Dispatches from the Caribbean – First Leg

(4^th update out of 4)

5/7/03

For anyone just joining in, this is the last update of the first leg of my sailing trip around the Caribbean. This leg started in the British Virgin Islands and will end in Margarita Island, Venezuela, the most southeast point on the whole journey. After that, I’ll be sailing due west to the ABC Islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao. That leg will include the longest open water run of the trip, a 750-mile stretch from Aruba across to Jamaica. The third leg will be a mix of sailing. It will include a cursory exploration of Jamaica and The Cayman Islands, followed by another long “bluewater” shot to Honduras and Belize with my friend Sven. The last leg will run from Belize City to Port Everglades, Florida, and will include a number of friends and seasoned sailors joining me in Mexico, across to the Florida Keys, out and back to the Bahamas, and ultimately up to Fort Lauderdale.

After my parents left St. Lucia a couple of days ago, my new sailing partner Bob Angle from Maryland met me at the Rodney Bay Marina dock. He had flown into St. Lucia’s second airport much to our chagrin, as we didn’t know St. Lucia had two airports and felt pretty stupid. Bob was terrifically positive about the whole thing, quickly showing his penchant for rolling with the flow and keeping a positive attitude.

Bob is 60 years old and on his second life. His first, from what I can tell, was all work and not enough play, so he’s doing whatever he can to make up for that loss now. The last few years he’s joined various captains on sailing adventures all over the world. He also owns a 28-foot sailboat near his home in Maryland which he races regularly. Once we settled him onto the Liana-Jane – which he found pretty impressive compared to many yachts he’s crewed – we looked through planning charts for the next few weeks. Immediately I got a picture of Bob’s thoroughness and deep knowledge of sailing. Afterwards, we strolled along the docks looking at boats, including one sunken sloop that apparently burned “right to the waterline” last month. We forgot to take a picture of it.

Once we checked out, the first stop was southern St. Lucia, which is best known for The Pitons. These two, steep volcanic pinnacles soar into the air straight up from the sea. We made good speed south on a port reach with both sails up, our speed gradually increasing with our distance away from land, up to a maximum of 7.6 knots. Two counter-currents clashed with each other around the southwest of the island with funny chop making little peaks of the sea, which sprayed by the wind. Coming in, Bob and I stared at these majestic peaks towering over our bow. With his usual aplomb, Bob described them as “one breast augmentation and one natural,” or very Madonna-ish in the 90’s. There was a tiny spit of rain and then a rainbow appeared between the two pitons, plunging into the ocean before Grande Piton. A boatboy came racing out in a 40-horse outboard offering to hold “the last mooring ball” in the bay. We declined and he zipped off to another yacht approaching from the northwest. Suddenly Bob and I found ourselves in a race. He was in his element, trimming the sails to perfection and timing our approach. We still lost, however, as the other boat had twice our waterline, but the bay had several free mooring balls and it all worked out. Bob cursed that 80-foot sailing yacht and vowed revenge. At night, they lit up their four huge mast spreaders like a Christmas tree, or a call to arms for Bob. That same yacht would follow us for several more islands taunting Bob mercilessly.

We had a tasty dinner of rice teriyaki with garlic, very filling, which settled our agreement that I would make breakfasts and Bob would make dinners, lunch up for grabs. I swam around the little bay enjoying the break from three nights in a crowded marina. That night was peaceful. We had a leisurely morning with chocolate chip pancakes and the last of the bananas. I took some photos of the Pitons as we headed out. The wind shifted around in the mountains’ shadows but we made a very fast broad reach to the southwest.

About an hour into it, we got swallowed up by some “dirty seas,” which Bob attributed to conflicting currents. He described them as almost ideal conditions for a broach: waves lifting us at the beam and breaking across the bow and sometimes into the cockpit. Broaches are deadly serious, the boat tipping all the way over, everything not tied down a missile. I was glad we never even got close. Bob had fun nailing me with “Neptune showers” or “wake-up waves” into the cockpit just when I started to doze off. It was amazing to watch the water bounce around between so many forces. The crests jogged at us mostly from the northeast but they had another dynamic to them that made them confusing. Bob and I would eye each one carefully. There were hard to describe, a combination of the winds, currents, bouncing upon themselves. A broach could occur if three things happened all at once: 1) we were blown by a significant gust of wind while 2) the boat was lifted to the crest of a wave just as 3) that wave is breaking. Even then, there would have to be a lot of canvas up to absorb the wind blast. Bob and I had a lot of talk about safety and ways to deal with this: reducing canvas, changing our course to more downwind or upwind, and other things like securing equipment and storage lockers to prevent unnecessary injury, wearing our harnesses, maintaining careful watches, and so on.

This sailing was good experience. We continually adapted our sail configurations, resetting the jib several different ways, sailing under reefed main alone and making over 6 knots. We discussed the difference between square-rigger forces (a sail bluntly pushed forward by wind) and Ventura forces (drive generated by differences in pressure on either side of both sails). The approach to St. Vincent was both breathtaking and typical, another magnificent Caribbean island rising into the cloud bank. Like “gorillas in the mist,” according to Bob, who greeted the first expected contingent of boat boys with graciousness. We anchored in Chateumarie Bay just downwind of some little fishing boats, then almost immediately fouled the anchorage bumping into them. It was deep water right up to a short shelf but we didn’t need a shore line for extra security, oddly enough. We did have plenty of boat boys, though, offering to sell us about everything, including marijuana for about $150 US a pound. That seemed like a great price to me, but we settled on bananas, limes, coconuts, and eggs. One of these goodwill ambassadors had been written up and photographed in our cruising guide. He’s done quite well recently. He bragged about his new speedboat to sell dope up-island, admitted that it’s illegal but he’s not worried as his boat is faster than the local police boat. As sun set, Bob and I talked for 45 minutes with very curious boatboy named Boy-Boy. He knew quite a bit about helicopters, planes, and tanks.

2/8/03

Had an early start today, up in the middle of the night writing letters and staring at the stars, unable to sleep. Sleeping so close to it, the Caribbean makes loud kisses on the hull smacks, splashes, kersplats, then every 30 seconds or so the boat rocks sideways a few times, just enough to keep an insomniac awake no matter how hard he tries. We’re in a bay off the island of St. Vincent, the same island I had hoped to avoid because of the poverty and aggressive boat boys. As it turns out, the reports were exaggerated and the place is perfectly delightful. When we approached, it’s towering, tree-lined pinnacle had grabbed bit handfuls of local clouds and wrapped them protectively around, so it was the middle hills and sharp cliffs at their bases that we saw first. The ocean was pounding away as always, sending boulders tumbling into the sea to be smashed someday into beaches. It still seems a young island, though, so the beaches and softer nature of the islands to the north is a bit elusive here. Similarly, there is hardly any tourist infrastructure. St. Vincent and the islands to the south are some of the poorest in the Windwards. It shows in the nature of the boat boys who have been with us, off and on, since our arrival. Not like hordes, though, just one or two at a time on boats or surfboards, selling fruit or ganja.

It’s afternoon now. We’re motor-sailing now in just 8 to 10 knots of wind with the jib up, pushed along underwater by the prop and through the air by the sail. In the quiet I was thinking about thinking. There have been countless hours, now, of just staring off into the sea, gazing at nothing but gorgeous views, considering life and whatnot. Those are precious times made priceless by perspective on home. When I was working and focusing on day-to-day things, hardly a break, exhausted at the end of a week, it seemed like there was rarely a day to just recharge. Now I awaken when the light starts pouring into my cabin porthole, toss around a bit and feel comfortable snuggled in there, the first cold of morning melting. I pop my head up and start the engine. This both charges the batteries from the evening before and warms water for my shower. There’s plenty of time to “see a man about a horse” off the stern and look around. At night, even after 8 or 10 hours of hard sailing, I still don’t have that worn-out feeling that got to be so hard to shake back in the States, working long days. It’s fun to set the anchor or make a good tie-off on a mooring ball then watch the sun sink down into the horizon. Everything is so beautiful here, the days full of sights and smells, even sounds, that represent both adventure and safety in the mind. I remember the joy of downhill skiing. It wasn’t just the controlled tumbling down the slope but the soft, marshmallowy snow filling my vision on the chairlift back up. Especially when a foot or two had just fallen, the way the ground was blanketed and the trees frosted was surreal, marvelous, too perfect to reach out and touch but I wanted to anyway. There’s a lot of that here. As I write, St. Vincent fills the whole northwest as we sail away from it. I know it’s the same lush green and brown hillsides, speckled with white or pink-roofed little homes as all the others. So beautiful.

Now it’s evening. Bob is so easy to travel with. He’s down making dinner, cutting up onions and carrots, adding some chopped garlic – this is the same yummy prelude to all his dinners – as I take a deep breath and clean out the slimy refrigerator. It’s been a whole afternoon since we came in here, putting St. Vincent behind us in a rush of confused cross currents and 30-knot bursts of wind. In the fridge I’m cleaning are some furry noodles in a plastic dish, slimy soda cans, and a mostly-empty box of juice. But the worst part, the part that has me talking like an operator for 10 minutes afterwards and opening all the side vents, is the leaking package of cheese. It’s white ooze forms the sedimentary base at the bottom of the chest-type two basin fridge that currently doesn’t work very well and probably never will. God could cast down healing powers to all the lepers of India but not bring back our refrigerator, and so we’ll be leaving it open for a lot of the trip, I think, and doing without cold food. Bob suggests that we create an initiation rite for our latest passenger, planned for a pickup toward the end of the month in Margarita Island. We’ll make him stick his head in the refrigerator for 5 minutes. We could make him recite the name of a boat part for every letter in the alphabet. Bob was in a fraternity. He pours us Sprite with a slice of lime and it tastes like ambrosia, so perfect.

Now it’s night. The sun slapped itself down into the water again and confirmed where west is. As usual, I took a handful of photos, erasing the ones that weren’t perfect enough for me and leaving one or two to keep. I don’t know what I’m going to do with all the sunset pictures. Each one is like a snowflake – individual from the others, but the same in beauty and contrast, every night almost, sending us on the downhill ride to sleep. Sunsets make me poetic – not good at it, just poetic.

We spent part of the day ashore here in Port Elizabeth on Bequia, walking around in bare feet looking for the customs building. We learned that it was Saturday by counting back from each sailing day to when Bob arrived on a Wednesday, the last time either of us needed to know the day of the week. Whoops. The customs office was closed until three. We shuffled over to an internet café. I plopped down my sail bag full of dirty clothes and wrote letters, making fun plans for Bonaire and enjoying the news from home, which seems both far away and irrelevant, unless it has some bearing on someone I know and then the moment is unexpectedly exciting, suddenly right next to me instead of thousands of miles in the distance and years in the past. Traveling for a long time must do that to you. It’s like you’re in space listening to news down on the planet, but the environment is so different, so foreign, that it’s all you’re really focusing on. Except for the refrigerator. The moldy cheese smell makes me wish I was in space.

2/11/03

It’s funny to have lost track of time, both days of the month and of the week. I think it’s Tuesday, but that’s only because someone in a restaurant told me so. We had some excitement in the last few hours, with a few humorous twists, of course. Bob and I have been bouncing through the Grenadines with few adventures to show for it, just pleasant weather, a few hours of sailing every day, and nice anchorages for the most part. We are off Union Island now, the “southern gateway to the Grenadines” by golly – the t-shirts you can buy in town reflect that pride here. It’s close to a perfect anchorage as we’re in the shelter of an extensive reef system but close to a little town with three internet cafes, more grocery stores than street corners, and several nice restaurants. The wind has blown a steady 15 to 20 knots over the reef since we arrived. Our anchor is in just 5 feet or so of water, buried deep in the white sand, holding us back from a messy plowing job on every boat downwind. We had no problems setting it last night and slept like babies. Today the Liana-Jane was swinging a lot on the anchor but otherwise being a good little baby.

The story begins with Bob and I in town. I was on the internet for most of the day so we agreed to separate, even have him return to the boat rather than look for me – I could always get a ride with someone or just wait for him at a restaurant near the dinghy dock. A squall came up while I was doing some grocery shopping and I didn’t think much of it. When I showed up at the dinghy dock and the dinghy wasn’t there, I also didn’t think much of it – Bob must have returned to the boat. I took a table, ordered a sandwich, and read a book I’d traded for down the street. For the next four hours, several squalls came and went. The waitress brought over some Americans and I enjoyed talking with them, two couples from Chicago bareboating around the Grenadines, having a pretty good time. I joked about how my sailing buddy appeared to have forgotten about me and they kidded about the problem with finding your crew on the internet. Ha ha and all that. During this, the couples’ chartered boat slipped their anchor and the men tore out to fix it with a local chap. It never occurred to me that the Liana-Jane could be having the same problems.

When I finally begged a ride from one of the Chicago husbands back to the Liana-Jane, Bob was at the helm, dressed in full weather battle regalia fighting to keep our boat from hitting the two catamarans on either side. He was angry at the cats for sneaking in and taking hidden moorings (sponsored by the local boat boys) inside our swinging room and, for good reason, a bit miffed at me for not coming out sooner. He had spent the last four or five hours trying to reset our anchor, using the engine to move the boat forward and back, using his legs to push off the cat on our port side, getting into yelling matches with them during the whole thing, and otherwise doing everything he could to protect the Liana-Jane and the other boats around it. I had been ashore enjoying a yogurt drink and chatting away mindlessly. Bob was the real hero.

After some apologizing, we got working on the problem. On our side was some good news: our anchor was definitely holding fine. Some people were not so lucky. The winds gusted to 30 knots over the reef and we could hear shouting as a few other boats attempted to reset or gave up and motored into the crowded dock. Bob and I discussed options, eventually agreeing to set a stern anchor. So, I pulled the dinghy up to the bow, dropped the second anchor in, pulled out all the chain and line, and set off downwind. About 70 feet away – with the anchor line tied off a cleat on the sailboat – I dropped the anchor, motored back, and hand-winched it up. Now it’s been about half and hour and the stern anchor seems to be holding. Might I add that the winds have dropped considerably and there’s been no rain, so sitting up here in the cockpit is a breeze (pun intended) compared to Bob’s work this afternoon and evening. My hat is off to him. He may be an ornery geezer now and then, but he’s a real stud.

2/12/03

What a fabulous moment. The sun is pouring itself into the western ocean and we’re bobbing gently in Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou, part of the same country as Grenada. Bob and I are just a few days from leaving the Windward Islands behind us. He’s fixed some pate with crackers and I’m sipping an orange juice and lemon ginger ale drink. Edie Brickell is going on about good times and bad times on the stereo, thanks to an excellent “All Ladies All The Time” CD I burned a few days ago. Although there are several dozen other yachts anchored here, they’re all behind me and I’m paying them no attention, totally enraptured with the falling of the sun.

I’ve become very dark in the last few weeks thanks to that sun. We’re in it all the time, pulling up anchors, making sail changes, swimming in the warm blue water, walking down a Caribbean town street, or just lounging in the cockpit. What a wonderful day, especially after last night, which was both exciting and dangerous. When I had a chance to write it all down, around midnight, the moon was half-full but waxy, the surrounding clouds rubbing out its detail. I finally climbed into my bunk around 3 AM, only to be awakened by another squall. It was a good adventure – no damage done to any boats around, none to the Liana-Jane.

Our big plan tonight is to have some dinner then make popcorn and watch a Mel Gibson movie on my laptop. I finagled four DVDs from a little store on Union Island, about the same time Bob was saving the boat. He’s been a great sailing partner and I’m hoping he’ll be able to join me for the Jamaica to Aruba run next month. He’s checking now about his plans.

2/13/03

It’s Thursday evening, coming up on 11 PM. Bob and I just returned from dinner and a university tour with a friend of my parents’ from Washington State. Mom asked me to look her up when we came into Grenada so we did, calling her from St. George – the capital city here in Grenada. I offered to take everyone out to dinner. Bob and I grabbed a little bus, a van really like you find all over the islands, to the bay Grand Anse where her dorm is, although the university itself is a couple of miles up a steep hill overlooking the bay and out to the west. This lady’s name is Jean. She’s in her 40’s and was a cleaning lady for Mom and Dad about 3 years while working as a surgery tech in a veterinarian’s office in Arlington. As Mom said, she kept taking all the undergraduate classes in the sciences so she could someday go to vet school, then after about many years of working at it was accepted here, starting less than a month ago. She and her husband, still back in Washington, don’t have any kids, but have instead a large family of farm animals. Jean is really into large animal husbandry. She has a close friend named Beth who isn’t actually blind but has a seeing-eye dog, and the two of them are roommates. Beth struggles with serious anxiety, according to Jean. The two of them have seen less of the island than Bob and I. They’ve had a really difficult time here, from what Beth said – and she said a lot, Bob and I mostly just listened and gobbled our dinners. We invited her and a bunch of friends to go sailing on Saturday, just take a day and have lunch somewhere, go swimming, get back before dark. Your basic outing. But tomorrow is what I’m particularly excited about when Bob and I are off on a land-based adventure. We’re going to gear up his backpack, lock the boat down, don some hiking boots, and head into the mountains. There are four beautiful waterfalls, supposedly, and they’re a fun walk through the rainforest. I’m really looking forward to it.

It’s not that sailing is boring or anything – because it’s definitely not, flying along under the power of the wind with your house attached, so free and unlimited in possibility. Its just that I’m ready for a change. It hit me today when we closed on Grenada from the north. The island looked like all the others: spectacular, empty and steep-sided on the exposed windward side, increasingly spotty with little houses and some cleared land as you continue southward, then some small towns in the places with water access, then your first city in the major bays. We’re almost all the way to the south now in the most sheltered bay of all, which, thus, houses the largest city. Every island is virtually the same. I know that Guadalupe had a tremendously different shape (like a huge butterfly), that St. Vincent was much less populated and poorer, that St. Lucia had some of the most modern facilities and two airports, but otherwise they’re really about the same, these Windward Isles. Isn’t that funny? It’s like admiring the first snow of the winter, laying so beautifully on the ground in a thick white carpet, sticking to the trees, falling from the sky like little white stars drifting. Over the next few days it’s still beautiful, the snow, but the same thing, so much over the following weeks, and you don’t notice it the same way. After awhile, it’s just snow. You know what I mean?

2/14/03

Today was one of the best of the trip so far. This is due largely to my sailing buddy Bob, who’s penchant for craziness and willingness to try new things appears to know no bounds. As we promised each other, the goal of the day was to hike to a waterfall, which was a surprisingly easy – but exceedingly enjoyable – project. We simply locked up the boat, walked into town, and started asking around for a van heading in that general direction. For about sixty US cents each we took one up into the hills above St. George. Bob and I were plastered to the windows in awe of the landscapes, the lush tropical canopy, blooming rainforest trees, and much more. We were also a bit shaken by the van driver’s speed around tight corners and sweeping past rickety stone embankments. Bob figured out that each van – packed with about fifteen locals, including the usual 3 or 4 in perfect little school uniforms – has both a driver and a conductor. The conductor’s job is to have a job, he says. In order to maintain low unemployment, each van has two staff, about twice as much as is needed and, as I reflect upon it, twice as redundant as other islands’ systems. Hey, whatever’s good for the economy.

I joked around with two schoolgirls sitting next to me but they wouldn’t have any of it. We finally disembarked near the trail entrance and set off on our adventure. It was an easy hike and we really enjoyed being so high up the mountain. The houses, though sparse, were very well-kept, and almost every one was on stilts owing to the tilt of the slope. The path into Annandale Falls was mulched with nutmeg shells, probably from one of the nearby agricultural collectives we had passed, and it descended steeply into a well-planned jungle garden. The falls emerged on our left. About 45 feet high, it dropped from a little pool into a large one, deep and cool, with an overhanging cliff to one side. Vine roots dangled down from the cliff into the misty air. Blooming flowers were everywhere. The water mist cloaked everything like a warm fog. Bob noticed little rivulets draining into the pool, leaving behind mineral streaks in the dark stone. A couple of locals in their 20’s asked for payment to jump off the cliff. After one of them performed this amazing feat, I, naturally, had to do it myself. Bob was concerned when one of the jumpers talked about calling the police as I scaled the hillside and circled around above the falls.

There was a boulder perfectly placed way in the air, joined to the little pool above by thin muddy tracks that I expected to tumble from momentarily. Half a dozen Norwegian tourists were staring when I climbed out on the boulder and prepared to jump down, instantly losing my nerve and deciding that it was way, way too high. However, the need to show the locals – already pretty upset that I was trying to steal their thunder – superceded my desire to just curl into a ball and hide somewhere, so I jumped before I could think further. It was a crashing hurtle downward, my arms flying up behind me, a sharp intake of breath just before impact. I plunged through the pool and struck the bottom a moment later, but wasn’t injured, thank god. For effect, then, I waited a second underwater before surfacing with a bellow. Bob was fumbling with my camera and apparently missed everything but the surfacing – oh well. I wasn’t about to do it again.

Bob’s doing exercises with the 25-pound weight now and is excited about his girlfriend coming to see him in Bonaire. He shows excitement, I think, by switching between worrying about everything being perfect for her and making hilariously rude remarks about his amorous intentions when she arrives. Still, I couldn’t get him into the waterfall pool for a dip. I think Bob can’t swim, or he’s got a hang up with alligators. I don’t know – he’s definitely wary of tall grass in the tropics, going on about contracting Elephantitis through his feet. It’s ridiculous because I’ve never known a more adventurous middle-aged human. He’s up for just about anything. On the way back, for example, Bob was all for walking the entire way back to St George’s. I didn’t even make it, opting for a bus ride the last couple of miles, which made Bob shrug and say “Sounds good to me” like he always does. Our walk down the mountain was hilarious, chatting with almost every local we passed, getting into the Valentine’s Day mood, taking video of kids, Bob doing his thumb trick to every kid’s amazement. We asked people if they were tourists – which produced looks of amazement or quiet chuckles – drank 180 proof rum with some random guy who insisted on it, and almost got hit by about 20 speeding vans. Both of us had little cans of mace we’ve started keeping in our pockets and testing how fast we could whip them out. The road twisted and turned. Every new corner produced a little grouping of huts, a stone bridge, a gigantic cotton silk tree right out of Swiss Family Robinson, the site of the island’s first breadfruit tree, goat barbeque stands, and dozens of little improvised rum shops. These places were just little shacks with rum, a blaring stereo, and some soda bottles. Some girls sang “Happy Birthday Grenada” to us, locals wanted to shake our hands, always asking where we were from and what we thought of the islands. One guy wanted my camera after I showed him his picture on the LCD screen.

We also popped into the Grenada National Museum, a sort of hodge-podge typical of undeveloped countries. Anything vaguely interesting seems to have found it way in there. Bob, who worked ten years for the Smithsonian, said “there was no conservation, no humidity or ultraviolet control, very little interpretation,” but we both enjoyed it so much we stayed an hour. There was even a little section on the second floor to the 1983 U.S. invasion, where marines and troops from the 82^nd Airborne were greeted, for the most part, with celebrations. After they shot up a bunch of Cuban-led resistance. In 1961 an Italian cruise ship caught fire and burned to the water right in the harbor. The Grenadians poured out to help, rescuing passengers and lending assistance as needed. Afterwards the Italians gave Grenada a beautiful statue commemorating the event and offering their thanks, which stands in the harbor.

The other day Bob watched a local guy named Kenny ask a bartender to sign his Valentine’s Day card “To my true love, from Ken.” After that, he asked the bartender to sign his true love’s name. Bob told me a grasshopper came into the bar and asked for a beer, but the bartender said “Why a beer? Don’t you know there’s a drink named after you?” The grasshopper was flabbergasted, “No way, there’s a drink named Bill?” That’s how Bob thinks – he sings what he’s thinking about at any one moment, just now “Kenny can’t write, Kenny can’t write, but he sent his Valentine anyway. Oh Kenny.” Then he starts talking about a mosquito that bit him last night. He bounces around a lot and keeps me in check. For example, he just said, “Too much of a good thing is really just too much of a good thing. Whoa, that was deep – that was an Angle-ism” after his last name, Angle. He’s always making observations and drawing interesting conclusions. He just figured out that he yacht club here hires a little band for the happy hour only. This gets the “yachties,” as he says, “pounded” before they buy dinner and the band can do another gig in the night. Meanwhile, he’s watching a sailboat slowly motor into the harbor in the darkness, talking about what it’s doing, why it might be turning one way or another, their probable destination, and so on, completely amusing himself as I type away.

Day after tomorrow we leave the Windward Isles for Venezuela.

2/16/03

It’s a night crossing from Grenada to Venezuela and I just got off a three hour watch. It was lovely sailing in the gathering dark, the sun sinking beneath endless fields of waves, then a spotlight full moon peeking over the horizon and leaping up into the night sky. It’s above us now, casting pale light on the ocean froth. We’ve been running with the wind the entire way so far. In some ways this is good: you go really fast without knowing it, there’s only one sail to set (in this case, the jib), and waves don’t crash over the bow soaking us in the cockpit. On the other hand, it sets the boat rocking back and forth, since the sail isn’t pushed over to one side, and that’s pretty uncomfortable. We took advantage of the motion to pour bilge cleaner into several under-access holes. This liquid has been rolling around for hours now, dissolving diesel, oil, and grime from the bilge; now its ready to be pumped out. It’s nice when the boat smells good below. We are wearing our life vests and have promised to secure ourselves on a jackline if we climb out of the cockpit while alone on watch. Bob and I are pretty safe sailors.

Standing watch alone on a sailboat in the dark is an experience that’s difficult to describe. Perhaps it’s closest to a long night drive in a car on a highway that stretches to forever. But there’s no radio to listen to, no other cars to avoid, no danger if you swerve a bit. You’re just alone with your thoughts, looking out across the dark dark blue water and checking the instruments regularly. Tonight the wind was at 170 degrees, or almost directly behind us, so our course was fastest and smoothest if the boat’s direction could stay that way. Waves or little wind gusts would push us upwind or down, and I’d have to correct with the wheel. If the boat lost speed and the jib started slapping onto the mast, we had veered too much into the wind. If the jib started flapping and jibing backwards, we had veered too much downwind. The trick was to balance the two in about 25 degrees of arc. It was mindless, pleasant work, like weeding a garden or counting stars, requiring about half my attention. Bob calls this feeling “the eraser.” It erases everything from land. I don’t know what he thinks about when he steers, but it’s mostly sailing stuff like why the depth is changing some particular way or how the current might be affecting our course. Me: I think about people in my life, moving home to upstate New York after this trip, plans for the future and such. I don’t think the eraser works the same way for me, but the feeling is equally pleasant.

Yesterday Bob and I spent the day with two veterinary students from St. George University, the friend of my mother’s and her friend. We miscalculated the amount of time it would take to circle around the southwest point of Grenada and were almost an hour late, but they didn’t mind. We snorkeled around True Blue bay a bit, had some lunch, then took them for a brief sail about a mile out and back. Bob was at the wheel so, of course, they got splashed at least once. That night Bob and I hiked up to the university and accessed the free internet service from the library. It’s a beautiful school atop a hill overlooking the water, probably one of the nicest I’ve ever visited, yet relatively young.

The rest of yesterday was planning time for this two-day voyage southwest. Between Grenada and Margarita Island – our destination – lie a tiny group of islands called The Testigos. Bob just calls them The Testicles. There’s a bank that stretches about three miles south of them, an area of shallow water that means steep waves and risk of grounding, so we’ve been recalculating our route to circumvent the whole group. Now, the sea bottom has come closer to our keel, from more than 300 meters earlier this evening to only 40 meters now. Bob and I set up three hour watches until midnight, after which we’ll stick to two hour stretches perhaps. He and I are just discussing whether to motor sail with the engine going (this allows the autopilot to do the monotonous steering) or stick to our sailing plan under the jib alone. The winds are steady at 15 to 20 knots. Wave heights have ranged from twelve feet near the Grenadan coast, where it was so much shallower, to about four feet in the deep. In an hour we’ll be out of the Testigos’ range and back on course to Margarita. As usual, things are going swimmingly. I have no complaints.

A time break here, it’s coming on 5 AM and I’ve been up watching the sea roll by, waiting for lights to appear on the western horizon. The wind dropped so I’ve had the engine taking us into Margarita Island for the last few hours. Just a moment ago there were odd splash-kerplop sounds near the bow on either side. I shut down my laptop (just finished watching a movie) and tracked the source down to a small pod of dolphins. Their quick watery gasps sound so human. Their fins appear for a quick second followed by a jump through the air and a flop back into the water. Under the luminescence of a very strong moon their bodies were quick silhouettes that could be identified only briefly, but their presence remains, a sort of friendly escort for the last 30 miles. We’re set to enter harbor right at dawn and complete this first leg of the trip right on schedule. I hope the Spanish-speaking locals are as friendly. The VHF radio went off half an hour ago with Spanish-language music on the main channel. Not expected. Owing to political difficulties and a high rate of lawlessness lately, we’ve opted to leave off our masthead lights and stay low until we’re nearer population; reports of piracy on the seas are significant enough to warrant such measures and we’ve been setting watches carefully to make sure we arrive safely. Once in Venezuela, our plan is to join up with a few other sailboats and, if possible, continue west from island to island, avoid the capitol city of Caracas, and get to Bonaire without incident.

I sign off, then, on a positive note. This whole journey around the eastern Caribbean has gone exceedingly well. The stars have been, as the musician Enya says, “frozen embers” filling the sky and every sunset postcard-perfect. I’ve sailed with dolphins, slept under a volcano, washed through rainstorms, walked perfect beaches, embraced Caribbean island culture, and even jumped into a jungle waterfall pool. It’s true that there were equipment problems in the beginning and loss of an important crew member. As a team, though, we’ve solved the mechanical and electronic issues terrifically, and I count myself extremely lucky to have found Dutch John when I did, to have my parents join up right afterward, who then handed the baton to this amazing sailor Bob Angle from Maryland. Tired from his own watch earlier Bob dozes down in the main cabin, but I think I’ll awaken him so that we can greet Porlamar Harbor on Margarita Island, and dawn, as it appears over the horizon.