Struggle

…

Dawn woke me up. I had slept outside in the cockpit, floating in the sea under the towering shadow of the volcano Nevis Peak. Waking up at sunrise meant I was late for the day! My alarm was set to get up before the sun, but for some reason my phone’s clock had become an hour later… That had me confused for a while. But I needed the sleep.

I made coffee and cooked rice and beans with veggies and hardboiled eggs. I liked to cook all our meals for the day at once, in a big pot, and then just eat from that as we sail. We sat with coffee taking in the scene, golden sunshine lighting up the sky. Then we got underway. But we continued to relax and enjoy our coffee as we motored peacefully around Nevis.

We circled the island, following the coast, and before long we could see Montserrat faintly in the distance. Eventually we had a good point of sail, and the wind was strong (as usual) but not too crazy! So off with the engine, up with the sails, and offshore we go!

I was put in a really good mood as we sailed fast, but not too scary and in good control. We had the jib reefed using the roller furling system which was working well, making the sail smaller and helping us keep control. I usually don’t do that… I like to reef just the main and keep the jib full, but usually I don’t choose to sail in wind this strong. Gotta sail in wind this strong these days! It’s all we’ve got, and all we’ve had since we started this trip in St. Thomas! Seems to be how the month of July is feeling out here in the Leeward Islands, very windy every day, punctuated by stormy days where the wind is even stronger. I don’t want to sail on those days though.

So today was Wednesday, and I knew Wednesday and Thursday would be our weather window, Friday it would get rougher and Saturday the storm would blow in. But even Thursday would be rougher than Wednesday, so today was definitely the best day. Good, because this part of the ocean seems about the loneliest of any part of the journey. It was nearly 40 miles from Nevis to Montserrat, and then another 40 from Montserrat to Guadeloupe. After that the islands would be closer together, but I was a little worried about this long stretch passing Montserrat… It felt pretty exposed, and pretty challenging, seeing as how both Montserrat and Guadeloupe will involve beating eastward into the wind to get there. Well it must be done, so I was taking it seriously, and pushing on with every available hour of Wednesday and Thursday.

And despite starting a little late, the morning was going great! The waves were absolutely massive as we left Nevis, and we danced through them beautifully, flying along at our maximum speed, about 6 or even 7 knots! Until, wow, we actually hit a fish trap. Or a lobster pot, I’m not sure, but they have em out there, marked by buoys floating in the ocean. There are a lot of them, and you must avoid these even though they are hard to see. The buoy that you see is connected to a long rope, and that’s tied to a fishtrap 100 feet or deeper below. I’ve never given it too much thought because I’ve never actually been unfortunate enough to hit one! Dad was driving, I noticed it seconds before, and he just happen to hit it dead on.

It got caught on the boat, between the keel and rudder! And it was amazing how it stopped our progress, as we dragged it along. It even made the wind feel lighter, which happened just because we slowed down so much. And try as we might, nothing we could do would let it drop free! In fact when we tried to turn the boat to perform a jibe or a tack, it held us steady and didn’t allow the boat to turn. We couldn’t get the boat to stop moving forward, even going as slow as possible by letting the wind leave the sails, the boat still had enough forward movement to keep the line and buoy pulling forcefully through the water. Impossible to free it.

So, we always talk about jumping in the water at sea in emergency situations, or at least getting into the dinghy… I decided to get in the dinghy, just for a moment, and bob in the waves. Dad used the boat hook to grab the line from the fish trap and pull it up close to the surface of the water. From there I grabbed it with one hand, my serrated pocket knife in the other, I plunged the knife under water and with two cuts the line parted.

Then it dropped away, and Mary Jo was free again. Sorry to the fisherman who’s trap we wrecked, and to the fish who will stay forever in fish jail as the abandoned trap rests on the seabed…

Our next obstacle was a place called the “Kingdom of Redonda.” It’s a massive rock island between Nevis and Montserrat, and apparently a kingdom because a wealthy guy purchased the island and claimed it as his own country! So he made himself the king. I don’t believe his claims were ever officially recognized, and in my view, this island ought to belong to the people of the independent nation of St. Kitts and Nevis, just like the others in this mysterious volcanic archipelago north and west of Guadeloupe. But all the same, few people probably ever set foot on Redonda. It is a very dramatic pile of cliffs rising from the ocean in the middle of nowhere.

And it does strange things to the currents and waves, (even the wind?), as rocky islets often do. The waves in this area became a little, “Redondant,” as I called it! The state of the sea had been good, and now it got pretty frustrating, the wind coming from a couple points closer to Montserrat, making it harder to sail directly down our course. The waves were confused and sloshy, coming from two directions. But after a few hours the frustrating conditions vanished as Rendonda fell off into the distance.    

 

Then the wind and waves became absolutely perfect! The breeze was finally gentle, the kind of weather I like to sail in. We opened the jib full, shaking out the reef. And before long we noticed something bad, the roller furling line was chafing through. When we had the sail reefed, for the last 3 or 4 sails, it was putting a lot of pressure on the roller furling line. It’s just a skinny line, and it’s been getting sun and weather beaten for 2 years. Well it was coming apart. It actually looked like we could no longer reef the jib sail like that, unless we replace this line. It was holding by just a thread, so really any more pressure on that line and it will snap. Amazing it didn’t already… If the jib is fully open there’s no pressure on that line by the way. It only gets under pressure when the sail is partially furled.

We’ll have to deal with that later. For now we’re sailing perfectly and closing in on Montserrat. As the island grew into focus I became fascinated by it. There’s a volcano on Montserrat, which makes up most of the island. It’s called Soufriere Hills and it is active. In fact it’s erupting! Somewhere up there, lava is flowing, and smoke rises from the island. You can see where the cone of the volcano broke as pyroclastic flows ripped a massive valley in the land. In 1997 this destroyed the capital city on Montserrat, Plymouth, as the lava cut the town in half, burying and obliterating the buildings. You can still see the remains of the city.

It would be cool to go there, but I believe it is off limits and the island of Montserrat is a bit strange. Not too many people live there, and I don’t believe too many people visit either. It seems to have an intense military presence, what could this place be hiding….?

Let’s see how it finds us! We prepared for landfall. As we closed in, the Soufriere hills loomed larger. A torn up volcano with brown, hazy clouds of smoke billowing from it’s slopes. Aside from that bleak and powerful landscape, the island was lush, verdant green rainforest. Half of the coast is an exclusion zone, boats are required to keep a few miles offshore. This is the coast in front of the old Plymouth townsite and directly beneath the volcano. Apparently the volcano is releasing acidic ash into the atmosphere, and its strong enough to burn holes in your sails if you pass in front of it!

An old wives tale I assumed! But we would still choose not to anchor there, and aside from that coast there are only 2 other possible anchorages in Montserrat. Fox Bay and Little Bay, and aside from those two, the island is all deep water and dramatic sea cliffs. So we’d go to Fox Bay, the quieter one in the wilderness. Little Bay is the location of the main town on Montserrat.   

Pulling into an anchorage on a Caribbean island is always an incredible experience. The exotic landscape, overwhelmingly mysterious all around us. The wind always fixes itself just right at the end of our days, so that the last part of our sailing goes perfectly to bring us to our new destination. Into our new bay in a foreign land, and they’re all tropical paradises. The water was clear, and we even made friends with the two other boats that were anchored there as we came in. Chatting with them as we found a spot near them.

So, I really wanted to explore! We couldn’t see Soufriere hills anymore from here, but there was a hill right on shore with a road up it. I wanted to climb up that and get a good view of the erupting volcano! Can’t miss it! How inspiring! What a place.

Dad went for a snorkel by himself, where he swam with the biggest sea turtles he’d ever seen, and I swam to shore. I took a dry bag with my phone to take pictures, which I put in my pocket, but I didn’t bring water, shoes or anything else. And I got to the black sand beach with a very pure feeling, with the earth under my feet, really experiencing some of the magic of life. I cut through a field, found a path through the sparkling emerald countryside, and broke into a run!

I found the old cracked road, and kept running on the hot pavement. I ran up a mountain at top speed! Something about the perfect sail, the sailing which always gets my adrenaline pumping, I had this extra energy, and was just thrilled by Montserrat. I soon saw a view of the jagged green ridge that makes up the western portion of the island. I was in a neighborhood of large and expensive looking houses, but they all seemed abandoned. One lone and starving cat even followed me, (on the way back) mewing, very cute, he wanted me to take him with me!

I saw no one in that neighborhood or anyone on shore at all, but I did see one overgrown mansion, with towering old palm trees and vines on the spiral stone staircases. I wonder, what is the story of this island…? The nature here does feel sacred, different somehow than most other places. From the top of the hill I saw the volcano, dramatically lit in the afternoon light, barren and smoldering. And I could see the ruins of Plymouth at it’s base.

So I got back to the beach and right as I was about to get into the water and swim back I noticed… We are having a visitor.

That’s not good. Not good at all.

Hmm, I wonder if Dad is back from his swim, because there’s a very official looking boat paying our little gypsy boat a visit. I wasn’t sure what was my best course of action, start swimming out and try to talk to them, or just chill on the beach a minute longer. I decided to try to ignore them, and just swim back to the boat as I had been planning.

Yeah ignoring them wasn’t gonna work. But they did leave as I was swimming back to Mary Jo. Dad was onboard and had talked to them. I swam so fast without even thinking about it, and my legs suddenly starting cramping! I had just run up the mountain…

Well that’s a shame I spent all my energy because turns out I would need it. Dad said, all was not well, and the officials would be coming back. We had actually crossed the border of France, Montserrat is a French island, and we have not checked into customs. And as far as our paperwork was concerned, our last port was St. Martin. So I’d go with that.

Let’s talk to these guys. They showed back up, a large inflatable boat filled with half a dozen West Indian men in military style outfits. The main interrogator invited himself on board, in his boots, probably the first time anyone has set foot on this hippy boat wearing shoes. And I sat so casually, papers in hand, and chit chatted it up right. Produced our Covid 19 vaccine card passports and our regular passports, as well as our St Martin clearance documents. He photographed everything. Well he was a nice guy, (ha, got him!) and I charmed ourselves out of trouble. Maybe… haha, either way, he looked the other way that I had gone to shore illegally, and said we had 24 hours to clear customs. Or we could leave before that.

Well that was very nice! I’ve been really harassed before at customs, and many countries don’t allow 24 hours like that. Many countries require immediate check in, The Bahamas for one. So the officer did search the boat, I gave him a tour. He seemed a little impressed at how bare bones minimalistically we were living. He didn’t search it hard. I had to explain why I have 3 5 gallon buckets of soil in the closet! Well that’s because I love to garden. And I had a huge garden on the boat in fact! Tomatoes, peppers, even a friggin watermelon! And I hope to have another. That’ll do, but he made it perfectly clear that we must move out of Fox Bay and over to Little Bay, 8-ish miles down the coast. “Immediately,” he said.

We didn’t have to check in, but we couldn’t stay anywhere but Little Bay until the check in was done. They also searched the other two boats we had befriended in Fox Bay.

The officials left. Okay, well, lets go then Dad. We got out of this one. I had nonchalantly agreed completely to the command to move to Little Bay. So gotta keep our end of the deal…A sunset cruise! Although as I pulled the anchor I realized how tired I was. The sun’s rays had just finished dancing on the glassy ocean behind us, and it dipped below the horizon. I paused. Could we just stay? They won’t come back… We’ll leave in the morning… No, unfortunately we can’t do that. No looking over our shoulder in fear all night. Get to Little Bay, fast as possible before complete darkness.

We got underway quick, and Dad made us some evening coffee! But as we traveled down the rugged cliffs of Montserrat, avoiding those fish traps (!!), the darkness enveloped us. Now we were pulling into this unfamiliar bay in the dark. And it wasn’t a tame a peaceful bay either! It was surrounded by cliffs and rocks and that kind of thing. There were two catamarans in it, and we just anchored somewhere in front of them. Couldn’t check the anchor, it was actually kind of a sleepless night for me. It was a terrible spot, strong ground swell rolling us around, strange currents that wound us in circles close to the beach or close to the catamarans, or close to the rocks. Ugh. Those officials put us in danger by telling us to do this. And we never did see them again.

That’s alright. In the morning we pulled the anchor and carried on. To Guadeloupe. Back to the fierce, fearsome ocean, which was predicted to be bigger today than yesterday. We added the extra hour or two, to motor back down the coast to Fox Bay, Little Bay was also completely out of the way. About 40 miles of open water, after we clear Montserrat. We motored right down the coast, through the exclusion zone, and right under the plume of fumes coming from Soufriere Hills. Storms clouds gathered around it. We looked at the destroyed town through binoculars. The volcano really was spewing ash right in front of us, we could see the smoky clouds of it billowing out of the mountain, and we could suddenly smell a strong sulfur smell. Uh oh… I wonder, is that old wives tale true? About to find out.

Nah, we were fine! But I did see a crevice on the mountainside spew a thick geyser of smoke that then disappeared. Very cool. And soon the waves grew bigger, the wind grew stronger, the ocean was monstrous today. And we couldn’t reef the jib! That roller furling line was still in disrepair. Dad had used our hillbilly chafing gear, duct tape, on the roller furling line. That seemed to help it out. But reefing the jib sail would put too much pressure on that line. I couldn’t risk it parting, I need that line mainly to open and close the sail.

 

So in order to sail in the strong wind will the full sail open, I’d try a tactic… “Pinch it” by sailing directly into the wind, as close to the wind as possible, beating for about 10 miles to windward. Then, I’d turn and head for Guadeloupe on a broad reach. That point of sail, with the wind more at our back, will be easier to do with the full sail open. And when beating into the wind, when I get a strong gust I just move a little closer to the wind. That also keeps less pressure on the boat.

This worked, and we crashed into the strong waves for a long while into the wind, heading north-east. The wind was also coming from more north-east today than the typical east wind. That would help us get to Guadeloupe as well. Dad fell asleep to the “peaceful” slamming of the boat into the huge waves, and I stood focused, eventually loosing feeling in my foot for days to come, from the aggressive position I always stood in while sailing.

The sky was streaked with bands of clouds, some dark, some light. Patches of sky were brilliant light blue, other patches were deeper, and darker. The sky was a map of the wind and weather, here a band of angry wind, here a patch of gentler breeze. Over there a squall. Montserrat from this angle was just a gigantic pointed cone, and the top of the island had a smooth hat of lenticular clouds, a huge arc of otherworldly white through the painting of the rest of the sky.             

We went though probably 5 squalls throughout the day, where the wind would strengthen for ten minutes in violent bursts that would make my heart pound a little faster. My nerves would get as taught as the rigging on days like this! I just don’t like sailing in heavy weather. But we made it ten miles to windward, Dad woke up at some point, and we could now faintly see Guadeloupe appearing on the horizon. We turned.

When we turned away from the wind, and let the sails loose, thing got a lot more peaceful. Although we were traveling much faster, (much faster!!), and now surfing these dastardly waves at sickening angles. But it was good, except for the dinghy which we dragged along behind us. He was full of water, and we were worried his line would break that connected him to the boat, or it would rip out the ring where it attached to the dinghy. We really can’t loose him. Maybe in the future I’ll deflate him and strap him on deck…

But after many hours of that we closed in on Guadeloupe. It was a large land mass, larger than any of the islands we’d been to yet! And here we are! Is this the official start of the Windward Islands? Almost? The sky here was dark and gloomy, and it rained as squalls continued to pass.

We sailed right in to this new land. Deeply green under the stormy blue skies. We made landfall at the town of Deshaies. This island is also French. But we weren’t planning to go to shore.

We were surprised to find many, many other boats in this relatively tiny harbor. Well we squeezed ourselves in between them all and dropped anchor. And then the rain poured down all around us and we let it rinse all the salt away. The sunset came soon. I was too tired to get too many chores done, although I did hoist the dinghy on deck, deflate him and strap him down. Ready for tomorrow.

Church bells rang from the town. The place was run down, wet, and exotic looking. Mysterious and inviting… the palm trees surrounded the tall, antique church with a corrugated tin roof. Behind it the mountains looked like virgin forest. Some red dirt cliffs chopped through the rugged hillside. It looked like a rarely explored land. And the wind funneled down through a notch in the mountain in these insane gusts for 10 seconds at a time, tearing through the trees on shore at maybe 50 or 60 mph, all night long.