Page 113 - The Tigris Expedition

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The Tigris Expedition

supertanker moored at its side. I forgot to count further. There were
masts everywhere out there. Some were almost invisible in the
mist, and there were doubtless others beyond them still.
No matter where we steered, we had to enter a chaotic forest of
big ships, some anchored, a few slowly moving. As we approached,
most of them turned out to be cargo ships. This was not only
a filling area for tankers; it was the famous anchorage for all the
ships waiting their turn to proceed up the river and deliver their
cargoes to Iraqi and Iranian ports as far as Sindbad Island near
Basra.
The tall bow of a Japanese tanker emerged from the haze. Its
mighty hull passed close to our stern. I was at one rudder-oar, Yuri
at the other. As the wind was too feeble to give us good steering
control we had to struggle hard to avoid collision even with
anchored ships.
Norman and Detlef agreed that the best we could do now was to
keep a course close to Buoy 23, which I could barely make out in the
mist as a red dot behind a cluster of ships.
We began to observe a system in the chaos. The tanker channel
and the filling station were now at our starboard side. There were
only cargo ships at anchor on our port side. The wind was so feeble
that it took us two hours to pass the ships and get within a hundred
yards of the large red buoy. The number 23 could be seen painted on
it in black. Our plan now was to hang on to it until we got a better
wind. We were close. But then we noted we had been still closer a
moment earlier. There was no wind, but in fact we were drifting
back the way we had come. The tide had changed. All the cargo
ships began to swing round on their long anchor cables, turning
their starboard sides towards us, their bows pointing away from the
I land.
The sail gave us absolutely no help. It was quite clear that the tide
was sending us back towards the river’s mouth. The Shatt-al-Arab
was sucking up water now. At this moment we saw something
orange-coloured being lowered from one of the anchored ships,
about a mile away. It came straight towards us and turned out to be
a strange kind of lifeboat. It approached us in complete silence. No
motor, no sail, and no oars. Never had we seen a boat like this. It
was packed with husky men, most with bare chests and with bands
around their foreheads. They sat facing each other from either side
in two rows, rhythmically turning one long common crank-
handle. The handle obviously operated a propeller. No fuel. Rotat­
ing arms. Perfect team-work. Like some undulating, crawling sea
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