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6692 Pisces the Sailfish
6692 Pisces the Sailfish
6692 Pisces the Sailfish
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6692 Pisces the Sailfish

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This is the True story of my Family Adventure and Disaster and the best thing that ever happened to me! The number, 6692 is the date, June 6th '92, when the curse that was placed upon the vessel finally destroyed her. Although the ship was originally cursed when she was built and originally named Pisces, (the Star-sign). some believe she incurred additional “bad luck” because I effectively renamed her by painting a Sailfish outline around her name, Pisces, and turning her into a the fish instead of a star sign. I also left port on a Friday. Renaming a boat and leaving port on a Friday is considered bad luck by sailors.
This True Family Adventure and Travel story follows my young family's adventures after we abandoned our secure, comfortable and meaningless existence in suburbia to follow our dream. This often humorous account, relates how we unwittingly bought a jinxed yacht, watched it smash itself to pieces and with no prior experience, skills or training rebuilt it, sailed away, rediscovered paradise, punished betrayal, found ancient treasure and survived sharks, crazed lemurs, gossiping walruses, a lynch mob, a curse, explosive gas, flaming epoxy and oozing quicksand. It also relates how, in answer to my prayer, we lost everything we owned and experienced heart-breaking generosity that altered our lives and welded our family even closer together. The book explains why we celebrate June 6th every year as Pisces Day with a family meal of Prawns and Rice. The book also reveals why and how I tried to commit murder.
Despite encouragement from family, friends and total strangers to write this book I refused to do so for almost twenty years whilst I waited for someone that I tried to murder -to die. During that time it has remained trapped inside me like the key log holding its fellows prisoner within a logjam. I believe that once this book breaches the flood gates it will release my other novels from the dam.
After several short stories (based upon opening chapters of this book) reached the finals and were published in a daily newspaper's annual True Short Story competition, I was inundated by requests from readers for the rest of the tale, which I ignored at the time, for reasons which may become apparent.
I hope this book will appeal to readers of true adventure or travel, cruising sailors would-be sailors, dreamers, adventurers, and adventure travellers. Similarly it should appeal to anyone who dreams of escaping from their self-made prisons but perhaps lacks the courage or will to actually do it. Women in particular may identify with the multifaceted heroine, a strong female who is simultaneously my wife, lover, partner, best friend, a mother and our anchor.
Although 6692 Pisces and the Sailfish will perhaps resonate with those who experienced the final years of Apartheid in South Africa, it should also be of interest to readers who would like to learn a little about some of Africa's amazing people and exotic cultures. Similarly, although it is a “true-life-story” this tale does not revolve upon the depressing issues that we read about in the news every day to which many of us have become desensitised. Likewise, unlike many of the “sailing accounts” I have read, it does not dwell upon technical aspects of sailing that are meaningless to the average person and especially to me who is branded a heretic by most sailors when I tell them “Sailing is the price I reluctantly pay for the time I enjoy anchored safely in a new port.”
Finally although I vowed that I would never own another boat, I currently find myself building another one together with my now grown up family. Although we have yet to set sail again our journey has already begun anew. Our Journey, our adventures and those of the fascinating people we have met over the last two years are already well on their way to populating the sequel to this book –2nd Time Lucky.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherDon Darkes II
Release dateSep 22, 2012
ISBN9781301411856
6692 Pisces the Sailfish
Author

Don Darkes II

Hi! call me DonI was born as Lawrence Huntingdon-Rusch-de Robillard, adopted and renamed again. I was reborn on June 6th 2012 as the Writer Don Darkes. My choice of pseudonym is due partly to the fact that I am penning a Biographical Memoir entitled My Life of Crime, the memoir of an intriguing man, the "real" Don Darkes who was marked with this identity at birth to protect a secret and the fact that like him, my given name also conceals my true heritage. The irony in this tickles my love of the bizarre and my sense of the ridiculous. Of course it makes marketing sense too since any of my "real" names would fill a book cover and leave no space for the Title!Following a number of exciting and successful careers in Construction, Manufacturing, Information Technology, Franchising and Entrepreneurship I find myself combining them all into my new role as an Author.I repudiated my Psychology degree in the mid-seventies prior to serving my mandatory National Military Service in a top-secret Electronic Warfare unit, clandestinely deployed in Rhodesia, (Now Zimbabwe) a horrendous episode, for which I later received a medal. (novel in progress)During the eighties, at the height of apartheid, together with (then) illegal “black” partners I built a successful manufacturing company. Following a series of traumatic events I sold it and opted-out to buy the yacht upon which I was shipwrecked together with my wife, our five year old son and four year old daughter. ( Non fiction novel, Pisces the Sailfish) After returning destitute to South Africa I rode a ripple in the dot.com wave and sold my Internet start-up in order to distribute organic chocolate and to research a challenging historical novel exploring an intriguing link between the Jewish Holocaust and Madagascar. ( Novel in progress– Bread from Air)Currently, together with my wife, son and two daughters we are building another yacht whilst I work on several books with a common denominator; my love of history and my belief that fact is stranger and far more interesting than fiction.

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    6692 Pisces the Sailfish - Don Darkes II

    Chapter 1. Revenge

    June sixth 2012.

    How do I begin to explain how and why I have waited impatiently to write the final chapters to this story? While I often fantasised about revenge and what I could or should have done, it is only recently that I realised that I should have forgiven and forgotten and released my pent up hatred a long, long time ago. Nevertheless I have to admit, when I joyfully read the news of his dreadful and humiliating demise recently, I experienced intense pleasure and a sweet release in being able to enjoy with relish, the truth in one of my favourite old saws;

    Revenge is a dish best eaten cold and there is no sweeter revenge than outliving your enemies!

    Chapter 2. Jamais vu

    Jamais vu (from French, meaning never seen) is a term in psychology which is used to describe any familiar situation which is not recognized by the observer. Often described as the opposite of déjà vu, jamais vu involves a sense of eeriness and the observer's impression of seeing the situation for the first time, despite rationally knowing that he or she has been in the situation before. (Wikipedia)

    June 7th 1992.

    When the first rays of sunlight began to peel away the darkness at dawn on June seventh I could see that it was low tide and that the pounding waves were crashing some way off from where I sat huddled with my shivering family. A silver flash of reflected sunlight summoned me to where a shimmering object lay within the expanse of sand exposed by the receding ocean.

    Wait here I ordered as I stood up and stepped sleepily onto the glistening beach, ignoring the protests from the hardy villagers who had shared our all-night vigil. At first I did not notice how my footsteps filled up and sank before vanishing behind me as I single-mindedly drew each foot from the sucking white sand and staggered doggedly forward to stand exhausted above my glinting steel objective. Puzzled and perplexed I scratched my head, wincing absent-mindedly as warm blood oozed afresh from the wound on my aching skull as I struggled to recognise at what I was looking. As I sank up to my hips in the cloying muck, I recognised with dismay, the all too familiar shape sticking out of the quicksand in front of me.

    Chapter 3. No Time to Change

    June 6th. 1989.

    Basil, my business partner, pulled the trigger on the loaded revolver he held pressed hard against my temple and laughed tauntingly as the hammer snapped down harmlessly on an empty chamber with a loud click. He was, like every other Friday afternoon, angry, maudlin; and drunk.

    "Hey Lanie. You have the luck of the devil. The live round is sitting here in my gun at five to twelve! It would be midnight for you and this bullet would be in your brain right now if I had pulled the trigger just one more time." Basil staggered a little as he cocked the pistol and carefully extracted the solitary copper tipped bullet and held it up in front of my eyes before pressing it tightly into the palm of my hand.

    Here is a small souvenir for you to remember me by. Basil usually called me Lanie behind my back. When he called me that to my face, he did it as a reminder that despite the fact that we were (albeit illegally) business partners and spent most of our waking hours working together, we would never be friends nor could we associate as equals. This was because I was white and he was coloured. The Apartheid government and its cronies in the church, had jointly decreed that the different colours of our skin meant that we could not publicly socialise nor could we legally own a business together. According to the race classification system implemented by our betters and masters, a coloured person was someone who had a white parent and a black parent and therefore was neither black nor white. This doomed them to an existence in limbo where they were accepted by neither race and were regarded by both as pariahs since they were living proof of the crime of miscegenation that the Nazis and the Jews so abhorred. Lanie was the sardonic name that coloured people used amongst themselves to refer to the ruling class whites during the apartheid era in South Africa. A bastardisation of larney it referred disparagingly to the airs and graces and hypocrisy displayed by the white upper class in a strictly hierarchical society where skin colour determined race and social standing.

    I am not a racist, was Basil’s favourite saying. I just hate everyone who is not exactly like me. The reasons for Basil holding his gun to my head that Friday evening were many and complicated. For me it was the final straw in a litany of hurts, betrayals and disappointments that included being defrauded and lied to by my business partners, my employees and most of all by my own half-brother with whom they were in league. I have long since forgiven them all. In fact in many ways, perhaps I owe them a vote of thanks for opening up my eyes so that I could set myself free.

    As I drove home afterwards, numbly listening to the car radio, Tracey Chapman seemed to be speaking directly to me as she crooned in her sobbing voice:

    If you knew that you would die today,

    Saw the face of God and love,

    Would you change?

    Would you change?

    By the time I got home, like every other evening when I eventually returned from work, our four year old son Bill and three year old daughter Morgan were already fast asleep. After dismissing the servants I lingered, still suffering from shock, at the door to the children’s nursery. As I stood there watching them sleep, Basil's bullet clenched tightly in my fist, I understood that my children were complete strangers both to me and to my wife Dianne. We had been too busy chasing money in order to impress others, to have any time to watch them growing up. When Basil pulled the trigger, time for me had moved very slowly, but unlike the promises made by books and in movies, I did not see my life flash before my eyes. Instead I saw only the empty outlines of my children. I could not see their faces. Instead that space was completely blank. It had taken a single bullet to make me see how worthless and how artificial was the life I had chosen and how I was trapped inside it like a mindless hamster running on a wheel that would always outpace me, no matter how long or how fast I ran.

    That Friday night, I gave Basil’s bullet to Dianne who said nothing as she carefully stored it away as a reminder of my lucky escape. Then, like every other night when the need for a fix overcame me, I succumbed, switched on the television and flicked impatiently through the channels until I was sufficiently drugged to fall into a fitful sleep. Here I was visited by my favourite recurrent dream where airborne salt spray stung my face as a hissing green wave burst over the deck and washed foaming over my bare feet. Spinning the helm I braced to meet the next wave, feeling the warm sun on my bare shoulders and hearing the rush of the sea surging past the hull and the staccato pinging of halyards slapping against the mast.

    The following morning I stood under the shower, depressed at the prospect of running yet another treadmill day inside the cage of my self-made prison and so I daydreamed.

    What if I won the lottery? What would I do with the money? When the answer came I thought to myself, In that case, why do I have to win the lottery to escape?

    Hurry up or we'll be late, cried Dianne. Reluctantly, I turned off the shower and attempted to concentrate on the work day ahead. Dressing quickly, I grabbed my briefcase, furtively slipping the latest Sailing magazine inside while yelling,

    Come on, kids, or you'll be late again for nursery school!

    While standing under the shower that morning, I resolved to escape the prison of my self-inflicted hamster run and to literally sail away from it all. As we drove to the office, Dianne, my amazing wife, lover, mother of our children and my best friend, first listened to my insane idea and then in her inimitable style, removed her large white rimmed glasses to better flash her sapphire blue eyes at me. They lit up her ever-smiling face, as she asked without the slightest hesitation;

    So, how long do I have to pack?

    Chapter 4. Pisces Casts her Spell

    A boat is a hole in the water in which to pour money.

    The bleached-blonde yacht broker was spitefully nicknamed Dustbin Kim by the locals, due (perhaps not entirely) to her badly retouched photographs plastered upon waste-bin adverts dotted around Durban’s yacht marina. As she steered us back to the Point Yacht Club jetty the rolling motion of her bouncing rubber duck vied with the bitter taste of my disillusionment and the sour smell of stale curry to make me want to vomit.

    Where were the dreamboats from the back pages of Sailing Magazine? I asked myself in despair as I stared forlornly at the rows of moored yachts. As if in reply three tarnished brass portholes winked dully at me from the stern of one of them, her twin masts, long bowsprit and voluptuous lines reminded me of a traditional sailing ship from days gone by.

    What about the one that looks like a pirate ship? I shouted above the engine with renewed enthusiasm.

    That’s Pisces, grunted Kim dismissively, as if her reply should be self-evident even to an up-country bumpkin. I sometimes wonder if I would nevertheless have bought Pisces had I known then about her curse.

    When we climbed up the ladder and stepped on board, Dianne and I exchanged glances as we both felt a link with the vessel stimulating the connection that we have always shared. Although we tried to ask intelligent questions to make the decision to buy the boat appear scientific or at least well thought out, it was clear that it was our first impressions which swayed our decision to purchase the boat later that day.

    Pisces had classic lines enhanced by brass portholes, varnished teak and her magnificent burgundy coloured sails that graced her two masts and voluptuously shaped hull. She was a Schooner, Forty-five foot long or about three times the length of the Tortoise, our family caravan. Her long bowsprit, like a sailfish’s spear, was enclosed by a stout stainless steel railing and was long enough for all four of us to stand upon.

    Later, as we experienced the challenges of manoeuvring Pisces in tight spaces we renamed the bowsprit Finger of God because it seemed to have a will of its own and sometimes destroyed whatever it was pointed at. The yacht had a centre cockpit with a wooden ship’s wheel set inside it, like an olden day sailing ship. We adored her teak decks despite the years of bird droppings and the filthy grey grime of neglect that had deterred so many other would-be purchasers.

    There were two entrances or companionways protected from the elements by sliding teak hatches at either end of the cockpit. The forward hatch led down a polished teak ladder into the chartroom containing a hinged table that folded up to reveal a voluminous freezer beneath. This cabin was arrayed with radios, dials, instruments and rows of toggle switches overlooking a long seat that also served as a sleeping bunk. Moving toward the stern a compact galley held a double sink and a gimballed stainless steel gas stove.

    There were plenty of cupboards. The largest cabin was in the stern and this had a gigantic double bed surrounded by brass portholes, gleaming teak cupboards and shelves decorated with wooden railings that we later learnt were called fiddles. A generous table surrounded on three sides by fold-up bench seats that could easily seat six completed this, our favourite cabin. A door leading off from the main cabin led to a shower, heads or loo and a wash hand basin complete with a gas geyser.

    Moving forward from the chartroom was a double cabin with a bunk bed that immediately delighted the children as they set eyes on it. As we lifted Morgan into the top bunk, Kim stepped forward to demonstrate something she called a ‘Lee-cloth’ This was a blue canvas sheet permanently attached to the stout teak side rail of the bunk that could be fixed to the cabin roof by a set of hooks.

    This is to make sure you don’t fall out of bed when the boat rocks. She said showing it to Morgan who was so delighted that she refused to leave her snug berth for the remainder of our tour. Later, as we enjoyed a hearty breakfast ashore and we all struggled to recall the name of the ingenious cloth, Morgan decided, according to our family custom of renaming things of which we were fond to rechristen it.

    "This is my Falling-fing, she lisped.

    Opposite the children’s cabin was another heads and wash basin. A third double cabin, illuminated by a large hatch and brass portholes occupied the bows or vee-berth of the boat. There was storage aplenty and I could see Dianne mentally redecorating the interior as she planned how she would transform it into our new home.

    "The donk is in here," announced Kim, politely hinting that I should take more of an interest in the mechanical parts of the craft.

    Huh? I mean excuse me? I replied completely flabbergasted.

    The Donkey, the engine, a hundred horsepower, marinised, Ford diesel, Kim explained as she opened the trapdoor that led down into the evil smelling bilges that were later to become my domain. By the time we completed the tour Dianne and I had already decided that this was to become our new, albeit mobile, home.

    Although Dianne is terrified of the ocean, and indifferent to sailing, she loves meeting new people, visiting new places and earning new experiences. Before purchasing the yacht we had discussed at length how we wanted to travel, explore the world and find people and places that stimulated us and even perhaps find somewhere that the treadmill did not operate. We did not consider packaged tours, faceless hotels or sanitised and canned tourist options, since long experience of these proved that we invariably only ended up meeting other would-be travellers and not the indigenous people in the countries we were visiting. We chose to seek the path less travelled. We briefly considered backpacking or perhaps cycling but Dianne’s bad knee, shattered in a nursing accident and a young family made this difficult and impractical. Although initially, a caravan proved to be an attractive option, we soon realised that this would limit us to a single continent, limiting our choices should we wish to leave a place we did not like or one that did not like us. Visiting remote places and unusual destinations would also be impossible. The overwhelming attraction of a yacht was that it literally made the world our playground because it enabled us to explore exotic places and when we grew tired or felt uncomfortable then we could almost instantly retreat into familiar surroundings to enjoy home comforts. Another advantage of the yacht was that it enabled us to carry some of our sentimental things with us wherever we went and allowed us to take our life savings without the unwanted interference of the fleas and ticks that seek to regulate our lives and tie us to the grindstone. In balance the risks and terrors of the open ocean were worth the rewards.

    Chapter 5. E.T. and Tortoise

    Our once-comfortable home sadly echoed the hollow space as our furniture and possessions were sold off and taken away by excited bargain hunters one by one. I am still surprised at how difficult it was to part with the first of our hard won belongings and then elated as I discovered that it felt as if a heavy rock was being lifted from my chest each time an item was removed. Only then did I begin to understand that I did not own my goods- they owned me! Nevertheless going cold-turkey was not easy, so, in an effort to escape the reality of transition we huddled together on an island of blankets in an empty bedroom, to be anaesthetised by reality television. Like a drug junkie I still needed my fix of canned reality to continue to be a voyeur of someone else’s life so that I could experience living without risk.

    Our family loves to rename things and the Tortoise, our caravan and mobile home, was no exception, although the reason for her name is somewhat obvious, not so our beloved all-white, all male, Volkswagen Kombi, with dark charcoal coloured seats and carpets, that we used to tow the Tortoise. He was named E.T. Not after the movie starring a cute extra-terrestrial, but rather after Eugène Terre'Blanche, the infamous leader of the Afrikaner Weerstand Beweging (Afrikaner Resistance Movement), a notorious white supremacist group similar to America’s Ku Klux Klan. If anybody asked why we chose to name our kombi after this brigand we would reply,

    Because he is white on the outside and black on the inside! before laughing gleefully at the shocked reaction.

    The Tortoise groaned under the weight of the few remaining assets that had escaped our orgy of de-materialisation. The last thing to be disconnected from the mains power and loaded into our trusty caravan was the portable television set. There was little to distinguish this flight down the highway to the coastal city of Durban from any other family holiday, other than this time we were carrying everything we owned and this time we had no home to

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