Page 10 - Exile-ebook

10 AN EXILE OF THE MIND CASTING OFF WITH A BANG 11

tossed into the squall, were not heard. And so Le Voyageur echoed her
The rain, heavy now, hammered at builders’ song as she prepared to test
whitecaps, top-whipping them to a her mettle across Asia’s cauldron,
hazy mist. Flowering sprays leapt the South China Sea. To zig-zag
at rocks exposed along the shore as through the islets of the Pratas, 200
the worsening conditions added yet nautical miles south-east of Hong
more gloom to this mizzley damp Kong. A poorly charted area of
dawn. cays and atolls called the ‘perilous
Le Voyageur was a fine looking patch’ that could rise unexpectedly
ketch, decked in teak with a pitch to bite the boat’s bottom from the
fragrance of Indian forests. Masts ocean depths. Worse, we had to sail
hewn from Sitka spruce, carved through the glassy blackness of night.
mahogany taffrails, and her interior, Satellite navigation was still a far off
timber-crafted, completed a marvel dream for blue water yachtsmen in
of nautical beauty. Under full sail the mid seventies.
her speed was barely that of a horse I discovered the passenger liner
and buggy out for a morning trot. I had sailed on after leaving New
Her design was inspired by Zealand in the mid sixties about to
clipper ships of the nineteenth be broken up for scrap. I had hopped
century, hauling cargo around the off the Rangitoto at mid voyage in
world during the golden age of Panama with boundless curiosity
sailing. and a craving for travel. Hong Kong
Below decks the galley and nav- was Rangitoto’s last port of call – the
igation station were separate from ships’ graveyard.
the spacious saloon. The crew could I found old nautical charts for our
move around without head-butting voyage and a long forgotten bottle of
the deckhead. The yacht was named Johnny Walker hidden in the chart
after eighteenth century French drawer. The ship was a stranger to
Canadian voyageurs, the famous these waters and her charts for the
‘river rats’, who transported furs region were very outdated.
in canoes along the river route Cannon fire exploded from the
from Montréal to Fort William on shore in a ragged volley, scattering
Lake Superior. A back-breaking
scull of over 1600 kilometres. Aberdeen Harbour, Hong Kong.