STUCK AT SEA

After staring out across the Caspian Sea for a while, she slowly pulled herself up onto the railing. First she sat, and then she stood, balancing a few stories above the water. There were a few of us out enjoying the sun, and as she made her move, we exchanged a volley of nervous glances. It was a long drop, and there would be no easy way to retrieve her from the sea if she were to jump. Not from a cargo ship. 

When the crew noticed from down below they didn’t hesitate. A group of men filed up the stairs and raced towards her. With the language barrier, there was no coaxing her down, and before she could jump they aggressively yanked her from the railing. She landed on her feet and stumbled. One of the men grabbed her arm but she angrily twisted free, yelling at them to let her go. At that point I was up, and she ran over and clung to my side. The angry sailors shuffled over as I stood there shielding the frantic women. They shouted at her, and looked at me, searching for answers. I didn’t understand a word, but I got what they were saying. 

The woman’s name was Adrian. She was a school teacher back in the states and was doing the Mongol Rally with her uncle. Her restlessness had been growing. We all had cabin fever, but she had it bad. 

It had taken sixteen hours to cover the 200 miles between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. We left Baku early on a Saturday afternoon, and by Sunday morning the Turkmenbashi skyline broke the horizon. Then we dropped anchor. And sat there. Floating. Waiting. For three days. It would’ve been fine if we’d been moving the whole time, but with the Turkmen coast looming before us, and repeated false promises from the crew about heading into port, the waiting game began to test our sanity.

Ten Mongol Rally teams had squeezed their cars onto the boat along with the regular cargo. It was a boisterous group - six British teams, a German team, a Canadian team, and two American teams including us. Everyone brought their fair share of booze for the voyage, but the generous Germans came with enough beer for a party. There was a three-car team called the Desert Spoons who had joined forces with another gang called the B-Team. We’d met them for the first time in Romania at the all-night beach party on the Black Sea. They were a young bunch, most were still in university, but they were fun and interesting, and I was enjoying our budding friendship. On the roof deck sat an inflatable kiddie pool, and not long after setting sail the beers were floating around in the warm water amongst a dozen pairs of feet and some stirred up sediment. It seemed oddly fitting for a grim and dingy cargo ship. The sunset that evening was spectacular, and everyone was in good spirits as we cruised into the night.

I didn’t have a bed. The few available bunks were snatched up first come first serve, and those left without had to fend for themselves. There was a common area just off the corridor where the bunks were. It had a few windows, but was dimly lit. The ceiling was a few inches above my head, and the walls were lined with grimy chairs that were all connected - probably pulled from an old passenger boat. People lounged about, read, played cards, and smoked cigarettes. At night they hung out and drank. The space became cluttered and filthy. People slept there, on the chairs, or strewn out across the floor on sleeping matts. Not me. I knew I wouldn’t sleep a wink in that dungeon. So I found a spot up on the roof deck.

Luckily, white noise knocks me out. At home I have a fan going in my bedroom year round. And on airplanes I rarely make it to liftoff before I’m drooling on my neighbor’s shoulder. But the cargo ship was the ultimate sedative. Although I had nothing soft to sleep on, the hum of the engine, the warm sea breeze, and the sound of the ocean had me sprawled out on the deck in a slumbrous coma. And I barely woke up the next morning. Maybe I had a slight hangover, but the entire first day I was nothing but a lethargic zombie, stumbling around the ship and collapsing into spontaneous naps. I needed the rest, but the day-long sleeping binge threw me off. My mind was blank. I had a book to read but couldn’t seem to follow the words. 

Once we anchored off the coast of Turkmenistan, the waiting game stretched the clock and time seemed to creep along. After weeks of being stuffed in a tiny car, tumbling through an ever-changing landscape, I was suddenly stuck on a hulking vessel, staring out over a vast and static panorama. When I became tired of looking out to sea, I would turn and fixate on the ship, the machine that was holding me captive. The texture, the gears and metal, the layers of chipped and pealing paint. It was cold and lifeless. I was detached from the world. Stuck between two places. The ship slowly pivoted around the anchor, the rugged coast shifting back and forth from one side of the bow to the other.   

Every few hours news would trickle down from the crew that we’d have to wait a little longer before heading into port. A few more hours. Later today. Tomorrow morning. There were a handful of other cargo ships in line. The port can only handle two boats at a time. Sporadic wind and rain with choppy seas was another excuse.

We had only brought enough food for a few meals, so after a couple days the crew started to feed us. Two meals a day - stale bread and the same potato and onion soup, more watered down with every serving. One day we had pasta. There was no sauce so we put ketchup on it. At night we’d convince the crew to sell us vodka. They’d claim it was their last bottle, but the next night they’d have another, and charge us more.

On the last morning I woke up to a glassy sea and clear skies, and a few hours after Adrian was pulled down from the railing, the anchor was lifted and we made our way into port. It was dusk by the time we set foot in Turkmenistan, and after five long and puzzling hours in customs, we entered one of the most mysterious countries in the world.