Page 129 - The Tigris Expedition

; The Tigris Expedition
rocks. The helmsmen were unable to press us past the lighthouse on
the left side and into the shipping channel for Kuwait. Too much
leeway with this wind. There was no choice but to fall off from 250°
to 290° and steer straight into the Failaka shallows to avoid collision
with the lighthouse island and the rock pile to its starboard side.
The flashes from the lighthouse in the black night were soon
visible even from the deck. Three short flashes in groups, followed
by long intervals, while all around us the night was as black as a wall
' of tar. With our kerosene lamps we could see nothing but the
yellow reeds and bamboo that surrounded us in a black universe.
There was a glitter of phosphorescent plankton dancing wildly in
the wakes of our two rudder-oars, nothing else. The lookout
clinging to the swinging mast-top saw no light but the short blinks
that approached us with good speed on the left. We were soon
going to clear the light on the port side, but where was the reef with
the rock pile? It was obviously not lit at all. No modern ship would
come on this side of the lighthouse.
Asbjorn lay stretched out on the upeurved reed bundles forward,
his head out beyond the bow, to scout for rocks without being
blinded by the flickering lamps on our side of the sail and the cabins.
The flashes from the invisible tower slid by at some distance on our
port side. Were we far enough off to clear the unlit rocks as well?
While we all strained our eyes in vain from deck and mast, Carlo
came crawling out of the cabin and said he heard surf. We all
listened. Sure enough, we all heard surf rumbling against boulders
as a growing rhythmic undertone in a hissing orchestra of seas on all
sides. The growing rumble came out of the night somewhere
ahead, and to the left, it seemed.
Land. Rocks. On the port side now. Very clearly. Were there
more in front? For safety we turned even further to starboard,
steering 320°, but saw nothing. The rumble of water on rocks
slowly drowned again in the normal roar of breaking seas. Shortly
afterwards even the noise of the sea became noticeably lighter. We
also stopped rolling. We were in the shelter of something - prob­
ably the little island holding the lighthouse to our windward. This
was surely the best place to anchor and wait for a favourable wind.
Ahead of us were only the extensive shallows and sharp rocks of
Failaka Island. Norman shouted from the mast that he saw several
faint lights from Failaka along the horizon in front.
I ordered the ship turned all about and the sail down. Thus we
could throw out the anchor from the bow where we had tied broad
pieces of water-buffalo hide to the bundles to protect the reeds from

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