Читать книгу Little Ship of Fools. Sixteen Rowers, One Improbable Boat, Seven Tumultuous Weeks on the Atlantic онлайн

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There were no heroics or theatrics as we pulled away from the dock at 8 a.m. sharp. Angela gave the “easy out,” eight blue blades made their first tentative strokes, and we cruised out into the harbor. And from there around the breakwater. David’s Moroccan adjutant, Hassan, and a few faithfuls from the boatyard had gathered to see us off. As had Deb, Noreen, and Julie. There were a few tears, probably of relief that we were finally leaving. Meanwhile, our Canadian friends, Damien Gilbert and Kelly Saxberg, climbed into an outboard Zodiac and banged out past us on the swells, shooting footage for the film they were making of the expedition.

A couple of days earlier Ernst and I had gone with Kelly and Damien up to the kasbah on the mountain behind the city to get some footage. From the thousand-foot elevation, the Atlantic had looked unspeakably vast. By comparison our little boat—our Tinkertoy experiment, just visible in the harbor below—had looked ridiculously small and fragile.

“Vare za motore on zis sing?” I had been asked the previous day by a German tourist who had wandered down the pier from Central Casting.