On Island Time: Kayaking the Caribbean

by Scott B. Williams

  The dead calm of morning abruptly changed to 20 knots of headwinds as I neared Sail Rocks, and the last mile to the scant shelter they provided was a hard-won battle. I was disappointed to find that there was no beach where I could land and rest. Shipborne Cay, five miles to the south, was the first real island in the northern Exumas. It didn’t matter that I was already exhausted; I would have to paddle there before I could sleep. I could see another group of large rocks about two miles to the south, and decided to hop there on my way to Shipbourne, to break up the distance, even though there would likely be no place to land.

  A clearly visible line of color in the water marked the division of Exuma Sound, with its oceanic depths, from the shallow banks I’d been traveling over. Ahead I could see breaking waves blocking my path, formed by huge Atlantic swells rolling in from the east and stacking up at the edge of the shoal water. I would have to paddle through the breakers, but I’d done that before and saw no reason for concern. I drifted away from Sail Rocks, eating one of the sour oranges from Royal Island, while being carried by a strong current into Exuma Sound. I continued paddling towards the next group of rocks, enjoying the waves and staring at the bottom 100 feet down beneath the impossibly clear water. I could see where it dropped off into the abyss at the edge of the shelf I was cruising over.

  The farther I got into the crossing, the bigger the waves became, and soon I was bracing constantly with the paddle to keep from capsizing. I still wasn’t worried, until I was within a half mile of the rocks and found myself in a chaos of huge, unpredictable waves. Each breaker spun the kayak around and buried me up to my neck in whitewater froth until the buoyant hull popped back to the surface. A few minutes of this and I went from complacent to terrified. All around me were jagged outcrops of coral rock that jutted out of the water waiting to tear my boat apart if the monstrous waves swept me into them. I had never been in seas so big. The wave faces were as long as my 17-foot kayak and I paddled seemingly straight up the oncoming slopes, fighting to keep my bow into them to avoid being rolled. Each time I reached the peak of a wave the kayak would plunge off the back and nose dive into the trough left by its passing. I alternated survival bracing techniques with furious paddling to get into the lee of the big rocks. I screamed in fear and cursed and prayed, until at last I saw an opening into a sheltered lagoon and passed between the rocks at breakneck speed, surfing almost vertically down the face of one final big wave that did its best to destroy me. I rode its fury a good fifty feet and slipped between two coral heads unscathed, finding myself suddenly in the calm of protected shallows, the sandy bottom once again clearly visible just a few feet below. It had been my closest call on the trip. If I’d smashed the boat there and somehow survived the swim to the rocks, I would have found myself clinging to nothing but a barren reef, miles off the route of all boat traffic and with little hope of rescue. Still trembling with an adrenaline rush, I mumbled my thanks to God – and to Mike Neckar, for building such an incredibly seaworthy vessel.

  Thinking the excitement was over for the day, I rested the paddle across the cockpit coaming and peeled another orange as I drifted in the lee of the rocks. Suddenly, something hit the stern of the kayak with an overwhelming force, like being rear-ended in a car by a truck. The boat shot forward and spun to one side, but I managed to stay upright. I turned in time to see the shadowy outline of a large shark disappear into the depths. I froze with fear, thinking the shark would return momentarily for a serious attack, but when it did not, I assumed that it was just checking me out and rammed the rudder out of curiosity.

  I reached Shipborne Cay in the last hour of daylight, and set up my tent on a deserted beach near an abandoned nineteenth-century farmhouse built of coral rocks. I was tired and looked forward to a good night’s sleep after such a rough day, but it was not to be. Shortly after midnight, the wind began to howl, and an hour later it was so strong that it snapped the main support pole of my tent and pulled apart one of the door zippers. Then a brief but torrential rain drenched my flattened tent and soaked me in my sleeping bag.

  Despite being wet and uncomfortable, I had just fallen asleep again before dawn when I was awakened by squealing and trampling outside. I looked out to see a huge sow hog with half a dozen piglets rooting through the food and gear I had left beside the boat. I yelled and chased them away before they did any real damage. Apparently they were feral hogs descended from the domestic stock brought to the island by the farm owner who had built the stone house.

  I gave up on sleeping, and after cooking a pancake breakfast, assessed the storm’s damage to my tent, which was my only home and would have to last for many more months. I cut the splintered section out of the fiberglass ridgepole, and found that though it was shorter, it would still serve its purpose. The zipper was beyond repair, and I realized with a sinking feeling that it would be difficult to seal out the swarms of no-see-ums and mosquitoes should I find myself in another bug-ridden mangrove jungle like the Everglades.

  After packing my waterlogged gear into the kayak, I paddled south and soon came to Allen’s Cay, where a large number of sailing yachts were lying at anchor. Ben had told me that the iguanas are the attraction at uninhabited Allen’s Cay. It is one of the few islands where large numbers of Bahamian iguanas still survive. Elsewhere throughout the country, islanders have hunted them to extinction for their meat, which is reputed to be delicious. I landed on the beach and several of the 2-foot long lizards wandered down to greet me, since so many of the yachties feed them. I didn’t linger long at Allen’s Cay after meeting the iguanas, since I wanted to push on to Highborne Cay, a few miles to the south, where there was a settlement and I hoped I could get more food and water.

  By noon, I was fighting a fierce headwind as I pulled into the harbor at Highborne Cay. There was a long concrete dock extending out from the beach, with an enormous motor yacht tied up to one side of it. I paddled single-mindedly against the wind, aiming for the sand on the other side of the dock. I was in a bad mood after my struggle with the wind all morning and the lack of sleep during the stormy night. The last thing I needed was to be heckled by a bunch of rich Americans in a yacht that looked more like a cruise ship than a private boat. Though I couldn’t see the occupants through the dark tinted windows of the plush vessel, I could feel their eyes upon me as I struggled to pull my heavy-loaded kayak up onto the sand. The rope holding the grab handle on the bow had to pick this most inopportune moment to break, and when it did, I was pulling so hard that I went sprawling backwards into the sand. I was certain that those on the yacht were laughing and jeering at the unshaven vagabond in his tiny little kayak.

  I put on sandals and began walking up the road to find a store. A man who lived on Highborne Cay stopped to give me a ride in his pick-up, saying that the store was more than a mile away. I was grateful not to be walking on the hot, hilly road in my less than optimistic mood that day. The little store had the usual limited supply of canned goods and basic staples, so I bought all I could carry and walked back to the beach.

  Back at my kayak, as I was loading food into the boat through the stern hatch, a uniformed crewmember from the palatial yacht approached and invited me aboard. He said that the owner wanted to meet me and that I was welcome to take a hot shower on board.

  A hot shower! I couldn’t believe it. I lost no time in following the crewman aboard Destiny, where Charlie Leech was waiting in the spacious main salon with a cold beer to greet me.

  “I saw you coming in against that wind with a pissed-off look on your face, and I said to myself, that guy’s going somewhere in that kayak,” Charlie explained. “They’ll show you to the showers. Go ahead and get cleaned up, then we’ll have a drink while you tell me about your trip. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’d have had a brass band playing if I’d known you were coming.”

  The interior of Destiny was like a palace, and a pretty young woman who said she was one of the chefs led me down below through two staterooms. The bathroom was nicer than the o
ne in the honeymoon suite at the Key Largo Holiday Inn, where I’d had my last hot shower almost two months ago.

  After I’d changed into my last set of clean clothes, Charlie introduced me to his girlfriend, Gail, and two other couples aboard, Dennis and Dee, and Tim and Donna. They didn’t own Destiny, Charlie explained, but had chipped in together to raise the “considerable chunk of change” it had cost to charter the yacht, complete with skipper and crew, chefs and a maid, and all the gourmet food and booze they could consume for ten days of Bahamas cruising. Charlie was about fifty, his hair cut in a short crew cut and an ample gut hanging over the waistline of his shorts. He reminded me of the comedian Rodney Dangerfield, especially his accent and mannerisms. It was obvious that he was a natural ham who could keep a party going non-stop, booze or no booze. He told me he had gotten rich from a family business in Manhattan and was planning to have a good time from now on. He and his friends listened intently to every detail of my journey, filming the whole interview with a camcorder while I relaxed and drank another beer. Charlie insisted that I stay for dinner that night, and when I told him about the iguanas on Allen’s Cay, he said that we should run up there in the dinghy to kill some time that afternoon.

  Destiny’s “dinghy” was an 18-foot center-console Boston Whaler with a 150-horsepower outboard, and Charlie drove it like a maniac to Allen’s Cay. He’d brought along handouts for the iguanas, and my mouth watered as we fed those lucky lizards fresh broccoli and apples. It had been weeks since I’d had anything like that. Destiny, of course, was equipped with refrigeration and freezers, so no luxury would have to be spared during the cruise. There were scores of hungry iguanas on the beach eager to accept our offerings. Charlie marveled at them, calling them “well-designed machines.”

  That evening we sat down with wine and candlelight at Destiny’s dining table to a feast the chefs had spent all afternoon preparing. I had answered Charlie’s earlier query about my age by informing him that the following day, January 13, was my birthday. After dinner a Key Lime pie with 26 candles was brought to the table and the entire crew sang happy birthday to me. It turned out to be quite a party, as we spent the rest of the evening drinking margaritas. Some of the mixed crew slipped off for some swimming and their own private party at a secluded beach nearby. Charlie called it all “lifestyles of the rich and ridiculous.”

  Sometime after midnight, when most of those on Destiny had passed out, I made my way down to my kayak, which was still where I’d left it that morning. I spread my sleeping bag out on the sand beside it, too drunk to bother erecting the tent. I woke at dawn with raindrops splashing off my face, and leapt up to pack away all my scattered gear as the heavens broke open and dumped a pouring shower on Highborne Cay. The crew of Destiny was casting off the dock lines and I waved goodbye as I stood in the rain and watched them slowly motor out of the inlet and begin their voyage back to Palm Beach. The party was over, and I was back in the real world of a sea kayaker – no more hot showers, fancy meals, cold margaritas, or conversations with beautiful women for me – it was back to rice and tuna for dinner and plain water to drink. I felt a touch of regret, as I struggled to drag my heavy-loaded boat back to the water’s edge.

  The rain felt cold, but I quickly warmed up once I sealed myself into the cockpit and fell into my steady traveling stroke. I was paralleling the next cay south of Highborne, staying within a few yards of the shore in 15 feet of water. I had barely gone a quarter of a mile when I heard a surge in the water behind me. I turned and was horrified to see a black fin slicing the surface, headed directly for my stern. I braced for the impact and somehow managed to avoid capsizing as the kayak was spun nearly 180 degrees by the shark’s strike. With trembling hands I fumbled for my bang-stick, which I’d been keeping handy on the deck since that first shark rammed me a couple of days before. I peered into the clear water, which was poorly illuminated in the early morning light of a rainy day. Then out of nowhere I suddenly saw the shark circling beneath me for what could be a serious attack. Shaking with the fear that can only be inspired by the imminent prospect of being eaten, I unscrewed the safety on the bang-stick and waited. I was startled at the incredible speed with which the shark rushed me when it broke out of its circle pattern, and I scarcely had time to raise my weapon in preparation for a desperate defense. Instead of taking a bite however, it passed about three feet beneath me, rolling to one side as it contemplated me with one mechanical-looking eye. I could clearly see that it was about 12-feet long, its head and body wider than my kayak. I wasn’t sure what species it was, as its body just looked dark in the poor light.

  The shark disappeared after that final pass. I waited motionless for a few minutes to be sure it wouldn’t return before I cautiously paddled to the nearest beach, being careful not to make any unnecessary splashes. I collapsed on the sand, needing a few minutes to contemplate this incident. From what I’d read of them, sharks were not supposed to be so aggressive. I’d spent more than 100 hours SCUBA diving in the ocean and had never had an incident with a shark. Now I had been rammed twice in three days, both times within a 50-mile stretch of islands. What was it about the sharks of the Bahamas that I didn’t know? I inspected my kayak for damage. The heavy aluminum rudder had been folded to a U-shape by the blow. I had to take it off and use a big rock to pound it back to a semblance of straightness. Obviously, the shiny rudder and the splashing paddle had excited the shark, but on closer inspection, it decided to pass on a Kevlar sandwich for breakfast. I worried that the next one might not be so picky in its culinary preferences, but I had no choice but to go on or quit right then and there. It was like falling off a horse and then getting back on to ride. I steeled myself and re-launched, paddling with frequent over-the-shoulder glances for the next few hours. When nothing else happened I was able to push the threat to the back of my mind and resume enjoying the scenery that was slipping past me.

  That afternoon I reached the northern boundary of Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, a 22-mile stretch of the Exumas where all plants, animals, and marine creatures are protected. My spearfishing would have to wait until I was south of the park. Camping was also technically illegal in the park, but a man in a small powerboat who stopped to talk told me that I could camp on Little Cistern Cay with no problems. I continually got the impression in the Bahamas that I was welcome to camp practically anywhere and stay as long as I wanted. This was hard to get used to after weeks of hiding out like a fugitive on Florida’s west coast and the Keys. I had concluded that it was impossible to travel any distance in a sea kayak without trespassing or breaking somebody’s “No Camping” rules. The physical nature of kayaking limited how far I could go each day, making it necessary to stop and rest when I reached my limit, whether there was a campground or not. Thankfully the very nature of the kayak; small, silent, and unobtrusive, made it possible to pass along a coast mostly unnoticed. At night the entire boat could be withdrawn into even minimal foliage, allowing me to effectively disappear. But here in the Bahamas, I had the luxury of camping in the open. I built fires on the beach at night and didn’t worry about breaking camp and moving out at the crack of dawn.

  That night on Little Cistern Cay, another vicious squall swept over my campsite, and my fiberglass ridgepole snapped again, sending the tent down on top of me. I thought of the engineers who designed the thing, snug in some office, never having to spend a sleepless night in a soaking wet sleeping bag. I was getting fed-up with over-priced “expedition” gear that was barely adequate for a weekend outing at a park. Why couldn’t something like a tent or camp stove be designed to last? After less than a month into the journey I had flung my expensive stove into the ocean in a fit of rage, and the second one Pat had sent to me in Key Largo was little better. It became obvious to me that all this stuff was built to last a season or so for the weekend recreational camper. It had to fail after that, so there would be a need for replacements. This was the business plan of the gear manufacturers. I was disgusted with it and determined to buy as
little as possible from now on. I would prove to myself that most of the stuff people buy is unnecessary. Due to necessity, I had become quite expert at cooking on tiny fires that required only a few twigs. I could boil a pot of rice or produce a stack of pancakes in about the same time it would have taken to set up the stove.

  I was able to repair the pole the following morning after the storm abated, by once again cutting out the splintered section. Though it was now six or eight inches shorter, it still seemed to serve its purpose. I worried that it would soon break again, eventually becoming too short to function. The tent was more critical than the stove, and it would be hard to live without it due to biting insects. It would be difficult to get a replacement in these remote islands. I would have to call Pat in Pensacola, so he could order one from the manufacturer. Then I would have to paddle to some settlement with infrequent mail boat service and wait there until it arrived.

  After breaking camp and leaving Little Cistern Cay, I had one hell of a time making an 8-mile crossing to the next cay – an all-out battle against a 25-30 knot headwind and frenzied whitecaps. It was the most difficult fight against the wind I’d had so far on the trip, and it raised new doubts as to whether I’d be able to buck the wind on the several 30-mile plus crossings that lay ahead, beyond the Exumas and Long Island. John Dowd’s warnings about the steady southeast trade winds began to make sense to me now. Wind like this was an intangible concept when I was looking at maps and calculating crossing times at home. It was a factor I didn’t consider to be a problem, since on the northern Gulf coast the wind rarely blows for very long and certainly not from a constant direction. Now I could see the wisdom of John Dowd’s group when they did their Caribbean kayak expedition 10 years before. By starting in Trinidad, they were able to tour the islands all the way to Florida with the prevailing winds behind them. Nevertheless, I was determined to go southeast. Part of the appeal of the trip for me was the idea of leaving home waters and heading out into the horizon to new and strange places. I was open to any possibility, including settling down and living somewhere if I found a place that was particularly captivating. Flying somewhere and paddling home would not have been the same at all.