Pancakes not passports: southern hospitality for the maritime squatters

The captain’s lounge is an oasis. A sparsely furnished, brightly lit, air-conditioned haven, beyond which lies the wasteland of a boatyard.

Dust swirls down boat lined corridors in the furthest corners, where sailing dreams come to die. Up in the front where boats are in various stages of repair, muddy puddles create an obstacle course in the rough loose stone surface. Everything is a hazard. Multi-coloured extension cords criss-cross the ground like snakes playing Twister. Chemicals, paint fumes and fiberglass dust fill the stagnant humid air, mosquitos move in gangs, hiding in dark places and emerging as the sun sets. 

Our friend AlleyCat working on a new project in the yard

The only safe way to breathe in a boatyard!

Shiloh is here for some healing – replacement of her essential systems after the epic lightning strike. It takes time. There are insurance companies to deal with, surveyors, quotes, delays… For the crew it is not a pleasant visit. Nothing nice about clambering up and down a lean-to ladder to hobble across the yard for a shower or a pee. No fridge, no cooking in the mayhem of tools and wood shavings and the electronic graveyard strewn across all surfaces. By 7pm it’s 36 degrees celcius in the boat.

Shiloh's current mayhem

And this doesn't even consider the humidex factor!!!

But we are lucky. We are staying in a hotel by night. We can escape this industrial, miserable boat hospital and pretend we are tourists in St Augustine. Here to enjoy the history and the culture.

And culture we found. But not the type St Augustine hoped we’d find, with their upcoming 450^th year celebrations and connections to the king of Spain.

No, we found the meth ravaged pancake eaters and fall-down-drunk biker chicks of ‘Debby’s’. We just can't get our heads around it, but pancakes for supper? It's a thing. Actually it's a thaaaaang.

It’s attached to the hotel and after a long day ‘in the yard’ we couldn’t be bothered to venture further. Our friendly waitress seated us in a torn up forest green vinyl booth and presented us with menus. JW noted the hole in his seat and the cheap prices and asked me if this was perhaps a government subsidized place, “like a soup kitchen maybe?”

He ordered something smothered in pudding-brown gravy, with scoops of distinctly institutional looking mashed potato.  

I made the quintessential mistake in a restaurant where syrup is the condiment of choice… I ordered the healthy option. I was informed that salmon could only be ordered medium well due to health concerns. I should have known. A sad plate of fishy sawdust arrived with little rocky pebbles that passed for brown rice and a few barely formed, mushy broccoli florets.

But the food paled in comparison to the clientele and our waitress who endeared herself to us right away. Must have been JW’s accent. Exotic as it is…

In her lilting syrupy drawl, she told us her name – her mother so loved the southern belles. ‘Crimson O’Mara’ inserted between regular first and last names. JW asked if her passport had all those names on it, to which she grinned from ear to ear and exclaimed,

“Passport?! I ain’t so privileged to have a passport! Ain’t never been outta Florida!” For us maritime squatters who move fluidly through borders, it's unfathomable.

Crimson O’Mara with the beautiful green eyes and brown jagged teeth then shared with us her basic life story. Pregnant at 15, which led to 3 more of the same, so that now at 30 years old she is the mother of 4. Works 2 jobs, lives in a tiny 2 bdrm apartment with hubby, kids AND her mama. Mama gets $500 a month as pension and spends $300 of that on a storage unit. Mama has ‘champagne tastes and beer pockets’ though and once bought a block of brie cheese! Crimson was so angry she (insert drawl) “threw it clear across the room!”

She was real, raw, sliced open and served with grits. She was the stuff of fiction yet here she was in the flesh – red polyester uniform, hair net and all. When we were leaving she said she enjoyed us. I couldn’t tell her how much we cherished her. She was at once our entertainment, and she tugged at our heartstrings with her vulnerability.

Back at the hotel the next morning “housekeeping!” rang out in a low husky voice. Immediately after that, two scrawny sickly pale guys, backward caps and sagging pants, burst in the door. All bushy eyebrowed and surly scowls, they scurried back out as quickly. We weren’t being robbed, though even after a few days of meeting our housekeeping crew in the mornings, I’m convinced the hotel is part of some ex-convict rehabilitation program.

We’ve changed hotels now, and restaurants too. But the Americans we meet are the same. From the Walmartians and Home Depot greeters to the fellow sailors and boatyard staff, they are all open and genuine, helpful and kind.We were even invited to speak (at a bar of course!) about our recent lightning strike by the local cruising sailors.

JW giving his talk on lightning

We are entertained despite our predicament. We are overfed if not well fed. We are missing life at sea but we are living a whole new and unexpected adventure.

They say a hurricane is coming now. We will cross all our fingers and toes that it swings offshore, but we may find ourselves amongst our new Floridian family, watching it hit from the windows of our temporary oasis.

Lightning and Blunder - a hobbling adventure

Rain pours in sheets around, over, into us. A badly designed rain cover that we’ve dragged out in desperation crinkles and stretches over the winches. Rain clots and streaks and zig zags across my line of vision. Visibility is impossible. We are hobbling along against a raging current on one engine; the other overheated, steaming and pouting in it’s room.

Shiloh plodding along under stormy skies today

It's yet another stormy day and we are headed up the ICW, motoring in slow circles, waiting for a Bascule bridge to open. I have no chart plotter for navigation, I have no idea of the wind speed or exactly what direction it’s hitting us from.

Since Shiloh’s lightning strike days ago, we have been crippled. And now we are blind. The latest – engine fail – just adds insult to injury and will require JW to descend into the muddy soup of ICW water to investigate later…

Despite our predicament, I ponder what I can make for supper. Except earlier I’ve discovered all the condiments left in the dormant fridge have been invaded and are slowly disappearing under a fuzzy green colony of mold. The freezer is warm and gives off a slight gym sock, haunted attic scent.

Our choices are cans of fish or meat, some soft bruised tomatoes, a few iffy eggs. Not gourmet then. And no ice cubes for the whisky. Big sigh.

We’ve had better days onboard.

A week ago, watching our last Bahamian sunset fall gracefully into the sea, I knew we’d miss the bliss. The turquoise, the sand, the bizarre little towns. The simplicity.

We crossed a smooth, indigo ribbon of sea for 28 hours and arrived in the land of bureaucracy, choice and bling. Excess. Oh, and as a minor trivia fact - the lightning capital of the world.

After our initial customs and immigration hassles we anchored in Cocoa and headed to the shopping mall – of course! Faced with a head splitting, apparently life altering array of voice and data packages, we somehow came away with a fancy Internet wifi hotspot device and a working phone. And then the lights in the mall flickered. And the thunder permeated the building.

‘The boats!’

‘We better get back!’

But mother nature was fierce and the buses were delayed, hovering somewhere else or caught in the traffic. And we watched from the frosty halls of the mall as the skies threw down. High voltage strikes amidst the torrential rains.

Shiloh was alone. And under a violent grey sky, wind whipping, earth shuddering claps of thunder, she was struck. And 1 billion volts of electricity hit the top of her mast, flinging or disintegrating the VHF antenna before heading down through her hulls, and frying the electronics, batteries, lights, fans, fridge and freezer before exiting into the water.

The telltale smell greeted us – an acrid smoky evil. All the electronic displays were dead. An ugly quiet settled over the boat as we discovered each item and system that no longer worked.

Then came the calls and mails to the insurance company and the days of waiting for the surveyor, while the reality and severity of our injuries sank in. For me the missing stereo and TV are major. I like a soundtrack to my life. The starter battery charger is probably more important for JW. And the Raymarine and autopilot…

Luckily we were approved for moving on to St Augustine where Shiloh will be hauled out and a full survey completed. Hulls, rigging, sails, each failed system. 

But then the ordering of replacements will begin. I see weeks if not months of this ahead.

And the impaired sailing, along with camp life aboard are not ideal. A f*cking hassle in fact.

But it’s an adventure. We’ve got some great friends in St Augustine and I’m sure we’ll find fun. We’ll bring fun! We can’t control the things that happen to us, but we can control the way we deal with them. We write our life story based on our attitude.

I’m writing an adventure and this is another chapter.  A wet, thunderous and exciting chapter.

Bahamas, USA: I choose adventure

People ask ‘Don’t you get bored’?

People gasp when we say we’ve been in the Bahamas for 6 months.

They scratch their heads and roll their eyes and say things like ‘Really?!’

Last night padding along yet another long white sand beach, we plotted and schemed – could we stay the whole season? – why not head further south in the Bahamas and enjoy a few more months? – what would we do in a hurricane? 

Weather plays a huge role in our lives and the storms of late have certainly kept us on our toes. Lightning, thunder and predictions of tropical storm development all around us.

In the end we resigned ourselves: we will go. America beckons. We will lift our anchor midday and set off across a little section of the Atlantic ocean and leave this expanse of paradise behind us.

By this weekend we’ll have replaced the dodging of jellyfish in the water, with dodging traffic - grocery bags in hand.

We will have the tangible memory of turquoise in our minds as the boats float in a broth of brown and grey…

A sea of turquoise off Little Sale Cay

No more searching tiny towns for the one onion and the last bottle of fresh milk in the fridge. Shopping will no longer be an adventure. Choice will overwhelm and bury us…

Organization and street lights; order and civilization, will take the place of stars in a vast sky, beaches and rocks and the distant sound of soca beating.

It’s a difficult trade off for people who’ve decided to make the sea their home. It’s like deliberately moving from a holiday resort to a concrete jungle.

It’s like choosing the mall over the beach.

But we’ve got landy pleasures planned. We’ll surely munch beignettes on Bourbon Street in New Orleans and comb the streets of tiny towns in Alabama. We’ll feel the breeze in our hair as we fly down a highway in the USA. It will be a rush.

Sure, we’ll have boat repairs and laundry and more lightning storms to endure as well.

But will we ‘get bored’??

I don’t think so.

'Tis the season - when wind hits the boat

It’s 8am on a Friday morning, Grand Cay at the top tip of the Abacos islands. The tiny harbour is abuzz with fishing boats of all sizes prepping for the day. Americans in neon shirts emblazoned with pictures of regal jumping fish, sipping coffees and supervising local guys with massive carts of ice bags down the docks. The freezers are being loaded, awaiting today’s catch.

Though the sky is uncharacteristically grey and cloud mottled, and there are distant thunderous rumblings, there is no evidence of last night’s mayhem. All is calm. For now.

But this is the hurricane season and squalls are whipping through and can do so at any time.

8 hours ago, night had descended on Grand Cay. We’d just returned to the boat from supper onshore and left the tropical rhythms of the beginnings of a street party behind.

We knew there was rain on the radar and we expected it’s approach.

But what came next can never be expected. A delicate calm gave way to distant thunder. And then we were smashed with a solid wall of wind. The boats in the nearby marina groaned and the vicious wind howled and shoved at us with all it’s might.

JW and I scrambled to get the wind instruments on so we could clock the speed. Immediately adrenaline levels rose. Rain began to pelt us, an assault carried on the wind. The waves below us started to build and rock and slam.

And we stood huddled in the cockpit and watched. And then it happened. The wind was winning and the buildings alongside us were sliding out of view. We were dragging! Behind us only feet away, our buddy boat Alleycat loomed closer by the second.

Engines revved on and up, black smoke billowed out behind us as we pushed forward with all the power Shiloh has. And still we barely moved. I shot a blinking, soak-eyed glance at the wind meter. 45 knots. Slamming. Us. Hard.

I realised in that moment that I had never faced such a force, such an intense, barely manageable emergency. A situation that required more than my full attention, but something extra. Something I found with glee that I had inside me.  

I actually smiled to myself amidst it all, thinking of my earlier whining about insects and anchor watches.

Of course we didn't get a picture last night but here's about what it felt like!

We managed to pull away from the boats and the nearby jetty with 60 feet of rusty chain and a heavy anchor somewhere below us, scraping along the thin sand layer of sand and shale.

As I held the boat as still as possible, turning carefully back and forth so as not to get caught on the side and blown out of control backwards, JW shouted from the bow,

“We need to get this anchor up!”

It was far easier said than done. I blinked the searing water from my eyes and glanced around. All the boats on anchor were careening around as if on ice. We were all skating in circles with little control.

Alleycat had their anchor up and were powering toward the dock with an audience of power boaters jumping and running about and yelling as they approached.

With a near miss of a large pole, they managed to get onto the dock.

We were on our own now out here – time to really focus. I needed to not only hold us at bay from imminent disaster, but actually find and hover over our anchor amidst utter chaos.

The next 15 minutes was an hour. The rain, the wind melted away into insignificance. It was just the prevailing condition and what had to be done was not going to wait.

We got the anchor up and though we were far from out of trouble, I shivered. It was a high.

Some choose bungee jumping; some of us lounge around drinking rum in exotic places awaiting the unknown storm that will require immediate action, skill or blind determination – no panic.

Both are an adrenaline not to be matched. 

The wind dissipated to a mere 30 knots and I held Shiloh still, powering with full force, each engine while JW and Alan on his dinghy below us, pondered and shouted against the weather, where we should try to pull in. It was decided that we could get into the fuel dock.

Al climbed aboard and we ran around grabbing lines and fenders from the locker below while moving past the docked boats and growing audience onshore.

We got close enough, JW jumped from slippery boat to slippery dock and managed to get the bow line tied off. And an immediate calm fell over the world.

We were ‘safe’. IF the dock could hold us and IF the wind stayed at a manageable level and didn’t shoot back up to 45kts or higher.

I don’t know if it was still raining. Was there thunder? Were the waves bashing us against the docks, asking so much from a few inflated fenders? Who knows. Adrenaline is a high maker that alters time and sensation.

30 minutes later I realised I was drenched and peeled my clothes off for a shower.

We spent the night checking the lines as the tide rose and fell, and in between I slept the best sleep I’ve had in ages. I felt alive and secure in the knowledge that nothing is actually secure. That when shit hits the fan, or wind hits the boat, you have to step up and handle it. And that’s when you know you are really alive. 

Paradise compromised - living the dream with a few glitches

I am blinking wildly at my reflection in the mirror.  Doughy red rimmed eyes stare back at me under a mop of salt caked, matted, sweat soaked, unbrushed hair. My skin is at once shiny and dull, like I’d been having far too much fun with a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken in my sleep.

The reality is far more banal. In the three hours of restless sleep I’ve had, I’ve sweat like an Olympic athlete. The heat. The heavy, cotton wool air of a boat cabin in 35 degree Celcius weather, without a breeze.

This annoys me and I frown. Immediately I’ve scared myself. I look like Eileen Wuornos – famous serial killer. Though I’ve only been killing mosquitos. Hundreds and hundreds of mosquitos. It’s becoming the norm these days. 

By day, sunshine interrupted by billowing, encroaching bursts of darkness then thunder and rain. Between, there are flies. Lord of the Flies in number. We start the culling process with a rolled up paper, but it’s futile really. We are no match for the fly swarms of the Bahamas in August.

Approaching storms

Then come the no-see-ums. The tiny, wretched pin pricks of the insect world that have us jumping like somewhere someone is stabbing at our own personal cursed voodoo dolls all day.

We don’t have sufficient netting/screens to keep the mosquitos away, but even the two we do have are no match for no-see-um stealth.

Suddenly, being rocked to and fro by an alarming side swell on the boat, I realise through my haze why I’m awake. I’m lucky to be supported physically by both sides of the tiny head/washroom. Only a few inches each side of me as I grip the edge of the basin. I splash a bit of water on my face and carefully dart up the three steps to the lounge, Shiloh’s main room, to see what’s going on.

It’s 5 am and our drag alarm has started. JW sprinted up immediately to assess.

It’s dark and the wind is howling and as far as we can assess, we are closer to the rocks behind us. The ripping current in the channel where we’ve anchored is fighting the wind and we are caught at a strange angle with waves slapping at the side and setting us a-wobble.

“I’ll have to stay up and watch” says my brave and stoic captain.

“Ok, call me in 30 minutes and we’ll trade off” I say casually and bound back down the stairs to the stifling comfort of my bed. How times have changed. An incident like this in the past would have signaled my adrenaline and I’d be in high anxiety, action mode. Now I am calculating the number of hours of non-quality sleep I’ve had and will have if I manage to get this 30 extra minutes in…

We’d been up til 1:30 trying to kill all mosquitos that had infiltrated the fortress, and preventing any others from entering. It was a team project – I spraying the two mosquito nets we own with poison and JW fitting them to the hatches with duct tape and a bit of imagination. Our little Black & Decker hand vacuum has become our weapon of choice and life saver in insect attack situations. The morning after finds the semi translucent bulbous middle of the device pocked with tiny blood stains and a twitching mass grave of insect matter. It’s disgusting and I want nothing to to with cleaning the aftermath. Not my job!

Turns out the drag alarm must have been a bit confused by all the currents and rocking and we didn’t have to re-anchor.

JW now snores gently down below, trying to make up for lost sleep. The sun is shining and smiling all around us, oblivious to the struggles of the night.

Outside is paradise. An extensive sand bank is forming, as it does every low tide, the turquoise waters slowly ebbing and parting so the snow white sand can take the spotlight for a few hours at a time. It beckons. Swim swim!

The water here is a vibrant and lively ecosystem as well. Stingrays, numerous sharks, pencilfish and thousands of clear gelatinous jelly fish are everywhere. They swim under us, around us, with us even.

One such gelatinous mass nudged me yesterday as we lounged in the shallow waters. I think I jumped the length of a swimming pool and let out a yelp that was heard throughout the Bahamas. Oops.

I admit - we are loving paradise in a selfish way. We’ve left the comforts of civilization, the sounds of blasting music and the bikini clad crowds of the southern Abacos behind, and we are trying to enjoy the remote beauty of these out islands before heading into the whole new world of the USA.

The bikini girls of Southern Abaco party life

We are right there at the top - at Double Breasted Cay

Our hair is unwashed, we wear the same salty clothes, we are feral, living wild. Alleycat caught us a fresh mutton snapper for supper. There is nothing like it. Out here on our own, eating fish from the sea.

But we miss fresh milk and veggies, and who invited all these bloody creatures to paradise???!!!

On the days we must be mad...

... (because what would a blog look like all full of pristine beaches, turquoise seas and rum punches?!)

 2 am as we lay panting in our tiny mosquito occupied chow-zone of a cabin in the stifling heat, not a breath of wind, sweat trickling down our necks and pooling on the dampened pillows beneath us, the random slapping of limbs breaks the relative silence of the dull hum of a useless fan. I thought ‘this couldn’t get worse’. (Note to self – never say those words, even in your head).

After weeks of prepping for our friend’s visitors in perfect Bahamian weather, they have arrived. And since then the whole climate’s gone for a ‘sh*t’.

They brought booze!

The visitors on arrival day

2:30 am the distant rumbles of thunder have caught up with us two lonely little catamarans in Cherokee Point, the vulnerable bay, exposed to all the oncoming fun and games. The sky lights up to the brightness of day in shocking zaps and we are up.

It’s like a colossal game of electrified ten pin bowling right over our heads and everywhere around us. The lesser gods are on a bender and they are at the lanes, drunken and disorderly. The ball rumbles along above us, barreling through the great black clouds and then the crescendo – a teeth clenching, boat-shattering smash as the thunderous ball hits the pins. Over and over again, as I wince and squeal. JW has turned off the main power to the boat, knowing we are at the mercy of these lesser gods as to whether we’ll take a direct hit and potentially lose all the electronics on board. 

They are obviously in the mood to have some fun with us. They’ve stirred up the ocean as well, so the boat spins and bobs madly in this rain drenched mayhem.

I retreat inside, brushing aside the mosquitos who are just as frightened I’m sure. They’ve taken such a back seat as the bad guys, they might as well retreat completely and come back with their blood sucking intentions another day.

And here I sit – making sure not to hold on to anything metallic just in case – and I focus on JW’s silhouette in the door, lit up like a photo negative in the lightning show. I know he is worried, and that the soul crushing feeling of being helpless in a situation furrows his brow.  I squeeze my eyes closed after each bolt snaps down from the clouds and see the jagged designs behind my eyelids over and over.

The truth is that we are in the vicinity of some serious danger. Boats are lightning attraction devices with their tall masts, and we’ve come to a bay where there is nothing around us but surface rocks, beach sand and a tiny settlement of one story homes nearby. So we are IT if it comes down to the wire. Worst case scenario the lightning passes through the boat, leaving a gaping hole below the water line and we sink. Total loss.

I think of the storms we’ve slept through on land, the light and noise a mere inconvenience with the secure feeling of insulated and sturdy walls protecting us. Out here it’s all raw and real. We have no mosquito nets, we have no lightning protection. It’s yang to the ying of the paradise we live in. It’s the other side of the coin. It’s real and it’s 5am and we’ve been up for hours.

As I rub my red sore eyes I realise this lifestyle has no middle ground. There is no ‘mildly amusing’ or ‘slightly annoying’ in our vocabulary. It’s all ‘OMG!’ or ‘WTF!’ Extreme beauty, extreme fun, extreme danger. Big joy, big problems.

On the boat next to us, a family has flown thousands of miles to see what we see. Experience what we call normal life. This is their vacation. They swat at mosquitos, wince at the storms and hopefully will experience some of the big joys over the next few days.

As the storm passes, the game has moved on and left us with some big winds and big seas. That means ‘anchor watch’ (to keep an eye that we don’t drag into the rocks behind us), so no sleeping yet. Until the sun rises and the benign morning negates the heightened fears of the night and promises a new day of extreme beauty and yet another adventure. Zzzzzzzz

 

Between a rock and a sleepless place

It’s 2 am and one moment I am deeply sleeping, my body slightly rolling with the waves. The next moment I am at the helm, starting engines, blinking wildly to get the eyes to focus. The harsh rocky coastline of Fowl Cay was beautiful in the day when we anchored into the prevailing east winds, and tucked ourselves nicely up in her lee. 

At 2 am when the wind has swung against all predictions to the west, and the frantic sound of waves slamming against sharp defiant rock is now just a few feet from the back of the boat – not so beautiful. We have to move. Now.

As JW balances up front, his headlamp blinding me as he moves around lifting the anchor, I reflect on the bizarre reality we live in.

There are no 6 am alarm bells or morning traffic for us. A Sunday is the same as a Monday. There is a lot of laughter and freedom and of course rum punch. But there are nights like this. Sleep is not sacred on a boat. It’s the shut-eye you catch when the seas allow. In the very early days of my sailing career I would meet these interruptions to my nights with exasperation and fear. Being woken to an impending disaster that requires immediate action, is something you have to develop a taste for. Tonight I realise that I have. It’s exactly what has happened. Expect the unexpected. Deal with it as it comes.

I gun the engines into forward and leave the crashing slamming disaster looming all behind us. We are blind navigating and choose a spot just far enough away from the island and before the ocean floor dips further out. Apart from our buddy boat Alley Cat, we’re alone out here. It’s another one of those strange realities. We spend much time socializing, either on boats or partially submerged, treading water by countless beaches, a beer in hand. But only one sail away, we can be totally alone. And it’s an amazing feeling. Like camping deep in the woods. You hear all nature’s sounds. You see things that are invisible in a city. 

Tonight, the charcoal sky has been torn in one small spot and the moon peeks through. It’s only half exposed but it’s enough to make out our surroundings.  We drop the anchor, tug back the engines in reverse and wait for it to grip. We are set.

It’s all over and the excitement has died down but sleep is now a distant memory. In the morning we’ll be diving with the sharks who prowl the reefs just around the corner if all goes well.

For now I ponder the world we discovered earlier in the evening. Sundowners on the tiny beach, after the boat loads of happy rowdy tourists have made their way back to marinas and resorts and we had Fowl Cay to ourselves. The terrain is other worldly. Sharp towers of spiky rock poke out from the soft sand, making walking treacherous. We made our way to the little shelter built as a vista – or a bus stop where no bus will ever arrive?!

Tiny hermit crabs, who like us, take their little homes with them as they go, made their way along the sand. To destinations unknown, they made patterns between the huge science fiction style rocky mountains. I was fascinated. Filled with wonder. As if I’d shrunk and seen their world from their height. A new adventure. Another of natures amazing mysteries. I close my eyes now and smile. And sleep comes. 

The other-wordly landscape of Fowl Cay

Sundowners in the Fowl Cay shelter