'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

When your home is your boat

Rainbow coloured bottles of nail polish lie on their sides in the cabin, rolling around like bright felled soldiers in anguish.

Elsewhere in the front cabin, onion skins cover the surfaces like a vegetable confetti from a wild party. The onions themselves lie around the floor and bed like drunkards on the morning after. Plastic wine glasses line the hallway.

Across in the other hull the carnage is also evident.  In the tiny head (washroom), bottles of shampoo, hurled from their high shelf perch, lie bleeding sticky bubbly pink into the drain.

It’s been a rough day at sea. Everything has been tossed and slammed and kicked around by some grudge filled side-on waves. But Shiloh has survived. Despite the casualties around the cabins, Shiloh has excelled. Despite the all consuming groans of wood on fiberglass inside, she showed a brave face. She sailed today, all day, fast and furious. Like a dance with the wind, she came up to meet each wave, each gust of wind, and she pushed forward, she sailed. Beautifully.

Unlike her inhabitants, the awkward bulls in the china shop, grasping each surface as we passed, trying to keep our composure, our balance against the wishes of the forces around us.

It was our first sail after my trip to Canada, and it was a baptism by fire in many ways. It reacquainted me with all the good and the bad that is sailing life. Once we reached the lee of Great Abaco Island, nine long hours after leaving the shores of Nassau, the waves were tamed, the wind eased off and the conditions were much more pleasant for us ‘inhabitants’. Shiloh on the other hand, preferred the challenge of a big sea and a beam reach.

A day before our little journey, we’d played host to some ladies from Canada. A day on a boat. It was a detour for them, from a short holiday to Atlantis. For us it was a chance to imagine what it might be like to charter the boat. It was exhilarating, it was fun to be host. Champagne and OJ with snacks, a short trip to a pretty little island out of the hectic Nassau port for snorkeling and swimming. 

It was so different from the reality of our day to day life on the boat. I’ve got a lot of respect for our friends who charter for weeks at a time. Mike and Muffy on Extasea and Mike and Rebecca who did the same on One Love for two years. When your maritime home, with all it’s inherent problems (engine issues, limited water supply, incessant mold growth, limited power etc etc), becomes the hotel for 6 or 8 people for a week full time, that must be intense. Meals, snacks, drinks, towels, entertainment. Full time! Hats off to the charterers.

For us the sacrifices are far more abstract. When you’ve made the choice to ‘live the dream’ you make some other choices by default. When your first grand baby is born, you are thousands of miles away. Maybe without phone or internet. Maybe you are facing storms or just big waves. You are preoccupied. Your life is moving along on a very different path.

When your boy graduates from the relative security of college and his last faction of childhood, you can fly across a continent for only a short time to see him through, to watch him take off. But then you must return to the sea, because you know that he has his own life to live and you still have yours. Your sails are still full and they are blowing you once again, somewhere else.

But us cruisers are still parents. We still ache and worry for them. We still look at a photo of them with baby fat and glistening innocent eyes, and tears well in our salty eyes. We might be on a thousand mile journey to an uninhabited island in a vast ocean, or fighting a rusty washing machine in some city in the developing world, but we will never leave the first path we travelled. The path of never ending love for our children.

We are just different. We crave adventure to a fault. We don’t mind hand pumping our toilets. We conserve water so we can go for an extra week without visiting a city. And we get excited when our boat sails. No engines. All sails up. That feeling when the wind works with you and the power in the silence. Even if it means cleaning the aftermath in the cabins later.

Beaches Breezes and Fox Town Feeds Us

We’re in Fox Town only there are no foxes here, neither the animal or urban dictionary type.

Fox Town has a population of just over 200 people. It has a church (of course), and a restaurant/town bar called Da Valley with it’s own dock. And one table.

Next door there is a Shell station which consists of two ancient pumps next to the road. No building, no shelter per say. But the fuel hose reaches all the way down to the dock to serve the few local speed boats.

There is no bank or ATM for 60 miles.

There are three stores. These are not stores in the traditional sense. There are no signboards or overhead fluorescent lights. Each store is the front room of a house with one domestic fridge and two or three hand crafted wooden shelves displaying whatever they have. 

Yesterday we arrived and scrambled to shore to shop!  Between the three stores we were able to get one sweet potato (last one in town!), a dozen eggs, two tomatoes, a green pepper that was only half rotting, and a head of lettuce. A head of lettuce!

No cabbage or fresh milk or salami or dark chocolate (haha!!), or anything much else for that matter. Judy of Da Valley, drives the 80 miles down to Marsh Harbour randomly, and comes back with items to sell in the shops. No one can tell what day or week she might go. 

Judy of Da Valley

Unless you are a desperate clan of cruisers who arrive on the verge of scurvy, having spent the better part of two weeks without a fresh vegetable, and who beg, I mean inquire, as to when she would go next and would she entertain the idea of taking our shopping lists. It’s either that or sail two days through some tricky shallows and come all the way back…

And as it goes, Judy said yes!!! So we wait until Monday when she will go and bring us some food. And hence we find ourselves anchored in Fox Town on a Sunday. Nothing is open but the church, so there’s no point going to shore.

Since the local fishermen feed the black tip sharks in this bay, there will be no swimming either. 

We have been spoiled by walks and leisurely swims on beaches and nightly braais (barbecues) on said beaches for the past two weeks. 

We visited Allen's Pensacola Cay which has bushes and beaches and a Hilton sign painted on a shack. It has a few trails that lead to huge trees, littered with boater's names and dates of visiting. Those who'd come before us. And so we set to making our own sign to leave a legacy of plastic beads and good vibes. While our friends and family afar worked at desks, we worked on our sign and we hung it with pride.

And then that task was completed and the beaches had all been walked and inhaled and photographed. 

We haven’t been to an island with more than 6 people as it’s population. It’s been refreshing and special and peaceful.

But we crave a bit of civilization after a while. And even a burger. Last night at Da Valley we sat at the one table and gasped and moaned in gastronomic ecstacy as we gobbled down burgers and fries. And yes, they are NOT on our diet but every rule has been thrown out the window as we emerge from the beachy wilderness into the cosmopolitan metropolis of Fox Town.

Fun times with friends at Da Valley

Today, with no agenda, we’ll probably take the dinghies out in search of a deserted beach…

Life aboard - day 1,100

My captain is on the foredeck on his knees, giving mouth to mouth to a giant blow up canoe. I’m in the galley with soapy hands, scrubbing the breakfast dishes, smiling at the spectacle.

It’s a Saturday morning but it could just as easily be any day. Morning is slipping into afternoon. Hours ago we decided we’d ‘get those canoes out’ and go for a paddle in this idyllic setting. And as it goes, ‘getting out those canoes’ morphed into half a day of digging, dismantling, climbing into tight, hot, extremely awkward spaces and rearranging everything from bicycles to big rubber fenders and bags of winter clothes. Deep down in the bowels of our boat. I faired well, coming out of it with spots of bike grease and only a few bruises.

Now we’re on the water, managed to get into the canoes without capsizing which in my book is an accomplishment. If we stop now I’ll still be happy. But no, we follow our buddies, 4 floating canoes, through the anchored boats and toward the mangroves ahead. I’m soaked minutes in, maybe I don’t quite get this rhythm with the oars, but each time I lift and dip I get a shower…

Nevertheless I am out here, doing this cool, exercise-eey type thing, in touch with nature and all that. We need a photo! “John! Take a picture!” Captain is prepared. Gets the waterproof camera out of the canoe’s dry compartment. And… and… oh shit. Battery is dead. So no pictures then. No proof I actually did this.

And then Al who’s in the lead, shouts back that he’s aground. Its low tide and if we want to go across to the beach – way over there – we’ll have to get out and pull our vessels through this shallow patch. Ok I think, no problem.

Wrong. Problem! As my oars touch ground instead of clear water and I step out to pull, my feet sink into a sludge stew of hot mud, rough long sea grass and chunks of mysterious under water monsters. I have no idea what each step will bring my feet in contact with. I could kill myself for forgetting my shoes. I want to go back. I’m fine with it. I’ve seen lots of beaches. I’ve had my exercise.

But no, everyone insists we carry on, and apparently my groans and yelps are amusing.

I’m the third one through this swamp nightmare. The others are ahead and behind me and I have no choice. And then, just as I’m getting to the end of it, where I can see smooth, clean sandy bottom ahead, I take a step and my foot sinks deep in the mud, right onto an evil spiked sea urchin, and I scream – loud – jumping forward, onto yet another one! This time I jump right into my canoe. I don’t care, I’ll spend the day beached right here in the safety of my canoe!

Captain can hardly stop laughing as he comes through and tugs me along, clung to my canoe, two feet further and we are out of it. I had no lasting injuries - except my dignity – so we carried on, got to the beach and walked through the glorious powder sand, around to the ocean side. Found some warm pools to lounge in between the rough rocks and reconsidered how rough my life was.

Now it’s evening, having survived the day. We have an early supper and head over to the Alley Cats for a pre-‘beach-bonfire-full-moon-party’ drink. Elsewhere it’s Easter weekend. Children will be searching for eggs and adults will be gathering to feast. Many will be in church. We will be on the beach, fending off biting no-see-um bugs, sipping local rum, meeting fellow cruisers over the flickering light of the bonfire. Easter will be a far off concept.

We will watch the rising of the blood red moon, in a clear sky, from Manjack Cay in the Bahamas. Today our home, tomorrow a wonderful memory.