A lovely, mild winter evening was quietly coming to an end. The setting sun like a huge red ball burnt its way into the deep blue ocean. By the time we sailed out of the sleepy small town of Gwadar, darkness was already creeping in and the dim lights of the city and its landmark natural hammerhead with two perfectly curved bays, slowly disappeared into the distance. 

A cool breeze blew in from the Northwest, making it easier to spread our sails early in the journey. I had just joined the group of fellow sailors on the 41ft Catamaran sailing boat Astola, comprising Khalid Mahmood, Jacques Loubry, Eduardo Camillo Evarardo and Adam Ali, who were sailing all the way from Dubai to Karachi for fun, adventure and exploration of marine life in our region.

The idea of the voyage was conceived by Khalid Mahmood, then President of WWF-Pakistan and it was the first such sail from Dubai to Karachi in recent history. Gwadar was the first stop for them, after sailing across the Persian Gulf and later the Strait of Hormuz for six consecutive days and nights, touching Khasab and Musandum on the Omani coast. They remained 15 nautical miles away from the Omani and Iranian coastline as the boat had crew members from France, Italy and Pakistan without Iranian and Omani visas.

A sea voyage from Dubai to Karachi for fun, adventure and exploration of marine life

The sailors were busy sharing experiences of the earlier part of their journey and since the sailors were not tired, they decided to continue the journey from Gwadar to Karachi, the same evening.

I looked back towards the darkened shore and the highway, hugging the coast. I had travelled in the morning from Karachi to Gawadar by the coastal highway, which hardly had any traffic. We rode through pristine white sandy beaches on the left and mud-mountains painstakingly sculpted by the wind, on the right side of the road. The Princess of Hope at Hingol National Park stood tall overlooking the vast expanse of mountains and the sea. Small poverty ridden villages and towns on the way gave a ghostly image from another age and time. It made me remember the small abandoned village by the sea near Mubarak village, where we used to go for diving in the early ‘90s. It was a difficult to reach place and the ordinary cars could not go beyond a certain point in the hilly terrain. It had around a hundred mud huts, which were all well kept, but empty without a single soul around. The divers used to call it the “Ghost Village”. We could never find out why the inhabitants had abandoned it and disappeared. The whole of the coastal highway and the Goths/settlements spotting it resembled the Ghost Town from my memories of the early ‘90s.  All we could see around were small dhabas selling food and tea and a lot of small grocery kiosks prominently displaying gutka for sale. There were no gas stations and small makeshift shops sold cheap, adulterated Iranian fuel. A few walls carried slogans of independent Balochistan. It felt like going back 50 years in time. 

Our boat moved into the immense vastness of high seas and disappeared into darkness. It was a moonless night and the mass of infinite water rocked the boat gently, singing rhymes of forgotten times. The boat moved in pitch darkness, making it difficult to detect boats without lights and fishing nets spread over miles. With our small torches, we groped in the dark, searching for obstacles in water. Hardly a few nautical miles into the journey, our boat got entangled in a fish net. Eduaordo got into action and after strenuous efforts of half an hour, our boat was free of the net. This meant that in order to move on, we could not afford a similar incident. With eyes wide open, we looked into the darkness in the vague hope that we would spot the white outline of the fish nets as most of these lacked the small white buoys that warn about about nets. A small fisherman’s boat with a lantern was swaying in the water in the distance. A melody emanating from it seized my heart. 

And then the magic started. For a moment I did not realise what was happening. I heard the quivering sound of flying fish shooting out of the water and soaring away in darkness, chased by predators. The incredible speed at which they flew to save their lives was mesmerising. They left behind a shining stream of light produced by their touching of the surface of the phosphorescent water, somewhat similar to the photographs of night traffic with slow speed cameras. The theatre of life and death continued. It was towards the early morning that the crescent moon appeared on the water and its warm glow spread its wings over the great silence of the ocean. Far away in the distance a shoal of fish rose close to the surface of water and illuminated it in a big circle, radiated by phosphorus. The sight of these bright sparkling circles at multiple spots was something that will remain etched in my memory forever. Even now, when I think of it, it seems something unreal, which had taken place in another life, another world.

Suddenly the wind picked up and the sails started fluttering. As per standard operating procedures, Khalid and I had to tie ourselves with a special cord to the boat. One has to be extra careful not to fall in the sea in windy conditions, when the boat rocks and can toss a sailor in the sea in a split second. It is not easy to find a person in such darkness. Despite regular bursts of wind, we kept on dozing off from time to time on the deck and had to check the presence of each other every now and then. 

The ocean was turning white. Another lovely day has calmly arrived. I could see Jacques engrossed in his navigational charts. Having worked in French merchant Navy, he did not trust modern gadgets much and would always rely on the conventional navigational charts. He would explain us the navigational secrets by drawing out the globe on an orange. My turn was over and I went to sleep almost immediately in the bunker. Others had taken charge. When I woke up, the boat was already nearing the desolate Island of Astola. The culinary skills of Khalid were in full display and the boat was full with the aroma of delicious Spanish omelet. 

This uninhabited island in the southeast of Pasni is also called “Island of the seven seas” or “Satadip”. Our crew was greeted by the large numbers of fishermen, for whom the island serves as a temporary base to catch lobsters and oysters in the winter season. There is a small mosque dedicated to the Muslim saint, Pir Khawaja Khizr, who is revered by both Muslims and Hindus and is believed to be the Saint of rivers and seas. Ruins of an ancient temple of the Hindu goddess, Kali are also located on the island. It is rich with endemic life forms like endangered green turtle, reptiles as the Astola viper and large number of breeding water birds including curlews, gulls, plovers and coursers. A young fisherman, who was an expert in catching lobsters and oysters by diving, told us that he is not afraid of sharks or other dangerous marine life in the waters, as they cannot harm the boatmen. According to him the fish have not forgotten the kindness of Prophet Noah, who saved them on the arc of Noah from the epic sea storm.

We looked at the jolly crowd of fishermen waving at us and the bow of the boat sliced through the waves on its journey towards Karachi. It was around four in the morning, when I heard a warning on our wireless set. Pakistan Navy was sending a warning to the fishermen to stay away from the area of naval exercises and bombing. “Machera Boat, machera boat…we will be starting bombing of this area in a few hours…stay away and head back towards the shore. We will not be responsible for any damage or loss of life.” We figured through the GPS that our boat is not in the area, where navy was having their exercises. But an interesting exchange between the fishermen and Navy continued. One Pakhtun fisherman was requesting the Navy to delay the exercise for a few days as he had borrowed money for the fuel and going back empty handed would ruin him. The Navy replied that if you don’t move away, you will be responsible for the consequences and damage. The fisherman was really dejected and almost shouted “Kis nuqsan ki baat karta hai, hamara nuqsan tou ho gaya hai”

Listening warily to the mysterious sounds of the deep rumble of the ocean tide, the sailing boat moved on in the enormous cosmic ocean in absolute darkness. Ocean makes you feel really small. It humbles you. I heard silence, infinite silence Surrounded by a huge canopy of stars with no barriers between water and the sky, the feeling of being one with nature was overwhelming. Conflicts, wars, borders, hate — all seemed distant, unreal. The stars, big and small, all bowed their heads in unison to what is unknown and will always remain elusive. A sea of random faces and thoughts of the loved ones and of those who were forgotten, floated towards me on the water-the crisp images, the melodies, the whispers, the shadows of all that was abandoned and left behind. And then everything fades into the heady perfumes of the night. I am lost without my moorings anywhere in sight.

We passed Charna Island in the night. The island is still a paradise for divers. The last time we had dived there, I accidentally stepped on a school of sting rays, buried in the sand. The coastline was already getting more familiar. Karachi shore was shrouded in a gloomy mist. The waters were getting muddier gradually. As we approached the Kannup nuclear power plant, coast guard boats came into action and asked us to stay away. A gentleman from KPT was there to greet us at the mouth of Karachi harbour, to steer and hand us over to the Pakistan Customs and immigration. A dream journey was over.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, October 25th, 2015

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