Puerto Rico to the BVIs with the "Akimbo Bimbos"

No, i didn’t coin that term.  Nor will i reveal who did.  But my only all female crew for this trip laughed at it.  Here they are, talking with the departing crew.  So far, each rendezvous has entailed a meal all together.  The previous crew "passing the baton" to the next crew.  Fun.  

Let’s see.  I left you off in Ponce, where Luis and son (Fernando) rebuilt the “Clark pump” on the watermaker, found a welder to fix a tube in the generator and gave me the confidence to rebuild the hydraulic rams on the backstay.  

What that means at one level is that i was busy enuf attending to these things…that i wasn’t taking time for other things.  But these were the necessities, they demanded attention, they were the more immediate entertainment, they demanded to be met.  As opposed to meeting my crew a little more deeply, and attending to the local vibe and scenery better.  But everything IS a compromise and perfection WOULD be boring.  Sorry.  Another way to describe this is that i haven’t had time for much reflection.  And i like to reflect.  So here you are, suffering thru my instinct to catch up. 

So how did these external things turn out?  The watermaker starts out okay but soon slows down.  Apparently warm water slows it down – and the water temp here is around 88, oh darn, but doesn’t that make swimming feel good.  The generator is running well.  And the backstay rams are holding nicely.  This last has been a real relief and timely.  We’ve been beating against fresh tradewinds (and squalls the first three days out of Ponce).  So the backstay has been under a LOT of pressure.  In fact, after returning the jury rigged blocks and tackles back to their running backstays, one of them broke without any real load on it.  Likely because it had been overstressed as a backstay.  Had it failed as a backstay support…the mast might have suffered for it.  Whew! 

Trying to stay on schedule and make our way against harsh weather, we left Ponce in the pre-dawn.  Again the jib and double reefed main served us well.  “Double reefed?”   If what we want is 12 knots of wind and it’s blowin’ 25…we want to catch only 12 and let the other 13 go, thus we raise only half of the main.  Then throw a 41 knot gust at us, and on the approach to Bahia de Jobos we took the mainsail down to go with the jib alone.

During the day along the coast, we admired a big wind farm – how much sense does THAT make in the tradewinds? 

Another pre-dawn start snuck us east along the south coast to Puerto Pastillas (Whiskers Port?).  But pre-dawn starts get old, as does the feeling (desperate?) that they are necessary.  We left after dawn for the 34nm to Vieques.  The wind blew pretty hard against us, the waves were big but not too big and slowed us down every once in a while with a “bow smack” (no, that’s not a nautical term, but one my young crew invented).  I consulted this crew.  Sure, we could do this, but was it worth it?  They were up for it if Akimbo would be okay, if equipment wouldn’t suffer.  THIS is what Akimbo was built for.  So we carried on and anchored that afternoon at Esperanza, Vieques. 

With only 15 or so miles to make to the east end of the island, we dinghied in the next morning and “stretched our legs” (what an expression), picked up a few groceries.  An afternoon sail led us to Bahia Salina del Sur.  That “staged” us nicely for a sail to Culebrita – little Culebra.  The anchorage at Salina del Sur was nice enuf, but the signs on shore warned us off of the pristine beach due to “unexploded ordinances” – the U.S. military had used Vieques for target practice for years.  At least our anchor didn’t detonate anything.

The next day was the first that we didn’t have to “beat” the whole day.  Instead of going south and east, we reached north to Culebrita?!   There we picked up a mooring buoy (rather than anchoring).  Ashore, we hiked to the lighthouse at the top of the island.

 Then found the “Jacuzzis” – a unique “tide pool” – waves created by the tradewinds push water thru a gap and into a rock enclosed pool.  It was a space i never would have imagined, a sweet place to wade into and cool off.

From Culebrita it was 30nm upwind to Jost Van Dyke, the first of the British Virgin Islands.  The U.S. Virgin Islands have a sad reputation of being trashed, so we skipped past them.  The real treat half way thru the day was to set the full mainsail.  Sure, we were still beating into the wind, but the wind relented and the waves eased.  It was a good day to sail.  We felt rewarded to arrive…but the contrast between Culebrita and Great Harbor was bizarre:  the place was PACKED.  Everyone anchored or moored too close.  It seemed only luck that thru the night we and our neighbors didn’t bump into each other. 

I’ve got to say, maybe again, that the autopilot is a wonderful thing.  When steering by hand, hour after hour, shoulders and neck cramping, getting tired and wandering on and off course…there is a term for this:  “tyranny of the helm.”  When underway, the boat MUST be steered.   At ALL times.  While “auto” is worth three crew, he is also deaf and blind.  He won’t see the boat crossing too close by, or the reef we may be headed for.  Still, he is a necessary tool.  But that day, rather than shoulders and neck, it was my hand that held the autopilot remote control that cramped.  How lucky is that?

When we checked in with customs and immigration…we met the only really grumpy people on the island.  Does that say something about working for/in a government?  That done, along with finding a few groceries, we started island hopping.  Sandy Cay, and Guana Island.  Next day, snorkeling at Monkey Point (very cool), lunch at Marina Cay (home of Pusser’s rum)

and finally picking up a mooring buoy at The Baths on Virgin Gorda. 

In our travels we "crossed wakes" several times with the beautiful and very large ketch, Roxanne of Valleta, Malta.

Side note: at Marina Cay there is a “field” of mooring buoys.  Before we picked one up…we ran over another.  I heard something chuckle along the hull (?) and then the engine died.  I must’ve been distracted.  But this is why i have a compressor aboard that can feed air to me while i work under the boat.  It only took a few minutes to untangle the mooring from our prop.  We had been idling thru the harbor.  The barnacle barrier paint on the shaft and prop wasn’t even rubbed off.  Whew! 

Our timing at The Baths was great.  The hordes who visit it everyday were gone by later in the day.  We were one of five boats there for the night.  We snorkled ashore and did the short hike to Devils Bay.  This hike, this geology, can’t be imagined or adequately described.  Huge boulders tumbled on top of each other as if by a giant, with space enuf for people to wander thru their maze.  The late day light lit the place up for us.  It is a unique space, as were the Jacuzzis at Culebrita.  Now maybe i know what a marmot or pika's world is like, under a talus field on a mountain.  But The Baths cannot be over sold.  If you’re ever in the BVIs, don’t miss them.  They are amazing.

And so this leg ends.  Thank you Lori, Carol and Kate for your help getting here.  We were an upwind crew.  You rarely saw more sail than the double reefed main and jib and never saw the drifter.  We made the distance to arrive at and share a little of a legendary place.  Thank you.

Next?  Jim and Heather and i have to go meet it to see what it is.  

from Puerto Rico

It feels like most of our sailing is upwind.  Tacking back and forth, gaining our goal indirectly and sailing 60 miles to make 40.  Seems like a metaphor in itself.  What could feel insulting is to sail upwind and turn around only to have the wind shift and sail upwind some more.  “Out of synch.”  But our departure from Caicos felt in synch.  We went back west the way we came, to round the northwest tip of the island.  The wind held, what had been beating before was now a romping good reach.  In other words, sailing across the wind direction and straight toward where we want to go, trimming the sails at the start and not again.  To be appreciated, in sailing and in living life.  We tore along in the lee of the island, so we were in deep and flat water with plenty of wind, and going over 8 knots at times.  “8 knots?” a land person asks.  “That’s only 9 mph.  What’s the big deal?”  Well, it’s the most exciting and rewarding 9 mph you’ll ever do.  We made it around the corner and thru the Sandbore Channel (where we briefly had the wind behind us and set the drifter) in short order and anchored off Provo. 

Whereupon we met Provo Radar.  The Caicos version of the Coast Guard.  They monitor all traffic to and from Provo and across the Caicos Bank.  If you don’t report to them?  God only knows what will happen.  When they see you on their radar, they pursue you over the VHF radio.  We had been forewarned about them by a British couple aboard their boat.    So i hailed them before they hailed Akimbo.  The ensuing dialog was laughable, made all the moreso by the completely humorless attitude of the official at the other end of the microphone.  He required a complete description of our boat, our equipment, every person aboard, where we had come from , where we were going, and when…  I didn’t dare give the sarcastic answers the situation begged for.  Almost told him what kind of toothpaste we use.  And i promised to radio in the morning to tell when we weighed anchor and were off.

There’s something exciting about sailing in crystal clear and shallow water, watching the sand and coral bottom go by.  Is there some metaphor there about human nature preferring the shallows to the depths?  The known to the unknown?  The visible to the invisible?  After a windy night at anchor, we appreciated our luck to tear across all 44 miles of the Bank on a close reach for a 7 knot average to Six Hills Cay.  Anchored by ourselves in 10’ of pristine water, we snorkeled until what seemed an aggressive barracuda convinced Kristin that this was not her territory.  The cay is obviously a popular roost for a lot of birds.  After dark it got noisy.  Our imaginations decided that what we were hearing was not birds at all but a few thousand small dogs all chewing on their squeaky toys. 

Next day we were beating our way to Grand Turk against 20 knots and building seas.  It was a fitting preview of what to expect on our way to Puerto Rico.  We anchored, pumped up Sea Cow, hired a cab to get to a restaurant and back, and located the customs office for checking out of the country in the morning.  We seem to be having trouble convincing people, when we ask for a restaurant recommendation, that we want local food as opposed to tourist or American food.  And we find that fare in island countries is expensive, likely because of the expense that importing adds to everything. 

In the morning we got our departure paper from customs.  But we cheated.  We sailed 15nm south to anchor at uninhabited Big Sand Cay.  Went exploring – found the fallen down lighthouse, did some shelling, played in the safe part of the surf (at one corner of the island, swell from two different directions met and prompted me to ask Tyler and Reed to jump in elsewhere) and rested up for the 300nm ahead.  The forecast was for winds against us, but at least for stable conditions. 

Unwittingly this leg turned out to be well choreographed.  By the time we faced this passage, Tyler, Reed and Kristin were familiar with Akimbo and keeping watch, having already done a few night passages.  We were as ready as we could be.  Make no mistake, passage making is an athletic and tiring event.  The main goal is to keep the boat sailing and to hold on so you don’t get thrown across the cabin or cockpit and hurt.  In the meantime, eat when and what you can, stay hydrated and SLEEP if possible.  It was all upwind in medium size swell, so we sailed 400 miles to make 300, and were done in three days.  The jury rigged backstay held. 

The guidebook warned of poor holding ground and exposure in the bay where we had to check into customs.   Per the guidebook and by pure luck, we got into the bay at 8am but by the time we followed the mis-leading sign on the dock and finally got some help from the security guard at the port and over the phone customs told us to come back at 1pm…and got directed to a Puerto Rican version of KFC (“Pollo Tropical”) and refused to eat there…i was downright adversarial with the customs officer.  Finally when i asked for his name and the name of his supervisor, and then argued with the supervisor about having to row back out to bring my crew aboard AGAIN, the unsafe anchorage, trying to get to Boqueron before dark…we finally got out of there at 3:30pm.  Sorry, i guess i could have spared telling you about that. 

The 15nm sail to Boqueron was a delight.  The holding ground was good and the anchorage calm and protected.  We were there on the weekend and so were all of Puerto Rico’s partiers.  At dinner, Reed conquered a “man versus food” meal and we enjoyed the local color.  But by the time crew #4 arrived the place was a “ghost town.”  The seven of us enjoyed dinner together and the next morning Reed and Tyler caught a 4am ride to San Juan. 

Thank you Reed and Tyler and Kristin!  We did well together, worked hard, ate well, had fun for 740nm.  So where does that leave Akimbo?  We’ve covered 1200 miles in 6 weeks.  I’ve budgeted 9 weeks for the next 1200.  And then 4 weeks for the 700 to the Canal.

The guidebooks advise that to make one’s way AGAINST the relentless tradewinds we should get a crack of dawn start every day and drop anchor by early afternoon.  Tyler’s and Reed’s ridiculously early start set me and my new crew (with veteran and newly captain licensed Kristin to help out) for exactly that.  With a mechanic to meet in Ponce, we had a 43 mile push to make.  And as advised were beating against 20 solid knots of wind and 6 foot seas by the end of the day, which turned out to be 3pm. 

“A mechanic to meet?”  Putting Akimbo’s equipment thru its paces…weak links have shown themselves.  As they’ve been revealed i’ve e-mailed my father and he has contacted the manufacturers and pursued service sources.  He has become my “shore crew”…but then hasn’t he always been that and more.  Thank you, Bud!  The gem from your help is the watermaker’s serviceman in Ponce, Puerto Rico, Luis Santos.  The watermaker is now back up to speed, the generator is back on line and tomorrow…we’ll rebuild the backstay hydraulic rams.  Whew!

The amenities of the marina are a real treat – laundry, internet, showers, pool, restaurant – but it’ll be nice to get underway and anchor in pretty places again. 

Inside stuff

So here is a question that’s percolating in me…how do i keep myself from seeing each island as “just” another island?  The next day as “just” another day?  The next person as “just” another person?  Maybe i will finally learn to see the details around me.  To see their individuality not as lost “in the big picture” but as intact and important in their own context.  If anyone should be able to focus on the journey more than the destination...a sailor should.  

While i do see the uniqueness of each of us, i also see how small we are.  So there is a core in me that feels how unimportant i am, how little i matter, that i don’t count…and a child that wants to be important, to matter and to count.  I’m sounding jaded in the questions above.  And tired.  I look at this trip and wonder if i’ve arranged it to get tired of my “self.”  What new way can i think and feel “my” life.  Have i set myself up to get sick of “sailor” jon.  And if i am no longer him, who am i?  This question reaches deep in me, it both excites and saddens me.  And feels real. 

The other question:  how am i gonna learn to relax on this trip?  This popped up yesterday at lunch.  I dropped my head back, took a deep breath, heard the wind in the palm trees, felt its warmth.  Ahhh.  Between keeping up with the equipment, the weather and the calendar…  I don't want to look back on the trip to ask if i had fun.  I'm doing what i want to do.  There's nowhere else i want to be than right here right now.  And how rare and lucky is that?  Sure, we're always in motion at some level, we've always got something to do, and to be real it can't be exclusive, it has to include some hard parts.    But we've accomplished some early and challenging legs pretty handily.  So why not trust that this is all gonna work out well, jon?  Pay attention, but "don't worry, be happy..."

Bye bye Bahamas, hello Turks and Caicos

We were counting on the forecast wind change to leave the next day.  But the SE wind blew relentlessly…until about 1am.   So we were surprised to wake up to an open weather window.  Magic!  How did that weather man do that?  We took advantage of the now calm bay to scrub Akimbo’s bottom clean.  On a rising tide and sun overhead, we picked our way carefully out of the east end of the bay at 11.  

16 miles later, equally carefully, we picked our way into the East Reef Bay, laying down waypoints so we could find our way out at midnight for the sail to the Turks and Caicos.  The bottom was rock and dead coral with a thin layer of sand.  We could hear and feel the anchor scraping along the bottom at the end of the chain.  On the third try, our anchor held.  I dove on it to see its point barely stuck in a small but solid feature on the bottom.  It held until our departure. 

The night sail went well until about 6am when the wind died.  After a bit of motoring, it came back and we finished under genoa alone.  The juried back stay successfully sailed thru it’s first night.  The customs and immigration officers weren't interested in our papers from the Bahamas, so entry was easy and only $50.  But we seem to be stuck with our Bahamian dollars - no one will change them.  

So we leave the Bahamas behind, and found them remote indeed.  Beautiful scenery, good fishing, kind and articulate people.  Caicos, by contrast, is ridiculously developed.  Sailing by, the shore reminded us of…most waterfront communities in the U.S.  Laurelhurst?  At dinner, we felt surrounded by entitlement?  Which can be really ugly.  Too much we find ourselves amid exclusivity – white folks spending money and black folks serving them/us.  Still, we’re glad to be here, and do appreciate modern options.  Altho…they’re expensive here.  I imagine i wouldn’t be able to afford moorage if this marina weren’t still under construction and missing several conveniences.  We have internet!  But we still shower on the swimstep.  A neighboring boat took our laundry to a laundress.  Imagine paying $22 for a load of laundry, and we had four loads!  Ah, well.  And gas is $6.24/gallon.  

We rented a car for a day to take care of groceries and enjoy meals out and explore a bit.  Oh, and replace my camera (have you noticed no pics here lately?).  Kristin joined a diving excursion yesterday.  She said the reef looked healthy and she swam with a shark!  (a real shark, not just a sand shark like the one that scared Reed and her back at Allans Cay - when it swam out from under an old wrecked car that lay upside down on the bottom - did i forget to mention that?  There are too many details.).  

From here, we sail round to the Caicos Bank, to sail in turquoise shallows again.  From there we'll visit Grand Turk to check out of the country.  It sounds like weather may be benign for a window next week and our crossing to Puerto Rico.  I am impressed how much the wind blows down here.  And blows.  And blows.  How key the windows are.