Not Child's Play - Dave Muller

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had nothing but northeasterly winds from dead ahead and would have welcomed a westerly gale like the one that had so quickly steered us from our home port. For the past three days, sailing has been like living on a slow tedious pendulum as we tack our way towards the tropics and our final destination, the Bazaruto Archipelago.

      Two hours later the saline ocean smell gives way to the yeasty aroma of baking bread wafting from below. Tammy sits next to me, scanning the distant Mozambican coastline. Her younger brother, Seth, is safely confined to the cockpit floor, playing with Lego. Through binoculars the low escarpment beyond the thin white line of distant breakers looks mauled, as if the sea has scratched away the green and exposed eroded red and orange wounds. Other than an occasional patch of listless smoke wafting from the low, hazy hills beyond, there is no sign of human life. The land looks exhausted and tired as it slouches towards the coast; very different to the velvet-green hills with their abundant scattering of homesteads and cattle along the coast near our home city of East London.

      We knew Mozambique was fighting a civil war, but we were assured this was far inland, over 400 kilometres to the north, near Gorongosa National Park. Tourist officials in Maputo had confirmed what we’d heard on the news and read in sailing magazines; that, in their words, ‘The coastline is secure.’ Maybe it is secure, but viewed from the sea it does not look at all inviting. Sandy calls up, ‘Who’s ready for a sarmie?’

      Immediately Seth shouts, ‘Toothpaste!’ He turns five in a few days and is still struggling to get his tongue around consonants like f sounds. We know he means fish paste.

      ‘Peanut butter and honey … Er, no, peanut butter and Marmite … No, peanut butter and honey,’ calls Tammy. At eight years old she already knows enough of the abundance of worldly pleasures to be filled with indecision.

      ‘The usual,’ I call, knowing this will result in a pile of warm cheese sandwiches.

      Soon the whole family is munching in the cockpit, joking over the memory of the bread we’d recently bought in Maputo. The golden billowing tops had looked so appetising in the shop. But when we turned the loaf over to slice while sailing across Maputo Bay, we discovered the underside encrusted with thumb-sized, barb-legged cockroaches that had presumably been feasting on the bottom of the baking pans before suddenly finding themselves entombed, like raisins, in dough. Astern, beyond Ponta Zavora with its white cylindrical lighthouse, which we struggled past in the morning, clouds are beginning to swell up; a hopeful sign of a pending change in the weather.

      While we eat, those clouds puff into huge cauliflower-headed cumulus. In the process they morph and pillow, inspiring the children to visions of penguins, old men with beards and Seth’s favourite – toothy, open-mouthed crocodiles. The carved wooden version with a gaping red maw he’d bought with his wad of metical notes – the result of an exciting furtive money change in the Maputo market – adorns the shelf at the front of the cockpit.

      An hour later an advancing cornice of dark cloud slides forward from above the cumulus and edges towards the sun. Soon distant rumbles warn of coming wind and rain. It’s time to prepare Arwen for action and that, hopefully, means lots of wind from astern.

      Leaving our wind vane self-steering to guide Arwen, I drop into the cool of the cabin and tap the barometer fixed to the bulkhead. The thin black needle jerks counter-clockwise, confirming a change in weather. The depth sounder below the barometer blinks out the number 28. We’ve crossed the 30-metre depth contour and are heading into shallower water – my trigger to tack back out to sea. I scramble up the companionway stairs and look forward past the mast. The salient headland of Cabo de Corrientes is visible beyond Arwen’s pitching bows. This cape marks the spot where the coastline makes a definite bend to the north and, once past it, the sailing should be easier.

      Cabo de Corrientes, or Cape of Currents, is a landmark of no visual distinction, but of great historical significance for East Africa. It is the most southerly point along the Swahili coast to which the early dhow traders dared sail, and therefore defines the southern extremity of Arab trade influence. To venture south past this cape risked sailing beyond the dependable trade winds of the tropics and exposed those wind-reliant sailors to the threat of being swept south by the strong Mozambique Current, into the region of fierce westerly gales that regularly brush the southern tip of the continent. It also defines the southern end of the Mozambique Channel. But for us this headland holds other significance. Once beyond this point we can justifiably claim to be in the tropics, and for me a long-cherished dream will finally be fulfilled.

      ‘Time to clear the decks,’ I call below. A salvo of rumbles, more felt than heard, warns that time is short before the storm arrives. ‘Hold on, we’re about to tack.’ Arwen’s bow swings seawards and steadies on the new course. I pull in the ropes controlling the sails and reset the wind vane. Sandy’s head appears in the companionway hatch as I step from the cockpit to the side deck.

      ‘I’m going to put a reef in the main to reduce its area and, just to be on the safe side drop the staysail. That storm’s starting to look pretty threatening.’

      While I clamber about the foredeck, lowering and unhitching the staysail before bundling it down the forward hatch into the children’s cabin, Sandy, sensing the urgency, moves about the cockpit collecting the accumulated detritus of books and toys. With the decks cleared, she shepherds the children below, leaving me alone on deck. I pull a reef into the mainsail, reducing its area and lowering the centre of power. With only the strong yankee sail fixed to the forward stay, and the smaller mainsail, Arwen moves gently through the water. Sandy reappears at the hatch. ‘Make sure you’re clipped on,’ she warns as she passes me my oilskins and safety harness. ‘I’m going to stay below with the children.’ I pull on the oilskins and harness. It seems as if the wind is taking a deep breath.

      I too find myself breathing deeply. The sails flop listlessly from side to side as we wait, becalmed. It seems too still. I look around and sniff the air in anticipation. Even though we are more than five kilometres offshore, there is the sudden, unmistakable smell of wood smoke. Without wind rippling the surface, the sea flattens to an undulating oily green sheen. It’s ominous and I stand up and glance astern, trying to find the source of the smoky smell. More thunder, almost overhead. A dark line on the sea surface indicates the approaching weather front and the imminent return of our motive force – wind.

      ‘At last!’ I yell to the approaching wind as I turn the wheel to align Arwen’s stern with the invisible wall of air rushing up from behind.

      Neither I nor sleepy, lethargic Arwen are expecting it. Her sails fill with an explosive crack as she staggers and pivots in the water, momentarily stunned by the force that hits her. Another flat palm of wind scoops up a handful of spray and swats her onto her side as if she were a dinghy. Fortunately, the wind is still organising itself and these are just the outriders. In the lull that follows, Arwen lurches upright, but now she has only one thought in mind.

      The next blast strikes, and 12 tons of steel come alive and flee downwind. With one hand, I cling to the wheel, caught off balance by the unexpected power, while with the other I reach for the mainsheet cleated behind me on the mainsheet traveller. I have to release it to spill some of the power of the wind so I can turn Arwen onto a safe broad-reach, sailing obliquely downwind.

      The rigging hums and whistles as the wind strength alternates. Arwen’s bow pushes up a roar of white water that rushes past her gunwales. Another blast of wind hits, pivoting Arwen and flipping her onto her side, swinging her bow to face the wind. Suddenly released from the grip of the wind, she springs upright, the sails snapping and crackling like gunshots above my head. From below I can hear thumps and shouts, but there’s no time to concern myself with these as I turn her downwind. Arwen is alive like never before, careening along before the wind, heading north, parallel with the coast.

      That coast, and all else, disappears as the heavens open. Stinging waterfalls of rain lash my face and drum into our sails before whipping off their trailing edges like streaming rivers. Screaming gust follows screaming gust, each more powerful than the last, doing its best to overpower us. Clearly this is no normal storm and exhilaration soon gives way to a mounting fear that I am losing control.

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