Faran P. takes a step back from chronicling his voyages to reminisce why destiny chose the sea for him.
"Dare to discover the meaning of life, all of its beauty that's in sight. Dare to discover how we are made, how beauty was created, how all can be saved." — Bethany Write (age 12)
It's always the first-time parents that take the photos" explains Robin Williams' Sy the photo guy in the One Hour Photo. Because of their initial fascination with the silly little things a new unscathed human mind can conjure; things that as time goes by cease to be the source of such baffling amusement and the target of limitless wasted rolls of film to parents who start to realise that standing upright and making unimaginable gurgly sounds isn't as grand an achievement as they first made it out to be.
I sort of understand what that means now, even though I'm not a first-time parent yet. And I probably won't – as a result of this realisation – be such a stereotypical one.
I remember the first time my ship passed though the straits of Gibraltar – the narrow patch of water between Spain and Morocco connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The strait is 60 km long and separates North Africa from the rock of Gibraltar, named after the great Muslim General Tariq Bin Zayed (Jebel Tariq) who invaded Spain in the 8th century and is said to have burnt all his ships on arrival to prevent his army from retreating.
The eastern end of the strait is flanked by the Pillars of Hercules, two peaked rocks so named by the ancient Greeks. Phoenician mariners crowned the rocks with silver columns to mark the limits of safe navigation for the ancient Mediterranean peoples.
To both sides while crossing the strait one can see the high mountains proudly reaching for the heavens in all their magnificent glory, blanketed in patches by robes of dense fog.
On the Spanish side the green hills lining the banks seem like misty shadows, effigies of their monstrous reality. They are sprinkled with windmills here and there, with a periodic attempt at civilisation like a rash infesting its elegant slopes smothered out after a kilometre or two.
Nature's wonders
The first few times I found it breathtaking. I wished I had a camera; no I wished I had the power to turn the ship and make it stop at one of the shores for a while just so I could appreciate the magical beauty of it all. I remember silently cursing the captain and the owners for not having the decency to stop and pay homage to nature's splendorous wonders. That was the first time I saw something so beautiful at sea.
But it's coming on three years now, and I see something like the straits of Gibraltar just about every other week so it seems to have lost its significance. I still take pictures though, but don't look at them much myself, mostly because I have the images of these mountains and beaches and skies and cliffs committed to my salty memory. People take pictures because they think memory won't suffice.
Sometimes I get to see places like Amsterdam and San Sebastian that are so beautiful they blow me away. But normally it's just some of the same stuff I've been looking at for three years. My friends say I must be sick of the colour blue by now. But it is hope of more of those special times that keeps me going these days.
In love with the sea
I can't remember exactly why I decided that anonymous morning to join the Merchant Navy but I remember the day I found out.
It was my third day when we were sailing out of Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) for the first time and the chief officer and I were standing on the forecastle looking at the sea with the ship starting to heave heavily and slowly for the first time over the salty water.
He asked me why I had joined and I didn't give him an answer because he was such an intimidating figure. But I remember a cry resonating in my heart and mind and all through my soul and every fibre of my being, but which only came out in a secret most personal of smiles, that this before us and around us was exactly why.
This freedom of the limitless horizon calling seductively to me like Grendel's mother, the smell of salt in the air filling my head and liberating me from the mundaneness and chaos of the bickering and wars wreaked by land-loving greedy men day in and day out that is mankind's eternal bane.
This light spray of sea water rising from the oceans and caressing my fingers that I held out tentatively over the shipside; this rhythmic, slow up-and-down movement of a 20 thousand ton ship making way through water; those squawking sea gulls in the distance diving for scraps of floating bread tossed out from passing ships; these curious dolphins with their chirping cries herding around the ship jumping elegantly in and out of the water in the hundreds.
This was exactly why destiny chose the sea for me.
And though the beauty of the sea hasn't ceased to be surprising, it hasn't ceased to exist, it hasn't become invisible, and like a second- or third-time parent, I don't love it any less, just in a more homely way. Call this validation, or confession, but I'd prefer to call it my effort at not letting destiny down.
— The writer is a deck cadet aboard the M.V Wajdi Arab.
