In the hostel we’ve met a seasoned captain, who is doing boat deliveries, with heavy sea-miles under his belt. Boat deliveries are a well-running business in the sea-captain scene; that’s when boats are being delivered from A to B all over the world. He’s a great talking buddy and just about to cross the ocean back to Europe. As it currently stands, he’s taking back Sam this Saturday and was also about to take another guy from the hostel, who doesn’t have any boating experience.
The other guy is from France with Arabic descent, working as a carpenter on the Caribbeans for the past years. He’s got super excited about the opportunity of crossing the ocean. The captain and him turned out to be good drinking buddies, so the captain locked him a spot onboard.
One day after their pact was made however, the captain is sitting at the hostel corridor looking troubled. After some drinks, in his French way, he is blowing out air through his mouth with half closed eyes, having the face expression like he carries the world on his shoulders. He looks around, like he’s about to share with me something confidential. He leans forward in his chair and starts telling slowly, carefully measuring every word. ‘No, he is not coming.’ I am surprised, because I thought they already made a deal. ‘So imagine. This guy, called his cousin yesterday for advice, how to prepare for the crossing. The cousin is some mafia guy back in Africa. He doesn’t know anything about crossing oceans. He calls the cousin and the cousin gets fired up and he goes something like: No problem brotheeer I know your situation, listen to me, I’m sending you guns and grenades, so you can prepare for the crossing well, because it’s very dangerous.’ The captain slowly continues. ‘Imagine. The guy wanted to bring gun onboard. And grenades. Bah.’ In the ‘bah’ everything is being said. He continues. ‘I told him, my friend, we are not going to war, we just want to cross the Atlantic. Do you know where it is? Did you look at the map? What do you want with the Kalashnikov? Then he comes, there is war in Yemen, piracy on the Red Sea, in Somalia, blah blah blah. Bah. So I told him. My friend. Do you know where is the Atlantic? Do you know where is Europe? Do you know where we are now? Do you know? Did you look at the map? There is no piracy on the Atlantic my friend. Where do you want to bring the guns? To the Azores? To Gibraltar? What do you want to shoot at? The waves? The fish?’
The captain leans back in his chair looking puzzled. ‘Then he’s got very excited and told me, he needs to go and buy all his equipment. I’m telling him, my friend, I have all the equipment you need, I have even more. You don’t need to buy anything at all. No, he says, I don’t trust the other equipment, I only go on the ocean with a gun and my own equipment.’ Then just to hit the last nail in the coffin the captain drops it out. ‘Then the other day in the bar he is telling me, he cannot make any trouble on the island, because he is on conditional release and he can get 5 years in prison after being in jail in Guadaloupe.’ I’m slowly putting it together drawing the conclusions. ‘Well, yeah, as a captain probably the last thing you want onboard during an Atlantic crossing, is an anxious guy on conditional release with a gun.’ Luckily the captain didn’t have to confront him further, because he overheated himself with the complete guide he’s got from the cousin of ‘how to cross oceans successfully’, and he simply withdrew from the idea.
A few days ago I bump into the guy himself on the hostel corridor and getting curious, so asking him to understand his reasoning. He gets immediately fired up and goes. ‘Of course, I would bring a gun. I don’t go onboard without a gun.’ He is stating it as a logical fact, that is so obvious, like 2+2=4. ‘If something happens to others, I am ready to give my life, I’m ready to jump in the ocean, I’m ready to do everything to save them. But if something happens, you have to be able to protect yourself. They don’t fuck with me on the ocean.’ Sam and I try to reason after crossing the Atlantic, that you can find absolutely nothing out there on the open sea, other than water and sargasso, but he is like Neo from the Matrix, effortlessly leaning away from all our arguments. ‘You never know what happens, the ocean is big and you always need to be ready brother.’
Well that’s that, I think I heard enough and I don’t think I’ll be the one changing his mind, so I carefully step out from the conversation with some ‘yeah, yeah’ turning my way to the kitchen.
