“The worst should be yet to come,” said Alex, concerned that they may still be in for more than they deserved, “Although the sky tells me different.” After all they’d already been through this storm once in the last 24 hours, were they really due seconds?
1*LIFELINES AND STANCHIONS – Lifelines are lines that run around the outside deck of a boat through stanchions – upright metal posts, designed to keep people fromfalling overboard. Those lines are either wire or wire rope – usually covered in plastic.
2**TRIANGULATION – When navigating, one needs three accurate points of reference in order to get a true and accurate position.
3***SHIRLEY HEIGHTS – Named after Governor General Shirley, it is the highest point on the southern side of the island for navigation around the shoals off Shirley Heights when entering into Falmouth and English Harbors. The ruins of the old fortress at Shirley Heights are also the popular spot to drink rum punch and watch the sunset.
4*BIG WAVE GUN – A hand-shaped, hand-laminated foam and fiberglass surfboard – thicker, longer, and narrower than typical surfboards. This board is not designed for radical maneuvering on the wave face, but rather for speed to catch the wave and then toride it out.
5**PAU MALU SET – Meaning “to end secretly” originating from an old Hawaiian Pau-end, and Malu-from behind or to sneak upon you. It is the ancient name for the surfbreak at Sunset Beach, Hawaii and it refers to the sneaky west swell sets that come across the channel catching surfers inside. If they can’t hold their breath they are Pau Malu.
6***EDDIE AIKAU BIG WAVE CHAMPIONSHIPS – The surfing championship, held each year at Big Sunset or Waimai Bay – home of the biggest ridable waves in the world. This event was named after waterman Eddie Aikau who was lost at sea while trying to paddle on his Big Wave Gun to the Island to bring help forhis comrades on their sinking Hawaiian sailing canoe.
7*CQR & DANFORTH – Both are types of anchors. The COR or plow, is designed to keep the anchor from breaking loose when the direction of the pull on the line changes as the boat swings. The CQR is a great anchor for grassy bottoms. The Danforth, named after its inventor Richard Danforth, is a lightweight anchor engineered with extremely high holding power for sand or mud bottoms, but does not work well in grass or weeds.
8**BRIDLE – A v-shaped line which runs from the anchor line in the center, to each bow of a catamaran. Due to the wide beam, a cat tends to swing and prance all over its mooring without the use of a bridle.
9*DORADE VENTS – Ventilation boxes on the foredeck, designed to allow air in and keep water out however, in huge seas, nothing is guaranteed to keep water out entirely.
10**WEATHERFAX – A piece of electronic equipment which uses an SSB radio receiver to obtain an ongoing print-out of weather information on a chart.
11*GROUND TACKLE – All of the equipment it takes to anchor a boat – the line, the chain, all the shackles12** used to attach it all together; and of course the anchor.
12**SHACKLES – U-shaped fittings which have a screw-pin to close them. This fitting Is used to attach chain to anchors or lines to other gear like masts or elsewhere on the boat. The snap shackle has a spring pin instead of a screw-pin for quicker release and is usually used to attach halyards to sails.
13***CHAFF GEAR – Approximately five feet of flexible plastic tubing used over anchor line where it runs through the chocks14**** to prevent abrasion.
14****CHOCKS – A smooth metal fitting – normally placed at the edge of the deck where lines come aboard, which holds the anchor line in place and prevents chaff.
15*****SCOPE – The length or ratio of anchor line or chain used when anchoring a boat, which generally needs to be a minimum of four times the depth of the water in good conditions and ten times in bad.
16*RED SKY – Like the old maritime saying goes –“‘Red sky at morning, sailors take warning. ‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.” The same holds true with rainbows.
HURRICANE!
Wherefore the use of the hurricane,
Gathering, whirling winds and rain?
Multiplying its forceful power,
To hurl at men, and snarl and glower?
Where lies the Beneficial Being
Behind such a monstrous, wicked thing
Starting from nothing, to grow and move
Faster and faster! To batter and shove.
To toss and level the crops and trees,
And pick great quarrels with the seas?
Cutting an enormous swath
Of death and havoc in its path.
Is it, that mankind must pay
In some great measure – for the day,
The sun, the moon, the stars, the night;
The privilege of having light,
The life we live, the hope we scan
Of being part of some Great Plan?
Lorna Steele
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Dead Reckoning
“Life is eternal and love is immortal, and death is only a horizon;
life is eternal as we move into the light,
and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.”
Carly Simon/Teesa Gohl
Alex waited for the worst on the backside of the eye, but when the wind filled in again, it was weak – the storm had split and gone either side of the island. It took another three hours for it to totally blow itself out – gradually calming to a mild 20 knots from the north. At first Alex had been suspicious that the storm had simply stalled on them, but when she saw the sky all around the island clearing, she knew it was over.
Most importantly, they needed sleep, but Rob knew that it was best to get Alex’s head stitched first. He called, Alex’s friend Roberto, the dockmaster at the Yacht Club, and asked if he could be of assistance in getting a doctor for her. Also, they needed a way off the boat – they didn’t have a dingy and even if they did the seas were too rough to land it ashore. Luckily, Roberto had his 25 foot rescue boat anchored just off the dock and he instructed his deck-hand to swim out and bring the boat into shore close enough to the dock for the doctor to jump aboard – he would bring the doctor to them.
Once Alex’s wound was tended – fifteen stitches later – the doctor gave her the okay to take some pain-killers and more importantly, to take a nap, since she was oriented, able to converse, and her motor responses were good. Sleep sounded too good to be true at that point, thought Alex. They had been up now for more than forty-eight hours and her whole body ached almost as much as her concuss head. Alex and Rob were anxious however, to get back to St. Maarten to check on Grandma and Grandpa. But, they reasoned that the earliest they could safely make it out of the harbor would be the next morning. They made the decision to leave by dawn – if there was any wind, since a passing hurricane often took away every available breath of wind. They could try to fly into St. Maarten, but rumor had it that SXM was closed due to the fact that the runway was littered with boats and debris.
Roberto offered to have his guys help pick up their extra anchors later that afternoon since it would be too tough a job to do without an engine or dinghy. To set Alex’s mind at ease, Roberto informed her that he had personally checked on her boat, Dancer, in English Harbor and it was safe and sound – there had been little or no sea to cause a threat like the waves had in Falmouth.
Night fell. Rob went out on deck to look at the stars which felt more important now. In fact, he had been certain just hours ago that he may never lay eyes on them again. He stared at the vast expanse of sky above him – at the millions of stars that he could see He was awed at the thought of how vast the Universe must truly be for he knew there were just as many unseen galaxies – like little islands floating in space comprised of stars. How still it felt – how magnificent – full of promise. Finally, Rob fully understood that he was part of that vastness – the oneness. When Alex had fallen overboard, Rob had been present for the first time in his life, and he had felt the depth and oneness of the Universe within him – the all know
ing and the nothingness at the same time. He finally understood what Grandpa meant when he had said to live in the present – for if Rob had been anywhere but in the moment when he was up that mast looking for Alex, neither of them would be there now. For the first time in his life he felt open to the source of all being, and for the first time ever he felt real love – not love connected to the body, but love that rose out of something more vast – more important – something more real than the body he inhabited. Finally, Rob understood the lesson he’d come here to learn, and I breathed a great sigh of relief since I knew I had finally gotten through to him. He had finally learned to tune in and now he could rely more on his own navigational skills.
Rob joined Alex in the master berth, and by nine o’clock, they finally fell asleep – in each other’s arms, comforted by the knowledge that they had lived through such a frightening, life-threatening experience together. Alex knew for the first time in her adult life, that she had found a man that she could trust with her life the way she had trusted her father. Finally, she was able to trust – to love – unconditionally – to surrender.
With the wind from the north at 10-12 knots, they sailed straight out of the harbor on a starboard broad reach at the crack of dawn the next morning. The seas were still big from the southwest, but with the storm to the east of them, there was nothing to push the sea any longer from the west. Almost as quick as it had come, it had gone. They hugged the lee side of Nevis and St. Kitts all the same, to garner a modicum of protection from the sea, making the ride a little smoother and faster since it allowed them to crack off of the wind a bit. Progress was slow since once again they found themselves beating dead to weather on a starboard tack, due to the fact that the wind had clocked around and was coming out of the north – a result of the receding storm. Luckily, it would take only one tack to get all the way to abeam of Simpson Bay – some twelve hours later.
Alex set the autopilot and made herself comfortable in the deckhouse, on the only part of the settee that had somehow managed to remain dry, as Rob took the first watch. Today’s sail would be a pleasure cruise compared to their last. The going was slow, however with a fair amount of canvas up they were making good at least eight to ten knots. Alex and Rob’s primary concern still lay with Grandma and Grandpa’s welfare, and the faster they could make it back to the island, the better. The little island of St. Maarten had taken the brunt of the storm and Alex wasn’t certain what they would find standing along the coast. The report she had received yesterday, from the yacht in St. Maarten, sounded pretty grim.
As they got within 40 miles off the island, Alex was unsuccessful in locating anyone from the marina in Simpson Bay via Saba Radio, likely because everyone was preoccupied with rescue work – assisting the crews of the hundreds of submerged vessels which had not been as lucky as they thought when they cruised through the bridge a few days before in search of safety.
Although they had slept, Rob and Alex still felt as battered as the Island Fever looked. Although, the boat had amazingly sustained little serious damage. Her starboard dagger board had broken off at the waterline while Rob was maneuvering to save Alex, making the boat a bear to steer to weather in the confused seas. An hour into the trip Alex had realized that the autopilot was over-taxed, and Rob had taken over the helm, steering her as best he could in a straight line. Luckily, the only other damage to the boat had been ripped and tattered sails from the force of the wind. It would however, take them a week to get all the seawater out of the carpets and cushions and get them dry, but it had all been a minuscule price to pay for their’s and the boat’s safe return.
Alex owed her life to Rob, who had pulled her from the jaws of certain death with little concern for his own safety. Watching Rob at the helm, Alex realized that she was indeed looking at a different man – one who had found himself somewhere out there in the middle of this vast ocean. Ironic how only a few months prior she had given him up as hopelessly unseaworthy. She had been so wrong. She knew that their fates were now sealed and that it would take far more than a hurricane to ever separate them. A bond had been created between then that could carry them through the good times and the bad.
Almost too weak to stand, Alex struggled into the cockpit, against Rob’s wishes, and wrapped her arms around him – partially in an attempt to steady herself, but mainly to feel her heart beating next to his. “Did I tell you how much I love you?” she whispered into Rob’s ear as he leaned down to kiss her. “I owe my life to you, you were amazing out there.”
Rob smiled at her, “I couldn’t have gone on living if I hadn’t found you. What would have been the point?” Alex smiled and buried her head into Rob’s chest so she could hear his heart beat – Rob pulled her close, knowing that she would indeed find it there. Alex stared off in the distance – her attention caught by something large floating in the stream of flotsam that had been washed from the coastal areas and boats of the neighboring islands. She pointed it out to Rob and asked him to sail a little higher for them to get a better look. They had been seeing the trail of debris for hours, stretching nearly a mile wide from about the time they were first out of Falmouth. As they got closer to the floating object that Alex feared might be a person in the water, a cold chill crawled up her spine. There in the water with all but one chamber submerged floated the Dinghy Fever – their little rubber raft had finally met its demise after all. Alex had managed to save the Dinghy Fever from the clutches of the French, but it seemed that as fate would have it, Claire had gotten the best of her on that count. But, it wasn’t the destroyed dinghy that concerned Alex and Rob who hove-to long enough to haul what was left of it aboard using the extra jib halyard – it was the fact that it had been locked away in Grandma and Grandpa’s shed which sat behind their little cottage. If the sea had been high enough to wash the dinghy out of the shed, what was the condition of their home?
It was still a few hours before sunset. It had taken them all day to make it back to their mooring, which was no longer located in Simpson Bay. In fact, they would later find that their two hundred pound kedge anchor1* and chain from an old tug boat lay instead on Simpson Bay beach – still tied to a monohull which lay on its side wedged between two palm trees. Alex couldn’t believe what she when they rounded what was left of the rocky point at Pelican Cay into Simpson Bay. They had definitely faired better than the scourged little island which now hardly resembled the Paradise they left not more than a few days ago. Winds of over 200 mph had ravaged the island so badly the palm trees resembled bent telephone poles – stripped of their fronds, and the rest of the foliage on the island was history.
But, the wind had only done half the damage – what the wind hadn’t destroyed, the sea had polished off, including all the beaches along the southern and western sides of the island. The few monohulls that had chosen to remain in the outer bay for the storm, now littered the coast like beached whales. But the worst of it was the massive toll collected amongst the boat population inside the lagoon that were crammed under the bridge – one on top of the other – like clams at a clambake. They were yet to see the devastation that awaited them inside the bridge along the southwestern shore of the lagoon at the end of the airport runway. The destruction of those who had been so unlucky as to have made it into the bridge on time, was almost complete, since only about four dozen or so boats remained floating in the entire lagoon including the French side – the remains of a fleet of 1400 plus. What they could see however were the masts along the shore inside entwined like tangled pick-up-sticks.
It had taken a while, but Rob and Alex finally got the anchor to hold quite far offshore in the churning bay. The swell in the harbor had diminished dramatically but it was still so huge that even with binoculars Alex was having difficulty surveying the damage on shore in the waning daylight. But, when she finally got a clear line of sight on Grandma and Grandpa’s beach, once the boat rose up on a wave to give her a clearer shot, she gasped and dropped the binoculars. There in the spot where Grandma and Gran
dpa’s cottage had sat for the last sixty some years, lay the Morgan 41 that had turned back to ride out the storm in the harbor.
“Oh my God!” cried Alex, turning whiter than she’d been the day before from the loss of all that blood. Her hand shook as she covered her mouth in shock.
Rob snatched up the binoculars and climbed up on the deck house to get a better view. “Oh dear God,” he cried as he surveyed what little remained of that stretch of beach that was once Paradise to two people they loved. Throwing down the glasses, Rob ripped his clothes off as if preparing to dive in after a drowning man. Alex, still in shock from what she’d seen attempted to remove her jacket, but the dizziness from her bump on the head nearly sent her reeling.
“You’re staying here,” insisted Rob as he removed his shoes and stripped down to his bathing trunks. “I’m going to swim ashore to see if they’re all right. I’ll get a boat from the marina to come back and get you as soon as I can.”
Feeling helpless to do anything to help those who had become her dearest friends over the last few months, Alex’s tears welled uncontrollably for the first time since her father died. Rob’s heart sunk as he held her tiny body – shaking with fear over what Rob might find once he reached shore. Alex had never been so scared in her life, even the time she spent in the water trying to save her own life paled in comparison to the dread she was feeling about Grandma, Grandpa, and Christian.
West of the Quator Page 38
