On Island Time: Kayaking the Caribbean

by Scott B. Williams

  Ralph invited me to eat hamburgers with them, but I declined and went back to my camp to cook some rice. As I waited for the water to boil, sitting on the beach and watching the sunset, I noticed an emergency flare hit the top of its arc and then turn to plummet back down into the sea, where it was extinguished. It took a few seconds for my mind to click and realize what I’d just seen, then I was up in a flash, racing down the beach to the other camp. There was nothing I could do with only a kayak. Ralph lit a lantern and placed it on the beach so we could find our way back in the dark, and the four of us piled into one of their 25-foot center-console skiffs and sped out to sea. At 50 miles per hour, it didn’t take long to cover 3 miles or so, where we spotted an open powerboat, maybe 20-feet long, with twin 150 horsepower outboards, the engine covers removed. A young couple in their 20’s were sitting in the open boat, wearing nothing more than swimsuits, drifting hopelessly towards the open Atlantic. With the water hundreds of feet deep, they couldn’t anchor, and their VHF radio wasn’t working. They had no food for anything other than a picnic. The next stop on the route the current was taking them was probably Iceland or northern Europe.

  There was a flurry of rapid Spanish I couldn’t follow between Ralph and the young man, but I got the impression that Ralph was letting him have it for his stupidity. The couple had started out from Fajardo and one of their twin engines had failed right away. Then they continued on, using one engine, planning to cruise the 22-miles over to Culebra for a picnic and return home that same day. Needless to say, the other engine also failed before they reached their destination, and the flare I had seen was the last one they had on board after firing the others to no avail.

  Ralph tossed the man a rope and we towed them slowly towards the entrance to the anchorage, where we were met halfway by a rescue boat Ralph called for on his radio. The couple didn’t seem particularly grateful for our help, and probably had no real understanding of the extent of the danger they had been in.

  The incident reinforced my already strong beliefs in the superiority of my kayak over most other boats. It amazes me how blindly people trust their lives to technology such as engines and radios. Give me a kayak any day. When I’m out at sea in my kayak, I’m already prepared for the worst. With the food and equipment I carry I can survive at least a few days, even if adrift in mid-ocean. The young couple wouldn’t have lasted long out there exposed to the tropical sun with no real clothing and no water. But they just seemed to take it for granted someone would bail them out if they got in trouble.

  Back on the beach, my rice was ruined, so at Ralph’s insistence, I joined them for hamburgers. They had an ample supply of beer and Scotch whiskey, so after we had an respectable number of empties, Hector broke out the little .25 automatic pistol they had been firing earlier and tried to hit some bottles he lined up on a branch. Not wanting to be outdone, I ran and fetched my AR-7 and proceeded to show them how a Mississippi boy who grew up knocking squirrels out of 100-foot white oaks can shoot. They all loved the rifle and took turns trying it until I had to put it away to conserve my ammo.

  I left Ralph and his buddies on the beach the next morning after breakfast and paddled into town to buy a boatload of supplies for the crossing to St. Thomas. It was Saturday, and Ralph had said all the stores would be closed Sunday and Monday for Martin Luther King’s birthday. Today though, it was my own birthday, my second one in the islands, and I hoped to get a decent meal in town, though I knew nothing could compare to the previous year, when I celebrated my birthday on the luxury yacht Destiny.

  At the dinghy dock, I met an older gentleman from a sizable wooden ketch anchored close by. The man was at least in his 60’s, but his crew consisted of his two much younger children, 14-year-old Thomas, and 5-year-old Carmen. When he introduced himself as Peter Tangvald, I didn’t realize at the time that I was meeting one of the greatest legends of sailing in the world. Originally from Norway, Peter Tangvald had built his 53-foot wooden boat in French Guiana and had sailed it without an engine twice around the world. Tangvald had lost two wives at sea, Thomas’s mother to pirates that attacked the yacht in Indonesia, and Carmen’s mother, who had gone overboard while alone on her watch during a passage across the Atlantic. His boat was one of the very few in the anchorage undamaged by the recent hurricane, and that was because he had left the harbor at the approach of the storm and boldly sailed 500 miles across the Caribbean to South America.

  Peter Tangvald was extremely interested in my kayak and my trip, and we talked for hours that afternoon about boats and the sea. When he found out that I was from Mississippi, he told me that they planned to sail to the Gulf of Mexico sometime in the coming year, to visit New Orleans. Thomas had never been hunting but wanted to try it, so I gave them my contact information and told them that if I was back in Mississippi when they arrived at New Orleans, that I would take them deer hunting on my family’s land.

  I never heard from them, and just assumed that Peter either forgot about me or sailed on to some other part of the globe, but a few years later I came across a book entitled: Love, Life, and Death at Sea, by Peter Tangvald. Tragically, just months after our meeting in Culebra, Peter Tangvald had sailed his beautiful boat, Le Artemis de Pytheas onto a reef off Curacao and had perished, along with little Carmen. Thomas survived and finished the story that had become the book I found.

  When I left Culebra I paddled out of the south end of the anchorage and headed east to Culebrita, a fair-sized uninhabited island just to the east of Culebra. Once outside the harbor at Culebra, I could clearly see the mountainous island of St. Thomas, looming hazy and blue out of the sea in the distance, surrounded by smaller islands and cays. It seemed so close that I considered paddling straight to it, but I would be fighting a headwind and the day was late, so I would not have arrive until the next morning. I didn’t relish a long night crossing in these open waters. I needed some time to camp on Culebrita, to plan my crossing and wait for the right weather, as I had done on Isleta Palominitas before coming here.

  I paddled to the far eastern side of Culebrita, even though the best beaches and a protected harbor lie on the west side, facing Culebra. I wanted to have a campsite with a good view of St. Thomas while hopefully remaining out of sight of any Department of Natural Resources patrol boats. But on the east side of Culebrita, the sea was not peaceful. Big swells rolled in unimpeded off the open Atlantic and rebounded off the walls of cliffs, creating havoc. I was in danger of capsizing in these rebounding waves, but made it past the cliffs to a deep cove that was backed by a long, curving sweep of lovely beach. There was heavy surf hitting the beach though, so I had a tricky landing, coming in backwards, slowly, while trying to keep the bow into the breakers. I rode one last wave in once I was clear of some outlying reefs, and landed heavily on the sand. I felt sure I would not be bothered on this beach. The only approach was by water, and that surf would deter any boat other than a kayak. Behind the beach the terrain was steep and rocky, thick with cactus and desert scrub, and littered with impenetrable piles of hurricane debris. It was as if everything in the Virgin Islands had been blown there by Hugo.

  I set up camp and picked my way through the brush to the summit of a steep hill south of the beach. From there I had an excellent view of St. Thomas and the Virgin Passage that lay between. This 15-mile crossing was a true blue-water passage, with no protection of reefs or small islands. Little did I know that this first day was to be my best opportunity to paddle across, and that by waiting I would be stuck for more than two weeks while stronger than normal trade winds kept the passage whipped up into 15 to 18-foot seas.

  It was on the following morning, my first on Culebrita, that the change in the weather became evident. I listened in disgust as the announcer on the NOAA weather radio station said that the winds would be 20 to 30 knots for the next few days and that there was a small craft advisory in effect. I was stuck. The open beach on Culebrita turned out to be miserably hot by mid-day. There was nowhere to go for shade, as the only two
trees standing were palms that had been stripped of their fronds by the hurricane. I took to the water to cool off, and managed to spear one small fish that was not much more than a snack after I dressed and fried it.

  For the next two days I suffered the heat of Culebrita, studying maps, listening to discouraging weather reports, and a country music station broadcasting from St. Thomas that billed itself as the “only Country in the Caribbean.” I had the island to myself, and only once had a visitor, in the form of a huge helicopter, probably U.S. Navy, that swooped down to hover less than 100 over my camp in the middle of the night. I was wrenched out of a deep sleep by its tremendous rotor-wash that sent sand and my gear flying everywhere, and the piercing searchlight that flooded my tent. I leapt outside, wearing nothing but my underwear, sleepy and pissed-off enough to flip them the “bird” as I stood transfixed by the light and squinting to keep the sand out of my eyes.

  By the morning after that incident, my water supply was getting low, so I decided to paddle back to the anchorage at Culebra rather than wait any longer for a chance to cross that didn’t seem to be coming any time soon. There was no water on Culebrita, so I had to take my chances with the big breakers that were smashing into the beach. I packed the boat and left, clawing my way out through the surf zone through avalanches of whitewater that threatened to bury me, but I made it through and once I reached the west side of the island, the seas were more manageable.

  At the dinghy dock I was pleasantly surprised to see some friends from my days in the Dominican Republic: Jack and Veronica of the luxury motor yacht, English Jack. They treated me to lunch in one of the cafes in town, and then we walked a couple of miles together to Flamenco Beach, one of Culebra’s main attractions. Jack and Veronica were on their way back to Puerto Rico, after a short cruise of the Virgin Islands. I stocked up on food and water after saying goodbye to them, and paddled back to my original campsite on the west side of the island, which was deserted now that Ralph, Hector, and Jose had gone home.

  Nine days passed with little change in wind conditions, and I spent my time reading novels in my hammock, snorkeling the reefs, and trying to hike in the thick bush behind my camp. I paddled to town every other day or so to break up the monotony, and to get food and water, but I usually didn’t stay long before returning to the solitude of the beach. I was sick of the waiting and the helplessness of being pinned down in one location because of the weather. I longed to be able to paddle my 20 miles again every day, but it was not possible here.

  By the 16th day after I’d first landed on Culebra, the forecast called for a slight break in the wind, so I paddled back to the lonely beach on the east side of Culebrita. I was dismayed to find the sea conditions in the Virgin Passage as bad as ever and the forecast apparently wrong. St. Thomas was tantalizingly close, in plain view, so I made camp and resolved to paddle there the following morning. When I awoke at 3:00 am, however, with intentions of leaving, the wind was howling across the beach, blowing sand and threatening to carry my tent away. There was no way I was going to be able to paddle 15 miles against wind like that, especially considering the seas that would result. I stayed there another night, then escaped the surf-bound beach once again to paddle back around to the protected side of the island, where I made camp for one more night before heading back to Culebra.

  It was on the 18th day of being stuck there that I happened into conversation with some boaters from a couple of yachts in the anchorage as I tied up one more time to the dinghy dock. They told me that a skipper named Shaun, who was in the business of chartering his 38-foot sailboat, had to take his boat to St. Thomas that very night to meet his paying clients in the morning. I found Shaun a little later, and he assured me that he was definitely going to make the crossing, come hell or high water. The boat had a strong inboard diesel, so contrary wind and big seas would not stop him. He was alone, so he needed an extra hand and said he could fit my kayak on deck. I was fed-up with waiting and out of patience. As much as I hated the thought of crewing on another sailboat, I was going to go crazy if I didn’t get moving again. And besides, this was just for a few hours. Shaun assured me that I would be paddling again come tomorrow. I knew that once I reached the Virgin Islands I could travel despite the wind, as there are so many islands in the group that long crossings would not be necessary.

  I unloaded my gear and lashed the kayak down to Shaun’s deck that afternoon, then joined him and a couple dozen other boaters for a Friday night barbecue near the dinghy dock. We boarded the boat at 10:00 p.m. that night, and hauled in the anchor. I was elated to be leaving Culebra at last, though I knew that we were going to be in for a rough night.

  Ten: The Virgin Islands

  I suspect that, if you should go to the end of the world,

  you would find somebody there going farther…

  —Henry David Thoreau

  My nearly forgotten memories of misery at sea on Celebration were brought back in vivid replay shortly after Shaun and I left the harbor at Culebra. The 38-foot yacht was violently pitched and rolled by the 12 to 15 foot breaking waves of the open water, reminding me of why I hadn’t wanted to crew on any more yachts. This was sailing at its worst – no white sails silhouetted against blues skies while sipping margaritas in the cockpit – this was the hard reality of sailing most romantic dreamers never consider when they decide to buy a boat. It was pitch black, the wind was howling, salt spray was flying over the deck and stinging our faces, and rocks and reefs close by in the dark waves would tear the hull apart if we got off course and out of the channel. I began to feel that terrible queasiness that marks the onslaught of seasickness, and knew that it was going to be an interminably long night. Fortunately, the sickness went from mild to worse quite quickly, and I went ahead and threw up over the rail, feeling much better afterward.

  Although it was only 15 miles from Culebrita to the closest shore on the island of St. Thomas, the overall passage for a deep draft sailboat was much longer, as we had to leave from the deep harbor at Culebra and sail past the westernmost reaches of St. Thomas to the harbor at Charlotte Amalie. The passage took all night, but we were able to make steady progress with the engine despite the sea conditions. Before dawn, we had a close call with an unlighted freighter that nearly ran us down, but Shaun managed to get us out of the way in the nick of time.

  Near the entrance to the harbor at Charlotte Amalie, dozens of cruise ships were hove-to offshore, waiting their turn to get in to the busy docks. Small inter-island freighters and private yachts plied the surrounding waters in all directions, requiring us to keep a sharp lookout. City lights sparkled on the slopes of the island mountains, still black in the pre-dawn darkness.

  By the time we reached the anchorage where Shaun had a mooring, day was breaking and dark clouds that promised imminent rain were rolling in from the east. We headed straight to the fuel docks so he could fill the yacht’s tanks before tying up to the mooring. Even at 6:00 a.m., we had to wait in line behind two other boats before we could approach the pumps. St. Thomas had a different atmosphere than any harbor I’d seen in Puerto Rico. It was much more crowded, and the waterfront buildings were modern and expensive-looking, though many were dirty and damaged by the storm. I was anxious to walk around town and spend some time ashore, but there was no time for that now. Shaun was a busy man, and he had just a few hours to get the boat ready for his paying guests. I had to unload my kayak and get my gear out of his way. I decided to do it at the fuel dock, since it was choppy out in the anchorage and would be more difficult there. Loading the kayak in the water from another boat is always difficult, even in calm water.

  Just as I had all my gear spread out in his dinghy and my hatches wide open, the clouds let loose a deluge that soaked everything before I could cram it into the storage compartments. I was sleepy and infuriated about being wet, but despite this, still enthusiastic about being in a new place. After I finished loading up, I tied my kayak to the stern of the yacht and rode out to the mooring with Shaun to he
lp him get it secured. This done, we shook hands and he wished me luck, then I paddled back to the Yacht Haven Marina, tied up to the crowded dinghy dock, and set off to see some of Charlotte Amalie.

  Traffic was so heavy on the street behind the marina that I had to wait several minutes for an opportunity to cross. The difference in culture between the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico was immediately apparent, first of all by the fact that people drove on the opposite side of the road. This was the English-speaking, black Caribbean – though it was full of outsiders, both tourists and white mainlanders who had come here to live permanently. Everywhere was evidence of the gap between the rich white minority and the impoverished black majority. Rastafarian graffiti on the walls spoke of the dream of rising up and overcoming the “oppressors” to take control of all the islands. Somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, between the Rastas and the wealthy business owners and tourists, where the hundreds of full-time yachties – many of them truly boat-bums from the States, chasing the dream of the island life but with no money to do it. They hung out in the waterfront bars, washed up on this outpost of American territory with hopes of finding the means to somehow continue the lifestyle. Bulletin boards around the harbor carried notices posted by many of them, looking for crew positions if they had no boat, or paying work if they did so they could keep on sailing. Jobs were scarce, costs of living were astronomical, and prices on everything in the stores were inflated to reflect the tourist economy.

  The tourists were the easiest of all to spot. These pale-skinned invaders from the cruise ships and jets were everywhere, walking the narrow streets wearing Hawaiian shirts, cameras dangling from their necks, eagerly snapping up $30 T-shirts in the boutiques near the docks.