The morning was generally pretty lazy and laid back other than that. We learned that we wouldn't be able to pass the class because we couldn't use the sextant on the way down. I figured my index error in the bay, so at least I could take mine out of the box but the requirement was to plot a fix using two lines of position from the sun and a running fix. Something I knew how to work out better than both the instructors aboard and I was even explaining to all of them how to use the almanac, how to find local apparent noon and how to use the star finder. All this didn't count if the seas were too rough to even see the horizon, hold the sun steady or being too sick to even think about doing math on paper without losing whatever lunch I hadn't lost an hour before. The captain understood at least; after all, he wasn't even certified for the class himself, and he has been taking it up with the folks who write these requirements. Sure, celestial navigation is important when your electronics die but the school of thought that no electronics are to be trusted is outdated. I'd be at a loss if I had to use anything other than the electronic knotmeter and depthsounder in this field because these classes always discouraged the use of anything beyond that, although everything beyond that is standard practice aboard almost any large boat I might potentially crew on.
Soon after I explained all I was going to explain and we covered some other topics we got the ship's documents ready to go ashore after we got around to hoisting our Quarentine flag. In the old days, when a ship's crew had small pox or the plague or any other deadly disease, a plain yellow flag was flown to warn other vessels to stay clear and definitely don't even think about boarding. When coming into a new port, the ship was required to anchor way out in the offing with the flag flying for an extended period of time, (I believe forty days) or until everybody died. I'm not sure exactly how it has evolved since then, but these days the yellow flag is flown to signify a vessel registered in a foreign port before she cleared customs in the port she is visiting.
With no real plan of action or goal in mind once we were legally allowed to wander all over the island we "boarded the dingus" and set off to find the imigration office. This was around noon, and this was the Caribbean, so once we found the locked door with a sign telling us to come back after lunch at 1400, we had a choice of being illegal aliens for a few hours and eating crepes by the marina or being responsible and go back to boat. So we were illegal aliens for a while and ate crepes by the marina. We bummed around for a little bit after this in the market where clothes with all the same pattern were sold from a couple dozen stalls and eventually made our way back to the customs office. Only the skipper goes in while the rest of the crew waits outside, and the other groups that tried to knock on the door while ours was busy inside got a very stern talking to. We watched all the people in their vacation costumes come off the cruise ship busses and talked to an elderly couple who owned the cruising trawler we could see it the bay while we waited.
Now that we could legally roam the island, we went back to the boat.
We took down our Q flag and hoisted the Tricolour humming the French National Anthem because we are twelve years old and went below to estimate our estimated time enroute back home. We had a whole afternoon to spend on the island and we could have either checked out the fort or take a ride in the tender and explore the Dutch side of the island. We chose the latter and didn't regret it. We pounded on the sunscreen and packed the bug spray and grabbed a few gas cans to fill up while were there and disembarked.
I forgot to mention in the previous part that our dinghy was a mess. The assumption was that one of the captains had spilled oil all over the floor and never bothered to clean it up. We got it the best we could, but it never really went away. Many things had been said about this captain about how "he just doesn't care anymore" and "he gets so morally offended when you approach him with stuff like this." When we did fill up our spare gas cans we quickly discovered one of them had sprung a major leak and was dripping fuel at an alarming rate. This was the cause of the mess in the tender. "Let's not tell that captain about this..."
On the way to the other side, there are a few large, sullen wrecks. Tugs and frieghters thrown up on shoals when their anchors dragged in a hurricane. But grounded ships weren't the only neglected vessels: at least half a dozen smaller sailboats, some without masts, swung at their anchor, abandoned and weather beaten, burdens to their owners I'm sure.
Not everything on the mooring balls in the lagoon were in a sad state! What looked like a floating log cabin from a distance was in fact a neato restaurant accessible only by boat. There was also a famous ocean racing yacht made fast to the wharf. Don't ask me what it was, but it was famous I'm told. By far the most impressive spectacle, however, was the absurd amount of multi milion dollar celebrity mega yachts all anchored in one place, hiding from taxes. They lose all sense of scale when they are together like that and the amount of money sitting in that lagoon is impossible to mentally calculate. I believe someone said the total cost of all these ships in the lagoon exceeded the country's national debt. The most puzzling question on everyone's mind was how the hell did they all fit through the tiny drawbridge to get in there. The bar overlooking the bridge has daily times posted when it opens and people can gather around hoping for a chance to see a million dollar miscalculated steering adjustment. We were lucky enough to be on the water when we saw one of the yachts making for the bridge from seaward. We stuck around fairly out of the way and watched her come in. The ships are just narrow enough where they need to be to sqeeze through but it's touch and go the whole way, deck hands hanging fenders bigger than themselves over the side and walking them aft until the cement wall is left astern. My helmsmanship is not that good, I'm afraid.
Having enough of that, we went back to the boat and had tacos made with everything we didn't eat on the trip here. Everyone else talked about their favorite beers and breweries back home and I just sat nodding with a coke with a slice of lime in it. Scurvy prevention.
The next morning we discussed some more offshore topics and emergencies and went over everything we needed for the passage back. It looked like the wind wasn't going to change from the east, but at least this time we would be sailing with it, not against it. The first mate and the other student wanted to check out the marine supply store, but I decided to stay on the boat to have lunch and plot our course. This course would be much more direct but I didn't want to sail directly with the wind and risk the boom flying over in an accidental jibe, so it consisted of two legs at angles to the wind. We would rig a preventer line in case we did get caught by the lee, and with only one tack change it wouldn't be too much of a hassle.
The away team returned and the other student showed me a few tricks to transfer the course to the larger scale charts, shaving off a few miles in the process. The captain pointed out that if we erred too far north we'd end up on a dangerous reef but overall the course looked good.
We set off in the afternoon and I weathered a much more pleasant watch below. In fact, I might have actually been sleeping when I was called to go on deck. At this point I learned to wear my foulies at night, even if I didn't think I needed them. The breeze was not that chilly until the spray soaks you through and you are left there at the helm wishing you could get dry. Steering takes a lot more effort down wind and I wasn't particularly looking forward to it since I know I have trouble keeping a course on a run. But the captain said I was taking the waves really well and I wasn't even thinking about it too hard. I'm glad I could do something right!
Island Retreat's average speed is about five knots- walking speed- and that is what we planned for in our course plotting. On this heading we were averaging six to seven knots and more than once we were pushing ten when I surfed down the face of a wave. This kept spirits high and we were way ahead of our original time line. I was even well enough to check out the chart down below without getting sick. The other student may be brilliant with her dead reckoning but it's not like I didn't know what I was doing and I plotted our position like a boss under the light of the red head lantern. I did have to hand the helm over after an hour though, to give my arms a rest and to point out stars. There were two or three cruise ships who's bearings never changed, and I thought we may end up right under them but they eventually moved away. (They don't smell very pleasent to leeward either, by the way)
At one point in the night we were hit with a heavy squall and had to heave to and ride it out. The first mate said it was exciting. That's one word for it, but I would have used terrifying. In the middle of putting the helm over we heard a loud bang in the rigging. Not something you want to hear. While I was finding some way to lash the helm the first mate inspected all the shrouds to make sure the mast wasn't going to topple over. They were all sturdy and tight, but a block in the boom vang tackle had exploded. At this point the captain woke up and told us everything we were doing wrong but we got the block replaced. Come to find out, the captain had actually jury rigged that tackle over a year ago and just never got around to fixing it the right way!
On the captain's watch, we talked about my boat for a bit and how to go about fixing my loose rudder gudgeon as well as my future prospects. The simple fact is that I need more experience on bigger boats. I can sail my little Boston Whaler well enough on the small lake but there are just some things you can't learn on a day sailer or from a book. Ideally I would find a bunch of skippers and pester them to take me sailing all the time but no one in my area has ever seen a sailboat besides mine when I'm out.
Before this class, I used to say I wanted to live on a boat. Now I am not so sure. The amount of money needed to keep these bigger boats in ship shape as well as physical space and uncomfortable living conditions, especially in winter would leave no room for my other hobbies like astronomy that I've grown quite attatched to. I'd imagine some might say sacrifices have to be made in order to follow a dream, but what if the dream is outdated? What if life's winds and seas make it difficult to reach a destination you've planned for and need to make a course adjustment. I don't get too attatched to goals and plans for this reason. I don't want to work hard getting somewhere just because I didn't know enough about the lifestyle and gave everyone an image I'd have to live up to and then feeling unfufilled in the end. I was most animated and talkative on the boat when I was talking about astronomy and stars so I don't think it's a bad thing to explore this a little more. Not living on a boat does open some things up that I was resigned to living without. Larger telescopes is, of course, the more important one. I still enjoy sailing and the feel of the helm and putting the theory into practice but from what I have seen, the general live aboard lifestyle would start to wear me down after a period of time and I would eventually want to find a way out of it.
We also discussed where I would like to be, since Pennsylvania is out of the question for more reasons than no boats around. I don't handle the heat very well so I don't think I'd stay too far south and I really liked the Chesapeake Bay, preferably Annapolis. Once I get settled there I'd like to find a small boat I could spend a weekend on if I needed to. I'm not sure if I could keep Dawn Puffin down there in the meantime, but she would need to be sold at some point anyway, alas. While ocean passage making may be a grind, island hopping, (or day sailing from river to river on the Chesapeake) is still something I would enjoy.
While being a custodian may not be the most glamorous job compared the other careers taking these classes, being on a low level is somewhat freeing in a way because I can only go up! We talked about just cleaning boats down there, (getting to know them better in the process) and working my way up. Since all I do is clean classrooms now, cleaning boats or working at the marina shouldn't be that much different. The captain knows me well enough to know I like to teach myself everything and suggested several youtube boat repair and detailing how tos. He also suggested getting into sailmaking. It sounds like a very interesting science and something I would enjoy doing if I got good at it.
At this point the first mate told us to be quiet because she couldn't sleep.
During a day watch, I went below to check our heading. We were reeling off the miles so fast we were way ahead of shedule and in a few hours we would hit that reef we wanted to avoid. When I came back up and they asked me how the course looked I said "well, eventually we are going to end up where we don't want to be" which was apparently a lot funnier than I intended it.
Nothing much happened between then and when we sighted land again. I had some more unreasonable difficulty telling a few islands apart but it was easy enough once we were back in the Sir Francis Drake Passage. There was a point where you can see on the water exactly where the waves died down and we sailed down the channel for a while before starting to motor sail. Once again I was "technically off watch" but everyone was on deck now and going below at this phase would just be unfair. Another squall was fast approaching astern and at this point the captain pointed out that he and I were both off watch and could go below! I went below only to grab my jacket and came back up again. The squall wasn't nearly as intense as the last one and was actually very pretty. There was the strangest rainbow on our starboard beam that sort of hugged the water... We could see both ends but it was very low; if it was solid and we headed in that direction we would crash into it.
We were approaching a small bay and I was asked to go below and see how to handle it. There were many marked reefs and rocks and I said just keep the green buoy to port. Apparently this was the wrong answer, go check again and for the life of me I couldn't understand why we wouldn't want to keep the buoy to port. Well, I wasn't told that we wanted to go IN the bay! This is where the customs office was and we had to clear back into the US before finding our mooring at redhook. We anchored and I put out way too much snub line and at this point I was getting tired and discouraged. While we were in the bay we saw the first mate's boyfriend's boat motor by and when we came back from the office she suggested making the tender fast amidships instead of astern so we could board easier. This didn't really make sense but whatever, we tied off and hopped up. A few moments later her boyfriend's boat was astern and she lept aboard leaving all her stuff behind and sailed away. Ah. No one could blame her though, she didn't get much sleep and was as sick as I was and I'd be lying if I said I didn't start to feel like I wanted to get off the boat as well.
We got the stink eye from a french boat in the bay as we upped anchor and motored back to our home marina. A Canadian boat was anchored too close to our mooring ball but they had engine problems and everyone was friendly about it. Since we were a day ahead of schedule the capatain suggested spending the night in a quiet little cove so we weren't going to stay long in the Canadian's way.
The other student and I decided to take our first land showers all week. It wasn't our only shower all week but it was much better than using a hose. As we got clean and dry and felt nice we took the tender back and got caught in the middle of yet another squall, getting soaked through once again by the time we got back to the boat.
Once on board we let go our mooring and motored for Christmas Cove to defrag over night. It's a pretty little cove with a neat rock in the middle of it. All the mooring balls were taken so we had to drop anchor instead of taking the lazy way. If I wasn't already tired of these latitudes and kind of disapointed in my skills, along with the fact that I studied the celestial navigation theory so hard for nothing, I probably would have enjoyed it more. Which is not to say it wasn't a nice spot for what it was! I was just very burnt out. The rest of the crew took a nap down below but I stayed on deck for a while and played around on the internet. After I got bored of that I went down below too and soon after that the captain got up and started washing the dishes "very loudly" so we didn't screw up our sleeping patterns. We hung around until nightfall when we decided to check out the yacht club across the water. They were just closing up but the bar tender let us in. It was a cute little building; I just sat there rocking, drinking a Jamaican grape fruit soda and looking around while everyone else talked about Boston and Detroit.
We came back to the boat and had dinner (an indian insta mix that looked like space food, over rice) while listening to the Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou soundtrack. The other student mentioned she felt like we were the interns all week and I couldn't think of a better album with which to close the voyage. We talked a bit about how navy pilots took a lot more unnecessary risks than airforce pilots, how to photograph planets and the capatain's racing boat, Sparkle Pony and went to bed.
We motored back to Redhook in the morning, getting caught between a ferry and a lee shore and after we moored we took the tender back to the Bella. I called a taxi, said goodbye and went to the airport. Aside from getting pulled aside for a "random" search I'm prone to get, presumably because of my pirate like appearence, and being almost certain I was going to be "volunteered" to stay behind because the flight was overbooked by one and my boarding pass didn't have a seat assignment on it, the trip back north was largely uninteresting.
I'm not disenchanted by sailing in and of itself, and in fact I'm very excited to get Dawn Puffin ready this spring, but this will be the last off shore passage I intend to make for a long time. With the watch system and my sea sickness and being so worn out at the end of it, it's too much like work. I don't think the class is worth it, but I don't regret taking it and having the experience. Most people think of sailing as just putting your feet up on deck, reading a book while the cool island breezes coast your boat along to fabulous white sandy beaches and half dressed island native. I consider myself better for being out there, slammed by the waves and getting sick more than once trying to plot a position in the middle of the Caribbean sea, out of most communication ranges where others have never been out of the state and think our miserable little town is the only place in the world. In most cases we would have waited for the weather to change in our favor instead of plowing into it in order to get there in back in time to catch a flight. In a way, it was better for us to take the hard way and know what it's like than go the easiest course possible and get caught by the lee later with our false confidence putting us into danger. I didn't get a shiny sticker but I did at least learn something on this trip. The only downside to this mode of thinking is getting a little depressed coming back to an area with such a narrow minded mentality and no ambition at all to expand their horizons...
I think all I want in life is to sail around when I want to, study astronomy and other mathematically complex sciences a lot more, watch cartoons and drink tea with friends, maybe over a game sometimes. This is something well within my ability to achieve. It may not be a glamorous lifestyle but my philosophy is that it's all the same in the end if you're happy. And if that doesn't work out or something new comes along, I'll change course again and make for some other goal. You just have to be honest with yourself and go with the flow. Have goals and dreams, but if the wind changes, keep your options open.
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