Page 341 - The Tigris Expedition

From Asia to Africa; from Meluhha to Punt
vessel, and the boards gave the same keel effect whether lowered
between or outside the bundles.
Norman and HP spent much of the four days after the storm
lashed to the top of the waving bipod mast. It was no easy job to
hang on up there and chisel out the broken base of the topmast
which had been mortised deep into the wooden block that joined
the two legs of the straddle-mast. The hardwood topmast, thick as a
man ’s leg, had broken crosswise and splintered lengthwise, so no
piece could be re-used. On Carlo’s suggestion Asbjorn skilfully
adzed one of the big ash rowing-oars into shape, and it was wedged
in as a new topmast, allowing us to gain speed again on our way
southwards in constant struggle with changing winds.
The men recovered quickly from their colds, and the spirits of us
all seemed higher than ever. Nobody would leave this vessel until it
sank under our feet.
The second day after the storm the sky was blue and the sea calm.
As we rose from the lunch table Norris, a head higher than the rest
of us, exclaimed in surprise: ‘Look at that! What can it be?’ Ahead of
us on starboard side was something like blood topping the small
waves along the blue horizon. We climbed the mast. A narrow belt
ran like a painted river through the ocean as far as the eye could see.
Asbjorn and HP inflated the rubber dinghy and went ahead of us to
check what we were about to run into with our reeds.
The two scouts came back and reported that the coloured liquid
was as thick as paint but that it did not seem to be a chemical
product. We sailed alongside for a while and then ventured to steer
across it. There was a strange fishy odour that could be smelled even
within the cabin. The belt was rarely more than a fathom or two
wide, but it stretched from horizon to horizon in a straight line from
nnw to sse. We criss-crossed through the orange-red belt, unable to
determine what it really was. I had seen a similar ‘red tide' of algae
caused by pollution off the coast near Rome. Hut there was no coast
here. How could this distinctive belt keep its narrow path like a rod
carpet laid out for untold miles across the open ocean? We sailed
along it all afternoon and saw neither beginning nor end. Photo
were occasional small patches of red on either side of the band, but
the general picture was a clearly defined gold-red rivet .u loss a blue
sea. A sample glass could fool anybody into accepting u as thick
orange juice but for the fishy smell which gave* it away, A * losoi
inspection revealed that the coloured belt, and the sea on etthot side
and as deep as we could see, was polluted by billions ol liny, almost
invisible, fibres and tufts as from dissolving cotton, The tv wvtv
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