Skylarking- Sailing Into The Blue

Words and Images by Martin van der Wal 

Sometimes the gods smile, I like to think it was Poseidon himself in this case. For it was at the Spetses Regatta hosted by the Poseidonion Grand Hotel that these events unfolded. As a sailor fresh from Regattas at Antibes and Argenterio, Spetses was the next on the list. I had a story there which I knew would find a ready audience in Australia where I hail from. That, however, is not this story. This story came by chance. A glance at her and I was in love. Piratical was the adjective most used about her. “Fred Shepherd” I remarked to the woman beside me, “Johnny Depp”; she fired straight back !

The Japanese have a wonderful term ‘WabiSabi,’ it describes a thing of utilitarian beauty made more romantic by visible signs of usage and age. She oozed with it, a rakish charm, that of a lofty topmast schooner over a hundred feet overall. The distinctive Shepherd stem , no exaggeration in her sweeping sheer, perfect counter. I had to get to know her ! Photographs were taken as I swept passed on the chase boat for the other story. I did a double take, one bronzed half naked man with grey flowing locks and permanently lip-clamped rollo on the helm and three lithe young crew-members wearing as little as possible were taking this boat into battle on the start line. Puritan; the other large schooner in the race had an impeccably attired crew, upwards of fourteen! Surely the rest of the crew would tumble up from down below at any minute; No! Just did not happen! Foretop’s smartly hoisted she bore away across the line.

At the after race gathering I spotted the gang, introduced myself, and quickly found myself inducted as crew member number four. Fresh from over a months short-handed crewing on Morwenna (Linton Hope 1914) ; a very traditional Topsail Schooner of fifty-five feet during the previous two Regattas the learning curve was not too steep. The sheer size of everything was however daunting. Coral of Cowes carried what seemed like acres of working sail with a huge flying asymmetric added to the mix. All halyards were a swigging job, all sheets manual winched, backstays finished in double multipart tackles ; you're getting the picture. Now I have to admit that I am not in the first flush of youth. After a day rushing about helping with the swigging of halyards, tacking and gybing three headsails, fore and after mains, foremast topsail re-hoist on each leg, two sets of running backstays per side, not to mention handling the monster flier I was knackered. The other three crew members however were inexhaustible. Belgian French in their early twenties they had dropped anchor in their forty-four foot steel Colin Archer not far from Coral of Cowes at her home anchorage of Souda Bay Crete, just the week before. Rapidly they had convinced Captain Hugh Roberts, over a shared bottle or two, that he needed to be racing at Spetses. A last minute entry, they had arrived the day before the Regatta, dropping the anchor under sail. Leaving main and main-top up, she swung gently into place just off the foreshore. 

It was when she neatly sailed off her anchor the first morning of the racing, completed her first race and dropped her anchor under-sail again that the trouble began. A complaint was put to the race committee that all these manoeuvres could not possibly be carried out on a boat this size with a crew of three, safely! This, despite the fact that all the manoeuvres had gone without a hitch. The committee did not say who had complained , but it obviously upset Hugh and his young crew. Might be why I found myself learning Coral’s ropes as the fourth crew member the very next day. 

What might not have been obvious to the outsider was than each one of these young people were worth three ordinary sailors, indefatigable, fearless, highly skilled, constantly searching for best trim and always checking every part of this large complex machine in readiness for the next manoeuvre. This was all coupled with unquenchable good humour, high spirits and a tendency to break into song of the Edith Piaf variety at the drop of a hat. They had been taken up as troubled teenagers by the wonderful ‘Association les Amis de Juedi-Dimanche’ in Brittany. Fram, Nemo, and Kem; (yes ! Real names) had cut their sailing teeth with repeated annual voyages up into the Arctic Circle on the Belle Espoir II a three masted Ship. Trained in all aspects of traditional seamanship they had never looked back. Sea washed and wind driven, hard schooled, thoughtfully spoken, they commanded instant respect despite their youth. They had been at sea for six months sailing Hetboot from Belgium to Greece before they dropped anchor alongside Coral in Crete. Coral’s owner Captain Hugh Roberts ex Navy, believed they were the best crew he had ever shipped with. Certainly the best crew I have ever shipped with. 

Our weather-beaten schooner did not cover herself with glory by winning on the race track, but she did become something of a legend. Her bare-bones crew, piratical air, and tough-as-nails sailing skillset were a constant source of comment. The four crew members made the crew compliment on other boats look positively bloated. Although light airs prevailed every race day, many a cautious hand was laid on the backstays during the puffs, such was the pressure exerted by the huge area of running sail. It was a demonstration of old school sailing which drew admiring looks from every sailor who understood the forces at work and the effort required. 

Racing being sponsored by Moet, Grey Goose, and Porsche, the after-parties were memorable affairs. A relaxed Greek vibe permeated the warm thyme scented air, as long evenings graduated into bright moonlit nights . The unseasonably 40C + sailing days created a camaraderie amongst those of us lucky enough to breeze past security wearing our magic wristbands. Tourist season had not quite started so the island felt like ours to enjoy. Five Star was the Poseidonion Grand’s style, nobody complained, as free vodka, champagne and Greek delicacies went down a treat. A gangly spike-haired blonde solipsistically dancing in a corner caught my eye, a touch of Notting Hill Gate, kinda out of place amongst the chino’s, casually draped linen dresses and Hermes scarfs. The final party was a Classic. Spit roasted lamb, pita bread, and unlimited beer to be dug out of ice filled wooden dinghies pulled up on the shore-line of a palm fringed beach. 

“ Hold this ! ” A nudge on my elbow — half turning, a beer thrust into my spare hand as spiky blonde tried to achieve with two hands what she had spectacularly failed to achieve with one; eat the huge chunk of dripping lamb that hung skew whiff from its pita pocket. She was all of nineteen and had obviously picked me as a safe fatherly bet to rescue her precarious predicament . Not that I minded. The lamb stood no chance as she wolfed it down, took a long swig on the proffered beer, and extended a greasy hand. “Bambi ! That’s what they call me ! ” Captain Hugh drifted across, introductions were made, I turned away to chat with my ship-mates. “Hey, you coming to Crete with us tomorrow ? ” — “ Sounds like a plan ! ” — “ Hey Hugh, Martins coming to Crete ! ” — “ That’s great Martin, see you usual place at 9 in the morning .” 

It was my last climb, past howling dogs, cold eyed cats, moon-shadowed doorways, high up to my AirBnB eyrie with it’s sweeping views out to Hydra. Early next morning, Spiro, my host, slung my pack onto his scooter; precipitously we hurtled downwards over ancient cobblestones, twisting lanes, deposited gri gora at the waterfront. ‘ philoxenia ,’ that wonderful Greek tradition of kindness to strangers. Coral of Cowes had her anchor ‘up and down’ by the time I boarded. We were off, a land breeze wafted us away from the ancient sea-wall. Three headsails, fore-sail and foretop’s all needed swigging up, masts over 100 feet high made it an all hands effort. Long, lithe arms came over my shoulder,— “Bambi ! Hi ! You coming for the ride too ? — Breathless full body swig on the flying jib halyard — “You betcha ! Wouldn’t miss a ride on Coral, she is the best.” Bambi might have had a couple of Vogue Covers under her gamin young belt, but she leant into the work with a will, my misgivings about being stuck on a boat with an ‘ornament’ evaporated; a well experienced sailor. We were a polyglot crew, thrown together by central casting : — Chance ! What we had in common was the willingness to go wherever the wind took us. Freedom ! Severed ties ! Prepared to take whatever came, as our course was laid and sails sheeted home. Every one of us instinctively understood that with Captain Hugh at the helm, Coral of Cowes ( 98ft Fred Shepherd 1902) beneath our bare-feet , Homeric Peloponnese coastline thickly hazed to starboard, this was a landmark moment ! Touchstone timing !

Every now and then worlds collide. Amongst the headline grabbing collisions of cultures and religions, the ever present collision of the world of the child and that of the adult is so commonplace as to almost pass unnoticed. It did not pass unnoticed in Patrick O’Brians writings. His little squeakers and pimply Mids inhabit a realm seething with the tensions of regimentation as exercised on youthful exuberance. Who can forget the squeals of delight coming from the Top’s as they ‘skylark,' far above the Bosun’s bellow, swinging from stay to stay like a pack of young monkeys. Captain Jack Aubrey himself is not above racing a Rear Admiral to the Royals to finish with a smoking slide down the backstays landing with a thump on the Quarterdeck. A sailor for whom the child within was never fully repressed. A gleeful recklessness tempered by a modicum of experience but ultimately allowed its rightful place in the sun. Here in the early twenty-first century can it still be true. A world of regimentation by insurance obligations, safety regulations, and peer pressure. Does the child within each of us stand a chance as we prepare the checklists and passage plans of our lives ? Everything is a known quantity, well charted, documented and described beforehand. A thicket of clichēs ! What in the world of ‘play’ is left to us ? 

The ship was tight, we were all sailors. My skill-set fell woefully behind those for whom the sea had been their life. If I kept my wits about me I could almost keep up. We glided with barely a ripple over a heat flattened Argolic Gulf. Temperatures had been climbing daily, high 40’s becoming the norm. We gathered, lounging in shade, stripped almost bare. The Laconian coast-line dribbled past, shrouded in a shimmering pale miasma. We were alone, hours went by, no sign of another living thing on desolate shore or shining sea. A peculiar hot-house resonance knitted our collective dreams into a singular open heartedness. Low voiced conversation interspersed the exclamations about the heat. Shipmates unveiled extraordinary back stories, hinting at dark episodes acting as catalysts for taking the road less trodden. Messy lives described with wry humour, lived on the edge, disdainful of the mundane. Random tragedies and ugly events had been transmuted into a fiery wilfulness to take life by the throat and wring a meaning out it. The inner child had dug in its heels : “Stifle me with the pursuit of ‘ordinary!’ You better watch out ! ” 

Hugh and I had taken the graveyard watch, letting the young ones sprawl, more in heat coma, than sleep. Hugh wanted to see us safely through the traffic zones clustering the tragic Cape Malea. A clear starlit night saw a multi-stranded stream of large vessels rounding the Cape. Binoculars rarely left my eyes, swinging nav lights and changing compass bearings. A five story cruise ship, ablaze in light, swept past at 20 knots not half a mile away. A course was plotted between two container ships on their way to Turkey. What exactly was that fishing boat doing going around in circles in the zone ? By dawn we were through, the helm handed to the morning watch.

Re-emerging at eight bells the wind was a brisk westerly on the beam with a lively quartering sea, Bambi on the helm, Nemo by her side. The two women had formed a very strong bond. Nemo was the very soul of exuberant, wild at heart, smoke-throated songstress. Piaf in looks and in voice, tireless, powerful, tragic, extraordinary ! Later that day our destination approached on a dying breeze, the Cretan coastline slipped slowly past to starboard. It was a song, marshalled by Nemo, joined in with fine passion by Fram and Kem, that conjured the closing scenes of this memorable voyage. Jacques Brel’s signature anthem — 'Quand on n'a que l’amour,' (' When Love is All you Have’). Powerful voices thrown to the wind over serried crimson tinged wave crests, low angled light reflecting, looming blood-red cliffs a biscuits toss away. 

Fram sidled up to me, “Take photos ! I want Hugh to remember this !” He had changed into Coral’s crew shirt with its large no.3 emblazoned on the back. Two backflips; a handstand; a shout ! “Playtime!” Fram, Nemo, and Kem scampered, using the entire ship like a Cirque du Soleil prop, flipping on peak halyards, tripping along the gaffs, traipsing on the triatic. All this, over one hundred feet in the air! Gleeful, mischievous Bambi joined the fun on the ratlines. Hugh smiling drolly, rolled another smoke, arm draped across the wheel. I kept shooting ! Laughter and chatter; snatches of song; drifting down from on high. Nothing special, sailors had made the rigging their home for thousands of years, the dismal din of the infernal combustion engine ended all that. Choking fumes replaced pure sea air, black grunge invaded pristine shorelines, the paradigm shifted. Sailors became early adopters of the oil-slicked slope our entire species now slides helplessly, head-long, down. 

Destination reached, dusk, anchor down, our Belgian friends happy to see Hetboot again. A meal ashore; we sit in a beachside taverna watching F16’s landing at the nearby NATO airbase. Our tight-knit Argosy; the redolent old world charm of our fable loaded schooner, Captain Hugh’s cheerful, patient world-weariness, the racing, the cruising, singing, story-telling, sky-larking, the blinding heat, all conspired to make our hugged farewells the next morning awkwardly poignant. Evaporated ! Our play was over.