Not Child's Play - Dave Muller

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the east. I knew little of the art of sailing, but imagined myself rounding that distant cape, trusting the seamless oceanic link that led to all those mystical places. At that age, there was not much I could do to turn my dream to reality other than forage for lead sinkers lost by fishermen whenever I went snorkelling. I loved swimming and the sea so, with some determination, I gradually collected sinkers and melted them into an ever-growing block of lead that I was determined would one day form part of the keel of my yacht. And so my dreams coalesced into a reality manifested in a lump of lead that, two decades later, did indeed become part of Arwen’s keel.

      Friday walks to school brought a particular joy. Passenger ships of the Castle Line docked in Port Elizabeth’s harbour en route to Durban from Southampton. In those days, before international airlines operated, this was the main link for mail and passengers between England and South Africa. My mom had arrived from England on one of those Castle Line ships in 1948, stepping ashore in Cape Town as a 22-year-old in search of a new life after serving in the Royal Navy during the Second World War.

      Intuitively, I knew that for my mom these ships were an important physical link with her homeland; something confirmed every few years when one of my grandparents arrived for an extended visit. They brought with them chocolates and trinkets from that distant, mystical and, by all accounts, refined English-speaking land. As a result, I lived in curious suspension between my own homeland and this distant, soft, ephemeral country called England. Politically, although I knew this only in the vaguest way, this became the ‘us’ of the English-speaking United Party and the ‘them’ of the Afrikaans-speaking National Party. I did not know it, but I was a real-life soutie.

      My first exposure to the latent tensions between the English and the Afrikaners was in 1960. The National Party was in power, but Queen Elizabeth was still head of state of the Union of South Africa – an intolerable situation for the republican-inclined Nationalists, who called a referendum amongst the white voters to test opinion over whether the Union of South Africa should become the Republic of South Africa. I was in Grade 5. My teacher, Mr Kruger, was clearly in favour of a republic and had no qualms about adding his political doctrine to the syllabus. The morning after the referendum, he announced, ‘Put up your hands all those whose parents voted for the Queen.’ About a quarter of the class, myself included, stuck up our hands. ‘Reg, mense,’ he said, pointing to those with raised hands, ‘come to the front.’ Alarmed, we shuffled forward. With obvious pleasure, Mr Kruger picked up his cane and gave each of us three red welts on our little rooinek-loving arses, just because our parents supported the Queen. It was a cruel, humiliating action that reinforced my prejudice and caused me to despise everything Afrikaans; an unwise decision that cast me, even at that young age, as an outsider in my own country.

      These tensions were of course taking place in the wider, largely hidden context of racial separation. Even as I was receiving my introduction to the white man’s politics, the country had begun its devolution into racial chaos, the threat from the rooi gevaar ever present, and in 1969 I was conscripted into the army. My prejudices hardened and I knew I had to escape this growing madness. Stephen, a friend from school, served with me in the army and shared my views regarding the future of our country.

      Before I could complete my degree in architecture I had to work in an office for one year. Stephen was already working fulltime, and we pooled our savings to buy a Fireball racing dinghy named Shortwave. The boyhood dream of sailing to strange and exotic places was one step closer, greatly promoted by the increasing probability of needing to escape the developing political implosion and a love of sailing.

      There is little that beats the exhilaration of sailing a Fireball in a brisk breeze. Pull in the sails and the yacht comes alive beneath you as it surges forward, riding up onto a plane, skimming and trembling across the water on a cushion of foam in an exhilarating headlong rush. You stretch and cantilever your body as far from the hull as you can, toes on the gunwale, counter-balancing the force of the wind in the sails, the power of the wind palpable as the spray stings and envelopes you. All seems in tenuous balance, on the very edge of control.

      This is how our lives felt, almost out of control, yet delicately balanced; rushing headlong into the future driven by winds we did not understand. Behind the smiles and laughter, deep within the viscera of our emotions we felt trapped by an unsustainable political system and the manufactured obligation to fight a meaningless war. Discontent brewed in our minds.

      A book titled The Greening of America, by Charles Reich, made a profound impact upon me and I shared Reich’s insights with Stephen. Reich concludes his book with these words:

      We have been dulled and blinded to the injustice and ugliness of slums, but the new consciousness sees them as just that – injustice and ugliness – as if they had been there to see all along. We have all been persuaded that giant organizations are necessary, but it sees that they are absurd, as if the absurdity had always been obvious and apparent. We have all been induced to give up our dreams of adventure and romance in favor of the escalator of success, but it says that the escalator is a sham and the dream is real.

      The dream is real. These were powerful words that spoke to us and confirmed our desire, indeed confirmed the existential imperative to escape. Building a yacht with our own hands seemed the only practical way this could be achieved.

      So, with my first pay cheque deposited in the bank, I took out a loan, Stephen and I pooled our money, and work on Arwen began. It took 10 agonising years of working nearly every weekend to complete her. The dream for Stephen and me had been to escape, but the reality soon became entrapment as Arwen took all our money and time. Yet somehow the dream held. Despite changing homes and workplaces, despite on-and-off romances, despite my marriage to Sandy and Tammy’s and Seth’s births, despite never having enough time or money and despite my moving to East London in search of better-paid work – forcing me to have to travel 600 kilometres each weekend to work on Arwen – in 1985 she was eventually launched in the Port Elizabeth harbour.

      Sandy startles me from my reverie. ‘Would you like some coffee?’

      While she makes her way below, I untie the torn yankee sail from the side deck where it had been secured during the storm and bundle it below to await repair. I pull the smaller yankee sail from the forward bunk where it has lain unused for five years, and attach it to the forestay. By nine o’clock the wind has dropped sufficiently for me to reset the full mainsail and hoist the inner staysail. During the night the westerly wind slowly dies away and backs to the east, forcing us to once again tack into the wind.

      Soon after nightfall, the Ponta da Barra lighthouse at the entrance to the harbour of Inhambane, the only functioning lighthouse between Maputo and Beira, pops above the horizon. Throughout the night it guides us with a comforting triple flash every 10 seconds. Far out to sea, the storm feeds off the warm waters of the Mozambique Current, still glowing and sparking against the brightening sky. Sometime during the night we cross the Tropic of Capricorn and officially enter the tropics.

      Daylight reveals steep, choppy waves from every quarter, bullying Arwen off her course and requiring constant correction of the rudder. As we crest the swells, a headland is visible off to port as a low, pale blue smudge on the horizon. Early mornings are never the best of times aboard a yacht and this morning is particularly trying. Dew coats every surface, dripping from the rigging and landing on the deck with loud plops. The seat of my oilskins slurps in the damp as I twist to lift the aft cabin hatch. ‘Welcome to the Tropics!’ I announce in my best pina-colada-tinged voice. Sandy groans and buries her head as cool air pours into the snug cabin.

      A few hours later, all has changed. The sun blazes from a blue sky so deep and translucent you would think you were looking into eternity. The unpleasant swell of the earlier morning has smoothed, and the surface sparkles. We know without doubt we’ve finally arrived in the tropics.

      Back home in South Africa, Tammy’s friends have returned to school after the Easter holidays so, as part of the pact we’ve made to allow her to miss school, she sits in the shade of the mainsail, grumbling her way through the work her teacher has prepared in advance.

      By mid-morning, the distant Ponta da Barra Falsa, the last prominent headland before we reach Cabo Sao Sebastiao at the southern

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