Mike Mate

I follow a path that takes me over the saddle of a grassy green hill and then leads me down to a cove, one of many surrounding Waiheke island – this one’s called “Little Palm Beach”.  I walk along its length.  The tide, on its way out, has calved pencil-thin tracks into the golden sand and I stoop over to allow my eyes to trace their patterns.  I feel tingling marvel – at nature’s design.

Two women walk past; they go to the far end of the beach, drop their sarongs to their feet and walk naked down to the water line and step into the water.  They look good in the distance, both have long black hair.  My eyes trace their shapes and that tingling feeling of marvel – at nature’s design – is back. The women swim for several minutes and then wade back out again. They ring the water out of their hair, tie on their sarongs and leave the beach to me.  I leave my clothes in a little pile at the top of the beach and then walk down to the water – it does feel good to be naked and in the sunshine.  The water is cool, but it’s warm enough for me – I swim. I decide to go offline until Monday (a real holiday).

 I send off “Mike’s Week” to my Google group of friends, family and relations – it’s not a weekly anymore, it’s changing.  I post a blog too.  But late that night, in bed in Maureen’s (Rien’s wife) massage room; I pull out one of Rien’s four-dozen photograph albums – it’s title “1949-1976”.  I page through and find that he trained as a cook, served on cargo ships, ran a koffie shop called “Middle Earth” (before Lord of the Rings) in Nelson, New Zealand, and then joined the ketch La Flor (Spanish – The Flower) in 1974.  The La Flor proceeded to sail in protest of French Nuclear testing in Muroroa.  She was the boat that missed the bomb.  It had sailed from Whangarei and arrived at Muroroa one day too late.  Rien’s floor is made of Kauri the native New Zealand hard-wood and not Cowry, the shell.

Rein is an old time greenpeacer and the lines on his face (two years shy of sixty) tell.  He dates back to 1973 – to the protest voyage of the Baltic trader, Fri, to Muroroa.  Long grey hair pulled back in a pony tail.  I’ve sailed with him a couple of times over the years and its comforting to see he is still wearing the Russian (blue striped) navy shirt and denims.  I follow him down the path through his garden, bowing my head to walk beneath a peach tree – he lives in an overgrown orchard.  Rein pushes on the door and it opens, ‘no need for keys’ he says, leading me into his home on Waiheke Island.  I drag my suitcase through the door, across a cowrie floor and into a New Zealand adventure.  I intend to remain in New Zealand for the next three months.

Lesley has made tea, it’s four in the morning and the anemometer glows a red 35 knots of wind from ahead.  Bridge windows are caked with salt.  Matauri Bay, burial ground of the first Rainbow Warrior, lies just behind us.  I take over the watch as we leave the Bay of Islands, leaving the shelter of Cape Brett.  The wind is more impacting since we have jettisoned our ballast and our speed is reduced.  Dimir and Maite (the 12-4 watch) leave the bridge.  I take the wheel and head out into the brunt of the weather.  The ship starts pitching; up and down, up and down – until fifteen minutes past five – then we pitch up, and up, and up some more until we are poised at the very top of the swell.  But what goes up has to come down and we do – at an angle that would be good for a diving submarine.  We go down into the sea, head first.  And smash.  The wave crashes over the bow and seconds later a wall of water hits the bridge.  Rainbow Warrior is stopped in her tracks and the rumble of her engines and vibration of revolutions dies away.  For a moment there is nothing.  And then alarms are ringing.  We have blacked out on a lee shore.  Drifting into the Poor Knight Islands marine reserve…

Moments like this always seem longer.  It seemed an age before the second generator kicked in and restored electrical power to the ship.  But it did take longer to start up the second engine, a cold start – but in an emergency you can do that.  Hans (chief engineer) had to be woken up, he’s quite deaf, it was the first order I gave to Lesley.  For twenty minutes we were blown towards the rocks, towards the old Rainbow Warrior.  From then on we battled against the wind and swell, making only 3 knots of headway, up and down, until midday when we rounded the Poor Knights Islands and set the sails to run downwind to Whangarei.

An unusual whining sound rises up from the engine room and a stream of rusty water gushes out a hole in the side of the Rainbow Warrior. Black Sam leans over the side, his ear protectors are still on his head, watching as 40 m3 of ballast water is pumped overboard. We are just on the outside of New Zealand territorial waters, close enough to take the stability risk and far enough that five small tanks of Greek fresh water will be just a drop in the ocean. The ballast is pumped out in anticipation of taking the boat out of the water – up a slip-way.

But no sooner is the ballast all gone then the night comes and with it – the wind. It swiftly builds up to a gale from ahead and the bow, which has lifted out of the water with the change in trim, acts as a block. Rainbow Warrior slows down; she takes on an uncomfortable motion with the reduced stability. My sleep is disturbed with dreams of masts dipping into the water. The rolling period is faster and further from side to side – we are what mariners call a “tender” ship. I stuff cushions under one side of my mattress, creating a bend in it so as not to be thrown out of bed. We’re almost there.

As Slade threw an apple up into the air, I aimed an egg at it and threw – it missed.  I tried again but without success.  One egg broke in my hand as my hand was in mid swing.  I threw its yoke all over Ed who was standing beside the open pilot door watching his deck crew and captain having a mad moment.  We have discarded all of our surplus fresh provisions into ocean waters (there was not much left).  All of our recycling had to go over the side too; the cardboard, paper, glass, tin, aluminum, all had to go – in preparation for New Zealand.  The honey will be locked up with the bonded stores and the freezer will be sealed and not opened for three months.

I did not sleep at all last night and not from the movement of the ship, but from the worry of what we would run into outside the protection of the Barrier Reef?  Certainly the Rainbow Warrior twisted and turned and was occasionally slapped viciously by the sea, but as soon as we nosed out of Curtis Channel, then the wind started to drop.  The depression moved aside to let us pass and we found ourselves this morning running free out into the Tasman sea all sails set to cross the on my last leg of the voyage.