So Christmas and New Year were a bit different this year, Christina was in the Virgin Islands on a yacht delivery and Ubatuba and Andy stayed in Trinidad to ready the boat for a sail without engine to St. Martin/St. Maarten (So good they named it twice?).
While Christina was getting a Harley Davidson tatoo Andy was getting a crewmember for Oceana (not a replacement, just a fellow adventurer moving up island). Christina was making contacts for work and Andy was liming with the fishermen getting pissed on 75% rum, then eating fish broth so hot and spicey it made your eyes water - just right to sober you up so you can go out drinking again.
So Andy found Alex to help sail Oceana to St Martin and cast off in a gentle breeze which then dropped to nothing leaving Oceana drifting towards the rocks in the Boca del Dragon/Dragons Mouth with no engine!!!! So Alex`s baptism into sailing was to chuck the dinghy over the side and tow a 38 foot 10 1/2 ton yacht with a 6 foot dinghy and a 3 1/2 horse power outboard through the Dragons Mouth sometimes forwards, sometimes backwards, sometimes around and around and eventually drifting for an hour back towards Venezuela. It did get better, for a while. We got some wind and set course to go to windward of the Windward Islands so keeping out of the wind shadows they cast. But half way through the first night a huge squall ripped the jib and left us without forward propulsion for the rest of the night until we could change the sail in daylight. We had to duck around the other side of Grenada (and all the other islands) to head on a more direct course for St Martin glimpsing lights or faint mountain tops and smelling Montserat as we went by. Our first real sight of land for 4 days was the tiny island of Nevis - blink and you would miss it. Followed by a last night at sea and landfall in Marigot Bay and a cold beer in a French cafe. I couldn`t have asked for a better crew on this trip than Alex, despite the fact that he anounced half way through the trip that he was doing this in an attempt to dispell a fear of open water - talk about in at the deep end!!!!
So in his own words, here is an account of the very trip aforementioned just let you all know what we have been doing for the last 3 1/2 years.........
Hi All,
I did it! I #@!&*##$ well did it! The people i talk to are well impressed that i braved such rough seas which have been churning up the Caribbean recently. I didn't know any better in fact but it makes the stresses of the journey, and my fears, more comprehensible. Now it feels i've got a scar i can show off. It feels good. At times i felt a lot of fear. It was rooted in my stomach, like a creature with sharp claws clinging on with all its might in my guts. The creature was in fact myself. It was symbolic for my psychological need to grasp on because i felt like i was falling into a pit of doom.
The boat was a 38 footer with two sails. It could sleep 4 people at a stretch and had a cooker, a desk, a living 'space', a toilet and cupboards. At the back outside was the cockpit which housed the wheel and a small space to sit and relax. The captain's name was Andy and his dog (a beagle) was called Ubatuba (a beach in Brazil where he bought it). Andy had been sailing since he was 8 and he sailed like most of us ride bicycles. I was completely dependent on him and his calmness and steady nature were wonderful for me. I watched with something appraoching awe as he got up front to reduced the main sail while the boat 'wheelied' at the top of a tall wave and then came crashing down again. He was locked inside himself , using all his faculties to get us up to St. Martin (a journey of about 500 miles). I was pleased for that ultimately although i felt lonely. At times i was locked inside myself, not wanting to ask Andy too many questions, like "Are we going to die?" I kept conversation going by asking him questions about sailing and about himself. He didn't ask me one question in the 6 days we were together. At one point when the fatigue of the journey set in i started to get paranoid and insecure but i told myself that this wasn't the time and the place. Andy looked after me. He cooked all our meals. And he was dedicated to eating well. One night he made us gnocchi, from scratch! This doesn't seem such a big deal until you know that cooking on rough seas is like cooking in a rollercoaster. Gravity seemed to act in 7 dimensions whenever i wanted to do even the most basic task. Everything was so difficult! I tried to laugh at my inability to do anything with dignity but as soon as i was thrown into another corner of the cabin that laugh died. For next time i'm going to prepare by learning to cook in a military G-force Simulator.
And i hope there will be a next time, for although it was hard, there were magnificent moments. One of those were the night watches. A time when it was my job to scan the horizon, all 360 marvellous degrees of it, for large boats. I would be on for 3 hours while Andy slept then we'd swap over at least twice in the night. The journey was blessed with a full moon which would roll out a silver carpet over the charcoal black sea from the horizon all the way to me. A sea that stretched outwards around me like a massive stage i could never fill with the amphitheatre of the night watching me. There was nothing out there though. Only the boat, two guys and a dog. At times the moon disappeared behind a cloud and a darkness enveloped me and the boat. I felt like i was a mouse caught in open country and the dark shadow of a bird of prey passed over me ready to snatch me from the boat and take me away, far away. It was scary but in a thrilling way. What wasn't so thrilling was a wind storm we got into that threatened to push us off course. We were sailing parallel to the line of waves so that the boat slipped down the steep slopes of water sideways and a wall of water would rise up threatening to engulf us. We always rose up with it but i never quite got used to the bigger waves which tipped the boat at an even bigger angle than we were at already. And as the waves passed under us i watched them march off to the horizon like giant headless messengers, shoulders hunched up, taking mystic messages to the gods at the ends of the earth. And i was struck by all these waves, all the messengers, all this ceaseless purpose. My heart was in my throat for most of the storm but it was tempered when Andy stated very matter of fact "How's your Spanish, Alex? This wind might push us to Panama. You watch the compass while i get a bit more kip." I nodded nervously and said nothing while my thoughts were saying "Kip ! Kip! How can you sleep now? We're all going to diiiieeee!" I thanked God for people like Andy.
The music i had spent so much time recording back home prior to the trip came into its element out here. The melancholic urban drum and bass of Everything but the Girl's "Walking Wounded" album complemented the barrenness of the sea. I saw very little life. We saw no other yachts out at sea. Maybe i should have asked myself why. I saw some sea birds that took a passing interest in us. There was some strange clumps of plant life floating at the surface from time to time. Most exciting of all were a school of dolphins that accompanied us no more than 30 feet away. It was surreal to see them suddenly appear and disappear as thay breached the water in formation. Only a glimpse but a lovely one. Nightwatches were at their strangest when i would awake to exchange places with Andy and i felt transported into a washing machine on its most active cycle. I'm not sure which cycle but imagine it on wash, rinse, spin and dry all at the same time.
Throughout the journey we saw very little land because we sailed a course far from the wind shadows that some of the higher islands caused. But after about 3 days we came close to Nevis and St. Kitts and i looked on as if the land was my home, but it had also become a stranger to me, i no longer knew it, understood it. I hear motor bikes and cars for the first time in ages. These islands are known as the islands with their heads in the clouds. They rise up steeply from the sea. The towns and villages are perched at the bottom of the slopes. And the peaks are in cloud like a single cloud got pierced by them and can go no further whilst the rest of the sky remains clear blue. I imagined that God was using the islands like orange juice squeezers to get the last drops of rain out of the few clouds that passed that way. And one of the islands took on an eerie quality. We had passed St. Kitts at a snail's pace as we cleaned and cooked and relaxed after a tempestuous journey. We needed to make our way through the passage of two islands in order to make the last push to St. Martin, our final destination. But Andy wasn't sure if the currents and tides would push us back. So just as the sun set and the sky darkened we came out past St. Kitts. The wind picked up and the washing machine cycle started. On our right was St. Kitts and on our left was an island called St. Eustatia. It rose singularly, the cloud on its peak glowed with lights from unseen towns. A peak like a volcano, a glow like lava. It was King Kong island! And we might get blown back onto it! Jesus! My imagination! A curse! I was genuinely glad to get away from that island and to finally make our way through on to the home stretch.
And i'm in St. Martin now. I'm exhausted but elated. I have confronted one of my biggest fears and realised one of my most insistent dreams. To sail out to sea and leave land for a few days. It hasn't sunk in just yet. I'm a little different now. I'm still going to die, but not at sea.
I'm off to Jamaica tomorrow. How much adventure can one guy take! I hope to use my last week of holiday to relax and soak up enough warmth and sun to get me through the rest of the winter. I'm looking forward to being back with you all (at the same time! big group hug!). Take care.
Love
Alex
There you go then, thats what this sailing lark is all about, huge lumps of beauty, fear, exhaustion, disorientation and haute cuisine followed by sheer relief when you make it. Thanks again to Alex for the company and the prose.
Meanwhile back in St. Martin Andy is a marine electrician and Christina is a hostess on a day charter boat and they can both confirm that they prefer not to work.
