A Sail of Two Idiots (31 page)

When word came that our new, new window was in, we headed back to St. Thomas, this time taking my mom. Now
this
is when you know you might be a sailor—when people trust you enough to sail with you.

We got our window, wandered around town, had lunch, people-watched, and then sailed back to Tortola. Two countries in one day—how cosmopolitan! Upon our return, my mom was so excited about her experience sailing with us that she convinced my aunt and uncle to come out too. We had a great sail across the way west to Jost Van Dyke, albeit a short one (5 miles), and had our requisite drink at Foxy's. Michael and I preferred the quiet bar on Little Jost Van Dyke and concluded that we just didn't like tourist hangouts. At least there were plenty of alternatives!

We had another great sail back, taking pictures of the Tortola house as viewed from the sea, and settled in for some more time on land. We helped with house
chores and repairs, explored, and lounged at the pool before, all too soon, our family was readying to head back to their mainland homes and we were plotting our next hop.

Before my mom left, she had garnered so much faith in us that she decided to come aboard for her final three days. How flattering! Maybe even nuts!

The first place we took her was to the “Bubblies,” of course. Next up was Norman Island, about 14 miles east. The jaunt took us on the southeastern side of Tortola and into the Sir Francis Drake Channel for a change of scenery. There we picked up a mooring (since Mom was paying), snorkeled the caves, and hung out on the floating Willie T (bar) for a little relaxation. A drunken party on a nearby boat went into the wee hours of the morning, reminding us why we always tried to find less-occupied harbors.

Rather than hang out with the revelers when we weren't reveling with them, we sailed the 10 miles northeast to Cooper Island and found a secluded place to drop anchor. The holding was iffy (hard) but beautiful. Towering black cliffs surrounded us, so we put out two anchors for good measure. Then we swam into the rocky shores to prowl around. When my barefoot mom wished for a pair of shoes, we thought the gods had a sick sense of humor when, not long after, we found a like-new pair of pink sneakers next to a rock—toddler size. Next time, my mother will be more specific. We spent our last day together on
Jacumba
snorkeling and watching goats sidle up the steep cliffs, and our last night on the boat together pointing at shooting stars while sprawled on the trampoline.

Our final morning we motorsailed the 6½ miles to Beef Island, on the northeastern side of Tortola, to take Mom to the airport. What a beautiful day. Once anchored, we found a neat place to have lunch and do some last-minute shopping. Too soon we were dinghying Mom and her luggage to a dock that let us walk right to the airport. It couldn't have been easier. We had a drink at the airport's outside lounge and then said our good-byes. Whaaa.

We were thankful and, well, relieved, at how everything had come together so perfectly: family encounter, good weather and seas, the boat behaving, captain and mate behaving …

People who sailed with us always commented on how well Michael and I worked together without even saying anything. Ha! They had just gotten lucky. When conditions were good, it all looked easy. Believe me, we appreciated those days too. On other days, we were a bit more … communicative.

We had a few more islands in the BVIs that we wanted to see and picked Peter Island, 14 miles returning southwest, for our next stop. The guidebooks told us to head for the southern anchorage of White Bay, where it would be uncrowded and pretty. They also said it would have bad holding and be deep, but supposedly we
could get into shallower waters (18 feet) and sand near the local resort. Once there, we noticed that the shallower, sandy waters we were counting on were cordoned off for swimmers. We puttered around before realizing that we would be relegated to deep waters (from 25 to 80 feet) and turtle grass for holding. Oh well, it was late and we needed to get settled. We decided to get as close to the floating swimming posts as possible and figured we'd drop a second anchor to keep us off them (using our forked moor method).

Our first anchor hadn't taken yet but we were setting our second one anyway when a BVI customs' boat pulled alongside us. Without conversation, the occupants latched on to our boat and proceeded to push us across the warning posts and into the swimming area (no swimmers luckily). What? Were these guys pirates in their former lives? Get off! While I was trying to get us out of there, the agents were yelling at me to stop gunning the engines. I was incredulous that they couldn't see the problem. We're in the middle of anchoring, you fools, and by the way, are we nearing any reefs? My chartplotter/charts kept saying “incompletely surveyed”!

I barked at Michael to hurry up and grab our papers so they'd get off our boat. It took about 10 minutes for the customs agents to detach themselves and go happily on their way. We were less jovial. It was getting dark and we had to pull the second anchor back up, motor out of the swimming area, and drop the anchor again. That done, Michael dove on both anchors, ran into a nurse shark, and scrambled back out satisfied if not a little shaken (nurse sharks are pretty tame as sharks go, but close encounters at dusk—you know, dinnertime—are unnerving).

The anchorage was peaceful until around 10 p.m., when we were disturbed by a scraping noise. Considering that we were anchored in grass, we were stumped. We broke out our new spotlight and gunned the engines in reverse to see if the anchor rode (chain) skipped (a sure sign that the anchor was on the move). Nope, but instead we noticed that one of the floating swimming posts went underwater. Gun engine … post disappeared … gun engine … post disappeared. Uh-oh. It was obvious that one of our anchor lines was tied around one of the posts. Wonder how that happened? Thanks BVI customs!

All the posts were roped together and moving with the current, which was pulling on our anchors, which was causing us to drag, which meant that we had to get untangled and re-anchor. In the dark. Sigh. Talk about frustration. Well, at least the water was clear enough to see what was happening. We had to go around the posts in circles, watching that the propellers didn't get caught in the swimming-post ropes. It was slow going, but we finally got the anchors up and then back down again.

Before we were done counting sheep, we were woken at midnight when some winds kicked in, the anchors got tangled together, and we ended up on the move again. By now it was incredibly gusty (from multiple directions) and the currents were strong. Although we got the anchors up and back down again without a
problem, we took turns performing anchor watches (about three hours on and three hours off this time) until daybreak, not trusting the anchors to hold. Morning brought torrential rains. Boy, my mom didn't know what she was missing!

Peter Island, as an anchorage, earned a skull and crossbones icon on our chartplotter.

Maybe we'd seen enough of the Virgins. It was time to start leapfrogging to St. Martin.

First up, though, a quick final 20-mile sail and provisioning trip to St. Thomas. Done. Next up? Virgin Gorda. But wait! The day we had planned to head there, who should we get an e-mail from? Why it was our long lost Bahamas/Dominican Republic friends Joe and Becky on
Half Moon
. We hadn't seen them since we left Luperon in the Dominican Republic about two months before. We hadn't sailed with them since the Bahamas! How fortuitous that I had decided to check the weather one more time. They had e-mailed that they were at Christmas Cove, Great St. James Island, our favorite snorkeling spot (just east of St. Thomas), and it was too bad that we weren't there too. Well, maybe not, but we
could
be! They had no idea that we were only 20 minutes away.

Although we were hoping to surprise them, they saw us coming and soon there was much jubilation on the VHF. We snorkeled, they shared two of their last Dominican beers, we shared our horded pretzels, and we bonded over dinner made on the new barbecue grill that my mom had carried down for us in her luggage. Life was full.

As is the life of boaters, we were soon saying good-bye again. Joe and Becky were about to delve into their repairs and begin their island hopping while we were about to set sail for the 29-mile trip northeast to Virgin Gorda. Until the next port,
Half Moon
!

What an invigorating sail we had; the waters were choppy! And the constant VHF babble said that swimmers in the area were being battered by the rough seas and also being stung by jellyfish. We listened in as people called the Coast Guard asking for various forms of assistance. Five hours later, we were moored off The Baths, part of Devil's Bay National Park, on Virgin Gorda's west coast, forlornly looking at the shore. The shore we would have to swim to. We'd just spent hours listening to people yelling about jellyfish stings. But we took heart that others were in the water and in we jumped.

Wow! The boulder formations were astounding. Having a lot of people around only enhanced the fun of running among, above, and around the strange rock clusters. Peek-a-boo! Virgin Gorda, or specifically The Baths and the park's surrounding trails, are a must-see.

Before leaving for St. Martin the next day, we needed a place to sleep, so we headed into the North Sound, 8 miles to the north. This location promised to be a lot like Allen's Cay in the Bahamas, with Virgin Gorda to the south and three other smaller islands providing protection from the other directions. The guidebooks
made the northern entry sound impossible (it wasn't), so we decided to take a shortcut through a shallow area on the west side of the harbor instead, between Virgin Gorda and Mosquito Island; we were aiming for Blunder Bay (nice name). It was unnerving, but I followed another catamaran in, leaving plenty of room to stop if the lead boat hit bottom. We didn't want to follow suit.

What a pretty place! Everyone had recommended the Bitter End Yacht Club (on the eastern end of Virgin Gorda) and other popular restaurants, but we were learning that we weren't drawn to those places. Nor did we want to deal with the crowds anchored near them. Instead, we headed for the east coast of Mosquito Island (just north of Virgin Gorda), where there were no services and no boats, and a beautiful reef to anchor behind.

As we were anchoring, a huge shadow passed below us. We both saw it and our eyes got big as we turned to look at each other. Um, what was that? We decided that neither of us was going to jump in to check the anchor, so we dinghied over the top of it and looked down instead. Good enough!

Other than the windows and an alternator glitch, we didn't do too badly. We still had some outstanding problems that we couldn't get resolved, either because we couldn't find the parts or didn't want to wait for them to be shipped to us. We figured we could take care of the rest of the issues once we got to St. Martin, which we had heard had bigger and cheaper marine stores (no duty). Our to-do list was down to about three pages (from ten). Not too terrible!

Although we had been to St. Martin years earlier on a bareboat charter, I didn't include it in our “experience” description because the trip was a disaster. We had chartered a 43-foot catamaran with my mom and her husband, Jim. Mom had crewed before, but Jim was the only one who knew how to sail. You'll remember that Michael had never even seen a catamaran before we decided to buy one, and I'd never been on one bigger than a Hobie Cat. And all I knew then was how to take orders.

After three to four days into our bareboat charter, Jim wound up in the St. Martin hospital, where he stayed for another three days while arrangements were made to get him back to the States.

While Jim was in the hospital, the boat was anchored in the Philipsburg harbor, and it started dragging. None of us had the slightest idea how to drive the boat, turn on the chartplotter (let alone read it), work the VHF, or re-anchor (what's this bridle thingamajig for?). We didn't even understand the refrigeration system. Now you know why I'm such an advocate of LESSON 26, Role play.

Sure, Jim and a charter company representative had tried to explain some things to us our first day, but we knew that Jim would handle it all (and tell us what to do when necessary). We had no idea what they were talking about, so we didn't pay attention. It was a loooong two days dragging and dragging again across the harbor before a nearby boater took pity on us (or wanted to protect his own boat) and motored us into a slip in the marina.

We ended up hiring a captain and did take quick trips to Anguilla, St. Barths, and Saba, but our hearts weren't in it.

We dedicate this chapter to Jim, who died two weeks later (of lung cancer).

Let's try this again and make Jim proud. Most boaters exit the North Sound, motor out the northern entrance, sail down Virgin Gorda's eastern coast, and then angle southeast toward St. Martin. We still had to clear customs on the southwest side of Virgin Gorda, so left the North Sound the way we came in. Once legal we scooted out from the southwestern end of the island and then headed southeast, slightly off the usual track. We left around sunset, expecting our 95-mile sail to take about 13 hours (we were averaging about 7 knots these days). Although we didn't have a buddy boat to talk with, we could hear other sailors chattering on the VHF and could see their mast lights in the distance most of the night. It was nice to be secretly buddy-boating without being clustered together.