1984 (3) - Drugged

Small art quilt.  15" in diameter.

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

The amount of equipment on Tropic Moon, and our knowledge of how to handle her, had increased immeasurably over the years.  Thanks to a new autopilot, as well as an improved wind vane, during our passage across the Atlantic, we were almost never at the wheel.  If there was no wind and we were motoring, the autopilot was set to follow a compass course, and we putt-putted sedately in the correct direction.  Sailing with light winds and moderate seas, the autopilot usually still got the nod because it took a certain force of wind to make the wind vane effective.  In heavy seas the autopilot lost control, and then the wind vane, an excellent helmsman in strong winds, took over.  Sometimes the wind vane and the autopilot were used in combination.  And, while we were hove to during the gale, and the wheel was lashed off, they both took a well-deserved break.

On the three-week passage from Bermuda to the Azores, Ed did all of the sail changes, all the navigation, listened to our new single side band radio for the "high seas" weather reports, stood his watches, and even cooked some of the meals when I couldn't handle things in the galley.  I stood my watches, cooked the rest of the meals, and kept up with the dishes.  Ed told me I was a failure on the trip, and, as a sailor, I certainly felt I was.  My general mental state was one of numbness and lethargy.  Whatever I had hoped to gain from the passage was far out of my reach.  My only special moments were the few times when dolphins joined Tropic Moon and played about the boat. 

Swan.  Detail.

On watch, I kept a lookout for ships, but seemed incapable of noticing anything else.  Ed told me if the mast fell down, I probably wouldn't notice.  He was proven out on the last day of the trip when the mainsail ripped a seam near the top of the sail, leaving a section flapping in the wind.  I went off watch without seeing it.  At the end of each watch, we would take note of the log, to see how many miles we had made, and enter it in the logbook.  The log was in the middle of the knot meter, the same way a car odometer is located on the speedometer.  I would read the mileage, but not notice what speed we were doing.  As we changed watch, Ed would invariably ask me our speed, and I wouldn't know.  Several watches went by before I was able to click my mind into gear to also take note of our speed.

Looking back on that time, I put a good deal of the blame on the drugs I was using to combat seasickness.  I wore patches containing scopolamine on my neck, and changed them every three days, pumping more and more of the drug into my system.  We have since heard horror stories of what happened to people taking scopolamine.  I was dangerously drugged, and neither of us realized it at the time. 

At one point, during one of my watches, the wind had died.  Fighting my lethargy, I decided to take down the luffing mainsail.  It was a pleasant day, and I climbed onto the fore deck without attaching my safety harness.  Using the winch handle, I released the pressure on the mainsail, and the sail quickly began to fall to the deck.  I had had only one hand on the winch handle, and the force of the falling sail, pulling on the halyard, spun the winch handle out of my hand, and sent it flying across the deck.  Rather than let things take their course, I reached with my left hand and grabbed the wire halyard to slow down the speed of the falling sail.  I burned my palm on the wire, and then stood there, holding onto the halyard, unable to reach the winch handle, and at a total loss as to what I should do next.  I ended up yelling for Ed, who was pretty upset when he saw the fix I’d gotten myself into.  In essence, I simply wasn't able to think clearly, and make reasonable judgments on how to handle different situations.

On the morning of July 22^nd, I had my usual midnight to 4:00 a.m. watch.  While I was aware we would be approaching, and probably arriving at the Azores that day, all I saw ahead in the darkness were clouds on the horizon.  By that time I had little interest in our progress, and was having trouble making myself go out on deck to do the occasional checks.  When I did make my final check at 4:00 a.m., dawn had broken, some of the clouds had lifted, and the sun was rising from the sea behind the islands, highlighting them in impressive silhouettes.  Appearing directly ahead - and far closer than I had expected for our first "land ho" - it was as if some nautical magician had whipped off a magic cloth, planting majestic islands in our path.  It was an almost unbelievable, but very welcome sight.  Later that morning, after three weeks at sea, we made our port of call at Horta, in the Azores, in the middle of the big, blue Atlantic Ocean - 2500 miles, and four time zones, to the east of Washington, D.C.

1984 (2) – Gale At Sea

Ocean Wave.  Digital Art.

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

Draw a direct line on a map of the Atlantic Ocean, from Bermuda to the Azores, and it measures a bit over 1800 miles.  That distance would be the minimum length of our passage to Horta.  As it turned out, what with meandering around when pushed off course by headwinds, we actually covered 1925 miles.  I was really optimistic before we left Bermuda for the Azores.  The trip to Bermuda had, quite literally, been a piece of cake.  The next leg would take at least 2-1/2 weeks.  I anticipated the opportunity to really experience whatever it was that some sailors love about the sea - and which had thus far eluded me.

Things started off well enough, from my point of view, as there was little wind and we motored for two days.  When the winds returned, they were fairly strong, and practically on the nose, when they should have been "prevailing westerlies."  The headwinds came with rough, unsettled seas.  Though I was using my seasickness skin patches, I was very uncomfortable.  After a few days, I realized I had a rock-like lump of tension in the pit of my stomach.

We had left Bermuda on July 1^st.  On Friday, the 13^th, we were hit with our first gale at sea.  The radio reported 45 mph winds, and the seas got up to about 15 feet.  Before nightfall, we were sailing with our smallest jib (its first use since we owned Tropic Moon), and the mizzen sail.  The mainsail had been down all day.  Ed decided to take a reef in the mizzen to shorten sail.  We were both in foul weather gear and safety harnesses, and I was at the wheel waiting for Ed.  I turned around to look at the seas that were building behind us, and found myself looking straight up at the top of a towering wave.  While I watched, the wave broke on the crest.  I was looking up through the curling wave - and then it crashed down behind the boat.  I think I turned forward with glazed eyes, because Ed commented, "The helmsman isn't supposed to look behind him."  When the next wave broke, it fell on our stern and slapped me on the back.  I didn't turn around, but kept an eye on the wheel, and on Ed while he was working on the mizzen sail.

We didn’t try to sail during the gale, but were "hove to" instead.  We had left up a minimum of sail, just enough to balance the boat.  Tropic Moon tried to head up, as much into the wind as possible, which slowed down the speed and motion of the boat, and took some of the pressure off the sails.  While under good conditions - decent winds and a full suit of sails - we averaged five knots, hove to, with a reefed mizzen and small storm sail, we were surprised to find we were still making an average of two knots.  With our minimum of sail up, and the wheel lashed in place with ropes, neither of us had to be out on deck.  The person on watch kept an eye on things from below.  Tropic Moon proved, through twelve hours of bad weather and rough seas, to be a marvelously good sailor, and to take everything in her stride.

1984 (1) – Atlantic Crossing - First Leg

Escher's Seahorses.  An Art Quilt, 23" x 16"

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

Ed and I spent the 1983-84 winter ashore.  We moved in with my sister, Lynn, and her two young sons, in Arlington, Virginia.  I signed up with Kelly Girls.  They gave me a quickie course in how to use a word processor.  The certificate I was awarded was larger than either of my college diplomas!  I spent a couple months doing clerical work for Naval Supply, commuting daily on the Metro.  I was offered a permanent job, but I turned it down.  I explained that Ed and I would be sailing across the Atlantic that summer. 

Our journey to Europe began when we left the boatyard in Oxford, Maryland, which had been Tropic Moon's home for the winter.  We cruised south down the Chesapeake Bay.  Our jumping-off point was an anchorage in the York River in the southern Chesapeake.  We began our passage, heading east, southeast, on June 5th, and arrived in St. George, Bermuda, on June 11th, six days and 800 miles later.  Our trip to Bermuda was an easy one.  The weather was good through the whole passage, with wind for the first four days.  Then the breeze faded out to a calm.  We motored our last two days, but received sufficient wind at the end of the trip to arrive at Bermuda under full sail, much to Ed's delight. 

The first day of the trip was panic-time for me.  The realization of what one has committed oneself to settles in with uncomfortable insistence; a voyage of endless hours and days looms ahead.  The second day was given over to misery and seasickness as we crossed the Gulf Stream, a river within the ocean, with rough, choppy seas.  My stomach, my fears and my watch-keeping all settled into routine on the third day.  By the fifth day we had difficulty remembering which day it was.  When the passage drew to an end it was with a feeling of, "What?  Over so soon?"

Escher's Seahorses.  Detail.

We spent three lovely weeks in Bermuda.  It was probably the prettiest island we visited in our travels, and will surely always be a favorite.  I refer to it as an island, but Bermuda is actually a collection of some 120 islands and islets, some of which have been joined together by bridges and causeways.  Bermuda's total area is about twenty square miles and the length, by road, from end to end, is only twenty-two miles, at some places less than one-half mile in width.  The highest hill is 260 feet above sea level, so you don't see the island at any great distance when approaching by sea.

Bermuda is a land of colorful flowers - hibiscus, oleander, bougainvillea - and lush, green foliage.  The greenery bordering the islands' roads gives way to glimpses of secluded coves and opens up to panoramas of turquoise-colored bays with the darker-hued sea beyond.  While Bermuda's homes come in every color imaginable, with bright yellows, pinks, and blues predominating, all roofs are, by law, white-washed and similarly rutted in style, as the roofs form the fresh water catchments system for the island.  Visitors cannot rent cars on Bermuda, but can rent bicycles and the very-popular mopeds, or travel by taxi or bus.  Our favorites were the modern pink buses, which could be taken from one end of the island chain to the other for less than one dollar.  We bought a book of bus tickets on our arrival, and made good use of them during our stay.

Surprisingly, we ran into people we already knew.  We met a boat (Rapid) that we’d known in Road Town, Tortola, and another sailboat (Skuld), that we remembered from Bequia, four years before.  The Skuld people were living ashore in North Carolina, and had sailed to Bermuda for their vacation.  They had one child, who had been a baby when we met in Bequia, and now had a second child in diapers, and nursing.  They had sailed to Bermuda with both kids!

We also met a man who was single-handing a 30-foot sailboat from Spain to Long Island.  He had done the leg from the Azores to Bermuda in 24 days.  I’d never seen anyone so eager to talk to people.  He rowed around the harbor visiting boats every night.  He had a wedding to attend in Long Island at the end of the month, and we doubted he was going to make it on time.