Dispatches from the Caribbean – Second Leg

(2^nd update out of 3)

2/26

The next couple of weeks was spent in the ABC Islands, called Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao, alphabetically. It was only a bit inconvenient that we landed via B, C, then A. Still, each of these islands of the western Dutch Antilles was a gem. My last dispatch had us sailing into Bonaire on my fifth night journey of the trip with Bob and I sharing helm responsibilities every few hours and our newest crewmember Idris dozing, heavily drugged, on the port side bunk in the main cabin. He looked pretty comfortable in there despite the boat’s constant rolling motions in the moderate swell. We were happy to put Venezuela behind us, having been robbed and tricked at several corners there.

Bonaire was slow to appear on the horizon. It’s low southeastern half emerged only at the last minute, but the tiny little southeastern spit looked like a big white beach with a lighthouse standing guard, perfect for a rousing game of volleyball and cold sodas afterward. According to our guidebook, which Bob was reading aloud as I manned the helm, locals came down here to enjoy the park and, further around the island, windsurf. I wondered if they played volleyball and drank soda. Soon after, with the jib still full and the boat making a steady 7 knots, we rolled up to the marshy eastern end and were swept along the coast. A squadron of pink flamingos flapped quietly by half a mile off our starboard bow. There were flying fish galore spraying off and away from the boat in panicked bursts of speed that sometimes stretched on for 150 feet. We were impressed. The three of us took turns with the guidebook and I remembered reading about Bonaire’s salt industry. At that same moment the gigantic salt elevator emerged around a point and salt piles forty feet high stood next to it. My mouth dried up at the thought of it. The guidebook described the last few miles to the capital as the best sailing in the entire Caribbean – flat seas, strong steady winds. We came close to a speed record with just the jib and nothing to slow us down, but had to turn more into the wind as town approached. Bob was behind the helm when the wind caught us on a sudden starboard reach. The Liana-Jane tipped over to port, then tipped even more, the water rushing along the toe rails and up on the deck. I could hear things sliding madly down in the main cabin and, before I knew I’d done it, I flopped over and released the port jib sheet. It snapped out crazily but we quickly righted. Bob shouted like a madman and neither he nor Idris seemed to notice my pounding heart; this is sailing, I thought to myself. The water, meanwhile, was a perfect blue, clear even half a mile from the shore. We gazed down into it. There were no fishing boats anywhere. The houses that started to appear as town approached were clearly very nice, chockablock through with small resorts and condominiums. The contrast to Venezuela was striking, even as we later strolled through town: incredibly clean, the waters unfouled, no soldiers, everything bright and clean.

Bonaire is such a marine water park that no anchoring is allowed. Instead, mooring balls are placed regularly along the waterfront and park employees charge about $5 per night. They never came to check on us, but I paid up anyway after a few days. Idris and I unhooked the dinghy, lowered it into the water, and the three of us worked together to mount its engine, just to be safe – it hardly weighs fifteen pounds. We all motored in to find customs.

As we explored the clean little city, stumbling soon onto an internet café, Bob found out that his plans for sailing the Mediterranean were actually on. He announced sadly to Idris and I that he wouldn’t be able to join us for the Jamaica run two weeks hence. We made some plans to meet up later and Bob disappeared to settle his hotel and meet his girlfriend at the airport. It was a staggered goodbye, however, as we’d be seeing Bob and Jamie several times before they left. Idris and I were discouraged about losing our experienced sea partner but were at the same excited about taking on a five to seven day journey alone. It turns out that my wonderful parents, discouraged by the news about Bob, would be the other half of the crew. In any case, Idris and I bought ourselves some ice cream, walked around a bit more, and eventually settled into the boat. I spent the next day relaxing and preparing my own weekend plans, which included – among other very nice things – meeting up with my aunt and uncle before catching my cousin Lindsay and her boyfriend Charles at the airport. They were to be our crew for the next 10 days throughout the last two ABC Islands. I also wasted some time trying to repair my laptop which seemed to have entirely bitten the dust. It needed a trip home to Dell Computers, apparently, but I foolishly put my energy into trying to order the part instead and have it fixed locally. My opinion of Dell’s customer service and competence in its Latin American department were about to fall dramatically.

Idris and I also took a number of swims off the boat, despite our close proximity to the town. The water was just so amazingly clear. No wonder Bonaire is such a diving destination. Even the dinghy dock was worth swimming around. We swam underneath the keel, had contests to touch the bottom 25 feet down, swung on the mooring lines, and chatted up some other boaters nearby. Those first two nights the dock bar just up from us celebrating the coming of Carnival with steel bands and impressive amplifiers until 1 AM. I never wished so much for a rocket launcher. Idris spent most of the days in Bonaire reading in the cockpit, hanging around town, and becoming increasingly bored. I read a fun English book about couples rediscovering love called Thirtysomething and Idris pored through Biko. He and I splurged with a movie at the local cinema, a possible Oscar-winner starring, as Idris described him, “a fat Stephen Segal.” Kralendiyk, the town, was a small happy colonial village with some really ritzy shopping. Everyone seemed equally prosperous whatever their race – another contrast to Venezuela. The annual Carnival festival blossomed daily into a booming, riotous animal of its own full of rowdy grinning crowds. I spent good chunks of my time in the cheapest internet café, a spacious two room affair made from old classrooms and about as homey. I took Idris to a Chinese restaurant and plied from him the whole story of his journeys through Latin America. I don’t think I could have been more impressed. There were no fortune cookies, however. Every morning we awoke to the azure sea lapping gently on the hull. Turquoise, red, orange, and yellow-green fish swam lazily around or puddled into schools that swarmed loopily under our swimming bodies. Idris joined me in my exercise routines. We did some laundry and mostly stayed out of trouble. On Saturday night, before the run to Curacao, everyone involved in the trip had a big dinner at Captain Don’s Habitat. It was a chance for people to meet, plus it was a goodbye to Bob, who had contributed so much to the journey’s tenor since St. Lucia, way back in the Windward Islands a million years ago. Idris was named Captain of the Dinghy but ran out of gas twice and had to be towed by some passing sailors. That Sunday I got to go parasailing. It was marvelous. Soon enough, however, Lindsay and Charles arrived on the Liana-Jane, my aunt Susan and her husband Bill were ready to join us for the crossing, and everyone was keyed up to make the run westward to Curacao, a day sail, the boat packed to the gills with family and friends. It was exciting to move on.

3/3

Except for the very beginning, everything went well.

The crew for this stretch would include Idris, of course, my delightful cousin Lindsay (a non-profit consultant from Boston) and her hilarious boyfriend Charles (a self-proclaimed “data wrangler” working in a Boston company that’s been gradually dying for more than a year), as well as my retired nurse aunt Susan from Washington State and her semi-retired husband Bill, a successful investor. The six of us crowded into the cockpit and jostled a bit throughout the crossing. We walked through a number of safety drills before casting off the mooring ball. These included wearing of the PFD’s (the inflating life jackets that second as harnesses for heavy seas), management of a fire, use of the VHF radio, man overboard, abandon ship, and a few others. People seemed to appreciate the practice even if everything seemed perfunctory and alarmist to me. With the engine revving comfortably and the dinghy safely stowed, we set off, steered clear of the harbor’s little island, and opened the jib. It immediately fell off its track and collapsed onto the rolling deck. So much for perfect exits. I asked Lindsay to take the wheel and steer us into the wind while Idris and I rushed to the bow. Charles and Bill manned the jib halyard while I struggled to get the sail back into its track. Just when we had it cranked up a bit, the “pulling up” team’s line caught in their winch. It was a mess. Somehow Charles pulled the line back through. What was left of the jib flapped crazily in the increasing breeze. It seemed unnecessary to direct us back to shore – too much like giving up – but just before I was ready to make that call Charles, Bill, and Idris were able to provide some lift from the freed halyard. We shouted directions for up or down as the sail would slip into its track then slip out again, but finally, inexorably, it was fully in place. Lindsay turned us downwind. The jib let out a breezy sigh and puffed up. Idris made a few adjustments, I engaged the autopilot, and off we went into the open ocean.

The winds averaged about 15 knots all the way to Curacao, setting us 6 knots of speed over ground, supported by about half a knot of current. The waves rolling under us were anywhere from 4 to 8 feet, but harmless in the gentle wind. I played with my new GPS just brought down from the States, and experimented with the radio feature on my new MP3 player. It’s like a little bit of Taiwanese electronica joined as crew those first few hours out. Charles set both fishing lines. One had a little rubber squid and the other some kind of plastic fish bait. Neither seemed too convincing. All we’d ever caught in the last few months was seaweed, which I’d eaten anyway simply out of interest. Susan and I put together a lunch from groceries they’d been nice enough to bring along: fat sandwiches with sliced meat and some of the nicest oranges I’d ever tasted. Charles and Bill experienced minor twinges of seasickness that seemed to pass quickly. Idris appeared to be enjoying the sailing. He was no longer the new guy.

When Curacao appeared on the horizon Bill suggested some jibing to avoid its little island. We dodged to starboard and port a couple of times, ultimately ending up a mile off the southern shore. For someone who mostly just read books about sailing he was certainly knowledgeable. Right then Susan spotted a dark fish chasing after Charles’ squid bait. The waves lifted and we saw that it was almost certainly a shark! No one knew how to deal with that, least of all me. What would we do if it took the bait? Cut the line? Charles jumped up and seemed to have all that under control. That left the rest of us watching the show with open mouths, cameras useless through the blue water. The shark seemed to move forward and sniff the squid, then back off, swimming ferociously just under the surface. No one seemed interested in jumping in to investigate, despite my suggestions to do so, and within a few minutes the shark lost interest and swam off. Charles brought in all the line and we continued on merrily.

As we sailed rapidly along the coast, a mast appeared inland just a bit. We didn’t have a guidebook to explain why but Bill figured from the chart that little lagoons dotted the coast, perfect for safe anchorages out of the wind and waves. Klein Curacao had appeared about when Bonaire had faded on our eastern horizon. A little sandy island bedecked with one spindly lighthouse, it lay now behind us as we turned the Liana-Jane to starboard and continued northwest up Curacao's coast. Our destination was originally the city of Willemstad but discussion in the cockpit was leading toward other, less industrialized areas. We overshot a likely-looking entrance to an extensive, sheltered lagoon called Spaanse Water, on my suggestion, to examine the next bay down. The wind raged up to 25 knots in gusts and threw us around the corner into the little bay, but the shelter was limited, no other “sticks” (sailboats) were present, and holding looked tenuous at best. Lindsay convinced me that we should turn around and motor back to Spaanse Water. We had just pulled in the jib anyway so it was a matter of taking the boat directly into the wind. This done, we barely made headway, aching along at 1.4 knots over ground – a true indicator based on GPS data rather than current or speed through the water. It took at least 45 minutes to backtrack along a stretch of rough beach and rock, now to our port side, that we’d sped past in less than 5 minutes earlier under sail. It struck me as amazing what canvas can do that a 28 horsepower engine cannot.

It also struck me that the rocky beach to our port side had suddenly become a lee shore only 100 feet away. A lee shore is one that we would blow onto if the engine failed. With that wind, we’d only have a minute or so to drop the anchor – which was buried under the dinghy and strapped down four different ways – and save ourselves. I immediately directed us further out to sea and prepared to react, but the trusty Yanmar engine held and we finally curved around to the port side and made the entrance.

Spaanse Water, Dutch for Spanish Waters, is a many-fingered lagoon twisting deeply into Curacao’s underbelly, complete with little beaches, residential areas, some stores and marinas, the local yacht club, and dozens of wild windsurfers flitting by in the steady easterly breezes. There was a beach club off our starboard side as we motored in. The boys on board fought over the binoculars to admire its plethora of bikini girls, although my worry was the tight quarters between speedboats tied off on the beach’s log booms and the rocky port side. It reminded me of Seattle’s annual August Sea Fair Festival, a huge drunken party punctuated with hydroplane races. We explored the various channels a bit in search of some decent anchoring ground, finally settling on an area just off the Sarifundi Marina. Sarifundi was little more than a restaurant and bar with a decent dinghy dock. They offered limited internet access, water, and friendly assistance to other resources in the area. My goal was to see if my computer part had arrived and get the oil changed, even fix the boat’s refrigerator if possible. Everyone worked together fluidly to drop and prep the dinghy. The holding was excellent and the winds so strong and steady we barely arced, something this rig tends to do as its quite a light racing/cruising yacht. There were perhaps two dozen other sailboats of various make similarly anchored; it was a busy place, but quiet enough and comfortable. We were to spend much of the week there. I took Susan and Bill in to shore with all their luggage. They phoned for a taxi and ultimately disappeared into a hotel past the capital city of Willemstad, but came for us the next day in a rental car. Lindsay cooked macaroni and cheese for dinner and we all settled into a rousing game of Cranium.

Idris dominated the field, first as my partner then as Charles’. The game involved a combination of trivia, charades, music, clay modeling, and drawing (sometimes with your eyes closed, sometimes open) in order to win. Idris was both a wealth of knowledge and appeared to have no sense of embarrassment, humming determinedly to help his various partners guess the song. We were in hysterics on and off, mostly on. This became an almost-nightly routine for the next few days. As well, words like “humdinger” entered into our sailing lexicon and competition remained fierce even during the day.

Idris and I explored Willemstad the following morning. Lindsay and Charles spent the day with Bill and Susan, zipping around in their rental car and taking some amazing photos of kite surfers on the island’s northern coast. Willemstad was a busy little city built on the shoulders of oil refining, the supply from Venezuela only 30 miles to the south. Apparently Curacao provided oil to the U.S. and its allies during World War II. There was a fun floating bridge across the entrance run to the inner harbor which would motor open when big ships needed to pass through. Several cruise ships came and went while we were there. Another bridge, 180 feet in the air, provided a more consistent means across to the northwest. Like real tourists, Idris and I bumbled through the busy little streets of Willemstad, asking directions and buying ice cream until we came to the general post office. My computer part had not arrived. Gee, what a surprise? We settled into an internet café and I learned that Dell had never sent it in the first place. At the end of the day, we took a bus back to Sarifundi and met a boat captain who had just arrived from Antigua. Alex, from South Africa originally, owned a 62 foot Russian trawler converted to a sailboat of industrial strength and charged backpackers $30 a day to sail around the world. At one point he walked most of the way around Africa in bare feet. He was on his third circumnavigation, then, with his wife and two excitable children. Alex gave us a ride out to the Salamandra and a tour, of which the engine impressed us the most – such a spacious engine room, clean parts, well organized. The Liana-Jane paled in comparison. Idris was particularly interested in the young ladies aboard from England who Alex described in glowing terms. We made arrangements to meet up later and invite some of them to our dinghy’s christening the next evening. Alex’s brand new nanny seemed a bit troubled by the arrangements.

The dinghy christening was a happily formal event. If we’d had fancy clothes we would have dressed up, for sure. As the captain of the dinghy, Idris put together all the particulars, said “argh” a lot like a true pirate, and made sure we had an egg prepared to smash on its little rubber bow. He and Charles stood in the “Thingy” as it was called while I smashed the egg. Cold beer was passed around. Speeches were made. I’d never had so many people crowded into the cockpit at one time.

In the meantime, I was canvassing the area for someone to help me do some engine maintenance. There were concerns about the transmission possibly leaking and we needed an oil change pretty badly. The refrigerator, as previously mentioned, had a part brought down from the States by Susan and Bill – most everyone was eager to get that working. A former Olympic swimmer and current small-time boat trader named Ben proved to be just the ticket. He and I spent most of a day working on the engine.

The morning after the christening found us, to everyone’s utter surprise, dragging our anchor. A woman on a boat just downwind was shouting something unintelligible. Lindsay jumped to the cockpit and yelled, “Ward! We’re off our anchor!” and I sprang up. We started the engine immediately. It was a simple process to move forward, raise the anchor, and – instead of resetting it – head over to the marina to fill up on water, since we were suddenly up and about.

The landing there was particularly tricky. Sarifundi Marina has a small dinghy dock parallel to the entrance and the water is quite shallow, although clear. Directly to our approaching starboard side was a tied up wishbone-boomed sailboat, which limited our maneuverability quite a bit. I took the helm and directed Idris to tie two lines off the bow. My original plan was to angle up to the dock and use a stern line to pull us in, but it became too shallow too quickly. The last minute plan involved dropping Idris off from the bow pulpit onto the dock, so he could quickly tie us and pull the boat in. Instead, Idris was left hanging precariously from the pulpit as the wind buffeted us around. He looked like some simian attempt at a sailor hanging with his ankles in the water swinging helplessly and, as he explained to me later, felt that way too, but ultimately we managed to tie off and sway gently with the breeze. Water was practically free and afterwards we anchored again, with lots of scope (a ratio of the amount of rode, or chain and line, to the depth of the water). The mooring was so interesting that I took a photo.

Charles became the boat’s “grillmaster” for the next few nights. He was the only one able to fire up the barbeque and his marinated chicken really hit the spot. When the day finally came to clear out and start thinking about our night sail to Aruba, Idris and I made another trip to Willemstad. This time we took the bus both ways, filling up on delicious Indian chicken and shrimp roti on the ride in. The residential areas around town were neatly laid out and well-tended. Apparently a lot of Dutch retire there. In the customs office we met another skipper who offered us a ride to the immigration office just over the floating pontoon bridge. Of course, we heartily accepted, then spent a good hour and half trying to get there. It turns out that it’s virtually impossible to drive to this spot – we went about fifteen miles north of the city at one point. When we finally came back to the starting point, it was a quick walk, laughing much of the way. I promised him I’d write something about it. This delay waylaid our plans to leave that night, disappointing Lindsay who was ready to go, but we took the boat to that delightful beach with the log boom instead to spend our last day swimming and relaxing. The captain from yesterday was there with his crew. At one point Idris was using the toilet – a “man overboard” situation, he explained later – right as I came swimming out to the boat. He described this as “another example of life imitating Caddyshack” but my frenzied shouting brought some laughs from other bathers. I immediately showered.

The night sail was a complete success. Our plan was to slip out past the beach through the lagoon entrance only 150 feet away and make for open water to the west. We used the spotlight just to be safe and were on our way by about 7 PM, not long after sunset. There were more fishing boats than I expected and two giant oil tankers standing offshore for the night, their many lights made them look like small cities. We sailed right through them and set our watches, Lindsay and me until midnight, Charles and Idris until four, and so on until our planned arrival at 10 AM or so. We went through safety drills again just to make sure everyone had their roles in place. The first couple of hours involved roughly paralleling the Curacao coast along a northwest track. This meant gradually pulling further and further away until the island’s lights disappeared over the horizon leaving only an increasingly faint glow. Lindsay was unable to sleep in her cabin with Charles – too stuffy – and Charles made a bed for himself on the starboard bunk until he came crashing out on the floor. I’m not sure they enjoyed their first night sail. The stars were bushels full of scattered diamonds on a black velvet cape. They were the visual highlight of the crossing. Lindsay and I were on the dawn watch, a gentle rising from the sea that warmed the deck and burned off the evening’s shadows. Lindsay was great at the helm during our watches – I usually set the autopilot and messed around with my MP3 player when it was my turn on the wheel. It was interesting how the amount of radio stations decreased as we left Curacao, fell to zero 30 miles out, then picked up again when we were 10 miles or so offshore. Somewhere in there my cabin door fell off.

3/8

We picked up speed as we came further up the southern coast just after dawn. Downwind runs are notoriously fast, but we came closer to a previous speed record of 9.5 knots just as we passed an industrial area, a smokestack forest belching black fumes. One of the stacks looked just like an ICBM. We continued building speed as the waves dropped a bit. The wind maintained 25 knots. Under the jib alone on that starboard run the speed over ground indicator showed 9.5 – there was some celebration – then continued climbing. The airport swept by on our starboard side and at 9.8 knots, a pleasant little island just off from there at 9.9, and we broke 10 knots just as we pulled into a tiny little harbor surrounded by stores and a casino. At this moment, my little crew was at the peak of their skills. While I stayed on the helm and made tight little circles, Idris, Charles, and Lindsay brought the dinghy down and tied it off, then prepared to set lines. The marina had a few spaces open but we would have to back in. When I gave the word, the crew dropped the primary anchor about 60 feet out, I continued bow first until we couldn’t any more, then swung the stern around and started to back in. We fought against the wind but appeared to be making slow, steady headway, swinging slightly one way or the other. Lindsay and Idris stood ready with long dock lines, which they threw to a couple of waiting workers, and all of a sudden we were safely in, the anchor holding us off.

The city, Oranjestad, was basically a tourist shopping mall. The marina supervisor was friendly and helpful as I started the clearing in process, walking by stores like Baskin & Robbins and Subway with my mouth agape, delighted to have access to such amenities after a long trip elsewhere. I got lost, naturally, but finally found immigration and customs over by the cruise ship dock. The staff were incredibly nice. The immigration officer even invited me into his car to drive back to the marina so I could get the crew’s proper addresses. I laughed, of course, and just wrote that they all lived with me in upstate New York, climbed out of his car, and returned to the boat. Every license plate said “One Happy Island.” We spent the day enjoying the Renaissance hotel’s recreation facilities – part of the very reasonable marina charge – which included watching a wedding take place at their lagoon beach. We all took photos of that happy moment. Seaport Harbor had palm trees with electrical plugs; I couldn’t believe it. The internet café became a frequent spot, as well as the hotel’s private island we’d passed on the way in. Such luxury! Uniformed captains made runs to the island and back every fifteen minutes in fancy 25 foot diesels. There were ice cream drinks brought right to your lawn chair on the sand. I remember thinking that if I lived a good life and actually believed in heaven, this is how it would be. The crew and I flew our stunt kite, admired the tame flamingos, and took photos of multitudinous green and yellow lizards. A pharmacist from Pennsylvania seemed interested in joining us for the rest of the sailing trip and showed his savvy with the stunt kite. He would have been perfectly welcome. I certainly knew the feeling: that overwhelming desire to pull up roots and set sail on the blue waters.

3/10

Lindsay and Charles took us to a terrifically fancy Japanese dinner and many speeches were made. It was their last night aboard. Idris fell in love with a bartender named Natalie, “the hot Columbian” who turned out to be married. Charles and I had our long-awaited push-up competition on the concrete next to her bar. I was baffled with Charles’ natural athleticism. That guy can do anything. That night we played our final round of Cranium. Lindsay and I swept Idris and Charles away, then let them win in a quick rematch since Lindsay was pooped out. We had all the easy ones anyway: make a turtle out of clay, act out the word paparazzi. Who could lose to that? The two of them flew out the next day with healthy tans and pleasant memories. Idris and I worked with a local electrician to shore up some sparking behind the electrical panel. Afterward he drove us to a place to fix my cabin door hinges. Those guys would eventually get one hinge done before it was time to make the Jamaican run, but that was about max, it looked like. Within a couple of days Idris and I met up with my parents, the same ones from earlier dispatches about the Leeward Islands. It was wonderful to see them and begin our preparations for the five to seven day passage all the way across the Caribbean Sea. They treated us to more fancy meals out. We showed them our 99 cent breakfast, took them to the Renaissance’s private island for kite flying and flamingos, and ultimately put all the details together for the hard push northward.

It seemed that everyone was ready to go except for me. I picked up the hint. Idris would stare at me over his current book and my parents seemed disappointed that I wanted to wait until Saturday. Leaving meant giving up on the computer part from Dell (they continued to struggle with basic customer service skills) and sending it to my friend Sven in New Haven. My quick trip to the local post office took the entire afternoon before we left. We had plenty of groceries, however. The weather report was good. The boat was fully fueled up beforehand and the water topped off. It was time to go. As dusk approached on Friday, March 14^th, we set off to cross the ocean.