Green Ghost, Blue Ocean

by Jennifer M. Smith

  Thinking he smelled diesel and fearing a leak in one of our fuel tanks, Nik opened the floorboard over the engine room, lay down on the floor and leaned his whole torso into the hole, lowering his head and shoulders deep into the bilge. Then I heard a muffled yell.

  “Uh-oh. My head’s stuck, my head is stuck!”

  In a cramped space in the bilge he had his head tightly wedged between the engine and the fibreglass hull.

  “I can’t get my head out!” he bellowed, more panicky now, his face down in the bilge.

  “Calm down. There has to be a way to get it out if you got it in there in the first place,” I said, aware that he was becoming more alarmed with every passing second.

  I offered some suggestions regarding which way to move and he managed to wriggle out without tearing his ears off. His panic seemed a massive overreaction until I realized that his tension sprang from his pent-up anxiety about the 1,200 NM journey ahead. Nik liked everything about cruising, except going to sea.

  By mid-May we’d sailed to Opua, the jumping-off point for most cruisers heading north to the islands of the southwest Pacific. We had a rendezvous with Vancouver friends in Fiji and we were pressed for time – the worst way to go to sea. We chose our weather window and two days after departure, we found ourselves close-reaching, pounding into three-metre seas with twenty-five knots of wind gusting to thirty-five. We hadn’t chosen well. Our pending rendezvous had clouded our judgement and we were paying for our haste.

  Conditions were unpleasant. Huge sprays of cold seawater launched from the bow flew back on the wind to dump heavily on the dodger and sometimes fly right over it, drenching the cockpit and anyone who sat in it.

  The motion was dreadful. Duped by the pleasant coastal cruising before departure, Nik had decided not to take medication, an unfortunate gamble. In the rough offshore conditions, he applied a scopolamine patch, but it was already too late. He became seasick, throwing up every time he moved. When I came to wake him for his four-hour watch, I removed the bucket wedged into his bunk beside him. He sat up and retched; he swung his feet to the floor and heaved again; he stood up, convulsing. It was terrible to see him so seasick, but I’d been on for four hours myself and I had to sleep, so he had to go on watch.

  On the off watch, I lay in my bunk and listened to every sound. The dominos shifted noisily in their tin box in a starboard locker. The forks were leaping in the cutlery drawer. The chain in the anchor locker was rising up – chink, chink – and settling back down again – calunk. I could hear a spoon repeatedly tracing an arc around the rim of a coffee cup in the galley sink: zink around, zunk back again. Now and then, over the cacophony below deck, I could hear the sound of Nik’s stomach turning itself inside out in the cockpit.

  As usual, my sense of smell was hyper activated. I smelled everything and everything smelled terrible. We were hot bunking. Beating into the weather as we were, heeled over, there was only one good spot to sleep. Lying on the leeward bunk, I could tell that Nik had eaten peanut butter on his previous shift. I could smell it on the pillow. I could smell the galley sink too. On a starboard tack our sinks did not drain well, causing the dregs from the latest dishwater to sit and rot in the drainpipe until the boat levelled out again. We’d been heeled over for days and the pounding of the seas pushed pulses of stink into the air, a fishy reek like tinned cat food.

  Nothing tasted good. I couldn’t drink coffee. I couldn’t drink tea. Not even water appealed to me. I couldn’t eat anything that was the slightest bit distasteful. The last bites of an apple near the core made me gag. The crusts of a sandwich turned me off.

  Off watch I slept and dreamed of land, the earthy, smoky smell of it. I drooled on my pillow. Upon waking I experienced a strange phenomenon, a moment of remarkable calm. Deaf to all around me, I had a few seconds of delight when it seemed that all was quiet and motionless. Then full consciousness hit. In an instant the noise, the smell, the motion – I was awake and back in it, back in that place of nightless sleeps and sleepless nights.

  By day four we couldn’t take it anymore. It wasn’t that we were afraid, we were just miserable. We decided to stop the boat and wait for better conditions. We hove to, setting our sails to go nowhere. It’s the sailing equivalent to pulling over on the shoulder of the road, but not nearly as comfortable. That said, it was far more comfortable than the beating we were taking trying to sail to weather. Once we backed the foresail and locked the helm hard over, it was amazing how much the motion calmed down. Everything got quieter. The boat was flat. The forks stopped leaping. The dominoes settled in their tin. We could hear ourselves think, and better yet, we could hear our radar alarm.

  On the radar, we set a range ring around the boat so that an alarm would sound should another vessel come within 3 NM of us. This allowed the two of us to rest together, something we’d never done before on an offshore passage. We’d always kept a human watch, switching places every four hours, but now, hove to with the radar alarm set, we both climbed into our bunks. Not well enough to read, we lay there and waited for the wind to abate.

  Through the day we lost gear. It got blown off, washed off, or chafed off the boat. It was like letting fifty-dollar bills go in the wind. Whoosh! The life ring was torn from the stern rail and swept off the boat by a huge swell. Whoosh! One of our large docking fenders suffered the same fate. Whoosh! The BBQ cover was blown off in the wind. We rushed to tie the lid down before the grills were tossed into the sea.

  In daylight, the conditions were bad. Then, darkness brought a drama of its own. A sickening crashing sound, a sudden bang-smash-clang had us both bolt to attention just before midnight. The primary anchor tied down at the bow that had never ever budged before suddenly came loose and started swinging around on a few feet of chain. It flailed wildly, all sixty-five pounds of it, hitting the bow on the port side, then starboard, smashing against our newly painted hull of gleaming green perfection.

  We both went out into the darkness. I watched from the cockpit as Nik bravely clipped his harness to the jacklines and crawled forward along the salty decks to wrestle in the flailing anchor and secure it once again. He couldn’t see the damage in the darkness, but we both knew it was there. I could have cried at the thought of it. All that time we’d spent in the Half Moon Bay boatyard. Ten weeks of scraping, filling and fairing, sanding and priming and painting. I thought of the brand-new white vinyl lettering proclaiming our moniker on the bows. All that time and money and tender loving care to make Green Ghost beautiful again and now this. For all we knew, we’d pull into Fiji in a boat named, Green ho. The insult of the punishing weather was bad enough, but the injury to our pristine paint job by that flailing anchor was heartbreaking.

  With the anchor wrestled in we both went below, stripped off our salty wet gear, and slumped back into our bunks. We’d been hove to for thirty-three hours and the bad weather was predicted to continue for another twenty-four. An endurance test, that’s what it was – and it was wearing me down. I was in a strangely incongruous mental state, both maudlin and giddy. I turned in my bunk to face Nik.

  “I want your life,” I said sarcastically and we both burst out laughing.

  Luckily the weather abated sooner than expected and in the end, we were hove to for only thirty-six hours before resuming our course. On the upside, we were well-rested and acclimatized, Nik’s seasickness was over. While hove to, we were blown back, losing 60 NM of northing. Between the downtime and the lost miles, we’d added two days to our trip, but there was nothing to be done about it. Set the sails and carry on. That was all we could do. So we did.

  After a week at sea, conditions improved as the wind veered south. The boat had become so salt encrusted during the rough weather that we were happy when a day of pouring rain cleaned up the decks and the cockpit. The interior was another matter. We’d sailed out of the temperate climes into the tropics. It was suffocating and stuffy below deck. Between the seas spraying over us and the rain pouring from the skies, every hatch and porthol
e had been sealed up tight for days. Our small 12-volt fans weren’t helping much. There was a horrendous cheesy smell, an old towel smell. You know that smell – that damp dishcloth that never got rinsed out and sat wet-in-a-corner-for-way-too-long smell? Our boat, our beds, for all we knew, even our bodies smelled like that. For the aromatic nature of the passage, we dubbed it “The Gouda Cruise.”

  Flying fish welcomed us back into tropical waters. The days became gorgeously hot, the nights star filled and wondrous, and the sea mirrored the night sky with stellar flashes of phosphorescent light dancing in our wake. The weather became so benign we had to start the engine. In the calm conditions Nik put a line in the water and filled what little room was left in our freezer with mahi-mahi and wahoo.

  On our fourteenth day, in time for our rendezvous, we glided through the mooring field at Savusavu, Fiji, the forty-third boat to arrive that season.

  “Ahoy, Green Ghost!” someone shouted across the anchorage.

  How wonderful it was to hear salutations called out by the familiar voices of our sailing friends. How thrilling it was to have found Fiji. To have set out from New Zealand and charted our course, to have earned every mile all on our own – it was a satisfaction so deep it felt bottomless. Our hearts swelled in the rush of accomplishment. How proud we were to arrive safe and sound, and well, okay, a little bit cheesy.

  Our arrival called for celebration, but upon making our landfall, we couldn’t enjoy a night out on dry land because the customs office closed at five p.m. and it was ten minutes after. Our check-in with the officials would have to wait for the following morning. But that didn’t matter. We tied up to a mooring ball in the peaceful anchorage and in our stock-still, flat-floored floating home we poured ourselves strong G&Ts, turned up the music, and danced like fools in our tiny salon.

  Our high spirits continued through two weeks of entertaining guests. Having guests aboard always put us in a festive frame of mind. Our Vancouver friends, Brenda and Scott, came and went. In the void of their departure we fell into a familiar funk. By this time, we had a name for it – PGD, Post-Guest Depression. In the wake of guest departures, it was back to the work of cruising: tidy up, top up, and move on.

  Our initial movements among the islands proved to us the size of the Fijian archipelago. With more than three hundred islands in the nation, there were thousands of anchorages. After leaving Savusavu, we visited some less-travelled isles and found ourselves completely alone. The privacy and seclusion was unparalleled, but the lonely anchorages gave way to a cheerless feeling of isolation. Then we went to Musket Cove.

  At Malolo Lailai Island, just over 10 NM from Nadi off the west coast of Viti Levu, over forty boats idled at anchor in turquoise water off the cruiser-friendly four-star island resort. Peopled and touristy with bead-your-hair kiosks, pedicures, and back massages, it was most definitely not the real Fiji but it was what we needed – company and fun. It may have also been the reason the rest of Fiji felt empty. Everybody was at Musket Cove.

  Offering a laundry facility, hot water showers, garbage disposal, a dinghy dock, fresh water, a small grocery store, telephones, beach BBQs, and a Three Dollar Bar, Musket Cove was a little slice of heaven. Wherever we go in the world, the place that makes all these things available to yachties is the place where we find all the boats. It was not a cultural immersion, but it was a vacation from our vacation and a distraction from the fact that our New Zealand-repaired alternator had gone on the fritz.

  While I was elated by the access to a washing machine, Nik thrilled to the surfing charters. He was taken out to the reef breaks by a well-powered boat and enjoyed the best spots with other surfers. With so many things to spend money on, there was a daily flight of fifties from our hands. I suppose it was not surprising that in my role as the-voice-of-reason, the expensive resort life began to wear on me. To give our wallet a rest, we sailed west to Waya Island in the Mamanucas and then on to the Yasawas, made famous by the movie The Blue Lagoon.

  While the cost of fun wore me down, the gear breakages were wearing down Nik. The alternator was repaired after two ferry trips to Nadi, but then the outboard engine began acting up. These mechanical failures sent the captain into violent spasms. He had little patience for it. While Nik had learned a great deal since our early sailing days, I remained next to useless as an apprentice to the mechanical/electrical workings of our boat. If he couldn’t fix it, I certainly couldn’t. Although I felt concern or disappointment when breakdowns occurred, Nik was apoplectic. I suppose I never felt like I should be able to fix it; I didn’t know how and I didn’t care that I didn’t know. It wasn’t a reflection on me as a person. I figured, if you don’t know how, you find someone who does. Nik, I suppose, felt the shame of inadequacy. Perhaps he felt emasculated when he didn’t have a manly quick fix for all things greasy and mechanical. Systems failures themselves didn’t upset me much, but the explosive fury of the captain, when inanimate objects failed to function, did.

  “What’s wrong now?” were frequent words from my lips. I urged the captain to keep it all in perspective, imploring him to see that despite all the work of it, despite the gear failures and breakdowns, overall, cruising was a good life. But my entreaties were often met with a stream of profanity, not at me, but at the inanimate object that failed to co-operate.

  There was no doubt that we hadn’t hit our stride in Fiji. I strived to make the best of it, to live in the moment. After all, it would soon be over. Our unplanned future loomed on the western horizon. At the end of the season we would arrive in Australia, the end of the road for us. I harboured hope for a cruising life beyond Australia, but the captain’s reaction to breakages threatened that dream. In a reversal of the roles we’d played in New Zealand, what I worked to cherish, he began to loath, often expressing a general negativity about any future cruising.

  The recent trip up from New Zealand hadn’t helped. Nik’s propensity for seasickness wasn’t getting better and his dislike of offshore passages was growing. As we sailed west, with the Pacific behind us and the Coral Sea slowly disappearing in our wake, I began to despair. I began to think Nik would never sail past Australia and I didn’t want our trip to end there.

  It always seemed a pity that our last few days in every country were spent frantically running around an urban area searching out customs offices, immigration officials, parts, charts, and grocery carts. We left the stunning waters of the Yasawa Islands for the crowded man-made marina basin at Vuda Point Marina near Lautoka. There, we fell into the usual frenzied preparations for the next offshore leg to Vanuatu.

  As always, we were so busy upon departure that we had no time to pause and reflect on our time in Fiji. It was only when we put to sea and looked back at the mountainous horizon line fading in our wake that we contemplated the laughter and the smiles we were leaving behind. As we sailed west for the sunset, although we’d struggled to find our groove in Fiji, we smiled at our memories of the many anchorages where the giggles of the women and children drifted from the beach out across the water and filled our cockpit with delight.

  CHAPTER 14

  Tanna and New Caledonia

  (August – October 2003)

  After four and a half days at sea, Tanna, an island in southern Vanuatu, rose up on the western horizon as beautiful and welcome as a landfall can be. On a Thursday morning, we motorsailed into Port Resolution filled with a sense of discovery. Here, there were no resort hotels, no motorized vehicles, and no electricity. We imagined it looked much the same as it did for Captain Cook who had arrived just like we had, 229 years and nine days before.

  At nearly every destination so far, Nik had gone ashore, looked around, taken a deep breath, and confidently exhaled the affirmative, “I could live here!”

  “You are living here,” was always my reply.

  In Tanna, it was my turn to make that pronouncement. Port Resolution is stunning. We glided through sapphire water over soft coral forests swaying in the current, past a surf beach to our port side
and hot springs steaming in rocky pools at the water’s edge to starboard. Cliffs of buff-coloured ash strata and a white sand beach marked the entrance to the harbour, while inside, a black rocky shoreline gave way to a jet sand beach at the head of the bay. Tropical emerald jungle tumbled over itself, nearly spilling into the sea. A local man paddled across the bay in a primitive dugout canoe balanced by a crude outrigger lashed together with bits of twine. A mountainous horizon line crowned the scene. The active volcano, Mount Yasur, was spewing ash and steam into the sky. No wonder there were twenty-seven cruising boats in the anchorage; this was the most beautiful place on earth.

  Ashore we found the Port Resolution Yacht Club, an open-air meeting house that had once been a church. Nearby was a tap with fresh water, a place to do laundry by hand, a shower, a tidy garbage drop, and a fire pit. Various national flags and ensigns hung from the yacht club ceiling, most of them wind-worn and frayed, left behind by cruisers who likely looked much the same. Stanley, a young Melanesian man neatly dressed in western clothing, greeted us. Over a hundred languages are spoken in the Vanuatu archipelago, but English, French, and Bislama (English-based creole) are the official languages and Stanley spoke English very well. He told us about check-in procedures on the far side of the island and offered to make arrangements to get us there by truck. He took groups of cruisers across every few days, so we signed up for the next trip to check in. In the meantime, Stanley told us, we were welcome to come ashore to the yacht club or to visit the village.

  Taking a short walk about the village, we were immediately struck by the difference in the standard of living compared to Fiji. There was not nearly as much corrugated iron and cinder-block housing in Port Resolution. The village was traditional with most of the homes being thatched huts with low entrance-ways. The plumbing was entirely outdoors in neatly thatched outhouses with palm frond doors. The boats were all dugouts. There were no outboards here.