Casting Off (24 page)

We had enough water, Tyrone calculated, to last two and a half weeks. If it didn’t rain, we’d have none left for our final week. For drinking, cooking and cleaning teeth we had 5
litres per person per day. Five jerry cans of tap water, holding 90 litres, sat in the cockpit for washing six people’s bodies and their clothes. One bathtub back home contains more than
that. Obviously we were hoping it would rain but it was the dry season, so we had to be prepared. I became paranoid we were going to run out and I used probably 500ml of water to wash my entire
body the first day and didn’t shower at all the second. My hair, despite the sweat and salt, went three days between shampoos. It was always tied back and it matted up nicely with the wind
and dirt, so it stayed easily in place.

It was a week since any of us had set foot on land, last in Thailand, and
Gillaroo
, despite her generous size, was starting to feel claustrophobic. We were all dying to get off once the
bureaucratic procedures were completed. But I don’t think any of us were prepared for the sheer chaotic lunacy that was India. First came the people, great crowds of them – mainly men
– wanting to look at us, shake our hands, drive us places. Next came the traffic – constant streams of tuk-tuks, motos, cars, vans, lorries, buses, trucks. And all of them, every single
one, were beeping their horns. Next to the little landing platform at the harbour was a car park full of lorries, all with a hand-painted sign across the back: ‘Please sound your horn’.
So everyone did. They sounded those horns when they were overtaking, turning left, turning right, when a pedestrian crossed in front of them, when a pedestrian didn’t cross in front of them
but stayed on the pavement, when they sped up, slowed down and sometimes just because they hadn’t had a good old toot for a minute or two. We walked along the side of the road and they beeped
at us – ‘
Why are you walking?’ ‘Where are you going?’ ‘Hello, white people!’

Everyone’s skin was a deep brown – far darker than British Indians’ – and the moustache was a very popular look for men. The moustaches weren’t the only hangover
from the 1970s; the tuk-tuks were all painted brown and yellow. As we walked along the road, moving out of the path of families of goats and stringy-looking cows, and staring in wide-eyed wonder,
taking everything in, a huge, old-fashioned car slid past us. It had curves everywhere, a long bonnet and shiny hub caps: an Ambassador, the classic car of choice for Indian government officials
and, presumably, ambassadors. Had we accidentally set off
Gillaroo
’s flux capacitor during our trip over the Andaman Sea and jumped back in time?

I’ve never been to the Scots’ Aberdeen but I can’t imagine it bears even the slimmest of resemblances to this town on Great Andaman island. Built on a hill with shops and
stalls lining the main road, it was so chaotic that the pavement just stopped, suddenly, in places, to form holes big enough to eat Gloucester’s Dr Foster for breakfast, and we were forced
out into the traffic. Cows stood idly around, not caring that they were blocking the highway. Even the sounding of loud horns couldn’t budge them. What pavement there was was half filled with
tables laden with the shops’ best wares. For some reason, their best wares were almost always enormous underpants or hand-woven floor mats. If I’d been after a pair of belly-warming
Y-fronts, I’d have been spoilt for choice in Aberdeen Bazar. Everything was shabby but buzzing and alive with colour, bustle and noise. The streets, all three of them, were teeming with women
in saris and gold jewellery and men in black trousers, shirts and leather sandals spitting on to the tarmac. There were ‘Spitting strictly prohibited’ signs everywhere but no one seemed
to take any notice. Nothing was new – possibly not even the underpants – and buildings, pavements, railings and road were crumbling. Unlike Malaysia, there was little plastic to be
seen. Shop signs and billboards signs were painted on to wood, with modern brand logos painstakingly copied by hand.

‘It’s just like mainland India,’ Tyrone said, ‘only smaller. It’s India Lite.’

As if to prove the similarity, a beggar approached us. He was a middle-aged man, with neat, grey hair and didn’t look especially thin or dirty. He spoke fairly good English and at first we
didn’t realise what he was after. We thought he just wanted to chat to us. He said something we took as a joke and we all laughed politely. The man was furious.

‘I have not eaten for three days,’ he said, his eyes burning darkly. ‘This is a joke to you? You have money.’ He tapped Ben’s watch. ‘I have no money.’
He paused. ‘God is watching.’ Just as we were starting to feel so uncomfortable that we were willing to go through our pockets, he walked away, shaking his head in disgust.

Havelock island was our first stop. The main tourist island of the Andamans, it was just as popular with wealthy Indian holidaymakers as it was with backpackers and Europeans seeking an exotic
getaway. It was a long, slow sail to get there, with the wind on the nose. We were mindful of our limited supply of diesel for the three weeks so we persevered with the sailing, making long tacks
and taking 10 hours to cover the 20 miles. A large, yellowish, spotted fish swam past the boat as we crawled along, snaking its body in a distinctly recognisable way.

‘Leopard shark!’ Ben yelled out, pointing at the water. It was the first shark I’d ever seen in the wild.

Crocodiles worried Pablo and Libertad more. They had read in the pilot guide that crocodiles lurked in the waters around the islands, including Havelock.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Vicky told them, the morning after we’d dropped anchor, when they were discussing whether or not it was safe to swim. ‘There’s no
mangroves or mud here. It’s just sand. There won’t be any crocodiles.’ Reassured, they put on their masks and fins and swam the third of a mile to shore. Neither of them was
suddenly clamped between a giant set of gnarled jaws and pulled below the surface. But it looked an awfully long way to the beach, I thought, as I followed the progress of the tips of their purple
and blue snorkels. It took them an age.

‘Do you fancy taking the dinghy?’ I asked Ben and Vicky. Thankfully they were with me on that one.

The beach we had anchored off at twilight the previous evening was called, poetically, #7. Its Indian name was Radha Nagar but by convention the beaches on Havelock were all hashed and numbered:
#1, #3, #5, #6 and #7. The villages were also numbered, for the convenience of the tourists, although the locals knew them only by their names, so asking for directions was doubly difficult. And,
to make enquiring after the correct way even harder, questions were invariably answered Indian-style, with a sideways rocking motion of the head, a bit like a nodding dog stuck to the parcel shelf
of a Ford Fiesta parked on a slant. I never knew whether it meant ‘yes’, ‘maybe’, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘no’, so it got a bit confusing. But within
a few days I found myself subconsciously mimicking the movement.

Beach #7 was a deep expanse of soft, clean sand and breaking waves and that made it the most popular beach for the vacationers. Indian holidaymakers were standing right by the surf line, fully
clothed, bracing their bodies against the power of the breaking waves and letting the water soak them to the skin. And not just the children; mums, dads, aunties, uncles and even grannies stood
waist deep in the water. Few people swam – perhaps they didn’t know how – and everyone, always, was fully dressed. The women wore their saris in the sea. They are heavy enough dry
on the hanger. Imagine what they are like full of salt water.

Dodging between Indian waders, Ben skilfully guided the dinghy on to the beach, managing not to let any waves break over the stern to sink us. Pablo and Libertad came over to help drag it up the
steep beach and a passing backpacker, a Danish guy, stopped to lend a hand, too. As we staggered under the boat’s weight, he dropped into conversation that there had been a crocodile attack
fairly recently at the end of this beach and an American girl had been killed. I caught Vicky’s eye. ‘Yes, they captured it and it’s in Port Blair zoo,’ the Danish guy said.
How very humane of them. Pablo and Libertad didn’t swim to shore again.

Apart from a couple of changing huts, a posh resort that was out of bounds and the odd food stall, there was nothing there so we took a van across the island to beach #5. The interior of the
island was a mix of beautiful, undulating jungle, palm plantations and a few farmhouses dotted around. There were oxen in the paddies and egrets by the oxen. It was a travel photographer’s
dream.

Beach #5, which merged into #3 (what happened to #4?), was very different. There were no bathers, no soft sand, no breaking waves. This was the backpackers’ side of the island and they had
their pick of small beach bungalows in low-tech resorts run by hippyish diving fans. Dead coral dotted the beach and the shallows and, broken down, made a rougher but still beautifully white sand.
Trees overhung the edge of the beach and wooden fishing boats, painted as turquoise as the sea, rested their bellies on the shore. I lagged behind as the others walked on.
This
, I told
myself,
is what the Caribbean must be like. It’s stunning
. I pushed my toes idly into the sand and smiled. I felt so lucky to be able to come to places like this. A peaceful
stillness settled on me and I took a deep breath.
Happiness
, I thought.
This is all it takes to feel happy. This is all I need.
And I remembered my epiphany on the train and I
grinned.

B
efore I left Thailand for the UK, Tyrone had asked me what I thought about recruiting a couple as crew.

‘Why not a couple and then another single person for the small port cabin?’ I had replied. ‘The more the merrier, as far as I’m concerned.’

It was good in theory but what I hadn’t anticipated was how much more claustrophobic the boat seemed with six on board rather than four. It meant that there were more people to talk to and
have fun with, sure, but there were also more people just getting in the way. Whenever I went to the galley, to get a drink or to make some breakfast, there was someone else already there. The
tramps, which I had come to regard as my own private territory, since Tyrone, Hugo, Chris and Aaron hadn’t been interested in sunbathing on them, suddenly became overrun with other people.
Tyrone’s favourite place on
Gillaroo
was the sofa in the saloon. He liked to stretch out along it, aligned with the centre of the boat, the back of his head being cooled by the
breeze coming in through the window. With six people around it became more difficult for him to do so. If it was sunny, he was OK, because everyone else liked to be outside, but if it was raining
he’d find himself hemmed in by three or four crew members all wanting to sit down. I think having so many people around overwhelmed him a bit. Already a quiet, contemplative man, he retreated
further into his shell. At times it felt a bit like he was the tired social worker resigned to keeping watch over a rowdy youth club. When the rest of us went ashore to explore Havelock, Tyrone
stayed on the boat by himself for three days in a row. No doubt he relished having some peace and quiet.

Libertad had noticed the change in him. As we walked through the jungle area at the back of Beach #7 on our way to the tuk-tuk rank, she turned to me. ‘Emma, can I ask ju something? Is
Tyrone angry with me and with Pablo?’

‘Oh, Libertad,’ I said. ‘Neither of you has done anything wrong. If you do, Tyrone will always, politely and gently, mention it.’

She looked at me, concern still plainly written on her face.

‘Trust me,’ I said. ‘The way he is acting is not your fault.’

Tyrone wasn’t the only one who was being affected by all six of us being crammed in together. As we
continued to sail around the Andamans, Pablo’s anger grew. He stopped listening to me when we were on watch together, not making eye contact when I tried to explain sailing concepts like side
slipping. I got the feeling he wasn’t enjoying the sailing at all. I tried to spark some enthusiasm by showing him more things, like how to drive the dinghy, but it made him even angrier with
me. I started to think that I must be the nastiest, bossiest person in the world, judging by the way he was reacting to me. But then he snapped at Tyrone, too, when he tried to helpfully make a
suggestion about the dinner Pablo was preparing. ‘I do know how to cook lentils,’ he snapped, practically adding, ‘Ju imbecile!’ at the end. So I knew it wasn’t just
me. Probably he didn’t like being told what to do by anyone. Libertad did her best to placate him, murmuring softly in Spanish as they sat on the trampoline at night.