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With the fixie to Morocco #7: Land in sight!

Jonathan Perraudin und Christoph Zuidema

24.9.2018

Translation: machine translated

After their final university exams, Jonathan and Christoph head out into the world. Not on an all-inclusive holiday to the Canary Islands, but to Morocco pretty much without anything - just with fixies and light luggage. Here they report on their experiences. This time: a boat, two kayaks and the destination of a long journey.

We can already see Morocco. "With the right current and good weather, you'll need about five hours if you can keep up the pace of three knots per hour," we're told. Yes, we can easily manage that. Stop! With a kayak and not a bike? Three knots doesn't sound like much in our heads and we've already paddled kayaks a few years ago - albeit only on the undulating Lake Zurich. We had found out early on about the possibility of paddling across the Strait of Gibraltar and organised the meeting with our companions Chris and Jana. Deal! The crossing to Africa was sorted. At least on paper.

It's still pitch dark when we two sleepy figures get on our saddles shortly before half past seven in the morning. 25 kilometres and 400 metres in altitude over a hill separate us from the agreed starting point in Algeciras, where the kayaks and accompanying boat are waiting. As we don't have a licence to paddle the most direct route, we first take the boat to a rock where we can put the kayaks in the water. And as the boat is a proper sailing yacht, Christoph's desire to call himself Columbus and sail to the Caribbean is a little greater than his desire to sit in a plastic shell and paddle off. But since there is no free will on our journey and we are stubbornly working towards our goal, two students are sitting in a kayak heading for Africa.

A beer as a reward for the fluid dynamics experts

After ten minutes, the boat seems to have pulled out a bit of a lead in the race and our companions start to put their money on our failure. Stop! This is not the procedure planned in theory. We two fluid dynamics experts (thanks to our professor) benefit from our technical knowledge and know that you use the least amount of energy by travelling as close to the boat as possible.

For this advantage, we forego any view of dolphins and other sea creatures that happily surface to the left and right. What's more, being close to the boat also means we are close to the fresh sandwiches that Jana lovingly prepares for us after briefly leaving the autopilot to steer. After all, food is still the most important thing. After an incredible three hours and 20 minutes and what felt like two days for Christoph, we reach a beach on the African continent.

We down a beer with relish (what a paradox, with relish and downing 😉). We then continue to a boat petrol station in Ceuta and jump ashore as if nothing had ever happened. After a coffee and a failed attempt to find a few dirhams, we head for the Moroccan border.

Jana and Chris accompanied us across the sea as sailors, photographers, sandwich artists and entertainers.

Stamps, broken spokes and smugglers

In this incredible chaos, two cyclists somehow try to smuggle themselves through customs. A policeman stops us and asks for the stamp. Oops, that's right, we still need it. With a bit of jostling, we got the stamp after about five minutes and paid nothing for it - damn, we're getting really good at this. So we cross the Moroccan border and realise that Christoph's rear wheel has broken a spoke again. But you're more likely to find a swimming trunks shop in Antarctica than a bike mechanic at this border.

So we end up travelling to Tangier with a former drug smuggler as our taxi driver. He tells us all about how exactly five tonnes of cocaine and hash are transported to Italy by ship. As this is not suitable for imitation and he spent a year and a half visiting various Spanish prisons, we will refrain from giving a detailed description here.

Big mouth: In Morocco, we treat ourselves to a taxi.

But if he ever wanted to ship a load to England, we would have met a few buyers on our journey. He waves it off. Those days are over. He has also learnt his lesson. And what about us? What have we learnt from all this time? What have we learnt? What happens next?

First of all, we have to clean the flat three times each so that we're back up to date with the office rota in our shared flat. We have to reassure our professors that we're going to study this semester after all and not become full-time cyclists. Will that be the right decision? We'll never know. However, life has shown us once again that something big can come out of something small - an idea and an email. At least for us personally. It takes a little luck, a pinch of willpower and a dose of naivety. Who would have thought that one walk would reach as far as Morocco?

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Jonathan Perraudin und Christoph Zuidema

aurel.stevens@gmail.com

We're setting off from Zurich this summer, trying our hand at skidding with fixies, racing over mountain passes and not stopping again until we've reached the beach in Morocco.

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