West of the Quator

by Cheryl Bartlam DuBois

  On the boat, the sun had been up for hours but they couldn’t see it through the blackened sky which accompanied each squall line – only a grey-black haze which loomed above the black, black water, crested in white like a snow capped dusting on a mountain top. In the squalls, the visibility was nil – when they passed, it was cut down to a mere five miles due to the humidity in the air. The wind was once again starting to build, blowing 110 knots in the squalls which whipped the white, frothy spume on the surface of the wave tops like a cappuccino steamer might steam cream. During the night as they cleared Antigua, the wind had veered more southwest, and Alex had been forced to ease off the wind to a course of 110 degrees in order to slip under the eastern side of Guadeloupe for protection. They were now traveling even faster than before.

  The squalls were coming more frequently now – one right after the other, giving them a reprieve of only a meager ten minutes or so in-between. The wind shrieked through the rigging like the cry of some unearthly creature – the din almost unbearable. The spray and spume in the 110 knot gusts now stung their bare skin so badly – like shot from a BB-gun, that Rob and Alex had to cover their faces and hands entirely. When the squalls came, the boat would pick up so much speed it would launch itself off the wave tops – nearly airborne. It was a wild ride with the bridgedeck slamming into the waves so hard Alex was considering taking down the main. However, there was no trampoline below the main boom, and she knew she couldn’t get it secured safely without risking injury from the whipping sail once it was blown apart, as it would surely be by the intense wind. Instead, Alex opted to pinch up slightly into the wind to slow the boat down to a manageable speed. But, she also knew she couldn’t come up too high or they’d be in danger of hitting the northeastern end of La Desiride.11*

  By that point, it was taking everything both Alex and Rob had to try and keep the boat on course since the pull of the boat’s weather helm12** was getting stronger and stronger. And, to complicate things even more, Rob had just informed Alex that the wind had increased to a steady 90 knots and that there were now two blips dead ahead on the radar screen. It seemed the storm was starting to move slightly south towards them, the St. Maarten weather station confirmed when Alex traded places with Rob and called once again on the SSB. Maybe they weren’t going to be able to outrun this thing – maybe it was destined to catch them after all thought Alex, almost afraid to tell Rob the painful news. They had fared okay up until that point, however Alex realized that they wouldn’t stand a chance if this thing got closer and the seas grew bigger. They had been at sea now for fifteen hours and were both exhausted, cold, and hungry. The tension in Alex’s muscles had tightened into bands of steel and her head was spinning from the caffeine and lack of food. Maybe she would be smart to just turn around and head back to Falmouth Harbor13*** where she knew they could seek some sort of safety. After all, that was where her own little Dancer sat on a safe hurricane mooring in English Harbor, just around the corner. But to do that they first had to maneuver the boat around to run downwind which would mean they would have to get the boards up to prevent the waves from catching the leeward board and flipping them over off the wave. The next step would then be to try to get into the harbor through the breaking waves.

  Of course, the testosterone which was now raging in Rob’s body made him offer to be the one to go out on deck to handle the dagger boards, however Alex, knowing all too well that she had the more agile sea legs of the two insisted she take the deck while Rob manned the helm. They waited until the next squall had passed before they even attempted to set up for the maneuver. When the moment was right, Alex instructed Rob to turn into the wind as she readied herself to crawl out onto the deck to pull up the starboard dagger board. Although they were somewhat protected from the sea behind Guadeloupe and La Desirade, the waves were funneling through the channels between the islands like mechanical waves at a surf park, creating a strangely mixed up sea unlike anything Alex had ever witnessed. The boat jumped and tossed like a can of paint on a paint mixer as Alex carefully snapped her life-line onto the jack-line on deck once again and unclipped the cockpit tether. She worked her way up to the starboard dagger board box on her belly. Thankfully, since they had nothing up at this point except a triple reefed main and a reefed baby-staysail, which was self-tacking,14**** it wasn’t necessary for them to do anything to jibe the sails over to a port tack.

  Alex reached the dagger board and pulled the pin. To her amazement, with the help of the passing wave, the board popped right up out of the box with ease, allowing her to replace the pin with the board in the up position. Slowly – cautiously, Alex clipped her lifeline to the foredeck jack-line and worked her way over to the port side, half crawling, half climbing over gear on the deck until she reached the port jack-line, where she now carefully re-clipped her lifeline. Quickly, she raised the port board as easily as she had raised the starboard.

  “Okay!” Alex shouted to Rob from the deck over the howl of the wind and rain, “Ease the main slowly! Then the baby-staysail! The bows will start to blow off the wind… then take her down! Slowly!! Hold her with the wind at five o’clock. I’ll help you jibe her through when I get back there.”

  Nervously, Rob turned the wheel down with some effort, but as he eased the baby-staysail it helped to blow the bows around off the wind. Slowly, the boat turned, starting into her passage downwind on a starboard tack. As the boat reached the point that the wind and sea were on their starboard rear quarter, Rob breathed a sight of relief as suddenly the motion of the boat grew calmer. However, it was accelerating so fast he wasn’t quite certain what to do next. It was as if some race car driver had suddenly taken over and stepped on the accelerator. He hung on until Alex could get back to the cockpit – feeling exhilaration and fear all at the same time. Rob smiled at Alex as she made her way back to the cockpit, crawling along the port side of the deckhouse. She smiled back – confident that they would pull through this together. He had proven after all to be a reliable crew in excruciating circumstances. Just as Alex reached the end of the deck line and unclipped her life-line to climb back into the cockpit without first hooking into the cockpit jack-line, they both felt their stomachs drop as the boat rose up in the air as if it had been swept up in a tractor beam. They heard it before they saw it – a rogue wave15* as it loomed over them from out of nowhere. It was as if time suddenly stood still with the boat suspended in air. It hit the boat with the impact of a battering ram, tossing the Island Fever aside as if it were a toy sailboat in a bathtub as it washed clean over the deckhouse. Rob lunged to grab Alex, nearly going over himself, but it was too late! Alex was gone! Gone along with the sea that poured over the deck. Rob couldn’t believe his eyes as he watched as Alex tumbled overboard into the dark agitated water which engulfed her instantly. This time, Alex was truly lost at sea.

  1*GREEN WATER – That frothy wet stuff that manages to find its way into or onto a vessel at sea once it has been churned and agitated by the motion of the ocean into frothing white and green seawater.

  2**TOPPING LIFT – A line of the boat’s rigging that runs over a sheave3*** at the top of the mast and is connected to the end of the boom to hold the boom up when the sail is dropped.

  3***SHEAVE – A wheel or pulley that rope runs through.

  4****BATTENED SAILS – A sail made with long tiny pockets which hold thin, flexible strips of wood or plastic, that give the sail shape when it’s trimmed. 5*****

  5*****TRIMMED – The past-tense of the act of trimming or setting the sails to the perfect shape for sailing via the use of sheets, halyands, outhauls, and leechlines6****** – insuring the maximum performance from the sail for boat speed.

  6******OUTHAULS AND LEECHLINES – An outhaul is a line used to tighten the foot,or bottom of a sail on a boom; and a leechline is a line and small cleat built into the luff, or back edge of the sailwhich provides for making fine adjustments to the sail trim.

  7*SXM – The abbreviation for the Princess Julianna Airport in St.
Maarten.

  8**SSB – SINGLE SIDEBAND – A radio which most ocean-going boats are fitted with that provides a wider range of transmission than the standard ship-to-shore VHF radio.

  9***METER – One meter is the equivalent to 39.37 inches or about three and one third feet.

  10*EYE OF THE STORM – The chimney-like column, of calm air around which the wind and multiple thunderstorms spiral. Usually anywhere from 12 – 25 miles across.

  11*LA DESIRIDE – A sparsely inhabited island, 11 miles long, projecting about 10 km off the southeastern tip of Grand Terre – the eastern half of Guadeloupe. Meaning, it juts out into the ocean nearly 25 miles east of Guadeloupe. On the chart its shape quite resembles an over turned boat.

  12**WEATHER HELM – Some sailing vessels tend to want to turn upwind on their own, requiring compensation in the steering of the vessel to keep it straight on course. This is sometimes built into the balance of the boat for safety reasons so that if a boat were unmanned, it would naturally turn up into the wind and stall instead of sailing away without its helmsman.

  13***FALMOUTH HARBOR – Falmouth and English Harbors sit immediately next to one another only separated by a small spit of land. They were used as secure defensible harbors by the English in the early 1700’s. English Harbor Dockyard was once Britain’s main navel station in the Lesser Antilles. Falmouth Harbor’s mouth is at least four times wider than English Harbor offering easier entrance in rough weather, even though English Harbor offers a much safer holding ground for hurricanes.

  14****SELF-TACKING – Meaning that a sail’s sheeted into a metal or plastic fitting which travels on a track bolted to the deck. This allows the sail to swing to the opposite tack unaided. This isalso known as a traveler.

  15*ROGUE WAVE – An unusually large or abnormal wave. As opposed to a rogue sailor which often falls into the category of annormal.

  CHAPTER THIRTY– TWO

  Overboard

  “Even when the sky is heavily overcast,

  the sun hasn’t disappeared.

  It’s still there on the other side of the clouds.”

  Echart Tolle

  “ALEX!!” was the only terrified sound that escaped from Rob’s lips as he stood at the helm, momentarily frozen from the shock of seeing Alex being swallowed by the water and flying spume of the angry ocean. Then, with no hesitation, as if he had been a seasoned sailor, Rob turned hard to port and hurled the man overboard rig1* in the direction in which Alex had fallen. Blood was pounding in his temples, as the adrenaline surged him into action. Driven by an instinctual knowledge, he looked to the heavens and begged the Universe to give him the power to find her. All seemed hopeless, but Rob, in that brief moment – that split second of realization – knew that he wasn’t about to give up the ship, let alone Alex. Rob was more present than he’d ever been in his life and he gave himself wholly to what he knew he had to do. Maybe it was instinct, or maybe it was knowledge from a past life – just maybe Rob had indeed been a sailor before, or maybe he was just channeling me. But Rob had no time to ponder such thoughts now, he had a job to do. The Island Fever was traveling dead downwind2** now and Rob had no time to sheet the mainsail to center for the jibe – he took his chances, slamming it hard to a port tack in that kind of wind might just break the rig. As the wind passed to the other side of the sail, it sounded like cannon fire as the main slammed over and the impact on the rig jolted through the entire boat as if it had been hit by a freighter. But the rig stood, and Rob continued hardening up to tack to starboard in order to try and beat back upwind as close as he could get to the spot where Alex had gone over. Rob realized that the sea would be pushing Alex swiftly downwind and he knew that he had to quickly regain the distance that now separated them. Her life was in his hands and if she were to survive these treacherous seas, it was up to him to step up to the helm and don his sailor’s cap, not to mention me donning mine, since it was time for me to do whatever it would take to help Rob save Alex.

  Rob would have to sail back a few thousand yards from whence he had come in order to recover the ground he had lost between them. However, what Rob didn’t yet realize was that he would have to bring the boat fully around to weather again and tack several times to recover the ground he’d lost – a risky proposition in these seas. But, Rob would have no other choice since the Island Fever was still engineless and totally reliant on her sails to make any kind of headway. As the boat came back around onto a close-hauled, starboard tack, he slowly eased her back up the monster swells, grinding the mainsail back to center until the compass read a reciprocal heading of 110 degrees. He held his breath as the boat climbed up and over the first wave then crashed down into the trough with a shudder as it passed under the boat – the bows punching through the waves as it picked up speed with the forward half of the boat engulfed in water. Rob knew he wasn’t far away from Alex. He was afraid that he might even hit her in the chaos which boiled and churned foam on the surface ahead of him, blowing spume off the wave tops in the howling wind. Four waves had crashed over the boat, each passing like another mountain as he tried to estimate how far southeast he had to travel before falling off again. He was uncertain – he had no points of reference – no land, no sun – nothing to judge by. He fell off the wind heading dead-downwind again for a few hundred yards, the point of sail they’d been on when Alex went over. She had to be close, Rob thought, but he was unsure – disoriented now that he’d made a full circle. He checked his compass to try to get his bearings. And then he saw it – the marker – dead ahead. He sailed as close to it as he dared, then turned the Island Fever into the wind to stall his forward momentum.

  As the boat stalled into the wind, he felt her rise up the next wave – up and up as if the boat were a car on a roller coaster, creeping up the biggest dip. As it reached the crest, the Island Fever teetered a moment threatening to topple backwards as if his little car had run out of steam just short of reaching the summit. Rob held his breath. Then the wave rolled past and Rob let out an exhale as the boat slid down the back side as if it were sledding down a snowy hill. He prayed he hadn’t overshot his mark since he felt blind in these huge seas that blocked his vision beyond a few feet. He now sat hove to, stopping the forward propulsion of the boat through the water. Rob was grateful for the reprieve from the pounding, however the sight of the seas from this angle was so menacing that he had to catch his breath. As the boat rose up and teetered on the next wave crest he felt as if it would surely fall off into space over the other side or topple over backwards. But then the wave gently slipped under him as the massive wall of water rolled beneath the boat. Confident now that the boat wasn’t going to tumble down the face of the next wave as it drifted at the mercy of the giant forty foot swells, Rob searched the water desperately for Alex. She was not with the marker or the lifering. There was no sign of her as he stared at the angry black surface behind him that was broken only by the white spray. He knew that the strobe-light on her life vest was designed to activate the second it hit the water – this and some rudimentary man-overboard skills he’d learned in his seaman’s class. But, Rob was praying that it was indeed working – if not, the chances of finding her out here in this mess would be slim.

  Rob stood silent – feeling alone in that big ocean. He looked to the heavens once more and asked for assistance. Amazingly, the cloud cover started to clear as he talked to the powers that be like he’d never talked in his life. “I need your help now if I’ve ever needed it damn it! Don’t let me lose her like this! Don’t bring both of us this far and take her away from me! Take me if you have to, not her!” he screamed, as he stood there clinging to the aftmast. Rob was angry – he knew giving in was not an option. He had finally found his true love and no one and no thing, not even a force five hurricane was going to take her away from him. Then suddenly, the winds started to weaken and the seas grew calmer. The squalls subsided, and Rob looked around puzzled, as if someone had turned the storm from high to low. Rob had asked for assistance and he
had received a brief reprieve. The only problem was that the swells were still so big, he could barely see a few meters ahead or behind, or to either side of him. At that moment, he knew what he had to do – he had to climb the mast in order to see over the wave tops – he had to get a higher perspective. He knew that it was the only chance he had of finding her. He had failed twice at climbing the tree of life and his water tower, but this time he couldn’t fail – Alex’s life depended on it. Life it seemed was throwing everything it had at Rob, and he had somehow managed to navigate through the mire this far – he wasn’t about to give up now.

  Bravely, Rob crawled to the foredeck and started the dangerous climb up the sixty-five foot foremast, foregoing the safety of a boson’s chair3* or halyard, since there was no one to belay the line for him anyway. Luckily, Joey had rigged the foremast with steps, but Rob still rocked and swayed clinging onto the mast with everything he had as each monster swell rolled under the boat. The higher he climbed, the more the mast seemed to whip. Frantically, Rob searched from wave top to wave top, climbing higher and higher in order to see further – all the while risking being knocked from the wildly swaying mast to the deck below by the pitching boat the higher he got.

  Let’s remember now that Rob’s experience with climbing had not exactly been successful by this point. To say the least, he was scared shitless, but somehow he managed to slowly pull himself up another five feet. He knew he couldn’t look down at the deck or he’d freeze – like he did that day on the water tower. As he clung to the rungs of the steps for his life he searched the waves – still unable to spot her. Surely, he should be able to see the emergency light on her life vest by now.