A Sail of Two Idiots (35 page)

The trick to waiting out weather is to make the most of wherever you're sitting. No matter how many times you've visited a place, or how long you've been there, there are probably some things you haven't seen. So go see them!

We discovered that we were sharing the harbor with the father and son we had hiked with on St. Kitts. They invited us to dinner along with another couple who kept us enthralled with great sailing stories. They'd been everywhere and across two oceans!

They also liked to hike, so the next morning we found ourselves ascending Nevis's dormant volcano to the island's water source (Michael and I were trying to hike the peak of every island). Despite the rain, we had a fun climb, traipsing back down to our boats for a spur-of-the-moment potluck. We invited everyone we knew (more than eight of us) and enjoyed showing around all the catamaran “virgins.” Yep, we had a lot of space, and yep some of it was even
empty
.

Finally the storm broke and some of us steered for Antigua, 55 miles to the east, while others aimed toward Guadeloupe on a more southeasterly course.

Well, nothing exactly, but with all this new rain we were experiencing, we discovered that, although the new hatches were holding up, the side salon window wouldn't stop crying, and another window in the galley had now gotten into the act. The weather didn't stay dry long enough to even try to fix them, so things were a bit moist inside.

B
ecause Antigua is about 55 miles due east of Nevis, and the winds usually come from the east, going there involves either a lot of tacking or some hard motorsailing directly into the wind. Either way, we would be in for a long day. Yep. Nine hours on the sea to be exact.

We left Nevis at 6 a.m., right when it was light enough to see little fishing boats and their crab pots, and headed east. As soon as we got around the southeast side of Nevis, we were walloped with 25-knot winds and 6-foot seas. Hey! That's not what our weather gurus said! This was not dangerous but was sure uncomfortable. The sea and wind direction were causing some serious between-the-hull banging.

After two hours of hard slogging, we watched
Child's Play
veer off to the south. Kim called on the VHF to tell us they couldn't take it anymore and were going to Montserrat instead. This course to the south would allow them a more comfortable beam reach, and the island was closer than Antigua. We decided to wait another hour to see if the winds and seas meshed with what our weather sources had predicted. Sure enough, in about a half hour the winds dropped to 13 knots and the seas lessened, although they were still choppy. At least the sun was out.

Upon arriving at 3 p.m., we (Michael) waded through 45 minutes of paperwork (a record) until we could officially say we were on Antigua. In Jolly Harbour, to be exact, on the middle-west side of the island. Jolly good!

Lest things become too boring, we got word that our adventures had sparked the interest of a relative who wanted to become a long-term guest. Wow—now
that
was trust! Someone wanted to come live and sail with us. What fun!

I had met my half-sister, Melissa, only a couple of times over the years (we share a dad), but here was a chance to get to know her better. In her early twenties, almost all of them spent in Virginia, she had come to the same conclusion we had. There had to be more out there—wherever “there” was.

Perfectly happy to mentor another wanderer, we offered to have her aboard as long as we could all stand one another, and allow her a taste of life outside the “norm.”

The day Melissa was supposed to arrive, we rented a car and drove around the island. This was different from steering a moped on the left side of the road. The steering wheel was on the opposite side of the car, so we kept going to the wrong side of the road, plus the controls were switched so Michael kept turning on the
windshield wipers instead of the turn signals. That was certainly entertaining. It also alerted other drivers that we were clueless, which was a good thing for them to know.

We spent a lot of time lost, as usual, since all the roads looked the same and the signs were the size of splinters, but we had a good time anyway. Applying LESSON 80, Investigate, we drove around looking at all the anchorages, noting which ones seemed worth visiting and which ones could be skipped.

After our tour around the island, we checked our e-mails and discovered that Melissa had missed her plane and would be arriving the next day. No problem! We kicked off our shoes, made a couple of gin and tonics for our sundowners, and watched the ash from Montserrat's volcano, southwest of us, make for a dramatic sunset. A firefly even fluttered around the boat. How enchanting!

The next morning, since we still had the rental car for half the day, we decided to head to a grocery store. Melissa might want something other than canned food. When we left the store, we were met by a very sad, scared girl who had managed to angle her car just perfectly to hit our car. I give her credit for waiting until we came out to discuss the matter (what are the chances of someone doing that in the States?). We decided that if we scrubbed the paint from her car off ours, the slight dent would be like a shadow and no one would notice. No worries.

It was almost time to pick up our new crew member, so we needed to hurry and put away our goodies. On the way back to the boat, we noticed a bunch of people on board. Hmm—did we throw a party and forget to attend? Turns out we were dragging! Our worst nightmare had come true. Not only were we not on the boat when it happened, we had been anchored just feet from a rocky cliff. We were incredibly lucky that not only had some passersby seen the problem, so did Kim and Mike from the newly arrived
Child's Play
. They were gunning the engines to keep us off the rocks, but they couldn't figure out our anchor's bridle system (remember, monohulls are different), so they couldn't raise the anchor. They were very relieved to see us and vice versa.

Dragging made no sense. We had already been anchored for four days, and had stayed put through one very windy evening, and then dragged for no apparent reason? How frustrating. We motored to the other side of the harbor and dropped anchor again. Even though we were in seven feet of water, visibility was so bad that we couldn't tell what the bottom was or whether we were dug in. We tried to drop a second anchor for good measure but discovered that a vital piece was missing (a shackle to attach the anchor to the rode), so we had to give it up because time was running short: We needed to go to the airport to pick up Melissa. But we were now afraid to leave the boat. We asked our friends to keep an eye on her, and off we went. Whatcha gonna do?

Although I had considered staying with
Jacumba
, it turned out to be a good thing that I went along to the airport. I can't say I was surprised when the authorities signaled us over and wanted proof that Melissa was my sister and that she would be staying with us. Although island officials are not big fans of one-way tickets, I'm guessing that the bigger issue was Melissa's appearance. She looked like a Twilight-film outcast, very pale and gothic (sorry, sis), so I think they wanted to be sure she had a way off the island. Apparently seeing her leave with two “normal” folks in quick-dry clothing was enough to appease everyone, and off we went.

While Melissa was intrigued with driving on the left side of the road, and laughed along when the windshield wipers went on instead of the turn signal, she was too tired to appreciate her new surroundings. That worked out great for us because we were too worried about the boat anchor to be very welcoming. We ate a bit, hugged a lot, and called it a night.

The next day, winds and seas were still pretty high, but we wanted to move so we motored around to the next cove, Five Islands Harbour. We got our second anchor situation resolved and put both anchors out to ensure a good night's sleep. The seas were still too stirred up to make an anchor dive worthwhile, so why not be safe? We had a great day splashing around in the water, admiring a beautiful sunset, and then …

Scraaaaaape. What the … ? Scraaaaaape. We were hitting a sandbar or something. Why now? In the dark? (Oh yeah, LESSON 13, Be afraid.) We had been there all day with no problems. We threw out a third anchor to pull us off and went to bed.

The next day was windy and stormy. Welcome to the islands, Melissa! We decided to stay in the same harbor, but we moved farther from the beach. We got situated again with our two anchors, sat tight through some high gusts and a few rain showers, read all day, and then prepared to settle in for dinner when … scraaaaape. Really?!

The sun wasn't quite down yet, so we figured we'd just quickly move again, but nooOOoo. Our anchors seemed to be entwined. Michael got in the dinghy to unwind them and … the dinghy motor died. Instead of grabbing on to something,
Michael just kept pulling at the engine cord, trying to get it restarted. Meanwhile he was quickly floating toward the bay entrance and out to sea!

By the time he discovered that a loose rope in the dinghy had gotten very entwined in the dinghy propeller, he was too far away from
Jacumba
to grab anything. I threw a line, but it just missed him. What now? There were no other boats in this bay, the sun was setting, Michael was rowing madly toward me against the strong current, and I was in a boat attached to the seabed by two anchors that wouldn't come up. AAAGH!!!

Michael gave up on rowing, jumped in with the dingy line in his mouth, and was swimming, swimming, swimming toward
Jacumba
. He was barely making headway and quickly tiring out. I was scrambling around madly grabbing ropes and tying them together so I could swim out to meet him and pull us in. When I thought I had enough length, I jumped in and swam toward him (the current was whisking me there anyway), only to literally reach the end of my rope. I was near panicked at this point watching an out-of-breath and bug-eyed Michael desperately trying to reach my outstretched hands while the sun set behind him when finally we touched. Hal-le-lu-jah! (Must hear choir music here.)

While we were giddily hugging in celebration and treading water, guess what?

We touched ground. That's right. Not only did our toes touch sand, we then stood up. I'm not even sure the water reached much past our hips. That godforsaken sandbar that had caused this entire drama extended all the way down the beach and quite a distance into the bay (no, it wasn't on the charts). We walked hand in hand Jesus-like all the way back to the boat. Can you believe it?

I'll bet you're wondering about poor Melissa. Was she absolutely terrified? Making her plane reservations back to the States? Nope. She had been deep into a nap bordering on a coma right until we plopped our exhausted and slightly hysterical selves back on board. She walked out bleary-eyed, and possibly a little alarmed, as we laughed and cried, wiping our noses as we explained the whole ordeal to her. Maybe
now
she was wondering what she had gotten herself into.