The Shipwreck Story . . .
African Shipwreck
A True Story of Survival
Published in BOATING NEW ZEALAND Magazine/
July 2016
Below is a typed section of a handwritten
letter, written to my father from Dakar, Senegal, about three weeks after I was
shipwrecked off the Sahara Desert Coast of West Africa, at the tender age of
twenty-one.
I still have all 18 of the handwritten
letters I wrote to my father during this adventurous period of my life. He had
saved them all; and he returned them to me shortly before his death. (Another
much larger bundle of airmail letters and a few postcards which I wrote to my
uncle in these years and shortly afterwards -- containing 10 letters from the beginning to the end of this fateful voyage/shipwreck period --
have recently been returned to me; and they are available to view, also.)
The Shipwreck Story was originally a chapter
in my autobiography, DAWNING
. . . , and I have extracted it and added more of the details
that it might be a separate story for those who are interested in shipwrecks
and those who survive them.
“ British
Embassy, Dakar, Senegal. West Africa. 28th
October
Dear Dad,
Received your
telegram this morning – message received and understood! … …” “We would be very glad if you’d pick us up
here Dad. We’d like to go with you all the way to N.Z. … …”
“…Here are more
details of our shipwreck adventure!! ‘ But I hate to make myself go back and
remember those nightmareish 3 days. All 3 of us came close to losing our lives,
so close that afterwards we were overjoyed at being alive; it makes one
appreciate life more than anything else ever could!’
As I mentioned
in the last letter it all began at 1:35 a.m. 9th Oct. I remember
only a confusion of robes (ropes,) flapping sails and shouts, and screams.
We were hitting ground already, too late to gibe or tack. … …”
A condensed version of this story titled: AFRICAN SHIPWRECK (2,200 words) was published in BOATING NEW ZEALAND Magazine/ July 2016 / and has the original photographs of the wreck and the new junk rigged sail boat which the author built... on the high tide line on a beach in West Africa, afterwards... and in which she crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a 'hair-raising' voyage. (The original manuscript of the shipwreck is 9,000 words.)
There is a sequel to the story titled: 'AFRICAN ANGEL AID: Encounter of Another Kind,' about what happened next and it is attached in the same pdf word document as the shipwreck story.)
Please feel free to contact the author:
Email: judithdeverell@hotmail.com
The manuscript can be emailed in pdf format in a word document.
*
SHIPWRECKED …ON THE WEST AFRICAN
COAST
*
PROLOGUE
How this Story came to
be written . . .
OUT FROM A GREAT
day’s sail aboard my father’s yacht, Cymro,
in the Hauraki Gulf, Auckland, New Zealand, memories arise of a past traumatic
sailing experience on the Sahara Desert shores of Senegal, West Africa. And in
a strange coincidence, just a couple of days later, old letters written home to
my father about this period of my life, ‘surface,’ and memories take shape and
live once more; and an only too true story of shipwreck and survival is written
up for posterity.
*
SHIPWRECKED …ON THE WEST AFRICAN
COAST
My First
African Survival
WE HAD AN EXHILARATING SAIL back to Gulf Harbour from lovely
Tiritiri Matangi Island: an open bird sanctuary situated on the outskirts of
the ‘sparkling waters’ of the Hauraki Gulf, Auckland, New Zealand. The wind was perfect and
we were creaming along. It was wonderful to be at sea again. How I loved
sailing! It was in my blood! …I was practically born sailing: my parents took
me racing with them in their 18 footer when I was six months old, in a
carrycot! And now here we were in my father’s beautiful 44ft. yacht, CYMRO, which had been a big part of my
childhood in Wales. (‘CYMRO,’ is Welsh for ‘Welshman.’)
Every summer my parents had taken my two
brothers and sister and me cruising in her for the whole of the long school
holidays. We had explored Brittany, the west coast of France, the south coast
of England, and Ireland, and the west coast of Scotland. They were wonderful
summers full of family sailing surprises, and childhood’s discoveries. But my
father and my siblings had later emigrated from Wales, after our mother’s
tragic death, to live in New Zealand; sailing here in CYMRO in an 89 day voyage from Southampton, England, to the magical
Bay of Islands. And now, some years later, three of my own young children,
along with their parents, and grandparents were enjoying this yacht, too… just
as I had as a child.
We reached Gulf Harbour beating into a
strong headwind; and back at her marina berth again I was still full of the joy
of it all, and wishing only that we could keep sailing!
So profoundly moved by all the glories of
this wonderful day it took me a long while to get to sleep that night. Our
spiral climb up to the top of Tiritiri Matangi Lighthouse, and our scary walk
along its outside gallery round the light had made an indelible impression on
me. My imagination goes haywire. Vibrant images of the day parade before my
mind’s eye. But eventually I fall asleep.
My dreams become confused. I am taken back
to what feels like another lifetime. I seem to relive the days of my being
shipwrecked on the desert shores of West Africa. But it is all very confused
and muddled up, as dreams are, with bits and pieces of yesterday’s adventures.
One minute I am high up on an oddly shaped lighthouse, wildly waving my arms at
a yacht heading straight towards me, trying to warn it away! Next, running
dripping wet and barefoot, along the tops of close packed trees! Then reaching
the shore leaping down into a desert of massive sand dunes where a little
gaff-rigged yacht is being pounded by monstrous waves. Things past and present
are all crazily mixed together.
I awaken early. Still remembering my dream.
It sets me to thinking and my mind in fascination goes back to recollecting the
days of my disastrous arrival in Africa so many years ago. This pattern of
thought returns to me often throughout the day as I busy myself about the house
with my chores. I half think I ought to write the story down. The children
might appreciate it one day, when they’re older: those mad things their nutty
mother got up to! But know I won’t. There is far too much happening in the
present to bother with things way back in my past.
Then a couple days later I received a
phone call from my father. He had been going through one of his filing
cabinets, reordering it, and told me he had come across a slim manila folder
containing some old letters.
‘The folder was in a file under your name,
dear,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d given you all your bits and pieces long ago; so
I was intrigued. I sat down and had a look through it. I think you might be
interested in having it. I’ll bring it round sometime.’
It wasn’t long before that manila folder
was in my hands. I was amazed. It contained eighteen letters. Fifteen of them
written to my father - from both
Dakar, in Senegal, and from the West Indies, from an island there called St.
Lucia in the beautiful Caribbean. They are handwritten. Mostly on thin pink
airmail paper. But there are no envelopes, except one - clearly postmarked - from
Dakar. It gives me a strange feeling to be holding these living letters…of
shipwreck…and boat building on beaches…and of sailing far distant oceans…when
only last week I had been remembering so vividly this extraordinary five year
period of my life in my early twenties. And, yet, what had been only of a
passing interest then, and quite remote, was now near, and alive, and relevant.
My brushed aside half-thoughts of
writing the story down suddenly become full bodied.
Carefully I put the letters, sheet by
sheet into clear plastic sleeves in a ring binder before I read them. They seem
fragile, and the ink on the airmail paper ones is fading a little in places.
But I find the letters stimulating and helpful in remembering things
chronologically, and in bringing to light forgotten things. But, strangely,
there are one or two fragments of the story that are either a bit muddled or
not mentioned, or only briefly, and yet these things are so clear in my memory.
But then I was only writing hurried letters home to Dad, not a book; and I was
probably half traumatized.
As I ponder over these precious vestiges
of the past I am immersed in them; and once again I am twenty-one, and writing
to my father . . .
British
Embassy, Dakar, Senegal. West
Africa. 28th October
Dear Dad,
Received your telegram this
morning – message received and understood! … …
We would be very glad if you’d pick us up here Dad. We’d like to go with
you all the way to N.Z. … …
…Here are more
details of our shipwreck adventure!?!
But I hate to make myself go back and remember those nightmareish 3
days. All 3 of us came close to losing
our lives, so close that afterwards we were overjoyed at being alive; it makes
one appreciate life more than anything else ever could!
…As I mentioned
in the last letter it all began at 1:35 a.m. 9th Oct. I remember
only a confusion of robes (ropes,) flapping sails and shouts, screams. We were
hitting ground already, too late to gibe or tack. … …”
We
had set out from Las Palmas in Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, some days
previously, sailing south on our way to Dakar. Perfect trade wind weather!
Brisk winds. Blue, blue skies. Sparkling seas. And fresh flying fish for
breakfast gathered off the deck in the frying pan! Easy! All was going so well.
VOGELFREI was living up to her name:
‘free as a bird,’ cruising along at a
steady five to six knots without a care in the world: no notion of what was
about to happen that night. The pilot book which gave vital directions and
information to sailors on that particular part of the West African coast lay
unopened on the cabin table. Had we become blasé about printed information? Did
we feel we were such experienced sailors we didn’t need it? Or that somehow we
knew it all without reading?! I don’t know. But how dumb! All I remember is
that we believed we knew exactly where we were on the chart and that, for some
reason or other we didn’t read the pilot book. Had we done so we would have
known that right about where we were there was an insetting current and we were
being swept steadily eastwards towards the African coast.
Hermann, my partner at that time always
relied on his daily sun sightings with the sextant and his wristwatch. Then
with the Air Tables plotting our latitude, and what he thought was our
longitude on the chart; so that he knew how far down the coast we were; but, in
reality, not how close in to it we were.
Instruments of navigation on board were
practically primitive, just as everything was on VOGELFREI: our little 28ft. gaff-rigged, taff-railed, ‘Friendship
Sloop.’ We had no engine, no life raft, no VHF marine radio, no GPS, no depth
sounder, no electronic gadgets of any kind, and no form of communication with
the outside world. All we had was a household transistor radio, (two of them,
in case one failed,) a clock-cum-barometer, a sextant, relevant charts, a
compass and unread pilot books; and thought nothing of it!
It was 1:15 a.m. I was on watch. Hermann
and my sister were down below, asleep. It was a beautiful starry night with a
lovely moon, and I was enjoying steering by the stars. But I began to feel
hungry. I stood up, and without knowing why, turned to look eastward before I
went below to get something to eat. There on the eastern horizon I noticed a
bright line of light. But all was so peaceful and perfect it wouldn’t hurt to
go down below for awhile. It must be just the moon reflecting on the sea, I
told myself. I was sure we were far from any land and she was self-steering
beautifully from the set of her sails. I had tied up the tiller. She was
holding steady to her compass course all by herself. Everything was fine. Down
in the saloon I made myself a quick sandwich; but I am so sleepy. I was just
going to grab it, and go straight back out into the cockpit to keep watch, but
. . .
1:35
a.m. Suddenly, I’m thrown hard against the cabin table. There’s a terrible
sound outside and sudden chaos on deck. VOGELFREI
is hurled onto her port side. I leap out into the cockpit and all around me
ropes and sails are thrashing about, fit to flay us; the other two are wide
awake and shouting orders.
‘We’ve hit a sandbar!’ We must have, there
is no land in sight. Waves are crashing over us. They sweep us up and over what
must be some kind of sandbar, far off the coast; for after some moments we’re
tossing about, but upright again. Then over on our side once more as large
waves drive us up onto hard sand again. The moon is lost behind clouds, all is
so dark. We can see nothing of any land.
There’s a mad rush to get out the anchors.
Amongst all the chaos we join as many lines together as we can, with the hope
of rowing one of the anchors out as far as possible to try and haul VOGELFREI back into deep water, and to
safety. But it is hopeless. The dinghy is repeatedly swamped and flipped upside
down beneath the breakers. I watch in horror as Hermann and my sister disappear
beneath the waves. But each time they eventually reappear dragging the heavily
sunken dinghy back to the beach to empty her out and swim back with her to the
boat; and then, exhaustedly, haul up the anchor again, dump it into the dinghy
once more, in yet another vain attempt to row it out far enough. Time and time
again they tried, but always failed.
This went on till daylight.
In the grey dawn sand dunes begin to
appear and we realize this is the coast, and not some sort of uncharted sandbar
or island. Far along the beach I can just make out something that looks like
the top of a small thatched roof…which turns out to be a little round hut made
of sticks. I went dripping along the beach for help, remembering the horror of
the night, the dinghy being constantly swamped and sinking out of sight and the
two of them struggling in the roaring but warm seas. I had once jumped in:
desperate to do something to help! I never thought I would make it back onto
the boat. But after several attempts I was thrown against the bobstay.
Scrambling to stand up on it I had clung desperately to the bowsprit; and the
next crashing wave, unbelievably, tossed me above it and deposited me onto the
deck in a daze. I made my way along the shore my mind a whirl of confusion.
I reached the hut. Outside it I found an
old man, sitting cross-legged on a mat, saying his prayers with a string of
beads; he must be a Muslim, I thought. Although we could not communicate,
except by facial expressions and hand gestures, he spoke no French only his
native tongue, he seemed to understand everything I said. For he immediately
got up and came with me back to our stranded vessel. But what could he do? As
he watched our desperate attempts to save our little sloop he realized his
inability to help us; except to point inland, that we should go there for help;
then he went back down the beach shaking his head.
Early morning, and the sun was already
hot. We were exhausted, but driven relentlessly to try every means we could. We
didn’t rest for a moment. Hermann put on his diving gear and weight belts,
again determined to get the anchor as far out to sea as he could; this time
walking it out. It was a foolhardy decision; one that could have cost him his
life. Everything went wrong. His scuba gear failed; and he had not allowed for
the tremendous undertow. The beach shelved steeply. Within a couple of yards
one couldn’t touch bottom; then about another fifty feet and there it was
again, only waist deep; and then suddenly deep again, beyond that.
He managed to walk the anchor out just
beyond the sandbar, but then got into difficulties. He surfaced; and there were
constant waves breaking over him. I heard him yell. Then I saw him being taken
steadily out to sea. He was drowning. I was quite insane with terror. I thought
he was going to die. I had to do something! Very stupidly I swam out, with no
line, nothing. Quickly realizing it was useless without a rope went back for
one and swam out again. But hearing Hermann’s cries, I lost the rope and began
to panic as I was bowled over and over, tossed in the waves as if in a gigantic
washing machine. I heard no more shouts from him. He was gone. I thought I was
going to drown, too. I surfaced for just a moment, but in that precious moment
saw him further down the shore; and, unbelievably, standing waist deep, and
safe! (He had found a countercurrent.) Almost instantly I was tumbled again.
This time with no breath left I took in water. Everything became surreal. I
even felt quite calm. Then, surprisingly, I feel myself being grabbed. My
sister! My wonderful sister! She had a rope tied round her waist, and suddenly
I was clinging to it. Somehow, with her help, I was being pulled to safety; or
so I thought. Wave after wave, but at last we must have reached the shore.
Lying collapsed and coughing on the beach
I found myself, after awhile, staring at the other end of the rope. It was
lying on the wet sand some distance before a line of a dozen, very tall Wolof
women; African women dressed in long brightly coloured robes of beautiful
colours. I just stared at them. Then I realized that the women hadn’t held the
rope; nor had they moved. They stood impassive like cold statues. But I believed
they were friendly, native people; why wouldn’t they be? In all my twenty-one years
of life I’d had no experience of anything except friendliness from other people.
We were in a desperate situation: so surely they would help us?
I dragged myself to my knees and crawled
up the beach to the dinghy. The three of us just sat there all huddled together
gazing at the sea, and then at our beautiful VOGELFREI stranded like a disorientated whale. But we were all
alive! And to the God whom we thought we didn’t believe in we gave thanks; and
Hermann and I said crazy things to one another.
After awhile we set to and got to work
again.
We brought out another danforth anchor,
and even our little dinghy anchor and more rope. Tied the line to the top of
the mast, by main halyard, and dug in the four anchors high up the beach, to
try to hold her down on her side and stop her from pounding. The sand was like
no other sand I had ever seen! It made a loud squeaking sound with every step!
It had no holding power, being so super fine; for just as I finished digging in
the furthest anchor, the dinghy one, a huge wave tossed VOGELFREI upright, and I was sent flying down the beach hanging on
to the end of that last loose anchor, as the mast sprang up! This happened
several times before we finally succeeded and had the awful pounding
stopped.
Realizing now that there was nothing else
we could do to try to save our boat, our home, we decided to take everything
out that we could, wanting to save as much as possible. And it would help to
make her lighter, too, for when we should eventually pull her off. We still had
great hopes of saving her.
At this point, the local native people
suddenly come to life.
They came to us, then. They began to offer
their help, to carry our things out and up the beach to safety. They helped
themselves to quite a lot, too. …I noticed how extremely deftly they hid things
under their beautiful, voluminous garments; and so innocently, before they went
off and disappeared from sight. My only treasure went that way! My beautiful
wooden hand mirror all intricately carved and beautifully painted and with my
name on it; Hermann had made it for me, only a few months ago, in Innsbruck,
Austria, for my twenty-first birthday.
We dumped everything above the high water
mark; or so we thought. But just as we had gotten everything out, except for
the things screwed on, like the kerosene wall lamps and the clock-barometer, a
native woman ‘told’ us, by her fluent gestures, that the tide would come right
up to our small mountain of possessions! We were so exhausted but we just had
to begin again, to shift all our stuff about another fifty yards further up the
beach. The locals had all disappeared by this time, so we carried everything by
ourselves in the boiling sun. We had to do it in two stages it was so hot. (And
we were certainly well above the high tide line! Unconsciously, I think, we
were still determined to believe the locals were friendly.)
Over our mound of belongings we rigged up
the boat awning, like a tent, using the dinghy’s oars and VOGELFREI’s spare spars, to hold it up. It wasn’t big enough to
cover everything, but at least it would give us some sort of shelter. It was
dark by now and we lit the hurricane lantern. We laid one of the sails down on
the sand, to make a floor to sleep on, and put blankets on that. We didn’t
sleep too well. Too much to think on! Also, enormous, eight inch sand-coloured
ghost crabs crawled all over us, like giant spiders, and kept us awake. They
were disgusting! They made a ghastly clicking and clattering kind of noise; and
they were so transparent they were almost see-through.
Hence their name, I suppose?!
Early the next morning we went down to the
water’s edge to look at poor VOGELFREI.
Hermann decided that it was important to get to Dakar, which we reckoned was
about one hundred kilometers further south, as soon as possible; to get some
sort of tug boat to help tow her off the beach. After sorting and packing our
gear into sail bags, Hermann and my sister left for Dakar; following a little
valley through the sand dunes that seemed to go straight into the interior of
the desert. The holy man had ‘told’ us that the road to Dakar was two
kilometers inland. (Actually, it turned out to be closer to seven or
eight.) So they left with only a quarter
of a gallon of water, and little else. They shouldn’t be long in getting help,
I reasoned. But underneath, I watched
them go wondering if I would ever see them again; and fought off a sense of
abandonment.
As soon as they left, a large group of
native men with a few children turned up, and sat around the entrance to our
makeshift ‘tent.’ Up until now, we had only been visited by the women folk; now
it seemed it was the men’s turn to come and see what the sea had thrown up on
their shores. They stared; and smiled at me, sheepishly. But, oh, how they
stared, at all our belongings! The temptation was too much for them, I suppose.
We must have seemed like Santa Claus to these poor people. That they could
survive here at all, I marveled at; for there was no grass for their animals,
only sand. I remembered seeing an incredibly bony cow tied up to the holy man’s
hut, and thinking, what did it eat? There was not a blade of grass there,
anywhere.
The locals shifted position.
They now made a complete circle around the
awning ‘tent.’ It was as though they had silently devised a system. And it
wasn’t long before they started to take things; when I was looking the other
way. One would dive in, grab something from one side, and as I turned around to
cry out, another would dive in from the other side, and take something. It
worked very well. Our belongings were fast disappearing, on all sides! I guess
we had made it easy for them. We had packed all the loose things conveniently
into easy to carry sail bags. Suddenly all my clothes were gone, save what I
stood up in. And that wasn’t much! (Just a bedraggled purple jumper, that I’d
had since I was fifteen, and a tiny flowery mini skirt, that had once been a
bathroom curtain!) And then all the other’s clothes went! Then all our wet
weather gear! Next, all the galley things went off, in yet another sail
bag!
Hermann had loaded the revolver for me
before leaving. Never dreaming that I would ever have to use it! But now it
flooded my mind that he had told me to watch over our things; and so,
‘obediently,’ I went and found the gun, and sat with it in my hand at the
entrance; tremblingly guarding our dwindling pile of possessions! But they only
laughed at my gun. Until I fired ‘at them,’ that is! Then they ran off like
frightened rabbits. (They didn’t know then that I was a terrible shot!) But they soon came back. And for three days
they tormented me with their grinning faces and thieving hands. Had I four
pairs of eyes still I could not have guarded and saved everything they were
that clever.
It was now late in the afternoon.
Hermann and my sister had been gone all
day. I wondered if they’d found the road yet, and reached Dakar? I started to
feel ill. Dizzy and faint. Then I realized I hadn’t eaten anything. Not since
before we were thrown up on the beach: …my ill-fated cheese sandwich at 1:15am
this morning! But I had plenty of water with me under the awning shelter; all
in convenient 10 litre jerry cans; for we had no inbuilt water tanks on VOGELFREI. As I looked around I noticed
that the box beside me, where I sat guarding our dwindling hoard of possessions
was full of tinned sardines; though no tin opener, of course: that had gone in
the sail bag with all our galley stuff! But, curiously, I found a small tin of
ham in it that didn’t need one. I ‘unzipped’ it, and ate it all hungrily. (The
sardines - from Hermann’s last
voyage to Canada - were all in basic
tins, which had no key to ‘unzip’ them. I didn’t realize it at the time, but
his one little tin of ham was the only food I had. All the rest of our stores
must have gone earlier in the day; for when I eventually looked around I could
find nothing. I only hoped they would enjoy it all!)
Idly, I put the two halves of the empty
ham tin together, and put it just outside the entrance of the awning.
Immediately some children amongst the group grabbed it and fought for
possession of it. I was amazed. It was only an empty tin! But it wasn’t that
they were hungry, I observed, but that it was something they had no knowledge
of; for they turned it over in their hands puzzling over it, as though they had
never seen such an object before.
The sun sank lower.
A lull came with the ending of day; and,
as if at a given signal, the group got up and disappeared; leaving me alone.
The sun set in a glorious sky and a cooler breeze came. I sat still and quiet.
In a kind of mesmerized fear, I stared down the beach at our dying yacht hardly
daring to entertain a thought of what would become of us. My senses were all numb.
And it seemed as if the whole world was, too, and wrapped in a protecting
cushion of nothingness. Apart from the constant roar and tumble of the waves,
there was no sound or movement.
But suddenly I looked up. There was the
holy man! I stared at him, and as though seeing him for the first time. He was
tall and thin, and wearing a long colourless gown that reached to his feet. He
was standing before me with a rolled up mat under one arm and a shallow,
orange-coloured wooden bowl in his other hand. A small boy was with him, close
at his side. The man bowed gracefully, and he offered me the bowl. Gratefully I
accepted it, and drank thirstily. It was a thin kind of milk, but comforting
for the love with which it was given.
The man unrolled his mat, sat down
cross-legged on it, and began his prayers with a string of amber beads; the
little boy, whom I supposed to be his grandson, beside him. And then, all at
once, it dawned on me: this man had come to guard me! Tears of relief stung in
my eyes. I was not alone. For a little while fear left me and I could breathe
again.
All night the holy man stayed seated
outside the entrance of my ‘tent,’ awake and alert. Inside, I also sat awake.
Sleep was impossible. Huge ghost crabs were crawling everywhere! I lit the red
hurricane lantern, set it on the box beside me, and turned it up as high as it
would go. The light seemed to make the ghastly clattering crabs, keep their
distance! I stayed huddled beside it; my thoughts full of confusion: for I
wasn’t much more than a spoilt child, and I didn’t know how I ought to order my
thinking, or how to behave, how not to panic? But gradually, through the long
nights that I was there, the shadow of the man ‘taught’ me. It was as though an
ancient grace was in him, born of adversity, suffering and pain; and, all
unknowingly I was imbibing something of it.
In the middle of the night, in the deepest
dark I suddenly became aware of the holy man standing before me, beckoning to
me to come out. I could see that he was anxious: wanting to warn me of some
danger. He motioned to me to bring my revolver. Once outside the entrance, he
pointed up to the sand dunes behind our makeshift ‘tent.’ I gasped. There,
silently zigzagging down the huge dunes towards me, closing in for the kill,
were dozens of dark figures. The holy man motioned for me to raise my revolver.
Some inner instinct told me that the sound of a gun at night is extra loud and
frightening. So I lifted the revolver high, and I fired into the air. The
effect was electrifying! The deafening noise worked. Immediately the men turned
about and went zigzagging as fast as they could back up the sand dunes, in case
I should fire again; but one bullet was enough. They did not return - that night. Once more I was saved
from any harm.
At dawn the holy man was again standing
before me with the orange-coloured bowl. He bowed as he handed it to me; and
again I drank thankfully. I hadn’t seen him leave. I must have slept
eventually: exhausted. And here he was again with the milk; only it wasn’t so
thin this time. He watched me drink, and after I handed the bowl back to him,
smiling my thanks, he left; and I was alone again.
As the sun rose, and the heat came, the
people returned; and yesterday’s performance began all over again. As I was
turned one way, one or two of them would dive in, grab a bag or box of our
stuff, and run off. As I turned to shout, and to point the gun at them this
time, two others would grab something from behind me, and take off with it.
Twice I ventured outside the entrance of the awning, and fired the gun; aiming
wide to miss hitting them; and then they all ran away for awhile! Some of them,
I noticed, were walking along the high tops of the dunes behind my ‘tent.’ It
looked like they had emptied out one of the sail bags, and were playing with
its contents: our diving gear! Through all my tension and fear, I suddenly
laughed! For I saw our flippers waving
in the air, on their hands! And our snorkels, they had like tobacco pipes the
wrong way round in their mouths!
I went back inside. I sat down at my place
beside the tinned sardine box and looked around. Our small pile of possessions
was remarkably depleted. Though inwardly I didn’t care too much myself about
earthly paraphernalia, depression entered. I wondered how much more they would
take, before they took me! And what would they do with me? Once they had taken
everything, and there was nothing left, what would become of me? Would they
just leave me here, to die, alone? Where were Hermann and my sister? Why didn’t
they send help, and fetch me away from this dreadful desert? What was
going to happen to me? I didn’t
want to die, I was too young!
Suddenly I jumped up, and ran out. I hung
on to one of the boat’s spars holding up the ‘tent’ and lifted an agonized
voice to the sky, and like the spoilt child that I was, raged at God. I gave
him a hard time. ‘God, how could you do
this to me?’ This was all, his fault! …Strange, that I should address God,
as a person even, when I didn’t believe in him, and whose very existence I
thought I denied; but… He was going to
let me die! I collapsed on the
sand, and sobbed bitterly! Then, as is common with us contrary creatures, I
begged and pleaded with him, that if I had to perish here, please don’t let it
be too painful! (I was already dreadfully hungry!) ...Strange, too, how we blame
God when things go wrong; we charge him for our mistakes, use his name as a
swear word, and then ask him to help us!!
It wasn’t long before the locals returned
and began their thieving pattern again. Once more they were seated in a circle
round the awning. Hovering like vultures, waiting for the prey to die.
Suddenly, like lightening, I turned around, and caught one of them taking the
transistor radio. This was our last! They had already taken the other one.
Nerves stretched to the limit, I leaped up, and in a fury, I pointed the gun at
the man’s chest; my finger on the trigger. The poor guy he was terrified, and
immediately dropped the radio and ran away! I dropped into my place beside the
sardine box again; and groaned inside. Would I kill someone for a stupid radio?
Of course not! Suddenly I hated the gun. Let them kill me! I could not hurt
anyone!
I was astonished. I couldn’t really
believe it. But, somehow, there was love in me for these precious people. They
were obviously desperately poor they had nothing they probably needed these
things, these few pathetic possessions of ours. If I should survive…if I should
ever get out of here, alive…somehow I would get whatever I needed again; but these people? I don’t think they have shops in
the Sahara Desert! And even if they did, they probably didn’t have any money,
anyway. They hadn’t even known what tins were!
And so I mused with my conscience tossing
things over with myself; there was plenty of time to! But soon the plundering
began again. They were not frightened off for long. And this time, I was about
to face one of the most terrifying things that anybody could ever experience;
and yet, learn, the wonderful truth that all merciful acts will reap mercy
somewhere along the line.
The thieving began to get bolder. They
hardly even waited now for me to turn the other way before jumping in and
taking something from behind me. I think they were finally realizing that this
little white girl was perfectly harmless. She was not a very good shot! Her gun
didn’t hurt them! Then one of biggest men who seemed to be as a leader amongst
them suddenly stood up, and came straight towards me, through the entrance of
my shelter. Frightened, my heart pounding, I scrambled to get up. Then stood
still, facing him. The tall, expressionless man walked slowly in towards me. I
aimed the gun at him, level with his stomach, but he just kept on walking, very
slowly, nearer and nearer to me. All at once, he stepped forward, quickly
grabbed the revolver out of my hand, and with sudden force pushed me over. I
fell against the box, hit my head, and then fell onto the sand. He looked at me
lying there on the ground, and for one never to be forgotten moment stood with
his arm stretched out, pointing my gun at me. My heart stopped. I just couldn’t
breathe. For in a flash I recollected that I had used only four bullets; that
meant there would be two left; he couldn’t miss with two bullets! And from a distance of two metres! After a moment,
that seemed endless, he suddenly turned on his heels, and fled.
Once again, just like yesterday, as the
interminable hours passed and the hot burning sun finally lowered, the natives
who had remained after their ‘leader’ fled, all sort of evaporated; and I was
left alone.
I felt strangely calm.
I should have been even more terrified,
after losing my revolver, and falling over. I vaguely hurt somewhere, and felt
dizzy. But I found myself wondering where they went. So, foolishly I decided to
follow in the direction in which I thought they had left.
Over the rise, beyond the high dunes
behind my makeshift shelter, I saw a group of small round huts, made of sticks
and straw; a messy sort of place. The huts looked similar to the holy man’s
hut, but his had been the only one in his patch, which was in the opposite
direction. I don’t think I saw anyone; but, suddenly ‘coming to,’ remembering
that they now had the revolver I quickly returned to my shelter. The terror had
returned.
But I had a plan.
If help should ever come - if someone should ever come and
rescue me - then I would need the
necessities of life as a sailor and traveler in this world: our passports; and
our ship’s papers; and a couple of other documents that we’d be hard pressed to
replace, if they were lost. So, as fast as I could, I stuffed these items - which had been in a small canvas bag
under my sitting place by the box -
into a small rucksack beside me and took off down the beach to the holy man’s
hut. I would ask him to hide it in his hut, so as these important things would
be safe. For, surely, there would soon be nothing left for them to take from
me, and they would find these things…and probably use them to light their
fires.
When I reached his home there was no one
around. So I bent down to enter the little door hole, then stood up inside,
awestruck. There in the middle of the sand floor was a Victorian iron bedstead
with shiny brass knobs! And nothing else! However did it get there? His elderly wife was inside, and she greeted
me most hospitably, but I hardly saw her. I just stared all around me. There
was nothing there at all, except that old-fashioned, brass and iron bed!
After an astonished moment, I looked at
the walls of the hut. On the top of its circular wall, where the conical roof
met it, there was a little narrow shelf; and there, there were a few simple
items; but, oh, they had so little! I turned back to the old woman beside me
and indicated that I wanted her to hide my rucksack…under her bed, please! The
safest place. The only place! Then I turned and went out through the little
door opening, and ran back up the beach to my shelter. And there, it struck me,
how little I had, too!
It, also, sunk in, all at once, that I had
been left behind, to guard our possessions. Me!
…Guard?! What a good job I had done of that! Most of it had, gone! And yet this instruction remained
foremost in my mind. I had to do it, somehow.
At sunset the holy man and his little
grandson came again. Once more, and in his usual manner, he offered me his bowl
of milk, almost creamy now, then sat down on his mat outside and said his
silent prayers all night, while the little child slept at his side. Terrified,
and yet glad in a way, that I had lost the revolver, I hunted through the few
things which were left, for the rifle. I just had to do something! (Having
served in the American army for two years Hermann understood guns and had a
little armoury stashed away in the boat…Once he had tried to teach me about his
firearms; but I was so useless he gave up!) And now as I sat beside the useless
tinned sardines, and lighted our one remaining hurricane lantern, I was hugging
the rifle to me, tight!
Of course, I knew it was hopeless, quite
futile, really - but I reckon people
do these sorts of things under such circumstances - because, oh, I had had difficulties with that thing earlier! It
was a .22 rifle…whatever that means? I knew very little about it, other than
that you had to pull out a long brass rod and put little bullets into it. But
in my frightened state I had dropped the rod or the rifle in the sand, I don’t
remember which, and the sand had got inside it…and I couldn’t load it…and so it
was, useless. I was just about ready to sob, I was already crying, when
suddenly I figured out that it might prove helpful to just stand at my shelter
entrance with it, and wave it around, menacing like! They wouldn’t know it
wasn’t loaded; at least not for a little while!
Again, I didn’t sleep. I sat close to the
brightly burning hurricane lantern. At least that precious and comforting light
kept the torment of the ghost crabs away. But would the natives attempt to come
back in the dark; like they did last night? They had seen that ridiculous rifle
in my hands, just as they were leaving before sunset. Would the memory of that
new gun keep them at bay, I wondered? Whether it did, or didn’t, I don’t know.
But at least one, especially clever one of them must have come back in the
darkness; for an unheard of thing happened that night; one which has no
explanation. I know that it happened. But how could it? It was impossible!
I don’t know what time it was. I no longer
owned a watch. But I knew it was late into the night: I could see the dim
outline of the holy man seated on his mat, his head bent forward; and yet, I
knew he was on guard. He was praying to his God: so I should try to sleep. But
I was far too frightened. I was leaning against the box which made for a little
table for the hurricane lantern to sit on, with my arm resting on the ‘table,’
and the red lantern not more than six inches from me. There it was, shining out
its comforting light; it was my ‘friend:’ a ‘friend in need.’ I was watching it
and its steady but flickering glow. Then it wasn’t there. …No warning. No
noise. No dimming or spluttering. No sound. No movement. …No hurricane lantern!
I reached out for it; my hand sweeping my
little ‘table.’ But it wasn’t there! I kept feeling for it; for I couldn’t
believe that it couldn’t be there! Then I stood up in the darkness; all the
darker now, for having been so suddenly plunged into it, and felt everywhere on
the sand floor for it. But it was just not, anywhere. I never saw that lantern
again.
After a ghastly crab-filled night came,
hope with the dawn and my comforting bowl of warm milk. How faithful, how kind
this silent ancient holy man, bowing to me as he handed me his offering, each
morning, and evening. He wouldn’t stay during the daytime; I supposed he had to
take his cow somewhere, to find something for it to eat. He would always smile
faintly at me, before he left. I think he truly believed that God would answer
his prayers! Oh, but when would that be? And the day got worse and worse;
before its wonderful end.
The locals, bolder than ever now, were
climbing all over our poor, stranded VOGELFREI
cutting off and taking away her every rope, sheet and line from her rigging.
Maybe, they needed them for tethering their animals? They took away all the
anchor lines, too, that had been holding her down to stop her from pounding in
the waves at high tide. Then, they started to smash at her timbers with hefty
clubs. Wood must be scarce here? They must need it. For however did they find
enough wood for their cooking fires in a desert, I wondered? We were the only
driftwood for miles around. But in my crazy sense of responsibility in my given
role as a ‘guard,’ this was the last straw! I ran out towards them shouting and
brandishing my rifle! They were destroying our home right before my eyes!
But, of course, they took not the
slightest bit of notice of me! And I went back to my shelter, to ‘guard’ that.
Again, to no avail. But later, sometime after what I reckoned was the noon hour
they all left; and that was the last I ever saw of them.
I wondered if it had been that fleet of
helicopters…with the royal looking insignias on their sides that had flown
south, parallel with the beach yesterday…or was it the day before? Perhaps
those helicopter pilots had reported a strange sight on the beach? ‘…SHIPWRECKED vessel. Mad girl on beach.
Jumping up and down. Waving her arms, in front of some weird looking ‘tent!’
But as it turned out it wasn’t the ‘royal’ helicopters that reported me.
Anyway, late into the afternoon of my third day of being alone and stranded on
this desert shore, I was rescued.
Hanging on to a spar - at the entrance of my now practically empty dilapidated shelter,
feeling more dead than alive - I
suddenly noticed a tiny dot in the distance; and it was moving closer. A
vehicle? Driving along the beach at low tide? Help? Surely, it must be help
coming. But could it really be? It was hard to believe. Or, was it just too
good to be true and I was hallucinating? Then eventually, as it drew to a stop
beside the battered VOGELFREI, and
two men got out, strength returned and I literally flew down the beach and
threw myself into their arms. Americans! Wonderful, blonde Americans! …From
some peace organization; or so I thought, in a large four wheel drive Land
Rover. Rescued! …I wasn’t going to die!!
I think they were a bit embarrassed at my
warm welcome! But all was well. The holy man’s prayers were indeed answered!
Love always prays to the ‘right’ God, even if we all give him very different
names, and not always polite ones!! (And, as I found out, later, he was always
with me in Jesus whether I ranted and raved, or believed in him or not; and I
grew to love him, intimately; and he thought I was alright!)
‘The Americans’ eventually - the next day - for we had to stay in a little village that night, as it was so
late, drove me to the British Embassy in Dakar, where Hermann and my sister
were. Oh, but after having taken me to the police station first! Apparently I
was an illegal alien!! We were in the country illegally: having landed and
unloaded without permission from Customs and Immigration. They couldn’t seem to
understand that we hadn’t intended ‘to land.’ And that despite my inability to
explain we actually were shipwrecked sailors!
And, of course, Hermann and my sister had
their own story of peril, overcome. They had both nearly died of heat
exhaustion and lack of water on their very long trek inland through the
scorching desert. But they did eventually come to a rough road; and, lo and
behold, an ancient rattle-trap bus stopped for them and took them into the city
of Dakar; approximately 100km south of where we had ‘landed.’
They had gone straight to the Port of
Dakar to try to hire a vessel to sail up the coast to tow VOGELFREI off the beach; but they were unsuccessful. While there,
though, they met a helpful German man who owned and operated an international
business based in Senegal. This man had radio telephoned one of his Land Rover
drivers and commissioned them to drive north about 65km, and from there to
drive along the beach, told to look for a stranded yacht and a girl alone.
…And, needless to say, they found me!
Sometime later we went back with these
men, in the same Land Rover, to see if we could retrieve anything from our
boat. But she was all staved in on her port side; a huge gaping hole; and
inside she was full of sand. Astonishingly, her whole interior had been
completely stripped away, to just bare ribs and frames, by the locals. …Hungry
for firewood? Even her brass portholes
had been taken. …So they had screwdrivers? I tried to imagine brass portholes
set into stick and straw huts!
Anyway, we said our tearful goodbyes to the
wreck of the good ship VOGELFREI: our
trustworthy 28ft (Chesapeake Bay) Friendship Sloop, whom we had betrayed by our
bad seamanship; but she had been a brilliant partner with us in real friendship
and right to her end.
My sister, to whom I owe my life, flew
back to Wales to help our father sail his yacht, CYMRO, to New Zealand. Hermann and I ended up living en plein air: in the open air, for eight
months. At the back of the maintenance yard of a, posh French yacht club in
Dakar. We lived behind a bougainvillea hedge on the open verandah of a long
storage shed, while we built a new boat on the beach, right on the high tide
line, beneath the shade of seven coconut trees, below the yacht club’s stone
parapet terrace. And from where we were gazed down upon by beautifully dressed,
French colonials, sipping Martinis from crystal glasses thinking we were quite
mad! And then, unbelievably, sailing away ‘in
that thing!’ “…Oh, la, la! …C’est formidable!”
They were very good to us.
But, yes, we surprised them all. We two
crazy hippies on the beach below them built a little Howard Chappell,
“Sharpie;” a 32ft. Chinese Junk rigged schooner…right under their noses!
Hard pressed for materials we had to think
creatively. We found two telephone poles, for the two masts. Cut bamboo from
one of the yacht club’s hedges, for the sail ‘slats;’ and sewed some salvaged
30yr old canvas into two mainsails. The rotten canvas was marvelous! We didn’t
need to reef. The trade winds soon turned our sails into colanders that
strained out any excess wind!
While I was helping Hermann build the boat
I got pregnant and had a baby; and when the baby was four months old we set
sail for wide horizons south.
We cruised the Gambia River -- where though Gambia is right in the
middle of Senegal, they speak English --
being an ex-British Colony --
fearlessly visiting, unvisited native tribes, before returning to Dakar to
prepare for our voyage across the Atlantic. And, again, with no nothing! No
engine, no electronic gadgets, and no means of communication with the outside world;
(…insane; we should probably have been locked up ;) and this is only a short list
of the things we didn’t have.
But we actually made it to the States in
that ‘junk.’ To Florida. Sailing through the Cape Verde Islands…in the midst of
a civil war…(so we didn’t stop)…and on across the Atlantic Ocean. Losing both
dagger boards on the way. One the first day. The other, the next. Then were
nearly losing a wildly swaying, un-stayed foremast, while hanging onto a broken
and lashed tiller feeding the baby and washing his nappies, by trolling them
behind in a fishnet, as we surfed down the waves with both sails now holed like
a cheese grater. All the while knowing it was impossible to turn back against
the wind in a boat that was coming to pieces.
Then we were nearly getting shipwrecked
again in the mangroves off the mouth of the Oronoco River in South America; but
making a safe landfall in Cayenne, French Guiana, 17 days after leaving Dakar;
average speed 7 knots. (We never hit the Doldrums.) And after repairing all the
broken things there, sailing on for months on end, through the sky-blue Caribbean Sea…guided by
dolphins…daily swimming with sharks…trying to catch something to eat…we had no
money. And so on, and so forth. And I actually survived five astonishing years with
Hermann and lived to tell the tale.
And now I understood why I was so afraid
of waves. Oh, those breakers of the Sahara Desert.
And now I, also, understood why you should
never build a boat with polyester resin for glue: it doesn’t ‘stick.’ That was
why everything fell to pieces on the Atlantic crossing. (We hadn’t been able to
get any epoxy.)
All in all
we made that voyage ‘by the skin of our teeth!’
*
*
These
are the titles of the next three ‘ragged’
writings of Amethyst Poetry:
Stretching
Beckoning
A Yellow Leaf
Flair
Flair
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