Blog 040 – Crossing the Caribbean Sea – East to West

Mt Hartman Bay, Grenada

When we set out to cruise the Bahamas and the Caribbean in one season it seemed a pretty ambitious plan, and it has been. Virtually thousands of ocean miles were ahead of us and we were very green behind the ears. We had plenty of wonderful mentors along the way. We made it all the way to Grenada. But we still had the biggest, longest, most challenging ocean voyage ahead of us – crossing the whole of the Caribbean Sea from East to West. And to make things more interesting we were leaving late in the season, real late. Hurricane season began June 1st. It’s now the 23rd of June.

We had two reasons we were so late. One was a family get together that was way more important than getting across right now. My older brother had been diagnosed with a type of cancer that has no known cure and the doctors give him limited time. We are a family of believers and we believe the Lord determines our days. We just need to make the best of each day He gives us. My brother had just finished a round of the highest dose of radiation possible to slow the growth. I wanted to spend some time with him and my other brother too. I suggested a brothers camping trip. We went to our family cabins in southern Colorado for a weekend of catching up on lost time.

Tim and Pete

We told stories of kids and grandkids and joked about how we had all grown old. We were all so busy raising families and working we forgot how to be brothers. Well, that was what this trip was all about. I had one of the best weeks in recent memory. I love my brothers so much but I did not really take time to just spend time with them. Funny how God has a way of reorganizing our plans.

Steve and Pete

As quick as I had left it seemed I was boarding another plane back to Grenada. As I flew back the first tropical storm of the hurricane season had formed in the Atlantic. It eventually made a direct hit on Trinidad and Tobago and then trained its sights on Grenada with possible 50-60 mph winds. We quickly got Silhouette ready for a big tropical storm. We had not played this game since Hurricane Matthew. We learned preparation is everything and even if you do it all right you can still have an unmanned boat wandering the anchorage crashing into you in the midst of the storm. This was actually the case one bay over in Prickly Bay. Actually, it was two boats that drug their anchors in the height of the storm, in the middle of the night, of course. We were in Mount Hartman Bay just a bit more protected from the ocean swells. For us the storm was just one night of lots of wind and rain.

It was now time to put the sails back up and head for Panama. More than a year ago we had hatched the plan to volunteer with Floating Doctors during hurricane season. It would be an excellent way to give back a little bit of what God has so richly blessed us. Two nights before we left, Miss Kitty and Nigel came for dinner and drinks and we celebrated their recent marriage. The last night our sweet Bronwen invited us over for a home cooked meal of chicken curry South African style. Liana got teary saying good-bye, we sure are gonna miss our Bronnie. The morning we Left Barry from Sea Swift came over and had breakfast with us and bid us farewell.

Bronwen

And so begins our journey from Hell, as Liana would say.

Day 1: It was a lovely day without a breath of wind,1300 hrs June 23, 2017 we dropped our mooring lines and slipped past a dozen anchored boats heading out between the reefs of Mount Hartman Bay channel. The first day we sailed nicely around the southern tip of Grenada and made our way northwest. We had a goal of following Jimmy Cornell’s recommended cruising route through the center of the Caribbean to Panama. Earlier this season Rose and Dave on Cloud Nine gave us a copy of his book as a farewell gift when we parted ways in George Town, Bahamas. They were our first official buddy boat that we had the pleasure to sail with. Thank you guys for such a thoughtful gift! The trade winds should carry us the entire way until we near the Canal and then we should expect calm wind and seas so we planned to motor the last couple hundred miles.

That first evening we became becalmed and needed to fire up our motor. Our plan was to stand four hour watches with me taking the midnight to four. Liana has a hard time staying awake on the mid-watch and it’s my favorite time. I love seeing the stars reflect on the water and watching the bioluminescence get churned up by our wake. I love looking back to see the glowing trail of blue or green through the water that look like fireflies. That night I spent the entire mid-watch avoiding long line, strobe-lighted fishing floats. The trick is to not sail between the two connected lines and wrap the keel, rudder and propeller in a few miles of heavy monofilament line. That night the sky was overcast all except the window right over our heads. It looked like a skylight into the heavens filled with stars. But all around us was thick clouds.

Day 2: I was on watch and stepped outside to take a look at the mainsail. About a third of the way up the mast the strong track that the sail clips slide up and down in had broken the side out and one of the batten cars was flying free of the mast. Batten cars are the strong point in the main sail that holds the batten, a fiberglass rod that adds shape to the sail. We could not raise the sail or lower it because we would derail the rest of the sail clips. We were set at our second reef which can handle the most wind so we hopefully would not need to change sail until Panama.

The mid-watch on our second night I did not see one ship, and no land in any direction. Flying fish were flying off the top of every wave. I smelled fish and could not figure out where it was coming from. Liana came up to relieve me and we found a large flying fish had come into the cockpit and become wedged just below the steering compass. That explained the smell. The deck became littered with them.

Day 3: Just as I had fallen off to sleep around six am the fishing reel started to scream. Line was zinging out at a blistering pace. Liana said we have a fish on so I ran up to the cockpit “ah natural” put on a harness and life jacket and grabbed the pole. This was a really big fish. I had a hard time stopping the line from going off the reel. For a half hour I fought this big fish buck naked! We finally got him along side ready to gaff when Liana said I had to at least put on some shorts. She brought me a pair and while I hopped into them she made some comment about sharp hooks, sharp gaff, and big sharp teeth on pissed off fish. It was a big mahi.

1st of 3 mahi-mahi

Mid-morning we discovered our starboard sheet line nearly chaffed through on the outside end of the whisker pole. We pulled it in and instead of running the line through the jaws of the pole as it’s designed we put in a block and the pulley reduced the friction on the line. As I was resting in the cockpit I noticed towering white, puffy clouds. Then it dawned on me these are thunderheads. We quickly put in our windows and stowed the cockpit when we heard the first roll of thunder. All of a sudden it was right on top of us. It rained the rest of the day. Then we hooked another large mahi. My arms were already sore and by the time we got this one in they were burning. That evening while I stood watch in my rainslicker cold and wet, Liana made lemon butter and dill mahi with rice and salad. Mine was wonderful. Liana did not eat hers. She was feeling ill and said she might be getting sea sick. The waves were getting pretty bad from being churned up by the storm.

Day 4: We had another problem with our whisker pole. The stainless cable that circles the end of the pole as a central point to lift and anchor the pole came apart. The wind was picking up causing the jib to surge and one of these surges broke the stainless cable and everything went into the water. Liana came up and we were able to furl in the sail. She held a spotlight for me as I went out on the foredeck and one by one pulled lines out of the water and stowed the whisker pole back up to the mast. The spinnaker halyard had become tangled in the reefed jib so I had to work it back open enough to free the halyard. This took an hour and Liana was really feeling sick.

That night we realized this was not seasickness – she had a fever. I went back out on the foredeck in the daylight and jury rigged the whisker pole and got our jib poled out once more. I also reversed the sheet lines so no strain was being taken by the one that had chaffed badly. Liana helped in the cockpit with lines but was very sick. She immediately went to bed when we were done. Her fever gradually got worse over the day. I brought her ice and water and Tylenol. Not sure what this was?

Day 5: I was starting to become concerned. Liana was now sweating profusely and almost delirious. When I went to take her medicine she was shaking, not just a little shaky, her whole body was trembling! Shaking so much she could not hold a glass of water or even a pill in her fingers. This went on throughout the day. Every half hour I checked our position and then checked on her. I was becoming so tired!

Day 6: We were days away from the nearest hospital and she was only getting worse. The weather report was for seas up to three meters and 30 knot winds. The mountains of Columbia are notorious for accelerated winds that come from off the peaks and reach speeds of fifty knots or more even a hundred miles off shore. We were only forty. The storm started as gusts and then the waves began building tops that left long rolling frothy patches as they crumbled off the tops of the waves. We were be in the midst of a confused sea with no apparent direction to it. We were being lifted up and tossed sideways by the wind catching us at the peak of the wave and then we fall sideways into the wave trough. This went on for hours as the wind increased to at least thirty knots sustained.

We crested a wave and all of a sudden we were broadside side to the wind and I heard a loud cracking sound from overhead. I looked out over the cabin roof to see the mainsail plastered against the spreaders. At least eight of the mast slides had blown out of the strong track. The mainsail and fiberglass battens were wrapped around the spreaders and the mast and several of the battens were shattered. The top of the sail was still holding but every thing below it, down to the reef, blew out. The mainsail was about to be ripped to shreds. I started the diesel and put us under power for good steerage for the auto pilot. I had to get that sail down. I called Liana up topside because I had to have help. She got up to the cockpit and watched the autopilot as it was steering. I was concerned the auto pilot could be overcome and click off leaving us beam to these seas. If that happened we could be rolled.

Shredded batten

I attached my harness tether to the jack lines and went forward to the mast to try my best to pull down the main. I pulled and tugged and little by little it was coming down. Pieces of the fiberglass battens were catching on the lazy jacks and I had to climb up past the boom to pull them off. With all the pieces sticking out I could not get the sail to lay flat in the stack pack and each fold was picking up wind trying to pull back out. So I tied the lazy jack lines together at the top of the stack pack which worked for the front half but the back was still being grabbed up and out. I was going to have to go up on top of the cabin roof in these heavy wind and seas and tie all this mess down.

I got up on top of the roof and just as I went to stand up we rolled sideways off the top of another big wave. This threw me off my feet, twisted me and I lost grip with one of my hands. All Liana saw was my feet dangling wildly off the side of the roof. If I would have gone overboard even with my harness I doubt she would have had the strength to pull me from the water and help me back aboard. I regained my footing and quickly pushed down and tied off the rest of the sail that was bulging out in the wind then climbed back into the security of the cockpit.

Liana was relieved I was ok and then she went back down below. I reefed the jib in to barely ten feet of sail showing. The jib and the diesel were doing a good job holding course. Now instead of plotting a sailing course we headed the most direct route to Bocas and it turned out to be the smoothest course for the seas.

By this time, I had been up 36 hours without any sleep in some pretty bad weather. We started Liana on a round of antibiotics along with Tylenol and sea sick pills just to cover all our bases. This had to be some kind of jungle fever. Her temperature went through the roof. She was sweating, shaking, cold, hot, chilled. She was even delirious and talking incoherently.

Day 7: Liana was soaked with beads of sweat all over her body. She soaked the pillows, blankets, all the cushions she was sleeping on, but this evening was the turning point. Her fever had peaked and she was feeling a bit better, slowly, very, very slowly. I took care of Liana and singlehanded our boat more than half the trip. Standing the watches, doing the cooking, cleaning, I had to help Liana get to the bathroom, I brought her ice water, medicine, cold towels and finally a shower. I did not sleep at all the first two days of her sickness and by the third day I was dozing off constantly. I can remember each time I went past the navigation office at the captains berth I would look at the bunk longing to climb in and get some rest.

2 days to go!

So I started setting a timer. I would check the radar and make sure no ships were within 12 miles of us, set an alarm for 10-15 minutes and go to sleep in the cockpit. It’s not ideal to have a ship motoring through the ocean with no one on watch but it was the best we could manage. The storm had cleared but the waves it left behind were choppy and without a main sail to balance the boat we were again tossing side to side.

Day 8: The last two days of the trip the seas calmed down as we were getting close to Panama. Liana finally began to get better. She had a little food and came up to see me once or twice. The last night she stayed in the cockpit and let me get a two hour nap before she was too tired to continue.

It’s the rainy season here. That night, I drove through the thickest lighting and thunder and rain I have ever seen. The most unusual phenomena happened. Time after time monstrous thunderstorms passed all around us but over the top of us the sky stayed clear. I was so expecting to be overwhelmed by yet another storm but it was like we were under an umbrella – God’s umbrella. Oh, we got the rain but not the lightning and high winds. It was like God’s hands parted the storms just over top of us.

Day 9: This morning the thunderstorms were gone but behind them torrential rain. We got to the entrance channel of Bocas Del Toro and had to turn around! We could not risk running aground because of blinding rain so we made circles about five miles offshore and watched the rain looking for a break. Liana gave a little wave as we headed back out to sea and said, “Good-bye, Panama.” By nine am we got a break in the rain and headed in to the channel. We dropped the anchor. Happy, tired, overjoyed, exhausted, and ready for a shower and a nap.

Liana is fine by the way. No, she is doing wonderful. Still weak, but a million times better than a few days before. We still love our life on the water.

Caribbean Crossing Sunset at Sea

Love Steve & Liana

PS: Steve is my Hero 🙂