A Sail of Two Idiots

by Renee Petrillo

  Before we were done counting sheep, we were woken at midnight when some winds kicked in, the anchors got tangled together, and we ended up on the move again. By now it was incredibly gusty (from multiple directions) and the currents were strong. Although we got the anchors up and back down again without a problem, we took turns performing anchor watches (about three hours on and three hours off this time) until daybreak, not trusting the anchors to hold. Morning brought torrential rains. Boy, my mom didn’t know what she was missing!

  Peter Island, as an anchorage, earned a skull and crossbones icon on our chartplotter.

  Maybe we’d seen enough of the Virgins. It was time to start leapfrogging to St. Martin.

  First up, though, a quick final 20-mile sail and provisioning trip to St. Thomas. Done. Next up? Virgin Gorda. But wait! The day we had planned to head there, who should we get an e-mail from? Why it was our long lost Bahamas/Dominican Republic friends Joe and Becky on Half Moon. We hadn’t seen them since we left Luperon in the Dominican Republic about two months before. We hadn’t sailed with them since the Bahamas! How fortuitous that I had decided to check the weather one more time. They had e-mailed that they were at Christmas Cove, Great St. James Island, our favorite snorkeling spot (just east of St. Thomas), and it was too bad that we weren’t there too. Well, maybe not, but we could be! They had no idea that we were only 20 minutes away.

  Although we were hoping to surprise them, they saw us coming and soon there was much jubilation on the VHF. We snorkeled, they shared two of their last Dominican beers, we shared our horded pretzels, and we bonded over dinner made on the new barbecue grill that my mom had carried down for us in her luggage. Life was full.

  As is the life of boaters, we were soon saying good-bye again. Joe and Becky were about to delve into their repairs and begin their island hopping while we were about to set sail for the 29-mile trip northeast to Virgin Gorda. Until the next port, Half Moon!

  What an invigorating sail we had; the waters were choppy! And the constant VHF babble said that swimmers in the area were being battered by the rough seas and also being stung by jellyfish. We listened in as people called the Coast Guard asking for various forms of assistance. Five hours later, we were moored off The Baths, part of Devil’s Bay National Park, on Virgin Gorda’s west coast, forlornly looking at the shore. The shore we would have to swim to. We’d just spent hours listening to people yelling about jellyfish stings. But we took heart that others were in the water and in we jumped.

  Wow! The boulder formations were astounding. Having a lot of people around only enhanced the fun of running among, above, and around the strange rock clusters. Peek-a-boo! Virgin Gorda, or specifically The Baths and the park’s surrounding trails, are a must-see.

  Before leaving for St. Martin the next day, we needed a place to sleep, so we headed into the North Sound, 8 miles to the north. This location promised to be a lot like Allen’s Cay in the Bahamas, with Virgin Gorda to the south and three other smaller islands providing protection from the other directions. The guidebooks made the northern entry sound impossible (it wasn’t), so we decided to take a shortcut through a shallow area on the west side of the harbor instead, between Virgin Gorda and Mosquito Island; we were aiming for Blunder Bay (nice name). It was unnerving, but I followed another catamaran in, leaving plenty of room to stop if the lead boat hit bottom. We didn’t want to follow suit.

  What a pretty place! Everyone had recommended the Bitter End Yacht Club (on the eastern end of Virgin Gorda) and other popular restaurants, but we were learning that we weren’t drawn to those places. Nor did we want to deal with the crowds anchored near them. Instead, we headed for the east coast of Mosquito Island (just north of Virgin Gorda), where there were no services and no boats, and a beautiful reef to anchor behind.

  As we were anchoring, a huge shadow passed below us. We both saw it and our eyes got big as we turned to look at each other. Um, what was that? We decided that neither of us was going to jump in to check the anchor, so we dinghied over the top of it and looked down instead. Good enough!

  Other than the windows and an alternator glitch, we didn’t do too badly. We still had some outstanding problems that we couldn’t get resolved, either because we couldn’t find the parts or didn’t want to wait for them to be shipped to us. We figured we could take care of the rest of the issues once we got to St. Martin, which we had heard had bigger and cheaper marine stores (no duty). Our to-do list was down to about three pages (from ten). Not too terrible!

  21

  Bonjour! Welcome to St. Martin (and a Quickie to St. Barths and Anguilla)

  St. Martin: The Prequel

  Although we had been to St. Martin years earlier on a bareboat charter, I didn’t include it in our “experience” description because the trip was a disaster. We had chartered a 43-foot catamaran with my mom and her husband, Jim. Mom had crewed before, but Jim was the only one who knew how to sail. You’ll remember that Michael had never even seen a catamaran before we decided to buy one, and I’d never been on one bigger than a Hobie Cat. And all I knew then was how to take orders.

  After three to four days into our bareboat charter, Jim wound up in the St. Martin hospital, where he stayed for another three days while arrangements were made to get him back to the States.

  While Jim was in the hospital, the boat was anchored in the Philipsburg harbor, and it started dragging. None of us had the slightest idea how to drive the boat, turn on the chartplotter (let alone read it), work the VHF, or re-anchor (what’s this bridle thingamajig for?). We didn’t even understand the refrigeration system. Now you know why I’m such an advocate of LESSON 26, Role play.

  Sure, Jim and a charter company representative had tried to explain some things to us our first day, but we knew that Jim would handle it all (and tell us what to do when necessary). We had no idea what they were talking about, so we didn’t pay attention. It was a loooong two days dragging and dragging again across the harbor before a nearby boater took pity on us (or wanted to protect his own boat) and motored us into a slip in the marina.

  We ended up hiring a captain and did take quick trips to Anguilla, St. Barths, and Saba, but our hearts weren’t in it.

  We dedicate this chapter to Jim, who died two weeks later (of lung cancer).

  St. Martin: Redo

  Let’s try this again and make Jim proud. Most boaters exit the North Sound, motor out the northern entrance, sail down Virgin Gorda’s eastern coast, and then angle southeast toward St. Martin. We still had to clear customs on the southwest side of Virgin Gorda, so left the North Sound the way we came in. Once legal we scooted out from the southwestern end of the island and then headed southeast, slightly off the usual track. We left around sunset, expecting our 95-mile sail to take about 13 hours (we were averaging about 7 knots these days). Although we didn’t have a buddy boat to talk with, we could hear other sailors chattering on the VHF and could see their mast lights in the distance most of the night. It was nice to be secretly buddy-boating without being clustered together.

  The best part about this sail was having clear skies and glittering stars. Hurray! No lightning, no pummeling rain, no gusty winds. Hey—this was kind of romantic.

  At about 2 a.m. I was watching a bleep on our radar and could see a boat drifting closer to us. Just when I was debating what maneuver I would take to avoid it, the blip suddenly changed course (back to where it had seemed to be heading an hour earlier). Whew! I figured that the boater fell asleep and, when we came within a nanometer of each other, his radar alarm went off, sending him into action. There’s another reason a radar is a nice-to-have.

  That sail was a nice change of pace. Fluky winds may have added another three hours to our voyage, but that couldn’t squelch our excitement to be starting a new day at our first French destination. Bonjour! and Ça va? St. Martin (or Sint Maarten to the Dutch) is shared by two countries (since the 1640s!): France to the north and the Netherlands to the south. We’d be going to the closest place to check in:
Marigot, on the French portion’s west coast.

  Our first observation was that the customs agents were very informal. Checking in was easy and cheap (as on all the French islands we would visit).

  Note: The French did start charging to anchor in Marigot harbor in 2009, but it was still less than in the Dutch anchorages. The Dutch charged for everything, from anchoring in Simpson Harbor, to going through their much wider and deeper Simpson Bay drawbridge, to anchoring on their side of the Simpson Bay Lagoon. Their customs fees were higher too. To save money, anchor on the French side of the island and use their drawbridge (if you have a shallow-draft boat—5 feet or less).

  Our second observation was that the harbor had lots of rolling swells due to deteriorating weather conditions. That meant a trip inside Simpson Bay Lagoon through a drawbridge (the Sandy Ground Bridge). Gulp—or, as the French would say—merde!

  Staring at the bridge, I found it hard to believe that a catamaran could fit through that narrow gap (supposedly 30 feet wide but it didn’t look it). I’d also heard that the lagoon was really shallow in spots. Before I could completely freak out about it, though, it was showtime.

  First the boats came out of the lagoon, so I drove around in circles waiting … waiting … Despite my fear, I crookedly smiled at Michael and gunned the engines. Never let ’em see you sweat.

  I was elated to have another catamaran in front of me to set the pace and line up with. On y va! When I wasn’t staring concernedly at the mast and the lifted bridge, willing the two not to touch, I was having paranoid delusions about what the people on the road were thinking as we slowly motored past. Most likely they were simply willing us to hurry up so they could get their café and baguette, but that’s not what I heard.

  Another first! We were in! With our mast still attached!

  There were quite a few boats inside and lots of grass on the lagoon bottom. Apparently they hadn’t done any dredging lately. We couldn’t find any sandy spots to plop in, so we had to hope our anchor would hold in the grass. Success would depend on how hard the wind blew.

  Once set, we dinghied around looking for some friends of friends we were told should be there. Not only did we find them, but after talking awhile it turned out that they were the boat that crossed our path during our overnighter and, yes, the person on watch had fallen asleep at the wheel and their autohelm had not kept them on course. They were surprised to wake up to see themselves in the cross-hairs of another boat. Our boat. What were the chances?

  They and the rest of the crowd we had heard yakking it up on the VHF the other night were going to a parade on the Dutch side of the island and invited us along. Bien sûr! Once we all joined up, we were surprised to remeet Mike and Kim from Child’s Play. Somewhere in a Puerto Rican harbor, we had given Kim a lift when her dinghy engine had gone kaput. How can you not get Disney’s “It’s a Small World” song stuck in your head? (LESSON 60, Déjà vu.)

  When we were in Philipsburg during our bareboat fiasco, there was no boardwalk, only a bunch of rickety old shacks on the shoreline selling stuff. Now, courtesy of 1995’s Hurricane Luis and a subsequent beautification project, there were four-street-deep stores and restaurants (made of concrete, not wood) running a mile along the shore. And who put all those huge ship terminals in the bay? Wow!

  The parade was small and a bit odd, but worth attending if only to learn how to use the bus system, find a place that sold two beers for $3, and gather tips from others who had been there longer.

  LESSON 77: BOATING ISN’T FOR HERMITS ANYMORE You’d be surprised at how often you’re “adopted” upon arriving somewhere. Some people don’t like that about sailing in the 21st century. There’s no true exploration. Before you even get your anchor set, you’re surrounded by buzzing dinghies filled with fellow yachties wondering where you came from and inviting you to a potluck somewhere. Lots of people have already been where you’re about to go and will happily offer you unsolicited advice before you can cover your ears and go “la la la.” We took what information seemed important to us (such as bridge opening times, Internet connectivity, and security issues), and noted places we hadn’t thought of going, and then decided for ourselves what we wanted to do. You’ll note that I don’t often recommend places for you to go or not go; I just recount our experiences (and give caveats when we knew that others felt differently). Go everywhere! If you don’t like where you are, you can leave; if you do like it, you can stay. That’s why you have a boat!

  Work, Work, Work

  The rest of this chapter belongs in the What Broke? section, but because it’s what we spent all our time doing, I put it here. We spent the next day farming out various boat parts to the multitude of marine stores that lined the lagoon. There are a lot of boat services there, most of them cheaper than anywhere else in the Caribbean, so it is the thing to do when you’re there. What left the boat? Our genny for sewing, the starboard-side winch (the deck hardware that helps us trim the genny), the refrigerator compressor, and the leaking compass.

  Even though we had just bought a lot of stuff on St. Thomas, and Puerto Rico before that, we still had plenty of new items to buy. One of our alternator’s voltage regulators wasn’t working again, which led us to worry about overcharging the batteries again. We also had to replace the cracking rope clutches (hardware stoppers that hold a line under tension), and we really needed to replace the corroding stovetop. No rest for the weary. If you don’t know what all this stuff is, don’t worry—you will.

  Remember that storm system I mentioned? Tropical Storm Olga came barreling through in the middle of December, two weeks after the official close of hurricane season. I guess she didn’t get the memo. Remember how I mentioned we’d be okay anchored in the grass as long as it wasn’t windy? Slip sliding away. …

  We actually stayed put as Olga hung around for a couple of days, bringing us winds from 25 to 30 knots. But our luck was not to hold, nor was our boat, and on the third day of Olga’s onslaught the boat started dragging while Michael was onshore trying to get some chores done. I had stayed behind just in case. I could get the anchor up under normal circumstances, but we had put our 40-pound kellet on the anchor chain for extra weight. When I tried to detach the thing so I could get the anchor up, I discovered that the kellet’s rope had become tangled with the anchor chain.

  Both the rope and the chain were taut, so if I had any hope of disengaging the two, I would need to get some pressure off them. So picture me (or whatever you think I look like) gunning the engines, running forward, struggling with the kellet and anchor and being unable to unsnarl them before overshooting the thing, running back, dethrottling, running back to the bow, realizing I didn’t have enough power, running back … You get the picture.

  I sat there for two hours running the engines to keep us from grounding until Michael got back and could do his part. Once the anchor came up, it was obvious that, while it had been buried (for several days, in fact), the grass roots had finally given way, putting us on the move with a bunch of useless sod on our hook.

  After several attempts to re-anchor, we gave up. Although it was still windy, Hurricane Olga was on her way to terrorize Hispaniola, so we decided that it was safe to move back into Marigot harbor. The holding would be better, although there would be rolling swells. Well … swells or holding? It was a toss-up. We chose swells. Of course that meant we had to tackle the drawbridge again.

  This time Jacumba was in the lead. The drawbridge light turned green and the bridge started to rise, so I headed into the canal. And waited … and waited. Suddenly the current grabbed us and started pulling us forward toward the half-open bridge. Aack! There were boats behind us and the canal was very narrow. About 12 dinghies full of sightseers were lined up like ducks on one side of us, and a catamaran was tied to a dock on the other. Yikes!

  There was nowhere to maneuver. Putting the boat in reverse while fighting the current was a losing battle in such a confined space, and our steerage was next to none at such a low speed. We could onl
y hope that the bridge would finish its excruciatingly slow ascent by the time we got there. Open, open, open!

  Michael had no idea that I had no control over the boat, so he was really surprised when I gunned the engines. He stared at the partly opened bridge, then stared at me, then back at the bridge … What the?! I didn’t have time to explain that I needed to get our speed up to get our steerage back and maneuver us away from the looming bridge posts, so I just eyeballed him to have faith in me. The looks on Michael’s face and the faces of the observers on the road were classic, and I’ll bet mine and the bridge operator’s were pretty picture-worthy too. Everybody duck and inhale!

  Okay, we’re through. Whew!

  REPEAT LESSON 47: Patience, patience, patience Patience is a virtue and imperative if you would like to continue captaining a sailboat, as opposed to a motorboat sporting a snapped-off vertical stub in the center (admittedly, a conversation piece). Do not ever enter a narrow passageway (or drawbridge) unless you know you can keep a straight course to your destination and maintain your momentum. Once you’re moving at less than 3 knots, you lose all steerage (at least you do on a 9-ton catamaran). That’s unnerving when you’re headed for a concrete/steel structure looming across your path.

  Once we were anchored securely in Marigot, I realized I was waay overtired. I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a while and I was crabby. I was sick of fixing things, spending money, running from storms, worrying about dragging, sitting out weather, and getting abused by weather. There was so much unknown in front of us, which both excited me and exhausted me. Plotting the courses, worrying about uncharted reefs and anchoring conditions … Ugh. I headed to bed.

  Once I got some sleep and felt more refreshed, I took solace from the fact that we had replaced, fixed, or upgraded just about everything on the boat. Other than routine maintenance, surely the “big” repairs were behind us. Snort—that thought just made me giggle.