The story goes that I sailed across one of craziest, busiest traffic lanes in the world, in the China seas, in a hundred-year-old copper riveted sailboat, thirty seven feet long, fitted for snapper fishing, built out of kauri wood, in New Zealand, around 1894. With Australian born Jill, the Captain, and the crew with Gordon, my Geminian Canadian American Mate, and Jack, the Cat, formerly known as Shark Bait and fond on feeding on flying fish. And myself, the author.
Three full days, two nights and we almost died.
The boat’s name was Cooee, a loud thoughtful call that might conquer over distances, in Australia. We practiced the calling singing on board.
So, as I continue to remember it –
Jill appeared one day in Kuching, a port city in the island of Borneo, in Eastern Malaysia. We were there for one of Gordon’s training projects, she had sailed down from Kota Kinabalu, traveling south from China, with thoughts of going further south and circumnavigating, towards the west. We loved her instantly, I felt at ease, Gordon met a sailing spirit. So, she asked us if we wanted to join her on Cooee for the crossing from Kuching, in Eastern Malaysia to Singapore… Three days sailing, crossing some major shipping and trade routes, retracing Marco Polo, reinventing the wheel! Who could have said no?
What I love about this story is how the fuller unknown memories continue to float back. An entire day searching for the right Jill, we kept in touch for quite a while, but I had lost track of her. Yes, she did go around the world, eventually, always in solo sailing…! Then she went back to her native Australia, studied literature and writing for many years and wrote a book! 1
Back to then and to the voyage. I do not recall the exact provisioning for the trip. We went to the difficult and glorious Kuching main market many times… there where they roasted butterflied piglets and bats, where you could survive on delicious fruit alone.
Then we board Cooee, a gorgeous wooden vessel, pleasing in lines, in comfort, in the way the captain had rearranged the cockpit to create a sitting lounge area, when at port. I had very little ocean sailing, like a half hour once, plenty of sudden summer afternoon storms and a few years of Chesapeake Bay knowledge. Jill had traveled and lived on board for many years. Gordon never quite claimed mastery, as it was his way, but he was ok with ocean waves… they were both highly skilled natural sailors, I still a beginner.
When I trace the maps now I see that we were crossing a tiny portion of the worlds’ waters. It felt like the enormity of the universe, though, then! Green waters, fishing boats, the farewell at the Kuching dock, with friends and fishermen in attendance.
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We were barely out of the Kuching River and starting to cross the channel. We had safely sailed through the scary floating logs. Magnificent trees, three- or four-hundred-year-old, they slip off barges, slide off down the rivers and float, semi submerged… Borneo Forest logs cut off for progress, not yet manufactured for the pleasures of patios, decomposing slowly in the waters.
I asked Jill, what do we do, if we hit a tree? Well, we do… we are only sailors…
Cooee develops a problem with the boom, the self-steering gear. The captain climbs up the mast and offers that we continue the voyage with a jury-rigged boom.
Jack the cat catches flying fish and tosses his catch easily down below, on to our bunks, of course!
I am on deck, but I am nowhere, staring intently on to the horizon, the sun, navigating the impossible puking off balance… mind over matter, then diving with closed eyes down and finding my bunk and a place for some sleep.
Not exempt from the night watches, I come prepared with a slim book of poetry, Fernando Pessoa’s writings. Both Jill and Gordon advise me from their experiences, that night watches are sometimes eased by the reciting of poems, out loud, in memory or otherwise.
Jill gives us a crash course on ship lights and sounds… so far, we have not yet entered the main South China Seas shipping lanes.
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But we had already sailed by what I imagine was a refueling station, at least one city block long platform, fully lighted in the darkness of sailing at night. Flabbergasted, thrown aside. Not one person, not one self in there, in that vastness. Human milking of the oceans in the middle of what I sometimes felt it was the Sacred Nowhere… an atoll in darkness, no moonlight, in the middle of the vast oceans.
It was still my watch, from midnight to four. The ship lights, faraway, told us of their intentions, it was a deep exercise in serious attention. Hundreds of lights, low and high, bright white red and green. Ships can average 25 knots at sea, we made at least 8 knots. Things shift fast.
One distant light kept bringing me unease, then a crossed, green and red, straight at us, still very faraway, but at us. I woke them up, come on up, guys, we are, I think, in trouble.
We were. The systems on board were the right systems, there was a two-way radio but no fancy electronics. We were steering away, towards the right, as fast as we could, knowing that it might not be fast enough. Knowing that big cargo ships that measure 400 meters do not even have the power to see a tiny 10 meter wooden sailboat…
We threw out distress flares. Towards the end, as a last resort we had all flashlights shining on to the sails, back and forth. Yelling, here! We are here!
All three of us, confirmed atheists, and maybe even Jack the cat, said farewell to each other, said and I remember this so clearly – yes, it is a good life and I love you all.
Yes!
One loud ship blast and he turned away!
I do not remember the wake, and I am sure there was one. We landed safely in Singapore in the afternoon of the third day. Before clearing customs we decided we deserved a meal and a cold brew at a local marina. Jack jumped ship and tried to follow us. When we came back, a few hours later, the tide was coming in and we found him hanging with all his claws to the bobstay of a very tall sailboat, where 10 yapping corgi dogs protested his presence. It took us quite a while to clean his body of the oily Singaporean harbor waters.
We cleared customs, my most prized passport entry! we went to the Raffles Hotel, drank a few Singaporean slings, in honor of Ava Gardner, Somerset Maugham and Rudyard Kipling, I got my ears pierced at Tang’s department store, for the first time, at forty some, in honor of the need for freedoms of expression.
Now I ask myself why I want to post this? Well, it brings me great joy, I can say I told you so to the one who doubts and I can settle down a bit about fears of the future. All I need to do is remember, creatively, that I am the tale…and it is inevitably better when I pay attention…
Appropriately called “Navigating the edges.”A book review here - https://goodoldboat.com/navigating-the-edge-book-review/
Wow, Erica!! Except for the obvious near-death experience -- I truly can't imagine the terror of a ship like that bearing down on a small sailboat! -- I hardly know where to begin with all the other delicious details you've mixed into the batter of this story. Roasted bats? Rogue trees? Reciting poetry to pass the hours on the night watch, and...Jill! I looked her up, and it looks like she's Queensland. Have you been back in touch?
That was a fun story; I'm glad that you made it across and wrote the story.