by Liz Clark
With Swell’s engine now dialed in, I’m relieved to put boat projects aside and ease into a carefree island tour with James. My brother—clever, capable, and a man of few words—maneuvers Swell toward the windward side, motoring inside the lagoon. I look down at the depth gauge: 125 feet. My mind flashes to my brand-new length of anchor chain that I had hurriedly loaded into the locker while preparing for James’s visit. It’s completely twisted. I should drop the anchor and let a bunch of chain out right here where it’s deep, to let it untangle itself.
I wrench off the bolts that hold the chain cap to the windlass. With the cap on, I can’t even get the chain to come out of the locker because it’s so jumbled below. So I remove the cap, shove the anchor off its cradle, and proceed to release the chain slowly, using the clutch of the windlass. But without the cap, the chain begins to run out much too quickly. Before I can tighten the clutch wheel, the chain jumps off the windlass entirely and starts screaming straight out of the locker unchecked. My expensive new chain is paying out like a runaway locomotive.
“No!” I cry in despair. In my hurry to get Swell back in the water and ready for my brother’s visit, I hadn’t yet secured the other end of the chain to the boat!
“Let it go!” James yells back.
Together as kids, we had witnessed our friend lose a finger in an equivalent incident. I’m petrified to grab at my precious chain, and instead I fruitlessly try to slow it with the flat of my foot. In another breath, the end whips out, and all 300 feet of chain plus my beloved Bruce anchor disappear into the green depths. Silence falls over the scene.
I stand there stunned, then run to the GPS to mark our location so that, Poseidon willing, I can recover it. James hugs me. We circle a few times while I decide what to do next. As horrified as I am at the loss, my brother only has a short time to visit, and the chain isn’t going anywhere.
“It’s okay,” I concede. “It’s still going to be there next week. I’ll rig up a piece of the old chain on a spare anchor.”
James steers us south through the lagoon, while I put some anchoring gear together. At sundown, we make our way through a tight passage in the coral into a perfect patch of sandy shallows near a lovely islet. Thankfully I only have a doughnut-hole-sized blood blister pulsating on the bottom of my foot to remind me of my mistake. We cook up a feast and toast togetherness in the cockpit while the round eye of a true, blue moon peers over the islet’s whispering palms. My big bro and I converse about life well into the night while moonbeams illuminate the shallows, leaping and twirling across their sandy underwater dance floor.
We share ten more days of glorious sailing adventures around the islands, ringing in 2010 as impromptu bartenders at Jessica and Teiva’s restaurant in Bora Bora. James is still my rock—an exemplary human of the highest integrity, always willing to listen and give thoughtful advice, and endlessly explore the philosophies of life. Thinking back to the days I spent as a depressed heap on his couch, I’m so grateful he’s my brother and so proud to show him how far I’ve come, both inside and out.
After James flies back to California, a mission is in order to recover my anchor and chain, so I sail back to the bay of the incident. I call a friend who is a scuba guide and explain my predicament. We load her gear aboard Swell the next day and head off to the waypoint I marked on the GPS. Heavy rains have turned the water dark green with silt, and Manuelle is not optimistic.
“Why don’t we attach a dive weight to a long piece of rope and toss it over when I think we’re near the spot? That way you can follow it down and have a reference point,” I suggest, desperate for anything that will increase the chance of success.
“Good idea,” she agrees. We tie some ropes together, and toss the weighted end over the side with the other end attached to a buoy, as I try to get Swell to hover just above the spot marked on the GPS. Manuelle preps her gear and hops in, while Swell drifts in neutral. My eyes are pinned nervously to her bubbles as she descends into the murky deep. It hasn’t been five minutes when, to my surprise, her masked face pops above the surface.
“Unbelievable!” she sputters. “The weight landed a centimeter from the end of the chain! All I had to do was attach the rope and come back up.”
Holy Days
With a bit more time before going back to the boatyard for Round Three, I catch wind that Jimmy Buffett is playing a secret concert on Bora Bora. I’ve got to make it back up there for the show. Dad raised us on his albums and I grew to adore Jimmy’s poetic travel ballads and nautically inclined tunes. My family quotes his hundreds of songs like bible verses.
I’m near the front with Jessica and Teiva when Jimmy walks on stage at a local restaurant. There he is—the legend and lyricist—just fifteen feet away! He sings wholeheartedly with his familiar Southern twang, barefoot and smiling, just like at the last show I went to in California—minus the crowd of 130,000 crazy “parrotheads.”
Jessica and I sing along from our table—we seem to be the only two among the fifty spectators who know the lyrics. When it comes time for his most famous song, “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” Jimmy explains that his female backup singers couldn’t make it and he needs some help from the audience. He looks right at Jess and me, then calls us up on stage. I don’t miss a word. Jimmy is floored!
After the show, I wander to the front of the restaurant and peek into the private side room guarded by a very tall, stern-faced security guard.
“Hello, sir, I just want to make sure everything is okay with the band,” I prattle away, hoping to talk to Jimmy.
“Yes, everything is just fine, thank ...”
“Let her in,” Jimmy’s familiar voice interrupts from behind him.
The group of five or six men falls silent as I step into the air-conditioned room.
“Well, come in, then. Here, have a seat,” Jimmy says kindly as he scoots to one side of the couch. “Meet the band.”
Slightly speechless yet pleasantly inebriated, I shake hands with everyone and reply to their questions about having sailed from California. I explain to Jimmy that his lyrics had helped shape my sailing dream and approach to life and I thank him for all the joy that his music has brought my family and me. He’s flattered but humbly turns the conversation back to me.
I wake with a headache the next morning, but there’s whitewater on the reef. The north swell is up and I can’t resist. I spend all afternoon in the surf. Back on Swell, Jessica calls asking if I can help at the bar that night. Despite my fatigue, I pull on some clean clothes and go ashore. At the bar, I lean in to ask Jess how she’s feeling after our big night. She rolls her eyes and continues to count change for the impatient customer beside me.
“Actually, it looks like we don’t need you after all. It’s not too busy. But order some food,” she says.
“Okay, no worries,” I reply, and turn around just in time to see Jimmy and his friends duck under the shaggy palm fronds of the bar’s thatched roof. He takes off his jacket and walks over to where I’m standing.
“Oh hey, Liz.” He smiles. “Hi Jess! Well, it looks like we came to the right place. Can we eat here?”
“Of course!” Jess replies.
“Are you busy, Liz?” Jimmy asks. “Why don’t you join us for dinner?”
Seriously! “I’d be honored!” I tell him.
“How was your day?” Jimmy asks after we’re seated around a table.
“Not bad! I woke up with a headache, but I surfed this afternoon.”
“Surf? Where?” he asks excitedly.
“Just out at the pass. It very rarely breaks, but today was pretty nice.”
“Can you take me out there tomorrow?” he asks.
The next day at ten o’clock sharp, Jimmy circles Swell on his stand-up paddleboard. “Come aboard,” I call. “I’m nearly ready.”
I give him a tour, then we head off to check the waves aboard his plush charter catamaran.
“It’s not the easiest wave,” I explain as we head toward the break. “It’s k
ind of shifty and there were long waits between sets yesterday, so it was easy to lose track of the takeoff zone.”
He’s determined to try. We paddle over, and right away a set rolls in and catches him inside. I cringe as his big stand-up paddleboard drags him toward the reef with another wave behind it.
Good god, I’m going to kill him! To my relief, he comes back out laughing, takes a few deep breaths, and paddles a bit farther outside.
“Try to look for the waves that come in more from the north,” I suggest. “They stay open a bit.” I’ve barely finished my sentence when a lovely head-high wave springs up from the north. Jimmy is perfectly positioned.
“Go for it!” I encourage. “This is the one!” He strokes without hesitation, catches it, and away he glides down the line, then comes back grinning and glowing from his ride.
“Thanks for that one, Lizzy!” he says, as we high-five in celebration.
Oli and the VIP Yard
My holiday ends abruptly when the weather forecast warns of an approaching cyclone. I sail directly back to the boatyard, hauling Swell out a week earlier than planned so as not to have to weather the storm in the water. The crew tows her to an overflow yard down the street. I joke with them, asking if this is the VIP yard, since there are only a few other boats. Swell’s decks must be stripped to make her as streamlined as possible in preparation for the powerful winds. The sails, solar panels, and wind generator must all come off.
Once Swell is bare and battened, my Italian girlfriend, Simona, who lives across the street, invites me to stay at her house during the storm. For three days it blows with a ferocity I’ve never felt. From the window, I can see Swell’s rig trembling from the winds.
Luckily, Cyclone Oli passes without too much damage. While walking back toward the VIP yard, something white flashes among a pile of washed-up debris. Looking closer, I see a bedraggled baby seabird. There isn’t a tree or nesting area nearby; it must have been blown from its nest during the storm. I can’t possibly leave it here all alone, so I scoop it up and bring it back to Swell.
Over the next week, I hitch to town to buy fresh fish for my little friend and use frozen water bottles from Simona’s freezer to keep it cold. I suspect the bird is a male and call him Oli. At first, I have to force his sharp black beak open, but soon Oli is eating on his own. By the end of the week he’s fluffed up and chirping when he’s hungry. After seeing the photos I send, Barry identifies him as likely a blue or black noddy tern. Little Oli stays near me at all times, needing to be fed every half an hour. While I prepare Swell for Laurent to cut away the hull and remove the shaft tube, Oli keeps me company. He chirps endearingly as I drop out the rudder and remove the propeller shaft. He pecks at the pile of tools beside me while I unbolt the transmission from the engine. He naps in his cozy nest of rags while I dismantle the V-drive and disconnect all the hoses and wires that run through the area. Luckily, removing the transmission provides enough access to the repair area that I don’t actually have to remove the main body of the engine. Oli is pleased whenever I finish a job and my attention returns to him.
He grows steadily, feathers thickening, and I cherish his companionship—the way he cocks his head when he looks at me, and snuggles up for a nap in the fold of my T-shirt. I’m the only one living aboard among a flock of fancy catamarans in the VIP yard. The one adjacent to Swell serves as a fantastic yoga platform with an ocean view. A hose in the corner of the yard becomes my new shower. There are plenty of mosquitoes around, but at least no creepy kissers!
The morning Swell is ready for the demolition to begin, the secretary confirms that Laurent will arrive shortly after 7:30 am. I start growing impatient at 8:30 am. No Laurent ... Another hour passes ... No Laurent. I find him in the workshop, glassing a damaged rudder.
“Bonjour, Laurent,” I greet him.
“Bonjour,” he replies.
“I don’t mean to bother you,” I say in French, “but I thought we were getting started today?”
“Ah, en fact, I have meeny small projects in zis moment. I prefer to feeneesh zee uzer jobs first. I weel be ready to start your prrroject in about two monz,” he says and returns to working on the rudder.
Oh Moon, Won’t You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz
I mope around the yard all week, fretting over how to proceed until I receive an unsolicited email from another Cal 40 owner who has dealt with the same problem. Fin heard about my leak through the Latitude 38 article and took the time to write me about how he and his friend Doug had removed the bronze tube without cutting it out of the fiberglass.
“After removing the V-drive and prop shaft, Doug made up a slide hammer from a half-inch stainless rod approximately six feet long and threaded at each end. The rod was inserted into the old tube from the outside, and then a cap matching the tube diameter was screwed on to the inboard side. This cap is what ultimately pulled the tube out of the boat. Washers on the rod centered it inside the tube. The rod had a weighted slide on the outside end, which was used to hammer the tube out of the fiberglass.”
I forage around the yard for scrap parts to build a slide hammer. A few days later, my extracteur is welded together, but the machine shop has made the cap from aluminum instead of steel. I know the aluminum will be too soft, but I agree to try it anyway.
I borrow a massive sledgehammer from the yard, since I hadn’t found a weighted slide, and wind up for the swing. The hulking head of the hammer meets the welded plate like a bad gong and reverberates through my body. The tube doesn’t budge. By the fifteenth hit I’ve broken through the welding on the plate. I go up to see what’s happening inside and find the aluminum cap completely crumpled. I carry the broken parts to the other side of the boatyard while workers and yachties stare curiously.
“Extracteur!” I yell. I’m like a bad rash that won’t go away.
I implore the welder to make me a cap from steel and reweld the plate onto the pipe. In the meantime, I grind off the recent fiberglass repair job all the way to the bronze tube. With the tube now exposed on both sides, I hammer at it to try to loosen its bond with the fiberglass. With no neighbors in the VIP yard, I’m free to pound on it anytime I please, which is often. When my beefed-up extracteur is ready to go, Taputu comes over to help. But within a few swings, the cap is sucked sideways into the tube. Fail.
Even worse, my baby bird is sick. Oli eats less and less, so I load him into in my bike basket and pedal off to find a veterinarian in town. He sells me a nutrient supplement and explains that very few young seabirds survive without their mother. I give Oli a dose of the supplement, but after an hour, he can hardly lift his wee head. It’s too late. He takes his last breath as I hold him cupped in my hands. I burst into tears and stroke his still warm feathers.
The fragility of life seems cruel. My little friend is gone. Swell feels terribly empty—no more chirps, no more stinky fish feedings, and no more adorable fuzzy head popping up to say good morning. Instead, only progress-less projects in this boatyard purgatory.
To make matters worse, the filthy bathroom is so far away that I’ve been defecating in plastic bags. There’s no end to the humbling around here.
On many days, I want to give up; Oli’s departure stirs my deep abandoment issues, but I when I look around, I remember I’m not the only one who is feeling lonely and unheard. The same small island kids from the rough neighborhood nearby wander in the streets every day. Stray dogs meander through, hungry and forlorn. Playing with the kids and feeding the dogs makes me feel better. I also use a technique learned from a Pema Chödrön book. It’s called tonglen: I sit and breathe in the pain and unwanted sufferings of myself and others, and breathe out feelings of relief, connection, and happiness for all beings. It’s a simple idea, but doing this meditation helps me feel less alone.
In the afternoons, hordes of young Tahitians blare music, ride bikes, play, and hang out under the coconut trees outside the new chain-link fence surrounding the VIP yard. When it cools off enough, everyone comes together on
the forty-yard stretch of asphalt outside the gate where the day’s quarrels, crushes, and moods play out in a daily soccer match.
Teams fluctuate in number and skill—girls, boys, women, and men of all ages mix freely. No shoes, no jerseys, no referees, but street rules and common courtesy keep the game flowing much better than one might imagine. No one keeps score. Newcomers watch for a moment from the sidelines to determine the dominant team and then join the weaker side. The stuffy French yard owner lined the fence with barbed wire along the bottom to deter them, but they play on, making sure the younger kids stay clear of the danger. I’d like to join in, but I feel shy.
I know a lot of the younger kids by now. Daily, I offer treats, give them attention, and let them use my skateboard to glide back and forth in the alleyway on the other side of the fence. Their youthful energy and sincerity always gives me a boost. They’ve stopped calling me madame, to my great relief, and scream “Leeeeeeeez!” whenever I surface from inside Swell.
One afternoon my body badly needs to move. Today’s soccer match is already going on. I finally walk out the gate and ask, “Je peux jouer?” (Can I play?)
“Oui!” they scream, delighted, assigning me to a team.
The street games becomes my daily release. I saunter out the gate, filthy and barefoot after a day of work aboard Swell, and sprint back and forth until it’s too dark to see. Whether the clouds pour down rain or the sunset ignites the sky above, I feel grateful for the damp asphalt, the half-inflated ball, my callused feet, the warm salt-laden air, and the giggling, shit-talking, glowing faces of my new Tahitian friends.
In the tranquility of night, I often wrap up in long pants and a pareo to fend off the mosquitoes and go on deck. I don’t really know how to pray, so I tell my worries to the moon. I tell her everything: that I’m lonely, I miss my family and friends, I want to find true love, and I hate being stuck in this noxious, filthy place. And I am doing my best not to whine, to see the opportunities for growth, but it’s hard.