull ache. I yelled some filthy oaths up to Murphy and
angrily sawed at the tiller. The heat burnt down impassively, and the genaker gave another
lurch, shuffling uselessly around to the leeward side of the mast. I glared at it. “Fuck you
too!” I swore at it. It lurched spitefully around to the other side, and this time I heard a hor-
rible ripping sound. I leapt up like a scalded cat and hit my head again on the boom on the
same spot. I fell down on my seat like a stone, clutching the pain on my head, and let loose
a cry from hell.
I had had enough. I swore long and loud and retrieved all the filth and blasphemy I could
muster, even Gavin came out of his bunk white in the face and silent! I made my way to
the foredeck and looked up at the sail. It had a jagged rip in it where the inner staysail tang
was screwed onto the mast. There was a jagged piece of metal that I had somehow missed.
“Murphy all fucking mighty, are you fucking happy now you fucking mother fucker! Are
you Murphy? Jesus wept!” I sobbed. I had had it! I had had the doldrums and the light airs
and this heat in chunks. I wanted out. I wanted to climb off this goddamned, home-made,
fiberglass deathtrap, walk to the nearest sign of civilization, and catch a Greyhound bus out
of here!
I limped slowly back to the cockpit and wearily sat down. No, I couldn't get off the damned
boat. I was stuck on it, and I had to get to Hawaii; I had to get it together. We couldn't turn
back now anyway. We had come too far across the ITCZ. Our food was a worry. I didn't
think we had enough. I wasn't able to stow the twenty-five percent more than necessary
this time. In fact, it was short of the expected length of the voyage if anything. The rustling
of the genaker shook me out of my woeful, little trance, and I called down to Gavin to help
me douse the sail. He came up wordlessly, and we brought it down in armloads.
“Can you please take the helm, and I'll try to patch this damn rip before it gets any worse.”
