Whoever Fears the Sea, Justin Fox [i love reading .TXT] 📗

CHAPTER 9

Fayswal wallowed uncomfortably as they changed course. Gybing is a precarious manoeuvre on a dhow, calling for the yard to be swung around the front of the mast. Shekh stood on the bucking foredeck, feet apart on each rail, trying to keep his balance. The yardarm was raised, its foot pulled back by hand until it was almost vertical, then flipped on to the other side of the mast. At the same time, the main sheet was carried in a coil around the front of the yard. It was a tricky business, neatly handled by the crew. Gybing completed, the dhow headed for open sea.

They were sailing tingi, off the wind, in a considerable swell which saw Fayswal pitching and rolling exaggeratedly. Once clear of the reefs and sandbanks, they turned north, and took the swells on the starboard quarter, occasionally riding them — to the delight of everyone on board. Despite feeling awkward with the crew, Paul was beginning to enjoy himself. Now and then, a bigger crest would lift the vessel and lob it into a trough, creaming a tall bow wave that had the men cheering. At such moments, they took water over both weather and leeward rails. Kijoka, the youngest on board and general dogsbody-cum-galley slave, was set to work bailing between the ribs with a plastic container. If they ran out of food or got stranded on a desert isle, Kijoka would be the first to be eaten. Or was it non-believing kafirs first, and thus Paul?

An anchored dhow being tossed about in the swell appeared on the horizon. As Fayswal drew closer, they could see a group of men fishing with hand lines. Omar was at the helm and bore off to pass within hailing distance. Greetings were called and fish held aloft. Then the dhow was lost behind a rolling wall of blue; when it emerged again, it was out of shouting range.

The rocky headland of Ras Ngomeni stood out grey to the north. Beyond it lay a line of coral outcrops and Omar steered for deeper water. Past Ngomeni, Fayswal crossed the wide mouth of Ungwana Bay. They were far offshore now, cruising on a longer, undulating swell.

Biscuits were passed around and Paul managed to get chatting to some of the men. ‘How stable are these dhows, I mean, in rough seas?’ he asked Omar, who sat peering at the shore from beneath a ragged peak cap, the uneven tufts of his beard blowing in the wind.

‘Not too bad. Mmm, sometimes not so good.’ He spoke sparingly, as though his words were knots tied in a rope.

‘Do they ever capsize?’

‘Mmm, sometimes. In the winter Kusi, when the wind is strong, they go over. Some sink. Some float. The men hang on to drums. Maybe cut free the mast, try to swim to shore. If they’re not too far. Some make it across the reef to the beach. Alive. Look, that’s Zeboma Reef over there,’ he said, pointing across the port bow. ‘Very dangerous.’

Paul’s eye traced a line of breakers. It was difficult to see where the white horses ended and the more serious combers, raking across shallow coral, began. He imagined an unsuspecting dhow heading into that maw at night, how quickly the keel would be ripped out by the knife-edged reef. Suddenly there would be men in the water, and shouting, and black waves detonating on coral.

‘The elders always warn about Zeboma,’ said Omar.

For most of the year, Omar explained, the current was from the south. Sometimes it swept fishermen out to sea. Ngalawas from as far as Zanzibar would be found drifting, with only the desiccated remains of their crew aboard. However, there was an offshore current from the north at this time of year, so northbound vessels tried to hug the coast, bringing them perilously close to Zeboma’s razors.

The swells shortened and sharpened as Fayswal shaved past. Everyone had eyes only for the reef until they were well clear.

The morning drifted by. Fayswal clipped along in a shallow sea, a line of surf crumbling over coral to port, a firm blue horizon to starboard. Husni and Kijoka rigged a makeshift awning to provide shade. Flying fish leapt from the waves, looking surprised at being briefly transmogrified into birds. Paul sat leaning against the mast, scribbling notes. He loved the way he could feel the mast moving in its seat. There was play in everything on boats like Fayswal, where rope, canvas and wood all had give. This pliability gave the vessel life, allowing it to flex and respond to the water.

Watching the crew work, Paul mused about the pioneering Portuguese and the Swahili sailors they encountered. There would have been so many similarities between crews and boats. Life on board would have followed identical rhythms, with the same jokes and stories about women, food and the incompetent chef, about reaching port safely and seeing loved ones again; the same endless diagnosis of wind and water, or how to squeeze another half knot from their lateen rigs. That abandoned laughter, echoing across the water … was it Henrique and José or Omar and Shekh? Those hands working the splice with a marlinspike were tough, intuitive sailors’ hands, whether from Malindi or Lisbon.

‘This is a very fast mashua,’ said Husni as they surfed down another swell. ‘She does well in the Malindi races.’

‘The Swahili are mad about racing, aren’t they?’ said Paul.

‘Yes, it’s in our blood,’ said the skipper. ‘In the old days, the first boat from Arabia at the beginning of the season got the best prices, so racing was like, how can I say, business. We must know how to use the wind, make our dhows go fast.’

Paul had read lots about the monsoon winds — the summer Kaskazi that brought the dhows from Asia and the winter Kusi that blew them