Dispatches from the Caribbean – Third Leg

(1^st update out of 3)

3/21

The five day crossing from Aruba to Jamaica was an object in our rear view mirror for Lowell, Diane, Idris, and I, not something immediately in front of us any more but still very present. We were exhausted by it. The feeling of being drained completely out then only filled up a tiny bit with the excitement of successful arrival, that was it. We breathed in the lushness and smoky air of land again like fresh oxygen. I found myself staring so deeply into the jungle underbrush, picking out tiny green details and following vines up into trees, that I wondered if I’d ever really seen a jungle before, absorbed it, dwelled on it the way moneylenders count change.

We landed on the first tip of land we could gather to us, the tiny harbor of Bowden Bay, only a few miles from Port Morant, on Jamaica’s southeast corner. The water was a white-gray. The bay was a bathtub, the taps a little river running past oyster farms, mixing with the Caribbean’s crystal blue, the drain a brown-cliff exit out to sea. Our guidebook talked up the yacht club, a disappointing concrete pier with a long ruined dock paralleling the shoreline. There were a few small yachts tied up stern-to for some kind of annual deep sea fishing contest starting that Friday. We were hungry for news on the Middle East, and eager to set foot on anything solid. Idris and I unstrapped the dinghy. Too excited to hook on the motor, we used the oars like paddles and had a little contest struggling into the dock. It occurred to me, then, that none of the crew had slept more than three and a half hours at a time in almost a week, and I’d been up since 4 AM that day. Still, I joked with Idris about coming home, about he was half-Jamaican (his answer: “from the waist down”) and he started ending all his sentences with “mon.” We were in good moods greeting the fellows who worked or just hung around Bowden Bay Yacht Club. They called up the authorities to get us cleared in and we spotted their little portable black and white TV, found out about the president’s ultimatum to Saddam Hussein over in Iraq. Well, at least war hadn’t actually started yet.

It was hard to tell which arriving officers were which – either customs, immigration, or something else – but they were all keenly surprised to be taken to the boat in our little dinghy. At least we had the motor on by then. I took photos of the whole gang sitting awkwardly around the cockpit, extremely friendly and courteous, explaining ultimately that we had all our papers in order and there was nothing left to do. I drove them back – the three men, uniformed and black-shoed, anxiously peering over the side – with me wearing nothing but a bathing suit and deep tan, smiling at them, fish out of water.

Idris and I hired a taxi guide the next day to the aptly-named Bath Fountain, a hot springs in the hill nearby. Idris didn’t want to go – living in Central America he’d “seen enough hot springs for a lifetime.” How could you see enough hot springs for a lifetime? We took photos of the impoverished little town, sadly-dressed Jamaican locals shuffling along the roadside, shambling homes on stilts wedged into the hilliest spots. The jungle pressed close. Our car tore along the left side of the road, beeping regularly. Its radiator overheated on the way up and I took photos of Idris with jungle backgrounds. The air held the smoke from burning fields close to us, almost cradling, a swaddling baby fussing for our noses’ attention. During his brief photo session Idris made faces. It was more serious at the entrance to the hot springs, soon after, where we were immediately set upon by “guides” who refused to leave us alone. Three of them accompanied us – which was their right, it was a national park – even after I explained in no uncertain terms that we’d rather just go on alone. The hike was a quarter mile, beautiful and raw. One of them chatted amiably with Idris while I ignored him, pissed off at the guy, and it was the only ruinous part of the excursion: the hot springs was scalding water emptying out of a cliff side into a cold stream, the resulting polarities both singular and refreshing. Jungle soared up above us. I wanted to explore further up a path but our harassing escort started getting racial, calling me a “black George Bush” (which only left me stumped); Idris recognized the beginning of a significant problem. We both gripped our cans of mace and returned to the entrance. The same guy harangued us about buying drinks from some lady and giving him money but just as we climbed into our taxi a tour bus came up and we were quickly forgotten. That man left a bad taste in my mouth that was to persevere until the day I left Jamaica behind, as it turned out. What a shame.

On the way back we stopped to take photos of some flowers and realized we were at a cooperative farm, the women hoeing and tending simple crops of vegetables, herbs, and some fruits. Idris and I were enthralled. The women – and a couple of guys – were delightful, amazed at my digital camera and keen to show us around. It was a real high point. We learned on our ride through the countryside that Jamaicans burned their sugar cane crops on a constant basic infusing the atmosphere with smoke like burning leaves, the taste bitter and everpresent.

After another day of rest and swimming there, we filled up on water and raised anchor. It was time to sail around the lumpy eastern tip of Jamaica and explore the little-traveled northeast. We made a long day of real sailing, first passing out of the harbor, clearing the pretty brown cliffs, and curling to the north past the rusted bow of a wrecked steel carrier from the 1970’s. The lighthouse off our port side was the first one ever built in Jamaica, apparently, a giant steel cone big starting at 18 feet across (or something like that) gradually dwindling to 12 feet on top, red and white-striped like a barber’s shop. Within a few hours of steady 15 knot easterlies we were clearing the gentle northeast coast of Jamaica and heading west. Bluish mountains faded into the distance in the interior. It was the biggest, most complicated-looking island I’d seen on the whole trip, rife with interesting incongruities: clear ocean air clashing with cane-burning smoke, vegetation so abundant you could make it a buffet and never buy groceries again. I wondered about the country, the people’s slow laid back movements but wild driving habits. My eyes were always wide in Jamaica. Meanwhile, the wind puffed a bit then died. We have been four days in Jamaica and hadn’t seen another sailboat, perhaps this was why?

For fun, then, Lowell, Idris, and I decided to rig the spinnaker. A spinnaker is a gigantic billowing sail made of light parachute material. It’s ideal for running with a low wind, as we were just then. It’s pulled all the way up the mast on a spare halyard, tied at the base of the forestay just above the bow of the boat, and sheeted in through the jib tracks. Of course, with all our fussing and laughing as we attempted to figure this thing out, we hoisted it upside down. It’s kept wrapped in a tube of material that looks like nothing else in the world but a gigantic condom, then pulled out – and later doused – by using this sheath. If there had been another way to screw it up we would have done it, but by the time two good hours were wasted we managed to at least get it to work a bit. Diane was disgusted with the whole process; perhaps it was a “guy thing.” We had a good time.

We continued sailing along the northern coast with the famous but rarely-visited Blue Hole approaching to port. The sun was beating down on the boat like a vise. Idris and I had a push-up competition and probably no one drank enough water. We had no idea how tired and punch drunk we were until later, as each of us looked through our sketchy chart of the little harbor. It said there was a narrow but clear channel into the safety of a quiet, sand-bottomed harbor, which opened further in to a round, deep-green, fresh-water grotto almost 200 feet deep. We were excited to wrap up a day of perfect sailing. Lowell was zonked out in the forward cabin and the three of us were primed to bring it in safely.

Here’s where the mistakes began that would lead to one of the sailing journey’s lowest and most frightening moments: 1) As we motored through the passage into the harbor, I set Idris on the bow to watch for reefs, but the water was so clear he couldn’t measure their depth very well; he had little experience with what was an acceptable depth and what was not, 2) I asked Diane to navigate our entrance while I manned the helm, but we were far more tired than we thought and the chart lacked most useful details, 3) I didn’t ask Dad to come up and be a fourth set of eyes, 4) as we approached the apparent channel and the depth dropped to 2 meters – even as I started the swinging the boat around to get us away – I turned back to starboard and followed Idris’ directions instead of my own instincts, and 5) we approached much too late in the day with little useful underwater light and no one up on the mast spreaders to note that the channel was actually 30 feet off our port side. Coral appeared below, rising closer and closer to the water’s surface, beautiful but deadly, as we continued chugging forward at 2 knots.

First the keel struck coral with a sickening thunk, knocking over pans in the galley and smacking us all in the head with the realization that we were about to run aground, on coral no less, which – along with rocks – is the most dangerous and destructive force known to sailboats, near land at least. The wind, now about 15 knots, and our momentum, continued to push us forward further onto the reef. I could see small waves breaking onshore just 30 feet off our starboard side, and reef everywhere in the water, no obvious direction to go except for straight through it another 15 feet into the clear blue of the bay. As the captain and pilot, I followed my instincts and tried to punch through, to move forward instead of back the way we’d come. Wrong move. Not that there was much else we could have done; turning around would have grounded us just as well, and the wind remained a driving force, but there we were, suddenly smashing into reef directly below the hull, coral banging on the rudder, jerking the wheel sideways unexpectedly, and no obvious route. I could see freedom practically within jumping distance from the bow, though! The whole bolt jolted and shook with each wave pounding us down on the coral below.

First I tried maneuvering through it as everyone scrambled around the boat, clinging to lines and supports, but to no avail. Then I grabbed Lowell and we unceremoniously hurled the dinghy over the port side, installed Idris in it, and lowered the spare anchor in with him from the bow. There seemed to be no time to put the dinghy engine on. I directed Idris to row just over the drop-off and toss the anchor, but instead the wind seized hold of him and he went hurtling off our starboard side, rowing frantically, the anchor line fouling his steerage and furthering the mess. I told him to just drop it there and get back – he dropped it, then disappeared downwind somewhere. No time for Idris, I began hauling in the anchor line and pulling us further forward, but just into more coral instead of out, the anchor placed uselessly off our starboard instead of port. Diane and Lowell tried working with the engine and steering alternatively. With them and the anchor supposedly working the problem, I unfurled the jib and tried to use the wind to lift our keel off the coral. The sailboat would smash down, send jolts through the entire hull, and oftentimes just knock us right down as we tore about the boat. Some locals had rushed to the shoreline and were offering help. Cushions had fallen everywhere, the main cabin was rocking and smashing hopelessly, and damage was occurring around the boat in ways we would find out later: the rudder’s entire base was torn off, the keel was smashed along the bottom, a plastic instrument cover had shattered, and, of course, we all felt like idiots, our pride denting with each pound. Idris ended up picking his way barefoot over coral to bring the dinghy back, bleeding from both feet heroically, and Lowell and I put the engine on to try some other ideas. The first plan was to set the second anchor off our port side over the drop-off. While Idris worked on pulling that in with the winch, Lowell and I then secured the second halyard on the dinghy and attempted to pull down on the top of the mast – another effort to lift the keel. Instead, the halyard pulled free, whipped through its channel in the mast, and came flying through the air. That was one lost opportunity. Line lay strewn about us in the water. Everything was going wrong that could. Even my sunglasses. vI had no place on the dinghy to stash them while I jumped in and out of the water sizing up the problem, so I slid them under the floor. What’s left of them – little polarized shards of expensive eight-layered glass – are still under there somewhere.

About two hours into this project various forms of help arrived, two little fishing boats and a resident European named Kit. Kit swam around us, looking beneath the boat, figuring pathways through the coral, in case we could dislodge ourselves. Diane called “pan pan” (an emergency code secondary to “mayday”) on the VHF requesting coast guard or police assistance, as did I soon after. We never received even an inkling of a response. Kit and I rigged a tie-off from our main halyard to a coral head, which we winched down, as always trying to raise the keel. Idris and I worked together on the winch struggling to hoist in inches at a time, then half of inches, then just a quarter, the strain pulling the halyard painfully tight, our shoulders burning with the effort even at the low gear. I was laughing maniacally to myself since today was “exercise day” ironically. All of this was happening at once. I grabbed a couple of the younger Jamaican guys and we climbed out to the end of the boom, swinging way out over the water, further attempting to tip the boat and raise the keel. With the engine and two lines going off to fishing boats we were able to turn the Liana-Jane about 45 degrees and move a couple of feet through the coral, but were basically making no headway. Splinters of fiberglass and floating pieces of coral littered the water around us. The local guy Kit swam ahead and scouted a potential course through the coral but the keel continued to grind away on the shallow bay floor, the rudder twisting and smashing with abandon. It was getting dark. For a few tense moments, in my exhaustion, I started thinking the yacht was a goner – if all these efforts by so many volunteers couldn’t get us off the reef, what was left? I’d watched a similar-sized yacht tear apart in the Virgin Islands once, washed ashore on rock, and the image played in my mind. There was only one last hope: the tide.

Everyone left with the approaching darkness and the four of us settled into an odd routine on the boat, which lurched and jumped several times per minute as the keel and rudder continued to bounce on the coral bottom. Idris and I decided to winch in our last anchor (the spare one had torn off earlier and was resting 40 feet down, over the coral wall). WE winched in every fifteen minutes, with the hope that constant pressure from the bow, along with the rocking from the waves, might free us a bit. The tide was supposed to crest around 8 or 9 PM, all 8 inches of it. About two hours into this, as Idris and I worked together to pull the already-taut anchor line in, it suddenly went slack. My first response was that we’d snapped our last anchor line – everything else had gone wrong, after all – but when we pulled some more it caught again. That could only mean the boat had moved forward! We yelled for Diane to get on the wheel and try steering us forward, as we continued pulling from the winch, working together desperately to move ahead and into the deep water only 35 feet or so dead ahead. The sailboat banged hard on something, broke free, banged again, and then seemed to be inching forward toward the drop-off. We couldn’t believe it! Diane and Lowell controlled things from the cockpit – a fishing line inexplicably trailing out behind us – and suddenly we were free. The bottom dropped out from underneath. Shining the spotlight down through the dark I could see shiny sand and at least 40 feet of water below the hull. And we didn’t appear to be sinking, which meant the damage was probably confined to the keel and rudder. Yelping with joy but still very cautious, we inched the boat toward the center of the bay and prepared to drop an anchor. Lowell was able to steer, which meant the damage to the rudder was less than expected. At that moment, one of the fishing boats came out and two men directed us to the best anchoring spot around, dead center in the bay in soft eelgrass. Diane made all of us a huge dinner, including the two fishermen, who appeared to be capable of putting away Red-Stripe beers in one swallow each. We were exhausted, relieved, and alive. I couldn’t believe our luck. I remembered how sailor Bob just a month prior, when our engine was saved from seizing by pure luck, remarked that I “had a horseshoe up my ass.”

The next morning Idris and I did some diving, after Diane and Lowell scouted things out in the daylight too, and reported on the boat’s structure. We recovered the anchor using tanks and Idris and I played around with scuba gear, enjoying the sunshine, the perfect little harbor seemingly set there for our pleasure. The rudder, unfortunately, was shredded along its bottom, and the keel – a solid mass of iron several tank rounds couldn’t destroy – was banged up along its base, but otherwise in good working order. The rudder was a more serious concern. The boat remained responsive and was apparently turning as well as ever, but something would have to be done soon.

San San Bay, as this tiny little hollow was called, adjoined the well-known Jamaican Blue Hole through a little channel behind a tiny jungle island. There were a dozen luxury homes with dockside views along the steep shore. After cleaning up the sailboat and dinghy somewhat, we decided to spend the day at Blue Hole in a gorgeous, quiet little open-air restaurant on Blue Hole itself. The second war with Iraq had started then and we sat transfixed in front of CNN for a lot of the day, although my parents found slow but available internet access next door in the little dive shop. Diane and Lowell explored the freshwater source feeding the mysterious and deep green lagoon, Idris flirted with a bikini-clad lawyer visiting from Amnesty International, and I pretty much sat inside a steamy back room in the dive shop trying to answer e-mail through a sluggish connection. We were all quite happy – particularly after the previous afternoon’s misfortunes. After another day of lounging and winding down, I decided that Blue Hole was one of the most beautiful spots yet in the entire Caribbean: virtually empty of tourists, deeply quiet, and not a sailboat had been spotted yet since Aruba. It was unbelievable. It was also an amazing contrast to have such a wonderful spot juxtaposed with such an awful memory, the coral grounding market-fresh in our minds. Probably grounding the boat and almost dying there served to heighten the affect.

Port Antonio was just a few miles west along that north Jamaican coast. Before heading over there, we picked up the estimable Kitt, who had helped direct us to safety just a few days previously. Lowell offered him a ride to town. Once we pulled up anchor, for safety reasons I went ahead in the dinghy and spotted the channel back out, Lowell on the wheel and Idris watching from the bow, all of us cautious beyond belief. It was a quick scoot into the pale blue waters, deeply blue, the sunlight playing on it. I tied off the dinghy and we opened the jib, hardly any wind to speak of. The next three or four miles took almost three hours, but there were terrific fun; Idris and I set a line off the stern and played in the water like a couple of sea otters. We could swim almost as fast as the boat was moving. I would take deep breaths then duck under the boat and swing from the keel, examine the torn-up rudder, tip upside down on the stern line and dive to 25 feet. The water was a glistening aquamarine spackled with sun rays piercing the depths 300 feet below us. We passed a white palace, some hidden beaches, and Idris and I had another push-up competition on deck. Kitt talked continuously about his adventures living in the woods of Sweden and Britain, my parents delighted by his atypical life and special interest in small-scale hydroelectric power.

Port Antonio was a brand new, luxury marina surrounded by a dirt poor town. In the town, they called milk “cow’s milk” (as opposed to what?) and the sidewalks would disappear as you’d walk along the busy road, leaving you suddenly up against a building or in the way of traffic. The Jamaican prime minister had dedicated the new marina only five months before we arrived. It could be used, with its internet facilities, plush surroundings, security guards, freshwater pool, two outdoor bars, immaculate landscaping, and numerous little rooms, for socializing, watching TV, playing pool, even dancing on a full second floor patio. In Jamaica’s own special twisted way, it was almost totally empty. There was one luxury yacht at the end of the dock and two boats owned by the manager, one of which he lived on and one tiny little dismasted sailboat he was fixing up to sell. We actually stayed at a separate dock across the little bay that was one-third of the price, then zipped over in the dinghy to do our laundry, use the internet, swim, and watch the war develop on CNN. I’ve never stayed at such a nice place. During our three days there, Lowell took charge of work on the sailboat while I basically vegetated, glad he was more motivated than I. I’d spent the last three months as captain through fifteen or so countries and was happy to take a break. He hired some locals to restring the two lines slipped from the mast during the grounding and found a former East German engineer to seal the rudder with underwater cement. As usual, Lowell did an excellent job managing and organizing.

My parents and I took an afternoon to explore the busy little town – smells of burning leaves, diesel, and urine – and we all dined together, Idris included, at a variety of places, but mostly on board. Diane, Idris, and I spent part of an afternoon on the dinghy exploring and swimming around Navy Island, just outside of the bay, formerly owned and managed by Errol Flynn and currently being sold, I guess, by his wife. One little beach beckoned; we pulled the dinghy up on the sand and, in the gentle warmth, Idris and I improvised a baseball game with a fat stick and handfuls of rocks. Diane snorkeled around. The whole experience at Port Antonio was relaxing. On our last afternoon, Lowell and I motored the dinghy around the corner to fill up the spare diesel tanks that I stow in the stern of the Liana-Jane for emergencies. I remember beaching the dinghy to walk barefoot across a road to a Texaco, standing around on the hot asphalt hopping back and forth, then bringing the full tanks back. I wondered why I never wore shoes.

We left in the late afternoon to night sail across all the rest of northern Jamaica to famous Montego Bay. A wave came over the bow unexpectedly, soaking my parent’s cabin and Lowell’s laptop in one sudden deluge. I found this amazing, as the dinghy should have protected them. Lowell spent the next few days trying to dry it out and get it working again. I think it has never fully recovered, sadly. Still, during the night sail it was easy to shift into our four hour watch routine, just like the run all the way across the Caribbean from Aruba to Jamaica only a week before. Diane and I managed one shift, Lowell and Idris the other, taking turns with numbing regularity. This time, however, the wind was so light we motored almost the entire trip, except for a six hour stretch when I thought we could catch some decent wind further out to sea. Instead of wind, we stumbled into a pod of splashing dolphins around 9 AM the next morning. Idris was thrilled and everyone took gobs of photos. Like fat little gray bullets, they shot themselves in zippy spurts around the ship’s bow, ducking in and out of the pressure wave. Idris and I perched on the upturned dinghy pointing out each animal’s curious little flips, their wet gaspy breaths, the one with a scar down its back and another with part of a fin missing. We were like fourth graders on a whale watching expedition. When the dolphins lost interest and moved off to chase some fish instead, Idris and I decided to jump in after them.

This dolphin expedition – we were complete with goggles and fins ready to chase them around – would have gone better if we’d actually been dropped near the dolphins. For some reason, the most vivid memory is of Lowell and Diane driving off in the boat as Idris and I floated uselessly in the water, all dressed up but no place to go. I’m still not sure why my parents left us there, maybe they were heading over to where the dolphins seemed to be – about half a mile away – but the main thing is that they came back for us. We climbed in, dried off, and continued on our way to Montego Bay. It was another funny story.

Dawn that morning had been a dramatic affair. The sun had glistened every cloud to our east with speckles of increasingly-orange light, throwing shades of red and pink into the sky. Like a flower blossom, or a really melodramatic actress taking the stage, it surged upward, disappearing and reappearing from cloud banks with swelling intensity, suddenly emerging free of all obstructions, brushing off the last burning cloud stragglers, and leaping into the sky as if its only purpose in life that day was to hold our attention. Diane and I stared, enraptured, knowing that no photo and certainly no feeble words limited by the lack of proper color and fire in our language could ever recreate that sight. It was a moment experienced and then just as distinctly, a piece of history only captured in our memories, themselves limited in their own way, sad but forever mysterious.

Still, I took a bunch of photos.

About five miles before Montego, to the city’s east, lie most of the famous luxury hotels. They stretch along a perfectly beautiful beach, complete with extensive coral systems stretching a good half mile out, certainly enough to keep us from coming very close despite our attempts. Vacationers were soaring around in parasails, cavorting a bit on Hobie Cats (quick little catamarans with a single main sail), and mostly relaxing on the beach. We still had a couple of days before Idris had to leave us for Chicago from the nearby airport, but there seemed to be no way to bring the sailboat in close enough to anchor off one of these fancy hotels and dine there, so we continued on. Montego Bay harbor is quite large and unusually deep. Many of the cruise ships that used to bless this little town with tourists have since switched their attention to Ocho Rios, a couple of bays down to the southwest. There was only one in the port when we arrived. We spent our first night at the bay’s mouth over a landscape of coral canyons and ridges, the anchor wedged inappropriately between two giant brain corals. We should have taken a mooring, but they were all being used by day trip catamarans for snorkeling tourists from the cruise ship. Diane dropped Idris and I off on a dock so we could walk along the touristy road into the town itself. Once within the city limits, we were clearly among locals. The city was busy, exciting, and raw. We grabbed some chicken at a local-style fast food joint and returned to the dock just in time for Diane’s perfectly-scheduled return to pick us up.

The next morning, we topped off our water and fuel in the Montego Bay Yacht Club. I kept catching Idris and Lowell browsing their extensive “leave-one-take-one” library when it was time to leave. A friendly American yacht captain gave me some charts for the Cayman Islands on computer, though I was never able to get the program working very well. We sailed across the bay to a quiet spot and settled in for the night. Idris and I, emboldened, set off to somehow catch a cab to the movie theater. We saw another action flick (last time it wasn’t super-cheesy Stephen Seagal but “Hunted” instead, pretty good movie) and were delighted to see beer for sale in the cinema. We must have looked like idiots taking photos of each other holding the one beer we purchased and a bag of popcorn. Idris drank the beer and I got popcorn butter all over my shorts, which an usher snidely pointed out. I asked him why he was looking at my crotch.

Idris’ last day – after a month of sailing and innumerable adventures – was sad indeed. He really wanted to “take the dinghy to the airport” so, in the spirit of adventure, we set off, only to turn around when he remembered to grab his sandals. This was when I conclusively learned that my parents immediately stripped down to nothingness every time I left the boat for awhile, to my utter embarrassment of course, and probably Idris’ too, but he was more collected about it. On the ride over, all he could say was that Lowell and Diane were “dope” (i.e. really cool people) especially as he expected them to be, I suppose, “not-dope” and all. I glad it all worked out. My parents are pretty dope, I guess.

We beached the dinghy in what turned out to be the wrong place, got harassed by a cab driver who we threatened to mace, and walked the remaining two miles to the Montego Bay airport. Idris was carrying his entire world on his back. I had to hand it to him – or “give him props” for being such a stud about it – and wished him goodbye. After that, I zipped across the building to Immigration with passports from the remaining crew to check us out of the island. That part went well. It was easy to hitch a ride back to the dinghy, whereupon I zipped all the way across the huge bay – running out of gas once but filling up in the rolling waters – to the cruise ship dock to clear out of customs. After some misguided directions from a security guard, I ended up tying the dinghy to a ten foot concrete wall, climbing up huge truck tires to the top, and finding Customs through a series of intertwined buildings. To my horror, there was a major paperwork snafu awaiting. One of the ladies in charge first reprimanded me for not wearing shoes. That was rightly so, as it was her office and that was somewhat disrespectful of me, but I’d already had a long day dealing with grouchy Jamaicans as it was. She then dropped the ball that the helpful fellows who cleared us into Jamaica in the first place were not from Customs at all, and they’d taken my official clearance from the last port of call. Without the clearance, we couldn’t leave the country, and certainly without a clearance from Jamaica we couldn’t clear into Customs in the Cayman Islands. This was a serious problem.

I returned to the boat to see if I could get information on our first port of arrival, which was apparently a city insignificant that no one at Montego Bay Customs had heard of it. The officials actually called the police station in Port Morant. The gentleman she spoke with remembered us quite fondly and, apparently, calmed the woman down enough that she decided to write us out a clearance from Jamaica. Everyone was pretty frustrated and she chewed me out vigorously for something that wasn’t really my fault, but I played along and, if nothing else, learned a good lesson about making sure I always have the right paperwork. We were then cleared for takeoff to the Cayman Islands.

The journey across went exceedingly well. It was 180 nautical miles, almost due northwest, and the winds were excellent once we cleared the Jamaican lee. Ocho Rios faded behind our port quarter as the sun set majestically just to the left of our path. I thought of all the cruise ships docked there and reflected on our journey around Jamaica. My trip was half over now. We set three two-hour watches, which meant everyone got to sleep more than the last long journey, except Lowell who stayed in the cockpit with Diane much of the time, helping her feel safer. It was ironic because by that time Diane was a very proficient, confident sailor and needed help, in my opinion, from no one. But they’ve always been a cute couple who prefer to be together.

It took two nights and one full day to arrive at Grand Cayman. Diane was the first to spot land, as usual. She keeps a good watch and actually pays attention, bless her soul. We crept around the southeastern corner of the low lying island just as dawn broke. I took the helm and we settled ourselves into Georgetown’s busy harbor just as two huge cruise ships arrived, well-lit wedding cakes stacked high upon the water and always first to get harbor security’s attention. It was the end of another chapter: Diane and Lowell would be leaving me for good this time, returning to their home in western Washington, responsibilities in Alaska, and a burgeoning garden. I was to have a week of relaxation and certain hedonism in the Cayman Islands, and my next First Mate, Sven, would be joining me for the passage across to Central America. He and I had plans for Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize. The future awaited.