May 26.
Around noon, we pass Bishop Rock, the smallest of the Scilly Islands and the smallest island in the world with a lighthouse on it (supposedly). Back in the day, plenty of ships crashed into Bishop Rock. Hence, the lighthouse. But now the lighthouse doubles as a cell phone tower. For most modern day sailors, that’s the best thing about it: phone service after a week or two at sea.
Bishop Rock marks the entrance to the English Channel and the end of our transatlantic slog. Two days ago, the radar beam swept over a snotgreen and scrotumtightening sea. But today, the beam is bouncing off all sorts of blips and bogies: boxy car carriers, sleek oil tankers, and a million little fishing boats that jitterbug across our wake. The radio crackles to life, too, with the voices of coast guards speaking French and English and sailors replying in French and English with accents from around the world. It’s all part of our slow return from the high seas. The electromagnetic landfall that comes just before the real thing.
Now that we’re in the Channel, things have changed up on the bridge. Mid-ocean, it was a sleepy spot to drink endless cups of hot tea while the third officer lied about his Sexcapades in the South Pacific, or Christoph described the finer points of the International Convention for Safe Containers (“Don’t get me started,” Christoph liked to say, “I can talk maritime code all day.” And he did.) But now the bridge is bustling and the sailors finally get a chance to show off their sailing chops. I fade into a corner and check out the ships we keep passing with Christoph’s binoculars. There are no secrets among freight ships. Each one is equipped with a transponder that broadcasts its vital statistics: the ship’s name, its destination, and its e.t.a. Since we’d been floating through a vast, empty void for the last week, I figured the sailors would be excited to chat with each other, the way truck drivers on lonesome highways call each other up on the CB just to say hello. But the third officer tells me that as long as we’re not about to crash into to anyone, there’s nothing to say.
“Unless the crew is Greek,” he says cryptically.
So we pass the other freight ships in silence and after a while, they disappear. Twice, in fact. First from view, then from the radar scope.
We spend the day transiting the Channel. Then we cruise through the Strait of Dover and after a while, we find a parking space somewhere off the coast of Belgium. The Belgian harbor pilot doesn’t work on Sundays, so we sit anchored with a dozen other freight ships waiting to enter the Antwerp locks. Since there’s nothing to do, Christoph organizes a barbecue on the poop deck. A few sailors toss fishing lines over the deck rail and pluck mackerels out of the water. Soon enough, little silver fish are flopping all over the deck. The cook gathers them up and throws them on the barbecue grill. Then everyone sits around drinking bottle after bottle of the Queen of Beers and spitting fish bones into the sea.
As the day fades, the cabin lights switch on in the freight ships anchored all around us and wisps of smoke drift out of their engine stacks like wood-burning stoves. It’s cozy. Like a makeshift village or a collection of gypsy caravans set adrift on the sea.