Swell

by Liz Clark

  The door closes and I find myself enveloped in comforting silence. The cool air is laced with the scent of flowers. Soft light filters through the veil of white curtains onto a wide, pillow-lined canopy bed draped in lace. The polished wooden floors are soothing under my feet. A small table in the center of the room is topped with an exotic bouquet and a note. It says “Go crazy, champ. Order whatever your heart desires. So proud of you, Chris.”

  I drop my backpack and twirl on one leg, then skip toward the other side of the room to find a bathroom bigger than the whole cabin of Swell. Slate stone walls open into an expansive sink area, then I turn to find myself face to face with a pristine white, open-air bathtub—jets and all. I open the faucets immediately, peel off my stinky clothes, and toss them into the far corner of the room. I stare at my skinny body in the mirrored walls of the bathroom. My stomach churns. I’ve forgotten my hunger in all the excitement. I prance to the bedside to peruse the in-room dining menu. My mouth waters. I quickly dial room service.

  “Yes, hello. Can I please make an order for room 221? I will have the strawberry waffles with whipped cream, please. Two scrambled eggs, a large orange juice, a side order of fruit salad and cottage cheese and avocado. Oh, and a decaf coffee please.”

  I hang up and climb into my hot bath, dumbfounded by the drastic change in my reality. I lie back in the blessed waters, sinking my head below the surface to let the peaceful sound of the still water hold me as if I’ve returned to the womb. Everything is okay. Hell, it’s more than okay! I’m in a porcelain bathtub!

  I wash my skin and hair with excessive amounts of soap, working a mountainous lather onto my scalp. I clean the stinging, open sores on my backside, then rub the washcloth between every toe, every curve of my ear, every inch of my bare skin, until the water looks a bit swampish.

  I hear a knock on the door. “Room service!”

  Slipping into one of the white terrycloth robes, I go to the door, and push the loaded cart out to my back porch. Flowering jasmine vines and sunshine greet me as I sit down eagerly with my feast. Just before my first bite, I pause, look at the food and my surroundings, suddenly breathless with gratitude. I blurt out, “Thank you, Chris! Thank you, God, and all my angels!”

  With every bite, I’m riding a flavor roller coaster. I chew emphatically. I can almost feel my body soaking up the nourishment as my fork works circles around the tray, sipping coffee and juice periodically. When there isn’t a scrap left, I lick the whipped cream off my utensils and slouch back in my chair to enjoy the most basic of life’s delights—a full belly. I haven’t stopped eating for a full minute when fatigue crashes on me like a wave.

  Parting the draped lace on my princess bed, I leap in headfirst and greet my four new pillow friends, then slip between the crisp white sheets. Paradise. I lie there in astonishment at the feeling of dry bedding, stillness, and safety.

  After a couple hours I get up. No luck reaching my family on Skype, so I decide to take myself out to dinner. I pull on a hand-me-down red dress a friend had given me, fluff my hair, smear Neosporin with Pain Relief on my lips as gloss, and walk out of my room in my new flip-flops as if the dining room is awaiting its guest of honor.

  A young couple walks toward me on the bridge over the turtle pond and I smile as they approach, excited to say hello. But they both look away and walk quickly past me. I shrug it off and carry on. Another couple reaches the restaurant doors just before I do. The man pushes open the door for his companion but lets it swing closed right in my face. Perplexed, I push myself through.

  A pudgy older Frenchman greets me after seating the couple. “Good evening, mademoiselle. Looking for someone?” he inquires.

  “No, sir. It’s just me. I’d like to eat dinner.”

  His face contorts in confusion and pity, but he picks up one lonely menu, and leads me through the rows of gum-swapping, heart-pounding, same-side-of-the-booth-sitting newlywed couples toward an empty table for two near the center of the room. The muffle of voices falls silent. No one’s eyes move. Something tells me I’m gravely out of place. A third wheel. A homewrecker. Smack in the middle of honeymooner’s paradise. And in a red dress, to make matters worse!

  As the Frenchman turns to pull the chair out for me, I spot salvation behind him. An empty cocktail lounge on a covered patio—open and airy, with a cozy raised booth.

  “Excuse me, sir,” I lean in and say, pointing, “would it be okay if I sit over there?”

  With a calculating glance he pauses, “Usually we don’t serve dinner in that section, but I think we could make an exception tonight.”

  Everyone, myself included, is relieved as he leads me out of the room. I hop into my booth and pore over the menu. I gaze at the couples from time to time as I wait for my food to arrive. I guess I envy them a little; I do wish I had someone to talk to after victory at sea and more than two weeks alone. I feel a volcano of words inside me, desperate to erupt.

  “I’m fine,” I tell my chicken Caesar salad. “I just miss my family and friends.”

  Just then I notice a gray tabby kitten peering at me from under the table. I toss him a scrap of chicken. He gobbles it down, then hurries back to safety below a nearby chair. We share my meal and when he finally brushes up on my leg, I’m sure he is a little angel sent to keep me company.

  14,659

  Nautical Miles Traveled

  The

  Boatyard

  I Believe in Angels

  Rust chips fly as anchor chain spews out of Swell’s chain locker into the bay in front of the Bora Bora Yacht Club. My hotel holiday is over. Looking more closely, I find that some of the links have only an eighth of an inch of steel remaining, so when a cruising boat nearby vacates a mooring, I haul the compromised chain back up and tie off to the mooring ball instead. I will have to pull all 300 feet of chain onto the deck, cut out the rusted links, then splice whatever is usable onto my length of nylon rode. But first, I must go ashore and check in with the yacht club.

  The young, friendly owners of the club greet me at the dock. Jessica is from California and Teiva is Tahitian and speaks perfect English. Upon learning I’ve arrived from Kiribati alone, they take extra care to make me feel welcome. Jessica invites me to ride with her to the market. As I’m loading my dinghy with the grocery purchases, she and Teiva insist I return for dinner with them that evening.

  Between meals at the yacht club in the coming days, I face the daunting task of putting Swell back together after the passage. At least the laundry is clean: Just before checkout, I’d gathered the heap of dirty washing aboard Swell, and stomped it clean in the hotel bathtub. If not for Jess and Teiva’s kindness and those blessed days Chris had provided at Le Meridien, I might have packed a backpack and surfboard and given up this whole sailing gig.

  Once the anchoring gear is dialed, it’s time to figure out why the head-stay is so loose. I dig out the bosun’s chair and pull myself up the mast with the clever four-to-one pulley system that rigger Marty devised back in California. The one-way pulley ticks as I heave myself higher and higher above the bay. At the top, I peer over the furler sleeve to find a chilling sight. Most of the individual wires of the headstay cable are broken. I count them: Only six of the nineteen wires are still intact, holding up the mast and furling headsail! It looks as if the protective plastic sleeve at the top of the furler had worn through and the aluminum beneath it was rubbing directly on the cable.

  Visions of that final day at sea flash through my mind. It’s a miracle that the whole mast hadn’t come down while I was pushing Swell so hard. Slightly dazed, I lower myself slowly to the deck, again grateful to whichever angels had been watching over me. I will have to order a new cable and maybe even a new furler.

  While I work out how to proceed, Jess and Teiva make it clear that I have an open invitation to share every meal with them. They need an extra hand behind the bar one evening, so I gladly help serve drinks and food for a party of 200 Spanish hairdressers. A few of them talk me into hosting
a bay cruise aboard Swell, so the following afternoon I secure an extra halyard to the foredeck to take the weight off the severed cable, and pick up the fun-loving group of Spaniards at their hotel. After a fine sunset cruise, they load me up with donated cash and well wishes.

  I lie in my bunk that evening, feeling glad I had listened to my heart and not rushed west to New Zealand all those months ago. Thanks to the generosity of the blog readers and supporters sending occasional donations, I’m staying financially afloat. And today, another charitable surprise arrived: After reading a mass email I sent out about my distressing headstay situation, a yacht captain I met in Kiribati wrote back offering to help me get a discount on a brand new furler and headstay. Yay!

  But there’s another pressing problem: Swell is taking on water. The pace of the leak has increased slowly over the five months since I first noticed water in the bilge, and it’s now nearly six gallons a day. There’s a tiny space below the transmission where I can shine a flashlight and see persistent wetness, but the engine’s position blocks me from tracing the actual source of the leak. I checked the hull below the waterline when I first noticed the issue, and I found a crack along the base of a small skeg which a previous owner had thru-bolted onto the hull between the keel and the rudder (likely intended for better tracking downwind). Maybe the force of waves hitting the skeg broke the seals around the bolts that hold it to the hull? Maybe the seawater is seeping in around those bolts?

  I can’t sail on like this. Swell and I prep to leave Bora Bora for the nearest boatyard. Jess and Teiva wish me well and refuse to accept any payment for use of their mooring and the many meals.

  On the Hard

  Swell waits her turn in the boatyard marina tied to the dock alongside eight or ten other sailboats. We both feel like wild animals trapped in a corral after living free on the ocean for seven straight months. I pace about the cabin until the owner of the yard knocks sharply on the hull. “Weell be reedy for you at ten sirty,” he says with a thick French accent.

  “Are you sure? I can wait until tomorrow if today is too busy ...” I stammer from the foredeck, my body tensing in visceral denial of the impending changes to my life afloat.

  “Non, non! On est prêt pour toi aujourd’hui” (No, no! We’re ready for you today), he replies.

  I look down at Swell and sigh; rust stains run over her bulwarks. As much as I’m dreading the haul out, my faithful little ship needs some love.

  At half past ten, I turn over the engine, toss off her lines, and a hulking yard worker named Taputu climbs aboard, ready to fend off the neighboring boats. Swell reverses out of the slot and turns like a show horse as I crank the wheel to port. To compensate for the trades blowing perpendicular to the ramp, I over-steer slightly to windward toward the submerged cradle. She slides in, dead center.

  “Pas mal pour une fille!” (Not bad for a girl!) Taputu says with a smile as we secure the lines.

  Soon Swell is propped up with wooden blocks and metal stilts. A yard worker hands me the power washer to clean the algae from her hull. Its force shoves me backwards as I pull the trigger, but I hold tight and get to work.

  Finished, dripping with sweat and spattered in algae, I stare up at the worn patches of paint around Swell’s waterline—I don’t know where to begin. That evening I write out a list of everything that needs to be done: Besides fiberglassing over the skeg to stop the leak, I must remove and replace the cracked wooden base for the anchor bracket; fix the rotted-out galley sink, the saltwater foot-pump spigot, and the stuck drain thru-hull; replace the headstay and install the new roller furler; remove the bubbling old paint around the waterline; disassemble and grease the stuck throttle; rebuild the head pump; fix or replace the charge controller for the solar panels; refinish the cabin floor and fix the cracked middle floor board; glass-in the insulation for the fridge; seal the stanchion bases; clean and regrease the windlass; and sand and paint the hull with anti-fouling. I guess they don’t call it “the hard” for nothing.

  This toxic pimple in paradise seems the same as other boatyards. Dreams sail in from near and far, a bit worn, to be plucked from the sea and stacked in still, neat rows. Yachties hurry to surmount land-bound obligations, climbing and descending their steel ladders spattered in paint, hands battered, hair sweat-matted, and backs tired. Weeds push out from under smashed rudders, rusted chain, exhausted steel cables, and used marine batteries. Boat owners and yard workers alike sand, grind, paint, glass, solder, patch, and upgrade from dawn to dusk. Toxic paint dust, thinners, and fiberglass fragments contaminate the earth below the boats. Scattered about, hardened paintbrushes, wads of masking tape, stiff paint rollers, discarded zincs, yellowed latex gloves, and used sanding discs tell stories of boat love and labor.

  Just getting set up to live and work in the yard is a job in itself. I run my shorepower cord to connect Swell’s batteries to the electricity in the yard, but something isn’t right because I keep getting shocked when I touch the metal stanchions. Thankfully James, my electrician in Santa Barbara, convinced Barry and me that a 220-volt battery charger was a worthy investment, but I don’t think about the fact that I can’t use my 110-volt power tools with the yard’s 220-volt power until I plug in my mini vacuum the next day. It growls fiercely, lurches out of my hands, and plummets to its death on the cabin sole. The yard’s secretary is happy to rent me a transformer for an exorbitant price.

  Being terrestrial makes everything harder. The mosquitoes bite day and night—I often wear long pants despite the average eighty-degree heat. My little fans are not enough to deter the critters at night, so I mummify myself with a sheet to hide from their incessant biting. My refrigeration unit is water-cooled, so I can’t use it on land. There is one grimy bathroom and cold shower for all the boaters and workers. The secretary is the only person in the yard who speaks English and she seems to enjoy being cold and unhelpful.

  Looking over the list again, I sigh. I’m gonna be here for a decade. I can’t call Dad again. This is my dream and I have to figure it out on my own. The only reasonable thing to do first is go surfing.

  Courting a Land Mammal

  I begin to make friends at a nearby break. Word travels quickly that there’s a new girl on the island, traveling alone on a sailboat, and soon various guys stop by, offering to show me around.

  After a little over a week, I’m feeling a bit better about my situation. My suitors have come through with some of my basic necessities: Tehau loaned me a sander and a grinder, Alex dropped off a cooler, and Jean Paul showed up with a rusty old bike that’s yearning to be reborn.

  I awake Monday morning feeling motivated, gather my little bucket of supplies and a change of clothes, and head for the shower. I turn around to step from the deck onto the first rung of the steel ladder, miss it entirely, and grab for the stanchion—which gives me a powerful shock. I let out a howl and drop the bucket as I grab onto the ladder with my other hand. Dangling by one arm, I’m dazed and grateful not to be in a crumpled wad in the mud beside my shower supplies, ten feet down.

  Just then the boatyard electrician passes below me on his way to the marina. “Bonjour,” I say. “When you have some time today, I seem to have a little electrical problem.”

  He stares up at me suspiciously as if he doesn’t understand English, then cracks a smile. “Very nice acrobatique,” he chuckles. Later, he stops by and surmises that I need a different adaptor for proper grounding between my French and American extension cords. If only it could be as easy to put an adaptor between my English and all the French being spoken around me.

  The work progresses agonizingly slowly. I dig into a reasonably straightforward task, only to find another three jobs or a mystery lurking within. Everywhere I turn, I run up against roadblocks. When I don’t have what I need for a project, tracking down supplies means learning their names in French, and hitching or biking to town to search for them on what generally turns into a full-day adventure. Sometimes I come up empty-handed, forced to order online and wai
t on the slow, uncertain mail system.

  I miss having Barry near. And our lovely lunches. I can picture him in sharp nautical garb, listening attentively as I described each of the quickly multiplying problems during Swell’s refit. He always asked thoughtful questions and offered his advice, but being the devoted mentor that he was to hundreds of students, Barry left it up to me to choose how to proceed. After our meal, he’d order us two bowls of cappuccino ice cream and gaze out the window at the shiny channel waters; I knew he wished he could sail away too. We’d then discuss current affairs, environmental news, exotic destinations, or my love life. When I called him last week, he got a kick out of hearing about my current courting situation.

  Dating on a small island is tricky, any way you slice it, especially since fixing Swell is my first priority. Since they’re friends, my suitors always come alone, not wanting the other guys to know they are pursuing me. Randomly throughout the day, one will appear out of nowhere with a bag of mangos or a fresh baguette. I stop and explain whatever I’m doing. Once that guy leaves, I dive back into my project just in time for another to show up, and it starts all over again.

  Finally, I ask one of them to help me remove the seized bolts that hold the cracked anchor cradle to the foredeck: I need one set of arms below and one set above deck. I hold the wrench on the deck bolts. My suitor groans, sweats, and curses squished inside the dirty little chain locker. That’s the last I see of him.

  Another one takes a whole weekend to help me drop out the rudder. It’s a brutal two days of contortions, sweat, and miscommunication in a tiny workspace. I can’t understand which tool he needs, and then when I finally do, the handle of the wrench is too long to fit in the space or the nut we need to remove is frozen with corrosion. The elastic on the headlamp he’s using is worn out, so it keeps slipping down over his eyes. Once the rudder is out, we both decide we’re better off just as friends. Gradually the suitors’ numbers dwindle: nobody wants a girlfriend with a boat on the “hard.”