The Galileo Galilei shown below in Sydney Harbour in 1964
John Ward, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
‘Do you know that Australia has the most venomous snakes on earth?’ Harry said with mischief in his blue eyes. ‘And the deadliest spiders, too,’ he added with a smirk.
I froze. Ginger-haired Harry loved to joke, but this was not a joke, I could sense that he was telling the truth. I felt shivers going down my spine, feeling utterly helpless in the middle of the Indian Ocean. There was no way back now – we were sailing to Sydney.
Not a word about these unpleasant fauna details in glossy booklets we were given at the Australian Embassy in Paris. Pretty cottages with a garden and swimming pool, for sure. Kangaroos, of course. Perhaps sleepy koalas, too. Were traditional owners of the land mentioned? I can’t remember exactly. But no mention of venomous reptiles and deadly arachnids. The Promised Land lost some of its appeal… However, I knew I had to make peace with the notion that there is no such thing as Paradise on Earth, as well as accepting my smallness in the middle of the vast ocean.
For days and days nothing but heaving waves and the sun above in the blue sky, turning into a big red ball sinking into the ocean at the end of the day. It was an eerily beautiful experience, this sunset spectacle in the vastness of the ocean – I, just a tiny speck – one little speck among other little specks, sailing the big waters to an unknown land, to, hopefully, a better future, mingling with other fortune seekers on the state-of the-art ocean liner SS Galileo Galilei in May and June 1964.
Galileo’s state-of-the-art features included the state-of-the-art stabilisers, that is stabiliser wings, one on each side of the ship, which would be put out to reduce the ship’s roll in rough seas. Well, they didn’t do a great job when we sailed out of the Red Sea and entered the Indian Ocean!
Oh, the rolling and rocking!!! Up and down!!! From side to side! Up and down! Down I go too!!! On my knees… I’m feeling sick … over the edge I send my vomit into the roaring, foaming ocean… my little boy is next to me doing the same thing…A sailor appears, passes by staggering… Sasha, spectacularly, is standing upright like a fir tree!
The next day Galileo turned into a phantom ship. There was no one on the deck except for a crew member here and there. The passengers were vomiting in their cabins. Our little boy and I spent two or three nights sleeping in deck chairs in the fresh air away from the vomit stench below. Sasha looked after us, brought us sandwiches and drinks. He took us to the busy doctor administering seasickness pills. I think I was swallowing those pills for the rest of the voyage.
When we returned to the dining room to again enjoy delicious Italian food and exchange smiles with other passengers, it was not as busy as while Galileo was sailing across the Mediterranean Sea. How I missed the mild waves of the Mediterranean! My thoughts went back to Genoa, to that day we said goodbye to old Europe. Our respective families came to see us off, hug and kiss us, wish us all the best on our adventure to the far-away land, across seas and oceans. There were tears in their eyes, but I don’t remember being sad. I was convinced we were doing the right thing and counting on returning for a visit in two years’ time. The multicoloured streamers thrown from us on the deck down to our loved ones on the quay were getting longer and longer, the ship hooted her goodbye.
The sadness hit me later. Not in Naples. Naples was fun and exciting. We must have docked for two days, because I remember our sightseeing tour of the town in a horse-drawn carriage, with the black horse adorned with red ribbons and red pompoms, and on the second day a tour of Pompeii. Oh, those ash mummies! Did they have time to say “I love you” to their loved ones? Did they have time to ask for forgiveness, to say a prayer? I felt the agony of their last breaths contained in their contorted bodies. I felt uneasy… What if Vesuvius decided to grumble again as it did in 79CE? I was glad when we got out of the city frozen in time, the time of the Roman Empire preserved in ash, frescoes, and marble…
The sadness hit me in Sicily, in Messina.
Wait a minute! That was not exactly the course of events. But that’s what happens when you are trying to remember things that happened 60 years ago. All we did in Naples was the bus tour to Pompeii; we did the horse-drawn-carriage tour in Messina. So, Naples was overwhelming, while Messina was fun.
Yes, Messina was fun, but only until departure time. The multi-coloured streamers were in stark contrast to the black figures on the pier below. All of them old folk. With worried looks and tears in their black eyes. Their young sons and daughters leaving for who knows how long, in search of work, in search of a better life at the other end of the world. Would they see them again? … I felt a pain in my heart, and tears just welled up. Sasha gave me a hug.
We were leaving the calm Mediterranean Sea. We were leaving Europe. Beautiful Europe. Troubled Europe.
Alexandria was the last big port. Can’t remember much. But I remember Port Said. We must have docked for two or three days, because a lot of passengers went to see the pyramids, but Sasha and I were afraid to leave the safety of Galileo… In Port Said we stayed on board. Although it was peaceful now, we remembered the Suez Crisis of October-November 1956 when President Nasser nationalised it. Better safe than sorry! We stayed on board. Then the passage through the Suez Canal, an eerie experience for over 12 hours, so uncomfortably narrow you could almost touch the rock wall in some places. Today, you can see on Google the engineering feat by the Compagnie de Suez, the construction having lasted for ten years, from 1859-1869. Being claustrophobic, I felt better when we sailed out of it into the Great Bitter Lake and then the Red Sea.
And after that all hell broke loose. The Indian Ocean was having fun rolling mighty waves in a perpetual dance, night and day for days and days, although the rolling wasn’t as bad as on entering the big ocean, and then, of course, the seasickness pills helped some of us, so I enjoyed sun baking and having a swim in the swimming pool on the lower deck. And when we were crossing the Equator, I watched from the upper deck how the god Neptune did his gig and threw a damsel into the swimming pool. Our little boy was looked after and entertained in the kindergarten, which gave us the opportunity to socialise with grownups, and we met lots of interesting people. So, when we sailed into Freemantle, Western Australia, on 11 June, we took a train to Perth with the Italian family we had befriended. Nico and Silvana had two girls, a bit older than our almost five-year old son. Sasha and Nico wanted to go to the Immigration Office to enquire about possible jobs. Both were entering Australia as skilled migrants, their passage paid for by the Australian government, their only obligation to stay and work in Australia for two years. When we arrived at the Immigration Office at lunch time, it was closed, closed for lunch the notice on the door said! … I remember the quaint facades all along the street, just like the ones in American cowboy movies… I think we tried the same in Melbourne, but all I remember is the stench of mutton dripping from fish and chip shops. Galileo probably docked in Adelaide as well, but I don’t recall it. Quite possibly, because we decided not to visit the Immigration Office. I remember well, however, the choppy seas of the Great Australian Bight! I was quite groggy when we arrived in Sydney on 17 June, very early in the morning. And to add to my distress, while still down in our cabin, packed and ready to face the new world, suddenly, half of a huge eye, as if out of a comic strip, was facing me through the porthole! I fell down the rabbit hole as Galileo was passing under the Harbour Bridge.
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