Gybe started Ferrity’s four-cylinder Yanmar diesel, then walked to the stern and checked that a good stream of exhaust water was exiting overboard. An engine-driven water pump pulled seawater through a heat exchanger to cool the engine. Beyond the heat exchanger, the warmed water entered the exhaust system before spewing overboard with the exhaust gases.
He walked up the starboard side to the bow and then back along the port side. His practiced eye checking that everything was in its place and lashed down. Then he went below deck to conduct a similar cabin survey. Visualizing the vessel at a thirty-degree angle of heel, he looked for things that would fall. He stowed the breakfast dishes, a toothbrush and toothpaste that Kara had left lying in the head, and dogged-down the portlights and hatches.
Kara sat in the cockpit when he returned with a chart and binoculars. A less experienced or more careless sailor would have scoffed at Gybe’s preparation. This was a day sail. Hell, you could see the destination. The forecaster predicted light winds and three to five foot seas in the channel. Aboard Ferrity, Gybe was the master; it was his way or the seaway. Might make a good t-shirt slogan, he thought.
He gave the orders, the crew obeyed, and discussion was later. Hawai‘i floated two thousand miles from the nearest sizable landmass. If something happened and they drifted with the trades beyond Lāna‘i, they would be at sea a very long time.
If he were near land, he would jettison a mutinous crew. Deep at sea, he would break out the duct tape. He preferred to sail alone.
Gybe opened a locker and retrieved two inflatable safety vests with built in harnesses. “Slip this on.”
He handed one to Kara, showed her how to adjust the straps, and explained how to inflate it. The harness included a CO2 cartridge that should inflate the air bladder when she pulled the ripcord. There was a separate tube pinned to the vest for manual inflation.
“Any questions?”
Gybe stationed Kara at the wheel after explaining the simple engine controls. “One lever. Push it forward, the transmission shifts into forward. Pushing it further forward accelerates. Reverse works the same. Lever straight up is neutral. Do NOT shift from fast forward to fast reverse without pausing in neutral.”
Kara nodded her understanding.
He went forward and after removing the snubbing lines, engaged the windlass to retrieve the anchor chain. The electric windlass pulled the chain over the bow roller, across the deck, and then dropped it through hawsepipe into the anchor locker.
As the windlass retrieved the chain, Gybe flashed back upon his find of a few days ago. To himself, he mumbled “no bodies, please.”
The anchor had set well. When the anchor rode was straight up and down, one-to-one scope sailors would say, Gybe stepped off the UP button and locked the chain stopper. He waited.
Sherry, a former girlfriend had taught him the Zen method of anchor retrieval. Often, he had seen sailors use their engines to break an anchor loose. They would rev up the engine in forward gear and drive the boat over the anchor, putting large forces on the chain, cleats, windlass, and anchor. According to Sherry, all one needed to do was tie the rode off with one-to-one scope – straight up and down. Correctly, she commented, no anchor can hold under those conditions. Any small wave would rock the boat or the pressure of the wind on the hull would break the anchor loose.
Before Gybe drifted into other areas of Sherry’s expertise, he saw the chain slacken.
He stepped back on the UP button. When the anchor cleared the water, it was clean. Expected, because he had sought and found a patch of sand on the bottom
When anchoring around coral, he always sought patches of sand for the anchor. He didn’t want the anchor or chain to damage the fragile coral. In the Caribbean, moorings were positioned in popular anchorages. Visitors could tie to the mooring without danger of damaging the bottom life. No such moorings existed in Hawai‘i.
The anchor climbed from the water and slid into position on the bow roller. Gybe secured the anchor with a chain stopper. He didn’t want it bouncing around while he was sailing.
Kara was nervous when he returned to the cockpit. She hadn’t done anything – not motored nor steered – obeying Gybe’s earlier instructions to do nothing unless requested. Without the anchor, the boat was slowly drifting.
“Ready?” Gybe said as he took the wheel from Kara.
“Yes, but we’re drifting.”
Gybe slipped the transmission into forward, revved the engine, and turned the wheel to starboard away from the island. Ferrity moved out the channel alongside the Kaunakakai commercial pier. Fifty yards beyond the red buoy that marked the entrance to the channel and slot through the reef, he turned the boat eastward.
“Take the wheel. I want you to point the boat into the wind while I raise the main sail. OK?”
“Oookaaay”
“It’s easy. See that arrow at the top of the mast. It points into the wind. Right now, it is pointing to the right of the boat. That means you need to turn the boat to the right. It steers just like a car. Got it?”
“Sure.”
Before getting underway, Gybe estimated the wind at ten-knots with gusts to fifteen. There would be more wind once they left the lee of the island, but for now, he would hoist the mainsail with no reefs. Kara kept the boat into the wind as Gybe raised the main. He wrapped the halyard twice around the winch and tightened the luff of the sail.
“Fall off to starboard.” He shouted to Kara
Perplexed didn’t describe the look on her face. Kara was not a sailor. Gybe doubted that she understood his command, but reveled in the screen-saver of expressions on her face. He knew her thoughts. She didn’t understand the unique lingo used by this clique to intimidate outsiders. Fall off? What could that mean?
Would she ask for clarification? Would she guess and take action? Her response would help Gybe understand this headstrong young woman. Would she assume that “if a man can do it I can” and prove her gender-equality? Or would she recognize her limits in a field about which she knew nothing and ask for clarification?
Noticing that her cursor had stopped blinking, Gybe pointed towards the other island. “Turn the wheel to the right. Aim for the corner of Lāna‘i over there.”
Gybe returned to the cockpit and slipped the engine into neutral. With Kara pulling on the starboard jib sheet, he eased the control line to the roller furling headsail. The sail filled and he showed Kara how to trim the sheet with the Lewmar two-speed self-tailing winch.
Both sails, jib and main, were drawing nicely as Ferrity heeled to starboard and accelerated to six point five knots on a port tack. Gybe pulled the engine kill switch and the noisy diesel shuddered to a stop. The only noise was the swish of water beneath the hull. Aaaaahhhh.
16
Nearing the island of Lāna‘i, Gybe tacked Ferrity and aimed for Maui. As he completed the turn, trimmed the jib for the new course, and let Ferrity take her head, he heard Kara shout. “Whales.”
In the direction Kara pointed, a fountain of water fell to the surface above the back of a large humpback. There was a smaller whale, probably her calf, alongside. Because the whales were moving towards Ferrity, Gybe turned the wheel hard to starboard; left the jib sheeted to port, and slid the boat into a heave-to position, effectively stopping the boat with all sails up. Ferrity drifted slowly downwind, broadside to the small waves. Downwind towards Lāna‘i, a position he didn’t want to hold for long.
He explained to Kara that the area between the three islands of Maui, Moloka‘i, and Lāna‘i were part of Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary designated by Congress in 1992 and formally dedicated in 1997. The entire sanctuary covered an area of thirteen hundred square miles around the six largest Hawaiian Islands.
“The law requires us to stay at least one hundred yards from the whales. Drifting is the best we can do.” Gybe told Kara. “That looks like a mother and her calf. At forty feet long, she could weigh as much as forty tons. For adults the rule of thumb is a
ton per foot.”
In the distance, they saw another whale breach. As they watched, they spotted several other pods, one in every cardinal direction. Although still on the endangered list, the humpbacks had made a remarkable recovery. Recent estimates revealed that up to four thousand whales visited the Hawaiian Islands each winter. They arrived as early as October and stayed until April or so.
Gybe had seen dozens of these creatures in the past, yet they still fascinated him. Kara told him about watching the similarly sized gray whales that migrated along the California coast. This was her first experience with the humpbacks. Both species were baleen whales and ate up to a ton of food per day.
“You should visit the Maui Ocean Center or the Pacific Whale Foundation while you’re here in the islands.” Gybe said as he kept a sailor’s eye on the downwind Lāna‘i.
After the whales moved away, Gybe released the windward jib sheet and trimmed the leeward sheet so that the jib could again draw. He returned the boat to a port tack towards Lāna‘i, similar to their course before he tacked towards Maui and saw the whales. Once Ferrity had enough headway, Gybe tacked and set a course close to the wind. He estimated at least two more tacks before they arrived at the moorings off Lahaina.
Nearing the Lahaina Small Boat Harbor, Gybe furled the sails. Commercial boats occupied most of the slips. For the other slips, there was a decade long waiting list. He motored Ferrity past the harbor to show Kara the waterfront. The Lahaina Yacht Club maintained several buoys just offshore from their clubhouse. In the past, he had been able to tie to one of these moorings. Today, however, like horses tethered in front of a saloon, sailboats hung from every mooring.
“Looks full.” Kara exclaims.
“Yeah, I know another place. We’ll go to Mala Wharf.”
Gybe motored northward along the coast. Less than a mile from Lahaina, he pointed out the old Mala Wharf. Completed in 1922, Mala Wharf proved to be too treacherous for ship landing. The only ship to dock at Mala suffered extensive damage. The wharf closed in 1950. The builders had ignored the strong current that ran through the area. Today, the wharf sits abandoned and gradually falling into the sea.
North of the wharf, randomly spaced moorings held twenty or more vessels. From previous visits, Gybe knew that individuals had installed most of the moorings. They lacked the rectilinear orderliness of government intervention. The variety of boats paralleled the free spirit of the mooring field.
Just beyond the moorings and this side of the large resort, Gybe selected an anchorage well clear of other vessels.
On the bow, Ferrity carried two anchors with separate rodes. Each anchor rested in its own roller, which eased deployment. Gybe released the safety bar from the Bruce anchor and eased the twenty-kilogram anchor over the bow, locking the rode to hold the anchor just at water’s edge.
He returned to the cockpit and showed Kara how to maneuver the boat to the spot he had picked. “I’ll signal you when to stop. Remember, we want to stop with the bow into the wind.”
Before returning to the bow, he suggested that Kara turn Ferrity in a circle and experiment with the throttle.
On the bow, he used simple hand signals to direct Kara to the right or left. When the boat was near the spot that he wanted, he held up a fist as a signal to stop the boat.
Kara slipped the transmission into neutral, paused for a couple of seconds, then reversed the engine. Hearing Gybe release the anchor, she shifted the transmission back into neutral and awaited the next command from the bow.
When the boat drifted to a stop, he had released the three-eighths chain rode until the anchor rested on the bottom. With no forward motion, the wind was already moving the boat backwards. He turned and motioned Kara to back the boat slowly.
As the boat moved back, Gybe released more chain until he saw the fifteen-fathom mark on the chain. The depthsounder had indicated a depth of five fathoms in this area. With this three-to-one scope, he snubbed the chain and returned to the cockpit.
With the engine controls still in reverse, he revved the engine to two-thirds power to set the anchor. While the engine backed, he returned to the foredeck where he confirmed that the anchor had set. He turned towards Kara and with his hand slashing across his throat he indicated that she should cut the engine.
While the engine cooled under idle, Gybe eased out another ten fathoms of chain before attaching the two nylon snubbers. Between the wind that swept down off the mountain and the current that raced through the anchorage, Gybe wanted to insure that the anchor didn’t drag. Or if it did, it would have to drag a lot of iron.
Kara appeared behind him.
“What are those?”
Each of the two snubbers was a twenty-five foot length of three-quarter inch three-strand nylon rope. Using a rolling hitch, he tied one end of the snubber to the anchor chain. Kara tied the other snubber to the chain just above the first one. With the windlass, he eased out more chain until the knots were just under the water, then he tied the end of each snubber to a cleat on the foredeck. When he eased out more chain, the chain hung loose as the nylon ropes absorbed the load of the anchor chain.
“The nylon stretches and dampens the pull of the anchor system on the bow of the boat.”
After shutting down the engine, Gybe put Kara on the air pump and told her to inflate the dinghy.
“Equal rights, you know.” Gybe told Kara. “You should have it inflated in a few minutes.” The pump was a double-action, high volume, vertical-stroke air pump commonly used by river rafters. He connected the hose to the inflatable floor.
“When the floor is inflated, move the hose to the inflatable keel. Then inflate each of the side chambers. I’ll get the outboard ready.”
Kara braced her feet on each side of the pump and started lifting the T-handle. . Double-action meant that it pumped on the up-stroke as well as the down-stroke.
Back in the cockpit, Gybe saw that the outboard was still on the rail. There was nothing to do to get it ready so he pulled a cold ale from the reefer and kicked back under the dodger.
“What the hell are YOU doing?” Kara rasped out between breaths.
Like his cold bottle of ale, but for entirely different reasons, beads of water glistened on Kara’s forehead. “Is the dink ready?”
Gybe shoved the inflatable over the side and moved it to the stern of Ferrity – under the small boom holding the outboard motor. Kara lowered the motor and Gybe affixed it to the transom. After loading the fuel tank, life jackets, and an equipment bag containing repair parts and running lights, the dinghy was ready.
“Let’s close up the boat and see what’s ashore.” Gybe instructed. “I think the county seat is in Wailuku on the north side of the island. We need to check the bus schedule.”
“Why didn’t we sail to the north side?”
“We’d have to anchor in Kahului – next town over from Wailuku. Nasty northern swells have a direct roll into its anchorage. I’ve been there when the swells surge through the harbor entrance. The boat rolled, pitched, and I was too close to a lee shore. If that weren’t bad enough, there isn’t a secure site to land the dinghy.”
In the winter, he explained, ocean swells created by storms far away in the North Pacific batter the north and northwest facing shores of the islands. Just the opposite occurs in the summer with storm swells arriving from the south and southwest.
Because the southern swells travel farther, the biggest swells were the northern swells that arrive in winter. A wave prediction system alerted surfers and warned beach-going tourists.
As they motored ashore, Gybe scanned the anchored and moored vessels. Subconsciously he was identifying each one and looking for acquaintances. Something about one of the larger sailboats caught his eye. The glare from the background sun prevented him from further identification.
Unlike Kaunakakai, there wasn’t a dinghy dock at Mala Wharf. Instead, bow painters and stern lines laced the dinghies between the catwalk next to the launch ramp and the rocks that formed
the wharf. This technique kept the boats from bashing into either rocks or catwalk when the waves rushed into the area.
After securing the dinghy, they walked across the street to the Lahaina Cannery Mall. Inside, an information booth attendant told them that they could catch the Route 5 bus in the morning. That bus would take them to Wailuku, the county seat.
“OK, that’s done. Let’s head into Safeway. I need supplies. Neither grocery store in Kaunakakai offers much of a selection.”
Thirty minutes later, with nearly a full grocery cart, Gybe and Kara left the store. “I need to stop in here for a minute.” Kara walked towards the Long’s Drug Store.
After loading the dinghy with the supplies, Gybe started the outboard and pointed the small boat towards Ferrity. Again, the one sailboat caught his eye, but because they had purchased perishables, he opted to return directly to the boat.
17
From the bilge, in a specially made wine rack, Gybe transferred a bottle of Australian white wine to the reefer. It replaced the bottle he had just opened. Into two wineglasses, etched with the silhouette of an old brigantine, Gybe poured the chilled white wine. Handing a glass to Kara, he pointed her to the fixing’s for a salad and then went above where he lit off the barbecue grill, mounted on the aft rail.
In their last upstream struggle, two salmon steaks, fresh from a fish farm, appeared from the reefer and landed on the grill.
The sun was an outstretched fist above the horizon, notched between the stern of Ferrity and the fading southern coastline of Moloka‘i, when they sat down to eat. The wind had calmed and the boat rocked gently in the seas.
Gybe preferred anchorages to slips. He didn’t do the God thing, but he knew when to appreciate the moment. Tropical breeze, grilling aromas, wine glass, Kara, Ferrity’s motion, Kara’s body, sun’s descent, far horizon – filled tonight’s sensual inventory.
“Gybe, this is fantastic. I’ve known you for two days. The first night and morning, we anchored off Kaunakakai. Last night, we sipped brandy while watching stars. Now you bring me to another anchorage off Maui. Beautiful sunsets, incredible night sky, terrific food, and drink.”
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