Here begins—or ends—the western coast of Africa. It all depends on the point of view, of course. From the Cape Spartel Lighthouse perched on the curve of the promontory, we witness the joining of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The Ocean ends, and what is now a Strait is said to give birth to the Sea, rising eastward, only to open wider ahead between two continents, all the way to the Middle East.
The view from this spot reveals a narrowing where Africa and Europe nearly touch, as if stretching fingertips toward one another. It’s like the eye of a needle—but lacking the skill or precision to thread the line through that barely visible slit of passage.
On this short journey, we depart from the port of Tangier. Aboard the Ibn Battuta—the prince of travelers—it’s only a few nautical miles that separate the African continent from Europe, just there in front. A common thread on the horizon throughout the passage is the coastal line of northern Morocco and southern Spain. On the other side, the gates of Europe open at Algeciras. It’s a mere leap.
On much longer voyages I’ve made across the Atlantic, there were days on end without sight of land, birds, or a single soul. If not for the flying fish leaping across the bow or landing on deck, the conversations with the crew, a book, and a notebook, I imagine I would soon feel adrift in boredom.
Far out at sea, on voyages away from shore, the horizon by day dissolves its straight line—the one we’re used to seeing—and curves into an immense circle all around, amplified by radar, giving the illusion and presumption of standing at the very center of the ocean’s vastness. It isn’t so in the Strait of Gibraltar.
Though these are two continents pressed together without touching, they feel estranged. But it wasn’t always this way, as we know. Perhaps that’s why, here, from afar, everything seems at once too close and too distant—whether arriving or departing, looking across to the opposite shore.
To sail is to sway. It’s the search for a ground that slips away beneath your feet and your thoughts, with a swell that is not always gentle, urging your gaze to lose itself between the emptiness and the horizon. The sea nearby, unshaken, almost always lets you focus on the wake that fades behind the ship’s hull.
Far from all this are the thoughts we try to read in the expressions of some passengers. They seem to drift away from that place, in that moment, into other storylines—perhaps less contemplative.
These are not the migrants who sometimes appear in news tickers. When I made this journey, two decades ago, the scale of the tragedy we now know had not yet unfolded, nor the media attention around the thousands of men, women, and children who lose their lives every day trying to reach Europe. And I’m not speaking only of the Mediterranean.
The forgotten wrecks are not ferryboats, but vessels made of rust and synthetic material—paper boats of dreams that almost always end in tragedy. But far from the Strait, where they would be easily spotted and stopped. The hope of a European dream is checked by the leaders of the so-called civilized world, who pay African governments to intercept the migrants—nameless, faceless—before they dare take to the sea.
They are driven to the borders of neighboring countries and reportedly abandoned without water, food, or shoes.
Europe doesn’t want to know.
“They’re just rumors,” they say. Hoping they’ll fade.
Above all, hoping no one crosses.
No ferryboat can save them.