by Erik Orton
I knew I was learning things on this trip, but I wasn’t sure what they all were. Some things were deathly boring, and it didn’t feel like I was making any progress. I knew I got frustrated easily. I yelled at my kids. I held grudges. I was often antsy to go and do something. It was hard for me to slow down and sit still. I missed the exhilaration of being busy. But I wanted to take time to be slow with my family, my wife, and myself, both during this trip and in my life. Things could never move fast enough for me. I liked how it felt to sail into the wind. But for now, I was sailing downwind, to Georgetown. It was peaceful and soothing. I was trying to practice slowing down.
* * *
1.The boom: big metal bar that spans the base of the mainsail.
Chapter 16
That Escalated Quickly
Great Exuma Chain, Bahamas
5 Months, 18 Days aboard Fezywig
ERIK
At high season, we knew the anchorages around Georgetown were packed with boats, vacationers, retirees, cruisers, you name it. It was a field of masts. Now, as we pulled in at almost the end of July, perhaps a half dozen boats floated at anchor. We chose a spot not too far out and not too far in. Setting the anchor was dead easy. All sand.
With the dinghy lowered, Emily and I headed to shore. We motored up to a low concrete seawall, tied off, and hopped up onto land. The main road through town stood a dozen feet away. I pulled on my red backpack, which had become my customary first-time-to-shore kit, adjusted my broad-brimmed straw hat, and put on my flip-flops. Emily and I walked down the road, enjoying the shade of the occasional trees. The “town” itself was small. We saw the grocery store and headed straight there.
When we walked in, we knew we had arrived. Although nowhere close to the Super Walmart in Fajardo, this was indeed a respectable grocery store, even by Caribbean standards. There were five checkout registers and a dozen or so aisles. We walked along the refrigeration aisle, enjoying the cold leaking out. They stocked cold cereal, vegetables, meat that was not in a can, all kinds of laundry and cleaning items, soda, and the holy grail of sailing provisions: ice cream. Deep shelves of ice cream, sorbet, and other frozen delicacies. Emily and I selected two individual pints of sorbet, making sure to pick the most extravagant flavors, and headed for the checkout register. We would be back for the more practical stuff. We’d brought two metal spoons in my trusty red backpack should such a contingency materialize. Our faith was rewarded.
However, on our way to pay for our frozen treasure, we heard the word “laundromat” and our ears perked up. Along with food and Wi-Fi, a laundromat completes the triumvirate of cruisers’ essentials. We stopped instinctively and spoke to the mother and two teenagers perusing the cold cereal selections.
“Excuse me, we heard you mention the laundromat,” Emily ventured. “You wouldn’t happen to be sailors, would you?”
“Yes, we are,” said the woman with brown curly hair. Within a few moments we knew where they were anchored, exchanged kids’ names, and invited them over for brownies that evening. The invitation was extended to the other boat next to them, which also had teenagers. We were headed north and they were headed south. They wanted to know all about what awaited them. We had met Day Star and Palenteer.
Emily and I paid for our sorbet, walked to a picnic table by the seawall, and got comfortable. There’s a certain joy to having your own pint of frozen sorbet whilst sitting on a hot Bahamian island. The pièce de résistance is having your own metal spoon with which to enjoy it. Emily and I exchanged a few bites, but otherwise we hunkered down and made for the bottom of our own containers.
That night the kids of Day Star and Palanteer sat on our trampoline peppering each other with teenager questions while the parents peppered us with cruiser questions.
“Can you get fuel in Matthew Town?”
“What about docking in the DR?”
“How was the Mona Passage?”
“Do you have to clear customs in Puerto Rico?”
“What are the best places to see in the BVI?”
It was a switch to pull into port and be confident enough to host a gathering on our first night.
The next day was Sunday and we spent it quietly aboard. We did church on the boat as a family. The rest of the day we would stay close to the boat and enjoy some quiet and solitude. It was simple and I liked it. That evening we had a farewell visit with our new boat friends.
When we traveled with Day Dreamer and Discovery there had been twelve kids total—ten girls and two boys, Eli and Jack. Jack was half Eli’s age. Now Eli was in the water playing with the big boys, teenagers. They had pecks and abs and they picked up Eli and threw him around in the water like a rag doll. After a series of dunkings he got his head above water and grinned.
“This is living life!” he shouted as one of the boys grabbed him and threw him like a skipping stone. Boys.
In the morning Fezywig would provision, pull anchor, and move north. It was good to be with other families again, but we knew we could stand on our own whenever we needed to. We were realizing how much we’d learned. They had questions, and we had answers. They had concerns. We could give assurances. We were becoming seasoned.
We were spending a lot of time together as a family, and that can be good and that can be bad. Before we left, a lot of people asked, “Aren’t you going to drive each other crazy?” We were never really too worried about that going in. I think when a family or couple are in crisis mode (or at least what feels like crisis mode), it’s easier to set aside differences and hurt feelings and focus on the problems at hand. Something needs to happen now. A problem needs to be solved immediately. There is no time or energy for petty arguments or squabbles. When the seas are calm, the wind is steady, and things are shipshape is the easiest time to slip into complacency or for unresolved problems to surface. We were in calm seas, with steady winds, and the boat was shipshape.
When Emily and I had first gotten on the boat, we had been intensely united. We had problems to solve and everything was new. It was good to constantly give each other moral support as we tackled unknown after unknown. This had worked well in Sint Maarten through the BVI. But now I wanted competent help dealing with the logistics of running a boat.
Every time we moved or pulled anchor—which was a lot once we left Saint Martin—a long checklist came to mind of what needed to get done. The same thing was true for when we were underway. For me these were obvious tasks, and I felt an urgency about them. But it was often a chore to get the crew moving to get it all done, or the alternative was I did them all myself. Both created resentment. I wanted a crew that was on point. But as much as we were a crew, we were a family first. I was starting to suffer from something I might call Togetherness Fatigue. It came to an unexpected head a few miles north in Staniel Cay.
Staniel Cay had two great tourist spots: Thunderball Grotto and Pig Beach. I figure anything with “thunderball” in the title is worth a look-see, but Pig Beach was purely based on tourist marketing. At least half of the Bahama-related pictures we found online had pigs swimming. They’re super cute. What’s more adorable than a little pink pig swimming in perfect, turquoise water up to your dinghy and nuzzling his head into your hand while you feed it baby carrots? Nothing, that’s what. So we had to go.
It was almost two miles, via dinghy, around the point to see the pigs. As we got closer, the size of these pigs came into perspective. These were not cute, cuddly piglets like in Babe or Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web. These were the big-mama, semi-truck versions of pigs, and they knew what they wanted. They didn’t swim a stroke more than was necessary to get themselves astride our dinghy, and they essentially opened their mouths and looked at us out of the corner of their eyes with a look that said, “Just dump it right here.” They knew the routine. We were being hustled. It kind of reminded me of trying to walk past the aggressive photo-op characters in Times Square dressed up like El
mo or the latest Disney character. They want to take a picture with you but get ticked if you don’t give them a tip.
The kids fed a few pigs some carrots, being careful to draw their fingers back quickly to avoid being bit, and then we beached the dinghy so we could get out and walk around. The little pigs were onshore. The instant the gargantuan pigs realized we were not handing out any more food, they turned their butts toward us and swam—very slowly—toward another boat full of tourists with armloads of carrots and potatoes.
The little pigs were indeed cute. What’s cuter than your little son, with a red bandanna around his neck, petting a spotted pig half his height? Nothing, that’s what. So it was delightful to see our children amongst these little, wild beach urchins. Eli bent down and opened the container with his leftover oatmeal. A couple of pigs nuzzled in their snouts and snarfed cutely on their hearty snack. But in about a nanosecond, my son was swarmed by a stampede of thronging mini-pigs clamoring for a bite of whatever was on the menu. Alarmed, Eli simply dropped his oatmeal and fled.
Emily and I sat on the beach watching the pigs and watching our kids as they ran around both trying to pet and stay away from the pigs. We walked back and forth in the calm shallow water, letting it lap up around our shins and knees. That’s when Alison asked, “What’s that?” as she pointed to something floating on the surface of the water. It was a nine-inch long pig turd.
“Okay! Everyone in the dinghy,” I called out. I started to put the dinghy off the beach before Emily and the kids gathered up. The pigs were closing in. They could sense our fear and our imminent departure. They began to gnaw on the lines running the length of the dinghy. We splashed the water with oars to scare them back, but they kept coming. I tipped the outboard motor down and started it up. I like to think I looked to make sure there weren’t any pigs in the vicinity of the propeller.
The kids jumped over the side and into the dinghy like it was the last chopper out of Saigon. I threw the outboard into reverse and opened the throttle. As we moved into deeper water the pigs started to swim and squeal, thrashing toward us. But then, like couch potatoes who grow bored with a show, they gave up and turned back to shore, looking for another boat of suckers headed toward the beach.
We made it back to Fezywig alive.
It was going to be low tide soon, so we quickly ate spaghetti with canned marinara sauce and got ready to head over to Thunderball Grotto. On the outside, it was a tall rocky crag that rose fifty feet above the water’s surface. Inside it was like swimming into the basilica of caves. It was best to swim in at low tide, when there was a pause between the tide flowing out and the new tide flowing in. Emily put life jackets on Eli and Lily, everyone piled into the dinghy, and we motored over to the cave entrance. We put on snorkel masks and flippers and swam in. Once inside, the ceiling rose in a majestic dome, with a small opening at its apex that let in clean shafts of light that hit the water and illuminated the sandy bottom beneath.
We were not the only ones there. A couple brave souls had gone back out of the cave and clambered to the top. They were now peering down from above. With conflicting shouts of encouragement and caution from their friends below, they jumped through the hole above and plummeted into water. Immediately Alison and SJ looked at each other and raised their eyebrows.
“We’re gonna jump,” SJ said, and they started to swim for the exit. She looked at me and asked, “You wanna come?” I don’t know if it was fatherly concern or macho pride, but I looked at Emily, shrugged, and swam after them.
The climb to the top was sharp and jagged. I was glad I’d brought my water sandals. Alison and SJ were barefoot, so I beat them to the top. Point 1: Dad. I encouraged them from above and pointed out the best path. Then we all gathered at the top. The funny thing about looking into a bottomless pit of darkness is it always looks higher from the top. Inside the grotto we had been able to see the silhouette of the jumpers, and we could see the water, clear and inviting, below. But from above, the sun is bright and blinding. Your eyes dilate and you can no longer see anything inside the grotto. You can hear voices; some are warning you off and others are encouraging you. And in your head you’re saying to yourself, Am I gonna jump? Am I really this stupid? This looks like a bad idea. But I just saw somebody else do it. Is there really water down there? In all honesty, you can’t see anything. Meanwhile you’re standing on a razor-sharp circle of rock with a three-foot-diameter hole, heading into what feels like a fifty-foot drop into water you hope is still there. I know metaphors abound with this kind of stuff: fear, trust, the unknown, God, danger, safety, risk, reward. I’ll trust you to make up your own.
If I waited another second I was going to chicken out. “Okay, girls, see you down there.” I jumped.
My feet hit first, then my hands. I’d used my right hand to plug my nose. I didn’t want water going up there. But the water had yanked my hand away and sent saltwater up my nasal passage all the way back to my eardrum. No exaggeration. I was fine, but it hurt.
Karina, the Littles, and Emily cheered when I surfaced. I swam to the side and looked up. Alison stood on the edge, pausing for a split second, and then jumped. We cheered. She swam to the side. SJ peered over the edge. SJ, our daredevil. We called to her and told her we were fine. She stayed where she was and continued peering. One minute turned into five minutes. She was up there all alone. “It’s fine! We’re down here. You can do it!” Alison and I called up.
This was not the kind of edge you can sit down and ease up to. When I say the rock was sharp, I mean it was razor sharp. It was all or nothing. Five minutes turned into ten. The tide was coming in and the entrance was almost covered.
At the moment, Jane was happier to be at the top of the grotto, barefoot, hot, and scared, than she was to be in the cool, clear water below. Her anxiety over what she could no longer see, and the fear of what it would take to get there, were more powerful than her will to jump. We did our best to help her shift the balance, but it was up to her. Only she could decide when she wanted to move and how she would do it. She could climb back down or she could jump. The push of her current situation, the pull of her new situation, her anxiety about her future, and her loyalty to her present were all shifting moment by moment. We change when we’re more excited about getting the new thing than we are scared about losing the old thing. I go through this same semiconscious process every time I face my own fears. I think we all do. It’s very personal. I internally weigh all these factors in the balance, and something happens or it doesn’t.
“Janie, you can do this,” I said. “We believe in you!”
We kept treading water, being pushed stronger and stronger by the rising tide. Then the balance shifted.
The hole above filled with a black silhouette, and down came Jane. She sliced the water’s surface feet first and swooshed into the clear basin below. She came up through the white bubbling foam with a huge grin on her face. We all cheered. A quick group hug while treading water, and out we went.
My sinus hurt pretty bad when we got back to the boat. I pathetically lay in our bed and asked for ibuprofen. Emily brought some down and went back to fixing dinner. As I lay there suffering, I heard a panicking scream come from the bow. I jumped out of bed and ran upstairs.
Alison and Jane were encouraged by their jump into the grotto, so they’d continued the theme when they got back to Fezywig. They were taking turns running down the side of the boat and jumping off the bow. A cable ran down the side of the boat to make a railing. That cable was fastened at the end by a pin, and that pin was held in place with a ring, similar to a keyring, but smaller. Jane had caught her pinkie toe in the ring just before she’d jumped off the bow.
“There’s a lot of blood!” Alison called out. She was in the water with Jane.
I jumped in the water and grabbed Jane.
“Everyone out!” Emily called. It was almost sunset. She knew this was the time sharks would be looking for dinne
r, and there was blood in the water. We weren’t sure how far sharks could smell blood, but Emily had seen enough nature documentaries to worry. We helped Jane onto the steps at the stern, and the blood, mixed with dripping saltwater, started to spread across the deck. Her toe was securely attached, but there was a deep cut.
We got her up into the cockpit and grabbed the first aid kit. We flushed the cut with freshwater, dried it, staunched the bleeding with gauze pads, and taped her toes together. It could have been much worse. I was grateful. I still had the ibuprofen out, so Jane took some and we both went to our cabins to lie down.
My ear was throbbing. Emily brought me a hot compress to put on my ear and dug into her internet research on the subject. I promptly fell asleep.
That night, when Emily came to bed, I found this note next to my head:
“For my favorite Mom and Dad, Love SJ
“For my favorite Dad: Dad thank you for keeping me safe last afternoon. Even in your pain. I feel much better now. And thank you for making me feel safe as I jumped through that hole, and when we were at the beach with mega pigs. I really want you to get better. I’m praying for you. You are the best Dad in the world, and I love you. SJ
“For my favorite Mom: Mom thank you for re-doing my Band-Aid last night. It made me feel loved. And thank you so much for loving and taking care of Dad. I bet it makes him feel loved too. Thank you for taking care of me and everyone, with Dad. I love you, you’re the best Mom in the world. SJ”
What’s cuter than that? Nothing.
When I woke up the next morning, my ear wasn’t aching. I rolled over and saw Emily was gone, probably doing yoga on deck. I climbed the two steps into the galley and saw her at the salon table in her striped PJ pants and aqua T-shirt. The laptop was open and she was slumped over the table, her face buried into a folded beach towel, crying.