Seven at Sea

by Erik Orton

  We made it to Tintamarre and back safely that evening. We later learned the channel in and out of Oyster Pond was one of the most dangerous in the entire Caribbean.

  We were out of our depth, above our pay grade, and so tired. We hadn’t known how long days could be until we entered this learning curve. It seemed to catch up with Erik the following morning when he wrote this letter home:

  ERIK

  Dear Dad,

  Good morning. 5:30 a.m., Oyster Pond, Saint Martin. I hope you guys are faring well through this next snowstorm. We’re doing okay here. Had a rough day yesterday.

  Remember the phone call I made to you from the DMV after buying that old brown VW Rabbit? This is that call. If you don’t remember it very well, it went something like this: I bought the Rabbit with all the money I had in savings. It was a 1974 stick shift with one headlight, no windshield wipers, no padding in the front two seats, and worst of all, no radio. I didn’t know how to drive stick shift. But I had to drive it from Chad’s house to the DMV, past the mall, during rush hour, a few days before Christmas. I stalled in a few intersections and sweat many, many bullets. By the time I got to the DMV I was pretty rattled. I called you and told you I thought buying the car was a bad idea and that I should take it back. I don’t remember exactly what you told me, but it was something to the effect of, “Just go ahead and register the car. You’ll learn how to drive it. You’ll be fine. I love you.” Something like that.

  The learning curve is steep here, and everything is expensive at every turn. I’m feeling a bit hemmed in. We seem to be going through eighty gallons of water every day, and I just can’t figure out why. Is there a leak in the tanks? Some drainage valve left open? Are we mega-water hogs? I don’t know. The 220V inverter that runs our fridge has started to switch off on its own, but then comes on again. Is that us? Or the power supply here on the dock? The wind indicator at the top of the mast was supposed to be fixed. That’s not working. The fuel gauges don’t work. We’ll use the hour indicators to know our level. The brackets to mount our solar panels are likely going to be massively expensive. I’m still awaiting quotes, but that’s the word from the friendly electrician working on the boat next door. I’m trying to muster my courage to take a do-it-yourself approach. I could go on and on about all the stuff swirling through my head. Why else would I be up at 5:30 a.m.?!

  Speaking of swirling, we finally took the boat out for a short sail yesterday. We’d waited several days while they rigged the new mainsail. Then we could take her out. We went to an island called Tintamarre about four miles north of where we’re staying. A nice easy jaunt to try things out. We all promptly got seasick. No one puked . . . yet. We were sailing perpendicular to the wind, so were rolling right-to-left with every passing wave. Awful. Emily and the kids were real troopers.

  We were not expecting things to be nearly that “rolly,” so stuff was flying everywhere inside the boat. We got to the island and it took us three tries to get the anchor properly set. (Everyone is still learning their posts.) And then we all lay there for a few minutes before doing anything else. There were a bunch of other boats already anchored off this amazing beach, so we were pretty far out. But the kids still really wanted to head in. We only had a couple hours of daylight left, and the idea was to get back to Oyster Pond, and not stay overnight at Tintamarre.

  As soon as we landed our dinghy on the beach, the kids were in the water. We taught them how to use snorkel masks, and then they added fins. They kept coming to show us every shell, rock, and piece of coral they found. They were in heaven. I broke up the party and told them we needed to head back. Alison even asked, “Can we come here first thing tomorrow so we can spend all day?” It was a beautiful spot. But back in the dinghy, back to the boat, pull up the anchor, and head out. The sun was low in the sky.

  The entrance to our harbor is sketchy in daylight, treacherous in the dark. We motored the whole way just to make sure we didn’t get caught out in the ocean in the dark. Seasickness returned almost immediately. Everyone was passed out like sloths slumped over whatever spot provided the most comfort. (Except Alison, who lay down on the bow of the boat and enjoyed the waves, unaware of the misery going on behind her.) I stayed at the helm, but was green and gaunt. I always get seasick the first few days of sailing. This was no exception. I did pretty well until SJ came above deck and did her best to reach the back of the boat before puking. She got most of the way. I immediately set the boat on autopilot and jumped down from the helm, got out the deck shower hose, and started to rinse the puke off the back of the boat. The last thing we needed was the smell of puke wafting around. Once that was clear, I went back to the helm, but the whole thing already got me. I began tossing everything in my stomach. I lost count: five, six, seven times?

  I was able to get myself back together in time to make the entrance to the harbor. The sun was now way behind the island mountains. But I found the markers in the undulating water, stayed as close to them as I could, and steered us in. Once inside, the waves immediately subsided. We’d never been so grateful for a safe harbor. What a real thing it is, to be protected on all sides, to not be tossed every which way, to have a place where you can rest and recover. We all need that, in so many ways in our lives.

  Alison was great and helped me pull the boat up dockside and tie it down. We only put one small scuff on the port bow. Alison apologized, and I said, “It’s just a boat.” In retrospect, I think that’s the smartest thing I said all day. Except for telling Emily and each of the kids that I loved them. Safe harbors.

  I drank most of a ginger ale, took off all my wet clothes, and promptly fell asleep for several hours. I woke up as the kids were going to bed. Happy Valentine’s Day.

  So that’s it. That’s the wonderful and awful account of our Friday. We all agreed that we would much rather have been on our couch in NYC, sitting through a blizzard, watching movie after movie on Netflix. But we chose this instead.

  So basically, I feel like I did that day when I was sixteen and stalled out my new-to-me-but-still-a-junker-of-a-car in the middle of the intersection by the mall two days before Christmas. I wanted to run away. I wanted to give it back. I wanted you to just come and pick me up so we could return the car. But you encouraged me to stick with it. In the end, I came to love that car. I fixed it up and it ran beautifully. (And you gave me a radio and some speakers for Christmas.) I made so many happy memories with that car. Of course it’s not about the car, or the boat, but where they take you, and who you’re with when you go.

  The happiest moment of the day was on that beach watching our kids discover the world through a snorkel mask. I told Emily, “No one can ever take this back. We’re here and it can’t be undone.” What I meant was, however this all plays out, this memory has been made. My kids have had this experience. We’ve had it. That can’t be undone. So while it’s hard today—and I believe there will be hard and probably expensive days ahead—I’m confident we’ll pull through. I finished my can of ginger ale. I took a shower. I slept in a safe harbor. We’ll sail out again tomorrow. I love you, Dad.

  —Erik

  We took one day to regroup, return our rental car, and borrow a dinghy from Sunsail. The following morning the sun rose over Oyster Pond and I called out, “All hands on deck.” Everyone buckled into their personal flotation devices. Karina cued up a playlist. Music always helped distract us and prevent seasickness. Alison untied the dock lines, threw them to Jane, and gave us a shove as she jumped aboard.

  All we wanted to do was get to the BVI. But first we needed to get ourselves sorted out. We weren’t going to do that from Oyster Pond on the French side. We needed to move to Simpson Bay Lagoon on the Dutch side.

  As we motored toward the channel, we cleared all the tables of dishes and books and stowed the ridiculous iMac and printer we’d brought. Lily and Eli stayed below deck and Karina and Alison clipped into the jacklines. Emily and Jane stood in the cockpit, rea
dy to release the jib sheets. The engine clanked loudly as we pounded our way back out of the channel for the second time in three days, but instead of turning left toward Tintamarre, I turned right toward Simpson Bay.

  Chapter 5

  Whose Dumb Idea Was This?

  Simpson Bay Lagoon, Sint Maarten, Caribbean

  7 Days aboard Fezywig

  ERIK

  Shrimpy was a retired diver-for-hire who ran a laundromat and consignment shop on the edge of the Simpson Bay Lagoon. His radio net was basically a daily VHF town hall meeting for all the local cruisers. He gave the latest on weather and safety. Activities like group hikes and card games were announced. New arrivals introduced themselves, and those sailing to other islands said goodbye. Lastly, anyone could advertise goods or services, and others could chime in with what they needed. We needed goods, services, and, ideally, mentors.

  Early the next morning while the kids slept, Emily and I quietly slid into the bench seats in the salon and turned the VHF to channel 7. We didn’t hear anything.

  We were anchored a few hundred yards from the end of the airport runway. An early flight took off and passed over head. “We could be home in six hours, door to door,” Emily said. I nodded but stayed focused on the task at hand. I double checked the guidebook. I was on the right channel at the right time, but still nothing.

  I scrolled through the channels and stopped when I heard, “Anyone have items to buy or sell? Buy or sell?” It was Shrimpy.

  I pushed the VHF talk button and said, “We’re Fezywig. We’re brand new cruisers and have a lot to learn. If anyone is willing to talk to us about solar panels or Wi-Fi, please let us know.” I released the button. In response, I got a public tongue lashing from Shrimpy on radio etiquette. There was an appropriate time for introductions, and we’d missed it. I didn’t let the hand slap slow me down. I was too happy to finally connect with other cruisers to be embarrassed. Back to Shrimpy’s next point of order: vessels started chiming in with goods to sell. Emily handed me a fresh legal pad and I took notes. A boat called Pyxis was selling an inflatable dinghy. Someone else was selling foldable bikes and partially used scuba tanks. We wanted all of them, but we really needed our own dinghy. We hailed Pyxis and made an appointment for that afternoon. I gave Emily a high five. We knew what we were going to do that day.

  “Fezywig, Fezywig. This is Silverheels,” we heard a man’s voice crackling in our VHF.

  “Silverheels, this is Fezywig,” I responded. “Let’s switch down to channel six.” Emily and I looked at each other with question-mark eyebrows.

  “Fezywig, we’re happy to talk about cruising and answer any questions we can,” said Silverheels. We agreed to meet after breakfast. We were going to leave the kids again. But hopefully this time we’d come back with more answers than questions.

  Emily and I dinghied over to Silverheels—a forest green monohull—and our training began. “Not there. Tie up here,” Ken directed. Because his name wasn’t Silverheels, it was Ken. For cruisers, their boat name serves as their last name in the community. So Ken and his wife Lynn were Silverheels collectively, just as we were Fezywig. “Now, hold tight to the railing here. That’s it. And step up through here. Step down here.” And before we knew it, we were sitting and drinking cold water—which was already a treat—in the shaded, cushioned cockpit of Silverheels.

  Ken and Lynn are Canadians, but their love of warm weather had led them to the Caribbean for the past eleven years. It didn’t matter what they did before that. They were cruisers now. Talking to Ken, you might never notice his gray hair. His open, patient kindness made everything about him seem youthful. Ken told us about Wi-Fi, solar panels, outboards, dinghies, and dinghy security in local waters. He gave us a tour of the boat.

  Then Lynn returned. If Ken seemed youthful, Lynn was ageless with her tall, muscular build and broad smile. She gave Emily a fail-proof bread recipe and explained how baking rolls in cupcake tins required less time and propane than cooking a loaf of bread. She told us which laundromats were most accessible by dinghy and named the best stores for provisionsing. She showed us all the improvements she had personally made to the boat: foot-pumped water in the sink, a deep freezer. She even did the fiberglass. “We don’t believe in blue jobs and pink jobs,” Lynn said. I was seriously impressed by their rock-hard ice cream. These two were pros.

  We returned to Fezywig bearing gifts from Silverheels: a gigantic silver mixing bowl that belonged to Lynn’s mother, a silicone cupcake pan, and the grand relief of friendship.

  We stopped at our boat for lunch. SJ had filled a Rubbermaid bin with seawater as an on-deck pool for Lily. Eli was playing with his favorite stuffed Luigi doll. Alison was playing ukulele in her cabin and Karina volunteered to wash the dishes. Emily and I left again.

  Pyxis was a gorgeous monohull with a highly polished teak deck docked at the Simpson Bay Yacht Club. Captain Brian, a Brit, invited us to sit in his shaded, cushioned cockpit. We had cold drinks for the second time that day. Pyxis was having a custom brass bimini installed before heading back to England. While he waited, Brian was cleaning out his storage compartments and had found a spare five-seat inflatable dinghy he’d never used. We had seven in our crew, but two of them were small, so I was interested. Like Pyxis, we were heading out soon and couldn’t do it without a dinghy. If a boat was a cruiser’s house, a dinghy was a cruiser’s car. We agreed to the $300 price right away. As we were leaving, I noticed Brian’s beautiful Wi-Fi setup.

  “I just installed that,” he said. “I had another one that worked great, but it didn’t look right. Too modern for my boat.”

  As we tucked in to sleep that night, we were the proud new owners of a used inflatable dinghy and a modern-looking Wi-Fi booster. Now we needed an outboard motor and a chain to lock it all up. And we needed to figure out how to install the Wi-Fi booster. They were all clear objectives. I went to sleep content that we had some idea what we would be doing the next day.

  On the third day, Ken and Lynn visited Fezywig, and our whole crew crowded in the cockpit to meet them. Sarah Jane showed Lynn her cabin and told Lynn that Lily sometimes stole her training bra. They dinghied Emily ashore for a foot tour of their recommended grocery stores. As they motored away, I asked SJ why she had told Lynn that story. She said, “She’s one of the coolest people I’ve ever met. I wanted her to think I was funny.”

  The seven of us split four cabins just like this.

  “You are funny,” I said, not meaning ha-ha funny.

  While Emily was gone, I started on the Wi-Fi booster. The instructions said, “Attach it to a power source.” I looked but there was no plug, just two dead-end wires. I radioed Pyxis. “Brian, how does this thing connect to a power source?”

  “Oh, sure. You just solder it to an open circuit on your electrical panel.”

  Right. How silly of me.

  I dinghied to shore and bought a soldering kit. I radioed Pyxis. “Any chance you’d have some time to show me how to solder?”

  After a couple days of scrounging parts, trial and error, and troubleshooting, all the lights on the booster lit up green. “Yes!” I said as I pulled a fist in toward my bicep.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Eli said. I agreed.

  The booster was attached to a bimini pole in the cockpit, and the antenna inside broadcast the signal to every device on the boat. A few days later it rained. Too bad I had installed the booster upside down. It filled with rainwater and shorted out. There were no lights at all. Trial and error, works every time.

  I’m not sure when I first made up this phrase, but it was funny enough to stick. I think it’s the ironic juxtaposition of bumbling and certainty that we Ortons love. We expect boondoggles, but we trust that—if we’re tenacious enough—something will work out.

  I looked up how to order new parts for the Wi-Fi router, but I wasn’t sure where to have them sent because we were leaving for th
e BVI in a couple days. I’d have to figure that one out later.

  Our final errand was to return the dinghy we had borrowed from Sunsail in Oyster Pond. Then we would be off. As we motored around to the other side of the island, the portside engine started smoking. Then it failed completely. I started to sweat. I called ahead and said we were coming in with only one engine—that same scary channel, but with only half the horsepower and half the control. I felt like a WWII bomber pilot calling the tower after being all shot up over the drop zone. We were limping home, and I wasn’t sure we’d make the runway. We made it past the rocks, through the channel, and into protected waters. Emily, Karina, and Alison stood ready with fenders. Jane kept Eli and Lily below. I didn’t know how to dock a catamaran with one engine. A pilot boat dinghied out to meet us and a dockhand hopped aboard. I gladly turned over the helm.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “The engine was putting out a lot of extra smoke, then it sputtered out.” I made a few sound effects. It was the classic dropping-the-car-off-at-the-mechanics conversation. I worried I’d done something wrong but, if so, didn’t know what it was.

  “What’s that in the water?” Emily asked, leaning over the portside. A charcoal-like powder was floating below the exhaust spout. The dockhand and I peered over the lifelines.

  “That doesn’t look good,” I said.

  “No. Not good,” he agreed. “Someone should take a look at that.”

  After a few tries, he got the engine started. He checked the oil. It was low, so he topped it off and said we were good to go. I had my suspicions. All that smoke had come from burnt oil. I wasn’t sure they’d gotten to the root of the problem. I saw Gwen on the dock and mentioned this and a couple other miscellaneous items. She was polite but also in a hurry. A big regatta was kicking off next week, and lots of boats with paying customers were arriving. We needed to move off the dock to a mooring ball. I spoke to the mechanic’s boss, Nicholas. He wanted us gone, and we wanted to get moving. I proposed a solution, “Can the Sunsail base in the BVI take a look at all this?”