“Don’t you have those in America?” Jacques demanded, astonished. From then on he drove circumspectly, deriving wonder and pleasure from our comments about his homeland and plying us with questions about our own.
Three yachts arrived while we were in Port Louis, rather more than usual. First was Jeanne Mathilde, a 40-footer out of Singapore, with “Rex” King aboard. In our yacht register King merely notes that he left Great Nicobar with a crew of one and “arrived alone.” The actual story is dramatic. While at sea, his companion developed acute appendicitis. By rarest good luck, they met a passing ship and Rex was able, by means of flares, to attract their attention and have the ill man taken off. In the process of signaling, however, one of the flares exploded and King was badly burned. He refused to leave his ship and sailed on alone. When we met him in Mauritius his face still bore scars and powder burns.
The second yacht to arrive was Marie Thérèse II, with singlehander Bernard Moitessier, a very likable Frenchman. He, too, had known the rigors of the sea. In his own words, written in our log, his first Marie Thérèse, a Chinese junk, was “lost in a reef in the Chagos Archipelago during her attempt to reach the Seychelles Islands from Indonesia. Reason was no chronometer, no radio, lost, no binoculars, and probably too much cheek from the skiper” (sic!).
King and Moitessier, obviously, were not usual types, but the third arrival was the most bizarre of all, as well as the least communicative. This was a lone Australian on Kate. His brief entry in the register says merely: “Best wishes and regards from Bill Geering of Kate, 21 ft. L.O.A., and 60 days out of Fremantle to Mauritius. Bon Voyage.”
The voyage, as we were able to piece it together, was less routine. Kate, on a coastal cruise from Fremantle to Darwin, had been caught offshore and blown out to sea. With the strong trade winds and westbound current against him, Geering had no choice but to carry on across the Indian Ocean. He had tried for Christmas Island, but missed it. He had tried to find the Keeling-Cocos, but without success. At last, fifty-three days out, he had made a landfall at Rodrigues and then sailed on to Mauritius. He was not in too good shape when he arrived, having been on short rations of food and water for several weeks and without standing room in his tiny ship. In addition, he had managed to injure his back. When we asked him how long he expected to stay in Mauritius, he replied succinctly, “Maybe forever!” Shortly thereafter he sold Kate to a local resident and flew back to Australia.
Mauritius, rather pretentiously known as “The Crown and Pearl of the Indian Ocean,” proved to be a fascinating island but with a social and economic situation that is highly confused and potentially explosive. It is made up of many racial groups: English, French, Malay, African, Indian, Chinese, and many admixtures—and these groups are further divided by religious or social prejudices. The Hindus feud constantly with the Muslims; the Chinese are divided into Communist and Nationalist factions; while the 15 per cent that make up the remainder of the population include a scattering of British, who come on temporary government appointments and feel superior to the locals, and a residue of French-Mauritians, who regard themselves as the entrenched aristocracy.
A single observation summed up, to my mind, the self-consciousness of the entire racial scene. As in other countries, Jessica made contact with the Girl Guides and found them, as in Fiji, divided into mutually exclusive troops on the basis of race. The daughter of a British civil servant thus explained it, “We don’t even call the younger Guides ‘Brownies’ here—because of the Indians, you know. We call them ‘Bluebirds.’”
In almost every port we received applications from would-be adventurers—of all ages and several sexes. I always listened to their pleas with sympathy, for I have never forgotten the day I spent at the yacht harbor in Honolulu on my way out to Japan, too timid to ask if I might take a look aboard a yacht. It must be admitted that the vast majority of applicants had little to offer aside from a vague desire to get away from it all. Moreover, I noticed that the peak of these requests always came on a beautiful Sunday afternoon when a gentle breeze ruffled the waters of the bay. I have yet to have an applicant row out to offer his services in some dark predawn at the height of a williwaw, while we’re bouncing all over the place and trying to get a second anchor out.
Many of our applicants, of course, were under the impression that we employed a paid crew. The fact that Nick, Mickey, and Moto were yachting companions rather than hired hands was a source of constant astonishment, although we never failed to emphasize the relationship. As for us, we took increasing pride in the fact that after two years and more than 25,000 miles, the original Phoenix crew was still together and still, we felt, good friends.
There was one type of applicant, however, whom we sometimes signed on for a short hop. Such a one was Jean de St. Pern, an ebullient young French-Mauritian who begged to sail with us as far as Durban. He volunteered to help Jessica in her struggles with beginning French and, the clincher as far as Barbara was concerned, expressed a willingness, nay, an eagerness, to cook. We took him along.