1979 (12) - Home for the Holidays

English Harbor, Antigua.  Tropic Moon, front and center

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

English Harbor, on the southern coast of Antigua, is one of the most beautiful and popular anchorages in the Caribbean. The bay goes well inland with several twists and turns.  For the Christmas season, 1979, we left Tropic Moon in English Harbor and flew home to the States.  We moored Tropic Moon, tied to the roots of mangrove trees, in one of the smaller inlets at the head of the bay.  We left our dinghy with Ted, a fellow on another sailboat.  He kept an eye on Tropic Moon while we were away. 

We were in the States for almost three weeks, spending part of the time at my sister’s in Arlington, Virginia, where my parents joined us, and part of the time with Ed’s folks on Long Island.  It was nice to have “a vacation from our vacation,” and see our families again.  We slipped in and out of winter without seeing any snow, and with a low temperature of 25 degrees.  The cold didn’t bother us nearly as much as we had expected.  We returned to Antigua laden with new paperback books, cassettes for the tape deck, and film for the camera. 

The day we returned to Antigua, by the time we reached English Harbor, it was already dark.  Some nice people with a dinghy ferried Ed out to Tropic Moon.  I sat down with the luggage to wait.  Ed suggested that if he didn’t show up in an hour, I should try to find my own ride out to the boat!  I waited about twenty minutes before some guy asked me if I was going to sit on the dock all night.  I explained my problem.  He very nicely offered me a ride in his dinghy.  He took me - plus my tote bag, the duffel bags, and the new solar panels - out to Tropic Moon.

The only evidence we found of Ed on the boat was his shoes and socks.  The boat was locked, so I had another wait.  When Ed had reached Tropic Moon, he found the dinghy gone.  We had told Ted he could use it while we were away, and we'd come back a day early.  The people who ferried Ed to Tropic Moon then offered to take him to Ted’s boat.  Ed found Ted, our dinghy, the keys for our boat, and some of our laundry - which Ted had sent out to be washed.  Ted had stripped the bunks, and also found some other dirty sheets, which I’d stuffed in the hanging locker in the aft cabin.  I guess things had started to smell; I’m afraid his nose must have led him to them….

Tropic Moon is on the far left.  Orange nose (sail bag) and blue awning

Our experiences of going without electricity when the engine wasn’t working, and Ed’s general dislike of running the engine to charge the batteries, helped us make the decision to give solar energy a try.  We purchased two solar panels while in the States, and have been using them to charge the batteries since our return.  They charge at the rate of one amp when the sun is shining.  It’s fun to watch the effect of passing clouds on the amp meter Ed constructed.  Ed decided against attaching the solar panels to the cabin top, as it's advantageous to be able to prop them up, and turn them to catch the full effects of the sun.  So far, the solar panels are keeping the charge in the batteries, despite increased use of the lights and tape deck.  The engine will be relegated to getting us in and out of harbors.

1979 (11) - Passage to Antigua

Charlestown, Nevis

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

After we had filled up on fuel and water, deciding it was too late to leave for Antigua, we anchored in the bay about 4:00 p.m.  But Ed stayed up by the bow, gazing seaward, and I knew he wanted to leave.  (You should never start a long sail when you're already tired.)  Ed claimed we would reach Antigua, which is about 100 miles S-SE of St. Maarten, by noon the next day.  Ed hauled up the anchor again and we left. 

That night we hit rough seas and strong winds.  I kept vomiting and couldn't keep anything down, even water.  We were over-canvassed, but I doubt we realized it at the time, through lack of experience.  The lee rail was often in the water.  We had our genoa up, and during the night the metal strip to which the genoa's sheet block is attached ripped off, leaving the sail flapping wildly.  Ed had to go forward on deck to do temporary repairs.  It was difficult to do any work and hang on at the same time, as the motion of the boat was violent. 

When dawn came we had hoped to be able to spot Antigua, but a study of the chart showed that we were still over fifty miles away.  With winds from an unfavorable direction, we knew we wouldn't make it by nightfall.  In the early morning we were hit by a squall.  After the squall Ed went forward, changed the genoa for our smaller jib, and reefed down the mainsail.  I suppose there’s always some compensation; the most beautiful rainbow I have ever seen followed the squall.  It reminded me of what young kids produce when they’re told to draw a picture of a rainbow.  They might take their crayons and draw an arc from one side of the paper to the other, putting in each stripe of color, and having the rainbow dominate the picture.  I imagine a teacher would say "nice rainbow," but think rainbows don't really look like that.  Well, we saw one, and it was huge, arching through the sky with both legs in the water.  Each stripe of color distinct from its neighbor.  We just sat and stared at it until it faded away.

Rainbow

Off to the west and downwind of us was the island of Nevis.  We decided to put in there for the night.  Ed went down below to read the chart, and came back up to say that Nevis was fifteen miles away, and we could be in by early afternoon.  It turned out Ed misread the chart.  It was two miles/inch rather than one mile/inch.  We also had to go around to the lee side of the island to reach the port of Charlestown.  Instead of fifteen miles, it became fifty.  With the help of the engine, we just made it in at sunset. 

The seas by Nevis were unsettled, and the boat had to be steered carefully so that each wave could be taken at a slight angle.  While I was at the wheel, one wave hit us on the beam, and splashed over the boat with such force, I was knocked off from the wheel, and fell into the cockpit.  It was the one time on the trip I hadn't hooked on my safety harness, and I was quick to relatch it.  So many waves hit the boat; we were drenched, and coated with salt.  Ed's eyebrows were white with an accumulated salt crust.

Nevis, while offering up rough seas off its windward coast, captured our attention with its beauty.  Nevis is a volcanic island; the extinct volcano, with its head in the clouds, dominates the landscape.  We were motor sailing around the southern part of the island, which appeared uninhabited, and was really beautiful with its green fields, deserted sugar mills, and rough coastline dominated by the volcano in the background. 

The results of our being knocked about were evident below deck, especially in the forward cabin, where almost everything had gotten loose, most ending up on the floor.  Before leaving St. Maarten, I had purchased some postage stamps representing several of the islands, and had pasted them on sheets of writing paper.  I put these sheets on my clipboard, underneath more writing paper and envelopes, and placed the clipboard with several other items on a shelf over the head of my bunk.  It was difficult getting into the forward cabin.  The hook holding the door open had let go, and the door had slammed shut.  A pair of scissors, which had fallen from one of the shelves, was jammed under the doorframe.  I found one of the pages of stamps on the floor, looking like someone had taken it in his hands, and crumpled it into a ball.  My Snoopy was on top of a heap on the floor, and I thought I heard him muttering something about jumping ship at the next port.

The most unpleasant surprise was discovering our fresh water tanks had been contaminated with salt water.  There’s an inverted U-shaped pipe underneath the starboard rail, which acts as an air vent to our water tanks.  Our starboard rail had been underwater for long enough that salt water had siphoned into the tanks.  And that, in case you didn't get the implication, was our drinking water.  We carry a 5-gallon plastic jerry can in the cockpit with extra water, but the jerry can had fallen over during the trip, cracked, and all the water had leaked out.  We went from about 125 gallons of fresh water to zero gallons awfully fast.  As we had just filled the tanks in St. Maarten, we had that much water to hand pump out of the tanks before we could refill them in Antigua.  The water in the tanks was still potable, though quite brackish.  For five days we drank Coca Cola and grapefruit juice.

We stayed at Nevis for two days, and then took a day to sail south to Montserrat.  We moored overnight in a deserted bay near the northern tip of the island.  The following day we again headed windward toward Antigua, and at the end of a very long day, put in at Curtain Bluff Bay on Antigua's southern coast.  The following morning we motored east for three hours to reach English Harbour, our destination on Antigua.  And, what had started out as a "we'll get there by noon tomorrow" trip, ended up being a weeklong journey instead.

1979 (10) - St. Maarten - Part 2

Me, in St. Maarten.  I was wearing my Bitter End Yacht Club t-shirt.

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

Hanging around St. Maarten started to get old.  When Sunnie offered me a temporary job, I went to work for International Supply.  The company is a huge auto parts store, similar to the Western Auto’s back home.  A frantic sales counter served customers who stood around holding mufflers, tail pipes, and the like.  It was the only place in the Caribbean I’d seen that actually bustled.  

My first assignment was putting together their six-month paint order.  I also set up a cross reference system of part numbers for different manufacturers of exhaust systems, labeled stock, wrote up orders, and performed other tasks that were reminiscent of my library days.  As I was out of practice at working, I made it through five days, then took a three-day weekend, worked two more days, and haven’t been back for almost a week.  International Supply is starting five days of inventory, and I’m sure I can make myself useful updating their card system.  I got $30/day, and an employee discount at International Supply.

Mermaid of Carriacou

While waiting in St. Maarten, we took a three-day trip to sail to St. Barts, a French island about twelve miles south of St. Maarten.  Thanks to the prevailing winds, it was six hours over - and three hours back.  Our little trip gave us the opportunity to practice leaving and entering a harbor under sail, a good thing to know when your engine is less than reliable.  We did fine, which means we didn't run into any other boats.  While in St. Barts, we visited the stores and finished our Christmas shopping.  We had heard that the people there speak English, but the truth was, they spoke English about as well as I spoke French - vaguely.  I conducted the whole transaction in a bakery in French, which may sound good, but we ended up with turnovers stuffed with vegetables, instead of fruit.  It never occurred to me to ask what was inside of them. 

Post card from St. Barts

The engine parts never did arrive from England and, after a month, we finally gave up on them.  We left Sunnie's address with the post office in case the parts showed up.  We also cabled England again, asking them to initiate a trace, and to send replacements to Ed's parents' address in New York.  By that point, we had spent $100 on a $10 part, and still had nothing to show for it.  Sometimes things go that way.  We had made airline reservations to fly Stateside for the holidays, leaving Antigua on December 17th.  With only two weeks left to reach Antigua, and make arrangements for securing the boat, we figured that it was time to be on our way.

Church in St. Maarten

The day we planned to leave St. Maarten, we motored into Bobby's Marina for fuel and water.  We had a little trouble going in, as we had to drop an anchor off our bow, and back up between two other boats, to tie our stern to the dock.  Tropic Moon has a thing about going backwards - she won't if she can avoid it.  The wind was from astern, and we were trying to fend off from the two neighboring boats, which happened to be unoccupied.  A fellow came along the dock and caught our stern line to tie us off.  The docking rope slipped out of the cleat, came up against the wooden support for the dinghy engine, and started ripping off the wooden post.  We had Tropic Moon pulling one way, and this fellow on the dock pulling the other way. 

Ed reached in to grab the rope to put it back in the cleat.  In doing so, he managed to cut his finger open on a screw.  We got Tropic Moon secured, and Ed went below before I saw what had happened.  He bled all over cushion, deck and cockpit, and down below he sprayed the head with blood - it was on the toilet, sink, walls and mirror.  We did a little tourniquet on his finger, and used a Band-Aid to tape the ends together, which had received a long L-shaped cut.  The only way I can describe how bad the cut was, is to say that Ed almost went to the hospital for stitches (he has no use for doctors or hospitals), but then changed his mind.  I should have gone in for a sedative.  We filled up on fuel and water, rested awhile, and decided it was too late to leave for Antigua.  At 4:00 p.m., we reanchored in the bay.

Hibiscus