1981 (7) – Dennis & Gert – A Stormy Couple

Riffraff Reef.  An art quilt, 22" x 31"

To go to the beginning of this book, Tropic Moon: Memories, click HERE.

For most of the 1981 hurricane season, we were pretty busy tracking storms.  It almost seemed that, if you didn’t get a real biggie to clean the air, you were plagued with lots of little ones.  That year, conditions in the south Atlantic didn’t seem to be particularly favorable for development of big storms.  What we would have was, every three or four days over several weeks, reports of “disturbed weather” to the east, with the additional comment that further development was possible.

Hurricane Dennis was the most damaging storm of the 1981 Atlantic hurricane season.  It took almost two weeks to achieve hurricane status, up near the States.  When Dennis reached the Caribbean, it had degenerated from a tropical storm into a tropical wave.  While it didn’t look like Dennis would give us any serious problems in the Virgin Islands, we decided to go to Hurricane Hole on St. John, to wait for Dennis to pass our location.  It was a Monday, and, as Ed put it, it was either go to Hurricane Hole, or go to work.  (Mike, Ed’s boss, wasn’t happy with Ed’s choice.)

This was our third annual pilgrimage to Hurricane Hole.  It was good practice – sort of like a fire drill.  Very few boats went, although the Moorings sent over their whole charter fleet.  Dennis didn’t amount to anything; we got less rain than we would have in a normal week.

Riffraff Reef.  Detail.

We had more excitement a month later, with Tropical Storm Gert.  A depression when it crossed Antigua, upgraded to a storm as it approached St. Croix, Gert passed south of us.  Tropic Moon was moored in Maya Cove.  After setting a third anchor, Ed went to work, leaving me alone on the boat.  The storm was far enough to the south that steady winds seldom exceeded 25 knots.  But when the center of the storm passed our longitude, the northerly propagating swells came right through Salt Passage, breaking 6-8 feet high on our protecting reef.  As the storm tracked westward, and the wind changed direction, Tropic Moon shifted position.  Eventually, she was holding on only one of the three anchors.  Dressed in my foul weather gear, I went up to the bow.  I let out rope on one anchor, and pulled in on the other two, until I had Tropic Moon again balanced on all three anchors. 

The wind and the chop in the harbor were wild; Tropic Moon bounced around like a hyperactive puppy at the end of her leash.  When Ed got home from work, I could see him standing on the shore with the carpenter Ed traveled with, to and from Road Town.  It was obvious to both of us that it was too rough for me to row in with the dinghy.  Ed signaled me to stay on the boat.  He undressed, and gave his clothes and tote bag to his friend for safekeeping.  Ed walked to the head of Maya Cove, near the reef, and got into the water.  He swam across wind and current, while being pushed sideways by the rough waters.  I started breathing again when he reached the boat!

Each year during hurricane season, we seemed to acquire more anchors.  Ed had wanted some extras to set up a mooring in Maya Cove.  That way, when we left the mooring, we’d still have a full complement on the boat.  Ed located a pair of 35# anchors, for $25 each, from one of the charter boat companies.  That brought us to six anchors.  Maybe that would be enough...

1980 (23) - Recovery

Parrot Bay - an art quilt by Jean Baardsen

To go to the beginning of this book, Tropic Moon: Memories, click HERE.

We spent most of the month of July anchored in Road Town, living rather quietly, since Ed couldn't leave the boat.  In the middle of the month a tropical wave passed through.  While a tropical wave is not as bad as a tropical storm, which isn't as bad as a hurricane, it's still lousy weather, with heavy winds and driving rain.  We had to put out a second anchor during the worst of the storm.  Ed, with his back problems, had trouble setting it.  We were only too well aware that Hurricane Season was upon us, and that we would have problems securing the boat if a trip to Hurricane Hole became a necessity. 

Ed had assured me that once the muscle pains in his back eased, it would be the end of his problems.  He’d said the same thing when the pains were in his hip area, but this time he was right; he finally started moving around the boat again.  We left Road Town on July 25th and stopped for a few days at St. Francis Bay on St. John.  The improvement came rapidly.  Ed was once again pacing the deck for exercise and rowing the dinghy into shore - his first time off the boat in 35 days!  From that point on, he steadily improved, walked normally again, and could go for miles at a time.   

Parrot Bay - Detail

Courtesy of our cruising lifestyle, I faced my own “health challenge” – finding an ongoing supply of birth control pills….  Since St. Thomas belongs to the United States, I went ashore in Charlotte Amalie one day, hoping to locate a Family Planning clinic.  I went to the Legislature building, looking for a phone book.  I wanted a number for Planned Parenthood, but didn’t find it listed.  A man working there offered to help me.  He introduced himself as the special assistant to the head of the Senate.  He called around, and found the location for Family Planning.  He ended up driving me there himself!  I think he just wanted to get out of the office for a while.

I made an appointment, and returned on that day.  When I reached Family Planning, I was told the clinic was being held in Frenchtown, which was across town from where I was.  I drove over with three black women.  It turned out they were the nurse (driving), the doctor, and the receptionist.  I carried the black bag!  We opened the clinic, where there were a few other women waiting.  The doctor proceeded to throw a fit.  The water was off – again!  She was yelling about how unsanitary it was for her to examine women without being able to wash her hands in between.  No kidding!  There was a water cooler at the clinic.  The doctor would take a cup of water to use with each patient.  I was glad I was the second patient.  I had the exam, and got six months of birth control pills.  Even that took some talking.  Three months of pills was the limit they were allowed to hand out at one time. 

Parrot Bay - Detail

July 28th was Hurricane Supplication Day in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  It's when everyone gets the day off from work to supplicate the gods for safekeeping from the hurricanes.  One week later Hurricane Allan (the worst of the century, topping the previous year's Hurricane David) blew into the Caribbean.  Someone in the Virgin Islands must have prayed effectively, because Hurricane Allan stayed well to the south of the Virgins, merely causing bad squalls in our area.  To be on the safe side, we motored over to Hurricane Hole on St. John.  We secured Tropic Moon with three anchors, and three lines to shore.  While there, taking advantage of the calm waters, we worked from the dinghy and painted the second half of the topsides.  Compared with the previous year, very few boats bothered to take the trouble to leave their regular anchorages.

While in Hurricane Hole, we ran into some people we’d met briefly in Antigua in February.  Jerry and Martin were living on a sailboat, Travel.  In May they’d decided to sail to the Chesapeake Bay, by way of Bermuda.  Bermuda is 950 miles due north of the Virgin Islands.  They liked Bermuda and stayed for five weeks.  While there, they learned that Martin could have a job on Tortola as a mechanic with a bare-boat charter company – so they sailed straight back to the Virgins.  I was somewhat aghast at the thought of sailing 1900 miles of open water, and ending up right back where you’d started.  Martin and Jerry were from England.  They’d crossed the Atlantic three times, so it wasn’t anything to them.  They told us they were staying semi-permanently at Maya Cove, on Tortola.  We said we’d look them up.

Waiting out Hurricane Season, we spent August through October cruising the U.S. and British Virgin Islands.  It was a relaxing time, and a nice change not having to face any new islands, with the attendant problems of locating food, water, and marine supplies.  Our sailing was measured in terms of a few hours, rather than a few days.  After spending our second summer in the Virgins, we knew the islands well enough that we seldom took out a chart.

1979 (7) - Hurricanes

Hurricane Hole

To go to the beginning of this book, Tropic Moon: Memories, click HERE.

We spent our first hurricane season in the Virgin Islands.  It's a time when people keep a careful ear tuned to the weather reports.  With plenty of warning of a major hurricane making its way across the Atlantic, we left Tortola in the British Virgin Islands to sail to Hurricane Hole on St. John in the U.S. Virgins.  Hurricane Hole, divinely designed with yachts and hurricanes in mind, goes well inland with several small, narrow inlets.  There are no beaches in the inlets.  The deep water goes right up to the shores, which quickly climb into hills covered with cacti, and footed with mangrove trees.  Because of the protection afforded by the bay, the water stays calm; seas and waves are little problem.  Boats need only safeguard themselves against the strong winds, which some people felt were intensified by a funneling effect through the inlets.

We awaited our first hurricane with justifiable nervousness.  Hurricane David, reported on hourly over the radio, was being billed as "the worst hurricane of the century."  Yachts arrived from all the nearby islands.  We estimated over 100 boats sharing the anchorage with us.  On arriving at Hurricane Hole, we followed the example of those who had gotten there before us.  We picked a spot close in to the shore in one of the inlets.  We set out three anchors, as well as a couple of "tree anchors" (commonly known as "lines to shore").  The bay looked like giant spiders had invaded, spinning great white webs, trapping the boats with strands that ran to the shores, and every which way through the water.

There were times when I felt it a rather ominous place, especially when Ed went into shore by dinghy to set our tree anchors, and disappeared into the bushes for what seemed an eternity.  Once he stepped on a spiny sea urchin that imbedded two of its quills into Ed's ankle.  We followed some advice we had heard, and treated it with a home remedy - urine.  Despite dire warnings, his foot didn't swell, and gave him very little pain.  Another time Ed returned to the boat with his back covered with scratches.  I asked him if he had met some wild woman in the bushes.  He attributed the scratches to a run-in with a cactus.

Hurricane David passed 110 miles south of us with winds at the storm center of 150 mph.  We had gales in our area with winds of 70-80 mph.  David was due to be its closest to us at 2:00 a.m. - naturally it would be in the middle of the night - so we stood watches during the night to make sure we didn't drag anchor, or get into any other trouble.  I stayed up till midnight, alternating between two good viewing spots, and eating a bag of Hershey's chocolate kisses to help keep me awake.  Ed got up at midnight and stood watch till 5:30 a.m.

With David moving off to the west, everyone tuned in to the weather station for an 'all clear' - only to learn that Hurricane Frederick was on his way.  We all stayed put, did some visiting between boats, and waited expectantly for our second hurricane in less than two weeks.  Hurricane Frederick did most of its damage as it passed over St. Maarten.  Philipsburg, the capital of St. Maarten, is a long, narrow town of three streets, bordered in front by Great Bay, the principal anchorage, and in the rear by the Great Salt Pond.  During Frederick the two bodies of water merged, flooding out Philipsburg with water, mud and sewage.  The situation was worsened by the fact that the Salt Pond was the local garbage dump with landfill as an aim, and all the garbage moved back into town.

Sunnie, a friend from home in Ann Arbor, who had visited us in Grenada, was living and working on St. Maarten at the time of Frederick.  She later told us how she and a friend, Joanie, abandoned the houseboat where she lived, and moved up to a house in the hills belonging to a fellow named James.  In the middle of the night, at the height of the hurricane, after several Bloody Marys, when the electricity and water had both stopped working, they decided to test the phone lines and called James, who was in Antigua.  The phone connection was excellent (a rare occurrence), they passed out after the call, and James stayed awake the rest of the night worrying about them.

Hurricane Frederick, by the time it reached the Virgins - while it apparently went by right overhead - was a weakening storm that got degraded from "hurricane" to "tropical storm."  It was carrying 65 mph winds.  Balancing the strength and distance of David, with the nearness and lesser strength of Frederick, they both had pretty much the same effect on us.  We had gales with heavy gusting winds, the storms themselves followed by a couple days of torrential rains.

Kalizma (the fancy motor yacht we knew in Grenada), showed up at Hurricane Hole.  Kalizma had to stay out in the larger bay because she took up so much room.  We monitored the doings around the anchorage by listening to our VHF radio.  Kalizma had more trouble with the winds where she was.  She was also having trouble with one of her engines, which she had kept running to avoid putting too much stress on her anchors.  She left after David; we don't know where she was for Frederick.  The only damage we heard about was one boat, Arabelle, who must have broken free.  She was across the bay on the rocks, a total wreck.  She went during David.

When the last of the bad weather had passed, we took a day to dry out before returning to Tortola.  Tropic Moon looked like a floating laundry with carpeting draped over the cockpit table and wheel, foul weather gear swinging from the mizzen boom, and towels and clothing pinned to the safety lines.  It was a relief to be able to open ports and hatches again, and air and dry out the boat after being cooped up for so many days.