Saturday, 4 April 1998
Three days had passed since I last filled a photocopier with paper, and work was now much more to my liking. At the bustling airport arrivals gate, a waiting driver with a sign met us and took our trolley, stacked with bags. Though it was early in the day, the dry warmth of Cape Town hit us as we stepped out of the building. The driver whisked us straight off to a dusty white minibus. The clock really was ticking. He was to take us directly down to the docks.
I had travelled to Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya in the decade before and had observed first-hand the faded colonial infrastructure. The smooth roads and flyovers of Cape Town were a world apart. Stylish glass office buildings and sports grounds whizzed past the minibus windows and large houses with neat lawns were surrounded by exuberant pink and orange flowers. The sunshine and vivid colours were glorious after dismal Aberdeen. I wanted to stay and explore; it seemed a shame to arrive in such a beautiful place and then leave so quickly; but we were here for a job. The minibus pulled in through the security gates of the port, and drove slowly along the broad industrial quays past an assortment of cargo ships and cranes.
When the bus came to a halt on the dockside, Magnus and I jumped out, eager to see the boats that we would be working on. Two men waiting in smart trousers and open-necked shirts came over to greet us. I was particularly aware of the need to act professionally. I was twenty-three years old, though I probably looked even younger, and didn’t have the sort of appearance that commanded respect: short, skinny and scruffy. If I was to be a good Observer, and to practise the skills and knowledge I learned at university, I would need to be taken seriously.
‘Welcome to South Africa, gentlemen. I see you’ve left the British weather at home. My name’s Alan Newman, I’m the vessel manager.’
Alan’s warm handshake let us relax for a moment. Short, round and bearded, he asked a few questions about our journey before introducing us to his younger colleague.
‘This is Sean Walker, he’s here representing the owners.’
Sean had his long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, like mine. At sea, we were to have minimal contact with Alan and Sean – they were office men, after all – but we needed to make a good impression to ensure amicable relations on the boat. We had been warned that Observers were often resented. It was a condition of the vessel’s fishing licence that an Observer had to be carried, but this did not mean that we would be welcomed. Who would want someone watching over their shoulder as they work? Both Alan and Sean were polite and business-like, but they were clearly in a hurry to get the boats to sea.
We walked away from the minibus, towards the boats tied alongside the concrete quay. A blue and white bow loomed high above our heads. The Northern Pride sat proud of the dock, projecting the sort of dependability you could believe would punch through the giant fifteen-metre-high swells of the Southern Ocean. A strong steel gantry towered on her deck, pure white against the blue sky, festooned with marine electronics, pulleys and lights. With a fresh coat of blue paint on her fifty-metre hull, the Pride was substantial and impressive.
And behind her? What was that grubby little boat? The small dark-blue one, with a bit more rust and missing the gleam. A sequence of thoughts rattled through my head.
Oh my God, that’s the Sudur Havid. That’s the boat I’m living on for the next three months. Is it too late to change my mind?
Her heavily built steel hull sat low in the water and was short and stout. At forty-five metres in length she was bigger than the fishing boats in most English harbours, but smaller than many Scottish super-trawlers I had seen in ports around my home in Aberdeen. Functional rather than elegant, she should have seemed marginally shorter than the Pride, but she was dwarfed. Far back on her pea-green deck, the windows of her white wheelhouse barely peeped over her rust-pocked bow. From the wheelhouse the Skipper and officers could control the ship and watch the seas ahead; two thirds of the boat was in front of them in the form of an open, unsheltered deck. There was only a small deck behind that towards the stern, which was crowded with wooden crates and steel gantries. A gaping hole in the side of the boat was level with the dock, and I could see rollers and winches attached inside. That, I reasoned, must be where the fishing line came on board. A row of buoys sat atop her wheelhouse structure, just above the windows, like neon orange and pink eyebrows. The comical sight of a boat with a face did little to make me trust her more.
I made the mistake of helping Magnus aboard the Northern Pride with his kit and saw the wide passages and his spacious, pleasant personal cabin. Alan Newman then led me back to the Sudur Havid and we climbed aboard for a quick tour. Returning the favour, Magnus was quiet as we ricocheted along the narrow, poorly lit corridors like rats along a drainpipe, and struggled to get my huge kitbags into the tiny cabin I was to share with Glen Petersen, an engineer. Our cabin was typical: one small bunk each (Glen on top bunk, me on the bottom) opposite the single porthole, one drawer each underneath the bunks for storage, one cupboard each for clothes and kit, and a small padded bench by the door. Glen came in, and politely introduced himself. Old and wizened, with rich-coloured skin and wiry hair, he was fastidiously neat. His reading glasses were clipped to his chest pocket and his clothes were folded and stowed. His bunk was already carefully made, folded just so. Everything else inside the room was made of varnished plywood or melamine, yellowed with age and wear. A stale odour hung in the cabin, of fried food, diesel and tobacco smoke. Under my breath, I cursed my casual choice of boat back in London. This was just typical of my luck. Still, Magnus may have got the better deal on boats, but what about the officers and crew?
Baggage stowed, Alan led us off for the official introductions. He called in Afrikaans to a man climbing the steep steps to the bridge. Filling the width of the stairs, Bubbles was as wide as an ape. In fact, if you took a pair of hair clippers to a sleeping gorilla, you wouldn’t be too far off producing a good likeness. He turned when Alan called but it was hard at first to make out his features in the murky light. Stepping back down the stairway he rolled from side to side towards us along the corridor. It was apparent now that he was as short as he was wide, with rough white skin and a dark beard. A pair of luminous sapphire eyes peered out from the small gap above his beard and below his thick-set brow. Eventually, a smile erupted.
‘Newman, you Jewish bastard, how’s it?’
Alan laughed off the insult and carried on.
‘Matt, this is Bubbles. He’ll be your Skipper.’
Gerard McDonagh was always referred to by his nickname, Bubbles. His gruff demeanour and scowl as we met made it seem all the more absurd. This was further compounded by his striking resemblance to the white supremacist Eugene Terre’Blanche. This was the man I would be trusting with my life. I wondered if Magnus hadn’t got the better deal with officers, too.
Alan led me up the steep stairs to the bridge, where he introduced me to Boetie, the Fishing Master. Like Bubbles, he was never referred to by his real name – Brian – rather as Boetie, little brother. Whereas Bubbles would navigate us towards the fishing grounds, Boetie would be in charge of the boat as soon as the fishing line hit the water. Tall, solidly built and possessed of a healthy tan, Boetie grinned as he greeted me, although I had the unnerving feeling that I was being assessed.
‘How’s it, Matt?’
His small moustache emphasized the neatly clipped way in which he spoke, which was slightly squeaky and unexpected in someone so large. It was a complete contrast to Bubbles’ rumblings.
Both men were proud of the racial make-up of the thirty-seven-strong crew. As far as they knew, we were the first boat out of Cape Town to consist of a fully integrated team of ‘whites, blacks and coloureds’.
They told me that the white South Africans on the Sudur Havid, from Skipper to deckhand, came from a variety of backgrounds, including the city, the coast and the farms.
‘Do you speak any Afrikaans?’ Bubbles asked me.
‘Not a word. Do I need to?’
‘No, you’ll be fine,’ he said dismissively. ‘Most of the South African guys speak English. We’ll teach you a bit as we go along.’
The black crew were predominantly either Xhosa from South Africa or Ovambo from Namibia. Some of the Namibians had been fishing for years, and had served on the Sudur Havid when she previously worked out of Walvis Bay, Namibia. Others had only recently come down to South Africa in search of better-paid work. As well as their own tribal languages, on the boat the Ovambo spoke mainly Portuguese. Just a few spoke Afrikaans or English.
I wasn’t familiar with the group termed ‘Cape Coloureds’. Regardless of their ancestry – mixed race or Cape Bushmen, Indian or Malay – these men were classed as ‘coloured’ because their skin was brown or honey-toned and not black or white. Most of them had grown up in and around Cape Town, and their names were more familiar to me than those of the Xhosa or Ovambo: Brian, Trevor and Gideon were Cape Coloured; Walu Walu and Kashingola were not.
In total, about a third of the ship’s complement was Cape Coloured, a third was black and a third was white, including officers from Portugal, Germany and, with my arrival, the UK.
Magnus and I climbed ashore and followed Alan to the comfortable saloon of the Northern Pride, where we gathered around the tables on the cushioned benches for an officers’ meeting. Magnus and I were wary. We were new at the job and didn’t want to appear naive. If we were not careful, we could lose our objectivity and become puppets to the Skippers. I stifled any nervous jokes during the meeting and shook hands as firmly as I could when they were offered.
Looking around the table, I saw the people I would soon hear as voices from the radio or see as names on faxes. The Captain of the Northern Pride, Andreas, seemed much more affable than Bubbles, and was enthusiastic about the trip ahead. Sean, Alan and the other company men began their pitch, keen to assure us that they really cared about the boats’ conduct. They were clear in asking the Skippers and Fishing Masters to treat us courteously and to adhere to the fishery regulations.
We left the crew of the Northern Pride to prepare for departure and chatted on the dock. Magnus puffed nervously on one of his cigarettes, delaying boarding the Pride until the very last moment. We shook hands, and I wished him a safe trip. Calm seas beckoned, and the Northern Pride sailed out of Cape Town at 16:20. The dock was now almost empty of people. Alan raised his hand in a final salute to Captain Andreas. He clearly had similar thoughts to mine about the Pride as we watched the big blue boat glide across the harbour.
‘She’s a beautiful boat, eh?’
The Sudur Havid, still tied to the harbourside, had none of her sister’s grace, but looking at her now on her own she didn’t seem quite as small, or quite as ugly, no longer overshadowed by the Northern Pride. In any case, it was now too late to swap.