On Island Time: Kayaking the Caribbean

by Scott B. Williams

  Not having seen Becky and Christine yet, I wondered why he would be so anxious to part with his Danish girlfriend anyway. When they came to visit my camp on the beach later that afternoon, Lis with typical European disdain for modesty, removed her bikini top and proudly revealed her ample and well-tanned upper half. Emboldened by her example, Mark’s sister Lisa went topless as well, wisely applying plenty of sunscreen. Mark and I sat in the shade with Chelsie, the retriever, aware of the many sets of binoculars trained on the beach from several boats in the nearby anchorage.

  Utterly foreign to me before this journey to the islands, I was becoming aware of and immersed in the cruising subculture. I began to realize that these yachties had a loosely organized, yet vibrant community they carried with them from island to island in their ceaseless quest to leave behind whatever it was that had inspired them to trade shore life for a life afloat. Perhaps the biggest difference between this life and the life they had left behind was the amount of free time they had, which inevitably led to boredom. Like any other small town, the community of sailors at Georgetown’s anchorage was rife with rumors and gossip, and everyone seemed to know something about everyone else’s business.

  Foxglove was not the only boat that was much talked about in the anchorage during those days. There was also Winning Edge; a 27-foot Hunter single-handed by a crazy Frenchman named George. Everyone who had a VHF radio had heard George Bouillon’s arrival into Georgetown. In barely comprehensible English, he called for help when he sailed into the harbor:

  “Can somebody tell me what eez dis place? I sail out of Nassau…put on ze auto-matic pee-lot, drink a bottle of ze cognac, and wake up here.”

  I met George one afternoon as I paddled back to camp after a visit on Heron I. He was rowing to his boat from the beach in a dinghy, his tanned bald head shining in the sun.

  “Come for ze beer!” he shouted, pointing at Winning Edge.

  Amazingly, George recognized the make of my kayak and told me that he was a personal friend of Mike Neckar, the builder. Over hot Beck’s beer he told me that he had lived in British Colombia for years. He was greatly impressed with the quality of my boat after a closer inspection. I told him of my travels and of my plans for hopping a sailboat to Puerto Rico. George said he would be glad to offer me a ride himself, but “only ze short one,” as he hoped to pick up female crew anywhere the opportunity presented itself along his intended route to Martinique. When I mentioned the desperate young ladies on Foxglove, George got on the radio within seconds:

  “Foxglove, Foxglove… it is Winning Edge who call you – over.”

  He repeated this plea three times but still did not raise Foxglove. However, we both met Becky and Christine in Georgetown the following morning, and George invited them to Winning Edge for dinner that night.

  George drank no water. He started his day off with two hot Heinekens or Becks, (“I don’t to eat in ze morning”) and so he kept no fresh water in Winning Edge’s storage tanks. When the girls came to dinner on schedule, George discovered that he had no fresh water on board for cooking. I had none in my camp to give him, so he simply cooked the rice and vegetables in seawater. Now, I had often cooked rice in a 50/50 solution of seawater and fresh to conserve my limited freshwater supply while camped on isolated islands, and it was okay so long as no extra salt was added. But straight seawater, of course, rendered the food practically inedible, and Becky and Christine later confessed to me that this had been a deciding factor in their decision not to sail with George. I was to find out later though, that George had been a professional chef in France and could cook quite well when sober.

  Becky and Christine also visited my camp and were quite intrigued with my method of travel. Christine, especially, expressed a desire to try kayaking and hinted that she would probably be adventurous enough to go with me, but alas, my kayak was a single-seater. Such a shame that I still had the two plastic Chinooks Ernest and I had started out on Black Creek in, utterly unattainable here from where they were stored back in Mississippi. There was nothing to be done short of borrowing Ben’s hacksaw to cut out two more cockpits in the Necky. Oh well, they probably wouldn’t like it anyway after a week of rice and tuna. I had chosen the path of solitude for now, and I would have to stick with it.

  A week after I met him, Jean-Louis moved the Spirit of Sinbad to the anchorage near Volleyball Beach and I went aboard to visit one afternoon when a rare cold front sweeping down from North America brought the usual wind shift to the north and a daytime temperature of only 60 degrees. Jean-Louis was repairing a spare sail and Scully was shivering on deck, wearing two pairs of long pants and two shirts. Jean-Louis laughed at the Rastaman, who had never been this far “north.” I told Scully that this was not real cold. Real cold was what he would find way up north, where they were headed, in Miami.

  “I come from de sun, mon.” Scully said as he shivered with his arms crossed over his chest and his back turned to the north wind.

  Jean-Louis dashed below and returned with a photo of snow-covered peaks near his home in Switzerland. “I told him this is what it’s like in the United States, but he doesn’t believe me.”

  “It’s true, Scully,” I said, taking the picture and holding it in his face. “This is what you’ll find in Miami this time of year. Why do you think I’m going south? You won’t be going barefoot there. No mon! You’ll be wearing five or six pairs of pants.”

  Jean-Louis rolled with laughter, delighted that I backed up his tales of the rigors of winter in Florida.

  “I an’ I goin’ bok to Dominica,” Scully said. “A mon not supposed to lib dat weh, you know.”

  We went below into the spacious cabin of the Spirit of Sinbad so Scully could get out of the wind. Jean-Louis had said before that they had not refurbished the interior since salvaging the yacht. Looking around down there at the wide-open interior, with no floors, bunks, or even bulkheads that were not structural, I began to think his story of how he obtained the yacht might be true. The essentials were there, however, including a well-equipped navigation station with sophisticated electronics, and a serviceable galley where there was a huge bowl of cooked white rice on the countertop. Near the stern, on a mattress laid across a sheet of plywood, the beautiful Swiss girlfriend slept, unaware of our presence.

  “See, we have plenty of room for your kayak.” Jean-Louis reminded me as he looked about the cavernous interior of the Spirit of Sinbad.

  I was briefly tempted to throw in my lot with this strangely assorted crew, but the thought of nothing but white rice three times a day for weeks on a Pacific crossing frightened me. And besides, I was determined to get to the islands I had set out to reach, whether I could paddle there or not.

  Jean-Louis said that the Spirit of Sinbad was designed for racing and was very fast. “Maybe we’ll win the America’s Cup,” he laughed, “and sell it to buy drugs!”

  Scully grinned. It seemed like a good idea to him.

  Someone outside yelling my name cut our conversation short. I went topside to see Lawrence, standing on the deck of Heron I, anchored nearby. He said that a lady from the yacht Celebration was calling for me on the radio, inviting me to dinner.

  I used Jean-Louis’s radio to find out what this was all about. I had met the owners of Celebration a couple of days before, when I had learned that they were looking for a crew member, but after talking to them, I gathered that they were not interested in sailing any time soon. But when I reached them on VHF channel 16, they asked me to please come on over for dinner, because they wanted to talk.

  When I found Celebration in the anchorage, I was impressed with her appearance. She was a large and well-equipped vessel that appeared almost new by the looks of her glossy Gelcoat and stainless steel fittings. I tied my kayak alongside the inflatable dinghy and climbed aboard to meet the owners: Frank Holzmacher and Josephine Adams, both from New York City. They were both retired architects, and had bought the Tayana 42 with plans to live aboard and cruise for at least the next 10 yea
rs.

  The interior of Celebration was as plush as the overall appearance of the yacht suggested. There was a refrigerator and freezer, TV, built-in stereo, and a computer interfaced into the navigation instruments. Josephine had baked a homemade pizza in the well-equipped galley’s oven, and while she set the table, Frank poured me a stiff rum drink. Over dinner, they explained that they had cruised down the East Coast Intracoastal Waterway from New York, sailed to Georgetown over a year ago, and had been hanging around ever since. Twice they had left with intentions of going down island, but each time had encountered rough conditions and turned back. They needed extra help standing watches, pulling heavy anchors, and making sail changes on the longer passages ahead. Frank was 67, though still in good shape. Josephine was in her 40’s but quite overweight. Neither of them had experience of open ocean voyaging.

  I answered their questions and showed them my passport, feeling as if I were on a job interview, and Frank said they would let me know in a few days if they could take me along. He said they planned to sail direct from Georgetown to the Caicos Islands, then go to the Dominican Republic and spend some time there. After that stopover, they would sail to Puerto Rico, where they would drop me off to resume my kayak journey. If they took me along, he said they would provide all my meals while I was on board in exchange for my help. This seemed fine with me, and I paddled back to camp full of hope about this prospect for going south.

  In the meantime, while waiting for an answer from Celebration, I continued an island lifestyle that revolved around my camp on Volleyball Beach. Ben moved Whisper over to the anchorage nearby and one evening they brought food to cook out on the beach with me. We grilled hot dogs over the fire and I watched with amusement as these “vegetarians” stuffed themselves with this “junk food.” Ben ate four, and Sylvia, Sky and Grant three each.

  The next morning Ben and I left in his outboard-powered dinghy to go out to deep water on the other side of Stocking Island for some serious spearfishing. It was a long ride south from Stocking Island to get to the cut where there was access to open water. As we motored past miles of deserted beach, we passed another dinghy pulled up on the sand far from the crowded anchorage. Our fast approach caught the lovemaking couple on the beach beside it by surprise, and not having time for any other course of action, the man, who was on top, merely grinned over his shoulder and waved at us as we went past.

  Beyond the cut we snorkeled in about 30 feet of water, taking turns towing the dinghy and diving down to hunt. Ben soon had a nice Nassau grouper and I got a black grouper. After he got the third fish, our activity attracted the attention of a 6-foot barracuda, which followed us persistently, watching our every move and just waiting for the opportunity to steal our next kill. When a 10-foot bull shark arrived on the scene, cruising below us near the bottom, we decided to call it quits. Sharks were all too common here. Someone had caught a 12-foot hammerhead in the anchorage right off Stocking Island the week before.

  Back at my camp, we cleaned our catch and Sylvia fried the fish on board Whisper. The Olsen’s were leaving that day; a couple of their friends from Iowa had flown down to join them and they were going begin a leisurely cruise back to Florida. I waved good-bye to them again, this time for good, as they pulled their anchor and sailed out of the harbor. Whisper was a sight to see under full sail, with her junk-rigged sails and the classic schooner lines of her black hull. By comparison, the uniformly white hulls of the many fiberglass production boats in the harbor had little character.

  The day the Olsens left, I got word from Frank and Josephine that I could accompany them south on Celebration. There were a lot of preparations to be made before we could sail. First, I had to get the remainder of my travel funds wired to me at the bank in Georgetown, and after picking up a few letters awaiting me at the post office, have any other arriving mail forwarded to a friend in Puerto Rico, where I naively believed I would be in less than a month.

  To familiarize myself with Celebration, I helped them bring her from Stocking Island to the fuel dock at Kidd Cove, where we took on diesel and filled the water tanks. Then we made countless trips on foot to the grocery store, returning each time with the folding dock cart that was part of Celebration’s essential equipment, loaded with groceries and cases of soft drinks. We had our laundry done and then moved the yacht back to Stocking Island, where I broke my camp and ferried my gear out to Celebration in the dinghy. Like most people I had met along the way, Jo and Frank were amazed at the incredible amount of stuff I had been carrying in my kayak. We packed it into various lockers on board the yacht, and then hoisted the kayak onto the deck, where it was made fast to the starboard stanchions.

  My last night in Georgetown was on a Wednesday, so I went to the dance at the Peace and Plenty and said good-bye to all my new friends. Becky and Christine, from Foxglove, were there, still trying to line up a ride on someone’s yacht so they wouldn’t have to go home. I was surprised that two single women with their looks were having more trouble than I did in securing a crewing position, but I was sure they would eventually find an agreeable captain. Christine surprised me that night by presenting me with a woven friendship bracelet that she had made for me, and she tied it around my right wrist as we shared a pina colada and told me it was for good luck.

  I would miss Georgetown and all its friendly people. It was easy to see the allure of this place that kept some people anchored for a year or more. I was convinced though, that there had to be something even better farther south. This wasn’t the tropical paradise I had dreamed of. I wanted to see islands with jungle-covered mountains and cascading waterfalls. There were no streams of any kind in the Bahamas, and only limited vegetation. I was looking for a place like the Dominica that Scully described, where I could set up camp indefinitely and live off the land and sea like a beachcomber.

  One thing was for certain – after what I’d seen so far, I had no desire to go back to the mainland anytime soon. All I wanted was to keep moving, and to keep seeing new places. I wanted to continue living close to nature, to wake up each day and watch the sun rising out of the sea, and to sleep and eat whenever I was tired or hungry. I couldn’t imagine going back to the 9-5 existence I had known before. My watch had long been packed away somewhere deep inside the kayak. Time didn’t mean much here. I was living on island time now, and it was the happiest time I had ever known.

  Six: Celebration

  The north wind stepped readily into the harness which we had provided, and pulled us along with good will. Sometimes we sailed as gently and steadily as the clouds overhead.

  —Henry David Thoreau

  We hauled Celebration’s anchor on a Thursday morning and motored out of the anchorage at Stocking Island in company of three other boats that were also headed south. Though I had only been in Georgetown a little over two weeks, it seemed like much longer, and leaving these familiar surroundings and friends was almost like leaving home again at the start of my journey. Heron I was one of the other three boats accompanying us, but Lawrence and Laura only planned to explore some other islands in the southeastern Bahamas, since they had to be back in Winnipeg by June. I didn’t expect to see them again, as their smaller boat could not keep up with Celebration for long. We sailed east from Great Exuma to get around the north end of Long Island, the next large island in the Bahamian archipelago, and then I had what I thought would be my last conversation with my Canadian friends as they set a diverging course for the southeast end of that island.

  The other two sailboats that left with us were headed to the Virgin Islands, and planned to make most of the same stops we would be making enroute. Texas Tumbleweed was a 44-foot ketch crewed by a family from Houston, and Cat Ballou was an unusual 33-foot cat-rigged cruising boat built by a Florida company called NonSuch. The couple sailing her were residents of St. Croix, and had flown to Florida to purchase the vessel brand new, and were now delivering it back to their home island.

  Once underway, I found that Celebration’s modern rigging
and controls were much easier to understand than those of the arcane but character-laden Whisper. When we had cleared the north end of Long Island and reached the safety of deep water, we set a course to the southeast, taking advantage of another cold front and its favorable winds. This was my first sailing experience under truly ideal conditions, and it was sheer joy once we cut off the engine and the powerful cutter-rigged vessel shouldered her way through the swell at an effortless 7 knots. The nearly new white Dacron of the sails stood out in sharp contrast to the impossibly blue sky that accompanied the norther. The autopilot, nicknamed “Charlie” by Jo and Frank, proved its worth as a virtual crewmember by taking the helm while we lounged on the cushioned seats of Celebration’s cockpit and watched the rugged windward coast of Long Island slide past our starboard beam.

  Jo was the self-appointed navigator on Celebration, and she calculated that we would reach Providenciales, in the Caicos, on the third day after two nights of non-stop sailing. It would be my longest passage at sea so far. Frank said we would need to go onto a 4-hour rotating watch system, so that everyone could get adequate rest and someone was always in the cockpit to stay alert for shipping traffic.

  The first night at sea on Celebration was a night of magic I will never forget and that memory has kept me going back to sea ever since. Unlike the night I crossed the Gulf Stream on Whisper, it was a moonless night with nothing to detract from the brilliance of a perfectly clear, star-filled sky. The Milky Way formed a great curving arc of sparkling fire; seemingly close enough to be raked by our tall mast. And just off our stern, The North Star, Polaris, hung at the lowest angle to the horizon that I had ever seen it – 23 degrees and 27 minutes – indicating that we had crossed the Tropic of Cancer and had officially left the Temperate Zone.