by Candace Banack
Preamble: To explain my Passages
In July 1987, my friend Derek and I left from the Westwood Sailing Club dock in Toronto’s Outer Harbour in our Contessa 32. The plan was rough, but the first year’s destination was the British Virgin Islands. The fantasy was a world circumnavigation, but there was no rush and no idea what fortitude that would require. The first most important thing was to “Get off the Dock!”
I decided to write about the passages as they have beginnings and ends. I was required to leave my log with the boat when I left the “Turkey” in Turkey, but I do have many of the annual letters which I had written to family and friends and vivid memories.
Beaufort, NC to Bermuda Next….
Beaufort, NC to Bermuda
That night. I thought that we would be there by now. Hamilton was so close that you could almost smell it, and the crew was threatening to mutiny, whatever that meant. Did I really have a choice but to carry on? Perhaps, when Derek asked me to leave Toronto and sail the world with him, I could have said no. But it was too late for that.
We had started this leg of the journey seven days ago, when we motored out of Beaufort N.C. with some measure of trepidation. We were headed for the British Virgins Islands and since most Caribbean islands are upwind from the Atlantic seaboard, the plan is to go east until you reach the desired degree of longitude before turning south. This was our first taste of “Blue Water”. Monetary restrictions dictated that we didn’t always have a chart of local waters, so we had checked out the library and found a map which we studied thoroughly. We had learned from fellow sailors that there is a very hazardous reef stretching south from Beaufort for several miles and grounding on it should be avoided. Indeed, when we finally did turn east, I watched the depth- meter rise with an anxious eye, and it did shallow out but not quite enough to catch us. I was relieved that we had passed the first test.
A brisk southwesterly breeze whisked us across the Gulf stream and over that hurdle. The “Stream” can be nasty when the wind blows against it, from the north. Now we were truly out there. Taking watches. I liked the 8 – midnight and the 4 -8 shifts. On the third night out after I had retired below, I heard a huge bang! I called up to Derek, “What was that?!” His reply “I dunno”! It turned out that the twin forestays had failed. As we crawled up onto the heaving foredeck to retrieve the sopping sail and head stays, I thought about a comment in one of the hundreds of articles written by the incomparable and my hero, Lin Pardy, I had read in preparation for this adventure. She knew very well how it feels to be on a small boat in the middle of a large black sea, and she figured that she had only wished to be somewhere else, 10% of all their time afloat. I had figured that I could live with that, but I was just wishing that it didn’t have to be the first 10%!
Fortunately, we didn’t lose the mast, but we did have to figure out what to do and where to go. The Bahamas and Nova Scotia were the nearest land but not in the direction which we were going, nor was I prepared to go back to Beaufort and run the risk of finding a north wind or the reef. We decided to press on with only our storm jib, as its wire luff could be our forestay. We weren’t making great headway but it hardly mattered because the next day we were overtaken by such a vicious storm that we could carry no canvas at all. I don’t know how high the waves were. I guessed at maybe 20 ft. All I know is that I had to look up to see their tops.
We spent a day taking turns in the cockpit trying to keep the boat from somersaulting as she raced down the face of those huge rollers. I spent the time mentally composing letters to my loved ones, not too scary for Mom, and plenty scary to engage the sailors at home. We also discovered that we should have put a plug in the hole on the foredeck where the anchor chain runs down into the cabin. Timely application of the hand bilge pump became a necessity. I remembered some other sage advice we had garnered in preparation. “Keep sea water out of the boat!” HAH! I was happy to just keep it afloat.
After 24 hours, the storm had passed, and a lovely southeasterly breeze and a sunny sky found us bounding for Bermuda with our big drifter pulling us downwind. No need for a forestay. I cooked a pizza from scratch and made plans. It was a pretty good day, and the loom of Hamilton cheered me even more in spite of the wind dying, typically at sunset.
Now it was nearly midnight. We were low on fuel and short on sail, and we still had a long way to go. I wanted to turn the motor on and weave our way into the safe haven of Hamilton Harbour, which was closest, but the way through the reefs that surround Bermuda is unmarked and very tortuous. You really need to follow a local fisherman who knows the way. I had heard that they do that sometimes.
So, picture me on a 32’ sailboat with Derek, about 10 miles southwest of Bermuda on a starless night. At least it wasn’t stormy, which is always a bonus when you are on a small vessel in the middle of a large ocean. “Xanth” was her name, a land of magic or so the story goes. The next best option “Call the Coast Guard!” Why not, I’m still trembling on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I was momentarily relieved when a nice man answered our radio call. I explained what my needs were, and he came back with this response “Since it was your choice to sail the seven seas, call me back when your life is in danger” or words to that effect. I had the impression that I was not the first hysterical sailor that he had said that to. Nevertheless, he did call back 10 minutes later to tell us that he had found a container ship in our vicinity which had offered to drop us off a barrel of fuel. “ Did we want it?”
I’m always impressed by the kindness of strangers and at sea it is an imperative. We took down sail and motored to the rendezvous. I crawled up to the foredeck and clung to a stay with every ounce of determination I could muster as we crashed over the bow wave of the containership. They were going at the slowest speed they could and still maintain way while we were just trying to keep up. When we were alongside, I looked up and the terrifying image of an impending embrace of our rigging and the containership put my heart in my mouth. I panicked and waved us off. We tried it again with better contact with the ship’s crew but no better result. By our third attempt, our benefactor was done with messing around and needed to be on its way, so at the first opportunity, the crew dropped a barrel of fuel into our cockpit and threw me the other end of the line attached to it. With some quick calculations I figured that there must be about 50‘ of line in the water and the chance of it wrapping itself around our propeller was 120 %. Derek eased us carefully away as the vessel accelerated back on its journey. I hauled line like a crazed whirligig until it was all onboard and then collapsed back into the cockpit so filled with emotion that I couldn’t speak, not even enough to say “Thank You” to our departing friends.
There was nothing for it but to fuel up and head for St. Georges, 40 miles to the east. Heading into wind & sea, it was a slow slog along the south coast, which was dotted with homes that were tantalizingly close, but the ring of reefs around Bermuda made them inaccessible. I was determined and kept the pedal to the metal, as they say, while Derek hid below, out of the way of my foul mood. From there he could still keep the bilge pumped dry, and work on the growing list of things which needed to be addressed when we could stop and take a breath. It took all day.
We were nearing the channel, only a mile to go, before we could head north into St Georges harbour, when the engine died. This time I was in no mood to be humoured. “Call the Coast Guard again!” I knew that there were locals standing by who could come and give us a tow but the nice man at the
Coast Guard assured me that it would cost a fortune, and I suppose he sensed my rising hysteria because he offered a suggestion about how we could do it on our own. I was sure that they could see us on their radar so I told him that as we had lost our forestay and were using our storm jib with its wire luff, we could not sail to weather by more than 170 degrees. His solution was to simply drive 10 miles out to sea, away from Bermuda, away from safety, away from respite and the return tack would put us at the entrance channel.
Twenty miles to make one, in the desired forward direction! I felt completely defeated but let Derek hoist sail and head out to sea. After about 30 minutes I said, “Let’s try the motor again,” When it started, I shouted “ Hallelujah” and turned that rig around. Coming down the narrow entrance channel I kept the mainsail up just in case the motor decided to die again but luck was with us and the channel opened up to the most wonderful safe haven, St. Georges Harbour. Customs had stayed late just long enough to check us in. I was not offended when the first instruction from the agent was to open all the hatches. The odor below decks was, indeed, overpowering. A pile of dirty clothes on the cabin sole which was soaked with equal parts of salt water, sweat and terror made for a heady brew. After we got the anchor down, I looked around at the fleet of ragtag sailboats much like Xanth which had made the same crossing and were now lying at their ease in the setting sun. Heaven! I could now finally take a deep breath, unclench fingers, toes and everything else that I had kept in a twist for the last eight days and enjoy instead the feeling of accomplishment that one does not get when arriving by Cunard line.