Serena down - the reality of the ocean's power hits home

Just when my irrational sailing fears are subsiding and I am looking forward to each sail, the reality of the dangers come crashing into my face, in front of my face to be precise. There I was, innocently sipping a Diet Coke, surfing in some wifi zone, my face illuminated by my computer screen, when JW pointed out an article he’d found on noonsite. The 38’ sailing vessel Serena had been abandoned at sea off the coast of Spain….

It struck me with a sinking feeling in the stomach, that we know that boat, in fact the crew of Serena are good friends we’d last heard from when they set sail across the Atlantic, headed for Europe a couple months ago….

“Oh my god! Are they ok?!”

I read the article with quick breaths, looking for the key words, and found them – ‘rescued’, ‘safe’…. Sigh of relief. But they had suffered through a gargantuan storm and they had lost their boat, having been lifted into a helicopter and watching their home and precious vessel dwindling into the distance among the crashing waves below as they flew away….

It’s been on my mind for days. They were/are the sweetest people! They had already done an ocean crossing. They were so friendly and calm and knowledgeable. How could this happen to them?! To someone we know!

And the truth just sits there, like a quickly eaten warm donut in your belly. It is doughy and makes you uneasy as it’s hard to digest.

The truth is that this can happen to ANYONE on a boat. No matter how nice or what an expert you might be, a storm can strike and your lives can be in danger. Your life can change in an instant. And if you are lucky, your experience and all your preventative gadgets will be applicable, accessible - to help make the difference between life and death.

Luckily for Hentii and Arja, they were able to access their EPIRB, and help came. But it took the rescue team 8 hours. That is 480 minutes in 20 meter (60 ft) waves, clinging to the remnants of their boat, smashing, crashing, water washing away their dreams…. Terror unimaginable previously. But they survived.

They are not the only tragic story we have heard lately either. But they hold a special place in my heart, and so it was this story that hit me so hard.

Serena's salon table - set for supper

 As clear as if it were yesterday, I remember coming down into Serena’s warm homey salon. Arja had decorated and filled the boat with the cutest European charm, and the whole boat was filled with the aroma of her home-cooked creamy mushroom soup. And though the swell rocked us through supper, we laughed and ate and drank, and afterwards Hentii set up his microphone and amp and serenaded us and the nearby boats with his amazing Elvis renditions. It was a lovely evening. It’s unlikely I’d ever forget it.

Great food and great friends - supper on Serena

Elvis is in the house!

And as I sit here now, imagining Arja and Hentii in the aftermath of their disaster, soaked and possessionless, without passports or dry clothes, I wish we’d been there to lend a hand. And a hug. And just to let them know how brave and great they are.

And deep down my hug would mean even more. That it’s such a wonderful miracle they survived, and how they are an inspiration above the fear that their ordeal has generated.

It’s humbling more than anything else. We play and frolic in these waves, we call the ocean home. But we are truly small and powerless in the face of the unpredictable giant.

It’s easy to forget, when I peer over the edge of the boat into the clear turquoise that invites me to jump in and cool off.

But it’s a relationship of respect, admiration and forgiveness it seems.

I wrote to Arja this week and she explained that they are now living in a tiny apartment, fighting with the insurance companies, trying to find jobs. She is blogging... The search continues for Serena, which may be floating or beached somewhere along the coast of Portugal...

What could be the fate of Serena...

 But in their heart of hearts, the sailing dream is still alive. And one day, they will be out here again. Sailing the ocean blue.

A lifetime in a year - lessons in doing without and gaining so much more

The things I’ve learned in one year:

I can live without toasters – if we really need some dried crispy bread, we can throw it under the broiler for a few seconds on each side… sigh too much work. So as I said, I can live without toast. Plus, there's french toast which involves a frying pan and butter... I can DO that!

I can live without a microwave – though reheating leftovers is more of a challenge and more incentive to eat everything on the first night!

I can live without long hot showers – this just makes me appreciate any visit to a marina or trip to visit family. Not sure I could live without a long hot shower FOREVER….

I can live without ironed clothes – if someone hadn’t ironed our clothes for us in Ghana, I’d have discovered this much earlier. Ironing is NOT an essential in my life! Bring on the wrinkles and creases.

I can live without high-heeled shoes – I could barely walk in these on land, now imagine wobbling and crawling in and out of a moving dinghy onto a moving boat or a non-moving jetty. That spells broken ankle. I’ll take flip flops any day. Wouldn’t mind if I never saw a close-toed shoe of any description again in my life. Plus since I spend lots of time on beaches and boats, I can wear my sole-less bead shoes!

I can live without cable TV – provided I can download some good movies from time to time using a good wifi, for those rare quiet evenings on board.

I can live without air-conditioning in 32 degree weather and 90 percent humidity – this is only because I have no choice. But let me tell you, I gasp with pleasure on every shopping trip when we step inside a crisp cool store… ahhhhhh

I love games! – we’ve become hooked on playing a domino game called Mexican Train. I could gather a group every day and play and play. I lose every game which might be why I need to keep playing. Statistically I’d have to win at least once if I kept playing, right? We’ve also been doing a weekly trivia quiz which I love, even though the prize is a bottle of toxic rum punch – made with 70 proof blindness-inducing pure alcohol. Yikes

I need to learn how to provision – It’s impossible for me to hit the grocery store less than twice a week. I can’t imagine buying kilos of rice or flour at once. I buy the small size of everything and wonder why the hell I did that when I wake up to an empty coffee jar and I’m floating out in a bay, that’s a dinghy and bus ride away from any store…

Cruising is a real lifestyle. All around me are people who don’t work in the classical sense – as in, they do not get paid – but whose days are filled from morning to night with chores, jobs, projects. But the upsides are infinite. They travel, they party, they try new things. They sacrifice and compromise on stuff. Things. Irrelevant really, in the big scheme of things. They swim with turtles and sting rays and lie in hammocks under swaying palm trees any day of the week. They might have had no sleep on an overnight passage or a windy, stormy night in the anchorage, but by morning they’ve arrived in a new bay or wake up to a bright warm sunshine.

You DO NOT need a lot of money to be a cruiser. There are boats out here that cost anywhere from USD$20,000 to $2,000,000. People live on budgets of USD$500 to $5,000 a month!!!

What you need to become a cruiser is a leap of faith, a willingness to ‘let go’ – of things and of the everyday ties of family and friends. You need to love freedom and adventure and a few challenges around every corner. The lifestyle gives you lots of pleasure and a fair helping of frustration. Oh, and lots of rum. In the Caribbean that is.

You must not be a planner, as every plan we have, from when to do laundry, to which country to travel to next and when, CHANGES. On a whim. Or during a chat with other cruisers over a game of Mexican Train and a rum punch.

But contrary to what my blog would have you believe, you do NOT have to be an extrovert or big socializer. In fact, many cruisers keep completely to themselves. Some prefer the lapping of the waves to the company of boisterous boaties, and that is perfectly acceptable. Some of us partiers appreciate the down days too!

I never knew how important the weather could be. To be a cruiser, you must be obsessed with the weather. Or at least it helps. Cruisers discuss storms and wind and tropical waves daily. Many times a day. 

We look at this site... alot.

 But if the weather is right, you can find yourself on the full moon, in the evening, rafted up in your dinghy, with 6 or more others, with snacks and drinks, drifting through the anchorage, cajoling the boats as you go, and marveling at the bright glowing orb in the sky. It beats sitting in front of reruns on cable TV, I’ve realised. 

There's the full moon! Just right of the beer...

It’s better than coming home after a stressful day in an office, with recirculated air, feelin frustrated and stagnated… even if you do get caught in the rain or soaked in salt water on your little journey.

I’ve realized I’m in exactly the right spot, even if that spot moves constantly, and knowing there are a million spots to anchor that could take us the rest of our days to discover, I’m in!!!!! 

One of our favourite uninhabited anchorages - Anse La Roche, Carriacou

It's all about your degrees

Wave meets boat. Majestic, omnipotent undulation of ocean meets fiberglass, balsa wood, man made hopeful little craft. It floats. It rocks and twists along. The wave taps, slaps and then it repeats. There are millions before it and after it. And the boat will try with all it’s might – huge canvas sails and little motors, to beat its way across this little section of the mass of ocean surrounding it.

We’ve done three overnight passages, and some day sails. They begin to blend into one memory – the rough seas in the exposed Atlantic stretches, the dead calm and absence of wind on the leaside of each island we pass. I’ve gotten accustomed to tethering in, remembering not to jerk myself backwards as I’m attached to a particular clip and can’t get too far! I know all about sailing meals too – ie water and saltines or a scoffed down apple. It’s okay, the appetite is lulled at sea.

I’m getting into this. When we are an hour or so out of our destination bay I start wishing we could keep going. I wonder how far we could go before I missed land, before I would crave terra firma beneath my feet. I never though this feeling would hit me quite like this, but here I am, over a year of living aboard under my belt, and I am loving sailing. Loving the excitement of the departure from each bay, and the moment when sails are set, and we can cut the motors and feel the wind pick us up and take us along. And the journey begins…It’s like the hokey pokey once you feel it. I’ve jumped in. All limbs in.

Maybe I could cross an ocean like a ‘real sailor’! One day. But for now it’s all about your degrees. In latitude that is. We are one of the many little sailboats, tuned in to radio and internet for weather and wind reports, making the island hops down, down, down – to the ‘safety zone’ – or out of the hurricane belt. The season has begun.

Insurance companies are strict about it and cruisers are pretty serious too, when it comes to where you find yourself in the hurricane season.

12 degrees is the magic number. As we began our southward hopping in Antigua, I noted our GPS coordinates at over 16 degrees. And slowly I’ve been watching that number tick downward, through each trip. There’s been the interim stops in St. Lucia, The Saintes, Martinique, Carriacou, rum squalls with old and new cruiser friends, and finally the chat plotter struck 12. We’ve reached Grenada once again!

Rum squall in St Lucia with junior captain :)

This year we won’t be anchored in place though – we’ll go back up to Carriacou for the regatta and then down to Tobago and finally to Trinidad to eat doubles and rotis, oh, and get some work done on the boat.

Once all that is done, there is adventure. Aruba? Bonaire? Curacao? Maybe the wind will carry us further than we’ve been, but for now, we’ve reached 12 degrees and we are theoretically SAFE.

That’s not to say that we won’t be checking weather and wind forecasts between rum squalls though. This is the cruising life and ‘that’s what it’s all about’.

The drama of daily life - Glad we're home!

This is not a post about suburbia. It’s not about months of overeating and staring at CNN, frying brain cells while waiting the inevitable weeks and months for a back injury to heal.  

It’s not about visits with family, everything-you-could-ever-want availability shopping, barbeques in the backyard or long hot showers and in-house laundry…

How quickly it all falls back into place. The sweating. The water conservation, the mold. The rain in the hatches, the portable generator grunting and chugging away, the forests that have grown under the boat, making it more an ecosystem than a moving vessel...

What our propellers looked like on our arrival

We’ve only been back onboard a few days but the usual routine proves itself to have stood the test of time.

Sundowners every second night with new friends that last until way past ‘cruisers midnight’ have proved the social side of our lifestyle hasn’t waned either (as is discernible from the evidence, I mean photos below). We’ve been invited over to yet another boat tonight to meet some more cruising friends and try a new island rum…

A rum squall evening, full swing

However just when you think life on a boat is all about predictability, your dinghy about throws you and your crew overboard.

Well not exactly.

As the laundry pile did not disappear during our absence, we had to face the monster a couple days in. We headed to shore in the dinghy, weighted down with garbage bags and an overflowing laundry bag, in between the rain squalls.

DJW, our new ‘captain in training’, JW’s son, was at the ‘helm’. As soon as we got started, the wind and waves decided to give us a seawater shower and we were getting soaked. JW suggested that DJW move to the other side of the dingy, so as ‘not to get so wet’. Ha!

He also suggested DJW let go of the throttle, which resulted in the dinghy swinging us wildly in circles in the choppy waters. The balance was gone; water came flooding in from the front of the boat where I was perched, holding on for dear life. Ah, to have had an aerial view. It would have been quite a sight. Me with bulging eyes, crouched in disbelief, DJW flailing from side to side, barely balancing, and our captain laughing so hard he was red in the face.

The dinghy wanted us all overboard, spinning in increasingly tighter and wobblier circles, but DJW jumped back into place and managed to get us under control again. We resumed our forward motion, the boat steadied, the water stopped flowing by the bucketful. However, our laundry bag was now a 100lb salt water weight, sloshing around between our feet. 

Our captain in training was sopping head to toe, and had to change into some of his dirty but less soaking clothes right there at the dinghy dock by the laundry. I heaved the sopping back to the Laundromat, leaving my salt water trail. I ignored the disapproving look from the proprietress as she chomped a pile of fried rice, watching our laundry bag leak water all over the floor, and simply dumped that problem onto them. 

Lighter yet still salty and wet, we started the dinghy again and headed to the garbage drop off area, and to do some shopping. But the dinghy spluttered and farted and then the motor just died. That’s when JW lifted the fuel tank and exclaimed,

“There’s no fuel in here!”.

Well what do you know. We’d run out of gas. We started paddling. Luckily we were not far from the fuel dock. We made it but then had to buy 2 stroke oil right there and mix it into the tank directly. It was a bit messy, adding blue grease to the salt water we were covered in. But then the dinghy worked! And so it was that we survived that harrowing adventure to do laundry and dump garbage. But just barely.

Since then things have gone quite smoothly, except yesterday morning when our dinghy refused to budge as we tried to lower her into the water. The ropes on the pulley system were twisted and completely jammed.

I ended up balanced precariously out on the hanging dinghy while my men used a block and tackle set up, hanging from the boom to maneuver me. And we did get it all sorted out.

Predictable? Well you can count on the sea to be blue but beyond that, as soon as you think things are too routine, too comfortable, the cruising life throws you a dinghy drama or something far worse. It’s nothing like the suburbs here, but we call it home! 

Holli's random number of signs you've been away from your boat for too long:

Those telltale signs you’ve been away too long:

1.   1. You’re pale

2.     Your feet are actually getting used to close-toed shoes

3.     You plan your trips around road traffic instead of wind patterns

4.     You are starting to take running water for granted - hot water for dishes, tap running during teeth brushing, longer and longer showers – shame!

5.     You start thinking it’s normal to blow dry your hair

6.     You find yourself shopping and thinking of buying plug-in appliances!

7.     You’re actually noticing fashion trends – that don’t involve Crocs.

8.     You’re actually getting used to TV – with commercials!

9.     You haven’t seen a hand tool in months

10. You forget what it feels like to sweat

11. You’ve migrated from rum punch to red wine as your drink of choice

12. The regal sunset, hidden behind the highrises of the city, has faded away and no longer plays a role in happy hour, or indeed your lives. 

13. Sundowners? What?

13.5 You (I) really miss that connection with the sunset…. sigh

The silence

Life can change in an instant. Flip like a dinghy. Take for instance a 200lb dinghy, dragged ashore single handedly by your captain, and flipped for washing. Your less than ‘totally fit’ (but still a 10!) captain gets a shooting pain in his back during this maneuver and he spends the next few weeks ignoring an increasing pain down his left leg.

Life can seem normal still - one moment you can be sailing along, turquoise seas cradling your boat, en route to beautiful Antigua, looking forward to more of the same - 10 months into your open ended dream life.

But then in trying to remove a reef in the mainsail, your captain pulls at the lines and twists his injured back…

And the next morning he can’t walk. At all.

Fast forward a few days and some awkward dinghy trips to shore, and you find yourself in a third world hospital waiting room, paying cash for a $2.5k MRI, your captain still unable to walk. The tests reveal herniated discs. Those spongy bits between one’s spinal vertebrae, pushed out of place, just far enough to ruin our lives…

And weeks later still, you find yourself behind the drizzly windshield wipers, stuck in traffic in the dreary rain soaked streets of suburban Canada. It starts to dawn on you that your dream life is over, your captain possibly a year or more away from walking normally, let alone sailing. The possibilities that lie ahead no longer include rum punches on new beaches. Surgery, bills, a ‘safe land-locked-life’ are coming into view. You start wondering which country to look for jobs. The vision of Shiloh our boat, anchored far away in dreamy Antigua, fading further and further into oblivion.

The thought of blogging about all this brought only tears, dripping into the keypad, the bleak white empty word document staring back. So, silence.

Silence in the blogosphere as we fought with the uncaring, overloaded, inept Canadian medical system. Silence, through one prescribed narcotic drug after another for my captain, broken and bed ridden.

Silent uninspired, our days filled with painful and discouraging physiotherapy and chiropractor sessions followed by bedrest and discussions about the gloomy prospects that lie ahead. And the overwhelming frustration of not being able to make it all go away, make it better, go backward in time. On March 31^st we spent our 1 year 'boat-life' anniversary in zero degree weather, fully grounded in suburbia.

But fast forward now, two months of tests and trials and healing time. And life has thrown us a chance. It can change in an instant. The headlines:

Surgeon says no surgery needed. Pain begins to subside, physio starts working! Grown son becomes available to assist on the boat for a few months.

The captain - feeling much better, but still not strutting!

This is where I do cartwheels across the screen and jump for joy – my pale, drawn face lit from within, smile from ear to ear. Shiloh, we’re coming home baby!!!!!!

 

This experience has taught us a few good lessons, and a few we’d rather not have learned. But if I hadn’t appreciated the life we’d found before, I can say with resounding confidence now, that I will never take it for granted. 

We have made some friends out on the sea who will be forever in our hearts. Exceptional people. Since we've been away, our dear amazing friends on Khaya Moya have stayed put, boatsitting Shiloh instead of sailing on, as we all yearn to do. Who could take friends like these for granted. I am reserving some special hugs for our return!

Life aboard isn’t always easy. It is not glamorous, despite what vacation brochures insist, but it is a freedom that I will forever cherish. For us it is not A life, but THE life. And we’re going to soak it up for every salt encrusted moment and gorgeous sunset it brings.

No zzz's at sea

I roll the name over and over on my tongue until it sounds absurd,

“Guadeloupe, Guadeloupe, Guadeloupe”

as the dark knobbly form of the island blurs in the distance.  Smoke billows from the volcanic peak of the grey, dusty remains of Monserrat off to our left. In the distance ahead, the promise of new adventures in Antigua. In between, just hours of blue ocean.

Today was supposed to be a short sail, just ‘around the corner’ from Deshaies where we’ve been ‘stranded’ for more days than planned, due to high winds and huge swells. But as sailors plans are apt to change with the wind, we discovered an hour out, that conditions were not going to allow us to safely enter the shallow channel, peppered with pesky coral heads. The waves were just too big still, so an instant decision was made, to soldier on to Antigua. A 2 hour journey just became a 9 hour journey.

After sails were set and the swell and wind settled a bit, there wasn’t much to do, and both the captain and I, after a night of little sleep, decided to take turns ‘napping’ en route.

I retired first. Headed down to our bed, and cozied into the undulating berth. But it raised and fell, there were squeaks and creaks and groans and bangs. The normal sounds of sailing. Only as I tried to free up my brain and relax into at least a semblance of sleep, my nerves and overactive imagination got the better of me. I lay there, imagining all the worst scenarios.

‘What if my captain gets knocked overboard and I come up later to a ghost boat?’

‘What was THAT noise? Not normal! Did something snap, crack?’

and on and on and on… and sleep eluded me completely. I made my way back up the galley steps looking defeated. Everything was of course fine. JW jumped at the opportunity to take his turn.

The captain in a hazy blue slumber en route...

 And there I found myself, wave watching, counting the peaks on the surrounding islands, singing aloud to my tunes, recalling names over and over in my head til they sounded silly. The wind was low, the waves moderate. No emergencies, perfect conditions for a nap.

My lack of ‘long passage’ experience will now become evident if it hasn’t before. I have just never been able to sleep while sailing. I wonder what will happen to me on a journey longer than 24 hours, when our night watches are doled out in 4 hour intervals and I lie there overthinking, anticipating when my time will be up and just how tired I’ll be and on and on…

Cruising friends say they love the long passages, weeks at a time at sea. They say you develop a routine, make meals, take turns on watches. Still can’t quite get my green little mind around it. Firstly, unless the sea is VERY smooth, you have to hold on just to walk from one area of the boat to the other. Cooking?! I suppose you get hungry enough and sick of quick snacks scoffed down while holding a railing or table edge with one hand… After all, there is a gimbled stove/oven (that swivels and compensates for the motion of the sea) on board for a reason!

But it’s the sleeping that worries me most. I’m liable to be a zombie a few days in.

I haven’t even begun to ask myself whether I’d go stir crazy out at sea for days and weeks.

My first two or three ‘dayer’ is coming up in a month or so. I’m looking forward to the new experience. Maybe before then I’ll learn a meditation technique or get used to chamomile tea or warm milk… whatever works.

We’ve arrived in Antigua! Yawn…