Log of SV Wendaway

Ingo and Espie Jeve

In 1972 Ingo Jeve invited his father to meet him in La Paz, Baja California Sur. His father,  an avid fisherman, was eager to make the trip from Berlin.  So Ingo and his father travelled to the remote fishing community of Rancho Buena Vista, about 70 miles south of La Paz,  towards Cabo San Lucas.  It was a $20 taxi ride, but well worth it. They caught dorado and tuna, and even a largish black marlin. Ingo’s dad was enthralled. Perhaps too much so.

In Berlin, Ingo’s father was often seen walking the banks of the Spree and Havel rivers, where he would catch small fish. He had done it for years. But when he returned to Germany after his exciting trip to the Sea of Cortez, he put away his pole and his creel. For the next eight years until he died, he never fished again. The small fish of the Spree and Havel rivers were suddenly too small to pursue.

It is a bittersweet story,  but told without a milligram of  maudlin sentiment. Ingo, who is now 68, has come to terms with much of the unresolved paradoxes in his life.  “I have mellowed,” he says with a wry smile.

This from a man who was born in the crucial year of 1941, in Germany.  His childhood neighborhood was a jungle of destroyed apartment buildings. He remembers the adventure of exploring abandoned apartments, of jumping across chasms four storeys deep created by American bombs. It was both amazing and wild – the evidence of recent human habitation, minus all the humans, except of course for himself and his older brother.

Strange that as he emerged from childhood, his favorite literature was American; his music, blues and rock from the States. Little Richard, Buddy Holly.

I asked him how he came by the name for his current sailboat,  Seeadler, a Valiant 40, which he bought new in 1991.

He told me when he was a young teenager, a friend gave him copies of Micky Spillane mysteries, translated into German. “It was so sexy,” he says with a grin.  “Such adventures – I could not believe people lived this way.”  He discovered a book by Jack London, The Road, in which the narrator spoke of hopping freights across America.

I said, you must be talking about Jack Kerouac’s book, On the Road. A different Jack. A different road.

“No, no, this was a book by Jack London. My copy was published in German in 1935.”

A quick check revealed my ignorance; The Road, published in 1904, was an account of London’s brief life as a hobo, inspired by his experience in Coxey’s Army, an 1894 protest march by the unemployed. You apparently can read it here.

The book transformed Ingo’s life. When he reached his 18th birthday, he told his parents that he was leaving Germany, heading to Australia. According to the law at that time, he needed their permission in order to get a travel visa. His mother refused. But his father, still an avid fisherman at that time, told Ingo: “I give you permission. When I was your age I also wanted to leave, but my mother refused. I will not refuse you.”

Ingo Jeve aboard SV Seeadler, La Paz

Ingo spent 3 years in Australia, then traveled to the US where he used his apprenticeship as a welder to begin a variety of jobs, including his longest run as a maintenance engineer for the American Licorice Company in Union City, California.

In 1968 he met his future wife, Esperanza (Espie) .  He let her know he was interested in adventure, and she was game.  A couple of years later, they were hard at work finishing their first sailboat, a Cascade 36. It was a kitboat, and it took them almost eight years to complete.

He named it Born Free. “It was not named after the movie,” he assured me. “It was about freedom.” He had experienced the aftermath of World War II, saw the reality of what was happening in East Berlin.

I reminded him I had asked him how he named his current boat, Seeadler.

He recounted how they sailed Born Free down the California coast, south to the Panama Canal, then across the Atlantic. When they arrived in Germany, he found that his father was dying.

Ingo stopped telling me his story at this point, briefly.  We sat in silence for a couple of minutes.

Then he recounted how when his sister was dying, years later, of lung cancer, Ingo and Espie stopped their adventuring to take care of her. “When I think about how Espie took care of my sister…”

Another pause.

“When I remember how Espie took care of my sister, I also remembered thinking: Anything that Espie wants, Espie gets. If she were to say tomorrow, ‘Ingo, I do not want to go cruising anymore…’  here he dusted off his hands, as if washing away something, “I would say, OK, that’s it. We stop cruising.”  He was demostrating another form of freedom, the ability to let go, out of love.

And I said, “And the reason you named your boat Seeadler?”   At this point I felt he was skirting the issue.

“Ach, that. When I was down in La Paz with my father on our fishing trip, we met a fellow who owned a boat with the name Princess Del Mar. I loved that name. Something beautiful – a princess and the sea.”

He nodded and sat back. I suspected he felt he had given me a full explanation by this time.

And?

“And I decided then I would name my next boat something beautiful, something free.”

Free?

“You know what Seeadler is in German?”  I shook my head.

“Sea Eagle.  Aguillar del Mar in Spanish. Sea Eagle. Very free, very beautiful.”

And I had to agree it was. His dad would have approved.

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