Broad horizons
The compulsion to explore is found in the blood of sailors the world over
The urge to get afloat is a powerful one – perhaps a good thing because, without the impulse to explore, the world wouldn’t have been populated so broadly.
I’ve written before of the lure of headlands and how they entice mariners to round them to see what lies beyond. In truth I’ve never seen a headland yet that I didn’t wonder what delights might lurk around the corner. And I fancy there are many sailors who feel the same.
Much the same can be said of islands, particularly small ones where you can’t avoid being conscious of their limitations. The knowledge that if you hiked along the coast, keeping the sea on the same side, you will eventually return to the spot where you started might reassure some but would be intensely constraining to others. By contrast open oceans give no hints whatsoever regarding what might lie beneath the horizon.
But right back through history that hasn’t deterred mankind one jot. Mariners have sallied forth; often in craft hardly ideal for the job. The Pacific Ocean – our planet’s greatest stretch of water – occupies about 46% of the Earth’s surface. It contains somewhere around 25,000 – 30,000 islands; depending upon how you define what an ‘island’ exactly is. Over the millennia all but a few of the habitable ones have been discovered, colonised and developed – most in craft hardly more sophisticated than the one pictured on this page.
And such ventures were not without risk. For example in 1519 a fleet of five ships under the command of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan set off westbound from Spain with the object of establishing a more direct route to the ‘spice islands’ of the Far East. In those days some spices (notably cloves and cinnamon) were more valuable than gold.
Although not their main purpose, they had completed the first recorded circumnavigation but, of the 270 or so men aboard, only about 30 survived and only one of the ships – the Victoria – made it home. The others were abandoned at various points because there were no longer the men to man them. Magellan himself died in the Philippines (more precisely on the island of Mactan) at the hands of indignant islanders outraged at the intrusion.
Now it has to be noted that Christopher Columbus had preceded Magellan by 27 years, and is justifiably renowned for being the first to forge an ongoing link with the New World. This contrasts with the Vikings who had discovered the wastes of North America some 500 years earlier but apparently weren’t impressed enough to stay.
But our Chris of the Columbus persuasion became something of an addict of the transatlantic game. In the decade following his first excursion he made a total of four crossings to the Caribbean (the first from Portugal, the rest from Spain) penetrating as far west as Cuba. Personally I understand the attraction.
There have been numerous efforts to validate the feasibility of simple craft for ocean voyages. Perhaps the most memorable is the Kon-Tiki expedition of 1947.
Led by Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl, the six man crew sailed the raft 4,300 miles across the Pacific from South America to the Tuamotu Islands in the South Pacific. The raft was largely made up of balsa logs lashed together. The voyage took 101 days and the crew arrived safely – though no doubt eager for a cold beer or two at the end of it.
That’s why I admire the boat in the photo so much. No one would call it elegant but it’s certainly a viable watercraft of which Thor Heyerdahl would doubtless have approved. No attempt has been made to keep the water out but so what? Expectations of dryness are more important in higher, colder, latitudes than they are in the tropics. Likewise it’s possible to find issue with some of its hydrodynamic properties but for a bit of exercise or perhaps a spot of fishing over the reefs it’s ideal.
And then there’s the comforting matter of – how shall I put it? – low resale value. Theft, particularly of dingies and outboards, blights cruising in some areas; the majority of perpetrators being impoverished cruisers, I should add, not the locals. Without wishing to disparage I believe this boat presents some difficult resale problems. When I asked its builder if I could take a photograph, he cheerfully stood proudly alongside his creation as I clicked away. And so he should. He has much to be proud of.
Open oceans give no hint whatsoever what might lie beneath the horizon