Page 9 of All The Way Under
Come on, Saylor. Pull your shit together. You can do this. You’ve trained for this.
The Mozambique Channel is wildly dangerous, filled with pirates, and it requires a lot of technical sailing, but it’s the closest route to get out of open water to try to repair my GPS. It’s the patch of water in between Africa and Madagascar. Wiping the sweat from my forehead on the hem of my shirt, I head back up to the deck for fresh air.
At the helm, I catch my breath as my heart hammers. This journey has been mildly challenging up until now. I had all the luxury items money could buy to make my job easier. I squint in the distance to recognize land shapes and the entrance to the channel. I give myself a mental pep talk. I can fix this when I get to the next port. This doesn’t have to set me off track.
Yeah, but can I get to the nextsafeport before another storm hits, without sleeping, and sailing at a lower knot without my hydrofoils? At night?
“Damn it,” I hiss, slamming my fist down.
My mom always says if you’re feeling angry, eat. If you’re feeling sorry for yourself, take a shower. If you’re feeling confused, sleep. What if I’m all these things at once?
The winds are shifting, and I won’t have time to do any of those things soon. I decide to pause before the next storm comes in. I do need to eat and shower. Sleep probably won’t be something I’ll have time for, though. Grabbing the boom, I adjust the main sail before setting my anchor. I shovel a mealdown and then hit the button to turn on my hot water to shower. This is when I need to think and weigh my options.
Showering in this small tube is one of the only true comforts of sailing for this amount of time. I do pick up fresh fruit when in port, but that runs out quickly, so the freeze-dried meals and shelf-stable canned stuff are what I live off of in between. My nose is continuously sunburnt, no matter how much H Mart sunblock I use, and my body hurts from sleeping in the berth. My bed isn’t as comfortable as the one at home, and the constant rocking from the variable sea states makes for a lot of rolling around instead of deep sleep.
I turn off the water as I lather my hair and body with my shampoo and soap from home. I mean, a girl has her standards, and if this were to be my only guilty pleasure, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to bring the good stuff. I turn on the hot water to rinse, then off again to shave and wash my face.
I could reach Mozambique before nightfall, I think, doing the math in my head. The wind will be in my favor. Even if it’s not a friendly port I marked on my plan, it doesn’t mean they wouldn’t welcome me. It just means it has a higher risk factor for a single woman sailing an expensive boat.
When I’m clean, I slather on sunblock and dress in a light pink long-sleeved SPF shirt and a black stretchy skort. I put on my socks and sneakers and pull my satellite phone off the charger to call my dad. He answers on the first ring because he’s on alert, given my situation.
“Sweet Pea, is everything okay?”
I try to call him when things are good and when I have a small issue, so he doesn’t have a heart attack every time he sees my number.
I turn it on speaker phone as I braid my hair into two long pigtails in the small mirror in the saloon.
“Everything is going well, but I do need to make some repairs, Dad. I’m going to have to stop in Maputo or Beira.” I say it all so he can soak it in. “The AI GPS and the hydrofoils are down,” I add so he knows I’m not being outrageous for no reason.
I hear his breathing rate increase.
“It’ll be daylight when I make it there. Which port do you think is the better option?”
“How many nautical miles is it to the Mozambique Channel, hon? I don’t have my computer in front of me, so I’m not sure where you’re at exactly.”
My phone has a tracking device so he can keep tabs on me, but he’s only able to get a precise location on his computer because of the software that’s required for pinpoint accuracy.
I exhale when he doesn’t question anything. It tells me I’m making the right decision.
“At six knots, which is doable without the hydrofoils, about five hours. Plenty of daylight left if I start when I get off the phone with you. Which port?”
Dad blows out a long breath. “Neither if you had another option, but it’s unpredictable on the Madagascar side, so I wouldn’t recommend porting there. Maputo is a big city and will have more sailors and foreign folks who could help you, but it’s dangerous, Saylor. The pirates cruise those waters no matter the time of day. Do you have the .22?”
“I always have it on me, don’t worry. So…Maputo over Beria. Got it.”
“Your boat is worth more than some of the locals make in a lifetime. I hate giving you this advice, but I don’t think it’s safe until you have everything back online. You’re between a rock and a hard place, for sure. Any idea how the GPS went down? Was the storm that bad last night? Was cloud coverage severe?”
He tracks everything from home, and I love him for it.
I shake my head, back in front of the control panel.
“It wasn’t. It seems like a hardware malfunction. Maybe a geomagnetic disturbance? Sea Tracker relies on the satellites, and my phone is working, so that doesn’t track either.”
I don’t say it, but it could be caused by jamming or spoofing, which is terrifying because that means there’s a ship or a boat somewhere doing this to me intentionally. Many military ships jam to block interference from enemies. To a military ship, my equipment may seem too high-tech to be a civilian sailing. This is something I spent time worrying about.
“When you port and troubleshoot, let me know how long it will take to fix. I’ll reserve our jet and put our pilot on alert so I can get to you if there’s enough time, Sweet Pea. Please be careful.”
“Promise. I’m going to make it all the way around, Dad. Just you wait!” I offer a little optimism because his worry is evident from the tremor in his voice. I hate to hear it. “Don’t tell Mom until you have to. I love you!”
