Dispatches from the Caribbean – Second Leg

(3^rd update out of 3)

3/14

The longest and most difficult stretch of the entire Caribbean circumnavigation lay before me like a soggy red carpet, both uncomfortable to walk upon but inviting by nature.

We had been docked in beautiful and magnetic Aruba, what amounted to a shopping mall marina with the comforts and conveniences of a home – it was hard to sail away from that, yet it seemed that everyone was ready to go except for me. I eventually picked up the hint. Idris would stare at me over his current book and Lowell and Diane seemed disappointed that I wanted to wait until Saturday. Leaving meant giving up on resolving my computer issue with Dell (they continued to struggle with basic customer service skills) and sending it to my friend Sven in New Haven. We had plenty of groceries, however. The weather report was good; it said there was a low pressure area over the center of the Caribbean, which would probably mean calm seas and low wind at some point. The boat was fully fueled up beforehand and the water topped off. It was time to go. War was hanging over the horizon back in the Middle East and we expected it to blow apart while we were at sea. As dusk approached on Friday, March 14^th, we set off to cross the ocean.

The journey would take four nights and five days, a total of 115 hours. We would cover about 735 statute, or regular, miles, which amounted to 520 nautical miles. Nautical miles are based on the earth’s latitude. Here’s the explanation: The distance from the south pole to the north pole is divided into evenly-spaced sections, which are then divided into minutes and seconds of distance. Each “second” is one nautical mile of distance. A knot, then, is the speed required to cover one nautical mile. We were to average about 120 nautical miles every 24 hours of sailing. Our journey was to take us from Aruba, northwest to Kingston, Jamaica. There was nothing in the way until the very end, some shoals off the southeastern Jamaican coast to be widely avoided. Ocean depths would quickly drop off to 15,000 feet and stay that way most of the trip.

Diane would describe it as the most terrifying adventure she ever undertook, as we would be spilled around the boat in the high seas and disagree somewhat with navigation choices. Lowell would turn out to be the unofficial chef, Idris a steady and reliable hand on the wheel. My watch plan would turn out to be well-designed: Lowell and Idris would take the 4 PM to 8 PM shift, Diane and I the “midnight watch” after that, Lowell and Idris from midnight to 4 AM, then Diane and I from 4 AM until just after dawn. During the day, Lowell and Idris had 8 AM until noon and Diane and I covered the afternoon watch until 4 PM. The cycle would then repeat itself. No one ever had more than 4 hours to sleep, but we could rest as necessary during our watches through agreement with the other watch partner. As the most confident sailor, I would stay with the least confident, plus Mom and I always had a lot to chat about. Lowell and Idris could handle anything the sea dished out, which would let me rest in comfort.

We started the engine and untied the dock lines. Idris and Lowell pulled up the dinghy and lashed it down as I circled the boat in the little harbor. The tie-down strap had disappeared so we spent some time digging around for it as the boat pulled out into the heavier winds of the Trades, quickly 25 knots off our starboard quarter where it would be for most of the trip. Some catamarans crossed our path, coming into the harbor for the night, and a cruise ship, docked like a huge beached white whale on the pier, loomed over us to starboard. We were alone within half an hour. The sun quickly set. We powered up the lights and equipped the first watch with PFD’s (personal flotation devices with harnesses). Lowell and Idris settled in until 8 PM. I brought up the main on a double reef and let out all the canvas on the jib to begin experimenting with various sail configurations. Our compass light became the first casualty of the crossing – no problem as we had the autopilot readout and could always flip on a flashlight and check our bearing. The darkening sky was partly cloudy.

Our course was almost dead north, on several assumptions, as our actual bearing was west-northwest: First, there was an approximate 1 knot westerly current. Second, as wave heights increased we’d be blown westward in tiny increments on a constant basis. And third, on a sailboat, any distance you can make into the wind direction is “money in the bank” to be spent on an easy run downwind when you need it more. The seas were relatively calm at first, five foot swells that increased steadily to nine feet within an hour out, lengthening in the deeper water and stabilizing as we continued. Diane had bought us all a big pizza and salads for the first night out, so we munched away and felt pretty confident. At 8 PM we’d made about 19 miles already and were getting used to the movement. I felt a tiny bit queasy but Diane was really struggling. I applied a transdermal patch and suggested she take motion-sickness tablets, which she ultimately did. She felt better within 24 hours.

When our watch began at 8 PM, the wind and waves appeared to have stabilized enough to engage the autopilot, at least for a while. It was coming at us at 18 to 23 knots. Within half an hour the autopilot couldn’t hold our course and I took the helm. Diane described the boat’s action out there in the wide-open sea as corkscrewing. The bow would drop to port surfing down a wave, the stern following and twisting us sideways, then the bow would jerk to starboard as the craft righted itself and climbed the next wave. All this happened on a steady left tip from the east wind. It’s no kidding that long journeys into the ocean are not pleasant, the boat tossed about unceasingly, surfing down waves, slamming into the next one, tipping to the left then swinging back again to the right, repeating the whole thing again. We were tossed around like marbles in a tin can down below, but could lean back or lie down on the seats above deck in the cockpit. At night it got cold in the wind, the spray sometimes tossing in on us, the constant moisture everpresent – nothing could get dry even when hung up down below out of the spray. I must have planned 20 little projects to do but got nothing done, the motivation sapped by our little world’s unsteadiness. That seemed to be the case for the whole crew.

Diane and I talked about our many topics of mutual interest. I spent some time securing hatches and cupboards, the bilge down below unable to pump out 2 or 3 cups of seawater as we were so tilted to port. We ran the engine, and every watch tried to make sure we ran it, purring happily, every 6 to 8 hours. Lowell and Idris conked right out down below, trusting Diane and I not to screw anything up too much. At 10:30 a tanker appeared to the northwest, crossing back over the horizon within an hour. We hand sailed almost the entire watch, Diane taking short turns so I could rest, even though she didn’t feel comfortable at all. She would start to relax on our dawn watch, but her profound sense of fear never faded until we were safely anchored in Jamaica, unfortunately for her. Lowell and Idris took over at midnight, trading turns at the wheel. Lying in my bunk below the cockpit, I could hear them laughing and telling stories. Morale was good with the crew – Diane excepted, but she would get into the swing of things – and I fell asleep.

3/15

We were awakened just in time for the moonset. Dad simply rapped on my cabin roof. The moon disappeared into a high bank of clouds with a deep pale yellow sigh. The practice of getting the next watch up 10 minutes before had begun in earnest. It was hard to climb out of my warm bed in the rolling swells, sleep in my eyes. Mom was cold and wished she had brought warmer clothes. She was so surprised by the Caribbean’s winds out on the water, something I’d been taking for granted after other night sails, the sea’s warmth by day a fickle phenomenon. Mom and I talked a lot more, taking turns on the helm as she started to feel a bit better. The bioluminescence was like little diamonds in the water. Diane would peek over the edge at their twinkling shapes flashing along the hull. The stars really filled up the sky without the full moon’s bright insistence. Later, dawn lit up the east imperceptively, those first moments of awareness dragging on, the first glimmer that it was coming almost a rumor before the truth.

We were getting buffeted by rollers straight off the Atlantic at that point, rising to twelve or fifteen feet in places. Steering on the helm meant keeping the wind off our beam at about ninety degrees. I set up a system where the anemometer needle determined my steering direction: if it went left of 90, I turned us to port, right of ninety meant a turn to starboard. It was just mindless enough to work for long boring stretches. Checking the boat over I found a little flying fish washed up on the starboard deck, its wing diaphanous and delicate, like a moth’s, it’s little bullet head a solid mass. Diane and I saved it for the crew coming up at 8 AM.

When Lowell came on, he found it, looked at it, and threw it overboard. So much for that. Idris rubbed his eyes and asked what was going on. I made cereal for everyone, jouncing around in the galley, bracing myself wherever I could, and somewhere in there Diane slammed into the counter and seriously bruised herself on the “flank;” she said, “I was glad to have plenty of padding there”. We all fell sideways from time to time. Water washed over the bow periodically. I cleaned up a bit and went to bed in my cabin, pretty bushed, still adjusting to the watch system. It already seemed like days had passed.

There was some leaking in the forward cabin from rollers we’d knock into, rogue waves and such tossing us terrifically and unexpectedly. Lowell and Diane were pretty uncomfortable up there until they figured out how to seal their hatch better. Still, with the dinghy lashed right above them, you think that would have stopped a lot of the water. Lunch was hot clam chowder that Lowell put together during his watch with Idris. It tasted marvelous, creamy and nourishing, our stomachs knotted but empty, and he was the hero of the day. By dusk that night our first 24 hours had amounted to 130 miles and a snootful of solid bluewater sailing experience. Idris and Lowell were doing a good job of sharing the wheel. Diane and I were getting better at that, but I’d begun to experiment with the autopilot – which we called “Otto” appreciatively – and was having some luck when the waves weren’t too high and the winds too gusty. Our noon to 4 PM watch was comfortable, the clam chowder an empowering experience, yet I was overcome with laziness regarding any serious work in the galley, comfortable with a tin bucket of crackers and some peanut butter it seemed.

The sun boomed overhead. With such steady wind tossing us northward, the days seemed cool and comfortable. Diane described the water out there – so deep already as the middle of the Caribbean grew closer – as sleet gray, like the inside of a heavy rainstorm, with white spray foam spittled about oddly. The sky was low with thick clouds and a bit of blue, gray on the horizons, just enough to blur the distant distinction between water and sky. We were so utterly alone, but occasionally birds would appear, the kinds that live for weeks at a time far off from land, skirting the waves and dashing about, mostly paying little attention to us. Diane spotted a short tailed tropic bird during our noon watch; it skipped off to the northeast. She said about the Caribbean out at sea, “It doesn’t feel like the same ocean.” I knew just what she meant.

Our watches continued consistently for the rest of the voyage. There was enough overlap between them for socialization, checking in, a little time for my parents to reacquaint themselves as they’re wont to do. It was good that they were on separate watches for their own sleeping comfort, wet mattress aside. During our watches, Diane and I talked mostly about people, about family, about how events insinuate themselves into our lives and future plans, and a lot about personality and temperament as a useful or careless tool to understand others. Lowell and Idris, on the other hand, talked about things: electric cars, sailing superstitions, the economics of war, stories of their heritages, politics and the coming storms in the Middle East, and such. They spotted a tanker during their evening watch that night, following its movement from the horizon, across our path, and back to the other horizon over a period of several hours. I’m sure they discussed its lighting, speed, the crew and whether anyone was at the helm, things like that. Apparently the tanker called to us a few times on the VHF then. They were a great pair working together successfully.

During our midnight shift – and regularly – we drank Sprites from the refrigerator, keeping it stocked from an abundant supply stashed in a shelf. Mom made roll-up sandwiches of salami, cucumber, and cream cheese that hit the spot. A discussion ensued about landfall concerns: southeastern Jamaica sports some dangerous coral banks about 15 miles offshore, including Morant Bank, right in our path. We didn’t have detailed charts but were able to obtain a GPS position and plot it out. It was directly between our boat and Kingston. We would likely encounter it during a night shift. I discussed our best course with the crew and had everyone get familiar with the LCD below, where you could see the bank approaching relative to our boat. We talked about alternative landfalls, ultimately settling on little Bowden Bay just off the very southeastern corner of the island; that would put us far enough east of the bank and it meshed well with our northerly course. Diane wanted to get there as soon as possible – she was not having much fun.

Morale was still pretty good, though. Everyone was taking safety seriously, wearing their PFD’s when in the cockpit and not going elsewhere on deck, certainly not without a harness attached. People were looking out for their watch partners, each other, and getting comfortable maintaining handholds when down below. It was that or a nice bruise – very Pavlovian. The wave heights dropped to five feet maximum, long gentle swells instead of roving towers of water, and we could use Otto 70 or 80 percent of the time, which helped everyone relax considerably. We figured this was due to the island of Hispaniola blocking the Atlantic surges. Diane and I had a leisurely watch, resting a good bit, looking around. We took some photos of ourselves and I checked the engine’s fluids, ultimately adding oil – too much actually – but noting that the transmission oil was fine, an ongoing worry from earlier in the trip. The coolant overflow was empty but I could feel water under the engine-top cap and it wouldn’t’ take any more water. I read Popular Science. During our dawn watch, things were quiet enough that Diane curled up in the bow cabin with Lowell while I listened to my MP3 player and cleaned up around deck. For one crucial moment, as I pulled up a bucket of seawater, the MP3 player slipped out of my PFD pocket, just tapped the restraining line, and tumbled into the water below. The headphones were left hanging in the morning breeze. Some true sailor profanity ensued. I imagined my delightful little music player sinking for long hours to the sea’s bottom, crushing under the pressure, and felt like an idiot for not protecting it better.

3/16

As Lowell and Idris took over that morning, and later Diane and I during the afternoon, we were using both the boat’s GPS and my new handheld to confirm our course regularly. People were getting quite comfortable with the equipment. The current and wind/wave effect seemed to be pushing us steadily westward even as we maintained a course perpendicular to the wind direction. The wind – that bonny constant presence – had died to about 13 knots average and we opened the jib up, having dropped the mainsail earlier when it had been gusting to 30 knots on the first day out. The jib was full enough, pushing us forward rhythmically through the rollers. Diane and I came up with a watch team name: The Character Builders, for my usual response to her discomforts with, “Hey, this is sailing. It builds character.” She wanted to push me overboard a few times.

We set the easterly wind off the starboard aft quarter to push us a bit more to the west, but during their watch afterward Lowell and Idris turned us back to the north. Diane was discouraged to discover this when we took over again, as it appeared to set us much further away, the boat plowing forward inexorably toward Haiti; she was discouraged and not interested in how it could instead build everyone’s character. It was time, then to begin the curve westward around the Morant Bank, heading almost directly downwind and avoiding a jibe on the jib sail, our only real wind concern. With the turn, we all noticed a change in the boat’s motion relative to the waves. Otto was careful with our direction but sometimes the jib would luft a bit and we’d make slight corrections from the autopilot console. We were heading north-northwest at 330 degrees. Diane heated up Chicken Kiev rolls with broccoli on the stove in little rolls of aluminum foil, which were delicious. Any decent food tasted gourmet under the circumstances.

That afternoon Idris dozed with his earplugs in, sprawled out on his port side bunk, Lowell murmuring from the forward cabin. Diane and I enjoyed the sunshine and chatted about life. The seascape was empty in every direction, the ocean constantly shifting its character. Some long rollers from the southeast poured under us and spilled toward Jamaica as we crossed the 100-mile point from landfall, according to the GPS readings. Diane was excited about that, starting to feel like she wasn’t going to die there on the ocean but actually see hills and people again. Little spits of spray bobbed on the surface, black fragmented ripples contrasting with the slate blue color of the water. Touching it – when cleaning out the cockpit or washing dishes in a bucket of it – it was deceivingly warm, having looked like the North Atlantic to us, grayish and windswept.

At 3 PM, Idris and I decided to take a swim. The boat was barely making 4 knots. We tied 50 feet of line off a cleat and jumped in, hanging on for our lives immediately afterward, our shorts making every effort to pool around our ankles. I returned to the cockpit to slow the boat down by taking in all but a napkin of jib, jumping back in the warm water merrily. Diane took a swim as well. Dad cheered us on from the cockpit. It was frightening to think that 16,000 feet of water, straight down, separated us from the ocean floor, and I pretended to be shark bait. Dad cooked up a seemingly-complicated dinner of hamburger, macaroni, rice, and tomato. We all ate together as the sun set, pleased to see the miles-to-go ticking into the 90’s, bouncing and jolting around in the cockpit grabbing dishes and pots before they toppled off the table.

The wind maintained 8 to 15 knots. We continued our gentle curve more and more to the west around the Morant Cays, our closest to nearby Haiti about 60 miles then due north. When Diane and I started our midnight watch I fired up a computer game called Alpha Centauri, so engrossing and mind numbing that the rest of the sailing became a complex blur. I was quickly at war with Chairman Yang of the Hans over some territory in my growing empire; this I shared regularly with Diane as we plotted strategy together to overcome his imperialistic tendencies while developing an industrial and technological base on an alien planet. It was high adventure on the high seas. Diane retired from that watch at 11 PM – I barely noticed, checking the horizon every 10 minutes with starry eyes.

3/17

I awakened a sleepy, fumbling Idris at midnight and gave him my PFD. I was currently at a truce with Chairman Yang and it was safe to get some sleep, but that battle would get uglier during our dawn watch. I gave the report: winds averaging 14 knots, speed 6 knots, jib fully open, no passing vessels. Lowell must have joined Idris in the cockpit and I settled into a bouncy cabin below, flopping around with the rolling seas until exhaustion grabbed and pulled me down into sleep. Next thing, someone was rapping on my door and I was getting dressed, stepping up into a wet cockpit. Diane was already there, playing with the GPS. Morant Cays was still far off but we expected to skirt them by 10 miles to the north and begin our approach into southeastern Jamaica. Since our course had wavered so far east, Kingston was no longer a practical landfall. Diane skimmed through our limited little cruising guide and found Bowden Bay, on the very southeast corner of that great green island. It said we could clear in there through customs and immigration.

The winds remained moderate, the swells reducing a bit. I tried to rest some on the watch but found myself dwelling on the situation with Chairman Yang, ultimately firing up Diane’s laptop and continuing my progress there. There wasn’t much else to do. Diane watched for boats, pointed out constellations above, and commented on my growing tendency to commit atrocities in the game. Numerous parallels were made to the escalating situation in the Persian Gulf, which led to a discussion about my role as an army reservist and an officer in a combat support hospital. I remember wondering what Lowell and Idris talked about, but for sure Diane and I covered just about every topic. It was fun to have her as my watch partner, especially as she was feeling better, less scared, and nursing her (very extensive) bruise from the galley counter.

We watched the sun rise in the east just after the moon set to the southwest. It was spectacular, as usual. Not long after we made the first intended jibe of the trip, turning around an imaginary point well clear of the Morant Cays and heading due west to Bowden Bay only 40 miles away. We were running the motor continually now for the autopilot and making good headway. Lowell and Idris’ watch was uneventful. The only excitement was a mermaid combing her hair on a wave, as Lowell described Diane. She filed his fingernails and he returned the favor by painting her toes – they were a pretty cute couple then.

I awakened around 10 AM baked down below by the hot engine. Since the wind was almost directly on our stern it didn’t cool the boat so effectively; it would average 15 knots with gusts to 20 for the rest of the crossing. The sun was beating down, the sky partly cloudy, the water now a thick crystalline blue – it seemed counterintuitive but there was no other way to describe it, both thick and crystalline. Our speed over ground was mostly 6 knots, although 7 occurred a bit as I opened the jib up all the way to take advantage. Diane followed the computer’s “time until destination” estimates diligently, even if they fluctuated wildly between 5 hours and 12 hours and whatnot. Lowell made a pasta salad with onions, olives, and pepperoni. During our afternoon responsibilities in the cockpit, Diane’s watch broke. We talked about how alone it felt to be sailing across a big ocean, your little world boiled down to a fiberglass canoe and people you cared about. We were slippery with the constant moisture, sticky with salt particles, dirty from struggling around grappling everything and not having a shower as often as we should.

Gusts would swing the bow to port but Otto would gradually work it back. The miles ticked by. There were hardly any birds as we came closer to landfall. That evening I napped and had an odd dream that, when I told Diane about it during our midnight watch, she laughed and confused me. It had all made perfect sense earlier. I wanted to fall back to sleep and sort everything out but couldn’t get comfortable on the cockpit bench, Diane staring into the darkness looking for the first signs of land. Chairman Yang beckoned. Pretty soon I was at war with everybody in my game and things looked hopeless. Just for fun, we dropped the bimini top and sailed under a canopy of stars. Diane bagged out just at dawn, exhausted, and curled up with Lowell in the forward cabin. I was alone on deck when the mountains of Jamaica appeared over the horizon, their green silhouettes blurring indistinctly into the clouds and gray ocean.

We had arrived.