Excerpt from Chapter 7: Sailing to Kaleleng

Within an hour, the sky blackened and powerful gusts of wind heeled the boat over to starboard, thrusting the windward pontoon ten feet out of the water. Daeng and I tied lines to our waists and scrambled out on the port pontoon. Too giddy to be frightened, I waved to Ann, who was nestled in the cockpit next to Horst, with the deck hatch pulled under her chin. Horst shouted, “We’re doing 25 knots.” He seemed confident that we could sail north fast enough to outrun the storm from the west. No such luck. Rainsqualls soaked us and the wind continued to build. As the winds mounted, Horst was forced to point closer and closer into the wind. We were rapidly closing on the shoreline and its fringing reef, when Horst felt a warm blast and hollered, “It’s getting stronger. Get back on board, NOW!” With Ann’s help, Daeng and I yanked down the sail seconds before the Princess was lambasted by violent winds and driving rain. 

For the next 15 minutes, the boat was in utter pandemonium. The reef and shoreline that we previously admired were now enemies. Decisions had to be swift and correct. Horst braced his feet and pushed with all his strength against the rudder, struggling to avoid the reef while still keeping us pointed into the wind. Daeng, Ann, and I fought with the billowing sail, trying desperately to lash it to the boom. Loose lines were whipping. The end of the mainsail halyard went overboard. Ann’s palm leaf hat, handmade for her by an Aborigine woman in Australia, took flight in the tempest. “I’m sorry,” Horst hollered, acknowledging to Ann without saying so, that there was no way we could retrieve her hat. Ann’s eyes traced its path, as we gathered in the sail. And amidst the fray, Horst looked entirely in his element: dark sunglasses shielded his eyes from the pelting rain, which trickled in rivulets down his cracked cheeks and off his stubbly chin; the sarong wrapped around his head bled maroon dye down his face and neck; and the smoldering butt of a cigarette hung precariously from his lips.

Using a long bamboo pole, Daeng hooked the halyard and the three of us secured the sail to the boom. No longer in danger of crashing into the reef, we could now drift and wait out the storm. Without the deafening chatter of the sail, we could converse again. Ann expressed her concern to Horst about Daeng, who was shivering uncontrollably. Horst appreciated Ann’s concern, but assured us that Konjo fishermen like Daeng are “incredibly hearty and self-sufficient.” He added, “All he needs is a cigarette.” Sure enough, Daeng crouched in the cockpit to smoke a cigarette and afterwards seemed less chilled. Ann and I huddled together under a plastic tarp. I was buzzing from the adrenaline rush, too caught up in the moment to notice that Ann was trembling. It is this exact experience of being out of control that Ann has always feared and hated about sailing. The apparent urgency, yelling, and frenetic action had frayed her nerves. Horst stood and stretched his arms toward the sky; the bulging veins in his neck slowly receded. 

The force of the storm lessened after 45 minutes, and the sun reappeared. Horst and Daeng conversed awhile in Konjo, deciding that we should set sail again before the wind and waves pushed us onto shore. I went out on the pontoon alone for my most exhilarating ride yet. I played around with shifting my weight and hanging my head all the way over backwards so the shoreline was zooming by upside down. In a short amount of time, we traveled a significant distance, well past Tahanaberu, which was too exposed to the wind and waves to risk anchoring. Horst had sailed this stretch of coast many times, but he had never anchored overnight. He decided to take us into a sheltered cove near a village he had seen on his previous voyages, but never visited. It was late afternoon when we dropped the sail just outside the reef at the entrance to the cove. Ann and I paddled, while Horst and Daeng poled us through the narrow gap in the reef.

As we entered the cove, I could see several kids running excitedly along a pocket of beach next to the dense, intertwined mangroves, then some more kids, and then adults. Horst and Daeng secured the Princess with the bow anchor and a stern line to a mangrove. Horst smiled at us and said, “Well, here’s your chance to visit a fishing village. They’ll have more fun with you if I don’t go.”

The National Geographic theme song was playing in my head, as I surveyed the growing group of villagers, the wooden boats lining the shore, and the houses on stilts. Fishing nets hung from rows of pilings, parallel to each other and perpendicular to the shoreline. Coconut trees and mangroves appeared to be the dominant vegetation landward of the muddy shoreline and mangroves. Four perahus, smaller versions of Puteri Mandar, were lined up at the water’s edge, as if ready to be launched in a hurry. Plywood houses with rusted metal roofs and windows without glass were perched on stilts in a line facing the water, less than fifty feet horizontally from the high water mark, but ten to fifteen vertical feet above the mud. 

Still drenched and chilled, we slogged through the silty mud and mangroves to greet the awaiting crowd. We approached cautiously, so as not to trip on the mangrove roots—worried that might make us look even more pathetic than we already did. Having only been in Indonesia ten days, we couldn’t say much more than, “Saya nama David,” “Saya nama Ann,” and good afternoon, “selamat sore.” We were greeted with total silence. Women, girls, and children were standing in small clumps holding one another. The men were behind, arms crossed against their chests.