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Ooo...Cairo, November 1991. Per, Helga, and I—the advance party, so to speak, tasked with procuring the ship's papers, transit rights, diving permits, and so on; we would meet the ship and the rest of the crew in Port Said—had spent a few days in Cairo and were now dog-tired from this overwhelming abundance of cultural treasures. We would soon realize that we were (of course) considered spies, given that the Gulf War was raging right next door! Anyone who wasn't a journalist or television personality was inevitably a spy. Naturally.
The receptionist at the Cairo Sheraton gave us a friendly wink when we asked about the best routes through the city and to the pyramids. We immediately and flatly rejected his first offer of a run-of-the-mill tourist sightseeing tour; but I suppose that's what all spies do, they rent a car, of course. So he recommended his cousin, a very reliable driver who often drove for government officials – you know, wink, wink.
He responded to our sincere and honest assurances that we were just simple sailors with a connoisseur's look: good disguise, hey!
We had diligently visited all the sights listed in the relevant cultural guides, and despite dozens of taxi rides, we had walked mile after mile to see absolutely everything. Here are a few fragmented snippets from my memory; the rest is in the guidebook: Day trip to the Fayum Oasis: when the driver wanted to know which road he should take—there were three, apparently—I pointed with my fingers, suggesting that with three roads, one would surely take the middle one, wouldn't one? (Surely one is allowed to try?!). He grinned broadly and said, "You already knew that, it's a restricted zone, a military zone, yes!" For anyone wanting to follow in his footsteps: under no circumstances should you take the middle road! There's a military checkpoint halfway between Cairo and Fayum, right in the middle of the desert. We were lucky, because Per had one of those blue civil service passports, which looks quite baroque and impressed the militia who had rudely blocked our way and initially wanted to send us back the 80 miles. With this wonder passport, however, they frowned and let us continue – you never know what's written in those ornate French and German hieroglyphs – and our driver grinned, because "he'd known that beforehand." Wink.
The return journey took a very wide detour through the western provinces. At one point, the driver pointed to the left: "There, that's Libya, the great Libyan Desert. The White Desert. Stop, hold on, we have to see this!" So, out of the Peugeot (almost all Cairo taxis are Peugeots) and up onto the crest of the dunes. I think I'm going to suffocate. The steam is rising from behind the crest at 50 degrees Celsius or more; I can't breathe, it's like an oven! Three steps back, take a breath, three steps forward and look over, don't breathe. Three steps back, exhale. Breathtaking, the White Desert. "Over there," I said to Helga, "about 120 km to the west lies the place Sakra-Blabla, where Alexander the Great died and is presumably buried." "You probably mean the Siwa Oasis," whispered the culturally challenged Helga dully, turning away from me, the philistine, in horror.
The journey on the Nile was unusual for us "real sailors".
We had only wanted to quench our thirst and saw one of the decommissioned steamers moored on the banks of the Nile; I joked that it reminded me of the "Johann Strauss," which has been "nailed down" in the Danube Canal for years. So we went into the ship's bar and had a cold drink, when suddenly the wreck cast off with a loud toot! Our shock only subsided when the barman announced that the bar and the ship belonged, with a wink, to a few cameramen, television journalists, and us for the next three hours. Per dozed under the parasol while we passed the only papyrus plantation in the world and watched the film crew at work. I told Helga that the plantation was (co-)founded by the old Prince Pückler, the one after whom the ice cream dessert is named, old Pückler with his Egyptian princess, the beautiful Machbuba. Helga wanted to know everything, and only my Catholic upbringing prevented the worst, so I didn't tell her everything.
Behind the magnificent Sultan Hassan Mosque lies Napoleon's residence, situated in the heart of the souk. The souk is the bazaar district. Foreigners should not enter it without a local guide, and certainly not alone.
They shouldn't have. But, wink, you know. Per, Helga, and I exchanged a quick, unsure look—none of us wanted to admit we were actually scared—and then off we went. The locals initially gave us a wide berth; you never know what kind of people are venturing into our increasingly narrow, dark, and menacing souk without a local guide, do you? Later, a couple of shadows followed us. Per and Helga huddled together, I brought up the rear, clutching my camera, which would be a pathetic substitute for a phaser or at least a laser pistol, but of course, nobody carries such things.
A figure, fat with oily hair, emerges purposefully from the shadows; we're surely headed to the souk, he'll accompany us. We decline and thank the man, who looks about sixteen, but he simply says yes! and goes ahead. Soon we're winding our way through the narrow alleys: Per, Helga, and I, the oily-haired man, his little brother, and his uncle, with his twin nephews and the neighbor boy behind us. I keep turning around, counting the heads. Per, the two-meter-tall man, also turns surreptitiously and looks at me. I nod and gesture with my index finger, indicating a stomachache. Per grows taller and strides, every inch the civil servant he is, stiff and dignified as if marching through the souk on May Day. Ah, the Ring Road and May Day, how far away that seems; I feel truly homesick in these dark, narrow alleys, where eerie shadows follow us.
Whenever we want to turn left or right, the oily guy shakes his head and keeps walking, unperturbed. I move closer and whisper to Per, "Something's brewing, man!" He makes the "beer" sign with his fingers, and when I move closer, bewildered, he whispers, "Something's brewing!" Helga grins and whispers that we're just imagining things, that they're all really nice, and besides, we're democrats, so—you don't have anything against foreigners, do you?!—Well, then.
Per refuses, but the oily-skinned man suddenly stops and points to the entrance of an unassuming house. "Come on, I'll buy you a drink, come in!" I mutter quietly that we have to accept this invitation; just look around, there are too many of us, and we can't just leave! The two of them are still undecided, so I gather all my courage and go inside.
"No, not into the house, Effendi, please turn left here, into the shop." We're standing in a tiny store selling top-notch tourist junk. Carpets, pyramids, camels, and Queen Hatshepsut, in real marble, honestly. We're a bit hesitant, so the oily guy goes to the refrigerated display case and offers each of us a Coke, "only $2, free!" We nod and drink the cold beverage. $2? Okay.
How about a rug? A pyramid? Or a little camel, absolutely adorable? A camel, made of camel? No? How about a...
Helga stabbed Per and me in the back. She walked around, picking up this and that. She asked prices, put the items back, and protested that she didn't want to buy the whole shop. "Bargain, Helga, bargain!" I whispered urgently, because I had realized with a touch of rue that she had realistically taken the right approach. When we arrived back at the hotel an hour later, we were richer by three small wooden boxes, handcrafted with inlaid marquetry. And by one lesson, too: when a guidebook describes something emphatically, just believe it and don't try to be a know-it-all. "Bazaar only in guided groups." That's experience.
The last day was also packed with activities; my nightmare came during the drive through the city: a massive traffic jam in a city of ten million. The taxi driver, however, knew his way around, weaving through backyards, across sidewalks, and through construction sites, I'd say. We wanted to go up to the citadel, and he waved his arms, apparently explaining that because of the many one-way streets, we had to drive in circles like this and that, and do a lot of circling – I shook my head and pointed to the castle hill, right up there, where the mosque and the citadel stand, that's where we wanted to go! He nodded grimly, then unexpectedly – having just reached the roundabout – he jerked the steering wheel to the LEFT and cut our route by kilometers by driving AGAINST the flow of traffic in the roundabout! My eyes nearly popped out of my head as cars came towards us, honking furiously in at least four lanes, and he skillfully slalomed between them. When he then starts arguing with the tropical-helmeted general, who, with a shrill whistle, seems to think he has to direct the already perfectly functioning traffic, and we come to a stop for the first time, my usually robust nerves fail me, and I slam my hand on the dashboard, shouting angrily in German: "Well, now we're going to get a ticket too!", whereupon the two quarreling men fall abruptly silent. The taxi driver drives off without a word, the astonished general salutes, and then we tear up the castle hill so fast that even Niki Lauda would have been left in the dust!
The moment was drawing ever closer when we would have to take care of the ship's papers. I'll spare you the long backstory, but suffice it to say that we had been instructed by the agent in Port Said (to whom our friend Harald Klärner* had referred us) to obtain this and that document ourselves in Cairo (which, in plain English, means that he, Prince Achmed, who usually handles all the paperwork, was certain that we would fail and realize that one can't simply sail around during wartime! And he told us so straight away, as sure as his name was Achmed Ben Dings and Bums, for crying out loud!).
- *)Harald Klärner, Carinthian circumnavigator: "Hot Winter in the Red Sea", Carinthian University Printing Office 1990.
Per and I threw on our best clothes, ties and all, Helga put on her long black dress with puffed sleeves plus plenty of glittery things, including crown jewels; clothes make the man! It would be a joke if we didn't get the papers, Achmed Ben Dings and Bums! We made our first mistake – simply idiotic, I must say in retrospect – as soon as we left the hotel: instead of ordering a long, black Mercedes to pull up in front of the hotel like Pierce Brosnan, we (simply) walked across the street, because that's where the maritime office was, along with the maritime police and the maritime police porter.
We hadn't even reached the middle of the street when the maritime police porter had already picked up the phone and reported our approach; perhaps the hotel reception had called ahead, who knows. In any case, the maritime police colonel asked the porter again if we were really coming on foot (please repeat: on foot?). Then he leaned back and said to his adjutant that they certainly couldn't be hardened spies if they were coming on foot. On foot!
So we waited an hour (or was it two?) in the anteroom. The flies buzzed, Helga shifted around as if something was bothering her, and the guards looked past us with bored expressions.
Then the door opened, and the officer acted as if he were sorry for making us wait so long. I felt sorry too, because I could see him the whole time; he just read in his thick book and sighed occasionally, for an hour or two. He read contentedly to himself and kept us waiting, and he supposedly regretted it too. Oh well, never mind, now we're finally on our way.
We sat down in front of his enormous desk. He politely introduced himself and asked if we would like a cup of tea, which we gladly accepted. He sent his aide and immersed himself once more in his thick book—the Quran, I realized, because he was praying in a low voice, his lips moving. Per began to explain our request in clear English. The superior looked at him frowning and asked if the master couldn't see that he was praying and that the tea hadn't even arrived yet! Then, without looking at us, he turned back to the Quran and silently continued reciting its surahs.
Several of these surahs passed before the adjutant trotted back, balancing several small cups of tea on his serving tray. We nodded silently and were about to drink, but saw the superior's disapproving look and stopped. He spoke a few words in Arabic [Per whispers: "What did he say?" and I: "Must have misheard, because he said, 'It's already a quarter to seven, I hope it doesn't take too long, he wants to be home for the evening news'" and Per kicks me disapprovingly in the shin], then he drank first and smiled at us invitingly. Ah. Now we could have some too. "In Vienna they'd send you out twice for stamp duty," I whisper to Per and Helga, and we grin despite the awkward situation. The superior looks questioningly. I say in English that I had said we couldn't get peppermint tea as good in Austria as we had here in Egypt.
"Ah, Austria," sighed the superior, his gaze dreamy. "There's Hans Krankl and Rapid, do I know them?" "Yes," I lied, "and I know Schneckerl too—Herbert Prohaska." "Who's that?" asked the superior. "He's the greatest for me," I said, "because Krankl is world-class and loved by the media, but Prohaska is also world-class, but he's not loved as much by television, so at least I'm rooting for him."
The officer nods and jots down "Schnkkl Prchtzk" on his desk pad. Per and Helga bite their lips in despair, knowing how much I care about football. Per says, his face expressionless, that the best strikers at Rapid right now are Josef Hader and Alfred Dorfer. The colonel and I nod in agreement, "Yes, yes." Helga can't contain herself any longer and gets up, goes to the open window, and bursts out, her face averted. The officer suddenly becomes furious and shouts at Per and me, telling the woman to get away from the window immediately, because it's unacceptable for a woman to be standing in his office—dressed so indecently—at the brightly lit window, publicly disgracing him...
Helga immediately sat down again, clenched her hand around the teacup, and hunched over so that her breasts were no longer visible. I thought something very unkind about the culture of our host country and that Helga would only end up with a hunchback and back pain if she had to hide her breasts.
Per starts talking about the ship's papers again, lays out all the documents, and on top of that, his blue service passport. The officer takes it in his hand, puzzled, and asks what it is. "A service passport," Per says patiently, "it's issued to senior officials by the Presidential Chancellery"—he can't quite grasp "government office" or "presidential chancellery" and gets stuck on "president"—which the officer, of course, misunderstands. He gets really grumpy and asks if Per is the president, ha!? We're confused because it's just too ridiculous. The officer, for his part, is equally confused because it's all in French, in ornate script, and actually signed by the UHBP (our Federal President). Le président de la République, personally. Maybe the passport is real after all, he thinks, and maybe there are more of us than the maritime police porter had said, the idiot.
He defuses the situation and tells us how he has to do his boring job day in and day out, filling out forms and so on, even though he's actually trained for higher duties and studied the Quran at university—he adjusts the large, green-bound book and points randomly to this and that passage—but then he takes a pile of forms out of a drawer and begins transferring the data from our Austrian documents to Egyptian forms. A great many forms. Meticulously, with a beautiful, deliberate approach.
"Like at the passport office in Silk Street," Per whispers, and I nod, because if he keeps going like this, circle after circle, it'll be midnight, gentlemen! The officer seems to have understood us, because he suddenly looks up and says, "That's impossible, it's the Gulf War, you can't go there!" He can't give us permission, not for us, not for the ship, no diving permit. "Why don't you go diving in Cyprus?"
A long, awkward silence. We confer, and I mention—whispering in German—Ahmed, the prince, who is supposedly, or perhaps is, the most famous shipping agent on the Suez Canal, and that I will go to Achmed's immediately by taxi and, if necessary, coax him over by ear. The Egyptian then interjects, asking if he had heard the name Achmed Ben Dingsda correctly. He asks for forgiveness for overhearing our conversation, but he knows Achmed very well, a distant relative, so to speak… the rest remains as unanswered as his raised eyebrows. I launch into a heated genealogical debate with myself, pointing out that he, too, is a prince…
Well, if that's the case, why didn't Prince Achmed come along? He picks up the phone and, to our astonishment, spends the next thirty minutes on the line with Achmed – I only catch Rapid, Hans Krankl, and (glancing at the desk pad) a certain Schanegglah Prohassgar. Interspersed are long stretches of smiling silence with "Lä" and "Lä-Lä," which can easily be translated as "Yes" and "Yes, Yes." (Years later, one could read in Achmed's brochures that Rapid, Hans Krankl, and Herbert Prohaska were also among his satisfied shipping customers.)
I don't know how well you speak Arabic. I, for one, tuned out after "Good Morning!" and "Good Evening!" (and even that's already English), so I have no idea what was being discussed—whether camels or cars were being auctioned, the Gulf War was being debated, or Fatima's ample calves were making the phone line burn up. Per, Helga, and I hung on his every word, listening intently to the unfamiliar sound. Then he hung up and smiled at us.
"Everything's fine!" he said, adding with a friendly, reproachful look, "We could have told him about Achmed right away, and who we were." The three of us remained stubbornly silent and avoided even a wink. (I'd like to preemptively apologize to the Austrian Football Association (ÖFB) should the three of us possibly—I say possibly—appear in Egyptian maritime history as Mrs. Rapid, Mr. Hans Krankl, and Mr. Herbert Prohaska...)
He finished his hieroglyphs in an astonishingly short time, then looked out at the now-dark city and shook his head worriedly. All the offices have already closed; there's no chance of finishing today, he mused. Per stiffened his back and straightened to his full height. I know him well enough to know what would happen next.
"We need the papers now, tonight," Per said loudly and firmly. "Tomorrow—no, tonight at three or four—we're going to the ship and we have to have the papers, no matter what." The officer was genuinely depressed, his eyebrows raised in concern. "We're in Egypt, Effendi," he said, "the offices close at 9 p.m., remember that, sir!"
But we had the upper hand. Achmed, a real prince after all, the UHBP, and the blue service passport. Everything was brought up again; like a coiled worm, the conversation spiraled and wound its way into the balmy night sky.
The officer was on the phone here and there, now truly desperate, because all the offices were indeed closed, and Per added fuel to the fire, saying that he, the officer, had made us wait and wait unnecessarily, we could have been in a taxi to Port Said long ago, and now he didn't care how they managed it, but the paperwork had to be finished today. Period.
Helga and I studied the commentary on the back of the forms, and we whispered to each other that everything except for two places was already described in a scribbled, roundabout way. The officer watched our whispering suspiciously and then explained, yes, exactly, the so-and-so office still had to stamp it there, and over there too. Per, who had fought his way up through the Viennese bureaucratic jungle his whole life, was clearly riding the right wave and kept up the pressure (even though I would have given up long ago and gone to the hotel bar).
Then, finally, someone answered the phone.
The officer shrank a foot and groveled before the great chief, the Müdür or Grand Mufti, whom he had just caught. Yes, he was terribly embarrassed, three foreigners... no, important ones, they needed... yes, Prince Achmed... no, Your Excellency, today, I spell it out: tonight, because they were leaving immediately by taxi for Port Said... yes, unfortunately, I know, but it had to be today...
Okay, the content of this dialogue is pure speculation, but he hung up, drenched in sweat, and took a few sips of tea before looking at us in utter astonishment and saying that we must be special favorites of Allah—praised be His name—because the bigwig So-and-so was coming back to the office to sign our papers. We had to go there immediately, right now, by taxi to get the papers stamped.
We paid for the forms (without a receipt, of course, and generously) and took a taxi there. I'm not exaggerating when I use the term Alcatraz; we went to Alcatraz—or rather, the Egyptian version of it. As we were led by the guards into the waiting room, whose furnishings—a narrow wooden bench and a flickering fluorescent tube—have been adequately and meticulously described, I nudged Per in the side and muttered that it had looked exactly the same in the East Berlin docks, hadn't it?
As soon as the gate guard had ushered us in and left us alone, a nicotine-addicted, skinny question mark appeared, took the forms, said in French that it would only take a few minutes, and disappeared again immediately. The minutes really did turn into a few, and then a few more, damned! I lost the bet, because the question mark reappeared before the hour was up and, nervously puffing away, handed us the stamped forms. Per immediately checked to see if there was anything written on them; there were just a few dashes and a bombastic stamp impression, nothing more. The question mark lit the next cigarette from the last one and led us out through the maze of corridors—yes, there are some taxis over there, and good night, gentlemen! He hadn't even noticed Helga, the well-mannered man. Instead, he silently pocketed the dollar bills, that's how well-mannered he was.
As we sat in the hotel bar that night, we treated ourselves to a rather large glass of cognac. We had done it after all. After the third cognac, I sided with Helga, who suspected that the question mark had been scribbled underneath herself, since there was no sign of the Grand Mufti anywhere.
The next morning we overslept and missed the bus. The next one wasn't until noon. So we found time for one last mosque and one last museum visit. Then a two-hour bus ride north to Port Said. Halfway there, we passed the newly built city of "23 October" (or is it 27 September?!?), in any case, an attempt to settle people in the desert. The bus driver gestured, "Here's your pee break." Per and I looked around questioningly, the bus driver laughed and pointed to the large construction sign showing the bus station yet to be built. "There!" he pointed, and we joined the other men, all standing obediently lined up at the roadside, relieving themselves. Helga glared hatefully from behind the window curtains; she still had to hold it in for another hour until we reached Port Said.
Later, Per and I drink loudly from our plastic bottles and laugh cruelly as Helga, almost blind with tears, beats us down.
Achmed gets nervous when he asks about the ship, and I wordlessly point out to sea, where a small white dot is visible on the horizon. "You have to leave in twenty minutes, then they'll close the canal again, and you won't be able to get through until tomorrow!" Per wins our bet, because our PAPAGENO takes three hours to get back to port. Prince Achmed gives me a carton of Marlboros, and I give him 20 dollars for another night in port. For those with little sailing experience, let it be stated once and for all that sailing is no longer free anywhere. (Our canal toll was negotiated at 150 dollars; all in all, we shelled out around 200. These days, it's not possible to get through for less than 350!)
We spend the rest of the day on the beach and in the cafes. I've stopped caring about local customs and go into a cafe with Helga. I ignore the protesting looks from the Egyptians, period. My respect for this millennia-old culture has been so badly damaged in recent days that I place particular emphasis on my own culture today and demand respect: Women DO have souls, and they are allowed to drink coffee in public. Period.
Per and Achmed have taken care of all the formalities and arrive later. Achmed nervously ushers him and Helga out of the coffeehouse, while I brazenly remain seated. My anger at this male clique only dissipates when an elderly local invites me to his table and we converse in fluent English. He's a professor of astronomy, and I hastily dust off the very last memory cards in my brain, filled with Arabic star names, so as not to appear completely ignorant: Mirphak, Denebole, Al Debaran, Al Qaid, Al Suhal, Al Genib, and so on. His delight is evident when he orders a hookah, and we smoke it together; my first hookah! Although I'd read about it before, I'm astonished that in a coffeehouse, you order a hookah like you would a coffee back home, specifying the type and amount of tobacco, which then marks you as a connoisseur. I am grateful for the instruction on water pipes and must listen crestfallenly to learn that my relevant Arabic vocabulary (chibuk and tutu) actually originates from Turkish and identifies me as a naive Karl May reader. The old astronomer smiles gently as I take a deep drag and almost choke.
In the early evening, we bring provisions and water aboard the PAPAGENO. The sailing yacht is a 15-meter trimaran (Cross 50 Sherman), built entirely of mahogany and teak, and its unique feature is that everything (and I mean absolutely everything) that's electronic is broken. The radio, the direction finder, the autopilot, the satellite navigator—everything. However, it's exceptionally well-equipped with everything a diver could wish for. The crew is a motley crew: the two Santas from Austria are two of the three owners, Kerstin and Alexandra from Switzerland specialize in skydiving and flying, Alex is a university assistant in Innsbruck, and Matz, who is almost blind, used to work for air traffic control.
Achmed, who as always appears in golfing attire even though the nearest golf course is a two-hour flight away, drinks a few more drinks on board and explains the peculiarities of the canal to us, gives valuable tips on dealing with the pilots, describes particularly beautiful bays, and marks on the nautical chart the places where we can find provisions or water. There won't be any diesel for the next two weeks, and then we'll need form 17b (the yellow one) so that we're officially registered as eligible for diesel. Per, the little Santa Claus, and I take notes; who knows, we might need Achmed's knowledge again. The evening ends cheerfully as Achmed listens to the story of our Cairo Maritime Police adventure for what must be the tenth time.
The next morning, we waited, ready to sail and nervous, for the pilot who would guide us through the Suez Canal. The clock ticked relentlessly, Helga brewed tea for the third time, and I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. Per energetically asked me to drum somewhere else. Big Santa Claus showed the first signs of his true mental state when, with Matzen's help, he prepared to go waterskiing in the Port Said harbor basin. On the other hand, this seemed to have been the right tactic, because a small pilot boat pulled up alongside the harbormaster's office. Were we completely crazy, wanting to go waterskiing in the harbor basin?! Little Santa Claus (our skipper, i.e., captain) grumbled back that if we had to wait much longer for the pilot, then we'd just go waterskiing! Ten minutes later, a sweaty, fat pilot climbed aboard and took over the helm. I sulk and leave, because I'm actually the helmsman, damn it!
Among my friends, he's known as "the baksheesh channel," and rightly so. Forget our primitive, Western world order, where you drive into an underground parking garage, press a button, get your ticket, and then pay for it at a machine before driving off. In that area, things would be different. At the entrance, there's someone who pulls up the barrier with a rope after you hand him a bill. On the lower levels, there's another one who directs you to the left-hand lane, which is already almost full—he directs you quite forcefully, even though the right-hand lane is still completely empty. Right-hand lane? No, Effendi, that costs a dollar more! Before you can even get out of the car, his hand is already clenching around the bill you're supposed to have ready. You head for the elevator, but it only starts moving when the elevator operator notices you rummaging in your pockets for a bill. When you want to pick up the car, repeat the same process, but in reverse order. Added up and converted, the total comes to only slightly more than what you'd pay in a Viennese underground parking garage, but you can drive off with the gratifying feeling that you've helped support at least three or four families. Inshallah.
A brief digression from our lexicon: The Suez Canal (Quanat as Suways), commissioned in 1854 by the then Khedive (Viceroy) Mohammed Said Pasha to the former French consul in Cairo, Ferdinand M. Vicomte de Lesseps, and built in less than eight years (1859-1867, with a one-year construction halt) according to the plans of the Frenchman Linant de Bellefonds and the Austrian A. Negrelli by 2.5 million Egyptian construction workers (125,000 died), is approximately 163km long and was opened on November 17, 1869, in the newly built opera house in the presence of the new Khedive Ismail, Empress Eugenie of France (wife of Napoleon III and cousin of de Lesseps), Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and the Prussian Crown Prince; Verdi's opera Aida, commissioned specifically for this purpose, was completed too late and only premiered in Cairo in 1871. Its southern section, from Port Tawfiq near Suez up to Lake Timsah, had already been built around 1900 BC by the pharaohs (perhaps as early as Thutmose III, but certainly Necho) and repeatedly improved by various kings (Xerxes, Darius I, Ptolemy, Trajan, and Amr ibn al-Aas). In the 8th century AD, it was closed and forgotten. From the canal's checkered history: in 1875, the British bought all of Khedive's shares when they could not prevent its construction, but in 1888, under the Treaty of Constantinople, they had to guarantee international shipping through the canal. De Lesseps died on December 7, 1894, at his Château La Chesnaye, mentally deranged and completely ruined, after being (unjustly) accused of corruption and embezzlement in 1893, along with Gustave Eiffel, during the construction of the Panama Canal, and receiving a five-year suspended sentence. In 1956, President Abdel Nasser wrested the canal from the clutches of the British lion. The Israelis overran it in 1973, and since 1975 it has been quiet. From 1980 onward, the canal lost its former importance for shipping due to insufficient depth and high tolls (and, as the Xinhua News reported on December 19, 2000, the tolls remained unchanged in 2001...).
At the time, it shortened the sea route around Africa by almost 9,000 km, which translates to 50 days or more. It's actually two canals: the northern part, from Port Said (Bur Sa'id) via Lake Manzalah (Buhayrat al-Manzilah) to Lake Timsah (Buhayrat at-Timsah), is artificially hewn into the sandy rock; then, from Ismailia, a channel leads to the Great Bitter Lake (Al-Buhayrah al-Murrah al-Kubra) and the Little Bitter Lake (Al-Buhayrah al-Murrah as-Sughra); after that, the southern part of the canal runs in a partially natural or historical channel to Suez (As-Suways) and Port Tawfiq (Bur Tawfiq). Even at its narrowest point, the canal is still wide enough (approx. 70 m) to accommodate a large tanker and our small barge; nevertheless, the large ships are guided through in southbound and northbound convoys. The Gulf War, with its numerous warships and supply vessels, is a welcome additional source of income.
So we're back to the pilot. Unlike other pilots, this one wanted to steer himself; my heart clenched every time the gearbox crunched in response to his fiddling and the engine wailed in agony as he wrestled with the levers. We stopped several times so he could pray in the bow, facing Mecca. Alexandra cursed like a sailor when she went to the toilet after him and found it covered in scat; what a pig!
Every few kilometers there's a tower where the pilots and canal safety officers sit, monitoring and regulating the traffic. They maintain radio contact with the pilots on the ships and direct them. Not us, of course, because we don't use a radio. Our pilot is desperate and sweating even more, roaring his engine ever closer to Captain Rahn's MUGGELE from Germany, which is ahead of us, shouting as he communicates with the captain's pilot, before dropping back again.
We see many soldiers in the dunes to the left and right of the canal. We wave, and they wave back. Some make internationally known hand signals, whooping with laughter, when they see Helga, Alexandra, and Kerstin in their skimpy bikinis. The pilot tries to explain to us that honest Muslims despise such loose women and that we (men) should send them below deck. Skipper Nikolaus kindly hands him a can of Coke and tells him, in good Salzburg dialect, where he can shove his wisdom. Captain Rahn's MUGGELE suddenly slows down, and the pilot shouts something to us; ours replies with long "Lä-Lä's" (Yes, yes). We pull into a small parking bay.
It's still early afternoon, what's going on? The pilot explains that we'll be spending the night here. At first we laugh at him, but then he sends us over to the Muggele, and we hear the man from the tower say that the first part of our passage ends here; we'll continue tomorrow morning. The end.
Per, Little Santa, and I are hunched over the maps, calculating. "Looks like four days," sighs our skipper. Per is annoyed, but he doesn't want to interfere. I do a rough calculation and say we'll have to pay about $200 more, and that's not going to sit right with me. Santa asks what I intend to do—I don't know. But I speak to the pilot after he's finished his prayer. Our rambling discussion ends when he immediately explains that he's just waiting for his money, then he'll leave; another pilot will come tomorrow. Little Santa gives him the money, but he wants more. We shake our heads—no way, not with us, a deal's a deal! He's eyeing my cigarettes. I lapse into childish helpfulness and give him half a carton. When he brazenly demands the other half as well, I refuse and hint that otherwise I won't have anything left to smoke myself. Reluctantly, he disembarks and wishes us a good trip (or maybe not, who knows).
Captain Rahn's Turkish wife is very kind and has prepared a small snack; afterwards, we ravenously devour a huge portion of spaghetti that we had cooked ourselves. We drink another bottle of wine with this quiet man from the Allgäu region, who is on a long voyage and intends to sail around the world. On his advice, we give the guards watching over the dilapidated hut in this parking bay a few packs of cigarettes. They indicate that they understand and that we can sleep soundly.
The new pilot arrives the next morning by bicycle (where on earth did he come from, I wonder, in the middle of the desert that stretches out on either side of the canal?). He speaks passable English, is chatty and lively, and handles the boat more carefully than his predecessor. After only a few minutes, Per and I exchange astonished glances: he clearly has no idea about boating, steering as casually as a car driver. Per strikes up a conversation, and promptly the distracted boy steers toward the rocky bank. I stroll over and correct with my hand; he readily hands over the wheel. Little Santa Claus has silently watched everything and asks me what's going on. I hiss to him that the pilot isn't a professional, can't steer, and that I have no desire to end up in the Kronen Zeitung as "the one who got stranded in the canal."
Later, Per whispers that he doesn't think the pilot is a pilot at all; he smells more like a policeman. We're slightly nervous that our pilot, hired through Achmed, has been diverted and replaced with the wrong one. I try to soothe my nervousness by starting a conversation about the rest of our journey. We'll be through the canal this evening, won't we?
The pilot squirms, then says we have to spend the night at such and such a place. Little Santa Claus and I insist that we must be through by evening. The pilot insists we spend the night at the next checkpoint.
Blind Matz actually gave me the idea when he said they couldn't have done that to him before; he would have really given them a hard time, those wogs! I briefly consulted with Per and, armed with his wonder service passport, strolled over to the pilot station.
"A problem," I said, my face contorted in pain, "a big problem!" "What is it?" the pilot asked anxiously, because I was looking genuinely distressed. I wailed and wailed that this was going to be a big problem. I was traveling with the big boss, the tall, lanky fellow, he was my boss, and he'd hold me responsible if this took much longer! The boss had been here before, he'd even driven through in a single day back then. And now it was going to take two or even three days—the boss would surely call Cairo afterward and cause us all a lot of trouble. A lot of trouble! Then I showed him my blue service pass and explained everything to him, how it was with the UHBP and so on. I must have talked at length, because he slowly softened and became restless. "You security, bodyguard?" he asked, and I cautiously dodged the question with "No, assistant!" Who knew what the fellow's real profession was, but assistant always works. I left him to his thoughts and withdrew, Per reported, saying that I may have given our boy something to think about, nothing more.
The intense sun seemed to have taken its toll on Helga after all, because now she intervened (women do have souls, definitely!) and quoted from world literature: "If they want a spectacle, then give them a spectacle!" She arranged a shady nest for Per on deck from the cushions of the bench, told him to sit down, and offered him food and drink. The farce almost descended into the bizarre when she—now dressed childishly in baggy trousers and a veil like a harem woman—began to dab the beads of sweat from his forehead with a small cloth. The pilot was now obviously steering towards one of the control towers. I whispered to him whether he thought it was a good idea to stay overnight already; it was only just after noon, and we were going to be in serious trouble with my boss, oh dear! He replied nervously that he was going ashore to make a phone call. Per turned around and said in English, "Good, because then I'll be able to call Cairo too." He would not accept such treatment without comment! The pilot ducked and tried to calm things down; he would ask the canal authorities to let us through to Suez-Port Tawfiq (the end of the canal).
Hey, that sounded much better! We docked at the foot of one of those towers, little Santa Claus ran ahead to the MUGGELE and called to Master Rahn, "We'll call and see if they'll let us through today!" Rahn also docked, and we waited together. Our pilot spent a long fifteen minutes in the control tower; at times, loud shouting could be heard. Per chuckled softly: "That's a story!"
The pilot came down and steered toward Per and me. "We're in luck," he said, "the channel's staying open, there's only an American warship coming the other way, and they've agreed to let us pass." He looked at us with satisfaction, waiting for applause. Per nodded and said, "Tonight, Suez!" The pilot started to reply (presumably that it was too far), but Per had already settled back onto his cushioned throne, pointed south in a Lord Nelson pose, and said, "Let's go!" Even the pilot understood that.
We were now traveling at twice the speed, Nikolaus took the wheel, and we sped along. The pilot took me aside and asked if this was okay, how he'd managed it. I remained calm and said that if we reached Suez today, I would ask my boss to give him a good word in Cairo. The pilot said okay, but he still wouldn't tell me his name.
The American warship approached us; the GIs waved and laughed, and there was enough room for another ship. At the checkpoints, they waved to us cheerfully as we passed. Helga continued playing the part of a harem servant, and little Nikolaus taught the pilot the basics of steering multihulled boats. Alex and I went to the chart table and did the math: we would be in Ismailia before sunset and, realistically, in Suez by tomorrow afternoon! The MUGGELE stayed behind; the good Rahn had to conserve its engine and couldn't keep up with our pace. We suspected it was in for a lonely night.
Indeed, after the last bend in the canal, we sailed into the bay in front of the city of Ismailia. It seemed arrangements had been made for us to be expected; the supermarket owner arrived at the anchorage in his water taxi to bring us and the pilot ashore. I put in a good word with the boss, who graciously pressed a few dollar bills into the pilot's hand. No sooner had this shady rower disappeared into the launch than everyone burst into hearty laughter and asked the friendly supermarket owner where one could shop and eat.
He looked at us blankly at first, then grinned and said, "At my place!" We agreed that he would pick us up at nightfall.
The weather was beautiful, calm, and perfect. Little Santa Claus started cleaning the ship, and one after another joined in without a word. Before long, the whitewashed wooden deck of the PAPAGENO was gleaming white again. I passed the barometer and couldn't believe my eyes: the thing must be broken! I'd never seen such a steep drop. The captain insisted the barometer was fine. We went up on deck. A dark, grayish-brown haze hung over the city. Alex muttered that it must be a sandstorm, and I replied, "What nonsense, Alex, we don't have sandstorms here."
Then, within minutes, the sandstorm hit. It grew dark, the wind howled in the rigging, and sand flew horizontally around our ears. Nikolaus and I secured the dinghy, and I shouted to Alexandra to seal up our cabin, otherwise we'd be sleeping in the sand that night. Soon we had everything below deck and all the hatches closed. For the first time, the entire crew sat around the large saloon table, and only then did we realize that nine men barely had enough room.
Alexandra, who was clinging to me tightly because she was terrified of the storm's roar and howling, and also because there was so little space, suddenly whispered in my ear, "There—out there is a rower!" I was beginning to think it was some kind of Alemannic misunderstanding, or that she'd gone mad, when I saw him gliding past us, a shadowy figure. A young man in white gym shorts and a tank top, in a rowing skiff, one-two, one-two, elegantly gliding by. I said, "That's a real storm, what's he doing out there?"
Curiosity has gotten me into some sticky situations before, but this time I controlled myself. At least for a minute and a half. Then I freed myself and crawled on deck. The storm wasn't so bad up top, it was only below deck that it sounded terrible; the howling and roaring of the wind and the poisonous whirring of the sand sweeping along the superstructure.
The sand crunched between my teeth, and I watched intently as the rower appeared out of nowhere, sped past us in a flash, and vanished again just as quickly. About three minutes later, the same thing happened, but in reverse. One by one, everyone came up on deck and watched this prodigy, for whom training was more important than the sandstorm, which subsided in an instant. Nikolaus surveyed the deck, now covered in centimeters of fine brown sand. "And this just an hour after we washed the ship!" he said ruefully, shaking his head as he went below deck to do something about the bad taste in his mouth. I also drank a beer, enjoying it despite the crunching sand that was being washed down my throat and would probably act like sandpaper afterward...
The water taxi docked. We asked the supermarket owner what he thought of the storm, and he asked back, "What storm?" Apparently, this once-in-a-century storm hit here daily. We explored the (small) town, bought provisions for the next week, and had everything brought out to the ship—the water taxi belonged to him, after all. The man was alright, his prices were reasonable, and as darkness fell, we enjoyed a delicious supper in his garden gazebo. Then he took us back to the ship.
Once back on land, he converted his launch (with a sign reading: PORT AUTHORITIES) into an official vessel, bringing the harbor master and his watch aboard the PAPAGENO. We (as VIPs!) were given permission to sail out into the Red Sea with the next convoy. So, off we went – a night passage through the Bitter Lakes...
The Suez Canal exit is also guarded by a tower. They were already aware that we had no radio; so they raised a flag when the exit was clear. We—a proud 15-meter boat—led the convoy: behind us, a dozen enormous tankers, none under 100 meters long. Immediately after the exit, we veered sharply and moved closer to the shore, letting the behemoths pass. At first, we dipped our flag as required (boats are supposed to greet each other by lowering their flags), but after the fifth or sixth elephant rumbled past us without a salute, our enthusiasm waned. Good seamanship or not, the merchant fleet didn't seem to care much for our flag salute, so we stopped. This would prove to be the least of our mistakes that day.
We formed three crews: little Nikolaus, Alexandra, and I would have the first watch; big Nikolaus, Kerstin, and Matz the second; and Per, Helga, and Alex would do the early watch. The wind was blowing briskly from the northwest, propelling the boat forward on a broad reach at a good 10 knots—a respectable performance for a heavy cruising boat! Before night truly fell, we had left the last of the small islands and shallows behind us and were now charting a perfect course across open water: we would make a long tack far south and cover half the distance to the Gubal Islands (located on the western shore of the Red Sea and our first destination) by morning; with a bit of luck, we could be there by evening.
As we sped along, small, bright lights kept appearing on the water. Fishermen fishing with gas lamps. Because of the high waves, these small boats, often only 4 or 5 meters long, were only visible at the last moment, as they danced on a crest. Sometimes we sped past just a few meters away, greeting the fishermen with a loud "Hello!" and waving. They were friendly and waved back; apparently, no one but me gave a thought to the fact that the pointed hulls of our trimaran were plowing through the water at breakneck speed and could easily impale such a small boat. Shut up, Cassandra, and go to sleep!
Changing of the guard. Nikolaus instructs Nikolaus, pointing out the convoy behind us. Kerstin, experienced boutique owner, skydiver, and pilot, has me explain the compass and steering wheel to her one more time, and also that the bearing (the direction pointing from our current position) must not remain constant. Then we have a goodnight cigarette, and the rest of us go to sleep.
A loud crash jolts me awake. My first thought is of the fishing boats and our razor-sharp hulls. As I run past, little Santa Claus looks at me sleepily: "What is it?" "I don't know!" I yell, and keep running, up on deck. When I climb out of the hatch and see a huge black wall and lit windows high above me, and hear a roaring rumble, no one needs to tell me what happened. We didn't impale a poor fisherman; we've been rammed by a tanker! A quick glance around: big Santa Claus and Kerstin are kneeling in the cockpit, the bent railing behind them, and on the half-torn davits (two small cranes on which the dinghy hangs) the battered dinghy, dragging half in the water: crumpled as if someone had run over it with a steamroller!
The tanker has now completely passed, and I can see the enormous propellers at a safe distance—we would have been ground to pulp in seconds in that gigantic churning machine! The black, mighty wall—as high as St. Stephen's Cathedral—and the roaring noise of the propellers momentarily take your senses away. I stand next to little Nikolaus and look up. It immediately dawns on me that we've had an incredibly lucky escape; it could easily have ended fatally. A glance at my watch—it's just after 1 a.m.
I tell Nikolaus we need to count the crew. But he stands there frozen, not moving. I count them all aloud, calling out their names – one is missing!
"Santa, Per!" I shout, "One's missing!" "No way," comes the laconic reply, "Count again!" I count and call out each name. I hold onto the last one—Alex—even after saying seven, then beat my chest and shout "Eight!"
"Someone's missing!" I scream desperately, and suddenly think it's Matz. I shout, "Where's Matz, where's Matz?!" A squeaky voice right in front of me says, "I'm here, I'm here!" and I say to him, without realizing I'm still clutching him tightly and hitting his chest, "No, not you, Matz!" Almost tearfully, the supposed Alex says, "But—I'm Matz!"
It takes me a second, then another, to grasp the meaning of his words. One is missing, clearly, but it's not Matz, it's the other one.
"Alex!" I shout, "where is Alex?!"
Dead silence. Per says dryly, "His bunk is right under the crushed dinghy." Nikolaus: "Good heavens!" Kerstin: "Well, doesn't anyone want to go and take a look?" An awkward silence falls all around. Nobody wants to go down there now.
Per and I went down to the companionway at the same time, crawling along the narrow bachelor bunks all the way to the back. There lay a figure wrapped in a sheet, silent and motionless. I had only one thought: he must be dead. Per stood motionless behind me; I heard him—rarely enough—take a deep breath. Then I carefully felt my way forward and touched the figure.
"Yes, what is it?" Alex mumbles sleepily and rolls over, "what's all the shouting about up there?" Per and I sigh with relief - the good boy is alive, sleeping peacefully, while perhaps 15cm away from him thirty thousand tons of steel roared past at 20 or 25 knots and had half torn our ship to pieces.
Alex quickly gets dressed and comes up on deck. Helga has lost her composure and found her voice again; like a fury, she screams at the big Santa Claus, Kerstin, and poor Matz, asking what they thought they were doing; they could see the ships and get out of the way in time, damn it!
We talked for hours, until dawn. It went something like this: Kerstin and Nikolaus had retreated to a corner of the deck to flirt. They put the three-quarter-blind Matz at the helm and told him to just watch the compass and drive at 160. Matz said he could easily read the brightly lit compass, so that was fine.
Nobody paid attention to the convoy behind them.
After some time, Kerstin and Nikolaus, startled by the noise of the tanker, returned to the helm and saw the giant ship, already within arm's reach. Nikolaus shouted that it was too late to swerve, that all they could do was pray! So the two lovers knelt down, while Matz stared into the darkness in mortal fear—he couldn't see the tanker, he said, only heard the roaring thunder of the gigantic bow wave. The tanker hit our ship on the starboard aft side and swept it aside as if it were flotsam. Somehow, the dinghy had cushioned the impact a little and thus helped to cause our boat to veer off course and be pushed aside. The davit scraped along the hull and screamed like a wounded animal before it broke. The crumpled rubber tube that had once been a dinghy wrapped itself halfway around the bent stern railing, thus preventing it from breaking. The whole thing was over in a few seconds.
Per and I sat in the bow and discussed the situation. We'd been lucky this time, but there wouldn't be a second chance. We decided that from now on, one of us would always be awake, because we knew we could rely on each other; it was a proven fact. We wouldn't entrust our lives to such amateurs again—after all, the big Santa Claus (whom we unanimously blamed) wasn't just some random beachgoer, but one of the ship's owners and co-skipper, with a license and certification. We stuck to this decision until we disembarked.
The very next morning, the two Santas proved just how different they were. The larger Santa, who silently avoided us and refused to have breakfast with us ("because we're so mean to him"), was at the helm when, chewing, I glanced out of the porthole and saw a workboat with a crane crossing our path. I immediately jumped up and went to the wheelhouse. Per followed me; he too had noticed that something was wrong.
I stood silently next to Nikolaus. "He has to give way, we have the right of way," said Nikolaus, and calmly drove on.
"The bearing is set!" I said (meaning we were on a direct collision course). Nikolaus said nothing. I repeated, more emphatically: "Come on, we're on a collision course! Just bear away, turn the boat away from the wind so we slow down and let him pass in front!" "No," Nikolaus insisted, "we have the right of way now!"
Meanwhile, little Santa Claus, still chewing his sausage sandwich with his mouth full, had come up and positioned himself at the second helm. Wordlessly, he pressed down the shift lever and took over the wheel. He skillfully maneuvered around the obstacle and let the Egyptian pass, who waved cheerfully and seemed completely unaware of his wrongdoing.
In the heated discussion that followed, we told the little Santa Claus quite frankly that we still trusted him, but had absolutely no trust in his companion, and that he could consider this a mutiny if he wanted: we certainly wouldn't stand idly by while the other Santa Claus killed us! The atmosphere was pretty tense, but after a few hours everyone calmed down. Apart from that, the big Santa Claus didn't get behind the wheel again for the next week.
The wind died down, so we spent the afternoon swimming and tried to repair the worst damage ourselves. But the dinghy was completely wrecked. "That's alright," said little Santa Claus, "we have a second one, still in its packaging below deck, we can put that one into service now." It took several hours to unpack and assemble the new boat. All in all, we were a pretty good crew, because everything that could go wrong during assembly did go wrong.
Towards evening, we headed for a small bay where there was obviously an abandoned depot or business. The quay wall was intact, so we tied up, but put out a small anchor with the dinghy, just to be safe. We spent a very peaceful evening – to my own surprise, I caught the first fish of my life on a line, using Alma cheese from back home as bait. I'd originally just been thinking about "fishing nonsense" because everyone said I'd never (ever) catch anything here with that line. Nikolaus fried the fish 'la Papageno' and prepared a great snack, but we were still hungry. In the distance, a fishing boat chugged along, then turned and came alongside. The fishermen waved a large fish; did we want to buy it? It must have weighed 30 kg. But the $100 they wanted was too much for us, so they chugged off again. During their maneuver, they got caught in some kind of rope, but they accelerated hard and disappeared into the darkness.
The next morning brought great surprise. Our extra anchor was gone. Nikolaus examined the severed line. Aha, the fishermen from last night. They'd gotten snagged somewhere. Now we knew where. We dove around for another hour and had to continue on empty-handed; the anchor was gone for good; I suspected it was still attached to the fishing boat. Around midday, we reached the northern tip of Gubal Island and rounded it. Here, the reefs were only very vaguely marked on the chart; the Red Sea Pilot even mentioned "underwater shifting sand dunes." It soon became clear that this was no laughing matter when we counted the wrecks clinging to the reefs. One was even a brand-new motorboat, which probably must have cost tens of millions – but now it sat motionless on a reef, and with binoculars, we could see that it had been completely plundered in the meantime. Little Santa Claus sent Big Santa Claus up halfway up the mast in the bosun's chair, to the lookout. The lookout, perhaps for younger readers, is the person high up in the air who has to keep watch for Gauls, pirates, or reefs and shout loudly if he sees anything dangerous. ("The Ga-, the Ga-, the Gaga...!", as it says in Asterix).
Santa Claus even brought his polarized sunglasses because "you can see below the surface of the water with them." Snails! He looked here and there and made faces, but he didn't see any reefs.
A helicopter took off from the shore about 2-3 km away and flew overhead. The pilot turned around and looked at us very closely. Everyone waved, but he descended even lower; he obviously wanted something. Then we could see him pointing to his headphones. Radio? No, we don't have one. Since no one else made any move, I went to the foredeck and first pointed to my ear, then made the telephone sign with my thumb and little finger, then crossed my forearms into an X (=broken). He nodded and descended a few more meters. Then he pointed forward and drew hills and mountains in the air, then his hand slid through the air again and crashed into an imaginary obstacle.
Per had positioned himself next to me and translated aloud: "There are reefs up ahead, and you'll smash into the concrete!" We nodded to indicate we understood; but he positioned the helicopter in front of the boat and set a course of about thirty degrees to port, then repeated it once more. We nodded, and little Santa Claus dramatically turned the wheel so he could see our course change, so he would know we had understood him. He rocked the helicopter a few times and disappeared behind the dunes again.
Per and I stood at the front railing, watching the water, while the girls, Alex, and Matz furled the foresail. The big Santa Claus felt old and superfluous, because we gestured to the other Santa Claus at the helm when we saw bright green water and the first reefs—dangerous things, so-called "Negro heads," lurking just a few centimeters below the surface and only clearly visible at low tide. We slowed down and glided at a walking pace through the entrance between the two large Gubal islands, always keeping close to the reef edge.
Then we reached the spot Achmed had marked on the map a week earlier: a truly beautiful, small bay sheltered to the north. The wind was now blowing at force 8 across the flat sandbar, and the anemometer at the masthead was showing a steady 8 Beaufort. Down on deck, we were protected by the island, and there was only a light breeze.
Little Nikolaus cautiously edged forward, while Alex and Per fiddled with the large main anchor and lowered the chain. Then the anchor caught, and Nikolaus let the boat drift back to dig in the anchor. A jolt, and we drifted rapidly away – the chain had snapped! After a moment of shock, we did what we had been taught: Nikolaus restarted the engine and headed forward again to where the anchor should be; Matz and I prepared the small hand anchor and lowered it into the water. The anchor caught, the line tightened; but this could only be a temporary fix. We wouldn't be able to stay here overnight with this small anchor.
Per, who took the breaking of "his" anchor almost as a personal insult, stripped down to his swimming trunks and jumped into the water to dive for it. He surfaced and held up the anchor chain – unfortunately, he'd misjudged the pressure equalization during this maneuver, and his ear hurt terribly for several days afterward. Nikolaus rushed into the cabin and searched for the anchor repair kit (I have to admit I'd never seen one of those before). Triumphantly, he held up a repair link; now it was only a matter of minutes until the two halves of the anchor chain were firmly reconnected. The ship slowly reversed, the anchor and the repaired chain holding. Losing two anchors in one day was certainly strange.
We stayed one day and two nights on the northern Gubal island, took shore excursions, and explored the completely uninhabited sand island a bit. We went diving at the reef, which made me quite uneasy, as we had to rely completely on the large dinghy, even though we didn't really trust it anymore.
All the equipment belonged to him; he was the only certified diving instructor (certified here means: with a certificate) on board, and we wanted to learn some diving techniques from him, after all, we had paid him for it. I'm an excellent freediver, but I wanted to refresh my scuba diving skills. I devised a (technically questionable) compromise: I would only dive long and deep enough that, in the event of an "unexplained malfunction," I could always remove my equipment and surface. Let me be clear: don't try this at home; you can get seriously hurt! Later, I was able to fully enjoy the thrill when dusk fell and we dived without lights in the increasingly dark water.
Then we drove east again and crossed the Red Sea, driving south along the west coast of the Sinai Peninsula to its southern tip, Ras Muhammed.
You probably know the area from television, as former President Mubarak had a conference center built there next to his presidential retreat, where Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have frequently taken place. So, with a favorable wind, we rounded the corner – before us lay the wide, beautiful Gulf of Aqaba. Up at the cape (Ras is the Arabic word for it), next to the lighthouse, stands a long, low building.
Kerstin, a pilot and skydiver, looked up and remarked that it was perfect for a free jump. Alex cast a connoisseur's eye upward and said it was a tidal observatory. Alexandra, lying on the bench with her head resting in my lap, read the cultural guide about the area's attractions. I played with her blonde hair and kept quiet as she read aloud the title of the next page: Ras Muhammed – the newly built international shark observation observatory opens!
Little Santa Claus soon spotted a channel between the reefs and steered carefully inside, then we anchored. We dove and frolicked in the water, fascinated by the abundant underwater flora and fauna. There, in the water, you're just one of many, many delicious fish. A hundred meters above us was the concrete platform of the observatory; little people stood there waving and waving their hands and calling out to us. We waved and waved our hands back and called out "Hello!" and "Hello!" and "Hello!" Alexandra tugged uncertainly at my sleeve, wondering if they could see more from up there than we could from down here.
No, of course there are no sharks here, as Santa Claus, who has dived here "quite often," knows. Admittedly, he's quite skilled at handling the diving equipment; we refresh all the emergency procedures, such as how two people can manage with one regulator, etc. Unfortunately, our underwater lights fail, so his video footage and the photos I take are of very poor quality. We enjoy the magnificent underwater world at Sharks Reef and only get out of the water hours later when we start to feel cold.
The next day, we chug along in calm conditions, sailing up the Gulf until we reach the city of Sharm El Sheikh (Ofira), the fabled land of Ophir, if you recall the Book of Kings by the ancient Persian Al-Firdausi. Sharm El Sheikh is our destination; from there we will fly back to Cairo, the PAPAGENO will head back to the west coast and ferry tourists to Hurghada for diving. The town deserves a full description: a harbor with a barracks, eighteen houses, two shops, and fifteen five-star hotels. On the beach, there are two dive schools, three boat rental companies, and an excursion boat advertising "Visit the Shark's Observatory at Ras Muhammad!"
For all its architectural modesty, Sharm el Sheikh is an important location for Egyptian seafaring and El Gism, the army. The almost square-shaped harbor basin (new harbor) is a concrete bathtub, a 17-meter-deep swimming pool, probably 250 by 250 meters. On the sunny side, at the pier, lie an Italian and a Spanish warship. We are met by a small launch and guided to the shady, rugged eastern side of the harbor basin. Our anchor is simply dropped onto the smooth concrete bottom, not to mention digging in. The distance is too great for a shore line, but the pilot, who speaks passable English, explicitly forbids us from anchoring any closer to the shore. Warships and cannons do impress us civilians, so we swallow our protests and remain anchored in the middle of the swimming pool – nautical nonsense, but we don't dare argue.
The day before, we had filed an accident report about our collision. Naturally, not a word about our incompetent watch leader, just a simple, accurate description of what had happened. The only thing missing was the tanker's name—we hadn't been able to read it in the dark. Our skipper, Per, and I boarded the dinghy and followed the local to the harbor master's office. There, they sent us back; the harbor master wouldn't be there until a certain time. We stayed on board and got the boat ready, meaning we tidied up and washed it. When the time came, we chugged back to the harbor master's office.
The walls of his small office were plastered with photographs and photo trophies. His name was Colonel (pronounced "Körnel"), everyone called him that. In some photos, you could see him in a fantastic carnival uniform; perhaps he was a real Körnel after all; he did, after all, speak fluent English. They had already seen us coming, and as soon as we sat down, we were served hot peppermint tea in thin clay cups – I must tell Michael Häupl about that sometime! On the table was his name card: Capt. Abdel Wahab M. Saleh. "Father of the Whales," I whispered to Nikolaus, and he whispered back: "I can read too!" (On the wall hung a brightly painted sign: Abd el Wahab – Father of the Whales. I wonder if this is where Melville got his Captain Ahab for Moby Dick?).
Per placed our report, written in English, on the desk. Körnel immediately took it away again, pointed apologetically at the thick, green-bound book on which Per had placed it, and said with a smile: "This is the Holy Quran!" Then he took our paper and began to read. He stopped again immediately (I can't read Arabic, after all) and said: "Well, tell me about it!" Nikolaus introduced himself, the ship, its name, etc., and reported that we had wanted to go from Port Said to Sharm el Sheikh (here are our papers), and that we had had a collision with a tanker on such-and-such a night. (The conversation is so vivid in my mind that I want to reproduce it here verbatim:)
The gnome smiles. "Collision?" - Apparently, he's imagining with a smirk how we'll ride into a mountain of steel with our lances lowered.
"Well," corrects Nikolaus, his face red, "the tanker rammed us!"
"Aha," said the grain, satisfied, "that sounds better. And – did anything happen to the tanker?"
Nicholas silently denies it.
"But your ship—is it badly damaged?" Nikolaus shrugged. "We repaired the railing ourselves in a few hours, we can throw away the old dinghy, there are only a few inconspicuous scratches on the hull—no, the ship isn't really badly damaged, good American craftsmanship!"
"And – was anyone hurt?" Nikolaus again denies it.
"Inshallah!" exclaims Körnel, pushing our folded and unread report back across the table, "thank God that nothing worse happened!"
So much for the maritime court hearing. Nikolaus and Per are making a half-hearted attempt to find out the tanker's name and pursue the matter through insurance channels, but the father of the whales has long since retreated dreamily into his peppermint tea and isn't responding. Meanwhile, I was desperately trying to identify the people in the photographic trophies, but alas, all the Egyptian nobility were completely unknown to me.
Körnel noticed my inquisitive glances, and now he's taking the pictures off the wall one by one, explaining that here he's pictured with Minister So-and-so, there with General Whatsit, and here's his penultimate ship, a 1,500 hp one, by the way, which he sold to the merchant Icksipsilon. Speaking of which—if we needed provisions, water, or diesel, he could get us everything, because the merchants in Sharm, he said, were cutthroats, real swindlers who even charged extra for delivery; but with him, you could simply hand over a list of goods, and he'd deliver them to the ship free of charge. Welcome to the baksheesh canal!
I spent a long time digging through the Red Sea Pilot and had a problem, so I brought it up: "Mr. Körnel, Sir, Your Excellency! We would like to go diving there and there today and tomorrow - is that okay?".
The man suddenly sat bolt upright – he'd obviously never seen an idiot ask to pay voluntarily. "Of course not," he said predictably, "you need a special permit!" Now I smiled broadly, because that's what I'd been aiming for. "Here it is!" and Nikolaus placed the form with the printed red diver on it on the desk.
The guide paused, studied the paper ("ah, you were at good old Achmed's!") and in the next second dismantled us: "This is a 14-day general diving permit for the entire Egyptian coast, except for Ras Muhammed and the bay from Sharm to the island of Tiran, which have been nature reserves for two years now!"
That was exactly what the Red Sea Pilot had said, and now I had confirmation. Yesterday, we had unknowingly dived illegally in the nature reserve at Ras Muhammed, but we couldn't do it anymore once I knew and Körnel had seen us; he was as sharp as a razor, and I wasn't about to mess with someone like that. Friendly and wordless, he reached into a drawer and took out a form. "I need an ID or passport from you," he said, as he began to write.
Nikolaus and I rummaged in our pockets—no, we didn't have anything with us. Per casually reached under his shirt and produced the blue diplomatic passport from his pouch. "Well, what's this?" Körnel paused, and began to leaf through it. He discreetly slipped the form under a stack of newspapers while he studied Per's passport. "A diplomatic passport!" he declared with a knowing air, "I used to travel with one when I was a military attaché!" He suddenly became so jovial and chummy that I felt a little uneasy—this could all go very wrong.
Without further ado, he grabbed the "invalid" diving permit, grinned broadly, stamped it with several different stamps, and scribbled his name underneath with a flourish. "There you go, now you can dive anywhere," he said. "I'm also the highest conservation authority here, I give you permission!" He barked at his doorman, and a few moments later we were served fresh peppermint tea. The guy grinned broadly as he reached into the bottom drawer of his desk. "Allah will forgive us," he murmured, placing the cognac on the table. We declined, but he poured us a generous amount of cognac into our hot tea.
Like cat and mouse, he and Per circled each other in the ensuing small talk, neither revealing anything at all about their jobs, only that they both worked for the state (each for their own). Per didn't correct the "diplomat" comment, let the father of all whales think what he wanted. During a pause, the elusive captain gestured to Nikolaus: "You skipper?" and we nodded. The captain nodded at me without looking directly at me: "You security?" I shook my head: "No, assistant," and the captain nodded understandingly, winking at Per. Yeah, assistant.
The conversation then turned to the Gulf War and the considerable workload the two warships in port were causing (and, almost as an aside, Per was gently quizzed to see if he was a diplomat with three percent status and therefore entitled to supplies). Poor Körnel had to deliver truckloads of provisions and forbidden drinks to them, "You can't imagine how difficult it is to procure all this stuff around here!" I thought to myself, I'd love to have his whining and his percentages...
We were back on topic; a brief glance, then Nikolaus said we'd like to come aboard to put together our shopping list. The captain said goodbye and gave us a man to take the list and arrange the delivery.
The mood on board was cheerful. We sat around our coffee, chatting, and Nikolaus had to tell the harbor master's story for the third time. Then Alex said that the boat wasn't lying steady; the anchor was dragging along the bottom. The boat had already circled several times, so the chain was twisted and might break again. Nikolaus decided that we should carefully move towards the shore and put out a stern line. When the anchor winch lifted the chain, we saw underwater that it had wrapped itself ridiculously around the anchor itself. Someone had to go down to sort it out before we caused any damage.
The tall Santa Claus was just in the middle of putting on his diving gear when Per dryly remarked that the soldiers on the warship were watching us with binoculars—and if you go into the harbor basin with diving gear on, they'll get you! Santa Claus, the quick thinker, stopped dead, his mouth wide open. Helga had to disappear into the galley immediately, where I heard her laughing loudly.
"I'll do it," I said, and dropped my clothes. Per grabbed his underwater camera and joined Alex in the water. I jumped into the warm water, dove down the 17 meters to the anchor, worked on it, and tugged on the chain a few times, which was almost immediately free again, then I pulled back up. Per immortalized this successful dive in a wonderful 8mm sequence—in which I saw myself diving for the first time. The big Santa Claus grumbled as he disposed of his bottles and was furious "because we're always so mean to him."
Alexandra asked how one manages to get down so deep. She could barely get a meter down; the air in her stomach and chest just kept floating back up! I first grinned at the chest part and then said that I simply let all the air out beforehand. But Alex (our medic, in addition to being an electronics technician) commented that I was a fool, letting the air out and all that, you can easily drown that way—that's why a weight belt is safer. Everyone agreed with him, except Alexandra. We practiced for quite a while, and suddenly she got it. "Phew," she said panting when we got back to the surface, "I have to swim really hard back up, and when my strength gives out, I'm pulled back down!" Yes, that's just how it is with freediving.
After breakfast, we hurried to get the ship ready and followed the caravan of excursion boats, reaching the bay described in every dive guide as a diver's paradise (Ras Umm Sid) after half an hour. We arrived last, excitedly standing on the foredeck, watching the excursion boats slowly circle the bay, dropping off divers. The tall Santa Claus, now at the helm (!), because, after all, he "had dived nearby a few times," boldly steered into the center of the circle, where a rock was visible in the water.
"Hang the anchor on!" he commanded, and Alex and I hurried along, oblivious.
Suddenly, someone from one of the dive boats shouts over, asking if we'd lost our minds, anchoring right on top of the "Dome"?! Get lost, you damn tourists! (or something like that). The "Dome," it should be noted, is an underwater stalactite about 15 meters high, unique in the world and sacred to all divers. Some call it a "temple" and claim it's a coral, but I know Aunt Amalie's coral necklace, and that looks completely different!
Per takes the helm and steers the boat outside the circle. Alex snorkels ahead and waves, indicating good anchorage over there. We anchor the boat and go diving. Since there isn't enough equipment on board, we split into two groups: the Santas and Kerstin with tanks, and the rest of us free dive.
For me, it's all new: the dome, rising like a giant candle from the black void; the many colorful schools of fish coming within centimeters; the cheeky little zebra-striped fish nibbling at our skin and wetsuits. I'm seeing barracudas for the first time, and I'm photographing lionfish for the first time. Unfortunately, the pictures are only so-so, as the flash doesn't reach far enough at a depth of 10 meters. When I show the slides to friends and family, I have to explain why everything is such a dirty green and why the lionfish (which is actually fiery red and poisonous) appears a rich dark brown with white feathers. Only to very, very close friends do I sheepishly admit that I simply didn't dare get any closer.
Matz, our blind air traffic controller, doesn't have a wetsuit and is freezing miserably. We leave him on board as watchmen and follow the Santas to the steep drop-off, where the reef edge plunges vertically into the black void. They dive down and, in their uncomradeship, don't notice Kerstin's hand signals; the depth is clearly frightening for her, and she stays behind with us above. Alex is chasing a school of barracuda; we swim quickly over to him and ask if he's lost his marbles. He grins and says they don't hurt you anyway, but then decides against it. Alexandra and I look at each other: we're really in a sorry state, gentlemen!
Per, Helga, Alexandra, and I stayed together, swimming around in this beautiful underwater world and admiring this fantastic garden for hours. I snapped photos and photos until the film ran out, asking Helga to photograph this and that, because it was like the Garden of Eden. The sun slowly set, the light became dim, and the predatory fish awakened. Now it was Alex who was being chased by a school of barracuda and reached the boat in a record-breaking crawl. Slowly, everyone gathered on board, and we chugged back to the harbor. The most beautiful dive of my life (so far).
I still admire little Nikolaus to this day. With little money and a lot of hard work, he manages the PAPAGENO single-handedly, because his partner is completely out of his mind and more of a nuisance than a help. He keeps the ship in excellent condition and does everything himself that he possibly can. I'm no surveyor, but as far as I can tell, the ship is in tip-top shape. The faulty electronics only affect unnecessary luxuries and don't impair its seaworthiness.
The bribe-and-bake channel has drained his finances, gentlemen! Nevertheless, Little Santa Claus announces that he wants to treat us to the Captain's Dinner in Sharm el Sheikh tonight, our last evening together. We dress up and chug across the harbor basin, surrounded by the barracks wall, go through "passport control" once again, and trot over a small hill into town. There—we wouldn't have believed it—we can't find a single restaurant. Except perhaps for the dreadful hotels, where even the appetizers cost more than a meal in Cairo. This price maximization rubs us all the wrong way, so we ignore the greedily rubbing dining room managers and head back into town. After a long walk, we sit down at a street café and have a drink before continuing our stroll.
"Why wander any further?" the coffeehouse owner asks us. "I'm having chicken and rice tonight in the garden." Then he lowers his voice so Allah won't hear, and whispers, "I have beer and wine, too." We look at each other, then follow him into the garden, which is just like a Viennese wine tavern, except that the drinkers here are darker-skinned. It's cramped, but we enjoy the meal, which, although terribly greasy and spicy, is far tastier than the spaghetti Bolognese and spaghetti Papageno (and vice versa) we were used to on the ship. Here in the garden, where Allah can't see, wine (in copious amounts) and beer (in cans) are served openly. After the meal, I try to strike up a conversation with our table neighbors, two dark-skinned Arabs, but it's very difficult, very difficult. They beckon me to join them.
The crew roars with laughter when Per casually remarks, "Now he doesn't dare, Mr. Security." That's all I need to know. I give a quick nod to the group and sit down with the two sinister-looking fellows. Our conversation slowly gets going, me slowly in English, them slowly in Arabic-English. I have three children, and no, no wife. They're surprised; everyone has a wife or more. "Yes, yes, but not me. I have a girlfriend, but no ring." "Aha," they nod, uncomprehending. "What, no ring? That's a ring, isn't it?" "Yes," I say, "a signet ring, a decorative ring. Not a ring for a wife." "Aha."
The two work in road construction in Cairo, I quickly realize; they come from the island of Tiran. It actually belongs to the Saudis, and they are Saudis too, but that's not so important here. At midnight they'll take a bus across the Sinai to Cairo, and they'll be there by noon tomorrow. I ask if I can buy them a beer – head shaking, beer, for God's sake, no! I soften the blow and offer them peppermint tea: yes, gladly, that's very kind. When I order, one of them points at my cigarette – no, when I offer him one, he gestures that he means a water pipe. So, another chibuk for the dark-skinned guest, waiter, and plenty of tobacco for three. Thank goodness for Karl May.
This invitation to tea changes the whole conversation. Suddenly, the Arab construction workers aren't so gloomy anymore; they're laughing and sipping their hot tea. They ask about my work and customs in Austria, and I slowly realize that their attempts to pronounce "Austria" correctly are gradually turning into "Asturia," and suddenly we find ourselves talking about bullfighting in Barcelona. No, gentlemen, Austria, not Spain! No bullfighting—except perhaps at the Opera Ball—and no fandango, but Schnadahüpfler!—Schna-Schanada—what!?
The water pipe is passed around (not the pipe itself, just the hose), and I cautiously wipe the metal mouthpiece with my flat hand—hygiene and all that—but they acknowledge my apprehension with broad smiles. Apparently, the greedy waiter didn't provide enough tobacco (tobacco is rolled into small, cone-shaped paper pouches and placed in the clay bowl containing the glowing charcoal). Someone takes out their own tobacco pouch and adds a little more. Immediately, a pleasant, sweet aroma fills the air; we draw and puff on the delicious tobacco, laugh and joke, and try to bring Vienna back from Spain to Austria. I could tell them that things were exactly the opposite in the time of Charles V, but my Arabic gestures probably wouldn't be sufficient...
I had already treated everyone to three or four rounds of tea and tobacco, and the Dark Knight had dutifully added his own tobacco, when Alexandra strolled over and sat on my lap (naturally, only because there wasn't a chair free). She sniffed and then whispered in my ear, "Honey, that's hashish!" and looked at me wide-eyed, knowing full well that I utterly detest such things. I can still hear the words, but at the time they didn't register in my consciousness, because I was in such a wonderful mood and everything was shrouded in a sweet haze; everyone was so lovely and I felt glorious. I politely explained to her that I was simply having tea and smoking a hookah with the two gentlemen. Alexandra slunk off again, inexplicably pouting.
Every Captain's Dinner has to end, and so did this one. We walked out into the balmy full-moon night, and I marveled at how soft and springy the soles of my ancient sailing boots were. I danced and skipped ahead of the others, uphill toward the barracks, still hearing the comments behind me that he must be completely done for, and looked around to see who "he" could possibly mean. But there was no one else there. So we strolled homeward—I was dancing in my new shoes—and reached the barracks gate, in front of which stood three guards: two with Kalashnikovs, one without, because that was the commanding officer. We had probably shown our passports and the port papers for the PAPAGENO ten times in these two days, but each time they insisted on seeing them again—rules are rules!
As I pranced around in front of the group like a madman, it apparently looked alarming, because the militiamen huddled together, clutching their rifles tightly: Watch out, a fool! Even now, I'm baffled as to which corner of my repressed subconscious this homosexual impulse sprang from; in any case, I suddenly embraced the commander and planted a loud kiss on his unshaven cheek. "It's me, dear István!" I added unnecessarily. Startled, he opened his eyes like a calf in a slaughterhouse, then gestured gruffly that we should get through the gate quickly, and hurry up! Delighted that there was no tedious passport control, we ran laughing down to the harbor.
The others are still roaring with laughter, but Alexandra swears she'll never, ever, ever kiss me again, that I'm such a horrible thing to do! The others are now teasing me, saying I'm so high I could fly over to the Italians (addendum: warship) and ask if they have anything to quench our thirst. I couldn't be held back any longer when the others realized my drunken resolve and tried to downplay it with "it was just a joke!" How often have we been told we'd never be allowed near the warships!
The others followed slowly as I pranced towards the Italians. A corporal sat at a table in front of the passarella, the gangplank leading onto the ship, calmly watching me. It's clear to me now, because I probably wasn't the first stoned soul he'd seen in his long service, but back then I noticed how completely cool he remained, even though everyone else neighed or freaked out at the sight of me. From a distance, I greeted him in my rusty school Italian and asked not to shoot—we were the tired and thirsty sailors from the trimaran out there and just wanted to ask if we could have a sip of Chianti or something else decent. Cheekiness pays off, I thought.
In snarling English, he informed me that "the Italians" were those back there, and he was "the Spaniards." But if I wanted, we could have a beer; there were no other drinks because the harbor master wanted exorbitant prices. I frantically searched through the hashish-addled seaweed filling my brain and tried to make myself understood in broken Spanish. When I tossed him one such phrase—that the harbor master was probably a ladron (thief)—he became approachable and grinned broadly; well, come along then!
Helga whispers, "István, you're the best," while we wait at the gangplank until the officer returns with two cases of cold, nice and cold beer. While we drink our cans, the others give him a rough outline of how our trip went. When Nikolaus reminds us that we have to get back to the ship, the Spaniard gives us a full case of beer "for later."
Needless to say, I was soaking wet after rowing back to our ship; it's also unnecessary to mention that the beer didn't last until morning; but it's also unnecessary to mention that at some point the wet clothes had to be taken off and that Alexandra and I danced the Sirtaki on the cabin roof – under a full moon, naked and beautiful! (Sirtaki, because it was the only playable cassette on board).
The two Santas soon went their separate ways – the older Santa and Kerstin pooled their savings and bought the SYMPAT, a trimaran they still charter today. Alex walked from Sharm (over several days) to the Sinai Peninsula to St. Catherine's Monastery and subsequently had to have his bleeding soles treated in a Cairo hospital. Matz continued to take tourists on the PAPAGENO in Hurghada for a while with the younger Santa, Alexandra went to Brazil, and Helga, Per, and I went to Vienna.
We still sometimes go to sea together today.
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Ooo...