Pirates of Holy Saturday
I had meant to post this just after Easter, but it wasn't done, and then I was taken by events to places far, far away from internet connections and similar vestiges of sanity and reality. So here it is, two weeks late ...
‘They say these are the most pirated waters in the world,’ Sally tells me as we are trying to get a boat across them. The boats available look like those boxes your food came in when you were a kid at White Spot. ‘Pirate Packs,’ I think they called them. Hmm.
The trouble is, we’ve got to get back. Big Easter plans for tomorrow: Sunrise service, team-building exercises … On second thought, maybe we should stay here.
But we’ve missed the ferry off the island. Actually, we didn’t really miss it – it just wasn’t going our way. And it didn’t leave when they said it would. Also, everyone here thinks it might have left three hours earlier. Besides that, it’s not quite clear if it even left from this dock, or this island, now that they think of it. It’s hard to get a straight answer out of people who think they can make more money if they tell you what they think you want to hear than what is true. We obviously want a ferry, and the local crowd at the dock is more than happy to provide one – it’s just not here.
‘How about a fishing boat?’ they offer, helpfully. We look dubiously at the painted tubs bobbing at the crumbling pier. ‘Do you have any other boats? Bigger ones?’ I ask. Our translator gets this across a little too quickly and the idea is met with vigorous approval. The local busybody runs for his motorbike. Bigger boats are farther away. My group volunteers me to go appraise their seaworthiness. Kelsey, meanwhile, will head up to the airport to see if the Russian helicopter pilots are still there and can be charmed by her Russian-speaking charms into flying us over to the mainland. Sally and Naomi stay as entertainment for the gathering crowd of local kids and men with nothing to do but take photos with fancy cell phones bought, presumably, with the wads of money they make arranging boats for clueless foreigners.
‘Where you from?’ yells my boat-arranger, turning back to me as we bounce along on his bike. I think he’s also lighting a cigarette as he does this, so it’s not clear how he’s also driving. ‘Canada!’ I yell back brightly, alternately trying to go with the flow and looking for soft places to jump clear. ‘Oh Canada!’ he shouts. ‘Speaking Indonesian?’ ‘Nope!’ I say, and ‘Ow!’ as we hit a raised bridge deck at 35 klicks and catapault over it. ‘Ok,’ he says and goes back to driving or whatever you call the thing he’s been doing with the motorbike and the cigarette and our lives.
When we arrive at the village with the bigger boats we see them out in the water and they look like bath toys. ‘Um,’ I say. People gather and look at me. I smile and look as if I know something about boats, which I do. I know that the boats in this village are small, exposed and questionable craft for crossing the most pirated waters in the world. I know there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell we’re taking any of them across said waters, even with team-building and sunrise services at stake. Especially with team-building and sunrise services at stake. ‘No go,’ I call Kelsey and tell her. ‘No Russians, either,’ she chirps back on the other end of the cell phone from the airport. It’s too bad. We’d heard they had vodka. Or maybe it’s not too bad. We’d also heard they had it with them in the cockpit. Between Acehnese fishermen with dollar signs in their eyes and dinky boats and Russian helicopter pilots hopped up on hooch, it would’ve been a hard choice. ‘Better,’ I say, ‘to cut our losses, call in AWOL for the group activities and go back to the beach to see how quickly we can drown our guilt in cold Malaysian beer and beautiful sunsets.’ ‘Mmm,’ Kelsey agrees.
I distract the boat-arranger from the conversation he’s started with the onlookers, no doubt whipping them into a greedy frenzy with the enticing prospect of getting my money. ‘Hey, Ok, we go back, we go now,’ I say waving back the way we came and pawing at his motorcycle. He looks confused. ‘Boat?’ he asks hopefully. ‘Nope,’ I grin at him. ‘Too small. Let’s go.’
We re-convene back at the ferry dock where the crowd of men is just about to propose marriage to Naomi en masse and try for the umpteenth time to take Sally’s photo despite her growling. ‘Right,’ I say. ‘Boat’s no good and the Russians have gone. Back to the beach, then?’ There is general agreement.
And that is how we would have missed out on the teambuilding, except for the three Germans sitting on the porch at the dive shop back at the beach, and their hired boat sitting at the end of the pier. Just as we settle in with cans of cold Tiger for another hard night away from the team, they pop the surprising news that we can catch a ride back on their boat with them in half and hour.
Which is why I’m standing on the prow of a thirty-foot Acehnese fishing boat watching flying fish skim over the waves out in front of us, keeping a sharp eye for pirates. So far no luck. We may make it back for the teambuilding yet. And the sunrise service tomorrow on the beach. Personally, though, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the pirates. But that’s just between you and me.
‘They say these are the most pirated waters in the world,’ Sally tells me as we are trying to get a boat across them. The boats available look like those boxes your food came in when you were a kid at White Spot. ‘Pirate Packs,’ I think they called them. Hmm.
The trouble is, we’ve got to get back. Big Easter plans for tomorrow: Sunrise service, team-building exercises … On second thought, maybe we should stay here.
But we’ve missed the ferry off the island. Actually, we didn’t really miss it – it just wasn’t going our way. And it didn’t leave when they said it would. Also, everyone here thinks it might have left three hours earlier. Besides that, it’s not quite clear if it even left from this dock, or this island, now that they think of it. It’s hard to get a straight answer out of people who think they can make more money if they tell you what they think you want to hear than what is true. We obviously want a ferry, and the local crowd at the dock is more than happy to provide one – it’s just not here.
‘How about a fishing boat?’ they offer, helpfully. We look dubiously at the painted tubs bobbing at the crumbling pier. ‘Do you have any other boats? Bigger ones?’ I ask. Our translator gets this across a little too quickly and the idea is met with vigorous approval. The local busybody runs for his motorbike. Bigger boats are farther away. My group volunteers me to go appraise their seaworthiness. Kelsey, meanwhile, will head up to the airport to see if the Russian helicopter pilots are still there and can be charmed by her Russian-speaking charms into flying us over to the mainland. Sally and Naomi stay as entertainment for the gathering crowd of local kids and men with nothing to do but take photos with fancy cell phones bought, presumably, with the wads of money they make arranging boats for clueless foreigners.
‘Where you from?’ yells my boat-arranger, turning back to me as we bounce along on his bike. I think he’s also lighting a cigarette as he does this, so it’s not clear how he’s also driving. ‘Canada!’ I yell back brightly, alternately trying to go with the flow and looking for soft places to jump clear. ‘Oh Canada!’ he shouts. ‘Speaking Indonesian?’ ‘Nope!’ I say, and ‘Ow!’ as we hit a raised bridge deck at 35 klicks and catapault over it. ‘Ok,’ he says and goes back to driving or whatever you call the thing he’s been doing with the motorbike and the cigarette and our lives.
When we arrive at the village with the bigger boats we see them out in the water and they look like bath toys. ‘Um,’ I say. People gather and look at me. I smile and look as if I know something about boats, which I do. I know that the boats in this village are small, exposed and questionable craft for crossing the most pirated waters in the world. I know there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell we’re taking any of them across said waters, even with team-building and sunrise services at stake. Especially with team-building and sunrise services at stake. ‘No go,’ I call Kelsey and tell her. ‘No Russians, either,’ she chirps back on the other end of the cell phone from the airport. It’s too bad. We’d heard they had vodka. Or maybe it’s not too bad. We’d also heard they had it with them in the cockpit. Between Acehnese fishermen with dollar signs in their eyes and dinky boats and Russian helicopter pilots hopped up on hooch, it would’ve been a hard choice. ‘Better,’ I say, ‘to cut our losses, call in AWOL for the group activities and go back to the beach to see how quickly we can drown our guilt in cold Malaysian beer and beautiful sunsets.’ ‘Mmm,’ Kelsey agrees.
I distract the boat-arranger from the conversation he’s started with the onlookers, no doubt whipping them into a greedy frenzy with the enticing prospect of getting my money. ‘Hey, Ok, we go back, we go now,’ I say waving back the way we came and pawing at his motorcycle. He looks confused. ‘Boat?’ he asks hopefully. ‘Nope,’ I grin at him. ‘Too small. Let’s go.’
We re-convene back at the ferry dock where the crowd of men is just about to propose marriage to Naomi en masse and try for the umpteenth time to take Sally’s photo despite her growling. ‘Right,’ I say. ‘Boat’s no good and the Russians have gone. Back to the beach, then?’ There is general agreement.
And that is how we would have missed out on the teambuilding, except for the three Germans sitting on the porch at the dive shop back at the beach, and their hired boat sitting at the end of the pier. Just as we settle in with cans of cold Tiger for another hard night away from the team, they pop the surprising news that we can catch a ride back on their boat with them in half and hour.
Which is why I’m standing on the prow of a thirty-foot Acehnese fishing boat watching flying fish skim over the waves out in front of us, keeping a sharp eye for pirates. So far no luck. We may make it back for the teambuilding yet. And the sunrise service tomorrow on the beach. Personally, though, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the pirates. But that’s just between you and me.
posted by rjs | 5:22 PM
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