The strip of water that surges between the southern shores of the South Island of New Zealand and the ragged little triangle that is Stewart Island spells danger. Foveaux Strait – 16 miles wide and whipped by all the savage forces that nature invented. Next stop’s Antarctica. It’s wild. I’m told this stretch of water is on a par with Cape Horn as the most treacherous piece of ocean in the world.
Yet Stewart Island is my husband’s favourite place.
Ben’s one of a breed of taciturn Southlanders. His health has been deteriorating lately, and when he expressed a desire to revisit The Island, I couldn’t deny him this request. A walking stick as well as a wife would be essential accompaniments to enable his rambles on this and what would be his last visit.
I arranged accommodation at The Lodge and booked the return trips on the ferry. Ben’s family had owned a crib (Southland term for a ramshackle holiday cottage) over there, primitive from all accounts, but he loved it and spent most of his boyhood school holidays on the island, living a Huckleberry Finn existence – fishing, exploring and messing about in boats.
It is rare to have a smooth sailing across that notorious strait. Even on a ‘good’ day we’ve learned to expect an hour of churning fear and untold misery.
And today a ferocious storm rages. Gale force winds shot through with ice-bullets batter the Bluff Ferry Terminal where we’re waiting for the formal announcement. “There’s no way they’d go out in this,” I say.
Ben looks out through the storm-blasted window and says nothing.
The PA system coughs to life. Aghast, I hear the voice announce that the ferry will sail as scheduled.
The passengers gather their gear and file out of the warm terminal building. The wind has teeth. And there’s a collective gasp as the weather thrashes us on the exposed gangway down to the ferry. It’s a catamaran. The ferry itself is furiously prancing and shaking its mooring ropes, showing the whites of its hulls with each fearsome dip and rise. It’s a ride I do not want to undertake.
A brazen wind undresses the passengers on the way down the ramp. Scarves are unleashed. A purple one wings away. It’ll beat us to our destination. Woollen hats are picked off heads, jacket hoods fill like spinnakers and tug the occupiers staggering off-course.
“This is insane!” I turn to Ben in horror, but Ben stomps stoically on. I know the look. He’ll go or perish in the attempt.
Despite the rampaging storm, down by the ship in the relative shelter of the terminal building, the wind hasn’t completely dispersed that whiff of wharf. The nostril-twitching blend of engine oil and fishy cargoes still lingers.
You can pick the day-trippers from the true Stewart Islanders by the way they embark. The island dwellers don’t flinch as they judge the rise and fall of the lurching vessel. They move across in the split second that ship and shore are level. I stand there hesitating like the other petrified rookies unfamiliar with these foul-weather gymnastics before taking the leaping stride between steady wharf and bucking boat. Right on cue, a dousing of uplifted salty sea fills my eyes and mouth so that I’m doing the transit manoeuvre blind.
Inside the cabin, it’s warm. Twenty or so seats are ranged on either side of an aisle. That’s odd, all the midship seats are already occupied. We’d left as soon as the call to embark was announced. Yet, passengers filled a complete band of seats in the centre section of the boat.
Ben and I take a seat at the back. Ah, enlightenment! It’s all the savvy Islanders who have settled around the centre of gravity – and must have done so before we embarked. I figured out that the top and tail of the ship, or in nautical terminology, the bow and stern, would be less stable, and potentially each end would flip up and down more in turbulent seas – and so it proved.
But it remained a mystery how the locals had beaten everyone else to the mid-section seats. Maybe there was a secret sign that only the Islanders recognised – a designated commuter, a raised chin or a tilt of the head that alerted those in the know to board the ship by some secret side exit five minutes before the announcement. Anyway, there they were all settled in their seats with impassive faces and eyes that wouldn’t meet ours.
After welcoming us aboard, our skipper gives us the safety drill as if it’s just another day at the office.
“Normally, tea, coffee and drinks can be purchased at the bar,” he says. “Might be wise to give the drinks a miss this trip – you could be wearing them.” He indicates the scene through the front window and adds, “It’s a bit ‘lumpy’ out there today.” That’s skippers’ code for ‘pray for your souls’.
The catamaran chugs out of the relative protection of the Bluff Harbour confines. This is the crucial point where we cross the bar to the ocean proper – and now ‘lumpy’ takes on a whole new meaning.
Apocalyptic winds funnel in from the Southern Ocean creating bottomless swells and vertical-peaking waves. Walls of grey sea rise above the windows. The little craft is pounded and flung about like a turtle in a tsunami. With every wave, I am thrown out of my seat and dumped back down as the ship crests, drops over a precipice and flumps back on the water. The hiss, thump and sluice of a raging ocean drown out every other sound.
What were the ferry operators thinking when they gave the order to take this matchbox (and us) out in the face of such mortal peril? I grind my teeth in helpless fury that human lives are put at such risk.
When I feel the ship lifting and flying rather than sailing, my terror overwhelms me. I’m trapped in a vessel that is out of control. ‘Turn back,’ I want to scream, but know it would be pointless. I must face death. Drowning imagery floods my brain and I am tortured with the worst fear I have ever experienced.
Maybe the odds on our survival could be gauged by the skipper’s expression? I have a direct line of vision to the pilot station. I scrutinise his face for signs of anxiety. Staring ahead, he appears attentive but calm. But then, it is a mariner’s gift to gaze into the teeth of a tempest and show the world an untroubled face.
So here we are trapped in an underwater world. Assaulted from all points of the compass. Nearest shore? Who knows? Mind wandering. Life jackets! Where did the skipper say they were stowed? A locker somewhere. Davy Jones’ locker springs to mind. With the horror of approaching death … in a tin coffin, my brain shifts into a trancelike state.
I stop watching the skipper after a while. A nasty feeling has intruded. It’s minor compared with the expectation of death – but humans exhibit weird priorities in an emergency. The queasy feeling in my stomach has matured into a full-blown personal tsunami. I must keep gripping my seat or I’ll be thrown in the air. So, left hand anchoring me in place, I snatch a seasick bag from the seat-pocket with my right. Ben is grimly battling against the unmanliness of seasickness himself to be of any assistance. I slip the flat bag between my knees, punch my fist into its glossy lining then quickly crush the top into a roundish ‘mouth’ hole. As I bend into the emergency, I see mouths in bags all around the cabin.
A static buzzing in my ears, vision blurring, my lunch about to stage an encore when a crew member lurches alongside me with the antidote. A rolled towel filled with ice from the bar. She slings it around my neck. Never thought I’d be so happy to have ice put down my back.
“Take your jacket off!” She bends so that I can read her lips.
I try to obey, but the force of gravity is no match against the ship’s upward thrust on my body. Even by releasing my grip for the split-second to pull the jacket zipper down I am airborne. The melting ice will have to do. I turn to give Ben a sad, farewell smile. Just a blink in acknowledgement.
Words have been infiltrating my mind since leaving port, a constant word-filled background. Rhythmic. Repetitive. The shock of the ice has released me from the trance, allowing me all at once to identify them.
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.
Tennyson! Why did he have to stir that up right now?
And the last verse on a loop.
“… tho’ a flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.”
Don’t do this!
I’ve been a fan of the classics since my school days. I relished the novelists’ and poets’ magical skills at manipulating words – words that normally gave me such pleasure. Words have always been my escape from life’s problems. Why are they taunting me now?
I glance across at the face of our pilot. An hour at sea and he is still steering, gazing out at the chaos all around. I tell myself it is concentration that is written there, not anxiety. He is thrown sideways by a massive side swipe from a cross wave. He stabilises himself and continues guiding the vessel. Watchful.
Surely, we are more than halfway there. Then it occurs to me that the craft has had to go more than twice the distance by way of ascending and descending each successive killer wave it encounters. How long can this torment go on?
“… But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep.”
Oh, for Pete’s sake. Now it’s Robert Frost chipping in with his assessment.
I glance back at the skipper. He’s speaking on the intercom – must be making contact with the shore. The shore!
And then, the miracle. The vaguest outline materialises through the cascades pouring down the windows. Am I imagining the hazy little settlement of Oban on the island? But gone again as we tumble into unfathomable depths. Then unbelievably, we chug into the lee of the outlying Mummy Islands, yes, they are officially called the Mummy Islands. I don’t miss the irony. They are barren land masses stretched out flat and lifeless on the horizon, their round heads and the appearance of body-bound shapes are yet another sobering reminder of our mortality – or are they the grave markers of other unsuccessful crossings? But the sea has become marginally less lumpy.
I stare out at those stranded corpses, and now the ghost of Emily Dickinson intervenes.
“Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me
The carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality.”
Oh, please. My head is trapped in a poetry anthology. Are we there yet? The engine is labouring now. A lower gear maybe to cope with the offshore rips and tidal surges?
Berthing is always fraught with complications. A solid bump and I feel the shudder of the impact as ship meets wharf. Ropes are thrown. And caught. Cords clamped in frozen hands. A cry. The cheer from the relieved folk meeting the ship. Passengers stagger off, faces a pale khaki. I watch a grown man kneel and kiss the ground, and I cling to Ben as we wait to disembark, not only because my shaking legs won’t support me, but because he’s warm and steadfast and we’re still alive.
And for now, a promise kept. No thanks to the unnerving poets. Ben will be able to take a last recce around his treasured island, relive his boyhood adventures and cherish the memories.
Author: Val Melhop
Val worked as an academic writing tutor at Canterbury University for 15 years. Her retirement plan is to become a writer. When not writing, Val can be found in her edible garden growing fruit trees, vegetables and herbs.
