Sea Change

by Maxwell Taylor Kennedy

  We made four more trips for fuel. I showed Pedro and Fernando how to start the generator and use the trash pump, and I hired them to sleep on the boat, mostly to keep pumping the bilge every few hours. Then I hitched a ride to a hotel and slept for two days.

  I returned the evening of the fourth day, paddling out to Valkyrien in the canoe. When I climbed aboard, wielding a small flashlight, I was horrified to see bilge water filling the cabin a foot over the floorboards. Pedro and Fernando had abandoned their posts—not out of malice or lethargy; they were fishermen and they had become too superstitious to sleep aboard Valkyrien. They told me there was something unlucky about the boat.

  Pedro told me that he knew a route close to shore where we would not be caught in the current. Despite their misgivings I convinced the two fishermen to guide me beyond Punta Mala. We left an hour before dawn.

  I have traveled extensively in Latin America, and early on I learned that many of the people on land are so friendly and anxious to be helpful, they cannot stand to turn away a traveler in need. They will good-naturedly offer directions even if they have no idea where something is. Unfortunately, the same turned out to be true of fishermen in Panama.

  We sailed far offshore at first, and then motored in tight along the coast. But we never escaped the fierce southwest current. Far from being able to competently pilot Valkyrien around the point, Pedro and Fernando seemed terrified by the waves that gathered sharply off Punta Mala. They finally admitted, under some rather severe questioning, that this was the farthest they had ever been from their village in their entire lives.

  Around sundown, still a mile from Punta Mala, and unable to make headway against the brutal current, I was again forced to give up. Tired, sore and dejected, we sailed—forlorn—back to the village.

  I decided to try one more time the following morning. But no one from the village would go with me; they all had a bad feeling about the boat.

  I slept for a few hours, then late that night I pulled up the anchor and, sailing Valkyrien alone, drove once again toward Punta Mala. Two or three hours later the engine conked out. I changed the filters and restarted it, but after another two hours or so, it again stopped running. I opened up the fuel filters and found they were packed with rust and dirt and probably a dozen other types of particles. I had purchased contaminated diesel.

  I had no more filters, so I washed out the old ones several times, then reinstalled them. I poured the cleanest diesel I had into the old plastic holding tank I had cleaned back in the estero in El Salvador. With the tank half-full, most of the diesel remained inside, below the crack on top.

  I began cannibalizing Valkyrien. First, I cut out a section of her fuel lines and looped them into the broken holding tank. Then, I cut the return hose and looped that into the holding tank as well. The jury-rigged auxiliary fuel supply system worked.

  I ran up and down the stairs every forty-five minutes to add fuel to the holding tank. Valkyrien chugged her way up the coast, now and then finding little eddies and places where the current was not overwhelming. As evening fell, I turned her just enough to round the last point of land at Punta Mala. But the wind beat us down hard for the next hour, and I made no progress. I still felt it was possible I would make it, but only if I held very tight—dangerously tight—to the shore. I cruised her to just a few hundred yards from the tip of the point when the engine quit. I had no time to deal with re-cleaning the filters.

  I rushed to raise the repaired mainsail and the storm sail. Valkyrien pointed high enough to make it just around Punta Mala. I had an hour of falling light, and I figured with some good luck I could round the point before dark, then sail the calmer waters of the bay through the night. It would be easier to have the engine repaired the closer I got to the Canal. I sailed straight, but the powerful current pushed back against me. Again, I made no forward progress.

  The wind built until the waves stood sharply up against Valkyrien’s bow. She leaned hard over and spray blew off the top of the waves, creating whitecaps and mist all around me.

  As I approached shore I could see the individual rocks on the tip of Punta Mala, but a storm was building around me. I was not sure whether I would make it around the rocks if I kept going, but I knew that if I tacked I would be pushed back to the village. This was my last chance. So I sailed on, closer and closer to the rocks. And then, bang!

  The boom exploded. I have been on boats several times when masts or booms cracked. But I have heard that explosion only once. The break sounded sharp, like the crack of a traditional high-power rifle. The sail began snapping back and forth immediately, crashing pieces of the boom across the cockpit.

  Valkyrien was pushed hard over to port by the waves breaking against her bow. I jumped up and tied the boom as best I could, wrapping the mainsail and putting tie after tie around it. Once again pulled only by her jibs, Valkyrien sailed within a couple of hundred yards from the rocks. She could not make it around the point, and with no mainsail she could not turn up into the wind. The only way to miss the rocks would be to make a jibe. But Valkyrien required a wide radius to jibe, and it looked like we would be crashed against the rocks before she could complete the turn.

  I ran below and moved the jury-rigged fuel tank so that it sat on the floorboards above the engine, hoping gravity would push enough fuel to the injection pump. Then I cranked on the engine. It started and ran hard, coughing and clanking, as the foul fuel jammed through the tired injectors. I knew I would have the motor for only a few minutes at best. And I had no way of sailing at night, or of anchoring along that coast. A small cove lay nearly dead ahead of me, just a few hundred yards below Punta Mala.

  I have heard so many times (in various contexts) “any port in a storm.” This cove was the most dangerous harbor I have ever tried to enter. Gigantic, sharp rocks, all smashed by waves, ringed the cove. The entrance was formed by rock cliffs. Nonetheless, the cove was my only chance. I quickly created a plan to get inside and anchor up.

  A rocky promontory jutted out from shore, into the center of the cove, splitting it in half. The lower half of the cove was filled with rocks on shallow ground—entirely unusable. The upper half offered the most dangerous anchorage I have ever used. Fifteen-foot swells rolled into the narrow entrance of the cove, then crested in the shallower water, two hundred yards off the beach, becoming breakers that would lift Valkyrien and crash her to pieces. But a powerful wind blew straight out from that beach, so if I timed it right I could turn up into the wind and drop anchor at the edge of the break. The wind might be strong enough to hold me off the beach; if it became too strong, it would push me onto the promontory.

  I had almost no time to prepare the anchor and steer her into the cove. I needed to drop the anchor in the shallowest possible water right up close to shore at the beginning of the break. I ran to the bow, locked the windlass, and pushed the anchor over the side to dangle from about ten feet of chain. It swayed back and forth, smashing into Valkyrien’s bow, shaking the entire boat. I ran back to the helm, but I was too late. Valkyrien rattled into the cove, headed straight back onto the rocks.

  But the cliff walls blocked the wind, and I was nursed the spluttering motor, edging Valkyrien just above the rocks. A moment later Valkyrien’s engine cut out again, for the last time. My relief turned to horror.

  I quickly weighed my options: The Whaler was broken. I could not possibly paddle the canoe. My best chance would be to jump overboard and try to swim out of the cove then tread water through the night in the currents off Punta Mala. This was the worst contingency plan I’ve ever had.

  Fortunately, I was given another reprieve. Beyond the cliff walls the wind inside the cove gusted up so strong that Valkyrien’s masts and sides acted as sails. She picked up speed “sailing on bare poles,” and I steered her again just above the rocks. I swung Valkyrien hard to starboard, into the wind and directly toward the little beach. I thought for a moment that she would be
lifted too far, and like a lost surfboard we would be caught in the breaking waves and tossed ashore. Miraculously, though, the wind halted Valkyrien’s forward motion just before the break.

  I scrambled to her bow and struck the windlass with a hammer, dropping the anchor and chain straight down. Valkyrien hovered there, frozen in place for two or three of the longest minutes of my life. Powerful wind pushed her back toward the rocks, and strong waves lifted her in the opposite direction—toward the beach. Slowly the wind won out and pushed Valkyrien backwards above the swell.

  I ran to the bow and stood beside the windlass, working the chain. Every sixty feet I locked the windlass, jerking the anchor to catch the bottom. Valkyrien pulled and pulled. About halfway to the promontory the anchor caught, and she snapped into the wind. The anchor held her in place, perfectly equidistant from the beach and the promontory.

  The return waves (coming from the beach) grew so tall that they buried Valkyrien’s bow, flooding her decks. While the ordinary waves, around fifteen foot swells, lifted her stern, the two sets coming from opposite directions twisted her wildly. Spray hit so hard into my eyes that even at anchor it was difficult to look toward the bow. Daylight faded just minutes after the anchor grabbed, and with the loss of light came the start of a long dark night.

  The anchor chain pulled at the capstan, which pulled at Valkyrien’s critical bow timbers—and these began to loosen. She was coming apart, leaking at her bow for the first time, beginning to die.

  37. End of the Line

  And in short, I was afraid.

  —T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

  The waves and chain and wind pulled at Valkyrien’s bones. Either her bow would split and she would sink, or her capstan would be ripped out and she would be smashed to pieces. I did not think she would make it through the night. I began to feel increasingly afraid. Anxiety dominated my thoughts. For a time I could think only of the many ways I might die here, losing sight of the possible ways out.

  For the longest time, I had been trying to figure out whether I was being vain and hardheaded in forcing the voyage to go on, no matter how much it seemed a sane person would stop. My mother had raised me with the powerful belief that I should never quit. Failure seemed a terrible option. But despite this core tenet, I whispered a silent prayer, promising that if I got through this night, I would give up the trip and admit failure. I would abandon the Valkyrien to her fate and go home.

  I had a tiny bit of signal on the Panamanian cell phone I had purchased at a Chinese hardware store, but only a couple of minutes left on the plan. The phone would stop working when my minutes ran out. I called my friend Jonah, who is a computer genius, extraordinarily loyal, and a person I knew I could always count on. I spoke with him very briefly, and told him the name of the Panamanian cell carrier, my Panamanian cell number, that I was in a bad position, and needed more minutes.

  I have no idea how he did it, but Jonah, late at night, somehow convinced the carrier to add minutes to my plan. Around midnight I called Vicki, waking her. We spoke for half an hour.

  Me: “Baby, this boat is really rocking. I think she may not make it through the night. You know how I never seem to get scared? Well, I’m actually scared this time.”

  Vicki: “Well . . . [long pause] . . . I don’t understand. Everything will be okay. [pause] What’s happening there? Where exactly are you?”

  Me: “I’m sorry, Vicki—so completely sorry. [pause] I had no choice. This effing cove was the best of a really bad set of options. Basically, the engine quit, for good. The wind was against me. The waves were really against me. The current was completely against me. I could barely sail—I mean, just barely. The current is so tough here. Anyway, it’s fairly tough to sail this boat without a crew, and then, I’m out here in this horrendous area where there is not a single effing safe harbor for literally, like, a hundred miles of the coast. The masts are effed up, and then the boom snapped. I was incredibly lucky to make it into this place; the whole rest of the area would have smashed Valkyrien. But this place is awful—just ridiculously bad. The Whaler is toast—at least for now. Anyway . . . I am so, so sorry. [long pause] I actually really don’t know what to do. I am so effed, completely scared as hell. You cannot even believe how effing scared I am. This boat and I are completely effed.”

  Vicki, hearing the fear in my voice responded with complete calm. “Everything will be okay, [pause]. . . Max, you have always been fine on a boat. You will work this out, I’m sure of it.”

  It sounded to me as though she had not understood a word I’d just said. I thought to myself, “Vicki really does not understand much about boats.” But her tone also calmed me. I knew that I didn’t want to scare Vicki, but I really wanted her to understand the level of danger here. I was angry as hell at myself. A phrase from Hamlet kept running through my head—“that it should come to this.”

  Vicki continued to talk to me, her voice reassuring me all the way from our house in Los Angeles, across to that miserable, rock-filled cove.

  Vicki: “Max, you know how to do this. Remember when we were first dating and we’d go to the Cape for the weekend? Whenever a big storm blew in, we would paddle out in the sea kayak to the end of the break wall, and when we got to the really broken part of it, you would jump out and swim right up next to the wall through giant waves. The waves would be smashing against the rocks, but you were always comfortable. You are at home in waves like this. [long pause] Max, you have been testing yourself for so long. You can definitely handle this.”

  Me: “Baby, I think this may be different. I could always find some place on the break wall that offered a chance, but here, there is nothing—just sharp rocks and huge waves and so much wind. Valkyrien is coming apart.”

  Vicki: “If you have to swim, you will make it. You can definitely do this.”

  Me: “I truly am effed here.” [long pause] I love you so much. I am so sorry to have put myself in this position.”

  Vicki suggested that I pretend a video camera was mounted to the mast and that she and our children were there, watching and cheering me on. This thought gave me an immediate measure of calm. She was right: I had been in bad situations before. I knew what to do. I knew how to behave. The right thing to do was to stay calm, and to go through the boat all night long, fixing things as they broke, checking on systems, making sure the bilge was working, figuring out the best spots to swim ashore. Watching how the boat moved and trying to figure out what would happen if she came apart. Would she sink? Would she break the chain and be pushed backward? Would the masts break through the deck?

  If my wife and children or friends or crew members were here with me, I would certainly do the right thing. So I decided to just pretend that others were with me, seeing me, and I’d do the right thing.

  Vicki: “Max, you will be completely fine. Sleep if you can. If the boat doesn’t make it through the night, you will swim ashore. Then the trip is over. That is all.”

  Me: “Vicki, I don’t think I can stand to quit. I don’t know how I would tell everyone that I gave up.”

  Vicki: “Max, look. So the trip did not work out? It doesn’t matter. You tried hard and had a great adventure. None of your friends will judge you because you did not make the trip. They know you. They know that no one else could have made it this far.”

  Me: “Baby, it does not matter how far I made it; if I don’t make it all the way, I failed. No one cares what storms I hit along the way; the question is: Did I bring the boat home? And I have not.”

  Vicki: “Your friends do not care. Your children do not care. They love you. They don’t love you because you’re a good sailor or because you weathered a wild storm. It is not the sailing or the rafting or the trips into the desert. It is you that they love. You need to really know this, Max, deep down. Once you do, you will be ready to get off that boat.”

  Vicki had done her best not to sound worried.
Her words warmed my heart and gave me the courage to make it through that night, doing what needed to be done aboard the boat—despite my fear. I spent the night methodically going through Valkyrien, until dawn broke and I watched a beautiful red sunrise as the waves and wind continued to pound us.

  Everything on a boat seems safer in daylight, but the wind blew just as hard. And the waves stayed just as big. The engine was broken, the boom was gone. The Whaler did not have enough fuel to get me to safe harbor. The sun had been setting when I’d entered the cove. With the dawn I was able to look around for the first time with real light, searching for a way out. I could see huge amounts of water entering the cove, as waves, and knew that all of this water must also be going out somewhere. It appeared that when the ocean water crowded against the promontory in the center of the cove, it was pushed out to sea.

  I knew from having worked as a rafting guide that when a current hits the steep wall of a gorge, the river often acts like a pillow. Even when a raft is thrown hard in the direction of the gorge wall, the piled-up water holds it off from actually hitting the wall. I couldn’t sail out of the cove, and I had no chance of motoring out; but it occurred to me that it might be possible to float out along that line of exiting current.

  I watched the lines of wind and waves. I thought that I might just make it. The only way to be sure was to try. This meant cutting Valkyrien loose from her anchor and floating in toward the waves breaking against the promontory. By this point, I had little to lose. My only hesitation was the thought that I might have a greater chance of survival if I jumped into the ocean and swam to the shore across the bay. The waves striking the beach there seemed smaller, and the rocks, not quite as sharp.