by Mary South
At 30 tons, the Bossanova's steel hull was built like a tank and her unusual box keel meant the propeller shaft exited the boat in a straight line, making it less vulnerable than a typical (angled) shaft. When I had gunned the engine enough to kick up great balloons of sand in the water, we finally floated free and were none the worse for wear. I was now even more impressed with my sturdy little ship and her excellent design.
Later that morning, John would also very briefly touch ground, twice in several minutes, as we negotiated a portion of the channel that had become very shallow. It occurred to me that, technically, since we'd now run aground three times, any curse the name change might have brought should be history. I worried about the technicalities, though: did touching ground count as running aground? I suspected we had to get hung up to get credit for the incident. That would happen soon enough.
Shoaling in the ICW is a hot-button issue among boaters in recent years. This federally maintained system of waterways that's most traveled between Norfolk, Virginia, and Miami, Florida, is made up of natural rivers and estuaries connected by man-made channels. Periodic dredging is all it takes to maintain this boater's highway that parallels the Atlantic Ocean but is protected behind the coast. The authorized depth of the Atlantic ICW, meaning its minimum depth at low tide, is 12 feet anywhere along its course between Norfolk and Fort Pierce, Florida. (From Fort Pierce to Miami, the authorized depth is 10 feet.) Most of the ICW falls below 12 feet at low tide, though, with many, many areas dropping as low as 5 feet.
In recent years, federal funding to maintain the waterway has been cut and dredging has fallen behind schedule. Some people suspect that since most commercial cargo is now moved around the country by trucks, planes and trains, government enthusiasm for maintaining the ICW has ebbed.
However, an entire economy exists along the waterway, and is as dependent on the seasonal migrations of boaters for their livelihoods as these "snowbirds" are on the safety of the ICW.
For most recreational boaters, the ICW is the only way to go. If time's not an issue, the ditch is scenic and relatively safe. But after only two days of it, we were getting antsy. Time was an issue for us. John had already scheduled a fight from New York to Chicago, and I had some much-needed work waiting for me. Even though we were only a few days into the trip, we could see from the charts of the winding ICW that we were going to be underway for a very long time, much longer than we had planned. And to be honest, John and I both had a hankering for the real sea, not this sleepy two-lane highway.
As we approached the Ponce de Leon Inlet, we made a couple of quick calculations and decided that we would have plenty of time to make St. Augustine by nightfall if we went offshore.
We double-checked our VHF radio and the marine weather forecast. Both were good. We had one more look at our guide to the Atlantic inlets. Alarmingly, Ponce de Leon Inlet was listed as one of the most dangerous on the East Coast. But further reading seemed to suggest that many other inlets shared this dubious distinction. While I was at the helm, John chatted on the VHF with a sport fisherman who passed us. He gave us some tips on where to look out for unmarked shoaling, but told us it was an otherwise very manageable passage.
Our Chapman experience had included one afternoon when we took a boat out to the St. Lucie Inlet. I'd have to say that running this inlet several times was the most exciting thing that happened at Chapman, with the exception of acing my midterm in chart navigation. Transiting an inlet safely is something that takes skill and an understanding of the forces of water, wind and tide. For instance, a strong onshore wind with an ebb tide is a combination likely to produce dangerous waves.
Passing through an inlet on your way to the sea has the advantage of showing you the face of the waves. In other words, you can see how rough the conditions are and decide to turn around if it looks too difficult. There's no shame in this option-at least a half-dozen people die every year just trying to run the inlets of southeast Florida.
Passing through an inlet from the ocean can be even trickier. Coming from the sea, you do not have the advantage of seeing the wave's face; you can only see its back-the swell rolling toward the shore. This is when most accidents happen.
One danger is that your bow will slow and your stern will get kicked out to the side, causing you to be beam-to and broadsided by the surf. Very perilous and not a pretty thing to see a fabulous way to get swamped and sink. But even worse than that is being caught on the downward slope of the wrong wave. If the angle is steep enough and the wave period short enough, your stern can get flipped right over your bow by the following sea. There is a word for this, "pitchpoling," and its very mention sends a shiver down any mariner's spine.
The correct way to enter a rough inlet is to ride the back of a wave-not the crest!-but this requires good timing and practice to keep the throttle at just the right speed. When you can do it perfectly, it's a subtle thrill, very like bodysurfing, to feel nature carrying you safely through the rough and pushing you into calmer waters.
Buoyed by our Chapman experience and craving the wide-open ocean, John and I agreed we were ready to brave the Ponce de Leon Inlet and see what was out there.
Using the tips the passing boat had given us, we knew exactly which markers to stay close to and where to look to port for another channel to take us out. When we reached the inlet, the surf was low and rolling and the water was flat and bright. We motored through easily and it was wonderfully anticlimactic. Days without drama are exactly what a good mariner craves, and they happen less often than you'd wish, as we'd soon find out.
Once we were on the outside, I stood at the helm and steered us out. As the shore and its signs of civilization grew smaller, the sea flashed its amphibious jewels and fluidly turned a dozen shades of blue, green, gray. I was giddy but apprehensive. This was the big time-my little ship's first foray into the Atlantic-and I prayed that nothing would go wrong: no mechanical failures, no bad weather, no hidden navigational hazards. After an hour, when I had corrected our course to run parallel to the shore and switched on the autopilot for the first time, I slowly let out my breath and relaxed. I listened to the Coast Guard on the VHF, checked my instruments, watched as Daytona Beach, Ormond-by-the-Sea and Flagler Beach slipped by in the distance. And I thought my heart would burst from the ecstatic sensation that I was exactly where I wanted to be. I had been right: this was the life for me.
CHAPTER FI VE
Black sea, deep sea, you dangle
Beneath my bliss like a dreadful gamble.
-JOHN UPDIKE
Once we were on the outside, it was clear that there was no going back. Looking out toward Portugal, it was hard to discern the sea's horizon from the sky. I felt like I'd been released from a cage, and the sense of freedom was so intoxicating that I had to resist the urge to stand at the bow, fling my arms out and shout, "I'm the king of the world!"
But there was no point alarming John this early in our trip, and it was probably better not to invoke the Titanic right now.
All other considerations aside, if we continued to run up the coast, instead of through the twisty-turny ditch, as the ICW is known, we would save ourselves a lot of time. So John and I quickly agreed to leave its pokey charms without a second thought, gladly trading the murky rivers for the cornflower blue of the Florida Atlantic in sunshine; the cypress, pine and moss-draped oaks for frolicking dolphins and giant sea turtles; the ambling pace for, well, a slightly less ambling pace.
In the Atlantic, you don't have to worry about shoaling channels, oncoming traffic or scheduled bridge openings. You can set the autopilot, keep an eye on the course and instruments, and relax a little. In return, you give up the utter safety of the ICW, the free anchorages in quiet spots, the interesting sights and sounds of life on either bank as you pass through. But for us, there was simply no question that the Atlantic route was well worth its slightly riskier ride.
Everything went smoothly for us on our first day offshore. John and I took turns at the helm. The d
iesel was very loud when the engine was running and the bridge was the quietest spot on the ship, so we kept each other company even when it wasn't our watch. We were both ecstatic about the sights and sensations of being offshore: the constantly changing colors of the water, the dolphins and giant sea turtles and large schools of fish we passed through. When we weren't chatting and I was at the helm, John read a book-some conservative pundit's attack on liberals. I ignored this. Around 1:00 p.m., I made us turkey sandwiches with pickles and potato chips on paper plates and we ate in the pilothouse. We tried tuning in a radio station, but the reception wasn't good, and anyway, we were both afraid to run down our iffy batteries by wasting power.
Our first afternoon was relaxed and happy, so when we made our planned destination, St. Augustine, earlier than we'd anticipated, we were tempted to just keep going. We still had a few hours of daylight left, and after we checked the chart, we decided we could make it to Jacksonville Beach by nightfall.
Forty-five minutes from the entrance to the Jacksonville Beach channel, I caught the Coast Guard broadcasting on Channel 16-saying something about severe weather, I thought. Our skies looked fine, but John and I fell silent while I switched the VHF up to Channel 22 for the full announcement.
Attention all stations, attention all stations. This is the United States Coast Guard, Mayport Group, United States Coast Guard, Mayport Group. At approximately 1800 hours the United States Coast Guard was notified of a storm moving toward Jacksonville Beach, in the vicinity of 30 degrees 20 minutes north and 81 degrees 36 minutes west. The storm is moving southwest with winds of up to 55 miles per hour and will be accompanied by severe lightning and thunder. All mariners are urged to seek safe harbor immediately. Again, all mariners are urged to seek safe harbor immediately. This is the United States Coast Guard, Mayport Group, Out.
Out. The word echoed in my mind with ominous finality.
"Out" is radiospeak for "signing off," but I thought I detected something like pity in its curtness. It sounded more like a dubiously offered "Good luck. . .because you're going to need it."
I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach: half dread, half excitement. For those in the vicinity aboard something sporty like a little center console with twin 250 horsepower engines, this warning was useful. All they needed to do now was point their bow toward shore and gun it. But for us, the Coast Guard's announcement was nothing more than a bad review of a show where we had already taken our expensive and highly visible front-row seats. There was no chance of escaping now.
John and I put our heads together over the chart. The only way we could possibly find shelter was to make it to the closest inlet: Jacksonville Beach. But as the skies darkened to the ominous green and black of an old bruise, it became clear we couldn't beat this monster front. It was moving at us-fast-from the direction of Jacksonville Beach, and we decided there was no point going right into the storm. Instead, we turned 180 degrees and ran away from it. Of course, when your boat averages about 7.5 knots (approximately 8½ miles) per hour, "ran" is just a figure of speech. What we were doing was more like shuffling.
A storm at sea is something to see. First, imagine being at the beach and watching a big storm from behind a plate glass window-the vastness of the ocean, the change in the waves as they grow and crash against the sand, the way the skies become almost black beyond the surf. The rain lashes against the window, streaming down the glass in a blur that makes it hard to see exactly what's happening out there. A storm at the seaside gives nature a wonderful stage for its high drama. But the overall sensation you feel as you watch is one of coziness You're safe inside. You don't have to go out. Start a fire. Have a cup of tea. Enjoy the show.
Now imagine that you are surrounded by that dark sea, bobbing in the middle of it. Instead of looking out a big picture window, you are looking out the blurry windows of your pilothouse as your little ship rocks from side to side and climbs steeply up one wave and down another. Off in the distance you see land and it looks. . .like heaven. We did not make tea. One of us stayed at the helm while the other ran below to check that all our portholes were tight and all loose objects were stowed. The dogs took up a cowering position in the corner of the pilothouse bench. We put on our foul-weather jackets and felt as prepared as we could be. Bright white flashes of lightning were now shattering the charcoal sky behind us, and we were feeling pretty smart for evading the brunt of it. We decided to move a little farther off the coast and out, then circle back up toward Jacksonville Beach. We changed course, and half an hour later, it looked like our tactics had worked: all but the fringes of this brief, violent front just passed us by. Of course, it was our first storm and we had nothing to compare it against. Later I learned that 21,000 people ashore lost their power that night and more than 10,000 remained without electricity for another 24 hours. We were right to feel smug.
But that sensation didn't last long. When we regained our previous position just offshore of Jacksonville Beach, it was pitch dark and the storm had left turbulent seas in its wake. While I wrestled us over 8-foot waves at close intervals, John tried locating the entrance to the channel, relative to our position. We hadn't studied our approach in advance, assuming instead that we'd be there in daylight under good conditions, with plenty of time to strategize en route. Then the storm hit, and we focused solely on staying out of its way. Now we realized we'd made a very amateur mistake: we had failed to familiarize ourselves with the approach to an unknown harbor in advance.
According to the chart, the entrance to the channel was about two nautical miles offshore, marked by a flashing red and flashing green marker. But how far out did the jetties extend? How deep was the water approaching the entrance? In daylight, I would have felt confident about cutting into the channel without going all the way out to the first marker. But in darkness, I was afraid of what I couldn't see (since charts are not always accurate), so we headed all the way offshore to the top of the channel entrance. The Bossanova rode the waves like a cowboy atop a bucking bronco-up the face of one wave and steeply down the face of the next. And we couldn't see a damn thing.
To reduce glare, the only light on in the pilothouse was a red bulb, but I still had to leave the doors open and frequently step outside, with one hand on the wheel, to get a clearer view of the ocean at night. Even the dimmest light on the bridge seemed to ricochet off the glass and obscure the outside. But standing in the open air, my eyes gradually adjusted to the slight variations of blackness around us. Beneath, before, behind-that dense blackness was sea. The parts that seemed trimmed in a faintly luminous frill were the crests of waves.
Above and all around us, the night sky's scattered stars drew the only discernible border between the dark waters they blanketed. Every minute or so, I stepped back out, let my eyes adjust, had a good look around and then stepped back in. When we finally headed into the very top of the channel entrance, it was 9:00 p.m. and we'd been running for twelve hours.
As we passed through the jetties, just past the mouth of the St. John's River, we sighted some secondary channel markers to port. These were a line of smaller buoys leading to Mayport Basin, the third largest naval base in the United States. The base was lit up like a massive, open-air operating room. An aircraft carrier tied by a dozen hawser lines to the dock resembled a dangerous giant, strapped down to sleep off anesthesia under merciless white lights.
Unfortunately, these lights, and all the other less spectacular shore illuminations of Jacksonville Beach, made picking out markers in the main channel nearly impossible. Now when I stepped outside the pilothouse for a look, there was no darkness to adjust to, just a different kind of light. In its own way, it was as stressful as finding our entrance had been. We were safer in that we were not out there alone, pitching around in a tar black sea. On the other hand, we were in a major navigation area that was unfamiliar to us, we didn't know where we were going and we couldn't see anything. We took turns-one of us at the helm, the other outside the pilothouse with binoculars and a sea
rch light, which we swung like a scythe through the blackness, carving a path up the channel, one marker at a time. When the beam weakly hit a distant buoy, we focused intently, calling out its number as soon as we could see it and checking it against the electronic chart. We were slowly groping our way forward.
Theoretically, this nighttime navigation should not have been as tricky for us as it was. We had both suffered through a very difficult (and excruciatingly dull) course at Chapman called Rules of the Road. Success depended on hours of sheer rote memorization of Coast Guard legalese covering which vessel has right-of-way in any given situation and which day shapes or sequence of lights marked which kind of vessel. The Coast Guard licensing exam required a grade of 90 percent or higher on this section of the test in order to pass, so the material was drilled into us. We were quizzed at the beginning of each and every lesson on the previous dose of mind-numbing rules, and in the end, we all squeaked by. But as real life was teaching us tonight, all the other ambient lights in a port-including highway lights, commercial signage, secondary channel markers, even passing cars-make isolating the identification lights of other marine traffic and navigation aids very tough.
Now, as I looked up the river, I saw a stack of lights moving across the horizon, parallel to us. "What's three whites over a green mean again?" I asked John, who had done an extra three weeks of extensive preparation for the Coast Guard licensing exams.
"Hmmm," he said. "Let me see. Three whites over a green. . .three whites over a-holy shit, that's a long tow." A long tow is a vessel of 200 meters or more, being towed by a tug. And that was only the minimum length of the barge. We were in so much shock that I didn't try to calculate its actual length, but it was gigantic as it rounded the bend and headed straight for my wee 40-foot boat. It absolutely dwarfed us. I moved over to the starboard side of the channel in order to give this leviathan plenty of space as it closed in. But about a minute later, we heard two prolonged blasts and one short blast ring out from behind us. John stepped out of the pilothouse and shouted back in "Oh my god, Cap. I cannot believe it. We've got another long tow coming up behind us."