SS Pacifica

by Coleinger, Ronnie

  As we motored out of the harbor and headed north, we found a favorable tail wind. We decided to set the spinnaker and make some speed out away from the large vessels in the shipping channel. We turned on our running lights so the vessels around us could easily see us. We had installed a stern staff for our United States flag and decided to fly it until dark. The new staff worked much better than trying to hang the flag from the mast.

  Chapter 31 – Hurricane Warning for the Caribbean Sea

  As the sun set to our stern, we moved our deck chairs up on deck. We had slept enough today, and decided to remain on deck throughout the night, both watching for vessels that might stray into our path. This area seemed over run with vessels, every type imaginable: with the exception of submarines. We seemed to be the only sailing submersible in the Caribbean Sea. As we sat and talked, Becky said, “Oh, oh. I think the greasy steak has worked its way through. I will return shortly.” I chuckled at my wife and said, “Wear you safety belt. I don’t want to have to fish you out of the water you just pooped in.” I heard her stomach rumble as she headed towards the swim platform. After a couple minutes, I took her some flushable wipes and a bar of soap in case she was in need of either.

  When I sat back down in my deck chair, I could feel the wind getting stronger, but it was moving in from the east. When Becky returned, she said, “I think we should take down the spinnaker. It is actually hindering our progress with this wind direction change.” As we carefully furled the sail and carried it down into the cabin, we heard the marine radio come to life. NOAA was giving information about a hurricane that was heading towards the Gulf of Mexico within the next seventy-two hours.

  When we had the spinnaker stowed in the floor level cabinet, we sat down at the table and listened to the information coming in from NOAA. Becky got the atlas out again and we plotted the projected course of the storm. It would travel hundreds of miles north of us if it remained on its current path, but we both knew that high winds and rough seas would cause major problems for the Pacifica-Two. We needed at least six days to reach Jamaica. We would have to make a decision and do it quickly. We could either turn around and shelter from the storm at the marina in Colon, or ride out the bad weather out here at sea.

  I made us some coffee and carried a cup up to Becky who was again standing watch on the bow. When I handed the cup to her, she said, “I am going to the cabin and try to get enough air card signal to use the Internet. We need to know if we can continue safely. I would like to test this vessel in heavy seas, but I do not want to swim three thousand miles to shore if we should flounder.”

  Becky returned to the deck an hour later. She had a notebook with lots of notes. When she sat down beside me she said, “The storm is expected to make a direct hit on Florida. The computer models show that once the storm crosses the state, it should turn north. The forecast for Panama and the surrounding waters is for a maximum fifty mile per hour winds, and heavy seas. The high winds will quickly pass and within twenty-four hours, they should subside. With this information, I would like to continue on our present course towards Panama.” Becky took hold of my hand and said, “Tonight, we will make this decision together. I designed this vessel’s structure and I believe she is worthy to face the storm. If you disagree or have concerns, now is the time to state them; while we have time to turn around and make it back to Colon before the storm catches us.”

  I sat pondering the storm and said, “We are capable of submerging to a depth of three hundred feet and remain there for at least six days, maybe more, if we were forced to. The hull of this vessel will withstand the rough seas with little difficulty as long as we protect the sailing and diving/steering planes and propellers. We have enough food on board, and if we get rain in the next few hours, we will be in good shape. If all our water containers are full, we will have enough drinking water for a month. We are only six or seven days out of Panama. I would like to continue with this adventure; turning around just seems wrong, in my opinion.”

  Becky squeezed my hand and said, “Let’s take turns with the watch and both some more sleep. We will run into the winds in another day or so. We will need our rest. I will take the watch until daylight.”

  When I woke, I realized that Becky had gone without sleep for almost twenty-four hours. I made coffee and cooked our breakfast on deck. The skies to our west were getting darker and I figured by noon the rain would begin. The storm looked to be over the Panama Canal right now and I could see small flickering flashes of lightning. As we ate our food, I could see that Becky would be heading off to bed in a few minutes. Her eyes showed how tired she was after sitting up all night. When she finished eating, I cleaned up the breakfast dishes and put away the stove. Once everything was stowed except for my deck chair, I tucked Becky into bed. When I started to climb the ladder back up to the deck, I turned and realized my wife was already asleep. I quietly went to a cupboard and retrieved my wet weather gear.

  As I climbed back up onto the deck, I could see the storm had advanced on us. It looked like a normal summer storm and did not give me much concern. If the lightning or winds got to serious, I would move to the stern hatch with the door closed.

  During the next six hours, I did three tacks and kept the rudder carefully set to keep the Pacifica-Two running the waves for maximum speed. The wind seemed to change its mind every few minutes, but the vessel seemed not to notice. After I set a port tack on the foresails and carefully secured the boom, I turned to do the same to the mainsail. I heard Becky yell, “I have the mainsail, Stanley. Please tend to the rudder.” I felt a little relief move through my body, I had done this procedure often, but when Becky appeared on deck, things always got easier. As I set the rudder and stood close in case it needed further tending, Becky said, “The winds are swirling around. You should have awakened me. Making tacks in this wind is difficult for one person.”

  Once the sails were set, I heard the sound of the sailing planes coming out of the water. I looked over the port side and realized we needed to set lower in the water in these winds. Becky said, “I will add water to the ballast tanks. Yell loud when things look okay.”

  When Becky returned to the deck, she said, “We now have another problem, Stanley. NOAA has extended the hurricane warning to include the Caribbean Sea. The storm watchers now predict the storm to move more southerly and pass over Cuba. We will be miles south of the eye of the hurricane, but I assure you we will see very heavy seas.” As we talked, the summer storm that had been chasing us from the west caught up to us and began dumping heavy rains on us. Most times, we would not welcome the rain, but today we needed to refill our water tanks. This storm would quickly solve that problem. We moved into the cabin and closed the hatch doors. Becky sat in the stern hatch and watched what was in front of us through the three viewing windows. I worked on filling the water jugs and getting them stored. When the jugs were full, I secured them into the storage cupboards with ropes. With all our water jugs full, we now had a month’s worth of fresh water.

  By lunchtime the next day, the wind picked up and the seas became choppy. We had a strong wind on our stern and that helped us keep a good forward speed. By super time, we knew we were in for an ass-kicking storm. We were running in very deep water and we wanted that to continue. If we entered shallow water now, the waves would only get worse. By sunset, the waves were running eight to fifteen feet high. I made us some peanut butter sandwiches, with much effort if might add and we ate them standing up. Neither of us normally had any problems with seasickness and we hoped that we could avoid that problem if possible. Becky told me that if the waves got any worse, she was going to begin taking the Dramamine to insure that her belly stayed under control. I agreed with her, but said, “I am going to start now. I do not want to be sick when I am needed the most on this voyage.” As I took my first pill, Becky giggled and said, “I should also take one of those pills. It is going to take both of us to manage this vessel for the next twenty-four hours.”

  Around midnight, we
became concerned for the safety of the Pacifica-Two and took down the sails. We had started the propulsion motors to insure we could keep the bow into the waves after we took down the sails and secured the masts. Once the sails and tackle were in the cabin, we submerged. We slowly dove until the sea around us calmed. We found that at a depth of one-hundred feet, the water was much calmer. We set the alarms on the depth gauges and tried to relax a little. The water below us was about 1900 feet deep, so we really did not have to worry about hitting anything. Above us was a hundred feet of water, even a large cargo vessel did not draw that much draft. We would be perfectly safe for now. We watched Grandfather’s compass to keep on a northerly heading. I decided to take a short nap and told Becky to wake me in two hours; I made her promise to wake me.

  Quarter past two in the morning, Becky gently shook my arm and said, “Stanley, you need to get up” When my eyes popped open, I realized we were rolling side to side in the water. Becky was busy moving the rudder to steer into the rolling waves. By the time I was standing, up the vessel calmed. She said, “I fell asleep. When I woke, I realized that the winds over us had changed direction. We were no longer running into the waves. I think we should dive a little deeper into calmer water.” I quickly added seawater to the ballast tanks. As we watched the depth gauge, we found that at one-hundred and eighty feet down, the water was again calm. Becky had no more than sat down on the edge of the bed, when she said, “Damn,” and ran to the head. I heard her upset stomach emptying in the chamber pot. I got her a wet towel and then got another Dramamine and some water. When she sat down beside me, she said, “I think the vessel was swaying in the waves for an hour or so before I woke. That is why I am ill.” She swallowed the pill with a little water and said, “I will be okay now that we are stable.”

  I went back to the fish finder and checked our depth to make certain we had not sunk any deeper. Then I sat the alarms to warn us if we deviated more than twenty feet in depth, in either direction. When I returned to Becky she was looking a little better, but she had no desire to move from the chamber pot. I got her a thin blanket to cover herself and a pillow to sit on. I began writing notes in my notebook, the time I woke, the depth we dove, the exact time and any other information that would be interesting later if I decided to write a novel about our adventures.

  In a few minutes, I heard Becky brushing her teeth. When she sat down beside me, she said, “Sorry about that. I cannot remember the last time I had seasickness. It usually only happens to me on deck in the darkness while on a rolling sea, and then only after having put too much food in my stomach.” I chuckled and said, “What is in the chamber pot looks like T-Bone steak to me.” She giggled and said, “I pooped that out long ago.” I saw her put her fingers over her lips and giggle. I knew she seldom discussed her bodily functions with anyone, including me. Then she giggled again and said, “By the way, thanks for the flushable wipes the other night. I needed that. Sometimes, using ones fingers to wash in the sea water just does not work out to well, even with a bar of soap.”

  As we talked, I said, “You can take a nap if you wish. I will keep us stable so your stomach does not get cranky again.” She patted my hand and said, “I will do that. Good morning, my love.” I looked at my watch and realized it was half past six. I checked the batteries to determine how many hours we had left before they would need a charge, and then decided to slow the motors down about ten percent. I reached up, turned off the marine radio and then turned the brightness on the fish finder all the way down. At this point, every electrical item I turned off would help keep the battery drain to a minimum. The small headlamp I was using to read my book began to get dim. I found another one and then changed the batteries in the first one. We had cabin lights, but using them only added to the drain on our batteries.

  I let Becky sleep for about six hours. I figured that the longer she was asleep, the less chance there was of her stomach being upset. It seemed that once a person got seasickness, it was always difficult to get the stomach settled back down. I hoped Becky would not be ill when she woke. The Pacifica-Two had run submerged for twenty-eight hours now. I decided that when Becky woke, I would try rising closer to the surface and see if the rough waves had settled down. I suspected they had not.

  Becky woke two hours later. She quickly headed towards the chamber pot, but this time I heard her pee. When she came back out she said, “Holly cow, I almost wet my pants. You should not have let me sleep so long.” I saw her cut some bread and put honey on it. She poured some juice in a glass and came to sit down at the eating table. When she sat down, she said, “I feel much better now. I think we should go up and see if things have calmed down. We should have only had to pass through the outer rings of the storm, and they may have passed by now.” I doubted Becky was accurate in her predictions, but I was very willing to surface a little. I would like to get the Pacifica-Two up to under a hundred feet below the surface so I could use the retractable antenna. I was anxious to see what NOAA was saying about the hurricane and its present position.

  As we rose, the sea remained fairly calm. However, by the time we reached the sixty -foot level, we realized that the storm was still raging above us. We decided to raise the antenna and see if we could get a NOAA statement on the marine radio. When we got a signal on the radio, we carefully listened until we heard a weather statement. As they gave the coordinates for the eye of the storm, we wrote them down. NOAA had now cancelled the storm warnings, but high wind and wave alerts were still out.

  Once we had the information we needed, we retracted the antenna and turned off the radio to save energy. We slowly dove down a few feet until the sea felt stable again. Becky poured a half glass of water and sat it on the table. She drew a felt pen line around the glass at the water line. We realized that the water was gently sloshing around in the glass. We guessed that the sea would be moving all the way down to the sea floor, but we dove another hundred feet in an attempt to steady the vessel. Our bodies needed calm right now. When we settled in at a depth of one-hundred and eight feet, the water in the glass seemed much steadier. We decide to remain here for another eight hours and then try surfacing again. We had only enough air in the tanks for about two more excursions to the surface, without running the air compressor.

  As we waited out the storm, I remembered we had a couple decks of playing cards stored in the cabinet over Becky’s bed. When I retrieved them, Becky said, “I am not in the mood for strip poker today, my love.” I chuckled and said, “How about a game of Eight Card Golf, Go Fish, or Pepper.” Becky said, “I can whip your ass at Eight Card Golf.” I looked up at her and said, “Girl, there is not one chance in hell that you will win at Golf.” She found a pad of paper and a pencil and said, “We will keep score together so you will know that I have whipped your ass, fair and square.”

  As I began dealing the cards, Becky got up from the table and poured us each a glass of water. When she sat back down, she said, “I would like to tell you in advance that I really do love you, Stanley. I just wanted you to know that before I begin destroying your male ego.”

  I looked up at her as I dealt the cards and said, “I appreciate you giving me fair warning, and I hope that at the end of the game, you still feel so confident in your card playing skills, Captain.”

  Eight hours later, when the alarm on my watch began chiming, Becky had only won eight of the sixth-two games we had played. We had taken a break for some food halfway through the session, but we spent the rest of the time in heated battle. As we got up from the table to surface and check on the weather, Becky stuck her tongue out at me. I chuckled and said, “If we were on the surface, I would toss you into the sea for that.” She giggled and said, “You would come back and rescue me. You do not enjoy sex so much when you have to do it alone.” I swatted her butt as we began blowing water from the ballast tanks so we could slowly rise. I could tell she felt better, or was simply excited about the possibility of finally surfacing.

  We slowly rose in the calm wate
r. When the bow hatch cleared the water, I heard Becky take a deep breath. When I looked at to see if she was all right, she was crying. However, under those tears was a wonderful smile. She quickly wiped the tears away and climbed into the hatch to look out the viewing windows. I heard her say, “The sun is shining. I am going out.” When she opened the hatch door, the smell of fresh air was wonderful. As I secured the cabin, and turned on the marine radio, Becky yelled down to me, letting me know that we were running okay in the water and that the planes were okay. When I stepped out onto the deck, I laughed as I saw Becky strip off her clothes and head down the swim platform. She put on her safety belt and connected it to the boat. When she slid down into the water, I heard her say, “Damn, this water is cold.” I took her down a bar of soap, and then watched over her until she was clean and had climbed back up onto the platform.

  While Becky finished with her bath, I carried the foresails up from the cabin and got them set: Then I hung the main sails. I left them tied to the mast for now. I wanted to take my bath before setting the sails. As I stripped down, Becky said, “I will watch over you while you bathe.”

  When I was clean and had climbed back up onto the swim platform, I saw Becky set the foresail and felt the Pacifica-Two begin moving. When she set the mainsail, our speed rapidly increased. The waves were only three feet high and we skimmed across them with ease.

  As the Pacifica-Two moved forward, I checked on my compass to be certain we were moving east. The sun was in the correct position in the sky for this time of day and I was not certain why I looked at the compass, but I did. I saw Becky check her GPS and write down our position. While she plotted our position on the maps, I got some clean clothes and put them on. I carried my dirty clothes up on deck so I could wash them. I knew that once I washed my clothes, Becky would do the same. I carried up some water from the cabin and filled a small pail. I put my bar of soap into the pan and swished it around a little. Once I had enough soap, I washed the clothes and laid them on the deck. Once I finished rinsing them, I hung a rope from the bow to the stern masts and hung up my things. I had no more than finished my wash when Becky carried her stuff up and performed the same procedure with her clothes. We normally would not waste fresh water to wash clothes, but Becky had already confirmed that we were only one day out from Jamaica, so we had plenty of water.