Conch, Beer and......a Hurricane!

There’s been a lot of publicity this year about hurricanes especially after Irene blew through the Bahamas, crossed North Carolina Outer Banks and terrorized New York City. Many people ask if we ever encountered a big storm while we cruised on Wild Goose. Yes, we endured a hurricane in the Bahamas. “Whoa-what was it like?” they ask. Well, let’s start from the beginning.

Yum! Fresh conch from the shell

Snorkeling in the clear Bahamas water

We had only been cruising about three months when we picked up both of our children in Key West, Florida and headed for the Bahamas. Tracy brought along her cat, Samantha, who never really warmed up to boat life. It was to be an exciting summer vacation from college, although it was a little heavy on the excitement end. Official hurricane season is June 1^st until November 30^th with the majority of the hurricanes in the Bahamas occurring in August and September. With that in mind, we sailed across to the Berry Islands, a stirrup-shaped chain of tiny islands, called cays and pronounced “keys”, on the northeastern edge of the Great Bahamas Bank. We leisurely fished and snorkeled our way through the islands learning about the Bahamian culture and their relaxed way of life.

Weather looks great---now

Although the weather was fantastic where we were sailing, forecasts were looking a little grim. An early July tropical storm brewed out in the Atlantic Ocean. We made our way to one of the few somewhat safe harbors in the Bahamas, Marsh Harbor, in the Abaco Islands. 

Great hangout-Sapodilly's Bar & Grill also called Dilly's

Our first stop once we anchored the boat was the profound base of local knowledge and weather, Sapodilly’s Bar & Grill. It’s a magnet that draws thirsty boaters from the harbor with loud reggae music, bright colored lights, and the local Bahamian brew, Kalik. The weather is always a favorite topic among boaters and today is no exception. The tropical storm has intensified and is now Hurricane Bertha!

Waiting for Bertha

You may not have ever heard the drone computerized voice, affectionately known as Iron Mike, over the weather radio, but it sounds like a cross between Donald Duck and Orson Wells. 

“Hullo all stations.  This is a National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency weather alert.  At fourteen hundred Zulu, weather advisors upgraded the tropical storm in the Atlantic to Hurricane Bertha.  Bertha is traveling in a generally northwest direction at approximately twelve miles per hour and is located 385 miles southeast of Great Abaco Island in the northern Bahamas.  Winds may increase to 115 miles per hour over the next twelve hours.  Anyone in the path of this storm should take necessary precautions to seek safe harbor.  Stay tuned to this station for further weather developments.”

 “What does he mean ‘traveling in a generally northwest direction’?” I plead to the Bahamian bartender.  Locust, plagues and hurricanes were never part of our original plans and I need more specific information. “Can’t NOAA pinpoint a hurricane’s direction better than generally? And, winds may increase to 115 miles per hour? Is there a may not or perhaps a when?” 

I’m normally a patient person, but right now I could leap across the bar and put a stranglehold on that radio in an effort to squeeze out more information. The bartender nods and opens a handful of beer bottles. Most of the tourists have already left the island, abandoning their tropical vacation for the safety of the mainland. The rest of us have a boat either anchored in the harbor or docked at one of the marinas on the island. With Bertha traveling in our general direction, we must make a decision.

 

We head back to the boat and discuss our options. We could leave Wild Goose anchored in Marsh Harbor and fly back to Texas; we could pull the anchor and sail to Florida to search for an empty docking spot and take the chance Bertha will not follow us there; or we could stay aboard the boat and ride out the hurricane here. It’s a formidable decision affecting all four of us and no one wants to make the decision alone. So we vote. It’s unanimous. Wild Goose is our home. She’s tough, well-built and the thought of leaving her to face the storm alone seems unbearable.

We’ll all stay aboard Wild Goose.
Bring it on Bertha!

Ominous 

-----TO BE CONTINUED-------

Wimps, Cheeseburgers and the Duval Crawl

If you’ve never been to Key West, Florida, it’s well worth the effort to get there, especially if you’re tired of snow, cold winds or just need a break from everyday life. You can fly into Miami and drive south on US Highway 1 crossing bridge after bridge, island after island (called keys) for about 130 miles until you reach historic Key West.

Clouds were getting heavy and dark and the winds were picking up as we readied the boat to sail from Dry Tortugas to Key West. Our son, Mat, and several of his friends had joined us for some diving and fishing in the area. We had a great time, but as the sky began to look more ominous, Mat’s three buddies came on deck looking suspiciously sheepish.

“We think we’re going to take the fast ferry boat to Key West and meet you guys there. Don’t worry about us, we’ll be fine in Key West until you get there in a couple of days,” they said. Not one of them could actually look us in the eye, but you could tell they were quite unsure whether we or Wild Goose could make the passage in one piece. I looked over at Mat. He shook his head slowly.

“Not me, guys. I’m going with my mom and dad. It might get pretty rough and I think they could use the help,” he said. My eyes teared up a bit. Though he never showed it, I knew that Mat always worried about us on the boat. He’s an excellent sailor and knew the boat almost as well as we did, but he also knew it’s a big ocean out there that can swallow a small sailboat.

We put the guys on the ferry with a few teasing words like “wimp, but don’t worry about it” and maybe a “chicken-shit” or two, but I knew it was the best choice. Rough seas are challenging enough without having three seasick and puking guys aboard.

We eased out of Dry Tortugas and set a reefed main and half-furled jib. It’s easy to reef your sails in moderate seas, but if you wait until the wind is intense and the boat is pitching back and forth, a trip forward on the deck becomes a risky venture. Experienced sailors will tell you the old adage ‘a reef in time’ means the time to reef is when you first think about it. We had a few hours of good sailing before the seas began to kick up. I went below and secured the last few objects that could become flying projectiles in a storm and cooked an early dinner.

Slowly, the waves began to increase in size and the wind began whipping the crest of each wave into a watery nebula spewing a salty cloud of mist across the deck and dodger. The waves had a short period meaning there wasn’t much distance between each wave. Steep, quick waves occur when the wind is against a current. We had an easterly wind blowing against the Gulf Stream headed in a westerly direction. Instead of rising on the front face, easing over the crest and riding down the back side to the trough, Wild Goose rose up on the wave, crested and hit the face of the next wave. Bam! The bow struck the water like a belly-flop and the boat shook throughout her hull. It sounded like a gunshot traveling through the cabin. She seemed to stop for a few seconds as the noise and trembling dissipated through the water, and then took her place to travel up the next wave and start the process all over again.

At one point, Mat looked up at us and said, “Do you think we’ll make it?” Until that point (and even afterwards), I had not given the possibility that she might break apart a second thought. I trusted Wild Goose. That was good enough for me.

Dominique, The Cat Man

We pulled into Galleon Marina in Key West and Mat’s friends were on the dock with plenty of beer and promises of margaritas later that evening. We strolled along Duval Street (called the Duval Crawl) popping into Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville for a Cheeseburger in Paradise and watched the famous Key West sunset from Mallory Square Dock. The sunset celebration at Mallory Square each evening is a spectacle of jugglers, psychics, animal acts and weird happenings.

 As the sun dipped beyond the horizon, a spectacular glow of bright orange and pink loomed across the sky. A man whipped by the crowd on a motor scooter wearing nothing at all but a pair of tennis shoes. The crowd whooped and hollered and loved every minute of it.

 That’s Key West for you!

No Phone-No Address-No Service

Back up a few years to the golden age prior to cell phones, at least prior to affordable and accessible cell phone coverage. It may seem like ancient history to some, but it was only about 15 years ago that cell phones were creating nightmare phone bills for users who dared to travel outside of their home area.

VHF is the boating equivalent of a party line

On Wild Goose, we didn’t have a cell phone. Actually, we had no phone at all. We had two radios. One was a Very High Frequency (VHF) radio that has a useful range of about 25 miles. It’s the most common radio among boaters, easy to use, and it’s monitored by the Coast Guard. If you’re within range, the VHF is the radio used to chat with other boaters or call “mayday” for help if you’re in trouble.

Beastly little guy, isn't he?

The other radio was a beastly little guy called a Single Side Band (SSB) radio. If it was clear, the gods were aligned and you were patient, you could communicate with someone who also has a SSB on the other side of the world. We listened to BBC and Voice of America on the SSB, often our only means of getting the latest news. We learned a lot about world events in Europe and Africa, but very little about American events. Not a bad option.

The Dreaded Telephone Booth

The dreaded telephone booth

In order to communicate with family, friends, business people or vendors, we used the ubiquitous pay phone. It’s a dinosaur in today’s technological age (have you tried to find one lately?), but it was an effective and necessary means of communication back then. Pay phones were usually located on a busy street corner attached to a telephone pole. If you were really lucky, the phone might be housed in small structure big enough for one skinny person and had a bi-fold door that blocked out maybe 10% of the traffic noise. They were called telephone booths. Either way, you were never guaranteed to reach the person you were calling. In fact, most of the time we desperately tried to call our kids from the dreaded telephone booth and check on their well-being only to get the dreaded answering machine. Over the years, I bonded with their answering machines (remember those?) since I communicated often with them and threatened to buy the inanimate box a Christmas gift.

Where Are You??

The worst part of using a pay phone was trying to order something. Whether it was a much-needed boat part, a new pair of shoes or a book, the situation usually went like this:

Ride 'Em Cowboy thru the wind & waves

• Inflate the dinghy and putt-putt through wind, waves, rain or baking sunshine to shore
• Inquire about the nearest pay phone and walk there to stand in the wind, rain or baking sun trying to hear over the diesel truck just passing
• Hold a phone book (remember those?), manual or pad of paper while dialing, then dial your 56-digit (seemed like it at the time) phone card number. Get it wrong and repeat process.
• Operator (remember those?) answers and puts you on hold or redirects the call so you wait in above mentioned conditions
• “Can I help you?”
• “Yes, I’d like to order …..”
• “What is your home address?”
• “I don’t have a home address, just a PO box.”
• “I must have a home address. Where do you live?”
• “I live on a boat.”
• “Where do you keep the boat?”
• “Right now I’m in ….. but I’ll be leaving in four  days, so I need this shipped ASAP.”
• “OK, I’ll see what I can do. What is your phone number?”
• “I don’t have a phone.”
• “Let me get this straight. You don’t have a home address, you live on a boat that has no home address, you have no phone and you want this in two days because you’re going, uh, away. And I’m supposed to ship this where?”
• “Well, general delivery at the post office usually works. Can you get it here by day after tomorrow?”
• Click----they just didn’t buy my story. I’m sure they thought I was homeless, using a stolen credit card and wanted, for some ungodly reason, to buy a bilge pump.

 Come to think of it, I must have looked homeless standing in the above mentioned weather conditions, shouting into the phone over the traffic noise, holding a bunch of papers that are blowing, baking or getting wet, and wishing I could slump into a dejected heap before I called them back and tried once again to explain my situation. 

No home, no phone, no service-at least not easily.