Part III: There may be no God and no Heaven
An account of our voyage from the English Chanel to Gaza.
The last time I left the Port of Lisbon, Salazar was in power, Portugal was dry as stone and poor, and Port wine was shipped across the Atlantic in oak barrels almost as wide as I am tall.
We’re sliding in under power after a three days out, thinking about tawny Port in oak barrels and a shower. Our place on a marina dock has been agreed by mail and properly reserved for weeks. We prepare the deck for a starboard landing. The radio, clipped to the captain’s harness, crackles. He picks it up and begins to talk in the formalese of VHF. Over the engine thrum, we hear only “This is the captain of the yacht Freedom. Over …”
There’s more listening and staring at the sky than is usually the case in these marina exchanges. Usually it’s your dock number and get your key to the showers. But apparently not today. Jens clips the radio back to his harness, and in the matter-of-fact tone of a Swedish Sea Captain talking about a marina manager, tells the crew,”She’s refusing to allow us in.”
We’ve become accustomed to a little pariah treatment now and again, but this seems beyond absurd.This is worse than being told you can’t have a beer on the patio because your shorts are too short. By the time all of us have run through our personal to-do lists — political meetings, press briefings, re-supply trips, fuel, water, parts, laundry, a shower, a shower, sitting in the sun for an hour eating a piece of fish … by that time we’re a hornets’ nest of ill-will toward everyone, but especially supercilious harbor-mistresses who describe themselves as “functionaries”.
We turn our stern to the yachts — most as large and deeper than our own — and prepare the anchor. The chain rode clattering out speaks our mood. “Fuckyou, fuckyou, fuckyou …” We inflate the goddamn gummibot (that’s Swedish for inflatable) and heave it over the side. Then we hang the motor from a halyard and manoeuvre it onto the transom. This whole circus, every animal, acrobatic, and clown act, will take ten times as long. And the last insult: we set the night anchor watch schedule and settle down to sleeplessness.
Keeping a civilian, pre-paid boat out of a public marina takes some special gall. You might have noticed the Reuters piece about the Gaza Flotilla’s smaller boats traveling through the French canal system. The police forbade them from landing in Paris, creating a photogenic news parade of Gaza Flotilla sailors being escorted by heavily-armed marine police in expensive RIBs. France, still under modified military rule for the last three years, is hyper-sensitive to Zionist allergies. It’s annoying. On the other hand, you can’t buy this advertising. Egalité, Fraternité, Publicité.
But our case hinges on the Saudis. Now than Prince Mohamed Bin Salman has clarified his choice of Empire, Saud and Israel are beginning to appear together in public. The affair is still in the hot phase, and that means bombing Yemenis into oblivion like a power couple would, and lunching with foreign affiliates. While Israel is an old hand at disciplining the anti-Semites, Saud is finding its way, and tends to stumble on the details. Details like us. The Cascaïs Marina, once a state-owned bunch of boat slips, is now a Public, Private Partnership (a “PPP”) and, as with all such projects, it’s the Private that has the chips to get its way. Yes, Saudis own the marina. So we’re outside, at anchor with our “Ship to Gaza” banner and our irritating Palestinian flags.
By morning light, things have changed. There may be no God and no Heaven, but there is a Sindicato dos Estivadores e da Actividade Logistica and it’s a member of the International Dockworkers Council. Dockworkers around the world are famously resistant to human rights injustice and they live and work at the pressure point of international money-making in every cargo from wine to arms.
We’re assured that the head of the Lisbon union is on the phone to the marina owners right now with a simple message: Let the Freedom tie to the dock within 10 minutes or we shut down the Port of Lisbon.
What would the Port of Lisbon be worth on a daily accounting? North a few million. That’s the right direction to change the smile on the marina manager’s face from “I’m so sorry, our marina is too shallow for you,” to “welcome.”
Obligado, Sindicato dos Estivadores e da Actividade Logistica! Together, we’ll get to Gaza.
