Two in one. How yachtsmen and sea gypsies celebrate Halloween and a birthday in a Colombian shipyard and in another South American outpost, aboard a Russian yacht moored alongside a Dutch barge in French Guiana.
We don’t celebrate All Hallows’ Eve, although abroad it always means raucous parties. Everyone, young and old, paints themselves up as bloodied monsters with sewn-shut mouths, who then, all year until the next Halloween, make the first mate leap up in terror without an alarm clock on moonless ocean nights to stand her watch. We don’t celebrate Halloween, but every 31 October we have a celebration—
The Captain’s Birthday . . In a Colombian shipyard
Yesterday, Andrey wanted to spend his birthday with a sander in one hand and a bucket of filler in the other. That was exactly what he told the first mate:
I want to sand and fair the hull.
Nastenka made a birthday cake, both young sailors delighted their father with homemade cards, and over breakfast the captain regaled us with notes from the gift jar, “50 Reasons Why I Love You, Dad.” They included, “Because there’s always someone I can grumble at,” “Because you’re the funniest of all the badly behaved Vikings,” and another 48 notes. And then there was the sander, clearing the heaps of stuff out of the cabins, and cake with candles in the evening, accompanied by guitar music four metres above the ground.
Towering above the harbour lights... To set the scene, Lada dressed up as a Halloween chicken 🙂
Lady Mary is standing in the shipyard—literally, a “ship yard”—ashore, amid the screech of saws and drills, the fireworks of gas welding, small and enormous vessels resting their keels in the sand, and clouds of dust rising from 20-metre hulls under the hands of teams of sanding workers. And now, instead of sailing ashore, we climb down a four-metre ladder propped against the hull.
A year earlier
For his birthday the previous year, the captain wanted noisy new acquaintances and festivities. We had only recently
crossed the Atlantic,
then spent time at
an uninhabited island,
and after a month in a social vacuum, some noisy merrymaking was very welcome indeed.
French Guiana on the map
It happened in the semi-gypsy marina of
Dégrad des Cannes
(the city of Cannes, in plain terms), at the mouth of the Mahury River in Guiana. Murky water, sprawling mangrove forests, mosquitoes, piranhas and caimans—everything just as it should be.
We had a wonderful berth: every few days, Lady Mary swapped places with a repair barge moored at the rickety pontoon. The barge would sail off for three days or so to dredge the channels, then return and sit empty for the rest of the week while the crew rested ashore. That day we were lucky:
our barge
was at its berth, and the crew had been dismissed ashore. So instead of the metre-and-a-half width of the rotten pontoon, we got a splendid venue for riotous fun.
To focus the minds of the floating village and let everyone know how they would be spending Halloween evening, our young sailor nailed the following notice to the marina gate:
“Today at 6 p.m., everyone is invited to a party aboard the Russian yacht Lady Mary to celebrate Captain Andrey’s birthday.”
We decorated our barge with candles and chairs, strung Christmas lights along the guardrails, and put Pelageya on full blast for atmosphere. It was a Russian party, after all :).
The young sailors conjured up two pizzas, plus two large pots of Olivier salad, known throughout the world as “Russian salad.” All of this, together with beer, wine, forks, plates and assorted tablecloths, was dispatched to the lockers and steel shelves of “our barge.” . Hello, guests!
By six, the guests began to arrive. Soon the whole marina had gathered on the barge in front of Lady Mary—they were terribly keen to see what a “Russian-style celebration” meant. Some brought whisky, others “yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum.” Some guests were made up as witches, and pirates arrived from the yacht Abitbol, whom we later met on the Caribbean island of
Tobago
and in
Grenada.
As in the finest houses of Paris, the hosts moved from group to group, greeting their guests and struggling to remember everyone’s names—and even succeeding. The captain received presents, including an openwork electric lamp handmade from a local calabash. We are still carrying it around the world and will apparently continue to do so for another three years: in February we forgot to take it to our
mountain village.
It would have fitted the interior rather nicely there :).
Dancing, merriment, conversation. Surprisingly, by the end of the party every guest had worked out who the guest of honour was, despite the drink and the crowd. By midnight, the most sober people aboard were the children and Andrey and me.
The children formed quite a crowd here—five friends or so for Lada. The lack of a common language does nothing to stop our little sailor making friends all over the world. Nastya, meanwhile, had two teenagers for company: Orien, who barely spoke English, and Jul, entirely untroubled by language barriers after spending five years in the States during his family’s circumnavigation. Thirteen-year-old Jul took advantage of the commotion to sneak four cans of beer away from the adults. The girls tried to take the haul from him and return it to its rightful owners; everyone romped around to their hearts’ content and then bounded ashore.
The nationality question
Besides Eduardo the Spaniard and Claudia, an ethnic Ukrainian from Poland, the birthday guests included two people from the island of
Mauritius,
French people, and Dutch canal builders from two very impressive specialist vessels. The Dutch watchkeepers were on duty around the clock and forbidden to drink alcohol throughout their month in Guiana, so they all brought non-alcoholic beer.
A view of those very Dutch vessels and the bow of “our barge” from the masthead of Lady Mary
The party was a roaring success. Countless stories were added to our collection, and the sea gypsies fell in love with Russian music, especially Pelageya. Everyone was surprised that the first Russians they had ever met, in the persons of us, did not drink vodka and were not particularly keen on other alcohol either. The Russian Olivier salad disappeared in 15 minutes—we should have chopped up three pots’ worth. The pizza brought by the guests and the strange spicy wasabi snacks came in very handy. And from that evening onward, we became fully fledged members of the community of cruising sailors who had settled at the mouth of the Mahury. We were even invited to the official meeting where the marina’s fate was decided. But that came later.
By one in the morning, the guests had peacefully dispersed. The last two participants walked with their bodies and the plane of the pontoon forming an isosceles triangle—the only geometric figure that allowed them to reach their cabins safely.
By two in the morning, the first mate had successfully cleared all traces of the party from the barge, and if not for the odd scatter of confetti from party poppers, no one would ever have guessed that only yesterday we had celebrated our captain’s birthday here.
The next morning, the captain climbed the mast 🙂
As everyone knows, the best present is a line of uneven verse that strikes straight at the heart. And yesterday the first mate gave the captain precisely such a present:
To My Husband
What matters most in a man is action—not a merry-go-round of pretty words, but a goal Toward which you advance with grace and courage, skilfully steering clear of storms and shoals.
What you can never put to sea without is courage. An iron gaze and a steady hand. And whatever may rage beyond the hull, you turn storm clouds into clouds.
What matters in a man is strength. Bearing responsibility is no easy cross. And Godzillas scatter in terror, while cockroaches hide all around....
What touches me in a man is tenderness, tolerance of a tearful wife’s twittering. To hide in your arms—that is what I asked of the gods. Oh, and also—that there be no war.
What is difficult to preserve is respect. I have plenty of reasons to respect my husband. And feeling the pull of gravity, I go to sea with you—no two ways about it :).
What a marriage needs is a course with the wind, and always in the same direction. Freely giving warmth and freedom, you shelter your daughters and your wife.
What is hard for a person is wisdom: to learn lessons and be tolerant. I am happy that everything turned out this way: the years did not manage to kill our love.
What is dearly won is faithfulness, when the family is secure: you will not betray us. And those who craved other people’s passions remained behind, lamenting their folly....
What is rare in a person is wholeness, harmony of strength and love, Boundlessness of mind, talent and will. And beauty too, whatever anyone may say ☺.
What matters to a family is care, and strong tea warmed over the fire.... Plus humour—it is no easy job living among women; there are five of them in the family.
Live a thousand years, my darling, my very best and merriest husband! Thank you for loving me, for our shared heading and for the kinship of our souls.
🙂
Photos to help you get your bearings 🙂
Photographs from this cosy, friendly Guianese marina of Dégrad des Cannes, where we spent three wonderful weeks surrounded by
the care of the local residents—
a true
shore-based brotherhood
:).
Jul, a 13-year-old French circumnavigator
A Guianese fishing vessel in the marina
Birthday morning
Our Dutch friend Tony lives in this white container, which inside is a two-room flat with a living room, kitchen and bathroom.
Lady Mary’s stern and the stern of “our barge” to port
The scarlet ibis—the emblem of Guiana. They walk along the shore instead of seagulls
At the entrance to the marina
In Dégrad des Cannes Marina
A floating home with a little engine—wild, but charming
Sunset over the marina at the mouth of the Mahury River
Wishing everyone interesting celebrations!