Devil's Rock
Authors: Chris Speyer
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For my parents who taught me to sail
and for Ming who is learning
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The jagged reef that straggles out to the east of Devil’s Rock was only just breaking the surface of the water, its vicious tips disappearing completely beneath the swell when a wave rolled over them. Zaki, riding on the yacht
Morveren
’s bowsprit, watched the foam streaming through the gaps in the glistening fangs as each wave surged across the outlying reef and heaved itself up the side of the brooding black rock that guards the entrance to the River Orme.
‘Start the engine!’ Zaki’s father shouted over the roar of the breaking waves.
‘I think we can make it!’ Michael was on the helm. He was forcing the yacht to claw its way into the wind, trying to make the entrance before the tide turned against them.
‘No you can’t. Not on this tack,’ snapped Zaki’s father. ‘Start the engine!’
Zaki knew his brother would put off starting the engine until the last possible moment. He’d take the boat into a harbour and on to its mooring under sail, if he possibly could. Michael saw starting the engine as an admission of defeat.
‘Plenty of time,’ Michael pleaded.
‘Ten minutes before the tide turns. Start the engine, Michael.’
Few boats ever venture into the River Orme. With its rock-strewn mouth gaping wide to the prevailing winds and a tongue of treacherous sand protruding from its constricted throat, the entrance is an uninviting prospect. Most sailors are put off by the curt description in the local cruising guide: ‘Dangerous in all but the most settled conditions.’ Some more intrepid skippers will approach to within sight of the outlying rocks, see the breaking waves on the sandbank, and turn back out to sea.
For Zaki and Michael, this was their river, its ferocious mouth guarding its inner secrets, protecting a world of pools, beaches and streams that they alone were meant to explore.
Zaki had been longing to visit the Orme all summer but the weather had frustrated them. It had been a summer of storms and torrential rain, the wind stubbornly blowing from the west or the south-west, and even Zaki’s father, who’d been sailing in and out of the Orme all his life, wouldn’t risk taking
Morveren
through the reefs in an onshore wind. This morning the forecast had promised northerlies for the next two days, and with them the chance to return to Devil’s Rock.
Zaki felt a shudder run through the boat as the old diesel engine thudded into life. Zaki scrambled off the bowsprit and half swung, half danced across the rocking deck. ‘Do you want the mainsail down?’ he asked.
‘We’ll get the sails down; you steer her in,’ said his father.
Zaki took a quick breath. He’d been allowed to steer the boat for as long as he could remember. But he’d never taken her into the Orme. Never threaded her through the terrifying maze of rocks and sandbanks that led to the inner sanctuary. Michael had done it, but then Michael was four years older. Zaki looked across at his brother, who was meticulously coiling a rope. Michael grinned. The grin said, ‘Dare you!’ He stepped away from the helm.
‘She’s all yours.’
‘Can you see the dead tree on the cliff?’ Zaki’s father asked.
Zaki knew why he had to find the tree. You lined the tree up with the craggy edge of Devil’s Rock. You kept the two in line and you found the narrow gap in the outer reef.
His father turned to Michael, ‘Let’s get the main down.’
Feet braced wide for balance, Zaki at the helm was just tall enough to see over the cabin roof. The anxiety that had swept through him a moment before drained away as he felt the boat’s tiller in his hand tugging and pushing like a living thing. He was born to do this, more at home on the rocking deck of a boat than he ever felt on the land.
‘Now,’ he said quietly to the boat. ‘Now,
Morveren
, let’s see where we go.’
A wave rolled under the yacht, lifting her stern and then her bow, so that her bowsprit pointed for a moment towards the top of the cliff. There was the dead tree, trunk and branches standing out pale and grey against the wooded hill that sloped to the cliff edge. It was as though boy and boat had lifted their eyes together and searched out the all-important landmark.
His father had taught him how to read charts and tide tables, how to plan a passage and plot their course, but Zaki believed that, left to herself, the old boat could find her way into any creek or harbour on the south-west coast.
Morveren
had been his grandfather’s boat, built by Zaki’s grandfather long before Zaki was born, always a part of the family, a constant through all the changes of Zaki’s early childhood – the house moves, the different schools, the move from Devon to London and back to Devon again. He lived two lives, the life on
Morveren
and the life ashore. When he stepped aboard
Morveren
the complications of life on shore quickly slipped away to be replaced by the slow, easy rhythms of boat-life.
Zaki eased the tiller over so that the dead tree and the edge of Devil’s Rock came into line. He pushed the throttle forward a touch and
Morveren
picked up speed. Not a good idea to dawdle while attempting to thread through the narrow gap in the reef; a rogue wave from the wrong direction and they would be on the rocks.
Michael and his father busied themselves with the mainsail; neither offered words of advice or warning but Zaki knew they were keeping a close eye on everything he did.
Just four boat lengths to go and the swell running from behind. Perfect. Now they were in a trough between waves. The next wave would lift and carry them through the gap in the reef.
‘Keep her steady,’ Zaki coached himself – slip off course now and the wave could slew the stern on to the waiting fangs; too much speed and the wave would carry them on to Devil’s Rock.
Boy and boat were one as they were lifted on the green, humped back of the following wave. Now they were surging forward, riding the wave, Zaki steering by feel rather than sight, keeping the boat on the wave – one boat length to go – into the gap with foam-flecked rocks passing on either side. Then Zaki let out a long breath as the swell slid from under the boat and raced away to fling itself against the unyielding mass of Devil’s Rock. They had made it through!
But no time to relax. Time to find the next landmark.
To the east of the rock, inside the reef, there appeared to be open water, but Zaki knew he must steer clear of the long sandbank that lurked just below the surface, almost entirely closing off the entrance to the Orme.
Zaki swung the boat through ninety degrees and searched for the ruined cottage on the opposite shore that would give him a bearing clear of the protruding sandbar and The Orphans, a clutter of awkwardly placed, half-submerged rocks.
Morveren
rolled heavily in the cross swell and it took all Zaki’s strength to hold the boat on course.
Where was the cottage? Even on a calm day like today, each wave threatened to carry the boat sideways on to Devil’s Rock.
Ah! There! He could make out the remains of the stone chimney and tumbledown walls up on the hillside. A shiver ran down Zaki’s spine as he imagined attempting to make this entrance in a heavy sea. A bit more power from the engine and soon they were safely past The Orphans and under the cliffs on the eastern side.
Zaki turned the boat upstream, keeping within a few metres of the shore, where he knew, was deep water. ‘Looks like the tide’s turned.’ His father’s voice broke through the bubble that seemed to have surrounded Zaki since he began the run into the bay.
The current in the channel hadn’t yet reached any great strength, but it was already enough to slow their progress. Zaki looked around, seeing the gulls that swooped between the rock and the cliffs, hearing their cries above the sounds of the waves and the thud-thud of the boat’s engine.
‘You look pleased with yourself,’ his father said.
But it wasn’t just pride in his piloting skills that was making Zaki smile, it was the magical power of this place; that dark, towering rock that had dragged the boat towards it, the spray from the breaking waves, caught white in the sunlight, the granite cliffs streaked with red, and above and beyond them the intense green of the wooded hills. A wild, dangerous, thrilling place to be.
Beyond the bar, the creek opened out into a wide, smooth inlet, wooded on one side with a sandy beach curving around the other, the chaos of the outer bay giving way to a scene so quiet that it would be easy to believe time, in this place, stood still.
Zaki turned to his brother and father. ‘What do you think?’
‘Well, you didn’t hit any rocks.’ Michael grinned.
‘No, stupid, I mean where do you think we should anchor?’
‘What about where we always do?’ suggested Michael.
Their father pointed to a spot where the water turned a deeper blue.
Michael and their father looked at each other but neither moved to the foredeck to stand ready by the anchor well.
‘You or me?’ Michael asked their father.
‘Oh, you do it.’
‘All right,’ said Michael and went forward.
Zaki glanced at their father, who was staring down into the water. Was something wrong?
‘Dragon Pool, Dad! I never thought we’d get here this year!’ said Zaki, trying with his own enthusiasm to push away the flat listlessness that had crept into his father’s voice.
‘No,’ said his father, rousing himself, ‘No, neither did I.’
‘Oy!!’ came the shout from the foredeck. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
With a start Zaki realised he hadn’t been paying attention to where they were going. They were heading into the shallows.
‘Keep an eye on the depth,’ cautioned his father. ‘The sandbars in here move around. They won’t be in the same place they were last year.’
‘I know – I know.’
Zaki glanced guiltily at the depth gage and saw that the bottom was rising steeply. Trying to be too clever, he thought, dropping the boat into neutral and turning upstream, into deeper water.
The current, now flowing against the boat, acted as a brake. Built from hardwood planking,
Morveren
was heavy, making her a good sea-boat, but it also meant she took her time stopping.
‘She’s an old lady’, Grandad would say, ‘Ask her politely and she’ll do anything you want. But she likes to take her time over things.’
Zaki hoped he’d judged it right. If he had,
Morveren
would come to a stop in the centre of the deepest part of the bay, then drift backwards as Michael dropped the anchor, the weight of the boat pulling on the chain and digging the anchor securely into the bottom.
Zaki whispered to the boat, ‘Stop . . . stop . . . stop now.’
Morveren
decided to oblige, slowing gently and stopping right over the deep blue spot that their father had indicated.
‘Let her go!’ their father shouted.
‘I’m trying! Chain’s bunched up!’ shouted Michael.
‘Where’s your mum when we need her?’ their father joked, a little bitterly.
Zaki looked across to the shore and saw that the boat was beginning to drift backwards.
‘Should I go and help him?’
Just then, the rattle of the chain told them that Michael had freed the twisted links and the anchor was on its way to the bottom.
Dropping the anchor had always been their mum’s job. She took pride in being able to make the anchor hold in any sort of seabed, weed, silt or sand. Zaki imagined her standing on the foredeck now, instead of Michael.
Mum, Dad, his big brother and the boat. Together. Contained. That’s how it had always been; how it was meant to be. The boat was their language – ropes passed from hand to hand; four bodies moving together as the boat changed course; dancing around each other on the foredeck when they changed sails, laughter and teasing banter, then, tired at the end of the day, curling into one or other of his parents in the warmth of the cabin.
‘Do you think it’s holding?’ called Michael.
Zaki’s father put the engine into reverse. The anchor chain lifted, dripping, from the water.
‘Seems fine.’ Zaki’s father cut the engine and an empty silence gathered around the boat into which small sounds slowly trickled: the lapping of the waves, the tap-tap of a loose rope against the mast; the distant cries of gulls in the outer bay.
‘Lunch?’
‘’Bout time. I’m starving!’ said Michael.
Father and starving brother disappeared into the cabin, leaving Zaki alone with the bay.
Had anything changed? Were there signs that others had been here? Trespassers?
Zaki scanned the shoreline. There were no footprints on the beach. There was some litter at the high-tide line – the usual plastic bottles and broken pieces of polystyrene that no beach, however remote, escapes. No, there was no evidence that their world had been invaded.
Ahead, the inlet narrowed to become a twisting creek – their Amazon, where pygmies with poison darts lurked behind the oak trees. To his left the ebbing tide was just revealing the low, rocky ledge with its tide-pools, those miniature underwater worlds from which twitching, transparent shrimps could be scooped in nets, and crabs tempted from their hiding places by the soft flesh of limpets tied to thin strings. To his right, on the beach, lay the giant trunk of the fallen tree that had given the inlet its family name – Dragon Pool. The remains of the tree’s roots made a snaking tail. A knotted branch arched up to form a fierce head supported on a long neck. Two more branches provided the forelegs. They had ridden that dragon, Zaki and Michael – clung to its back while its great, beating wings carried them high over snow-capped mountains. Swooped from the skies, their war cries echoing around the bay, as the dragon’s fiery breath incinerated the castles of evil wizards. At the highest tides, when only the dragon’s head and tail protruded above the water, they would climb its neck and leap from its head screaming ‘Ahhhhhh!’ – every nerve in their bodies anticipating the shock of the icy water.