Cape Verde receded into the past. We were now headed for Brazil.
For four days we steadily ploughed our way across the Atlantic through the calm of the doldrums. The sea was spread out like a skein of billowing silk and our bow cut through it like a ploughshare cutting sods. Ships used to become marooned in this placed but our fifty year old diesel engines throbbed as they powered on relentlessly into a rhythm to which I had become accustomed.
I had all the time in the world. There were no chores and no internet. I walked the deck for exercise as it gently pitched, I read with my feet up on the rail and broke off to gaze out over the endless sea. I went to lectures on the wild-life or social/political situations in South America. But mostly I stood at the bow in my shorts, T-shirt and sandals and stared out, partially in hopes of seeing wild-life, but mostly because it was mesmerising. The sun was scorching and tropical and the breeze from the ship’s steady 15 knots was cooling. Ahead it was unbroken. The nearest land was hundreds of miles away, there wasn’t a ship in sight. Behind we were leaving a trail that stretched off to the horizon. I imagined it as a long elongating snake stretching back to that bay in Mindelo.
Occasionally we would see whale blows, a pod of dolphins would check us out and have a leap through our bow-wave or a leatherback turtle would drift past raising its head out of the water to gaze at us with those reptilian eyes. I was quite shocked to find how little life there was. Once life used to teem and now it was a rarity.
Sometimes I would lie in the hot Jacuzzi on the top deck with my floppy hat, sunglasses and suncream, under the blazing sun with a beer in hand.
In the evening it was good to check out the sunset as it sank slowly into the sea.
Late at night I would go out on to the deck all alone and stand at the front with the warm breeze ruffling my hair. The ship’s lights were behind me and the moon shone brightly leaving a bar of shimmering light across the sea. The stars filled the sky with the Milky Way like a thick wisp of smoke in a band above my head. I felt all alone. As I looked around I knew that we were about as alone as you could get on this planet – no land for days and the nearest ship well out of sight beyond the horizon. It gave me a sense of what it must have been like thousands of years in the past for those early men before the machine of civilisation was created. I felt an affinity.
Of course there would have been a lot more wild-life back then.
I watched flying fish for hours. The scooted out of the way of our bow-wave fleeing the huge metal predator bearing down on them. Singly or in swarms they would scud out across the waves for hundreds of metres before plunging back down. I found them fascinating.
Behind me was Europe, England, Spain, Gran Canaria and Cape Verde, ahead was Brazil, Argentina, the Falklands, Uruguay and Chile.
I knew what was behind me and I could smell what was to come. It smelt like adventure.
Alone to take it all in, to breathe what this World had to offer you, alone so peaceful with thoiughts
Alone to breathe in all this World had to offer you, alone with your thoughts of what it had been like what you were seeing. An Adventure ahead of you, and for the years to come the memories of all you had seen and all you would do.
Did you give any talks, did you discuss your books with the rest of the people on board, I can imagine how well you did.
Ps. If you get a load of crap before the above, I don’t know what I did wrong I am not technically minded like you, I am just me.
Just seen it, ignore first few lines, I mess up everything.
No – not everything. We all mess up occasionally. Those that don’t mess up don’t do anything.
Nicely put.
I talk very little about my books to people. Most are not interested. But I met a few very interesting people and made a few friends. It was more the serenity and peace, the beauty and wild-life and the adventure.
I love to travel. It’s almost as good as writing.
You should talk about your books to people, you know how good you are, you draw people in. To have all that serenity and peace and to see all you did, I envy you, as you say all that nature and beauty – wildlife that may not be there one day, look at what has already gone. “Opher, One Final Adventure?” there you go a title for a new book!
I think I’m already ahead of you – I’ve started on a book called ‘The Death Diaries’. It’s the diary of my death. It’s alright I’m not suffering from any terrible disease that I know of. Death is the final taboo. I thought I’d start recording my views, attitudes and slide into death from a perspective of my life now. It’s the final adventure.
I am not sure that I could write about my death to come, I know people who are ill some do to help others. My husband’s death I could write about but the memories are still so bad so No. You don’t know what’s ahead it’s like you are planning your death, that’s deep.
It’s not so much planning as recording the experience. The seeds are there. All I need to do is start from here. I’m already twenty pages in. We’ll see. It may wither on the vine. It may develop.
You are so clever, times you just confuse me, maybe it’s me but Good luck anyway
Cheers Anna. Death is interesting isn’t it?
You allow us to share the moment which looks back and forward – exhilarating!
Cheers Dave. I’m glad it is connecting.
You learn something everyday. I did NOT know there were really flying fish! 😮
There are millions of them!
Reblogged this on Opher's World and commented:
A beautiful calm.
Omg so many fish!!
Yes. South America was not quite so ravaged as the rest of the world.