Bargaining, Observing, Preparing for Navidad

12/8
Departed Morocco today. We had been anchored at the coastal town of Essaouira, the closest thing to a natural harbor on the west coast. A bunch of people took their liberty time and went to Marrakesh. Apparently it’s sensory overload. Narrow, labyrinthine streets crowded with people, aggressive shopkeepers, and snake charmers who drape a dozen or so vipers over you and then demand money. I opted for the more relaxed, picturesque Essaouira.

I had a fantastic time here. Possibly the best vacation spot I’ve ever found. I’ve never been somewhere so foreign before. Many of the locals walk around in pointy-hooded robes called Jalabas. Spectacular pastries, magnificent orange juice, tajine, friendly shopkeepers who offer you in for tea and then, the day’s entertainment: bargaining.

I love bargaining. I mean I absolutely love it. I had no idea how much fun it was going to be. My first day ashore I didn’t really shop much, but what I bought took about an hour to buy, and man was it fun. The guy asked first for 1500 dirham (about $175 U.S.) and I ended up paying 400dh. I don’t care if he probably got it for 4 dh, it was fun, and I would have paid about that much for a similar product in the states. But the process was just so much fun.

He approaches me on the street, “Hey, my friend, you from le bateau? Le gran bateau? You know Mike? You know Mike? Please come in, I make special price for you.”
And then I say, “Oh, no I can’t, I don’t have very much money, I really can’t spend much.”And he says, “It’s OK, just to look, come in, I’ll give you special price.”
“OK, then, but just to look.”

This is how every bargaining session begins.

Then we sit down in the back, and he offers a cup of hot, sweet, mint tea, and we toast and talk and shoot the breeze for ten or fifteen minutes. He tells me he is twareg, a traveling people from the Sahara. His name is Hasim, he has clear charcoal skin, a friendly, handsome face, and a toothy smile that comes easy. He shows me stuff, mostly knickknacks and crap I don’t want: camel-bone knives, amulets, and rings big enough to bully around most lugnuts. I try to explain carpal-tunnel syndrome to him, but he keeps offering me the damned rings.

The process is pure, theatrical euphoria, and afterwards, everyone is friends because he didn’t accept less than he wanted, and I didn’t pay more than I could afford and we shake hands.
But it is a such a strange process, and a strange game too, that two people, so eager to lie to each other, so happy to bemoan the onset of calamity should the other have his way, can walk away feeling friendliness for one another.

I bought a full hide of camel leather from one of the many leather goods stalls in the market. It was nearly one of the greatest thrills of the trip so far.
He showed me the hide, I was happy with it, and he said, with a smile dripping with insipid innocence, 1800 Dirham – just over $200 U.S. (Side note: This hide is about 8-10 square feet. I can buy cow leather in the States for $10 per square foot. This being Moroccan camel leather, I was willing to pay for it, but, still, the delight of shopping in Morocco lies in the bargain.)

At this point, all the other employees, and a few of the adjacent shopkeepers had gathered to see the crazy “English-Man” who had made such a strange request for a full camel hide.
I laughed and apologized for wasting his time. “I can only afford 400 Dh. That’s the most can pay,” I assured him.
They all went crazy. “400!?” “That’s so low!” “He can make twenty bags with this much leather!” “Do you even know how to bargain?!” And so on.
“My friend,” he strained to remain calm, “why are you even here? Why do you waste my time? We are not even within a few hundred Dirham. How are we supposed to come to terms?”
“That’s really as much as I can pay, otherwise I have no money for the rest of the time in Morocco.”
“His family has to eat!”
“I have to eat too.”
“You can eat at my house!”
I laughed at this.
He grinned back at me. We were testing each other.
“Maybe you want to swap for something?” They asked.
I gestured to my bag. “I guess I have some spare clothes.” I had brought a bag full of clothes, thrift store formal wear and free tall-ships festival t-shirts for precisely this purpose.
“What. Show us.”
A sweatshirt I had saved from the ship’s lost-and-found a few months ago came out. Oohs and Ahhs.
“Columbia?”
"That’s an American brand.”
“Yes, fine. What else?”
I revealed a Budweiser hat I had won during a football trivia quiz at the Grand Banker’s Superbowl party last winter in Lunenburg.
He put it on, struck a pose like Robert DeNiro, and then looked sideways at his cronies. “OK. With the hat, and the sweatshirt, 1650.”
By bartering with two garments which I had acquired for free, I knocked off over $17.
“I don’t have that much money. I’m sorry.” They were livid. “I’m, sorry, but I’m poor. I’m a sailor. I don’t have much money.”
He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “OK. OK. Your maximum price. What is your maximum?”
I searched my wallet, and met him with a forlorn look. “I don’t know, I am sorry. I don’t want to cause you any trouble, but the most I can pay is 500.”
At this point, such an uproar erupted that I half expected them to begin thrashing about the floor, convulsing and biting themselves.
“This is your maximum? No no no. Name your real maximum.”
Another man, nearly doubled over, eyes wide, teeth bared, put his face right in mine: “SAY ANOTHER NUMBER!”
“Do you like my shoes?”
“Your shoes?” Instantly, their mood switched from boiling hostility to a feline curiosity.
I showed him my shoes. They were good shoes, but the soles were worse than useless on deck. In any moisture, they were like trying to walk across ice with metal saucers strapped on your feet. In fact, aboard the ship that morning, as the early dew had not quite totally burned off, I nearly slipped and fell while walking the ten feet to the boat for the skiff-run ashore. I wore them deliberately to trade. I knew they were good shoes.
”These are good shoes,” confirmed the man who had so recently screamed in my face, and they huddled again.
“We cannot take your shoes.” They said. “What will you wear?”
“I can figure it out.” I said, “But I just can’t afford what you ask.”
“OK fine. Give us the shoes. 900 Dh.”
Down another $90 U.S. for a pair of shoes I haven’t been able to wear since June. So far so good. I opened my bag, and displayed the remainder of my disposable wardrobe. They collected and folded the garments. The shopkeeper stared at me icily, his hand resting of the sizeable pile of my barter offerings.
“700.”
I ran my hands through my hair, shuffled my bare feet in the dirt. “OK,” I sighed. He wrapped up the leather, smiled, shook my hand, and I returned the smile.
“Are you happy?” He asked.
”Yes, thank you.”
”Good, thank you too. I hope you enjoy your leather.”
And so this is how we parted, with smiles all around and a big laugh as I pulled a pair of flip-flops from my backpack and walked out into the street.

Later, I allowed myself to be coaxed into a store by a man in a gigantic white turban, shaping his head with the same silhouette as a cartoon drawing of Saturn, his two crossed eyes, its moons. I didn’t want to buy anything, but I had a knife I nearly never used that I knew would be a big trade value. It was stainless steel, had a regular blade, a saw with a flathead screwdriver on the end, a Philips-head driver, and a small, adjustable crescent wrench on the handle. I got it for $10 in a bargain tub at a hardware store.
He showed me the same jewelry and camel-bone knives and medallions I’d been already been disinterested in. I showed him my knife. He gasped. He asked me what I liked. I said I liked his Jalabas, which are the pointy, camel-wool robes many Moroccans wear. He asked me to name a price. I said 100 Dh. He said 600. I handed him my now empty backpack, which I’d had since high-school, and offered 200.
He looked at me, looked at the backpack, and laughed. ”My friend, I am Berber. But you are more Berber.”
We shook hands, smiled, and he threw in a free headscarf for me. What a blast.

12/16
Sitting here at a beachfront cafe in Las Palmas, the capital city of the Canary Islands. We've been alongside here for a few days. Las Palmas is just another big European tourist city, but here, on this side of town, it's a nice enough place. We are all spoiled rotten after Essaouira.

I ordered a cannoli. I hadn't had one for a while, and was looking forward to it. The waitress gave me a funny look, and a dimpled smile when I ordered it, because most people don't order cannolis for breakfast. I assured her I knew what it was, but I don' think she was convinced. I tried to affirm my understanding of the menu by describing a tube pastry with cream filling in the middle, which was accurate enough, but my accompanying hand gestures were, inadvertantly, a touch obscene. She brought me the cannoli. It was indeed good. With my coffee, she brought out a small pastry as well: spongy, sweet, with a slightly soapy flavor, though not in a bad way.

The walkway is packed.

A stream of school children, ninos pequenos, dressed in blue jumpers, double file and about a quarter mile long, buzzes by, singing and chattering, peppered with the tall, wrinkly towers of teachers and nuns.

A hairy little man tromps across the square towards the beach at top speed, looks like Roberto Benigni with a habanero up his stern. He is clothed only in a towel wrapped around his waist. His wife is three meters behind, more suitably dressed for the cool morning weather in a sweater and trousers, half running to keep up. He is going to have a swim. He is going to freeze his balls off.

Without breaking stride, he whips off the towel to reveal a speedo underneath, thus bestowing on the rest of us the future pleasure of verifying that he has indeed emerged, sin huevos.

I thought we finished with Europe weeks ago, but such a rich history of imperialism has left its speedo-clad legacy everywhere, it seems. Here I am, on an Island just off the coast of Africa, and I'm sitting at an Italian cafe, speaking Spanish and English, and like clockwork, another speedo geezer strolls past. I don't understand these men. It's mid December, I am wearing a wool coat and sipping hot coffee. I think they are really just bald polar bears with health care plans and pensions.

Only from the Europeans do I see so many couples of short, ugly men with tall, beautiful women. And all this time we've branded America as the "Land of Opportunity."

Two more flocks of schoolchildren.

Igor just walked past, wearing a Mr. Rogers sweater.

--

The Danmark is here, the famous Danish trainish ship where our Captain cut his teeth as a seaman. It's a beautiful ship. Spent the afternoon there a couple days ago, had a tour and a coffee. I've gotten to know some of the crew. Great folks. We went for beers the other night and had a great time. Lots of laughs, lots of food, lots of beer; I love the Danish! It is harder to find a group of people who are generally as happy and prosperous and pleasant as Danes.

12/21

Anchored at La Gomera, a small Island in the Canaries. This is really where the charm of the islands must live. To be sure, Las Palmas and Gran Canaria was not at all without its charm, quite a good bit of it, in fact, but this island, with its steep, volcanic cliffs and villages nestled into every cove, and warm sunshine, and German families on holiday, is a bit more of the tropical paradise that we were all looking for.

The whole island is like a giant bowl. The outside is stark, brown, and barren. It looks like something out of Dante's imagination, a terrible place. But Mike, Nadja, and Christian and I walked around the face, through a couple towns, and past a lush green valley, the heart of the island, with towns blossoming out of the hillsides like roses on a bush. It's a good day for doing nothing.

Aboard the ship, though, the steady buzz of holiday preparations continues to build. People have been baking fresh bread and sweet treats constantly for the better part of a week now. Deb, in a fit of ambition, has set out to construct a gingerbread ship. I wonder if it will have licorice halyards.

No one is really sure what to expect, though, as this is the first Christmas away from home for many of us, and the first Christmas on a barque for even more. We are all very excited for the day, and I can't think of a group of people I'd be happy to have as surrogate family; we are as close to the real thing as people can get in eight months, besides.
Merry Christmas to everyone. Think of us in our Holiday celebrations on our way to Senegal.

Mallorca, Gibraltar, Morocco

11/17
It’s been some kind of whirlwind here aboard the Picton Castle.
We left Cascais, Portugal, with a quick stop in the small town of Lagos, and made our way towards Mallorca, a Spanish Island in the Mediterranean. On the seventh of November we passed through the straits of Gibraltar and into the azure waters of the Mediterranean Sea. To our port was the famous rock, to starboard Africa. It was the first time I’d laid eyes on the gigantic continent. I took in the view, snapped a couple pictures, and then got back to work.
Another quick stop, anchoring next to a private island near Ibiza belonging to someone with more cash than architectural imagination. (Only one house there, might have been cool looking in 1982)
We wanted to really shine up the ship before coming into Mallorca. There were going to be lots of family and friends meeting us there, so looking sharp was key. We painted the entire topsides (the outside of the hull, not the wet part) in just one afternoon, among many other little jobs.

Then, once we arrived in Mallorca, the floodgates opened and the rivers of work and play converged with stunning violence. We sent down the mizzen topmast, my cousin Allison arrived literally minutes after this. I knocked-off work and we trekked away on bikes around the coast all afternoon, tapas for dinner, and a blues club very late into the night. When I arrived back at the ship, Donald was up cooking breakfast. Then work all day. Sister Katherine comes to visit from studies in Brussels. Bonfire at Nadja’s house, roasting sausages, guitar playing, singing, laughing, telling stories, catching up, relaxing. Cousin leaves the next morning. Then work all day again. Then another evening with sister and her two accompanying classmates from Brussels. Then a day off work, driving and seeing finally other parts of the island besides Palma, which is mostly big-city, party-central. Not really my scene.

The island of Mallorca has some beautiful little towns nestled away. We rented a car and stopped in three towns tucked inside coastal coves. Soller, Deia, and Valldemossa. Beautiful. Deia looked like concept art for a movie set, something Jim Henson would have liked, with stone dwellings lining the valley of a waterfall that cut through the village, all networked with timber walkways between patios. We stopped for coffee and watched the sunset over the mountains.
Then a last evening out with Katherine and her friends and my friends before she had to go. It has been a fantastic treat getting to see her and Allison while we were all in Europe. The long distance from family and friends that life seems to inevitably bring is weird and unwelcome, but the warm glow of reunions and the making of memories like these are superlative consolations

11/20
Squally weather since we left Mallorca. The wind’s been driving us hard; we’re screaming through the water. Trainees Gunner, Rich and Matt took a big wave down their coats while hauling on the starboard fore braces.
The wind piped up last night. I was called from my bunk to help get a stow on the t’gallants. Cold, wet, stiff canvas. Not easy stowing sail in those conditions. Drive down the highway, lean out the window, and origami some plywood. You’ll see.

11/22
Landfall at Gibraltar, capping our smartest passage so far. We had our best day’s run of the voyage yesterday, 156 nautical miles, and the day before we did 150. Though we’re hardly the Cutty Sark, it was pretty good for us. There’s a reason the Picton Castle slogans is, “We may be slow, but we get around.” It’s a strange place.
It’s a British colony, the gateway to the Mediterranean, home of the monolithic Rock of Gibraltar, the anchorage is littered with tankers and freighters, fueling or waiting for orders, the bayside is lined with pungent refineries and neon condominiums, and the city itself is comprised of Moorish and spansih stonework with a serious British veneer. English pubs, newsstands, double-decker busses, and a downtown jam packed with enough jewelry, clothing, and electronics stores to make you think for a moment maybe it’s some weird London borough, but then it’s pierced by a dirtbike buzzing down the road, a rooster tail of dust trailing, hanging in the air, and sun-baked adobe, Africans, Spaniards, Indians and every type of person in between. Plus they drive on the right-hand side of the road here.
This place has been a site of siege for over a thousand years. It’s been held under more queens than Christopher Lowell. Lord Admiral Nelson was killed near here at the famous battle of Trafalgar. Outside the old southern city wall is the Trafalgar cemetery, burial site of many British sailors who died from wounds sustained in the battle. The rock is more or less hollow now after centuries of military tunnels, and scattered with bastions, batteries, and abandoned towers, left behind by Spanish, Moorish, British, and American militaries.
At 10:00 AM, while walking through the city, I came to a square in the center of which were a dozen women, aged 50-99, dressed in pink, doing dance routines to Top-40 music.
Its identity crisis is its identity.
It’s a strange place.

11/26
Departed from Gibraltar. Weighed anchor, sailing off the hook, as they say, all canvas loosed, and wove our way out of the harbor amid the tankers and freighters, bound out to sea and headed for Africa! A square rigger leaving her anchorage by power of sail, past the noses of so many belching metal tubs, out from under the sour smog of the refineries, all with numbered days, our kites were flying signals that the sailing ship still prowls the seas. We’ve been catching wind for centuries, and we will still be long after all the petroleum sucking hulks have rusted out. The clockwork of the tradewinds will outlast any clunking contrivance, as long as the Earth keeps spinning.

Gibraltar turned out to be fun stop. At first I wasn’t impressed, though I think that was more from a desire to keep at sea for a while rather than stopping at another port. But Gibraltar was well worth it. There’s no where else on the planet quite like it. If you get a chance, you should see it.

On Monday, Mike and Nadja and I had a great hike up to the top of the rock. We found the famous Gibraltar apes, which are the only wild apes in Europe, and inhabit the mountainside like Central Park squirrels. They are notorious pickpockets and gluttons. The first one we saw assaulted Nadja immediately.
Then we made our way up to the top, to the mouth of some of the famous military tunnels, and a good view of our little barque out in the harbor. After that we meandered back down the rock to the ancient Moorish castle, erected in the 1300’s.

The evening we went to the local movie theatre, housed in a converted British fortress at the waterfront. One of the features was “Ghost Town,” featuring the theatrical support of Picton Castle shipmate Billy “Ollie” Campbell. He plays an uptight, wanker lawyer. It was his first movie since punching J-Lo in the face in “Enough” (A film for which he’s hinted a desire for a sequel). It was a funny thrill seeing our friend up on the big screen with Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear, and Tea Leoni. “Oh Lord! Please spare this man!”
I wanted to turn around and declare to the other four people in the theatre, “That guy had the Guinness-shits when he drove me to the airport!”

We’ve had a good work period here too. We changed out our braces, sent down and overhauled the fore tops’l footropes, and back up, and Buddy’s been cranking out sails like crazy. Since arriving in Mallorca he’s laid out and seamed up an upper tops’l, t’gallant, and inner jib, and nearly finished our new spanker.

We’re running westward now before a force 5, headed for Essaouira, Morocco, and hopefully warmer weather. It’s been cold here. The weather has been seriously unsettled here lately, and the forecasts conflicting, but the wind is fair so we are going to take it. We left this morning ready for bad weather, hoping for good, and taking what we get. Today it is a moderate easterly breeze.

11/28
The wind’s been shifty since leaving Gibraltar. Last night and this morning it seemed to have settled a bit, but two days ago it was as erratic and gusty as I’ve ever seen it, keeping us at the braces and sheets for nearly the entire watch. It would often make a full 360 degree shift, sometimes slowly, and sometimes within the passing of barely a minute, but always it had the helmsman on his toes. Even this morning it had been a nice and steady force 4, we had every stitch of sail set, and in the blink of an eye it piped up and came forward and we doused out kites.

We are having out Thanksgiving celebration today, on account of yesterday being so squally. Last night each watch was busy in the galley baking up desserts, and Donald has two big turkeys roasting in the oven.

11/29
Thanksgiving was fantastic. We had our feast in the salon, hove-to off the coast of Morocco, the lights of Casablanca glowing just on the horizon. All hands were present. Then we spent the next few hours with guitars out, making music and singing songs. Though the thought of a Thanksgiving away from family is a bit gloomy, the ship provides a unique sort of family, and it was in full bloom last night.
We remained hove-to for the remainder of the night, as the weather had been deteriorating, the wind increasing. Nobody slept much. The wind built to gale force soon after my watch, and I was on deck at points in the night to help secure flogging gear, and otherwise take in the spectacle of the howling wind and frothing seas.

This morning the wind had abated slightly, though it was still a steady force 7, and the seas were still very large, some peaking at 20 feet. At one point during our morning watch, a very small bit of diesel was inadvertently splashed on the deck, making a surprisingly large mess, and for nearly half an hour, as we scrambled to clean it up, scrubbing the area with degreaser and dish soap, the decks were transformed into oily ice. We were quite a sight for the helmsman, careening around the quarterdeck on our butts with deck brushes and pails of water in hand. I was almost constantly sliding into the mizzen mast and charthouse and Lynsey, scrubbing vigorously as I glided past the epicenter of the dribble. I felt like a hockey puck. After watch I slept like the dead until the dinner bell.

12/1
Arrived in Essaouira today. The beach is teeming with people on horseback and camelback, robed in dark, full length garments. It’s a cozy little seafront town of squat, white, Moorish buildings surrounded by a turreted stone wall. It’s a busy fishing port here. They make their own boats in Essaouira of a distinct flavor. They’re beamy wooden tubs, with a steep, arching bow, the stem nearly as tall as the keel is long, designed to work in the large swells that are almost constantly rolling in. Essaouira is as close to a natural harbor within 500 miles. There’s a reason no one has heard of the Moroccan navy.
So, today, I begin my first explorations in this country, on this continent, to see a bit of Africa.