I take absolutely no credit for this story other than being so amazed that I wanted to share. Jennifer and Lee Scott are two of the most interesting people I've ever met. Here is one of their adventures written by Lee.
I read something recently, an aphorism that resonated with me “
Bad decisions make good
stories”
I can’t say how good the story is, but I made some bad decisions, for sure. The realization of
that fact came slowly, but it hit with a bang.
Simply put, my wife, Jennifer, and I decided to retire, sell the house, and go sailing. I wanted to
buy a liveaboard
and spend all our time cruising from anchorage to anchorage explore
the
Caribbean, the Chesapeake, do the Great Loop, sail the Great Lakes, and even eventually go
through the Panama Canal and head up the inner passage to Alaska. My goal had been to
ease her an
enthusiastic day sailor but with no real offshore experience into
the experience
of sailing longterm
without killing her joy of sailing in the process. I had seen that happen
before, and I was determined I would not make the same mistakes I had made and seen then.
Then was late May/early June, 1984. I was in my late 20s, living in St. Pete, FL, and my good
friend Tom was working at a boat brokerage in Tampa. He had just sold a beautiful
secondhand
35’ centercockpit,
Swedishbuilt
sailboat made by Vindo to two guys, university
professors from New Orleans. The two guys were in their 60s and early 70s, but very new to
sailing. They had recently chartered a sailboat while on vacation in the Bahamas and had fallen
in love with sailing.
So, they had decided to buy a boat, and the Vindo was it. It was a gorgeous boat sturdy,
seaworthy, with full teak decks it
just seemed built to handle the North Sea with ease.
As part of the purchase agreement, they wanted the boat delivered to New Orleans from St.
Pete. Tom agreed to do the delivery, and he called me to see if I wanted to go along.
They were so excited about their new purchase, they couldn’t wait to go sailing. They insisted
on taking the trip with us. Not really a bad idea, as it would let them get familiar with all the
boat’s systems on the way, with Tom there to show them how everything worked. But, that
turned out to be huge mistake.
On the departure date, I meet Tom and the new owners at the dock in Clearwater, stow my
gear, Tom casts off the lines and we are on our way. Motoring out of the marina, Tom wants
me to see if I can figure out what is wrong with the Loran unit. This is a used, 10yearold
boat,
and the electronics are old as well. I check it out, and immediately see that the middle 2 of the 6
numbers on the display are not functioning. Both the upper and lower numbers. It’s going to be
impossible to get a good position fix with this unit.
Then I check the VHF radio. I can hear traffic, but can’t get a response to a radio check. With
the distractions of navigating the channel out of Clearwater, I decide to come back and mess
with it later once we get settled.
After all, the plan is we will be going up the intracoastal waterway to Cedar Key, then cutting
across the gulf to Carrabelle, FL where we will rejoin the waterway the rest of the way to New
Orleans. I had made that trip 3 times before, and the only offshore portion is the leg from Cedar
Key to Carrabelle. That will be tomorrow at the absolute earliest, so I’ll have plenty of time to
check out the VHF.
Tom clears the Clearwater bridge and takes us motoring north on the ICW. It’s a beautiful
sunny day, nice breeze, the last day of May, and we are loving it! So much so that when we get
past Anclote Key, where the marked channel of the ICW ends, Tom, unannounced, decides to
abandon the idea of heading north to Cedar Key, and decides to head due west, across the gulf,
straight to New Orleans.
We all talk about it for a few minutes. We have a favorable wind, the seas and the weather are
perfect, and it will cut days off the trip. Plus, it’s real offshore sailing, not motoring for hour after
endless hour from marker to marker down a ditch. Little attention is paid to the fact that the
VHF and loran are not working. So, in anticipation of a great adventure, we hoist the sails, kill
the engine, and westward we go. Since we will be deadreconing
our position without a working
Loran, we tow a log meter in the wake behind the boat to record our miles. It and the compass
are our only navigation instruments.
At sunset, we all have a beer in the cockpit and enjoy the incredible experience of just sailing the
waves shushing past the hull, the boat surging to the shifts in the breeze.
“This is what it’s all about”, we all agree as we raise a toast to life. It’s a great feeling.
As the sun is setting, I notice a thin line of dark clouds stretching across the western sky, far off
on the distant horizon. I had checked the weather reports before we left. There was a cold front
stretching across the southeast US, headed our way, but the satellite images showed almost no
cloud or storm activity associated with it. It was almost the first of June anyway, and cold fronts
at that time of year tend to be weak and stall out before reaching Florida. Nothing to worry
about, we had decided. That was a bad call.
As it gets dark, we turn on the navigation lights and discover that the compass light in the
binnacle is not functioning. We have no way to check our heading without using a flashlight,
and we need to save that for emergencies. Plus, the flashlight literally kills our night vision
every time we turn it on, so we will just navigate using the stars.
We decide to split the watch up so that Tom takes the sunset to midnight shift. I’ll take the
midnight to sunrise shift, then the two new owners will take their shifts during daylight. Since my
shift is later on, I clamber down into the aft cabin to try and get some rest. The clouds of the
approaching cold front are now blotting out a quarter of the sky and getting closer.
I wedge myself into the berth, but find it hard to sleep. The motion of the boat, the excitement of
sailing and being at sea, all conspire to keep me awake. Still, I know I need to rest, so I try my
best to lie there and relax. I know Tom will call if he needs me.
As time goes on, I notice that the boat is heeling more and the seas are getting rougher. But no
worries Tom
will call if he needs me. I wedge myself tighter into the berth. Suddenly, water
comes pouring down the companionway and drenches both me and the berth.
OK, that does it! I need to go topside and see what the hell is going on. It’s almost midnight
anyway, and I won’t be getting any more rest soaking wet.
I stick my head up and there is Tom behind the wheel looking like Cap’n Ahab in his
foulweather
gear. By now the skies are totally overcast and the front has reached us. The
wind is whipping, the rail is buried, and we still have full sails up. Tom looks at me and screams,
“We’ve got to get these sails down!”
“No shit!” Someone is going to have to to go up on deck to the bow and drop the jib, then come
back to the mast and drop the main. We check our gear. None of us has a safety harness,
and we have no jacklines and no tethers either. Tom is the only one wearing a veststyle
PFD.
The rest of us are wearing the traditional orange kapokfilled
life preservers, which are difficult to
work with on deck.
So, who is going to go up on deck and take the sails down?
By this point, one of the professors is seasick
and he is lying a fetal position on the cockpit
sole, dryheaving
and wallowing in his vomit. The other is too scared to move. He has wedged
himself into a corner of the cockpit, and the terror in his eyes is clearly visible. Tom and I both
try to get him to perform some simple tasks to help us, but he remains frozen and motionless,
refusing to move from his safe spot.
It is pretty clear that neither one of them will be of any help at all.
Tom and I agree that Tom is the one who will have to go out on deck and take down the sails.
Tom is a former University of Alabama tightend
and has the most sailing experience, so clearly
he is both physically and, through experience, the one most capable of doing the job. I will take
the wheel and hold the boat into the wind. We start the engine and put it in gear so that
hopefully I can keep the bow from blowing off to windward while Tom is dropping the sails. We
turn on the spreader lights so Tom can see what he’s doing. Without the spreader lights, it is as
black as pitch.
As Tom works his way forward on the pitching deck, not clipped on to anything, I look at the
black seas racing past the gunwale, and I realize that if Tom falls overboard, he might as well be
falling from the top of a skyscraper. He is as good as dead. There is no way we will be able to
find a man overboard in seas and winds like these, and with the VHF out and no way to call for
help, falling overboard will almost certainly be lethal. Looking at death rushing by just a couple
of feet away, close enough to reach out and touch, is a very sobering sight.
Without the use of the compass light, and with a totally overcast sky, my only navigational
reference is a small white anchor light way, way out on the horizon to the west of us. As we
crest each wave I can take a quick visual bearing to that little light and know roughly what
course we are on. That way I don’t have to keep checking the compass with the flashlight.
Tom makes it to the mast, and I point the boat into the wind. The jib begins to luff furiously as
Tom releases the halyard then works his way forward and struggles to get it down. Somehow
he tames it without falling overboard. He lashes it to the lifelines, then works his way back to
the mast. Meanwhile, my eyes are glued to to the wind vane at the top of the mast as I steer to
keep the boat pointed into the wind.
Tom drops the main and is just about done putting the sail ties on when a monster wave hits us.
It grabs the bow of the boat and throws us sideways. Out of the corner of my eye I see Tom
grab the boom and straddle it with both arms and both legs, but I can’t do anything to help as
I’m fighting to keep the boat from broaching.
I get the boat back under control and see that Tom is still there hanging on to the boom. I am
totally disoriented, so I quickly look forward to reorient
myself with the small anchor light in the
distance. It is gone nowhere
to be seen. I look left and right nothing.
Where the hell is it? I
finally turn around and there it is behind us. The wave has spun us 180 degrees off course.
But at least the sails are now down and the rail is no longer buried. The wind, though, is
approaching 50 knots and it’s coming from the northwest, pretty much the direction we would
like to be heading if we want to get to New Orleans. Our only option is to bear off to the south
and steer a course that lets us take the seas at a quartering angle. And the seas are huge. I
have no idea how high the spreaders are on a 35’ Vindo, but I can see breaking water and
wave crests higher than the spreaders as the waves approach us. We decide to leave the
spreader lights on, as the reflection of the light from the face of the wave is our only signal that
the next oncoming wave is upon us. To keep from broaching again, we have to turn into each
wave slightly just as it arrives, and the reflection off the face of the wave is my signal to turn.
By 3:00 AM I am exhausted from steering so Tom takes over the helm again. I go below and
climb back into the damp berth. A few hours later I come back up, just as it is starting to get
light. As the predawn
twilight slowly brightens, we can finally begin to see the size of the
waves, and they are absolutely breathtaking. I have never been in waves this big. I see a
porpoise cutting through a wave, sillouetted by the rising sun in the east, and I am looking up at
him from below.
The seasick professor is still retching, and he tells us he has a heart condition that requires oral
medication, which he cannot keep down. His ankles are hugely swollen from edema. They are
almost as thick as his thighs. With the VHF out, we have no way of calling for help if he needs
it.
That’s it. We turn around and head back toward Clearwater. According to the stern log, we are
exactly 100 miles offshore.
The storm front is blowing us south, but we have no idea how far south. We spend the day
dodging monstrous waves that are cresting and breaking all around us as they catch up with us
from our stern. We get to be very good at looking astern as we crest each wave passing under
us, and predicting which of the oncoming waves are going to break, and where. We try and
make sure that when that wave reaches us, we are crossing it at a low saddle between the
peaks. It is both exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. Several times we have waves
breaking on both sides of us as they pass, but we are lucky, and none come aboard the boat.
By midafternoon,
the storm front has passed, the wind has shifted and dropped a bit, and the
seas are getting lumpy and confused. From the angle of the light, it appears that we are sailing
on seas of molten silver or liquid mercury, everything undulating and moving in slow motion.
We see a commercial fishing boat anchored ahead on the horizon, so we steer for it. As we
come up astern, we hit the horn to get their attention. I’m sure we surprise the hell out of them,
as they are hunkered down and probably think they are the only ones out here. We ask for a
position, and it turn out we are due west of the Sunshine Skyway bridge.
As the sun sets, we can see the lights of Tampa/St. Pete lighting up the sky, and eventually we
see the lights themselves. We finally make it back to the Clearwater bridge at about 3:00 AM,
and it takes 30 minutes of blowing the horn and shining our spotlight into the bridge tender’s
window to wake him up. But eventually we see the traffic arms start to come down, then the
bridge start to open, and finally it’s over.
We motor back to the dock at the municipal marina and tie up in the same slip we had left from,
and we all hit our berths and get some precious sleep.
In the morning, first thing, the two owners tell Tom, “We don’t care what you do, but we don’t
ever want to see this boat again!”
That was it. The death of a dream. Two guys who had loved the idea of sailing now absolutely
hated it with a passion. They were done with it.
For me, though, the trip paradoxically solidified my love of sailing. I learned that you never, ever
feel quite as alive as you do when you are afraid of dying. The sail back to Clearwater was like
an allday
roller coaster ride, and I loved every minute of it, exhausting as it was.
When I got back home, there was news on the TV of a tall ship sailing from Bermuda to Halifax
that was lost at sea along with 19 of the 28 crew. The same frontal system that hit us had
strengthened in the Atlantic and had sunk the 117’ British tall ship, the Marques.
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/04/world/18missing1deadand9rescuedastallshipislostnearbermuda.
html
I couldn’t wait to do it again. But that would take almost 30 years. Careers, relocation, and two
marriages all came and went, one after another. Marriage one ended in divorce. Marriage two
was ended by a brain tumor that took my wife’s life.
Then, living back in my hometown of Birmingham, AL, I met Jennifer, who became my third
wife, and one of the things that we had in common was a love of sailing.
In 2008 my wife’s son my
stepson graduated
from high school and enrolled at VMI on a
ROTC scholarship. In 2012 he would be graduating and entering the Army as a 2nd LT. We
realized that at that point we would be free to do whatever we wanted, and we wanted to do it
while we were still healthy. My 2nd wife’s brain tumor had taught me that life can change in an
instant, and all your plans and dreams can evaporate just as quickly. So, if you have a dream,
you need to act on it. And so we did.
Our love of sailing was central to our plans, and we had 4 years to implement them.
Step one was to find our boat.
I would have loved a liveaboard,
something like a nice, brandnew,
Wauquiez Pilot Saloon 47,
but Jen, a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel, needed her feet on the ground. She needed a
house. We couldn’t afford both a new house and a new sailboat, so, we compromised. I gave
up my dream of liveaboard
sailing.
We ended up buying an older ‘94 Hunter Legend 37.5. It met Jen’s desire for enough creature
comforts to spend weeks at a time on her, she is a good light air sailboat, and she was cheap cheap
enough that we could buy her, completely refit her, and still afford a house. We named
her Liberty†Belle†.
Step two was to decide where we were going to live. Our criteria were; it needed to be
convenient to the US, out of the hurricane belt, and be on the water, so we could have the boat
moored close by..
We started our research on the internet. We checked out Roatan, Belize, the Dominican
Republic, the US Virgin Islands, and after an exploratory vacation trip, we ended up buying a lot
out in the Pearl Islands of Panama.
The Pearl Islands are, inexplicably, one of the last undeveloped chain of islands left in the world,
and they are only 35 miles south of Panama City. An air flight from Atlanta to Panama City is
only 4 hours, so it is perfect for convenient travel back to the US. And the Pearl Islands have
wonderful sailing, with lots of corals, multiple anchorages, and no hurricanes. We came down
on a visit and fell in love.
We told the developer to have the house finished and ready by July of 2012. By now it is 2010 we
have 2 years to get ready.
Somehow we were going to have to get Liberty Belle from Alabama, through the Panama
Canal, to the Pacific coast of Panama, and our target date of departure was going to be the day
after Marshall’s graduation.
I knew that one of the big mistakes Tom and I had made back in 1984 with the two professors
from New Orleans was that they had never really sailed before. A week in the Bahamas on a
captained charter is not enough sailing to really know if you like it or not. One bad storm on only
your second time out is enough to make anyone decide they hate it. So, I knew that what Jen
needed was tons and tons of fun sailing before we ever had the possibility of unpleasant
weather. That would build the foundation that would hopefully let her see bad weather as
unusual, something you only encounter once in a great while. And, then if bad weather
happened, it wouldn’t automatically kill the fun.
We decided that we would ease ourselves into sailing, with the goal that it always be a positive
experience. When we bought LIberty†Belle†in October of 2009, she was in Jacksonville, FL.
and rather than have her trucked overland to Alabama’s Lake Martin, we decided to sail her
down the ICW to Miami, then around to Key West, and finally up the west coast of Florida to
Tampa and have her shipped from there. This would be a good sailing experience for us both,
and especially for Jen.
The trip was a wonderful experience in spite of record cold in Key West while we were there.
Jen had her first overnight sail offshore coming north from Key West to Sanibel. A little
trepidation on Jen’s part on the overnight portion, but everything went well. So far, so good!
We sailed her for 2 years on Alabama’s Lake Martin to hone our sailing, docking and anchoring
skills. Then in March of 2012, with Marshall’s graduation just 2 months away, I quit my job and
we had Liberty†Belle†pulled out of the water and shipped down to Turner Marine in Mobile, AL.
There I spent the month of April getting her converted from a lake boat back into a salt water
boat again. New dodger and new bimini. New 6man
life raft mounted just forward of the
companionway. EPIRB. AIS transponder. New chart plotter. New RIB dinghy with 6HP
outboard. New shrouds. New halyards. New bottom paint. New jacklines. Everything that
was remotely suspect was replaced.
I decide I am not going offshore again without backups for everything. We buy an Iridium
satellite phone with laptop connection for emails and weather reports. We install a Spot device
for sending twicedaily
position reports to family and friends back home. I contact Rick Shema,
the Weather Guy, to provide daily weather forecasts, which will come by email over the
satphone. We will send him our position reports and he will send us customized route
recommendations in order to avoid any bad weather.
Every day, I download the GRIB files for the weather in the Caribbean, and have been doing so
for months, just to get familiar with wind and weather patterns in the Caribbean.
We are not going to get caught by bad weather unaware. I have done everything I can think of.
By the 1st week of May, we are finally ready. Turner Marine launches the boat and resteps
the
mast. Liberty†Belle†is now an ocean boat again. On May 7, my son Allen and I, along with
Bobby and Charlie, 2 cousins, sail her from Mobile to Key West as a shakedown,
and there we
leave her in the City Marina while I fly back up to Lexington, VA to attend Marshall’s graduation
from VMI and induction into the US Army.
All of this time, in the months leading to our departure, my 86yearold
mother is worrying about
our upcoming sail to Panama. Worried that just the 2 of us can’t possibly do this by ourselves.
She’s convinced that without a 3rd person with us, we will cast off and never be seen again.
She contacts a good family friend who’s a licensed captain to see if he can go with us. She
contacts a cousin who’s also a licensed captain and has been working offshore in Alaska.
Neither of them can go. I appears as though it will just be the two of us.
Then, at Marshall’s graduation, she sees a ray of hope! We have dinner out at a restaurant and
invite Ian, a stepcousin
who was graduating from W&L, just next to VMI, to have dinner with us.
He listens to our sailing plans, and is all over the idea of going with us. This thrills mom no end.
Finally, someone who can go with us and help. Ian is a big guy strong
NCAA
swimmer.
Perfect if we ever need some muscle. And, he says he really wants to go.
So, we tell him we will wait for him in Key West. All he has to do is get there.
The next day, Jen and I fly back to Key West and and rejoin
Liberty†Belle†. The 3 day
shakedown
sail from Mobile has revealed a few things we need to address. The shrouds are
not tuned properly, and I don’t like my system for tying the diesel fuel cans to the rail. Plus, on
the last night, we had had to reef the main, and I had neglected to adjust the boom topping lift
properly. Unseen In the dark, the boom, riding too low, had worn a huge tear into the top of the
brandnew
bimini.
So, we have a few things to keep us busy while waiting for Ian to arrive. Plus, Ian is a big guy he
eats a prodigious amount of food. The trip across the Caribbean should take about 9 days,
and we need more food and water on board. We have only provisioned for two. Back to the
stores we go for more provisions.
Another thing I decide I need is a longer USB cable to connect the satphone to the laptop. The
laptop is my backup navigation device in case something happens to the chart plotter, and I
don’t like having to bring it up into the cockpit every time I download my emails. My 6’ USB
cable is not long enough to allow the satphone a clear view of the sky when I’m standing in the
companionway. It works, but I have to hold the laptop in my left hand while extending the
satphone with my right, and it’s just a cumbersome way to do it.
No one in the tourist area of Key West near the marina has a 20’ USB cable. I’ll have to take a
cab to a store at the shopping center to try and find one. I also want to buy a spare impeller for
the raw water pump on the Yanmar diesel, just in case. We order one and wait for it to arrive
the next day.
Meanwhile. no word from Ian. We call him to find out what is going on. The weather reports
from Rick Sheema are all good, and we are ready to go as soon as he gets here. Ian says he’s
having trouble getting the money together to pay for the plane ticket, and doesn’t think he can
go. OK, no problem, we will let my mom know. and go just the two of us, as originally planned
I call my mom to let her know we will be leaving tomorrow, without Ian. Her worry kicks back in,
and she says, “I’ll pay for Ian’s air fare. You need a 3rd person with you. You can’t go without
him, I’ll be worried sick.”
So we postpone our departure another day and wait for Ian to arrive. We are ready to go, but
mom’s worrying, as unnecessary as we feel it is, is still worrying nonetheless, and making her
as happy as possible is a good thing. And we do recognize that having a third person to share
watch will be less tiring for the two of us, so it’s not all bad. Still, it’s a day of good weather
wasted, and June is approaching. The beginning of hurricane season.
We’re not seriously worried about an actual hurricane this early in the season, but tropical
depressions can form anywhere, at any time, and my goal of getting Jen to Panama still in love
with sailing requires that we have good weather all the way. The option of island hopping down
the Bahamas and the lesser Antilles to Trinidad, then west, takes too long to get below the
hurricane belt this late in the season, I decide. This will be a quick, nonstop
sail directly from
Key West to get below the hurricane belt as quickly as possible. More of a boat delivery than a
vacation cruise.
But to make the trip something more fun than just a delivery, we decide to go first to Cartagena,
Colombia, and from there to the San Blas Islands of Panama before heading for the Panama
canal. Once we go through the canal, we may not be back this way ever again. We want see
some of the things there are to see while we are there.
We look at the two possible routes, west around Cuba through the Yucatan strait to the
Caymans, then south from there, or east around Cuba through the Windward Passage, then
south once we pass Hispaniola. With the prevailing wind patterns, Rick Sheema recommends
the east route. We will be heading into the wind, and thus mostly motoring, until we can make
the turn south at Cuba’s Punta de Maisi, the southeasternmost
tip of Cuba. But the payoff is
that we will have a much better wind angle on the leg heading for Cartagena. I don’t much like
the idea of motoring into the wind for 5 straight days, but the windiest part of the trip will be the
Caribbean crossing, and I can see that a beam reach will be so much more comfortable than
beating into 2025
knot winds.
We take Rick’s advice and decide on the east route around Cuba. As it turned out, that was
probably the only really good decision we made.
We hear back from Ian. The air flight is paid for and he will be arriving late tonight from
Lynchburg, VA. Meanwhile, he has arranged to have his passport picked up from his home in
Birmingham and Fedexed to the marina at Key West. It will be here 10:00 AM tomorrow. We
should be ready to go once it arrives.
The canvas guy shows up with the repaired panel for the bimini, our spare impeller arrives, we
make a last trip to West Marine for who knows what odds and ends, and now we are just waiting
for Ian. Weather reports are still good.
Ian’s flight arrives and he calls us from the Key West airport. He doesn’t have enough cash to
pay the cabbie to get to the marina, so I tell him I’ll pay the cabbie when he arrives. As the
cabbie drives off, I help Ian stow his gear aboard, and Ian is starving. He hasn’t had dinner, and
it is 11:30 at night. He has no money to buy something to eat, So, we give him $30 and point
him toward the bars and restaurants in Key West, and off he goes on foot to explore and find
something to eat.
We go to bed.
About 3:00 AM, we hear muffled voices up above, and feel the boat rock. Ian is obviously back,
and someone is with him. The talking goes on a few minutes, and suddenly Jen and I notice
that the voices are no longer up above, they are down in the cabin. Jen, being on the outside,
gets up to see what is going on. It turns out that Ian has met a fellow sailor who’s dinghy motor
will not start and has no way to get back to his boat out in the anchorage. So, bighearted
Ian
has invited him to crash with us.
“No, no, this is not cool, Ian!”, Jen says. “Sorry, but we have no idea who this is, and this makes
us very uncomfortable!”
The young man understands perfectly, apologises profusely, and makes his way back off the
boat. Jen and I are suddenly questioning Ian’s judgement.
Morning comes, and with it comes the news that Ian’s passport is not arriving via Fedex at
10:00 AM as expected. The responsible party in Birmingham failed to get it to the Fedex drop
off in time yesterday. It will not be here until tomorrow at 10:00 AM.
Always wanting to make the best of things, we decide that’s actually a good thing. This will
give us the entire day to give Ian the rundown on all the boat systems, how to hoist and reef the
sails, how to anchor, how to work the autopilot and the chartplotter. In short, a crash course on
sailing. Ian says he has never sailed before.
We spend the day sailing south of Key West but north of the reef and let Ian steer the boat and
trim the sails. We practice anchoring, we go over a few manoverboard
drills, we discuss the
rules of always wearing a PFD when on deck and being clipped on after sunset or in bad
weather. We go over the process of refueling from the jerry cans. Everything we can think of,
we try and cover at least briefly, including launching the life raft and abandoning ship, should
that become necessary. We talk about who will be responsible for what tasks if we have an
emergency and have to abandon ship.
As the day wears on, Ian normally
a very friendly and talkative guy becomes
pensive and
silent. Something is clearly bothering him.
Jen asks him what is going on. Evidently the crashcourse
on sailing is hitting home.
“I’m not really sure I can do this.”, he says. “All my life I’ve been afraid of drowning.”
I think I mentioned that Ian was an NCAA swimmer at W&L. You’ve got to admire someone
who faces his fears of drowning by becoming a competitive swimmer. But that wasn’t helping
him here.
“OK, not a problem.”, we say. ‘If you don’t want to go, please do not feel any obligation to go.”
“ If we get 3 days into this, and you decide you can’t continue, we can’t just drop you off in
Cuba.”
Ian calls his family to discuss the issue with them. His mom is clearly disappointed in him. “You
made a commitment to family.”, she says. “They have waited 3 extra days for you to arrive, and
they need you!” She plays the guilt card on him.
Ian is conflicted, but the last thing Jen and I want is someone on board who doesn’t really want
to be there. Ian is a big, strong guy, and if he panics and decides he’s getting off the boat, there
is little besides a frying pan to the side of the head that she or I can do about it. I remember the
two college professors from New Orleans. If he is not totally committed we are much better off
going by ourselves.
I tell Ian, “Don’t make a decision right now. Sleep on it over night. When your passport gets
here tomorrow, you can let us know then if you are going or not.”
We sail back to the anchorage and spend our last night in Key West. We are leaving tomorrow
one way or the other. Either with Ian or without him. We have wasted too many good weather
days already. Fortunately, the report from Rick Sheema, the weather guy, is still a go.
The next morning I call the marina on the VHF to see if the passport has arrived. Nothing yet.
About 10:30 the marina calls us and says it’s here, so we pull up anchor and motor to the
marina. We tie up and top off all the fuel tanks.
“OK, big guy. What’s it going to be? You going with us or not?”
Ian has made his decision, and with a look of relief on his face, says, “Sorry, I just can’t do it!”
We give him a big hug, and we wish him well, and he helps us cast off. As we turn the corner,
we see him watching us from the end of the dock. We give a final wave.
It’s 11:30 AM and we are finally on our way. I press the ‘OK’ button on the Spot device to send
mom and all our loved ones a time and position, and we set a course for the markers at the
channel through the reef. When we pass through the reef, swells are breaking on both sides as
they hit the shallows. We are now at sea, and we are both a bit nervous. We are heading out
into the unknown.
A few hours later we are crossing the gulf stream, and are relieved to find it only slightly more
choppy than the surrounding seas. I had expected it to be a good bit rougher from all the
stories I had read.
The day turns into night, the seas are gentle, and the breeze is just as forecast, on the nose at
810
knots. We gradually get used to the motion of the boat and the nervousness dissipates.
That night a powerful squall hits us, with lightning cracking all around us and the thunder
deafening. We can do nothing but hope we don’t get a direct hit.
The next day we can see the coast of Cuba off to the southwest. We are in the fairly narrow
shipping lane between Cuba and the Bahamas, so we keep an eye out, but see only a couple of
ships heading north.
The next two days we are settling into our routine. Every morning at sunrise and every evening
at sunset we press the ‘OK’ button on the Spot. We know mom is worried about us, and
hopefully the position reports are reassuring her that we are making progress and are still safe.
We have arranged with the weather guy to send us weather reports every other day, so I get the
satphone out to check our email, and damn
it! I forgot to get the longer USB cable. The
satphone connects to the satellite, but the signal drops after a few seconds. To get a good
signal, I have to take the laptop all the way up into the cockpit and hold the satphone out where
it has a clear view of the sky. The bimini it seems, is blocking the signal. It worked perfectly in
Key West at the anchorage, but now it takes 45
attempts to finally get our email to come
through.
The weather report is still looking good.
Running under engine, we are burning just at ½ gallon of diesel fuel per hour, or 12 gallons per
day. We have 35 gallons in the tank, and 50 gallons in the jerry cans strapped to the rails, so
we have enough fuel to motor for 7 days. The trip should take about 9 days, so we will clearly
need to put up the sails once we get into the trade winds. Once a day we have to top off the
main fuel tank. I want as much fuel in the main tank as possible, just in case something
happens to the jerry cans strapped to the rails and we lose them.
Jen decides that If I fall overboard, she will probably not be able to get the boat back to retrieve
me, or strong enough to help pull me back aboard, so we decide that she is the one who will go
out on deck, untie the jerry cans and drag them back to the cockpit. There I siphon them into
the main tank. Jen takes the empties back out on deck and ties them to the rail again.
On the afternoon of June 2 we are just off the coast of Cuba and we see a boat way off at 12
o’clock, coming toward us, heading north. We aren’t sure who they are. Cuban military? Drug
runners? Fishermen? Pirates? We decide to alter course to starboard to give them a wide
berth, just in case.
A few minutes later we notice they have altered course as well, and are still heading for us.
This makes us very nervous, but there is not much we can do. They are much faster than we
are, and there is nowhere for us to go. As it gets closer, it is clear it is a fiberglass sport
fisherman, not a Cuban fishing boat or a military boat, so we relax a little. Evidently, they just
want to see who we are. Most likely they are headed to the US from somewhere like the
Dominican Republic, and since we are the only other boat way out here, they are just curious.
We wave as they pass us.
Later we see a flock of birds, maybe 20 birds or so, but they don’t look like seagulls. The flock
circles us, then flies off behind us, only to turn again and head directly for us from astern. As
they reach us, we see they are pigeons, and they have decided they are landing on the boat.
They seem exhausted as several of them fall in the water as they are trying to land on top of the
bimini. The ones who fall in the water sit there for a second or two, gather their strength and
struggle back into the air until finally all are safely aboard.
Jen tries to shoo them away, as they will be pooping all over the deck and the bimini, but it’s no
use. They are not afraid of us, and they have decided they are staying. One of them slips and
gets his butt caught in the hole in the bimini where the mast backstay passes through and he
can’t get out. He struggles, but slips farther and farther into the hole until he plops out
underneath and falls into the cockpit with us.
The pigeons are totally tame, and allow us to pick them up and handle them with no sign of fear.
They all have identical numbered bands on each leg, so we conclude they are someone’s flock
of homing pigeons and they have just gotten lost.
I see one of the birds up on deck, and he has decided the smooth dark plastic surface of one of
the hatches must be water, and he is trying desperately to drink from it.
So, we go below and get them some water. They are so thirsty they immerse their entire heads
and drink.
Toward sunset they appear to have regained their strength, and they periodically all fly off, only
to circle back after a few minutes and return to the boat. The coast of Cuba is only 56
miles
away clearly
visible but
they have no interest in going in that direction. As the sun sets, they
all settle down on the top of the bimini, and we can hear them up there cooing and doing
whatever it is pigeons do.
In the morning they are gone, leaving only the little spots of bird poo on the deck and canvas to
remind us of their visit. Hopefully they will make it to land and eventually to home.
Finally, June 4, we reach the south east tip of Cuba and pass the cape at Punta de Maisi. Now
we can turn south and get the wind off our nose, and, maybe, put up the sails.
But the wind has died entirely. Nothing but glassy seas. I get get our email for our 2nd weather
report before we head out across the Caribbean, but it again takes 67
attempts to get it to
come in, and I have to take the laptop all the way up into the cockpit to get a good connection
with the satphone. Maybe we will get some wind once we get past the island of Hispaniola.
The forecast for the Caribbean calls for 20 25
knot winds and 11 13
foot seas. Pretty normal
conditions
The next day, June 5, is our anniversary, and finally, we begin to get some wind! At dawn we
are just off the westernmost point of Haiti. We cut the engine, hoist the sails, and we are finally
not having to listen to the engine 24/7. All morning we have a good breeze from the east
southeast, and in the early afternoon it begins to build.
By mid afternoon, it’s at 18 knots typical
trade wind strength, and the point at which we have to
put in the first reef.
And it continues to build. I don’t like the idea of having to reef at night, so before it gets dark, we
put in the 2nd reef, and roll up the jib completely. By morning, June 6, it’s blowing 25 to 30
knots.
The boat is heeled over, even with 2 reefs, and with the seas it’s impossible to stand down
below without holding onto something. Everything is sliding to the starboard side of the cabin,
and the seas are building. The toilet in the head decides that the brandnew
joker valve I
installed is just not good enough, so it regurgitates the contents of the holding tank and
overflows into the head, soaking the towels and bed covers that have managed to slide off onto
the cabin sole.
I go down and look at it, and it’s just too much to deal with. It will have to wait until the boat is
sitting level in calm water again before I can take the joker valve back out and see what the
problem is. For now, we decide to just pump out the holding tank after every use.
I decide I want the engine running in case of a broach or other emergency, so we crank it back
up and let it run, in gear, at just over idle speed, just in case we need it immediately. The
engine keeps the batteries charged and also supplies 110v power via a beltdriven
generator.
Refueling from the tanks strapped to the rails becomes a totally different operation with the wind
and seas like they are. Jen has to clip onto the jacklines and work her way forward, and then
untie two 5gallon
jerry cans from the rail and slide them back so I can pull them into the cockpit
and start the siphoning. The first time we try it, the motion of the boat is too much for Jen to
both hold on and untie the cans at the same time.
We need to either heaveto
or run with the wind in order to calm the motion of the boat down,
but with no jib out, heavingto
is not an option. So, I try turning and running with the wind, and
that works much better until
we are surfing down the face of the waves and get thrown into an
accidental jibe by the following seas. Without a drogue trailing from the stern, we are surfing too
fast and Jeeves, the autopilot, is not able to keep up. I can’t steer and also siphon fuel at the
same time.
So, I shift the engine into reverse and let it do the job a drogue would do of slowing the boat and
that solves the surfing problem. Jen is able to untie the tanks, we get the refueling done, and
we are back on course.
“Tomorrow will be better”, we say to each other.
Meal preparation is impossible in 15 foot seas, but we have lots of granola bars, trail mix, candy
bars and nuts, so nutrition is not a problem. The problem is sleep. Even with TransdermScop
ear patches, Jen is not able to spend any time below without feeling the onset of nausea. Any
rest she gets will have to be in the cockpit.
We take turns being ‘on watch’, but we are both in the cockpit almost continuously, even when
we are not on watch. We are clipped in, with our foul weather gear on, and it is impossible to
sleep. I have no nausea issues going below, but I spend most of the time up in the cockpit with
Jen to keep her company. She is not a happy camper, but she is bravely gutting it out.
One thing I love about the boat is the design of the companionway. When you are on watch,
you can sit in the companionway facing forward with your feet on the steps and the hatch
closed, protected from the wind and spray by the dodger, while Jeeves, the autopilot, does all
the heavy work of steering. You can lean forward and rest your head on the top of the hatch,
and it is a very comfortable. safe, secure place to be.
Winds are now up to 35 knots. Every few minutes or so, the boat feels like it is falling off a cliff
as it crests a wave and then falls into the trough on the other side. It feels like it is hitting a brick
wall. The spray comes back and drenches the forwardfacing
windows of the dodger, and
several times there is so much green water on deck I know the plastic windows will be ripped
out and I will be drenched. But amazingly they hold.
I need to get our 3rd and final scheduled weather report from Rick Sheema, but it’s impossible.
Standing in the companionway with the laptop in one hand and the satphone extended
overhead in the other was ridiculous enough at anchor in Key West. It’s impossible here in 15
to 20 foot seas, where you have to be holding onto the boat at all times if you don’t want to be
hurled across the cabin.
The next morning we wake up to wind and seas that are stronger and larger than the day
before, and in the evening we tell ourselves, “Tomorrow will be better. It will be better
tomorrow!”
Two days of this and we are dead tired and soaking wet. At midnight, Jen finally decides she is
too tired to stay in the cockpit any longer. She works her way below and strips off all her wet
clothes and climbs into the aft berth to try and get some real sleep.
Then at 2:00 AM, June 7, 2012, we are approximately 175 miles north of Cartagenaalmost
in
the dead center of the Caribbean Sea. Winds are out of the ESE, now at 40 knots, and the
seas are 20’ and higher, and still strengthening.
Jen opens up the small cabin ventilation hatch from down below where she was trying to rest,
and yells up at me, “Lee, I smell smoke!!”.
Even after 2 and a half days of rollercoaster
seas, unrelenting wind and pure exhaustion in
every bone, hearing that causes a surge of adrenaline that instantly shocks me awake and gets
me moving. I open up the companionway to look below, and I can see the smoke, hazy in the
cabin. I can also smell it It’s the smell of burning wiring.
“Get the fire extinguisher!”, I scream in a panic as I unclip and clamber below to get to the the
breaker panel at the nav station. Down below, the smell of smoke is even stronger. I know we
do not have time to try and sort out which circuit is affected, so I immediately just switch
everything off. Everything the
chart plotter, the instruments, the generator, the interior lights,
the navigation lights everything
has to go off. Including I
realize a couple of seconds later as
the boat begins to head up into the wind, Jeeves,
the autopilot.
“I’ve got to go steer the boat! You need to find the fire!”
I grab my headlamp flashlight and scramble back up to the cockpit. Jen, stark naked and a fire
extinguisher in one hand, begins removing the engine access panels to try and find the fire.
Up in the cockpit, I clip back on and climb back to the wheel. The boat is now almost head into
the wind with the doublereefed
sail luffing like mad. I am now out of the protection of the
dodger, and the force of the wind and sting of the spray hits me right in the face and it is
deafening.
I grab the wheel, get the boat back under control. I bear off and run with the wind on a broad
reach to give Jennifer some relief from the seas. What are we going to do if the boat catches
on fire and we can’t put it out?, I think to myself. I start going over our abandon ship routine in
my head. A routine that we had talked about but had never really seriously practiced. And the
little practice we did have was with Ian at Key West, not in 20’ seas and gale force winds.
Our 6man
life raft is in its canister up on the deck in front of the companionway. To launch it, I
need to remove the cover, find the painter and tie it off to the midship cleat on the leeward side
of the boat., and then toss the raft overboard on the leeward side. I immediately regret only
watching the liferaft instructional video twice, which, I noticed at the time, was itself filmed in
very calm seas. I realize I have never even opened the canister to make sure I could find the
painter. I don’t know for sure there’s even a life raft in there. How could I have been so stupid
not to check?
Before launching the raft, we need to grab the ditch bag from under the steps of the
companionway. It has our handheld VHF and our Iridium sat phone already in it, along with food
and water. We’ve also got to grab the EPIRB from the stern rail and activate it We need all the
extra bottled water we can grab. We’ve then got to launch the raft and jump from the boat into
the liferaft in mountainous seas, all while the boat is on fire and burning underneath us.
This is the scenario that is playing itself out in my mind as I am hoping praying
that
Jennifer
can find the fire and put it out before it grows out of control. I realize that if she can’t put it out,
we may have only a couple of minutes to grab our stuff and get off the boat. The cabin will
quickly become filled with lethal smoke, and we will be unable to go below. Then we will have
to get off and into the liferaft, in the the pitchblack
dark, on a pitching deck, in huge seas, in
howling wind.
I realize that the odds of us being able to accomplish this are not even close to as good as
5050.
Blessedly, Jennifer is unable to find any fire, and gradually the smoke lessens and dissipates in
the cabin. After 15 minutes of inspecting every compartment she reach, we decide to try turning
breakers back on, onebyone,
to see what happens. The first one we try is the autopilot.
Jeeves springs back to life, grabs the wheel, and I breathe a huge sigh of relief. I was not
looking forward to hand steering the last 175 miles to Cartagena.
With Jeeves back on duty, I am free to help Jen start putting the boat back together. We slowly
turn the circuit breakers back on and onebyone
we have navigation lights again and then
instruments. When we get to the 110v generator, though, it is dead. I flip that breaker back off,
deciding that it must have been the source of the smoke. It will just have to wait until we get to
Cartagena. It is impossible to work on it out here. With its location under the companionway
steps, seawater must have gotten into something critical and shorted it out.
But the immediate crisis is over. Jennifer retired
Army Lieutenant Colonel, graduate of the
Army Airborne school, and clearly the toughest woman I know, looks at me with her lower lip
trembling and tears in her eyes and asks, “Are we going to make it?”
I look her straight in the eye, and lie, “Yes, we’re going to make it! Everything is going to be
fine!”
That’s when I know I have failed.
This is far worse than 1984. This is not some exhilarating roller coaster ride like that was. This
is miserable. Forgetting about protecting Jen’s love of sailing, I’m not even sure that I like
sailing anymore. And we still have more than 24 hours to go.
I did my best, though. I have seen dreams of the sailing life die at sea, and I did not want that to
happen to Jennifer on her very first ocean crossing, but I can see it happening again in front of
my eyes.
The last day. We siphon the last of our diesel fuel into the main tank. Figuratively, we are
ourselves already down to running on fumes, though. Neither one of us has had more than an
hour or two of sleep since we passed Hispaniola 3 days ago.
June 8 the
last night, I let Jen go below at midnight and sleep while I take watch. The wind
and seas are now calming down the farther south we get. I estimate that we should be able to
see the lights of Cartagena by 3:00 AM or so, and as we get closer, I can see the lights of the
city illuminating the night sky.
Around 3:00 AM I can begin to see actual lights on the horizon. As I am staring to pick up any
details I can, I am imagining that I can begin to see buildings in the far distance on the horizon,
and all of a sudden we are sailing down a broad boulevard with palm trees in the median and
tall buildings on both sides. There are cars passing by on both sides of us, and pedestrians as
well. We have reached Cartagena, but how we are sailing down a paved road, I can’t figure out.
It takes only a minute to realize I am so tired I am hallucinating.
I slap myself back awake. As sunrise gradually approaches and the city lights get closer, I can
now make out real buildings. I wait until we are just outside the city and it is full daylight to call
Jen.
“Jen, you need to come up and take a look at this!”, I say.
She wakes up and climbs up the companionway and turns and looks at the beautiful skyline of
Cartagena, now only a couple of miles away, and she breaks down in tears.
“We made it! We’re still alive!’, she says, with tears streaming down her cheeks.
I start crying too.
When we finally pull into the marina and tie up in a slip, we check Liberty†Belle†out. Both bow
navigation lights are gone, ripped off by the seas. One spreader light has been ripped off the
spreader by one of the lazy jack lines, which is itself cut in two. It must have gotten caught when
we had our accidental jibe. The boat is a mess down below. The generator is burned out.
Both of us are pretty burned out as well. Jen is bruised from head to toe from the motion of the
boat, and looks like a victim of domestic violence. I doubt I look any better.
I call my mom to tell her we made it, and she has been absolutely frantic with worry. Every
morning at sunrise and every evening at sunset we have been pressing the OK button on the
Spot. Mom has been getting an email showing her our position and our progress. But on the
day of June 8, at the height of the storm, she got nothing in the morning. Then nothing again at
night. To her, we had simply disappeared in the middle of the Caribbean. Had she known who
to call, I’m sure there would have been an SAR team sent out to look for us.
We spend the next 10 days recuperating and getting Liberty†Belle†back in shape. Jen gathers
up all the bed linens, towels and blankets that got soaked by the overflowing toilet and prepares
to just throw them away. Just then a Colombian lady comes by and asks if we need any laundry
done. We give her the entire wet, heavy, stinking mass of pulpy towels and blankets, and 2
days later she brings it all back washed, fluffed, folded and smelling like springtime, and
charges us something like $18. Unbelievable!
Jen takes a bit longer to recover. The day after we arrive we are safely tied in our slip when a
thunderstorm comes over us. The wind picks up and the sky darkens, and Jen starts having a
panic attack chest
pains, hyperventilating, huge anxiety, etc.
I have to reassure her that we are fine. All four corners of the boat are tied securely, we are in a
marina, and nothing bad is going to happen. Intellectually, she knows that’s the truth, but
emotionally, she cannot stop the fear.
I’m actually afraid she will never go to sea again.
I get out the satphone and the laptop, and amazingly, the connection is good again. Here,
finally, are all our emails we couldn’t get once we got past Hispaniola.
Here’s one, our 3rd and final weather update from Rick Sheema dated the morning of June 6,
back when we were just getting into the winds south of Hispaniola. It says,
“As of this morning's weather picture, pressure gradient tightens between the
high pressure cell in the Atlantic Ocean and the thermal low pressure area
over the northern section of South America. Because of the tighter gradient
proceeding south, wind speeds and wave heights should increase down track to
gale conditions. Expect ENE winds increasing to 3540
kts with higher gusts
and significant seas 1113
ft, occasionally 18 ft with theoretical max of
2226
ft.
Skies: Partly to mostly cloudy skies. Trade wind rain showers and squalls.
Winds in squalls to 4050
kts, gusty.
Tropical Cyclone Activity (TC): No TC activity expected for the next 48 hrs.
Route Plan: Rhumbline to Cartagena
To mitigate high wind/sea conditions, may want to hoveto
at present
position for 48 hrs.
There, at the end the
recommendation to heaveto
for 48 hours!
Then another email. “Please let me hear from you to let me know you’re OK.”
We write Rick back and let him know his forecast was spoton,
and we are fine.
I later went online to find the actual forecast, just to see what it was we had been through, and
here it is:
Figure†2†GFS†model†132hrƨ5¨000†feet†vorticity†projection¨†valid†for†6∫00†pm†Thursday¨†June
7¨†2012¨†showing†low†level†wind†surge†across†the†central†and†NW†Caribbean
That area labeled ‘Surge’, bordered by the solid red line, is what we had sailed through. The
day of no wind and glassy seas just south of Cuba should have been a warning to us that
something was not normal, but I had missed picking up on that clue.
I sure would have loved to have seen this forecast on June 6.
Our 10 days in Cartagena are mostly a celebration of life. Every meal begins with the toast,
“We’re alive!” We tour the old city and have 5 o’clock happy hour with the other cruisers in the
marina, some of whom say they have lived aboard for 20 years and never gone through
weather like we just went through.
I find that hard to believe, since I’ve only been offshore twice now, and both times I had bad
weather. How is it possible to sail for 20 years and avoid bad weather the entire time? I
conclude two things: my weather forecasting skills are woefully bad, and I am not the guy you
want to go to sea with if you believe in bad luck.
When we leave Cartagena, we head west to the San Blas Islands of Panama. Our departure is
delayed for hours waiting for our agent to bring us our zarpe and departure documents. We had
hoped to make the trip with only one night at sea, but the delay means that we are not quite
able to make it all the way before sunset the second day.
A few hours into the trip, Jeeves all of a sudden loses his bearings. The autopilot is still
obviously engaged, but the boat is no longer steering in a straight line. It is making a big circle.
I start to try and figure out what is wrong with it. I open the rear lazarette where the linear drive
that actually steers the boat is located, and I see the linear drive unit lying there totally
disconnected. It’s still trying to steer, but the 4 bolts that hold the base in place have all worked
loose and fallen out. Thank God that didn’t happen crossing the Caribbean!
I quickly get 4 new bolts and locknuts from our spares and soon Jeeves is back on the job.
An hour or so later, I am suddenly stunned when a large whale surfaces and blows not 10 feet
off the port bow. He is crossing our path from right to left, so we just miss hitting him. I happens
so fast I can’t react in time to get to the wheel. I watch his immense dark body glide by so close
I could touch it with a boat pole. I scream at Jen, “Whale!!”, but by the time she gets up on
deck, he is gone.
Within 50 to 60 miles of Panama we can see the mountains off in the distance, but sunset is not
going to wait for us to get there.
I refuse to make a landfall at night into a channel with no aids to navigation and charts that are
known to be slightly off, so I make the decision to heaveto
and just drift overnight and enter in
the morning when we can see.
Jen begs me to keep going. We are so close. The mountains of Panama are visible, now only
10 15
miles away. She does not want to spend another night offshore. As the sun goes down,
her anxiety level rises, and she is on the verge of another panic attack. She is certain that
another storm will hit us in the dark, and she doesn’t think she can stand it if it does. A large
thunderhead is off on the eastern horizon, and as the setting sun lights it brilliant white, it forms
the perfect shape of a rearing horse.
Jen’s mom had died the year before, and all her life she had been a rider, a horseman.
This was Jen’s mom telling her everything was going to be OK.
And after that it was.
UPDATE
Jen gradually got over her PTSD, helped in large part by the incredible beauty of the San Blas.
Idyllic anchorages, crystal clear water, Kuna indians in dugout canoes bringing you bananas,
rum, coconuts, chicken, vegetables, and wine.
We emailed some friends from the boat, and told them we doubted they would get the email, as
it was clear we had already died and gone to heaven, but no one had bothered yet to tell us we
were dead. This was the sailing the 2 professors from New Orleans had dreamed about doing
back in ‘84! I hope they got to experience it.
A few months later we made the trip through the Panama Canal and made the final 6hour
sail
out to the Pearl Islands, where we now live. Liberty†Belle†is back to being a day/weekend boat,
and lives on a mooring on the other side of the island. Our island, Saboga, is still almost totally
undeveloped, but that is changing. Already, developments on the islands of Pedro Gonzales
and Viveros are changing the islands forever. In ten to fifteen years, this will not be the last
group of undeveloped islands in the world any longer. Panama’s growing reputation as a
retirement haven is attracting development money from all over the world.
Jen will never be totally comfortable making the 2week
sail from here to the Galapagos that we
once talked about doing, so in some sense she is still traumatized by the experience. But, she
loves sailing Liberty†Belle†around the islands and anchorages of the Pearl Islands, so I can
count that as a success.
At least she doesn’t hate sailing entirely, and as long as things stay that way, that Wauquiez
Pilot Saloon 47 is still a possibility!
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