By the time I made it back to the boat, Trent had already bailed her out. Even so, the watermark was well above the floorboards in my cabin. I felt stronger by that evening, albeit with a very sore throat.
Soon after that misadventure we completed most of our repairs. With the leaks stopped as best we could, and the generator functioning decently, the backup generator perfect, the gas pump and all three electric bilge pumps working well, and the engine running smoothly, we headed south toward Panama. I was very excited. We had only 130 miles to the Panamanian border.
Valkyrien caught a gentle wind and we put up a couple of the sails. She moved southward, beautifully, for two days.
34. Pirates!
It is not down on any map; true places never are.
—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
On the third day, evening fell clear, without wind, and we crossed the border. The water became like glass, and I motored four or five miles offshore of the swamps and islands around Bahia de los Muertos—one of the most isolated areas of Panama’s Pacific coast. Many times since we had crossed south of the U.S. border we had seen fishermen working in pangas near shore, often diving for lobster in among the rocks, or catching dorado on hand lines. We would cruise alongside and buy three or four lobsters or a filet of fish, handing over a few pesos as the boatmen tossed their catch to us. These pangas never had more than three men aboard, always with only a small outboard motor.
I saw in the distance of the evening light, racing out of a narrow cove, five boats arcing out toward us.
This doesn’t look like fishermen, I thought.
As the boats grew near, I observed that each vessel carried five or six men aboard. The boats cruised in formation, each perfectly aligned in the wake of the boat in front.
The first boat headed directly at our stern, coming fast. Elias looked at me with real concern and said, “Pirates?”
I nodded.
We had no weapons. Nothing we could use to defend ourselves, save the sword Jasper had generously left aboard. I figured our best chance was to bluff. If they thought us well armed and willing to fight, they might wait for easier prey.
I turned Valkyrien hard around, 180 degrees, headed directly toward them and accelerated, on a crash course toward their lead boat. I told Elias to go below, wait for one minute, then walk back up, pretending to carry guns and ammunition. I told Trent to grab a three-foot section of iron pipe from the army case on deck and hand it to me as though it were a shotgun.
The intruders headed straight at us, bow to bow. Their boats were expensive American-made center-consoles, with quiet, 4-stroke 200-horsepower outboard engines. None carried fishing equipment.
I looked directly at the lead helmsman, unmoving and unblinking as he zoomed in. At the last moment he swerved slightly to port, passing us starboard to starboard. As the other aggressors cleared close by our starboard side I swung Valkyrien hard around again, now following the bandits back onto our old course south. They increased throttle in unison, then turned around and passed us like sharks about 150 yards off our port side, headed back toward their cove.
I took a deep breath, hoping they would leave us alone. But once again they turned toward us. This time they spread out, running their boats hard in circles around Valkyrien, over and over. All the while they watched us, assessing, looking for weakness and points of attack. I told Elias to crouch over the steering wheel with one hand held below the captain’s chair, out of sight.
Trent bent down and passed me the iron pipe low along the deck. I pushed my right foot on top of it. The pirates could see only what appeared to be a long-barreled weapon, hidden just below the gunwale. I stood over the pipe, looking down at the brigands.
The first boat slowed and drove up alongside Valkyrien. Their helmsman steered just a foot or so off our side, and the four other men aboard eyed me coldly, ready to leap. Our faces were only about two feet from each other. The outlaws closed on each other’s crafts, less than a boat length apart.
The first vessel rode up, going only about half a knot faster than Valkyrien. Each crewman stared eye to eye with me, unflinching. The second boat, with six men aboard, did the same. Then the third boat sidled up menacingly, carrying their leader, a huge man standing at the center of the boat. He too looked at me with the cold eyes of a killer. Four of the five boats had lined up close enough to Valkyrien for all of their crews to step aboard at once.
The three of us on Valkyrien met the stares of the twenty or so men without flinching, trying to look as though we dared them to step aboard and be slaughtered.
Amid this standoff I spoke, finally, in Spanish: “Sufficiente. We are not in need of fish.”
Their leader turned his head and shouted a single word, unintelligible to me, toward his helmsman. Their boat turned hard outside, at full throttle. Only a second later each of the other boats copied him, peeling out in unison and falling in behind. They headed back, arcing toward their nameless darkening cove, disappearing as night fell.
We never saw them again.
That night, we relied upon the engine, fighting a steep current on our final leg to the Canal. I took the Valkyrien further offshore to avoid entanglements, and to give us time to deal with things if the engine conked out, so we would not be pushed immediately against the rocky beach.
I asked Trent to drive a minimum of fifteen miles offshore and slept for a couple of hours. When I returned to the cockpit, we were only two miles offshore. I spoke again to Trent, more sharply, saying we must stay at least fifteen miles offshore.
The pirate incident had deeply disturbed Trent and Elias, and the leaking Valkyrien gave them little confidence. I explained that the farther offshore we sailed, the safer we would be—no rocks to run into, no shore to be smashed upon. But once again, after I returned to my cabin, Trent turned Valkyrien in close to shore.
I exploded, but Trent replied impassively, “Fifteen is just a number.”
I said, “Well, yes, it is just a number, but it is the number of nautical miles that I ordered you to remain offshore.”
I climbed below and fell asleep again in my bunk. A couple of hours later, Trent, afraid of being so far off the coast, steered Valkyrien back toward the beaches. This time I woke up when the engine conked out. Trent had driven Valkyrien into a fish trap only a mile off a rocky point. The current pushed us in toward the rocks, with the trapline hopelessly tangled in the propeller.
I dread the deep ocean; recalling especially the first chapter of the novel Jaws, I am filled with fear when I swim at night. Both Elias and Trent refused to jump in the water to help clear the prop. Slicing out the line, holding a flashlight, a knife, the propeller, and my breath was a difficult job. I spent an hour alone cutting the rope from the propeller and the driveshaft as we drifted closer to the rocks.
Eventually, I cleared the shaft and climbed back aboard. The atmosphere on the boat had become tensely clouded with resentment, shame, fear, and doubt. We made our way along the shore, trading shifts through that night, running the generator, charging the batteries and pumping out Valkyrien.
By late the next evening, we slid around Punta Mariato, the southernmost point of land in North America.
Long ago on a rafting trip, a German aristocrat had whispered earnestly to me as I faced a disorderly crew, saying, “There are places where a hierarchy is needed.” This sounded completely crazy and against all of my values as an American. However, while sailing off a foreign shore at night, in a leaking boat, order must be kept.
Trent had become quite terrified of the water. In the desert, independence is prized perhaps above all other qualities. He had never known the need to follow the orders of another man.
Although Elias understood the importance of chain of command, his fear had taken him long past the place where he could do as he was told. He had signed up for a sunny trip south in a beautiful wooden boat. The shore was home to
him: He spoke the language; he understood the risks. After the pirate incident I figured Elias would abandon Valkyrien the first chance he got.
I was not sure whether Trent would stay or go. He had been told horror stories about Mexico and the world south of the United States his whole life. When he first came aboard the Valkyrien he was grateful to be away from a land that he thought was populated by robbers, thieves, drug dealers, corrupt police officers, and communists. But that night I realized that Trent had come to fear the sea even more than the people onshore.
I anchored Valkyrien in a small cove near Tonosí. I suspected the crew of treachery but slept anyway, too tired to chastise or inspire them. I wondered as I fell asleep whether they would both desert in the morning.
35. Considering an Ending
Can’t go on,
everything I had is gone—
stormy weather.
—Billie Holiday, Stormy Weather
When I woke the following morning, I was alone on Valkyrien. Trent and Elias had taken the canoe ashore and made a run for it. Elias was Costa Rican. He could cross the border back to his own country with only his national ID.
Trent, on the other hand, would face great difficulty. He had no entry papers for Panama, and without entry papers they would not let him fly home. He would first have to explain how he came to be in their country. Panamanians frown on sailors who abandon ship. They certainly did not want merchant captains plying the Canal to worry about whether their crews could simply walk off the job midway through an ocean crossing.
I looked out at the cove. The clear blue water extended a few hundred yards to shore and a small fishing village. The lower unit on the whaler’s engine had by then completely frozen up. So I dove overboard, swam slowly to the beach, and retrieved the canoe from where the mutineers had abandoned it. The paddle was missing, so
I swam the canoe back out to Valkyrien, pushing it through the surf at first, then pulling from the bow, and finally climbing in and paddling with my hands.
6. The song “Stormy Weather” was written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler, and sung by many great artists.
I made myself a bit of food and put Valkyrien in order. Alone, I began thinking hard about whether to give up the voyage. I had sailed her over eight thousand miles through all sorts of storms, those in my head, sowing doubt and obsession, always being the most challenging.
We were told that Valkyrien was ready for this journey when we purchased her. It turned out the deck leaked badly, so we sealed the deck. Then the rigging had to be replaced. With help we installed new stays. Then we had to replace the bulletproof engine—and the propeller, too. The bowsprit and boomkin were rebuilt by hand, but then we lost the new bowsprit in a blow off Guatemala. Most of the sails tore on the way south. The steering wheel clanked off. The GPS and the VHF radio stopped working, along with the depth sounder, the radar, and the stove. The head and holding tank leaked. The masts came loose and worked the hull. The stuffing box leaked, and the major frames around the stuffing box rotted out. Wood frames on the “house” rotted completely away, leaving a gaping hole in the corner six feet long. The winches failed, as did the blocks. Many of the systems were at the breaking point or had been driven to failure. Most of the pumps had broken, and both motors for the anchor windlass broke. The freshwater system, the other head, the auxiliary battery charger, the alternator, and the generator—all of them broke. The desalinator did not work. The starter broke, then failed again, then broke a third time. The Whaler engine was broken by negligent joyriding.
But we persevered. Through it all, Valkyrien remained afloat.
I have met an astonishing number of people in my life who believe that they know God’s will for them and seek only to carry it out. As I agonized over the prospect of whether or not to abandon Valkyrien, so close to the Canal, I thought to myself how much easier life would be if one could actually receive a sign from God about what to do next.
I stepped across the jib that lay on the deck of Valkyrien, and within seconds of wishing for a sign, a huge, completely random wind struck the boat, literally out of nowhere. I have never before or since experienced a wind like this. The wind caught the huge jib, lifting it up and carrying me with it, tumbling over the side of the boat. I struck the water headfirst, with almost no air in my lungs. The sail covered the water above my head.
Of course I have come up for air below sails and tarps many times in my life, so although my lungs felt as though on fire for need of air, I did not panic. I kicked until my body was tight up against the sail, then pushed as hard as I could with my hand open against it. But the sail did not lift off of the sea. It remained in place as though glued to the surface.
I swam up again, kicking hard, and hit it with both hands, but still the sail did not move. It occurred to me then that I might well drown. The sail darkened the sea, and with no air in my lungs, it became difficult for me to see, and I felt disoriented.
I swam like hell in one straight line, hoping for the best, only to swim straight into the keel of Valkyrien. I knew I would not be able to make it under the boat and up on the other side, so I darted out once more, taking several strokes before I got past the sail and sunlight penetrated the water. I lit to the surface, gasping for breath.
I swam over to Valkyrien and climbed up the side using the portholes as a ladder. I looked down at the sail that had almost drowned me and thought to myself, That was weird. These words encompassed a range and train of thought about God, the existence of God, how we make things happen in our lives, free will, and also about people who think God has given them a specific message. I held doubt in my heart. I looked across the calm blue water at the rough-hewn huts and hardscrabble roadway at the edge of this fishing village, then lay down on the deck of Valkyrien, staring at the whisps of white cloud, turning red as the sun set. I began reflecting upon where I was, who I was, and what I was doing. I had set out on a fool’s errand that has come to nothing.
36. The Waves at Punta Mala
Lord, help me . . .
My boat is so small,
and your sea is so immense.
—French Medieval prayer
Punta Mala sits at the far corner of the Azuero Peninsula and separates the Gulf of Panama from the Pacific Ocean. It is known for vicious, unpredictable weather, and a powerful current that pushes hard against any boat sailing toward the Canal. Punta Mala and Punta Mariato are the southernmost points of the voyage from San Francisco to Washington, DC. I had made it south of the Panama Canal. Once I rounded Punta Mala, I would be traveling north all the way to Washington.
The waves at Punta Mala resemble those of the Great Lakes more than the Pacific. They run high and sharp with a short period that rattles boats—especially wooden boats. Thunderstorms, heavy weather, lightning, and squalls may come from any direction without warning. One of the other tough things about Punta Mala is that there is no safe anchorage within any reasonable distance on either side of the point. People wait for days and even weeks for a window to make the crossing.
But waiting was not an option for me.
I set off, sailing solo the next morning, trying to reach Punta Mala before the tide turned. As I sailed closer to the point I got absolutely hammered by the changing tide and wind. Valkyrien was moving at 6 knots through the water, but because of the opposing currents, we made almost no progress toward the landmass ahead. Valkyrien literally sailed backwards at times, and I did not get near Punta Mala until evening.
I knew that once I rounded Punta Mala I would make it to the Canal. Rounding that point would mean clearing a huge psychological, geographical, and seafaring hurdle. I slogged for four more hours that evening against the current with the wind in my teeth and made only one mile of forward progress—one mile in four hours. Long after sunset, I gave up. With no safe spot to land anywhere near Punta Mala, I turned Valkyrien and motored back to the small fishing village where my c
rew had deserted.
I slept that night, exhausted, with Valkyrien anchored and nearly out of fuel. Most of the Pacific Coast of the United States is dotted with marinas where you can pull up to a pier just like an ordinary gas station. But Panama has no facilities before the Canal. The only way I could get fuel would be to fill up jerry cans at a local gas station and then carry the fuel to Valkyrien’s tanks. But there are also no stores where you can buy jerry cans. And I had no car. And no dinghy. The local fishermen share gas jugs with each other, but no one ever buys more than a couple of gallons at a time. I needed two hundred.
In the morning I rode the canoe ashore, using a 2 X 4 as a paddle. Two fishermen looked on as a wave washed me onto the beach. They ran into the spray to help me pull the dugout up the sand beyond the high-tide mark. They introduced themselves as Pedro and Fernando, and offered to help. We drove from village to village, borrowing variously shaped bottles and jugs and filling them up with diesel. After several hours, we had nearly fifty gallons of fuel, in fifteen differently sized containers. We headed back to the village and the canoe.
Pedro, Fernando, and I carried the fuel jugs to their small panga. Waves broke more fiercely on the beach, and a group of men helped us to push the panga down the beach and into the breaking waves. Valkyrien was the most interesting thing that had happened in this village in communal memory, and everyone wanted to take part.
A huge wave lifted the panga over our heads and tossed it sideways on top of Pedro and me. We dove quickly under. The bottom of the boat scraped our backs as we pressed our chests against the hard sand bottom. When we popped up on the other side, the little panga had completely flooded. Our diesel jugs floated about, bobbing away. Pedro jumped aboard and to my astonishment, started the small outboard and floored it into the next breaking wave. That wave lifted the panga almost vertical and emptied her flooded cockpit over the stern. Pedro bounced over the wave in a now-dry panga. (Apparently these boats flip all the time in the surf, and villagers commonly use the steep waves to bail them out.) I grabbed the free-floating diesel bottles and swam out to the calm beyond the breaking waves, where Pedro and Fernando picked me up. Then the three of us motored out to Valkyrien.
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