A Thousand Miles from Anywhere

by Sandra Clayton

  More days pass and we start to get low on a few things so during a brief lull in the weather David takes the dinghy to the Bitter End to shop. The open-fronted English Pub has a small grocery in one corner but a very limited range. He returns with probably the most expensive loaf and packet of crisps in the history of the world.

  I’m just relieved to see him come back at all as it was quite a long way in a small dinghy in such a strong wind and with quite a chop on the water, especially going past Saba Road. Getting back on board Voyager is also something of a feat, since once he lets go of the controls to reach for Voyager, the wind sweeps him away from her and ultimately the only way to get him back on board is for me to snag the dinghy’s painter with the boathook as soon as he gets close enough.

  Something else he has brought back with him is a copy of the April issue of Nautical News. Its headline on page 6 strikes terror: ‘Virgin Gorda to hold Fishermen’s Jamboree’. We have visions of them getting drunk, having wet trawler competitions and throwing fishing pots and discarded nets everywhere but it turns out to be a competition for visiting anglers. So that’s alright. We used to get a lot of those around the reservoir at home. They sat on little stools for hours in all weathers without moving and were no trouble at all.

  An advertisement in the same newspaper gives a fascinating insight into the process whereby the meanings of words change over time. Boutique has traditionally meant a small shop selling stylish clothes and accessories. Here an American chandlery chain reports that its ‘new store’s marine-orientated boutique will stock foul weather gear and crew uniforms.’

  We continue to do anchor watches through the nights, not so much from fear of our own boat dragging as the possibility of being hit by somebody else’s. Notwithstanding what a supposedly experienced charter boat owner at Tortola did to us, we are surrounded by boats chartered by people with little or no experience of anchoring, especially in wind conditions like these. Simply hurling an anchor over the bow and strolling back to the cockpit to raise a glass fails to keep a number of them in place.

  You don’t get the usual sunrise or sunset here because of the surrounding hills. This morning the sunrise looks like a huge fire burning behind one of them. Not long afterwards there is torrential rain and everywhere becomes grey with the rain bouncing off the water. When it stops, a large hawksbill turtle pops up for air – like the one at Little Jost Van Dyke Island did. Apart from that, and the occasional gull, I don’t remember ever seeing so little wildlife. But at least my hand is back to normal. I assume the culprit was a spider although I’ve never had a reaction so extreme before. They set up home under ropes and side rails and get very resentful when they are evicted, however unwittingly.

  Ultimately the wind does begin to abate but there is still an uncomfortable sea, especially for the 1,000-mile voyage ahead of us, so we dinghy into the Bitter End Yacht Club for an outing and a look around. It’s gorgeous. Twee, but if you’re that rich… It has a super dinghy dock with a fish-feeding area in the middle and the individual species identified around the rails.

  Contestants begin arriving for the fishermen’s jamboree and I abandon any notion about anglers as people who sit on soggy British river banks with a rod and line and become acquainted instead with what Americans call ‘the sport fishing boat’. These are high powered and typically 35–40 ft long with a very high central superstructure so that a lookout can spot prey, rather like a crow’s nest on a whaler.

  The sport fisherman himself is strapped into a chair on the afterdeck facing astern like the shark hunter, Quint, in Jaws, while behind him are spare rods so that replacements are always to hand in the event of the one being used getting damaged. These spare rods are fastened to the cabin’s sides, but being so long they stick up above the superstructure and make the boat look as if it is bristling with antennae.

  When you’ve bought yourself something like this there is no way you are going to putter through anchorages and marina entrances at 5 knots so they roar about as if the 3-minute warning has just sounded, sometimes in packs, with their massive wake sending kayaks, canoes, dinghies and even some of the smaller anchored yachts several feet into the air.

  49

  Clearing Out

  To prepare for our voyage to Florida we need fuel, food and other supplies, e-mail and telephone services and somewhere to clear out. There is only one place to do all this and we leave Prickly Pear Island around 10am for Tortola.

  When we reach there, the Elysium is berthed in Road Harbour. It is obviously a non-smoking cruise ship because it has huge ‘No Smoking’ stickers on its bows and stern, which is all very well except that its elegant red and white funnel pumps noxious slate-grey smoke over the residents of Road Town all afternoon. They have had quite a bit of smoke to contend with lately. Since we were last here the restaurant at the Moorings marina burnt down.

  Next morning we get up early, shop for food and revisit the place that’s currently selling the cheapest beer in town (the out-of-date Fosters). Honestly! It’ll be meths in a brown paper bag for the crew next.

  David drops me and the supplies aboard Voyager and then, with gritted teeth, sets off for Immigration and the world’s most offensive official. David is one of the most even-tempered people I have ever met but even he has his limits and he is gone a long time. I hear a police siren in the town and when he still fails to return I begin to worry that he might have confided his views on her people skills a little too frankly and be sharing a windowless cell with cockroaches.

  The long delay, it turns out, is caused by two things. One is that there is a very long queue as the office will close this afternoon for three days over Easter. The other is that with the improvement in the weather a large number of yachtsmen are getting ready to leave.

  During the long wait there is regular reference by newcomers to the queue about the woman behind the Immigration counter in terms which, thanks to political correctness, have ceased to be common currency in recent years. Respect, however, is a two-way street, and having been taken unawares by her offensiveness clearing in, they are more than ready for her clearing out. But the officer on duty today turns out to be an utterly charming young man who makes every effort to move the queue along as fast as he can, notwithstanding a new arrival with an out-of-date passport.

  Another cause for the delay in David’s return gradually becomes visible from some distance away. He is rowing laboriously through a strong swell and a brisk headwind. Road Harbour has so much refuse floating in it that one of its numerous poly bags has wrapped itself round our outboard engine’s propeller.

  Then it is off to the fuel dock at Moorings marina. It is pandemonium. There is the outside fuel dock, where we are, and another inside the marina which is deluged in day boats and has dozens of dinghy fuel cans lined up waiting to be filled for the charter boats. The pump attendant today is the marina manager and the poor man is on the run between the two but very good-humoured and apologetic about the delay.

  We leave his dock at 2pm. The traffic in and out of the bay is as bad mannered as everywhere else, roaring at full throttle. Two sports fishing boats roar down our port side, sending Voyager thrashing, cut across our bows, roar up our starboard side and then come to a halt leaving us struggling to regain our feet. They could easily have passed behind our stern or – heaven forfend – travelled at moderate speed because it turns out that all they are off to do is anchor, and after their frenzied arrival spend ages pottering about seeking the best spot. But if you own a sport fishing boat, it seems, you have to behave as if you are off on some vital mission, possibly with lives at stake.

  At least Voyager has the weight to withstand them. Two of them send one poor couple entering the marina in a small yacht rolling toe rail to toe rail. These are closely followed by another two roaring towards them from their bow and then a commercial boat at full throttle from the stern – and the yacht actually spins around.

  Sports fishermen always look terribly pleased with themselves as they
hurtle past at 20 knots addressing each other as ‘Captain’ over the VHF. And there’s clearly a bit of psyching-up going on since the angling competition begins tomorrow with ‘a $2,000 prize for the biggest Wahoo!’ although the biggest wahoo will in all likelihood be at the controls.

  What we want now is a peaceful anchorage and a good night’s sleep before setting out on another long passage. We know just the place.

  NEXT STOP, AMERICA

  50

  At Sea Once More

  We wake before dawn, get Voyager ready to go to sea again and then breakfast with the pelicans. Today is Good Friday. It is time to go. Not simply to make a timely exit from the hurricane zone but because it is too hot and, even here at Little Jost Van Dyke Island, it is getting very crowded. Already there are nine boats clustered around Sandy Spit. There had been ten but the skipper of the very grand motoryacht who dropped his anchor over there last night – in anticipation of a Caribbean idyll for himself and his guests today – got so indignant about this morning’s arrivals that he took off in a huff. It is likely to get even more crowded everywhere shortly as in addition to the angling competition there are two days of racing planned. Although lack of wind may be a problem as there currently isn’t any.

  We motor out past Sandy Spit and then head north, following the coasts of Green Cay and Little Jost Van Dyke until we are able to set a course of 325° and head back into the Atlantic again. Because there is almost no wind we have on both engines to get us clear of the islands and then, to conserve fuel, we use just the one.

  Our last view of the Virgin Islands is through a diffused morning light that turns the hills into soft shades of grey and the sea to sparkling silver. After a while there is just enough wind to put out the main and genoa. And then it becomes one of those days where everything is a delight, even a simple lunch, a glass of red wine and an afternoon with Anthony Trollope.

  For dinner we have pasta and the Italian meatballs that have been fragrancing the fridge since yesterday morning’s shopping trip. I don’t think they can be meat. They don’t produce fat, fall to pieces, change shape, shrink or stick to the pan. And they give you indigestion for 24 hours afterwards. But they are delicious. And we see flying fish again for the first time since our arrival at the BVI, apart from in the supermarket. Either they avoid coastal waters or they all end up in little polystyrene trays covered with cling film.

  We haven’t eaten fish since arriving in the Leeward Islands, not after reading a letter from a visiting doctor in a free local paper. She had warned of the dangers caused by poisoned reef fish. Toxins in the tropical and subtropical waters of the Caribbean and Pacific adhere to coral, seaweed and algae. These are nibbled by herbivorous reef fish which are then eaten by carnivorous fish and so the toxins gradually work their way along the food chain. The doctor said that her twin sister had died after eating locally-caught fish.

  The condition is called ciguatera and symptoms include nausea and diarrhoea followed by headaches, muscle pain and even hallucinations. They can last weeks or even years, leading to permanent disability. Ciguatoxin is particularly heat-resistant so conventional cooking methods have no effect on its toxicity.

  In a separate article in the same paper a yachtsman described having succumbed twice. Once with six other crewmen from mackerel caught on board their ketch, and once at a barbecue ashore where he and another cruiser had taken adjacent pieces of fish from the grill. By morning the other man was dead and he himself was ill for two months. It is not a new illness, having been recorded aboard HMS Resolution in 1774.

  There is a glorious sunset in scarlet and gold. It is lovely to see one again after being anchored on the eastern side of one hill or another for so long and with the sun going down behind it, out of sight.

  We are back to night watches again, although they are very pleasant in these climes. Even at midnight it is 26°C so there is no foul-weather gear attacking your kneecaps or giving you a crick in the neck. Tonight is just warm air, the smell of the islands and a huge russet moon behind our stern.

  When the wind moves behind us we take in the main to stop it shading the genoa. The main was difficult to pull out today and it gets stuck now as we try to haul it back in again. So we have to turn into the wind, which means the genoa has to be taken in to prevent it flogging against the mast while we mess about. We do finally release the main but the knot tying the outhaul to the sail’s clew unravels and the end of the rope disappears inside the boom. The only solution is to pull it out completely and then re-thread it. This is not easy because the inside of the boom is quite complex and the task requires daylight so it is better left until tomorrow.

  Sometime later two huge sets of lights appear behind us. One is recognisably a cruise ship, albeit lit up like a Christmas tree with fairy lights from stem to stern; whichever is which, since with light-strung cruise ships it can be impossible to tell their front from their rear at night except by the direction in which they are travelling. This is because their navigation lights are hard to see at the best of times but with a full set of fairy lights it is impossible.

  Its companion is not so much a Christmas tree as a gigantic version of one of those novelty fibre optic lamps that people used to put on top of their television sets. The ship is a nervy mass of vibrating gold in the darkness, a multitude of tiny, dancing pinpricks of light. There are no discernible navigation lights among them to give a clue as to its route, until the great blazing monster locks onto our stern and comes writhing towards us. Then alternately a red light and a green light do finally become visible but with so much gold flaring into the night sky it resembles nothing so much as some vast Chinese dragon with odd-coloured eyes. Very small eyes.

  That’s the extraordinary thing about cruise ships; despite being very large they have incredibly small navigation lights. In fact, having failed to see any at all during my first few encounters with cruise ships at night I once visited a berth to inspect a couple, just to convince myself that they did actually have some. They do, but so small you can barely detect them in anything less than really good visibility or up very close. And this one is getting very close. In fact, it is on a collision course with us. Since it seems impervious to our navigation lights I put on our deck lights, to reinforce our presence, then go below and wake David.

  ‘Is it 1 o’clock already?’ he mutters amiably. It is 10.45pm and he has been in bed for only forty-five minutes, but I’m afraid we’re about to be run down and, asleep in a stern cabin, he will be first in line for annihilation. By the time he reaches the cockpit, however, the vessel has begun making a leisurely turn after which it mooches off behind its friend.

  The two of them are wasting away the night, possibly on a passage from St Thomas in the US Virgins to Road Town in the British Virgin Islands, and they don’t want to get there before morning. By loitering out at sea overnight a ship can save on berthing fees. But because they are not following a predictable course, and since their navigation lights are invisible, their erratic movements are very confusing not to say worrying because when they do suddenly decide to go they can really shift. And the last place you want to be is in their path. Which also raises the question, on tonight’s experience, as to whether your navigation lights are actually visible from inside their blaze of glory.

  Or maybe in this case a bored ship’s officer thought it would be fun to scare the living daylights out of a yachtie. Either way, I am irritable. I do so hate waking David before time because he doesn’t easily go back to sleep again. I feel so bad about it I give him an extra hour before getting him up for his next watch.

  51

  Ruminations

  On Saturday morning the moon remains with us until well after dawn. Sunrise is yellow gold. Several transmissions crackle out of the VHF from Puerto Rico, very broken, one of them about a missing boat with two people on board and asking for all ships to look out for them.

  Not long after, something comes floating towards our port bow with two white patches on it. Are th
ey hands, clinging on to wreckage? Too white by far for hands, but given the anxious broadcast I’ve just heard I’m already running forward under the sail to get a closer look.

  Two black-headed gulls, riding on a wooden plank, look back at me and laugh uproariously. I am so startled that I trip on a cleat and nearly fall overboard. Oh, how they laugh as they fly away. When we have sailed a safe distance from the plank, they return to it and resume their joyride.

  It is a lovely bright blue day. I listen to World Service News. Ticket holders arriving at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix practice day have been turned away because the public car parks are waterlogged due to heavy rain. $5m losses are expected. Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone is asked why the date of the event has been moved from July, given England’s reputation for wet Aprils, but I do not hear his reply.

  Today is also Brazil’s 500th anniversary, it being 500 years since Portuguese sailors landed on South America’s east coast. Trade unions and minority groups are protesting about 500 years of genocide by an elite against indigenous peoples and the downtrodden. There will be sailing ship regattas and fireworks to celebrate. With the money spent on these and the recent Millennium celebrations, someone asks, might they not have rid the country of leprosy and housed the street children instead?

  It is a dozy sort of a day. In the morning we spot a yacht behind us, heading south, the only vessel we shall see all day. We also try to push a length of wire down the boom in an attempt to thread the outhaul back through it, but fail. And thanks to a turbulent sea I get a bit queasy preparing lunch. We are still enjoying Anthony Trollope’s Framley Parsonage but rapidly reaching the end.

  In the late afternoon we see a couple of petrels. With other species you see large numbers of birds flocking together but with petrels and shearwaters there rarely seems to be more than two. I set about cooking dinner and get queasy again, but David takes over in between times and we both enjoy the meal up on deck when it arrives.