Paralipsis

Leaving is not an easy thing for me. I was emotionally distressed seeing Las Palmas getting smaller and smaller. While I looked at large, my captain touched me on the shoulder and said, in that very Germanic English of his: "do not worry, you shall never see this man again".

First thing that came to me mind was the image of myself swimming, holding on to a drenched passport.

But I didn't jump. And that is how the hardest month of my life started.

In the beginning I tried to ignore the situation and cook. The pork with chukrute and mashed potatoes made me sick. All were ready made, and desert was canned fruit salad. Needless to say I got really thin.

The boat was equipped with a radio and the captain would speak to his wife everyday at five. At that time he forbid me to talk, saying "she's very jealous". Things were starting to feel weird but there was still some really twisted behavior to come. On the third day of sail he asked me to cut his hair. He prompted me to do it in the heads. It turned ou when I showed up with the scissors in hand he was naked.

I always think abusive people don't now the risk they run, cause in their ignorance they never expect to be facing someone with rage.

But I didn't react then, so I just ignored that odd situation and cut his hair. After drinking a few cartons of wine, captain called for me and said I was to sleep in his bunk from then on, which I promptly refused. He then told me, fine, I was to sleep outside. And so I obeyed.

The captain started drinking himself silly every other day. That made things easier, cause all we had to do was to steer the boat on course, be ourselves and ignore him. Whenever he fell to the ground the Berliners would take him to his bunk and we already expected him to wake up in a rage two days later.

Even though the Berliners didn't speak a word of English I could still relate to them. Seeing me crawl inside a black plastic bag every night and shiver, they offered me to sleep in their bunk while they were doing their shifts, which really saved my life and health.

In one of those return-of-the-Jedi furry tantrums, the captain came outside with a gun. The Berliners promptly ran and started convincing him to put it away. The next day he showed up at the bow and tried to make amends. He was drunk again, and swayed hanging on to the stanchions. I remember having to make a real effort not to push him overboard.

Yes, I now realize that's also my nature.

It was the closest I came to killing someone in my life. 

So one beautiful sunny day of that 28-day-trip, I saw Barbados upon the bow. I promptly ran downstairs, packed my bag and said goodbye to the Berliners. As they tied up the ropes to the dock I jumped off Caroline and never looked behind. It was November 1988. Bloody happy to be in the Caribbean.