A Sail of Two Idiots (11 page)

Upon our arrival, we looked like a bunch of idiots as we tried to lower the mainsail in the wind and choppy seas, but down it came eventually.

Captain Tim didn't want to deal with anchoring a “strange” boat with two amateurs in the dark, so he took us into Old Bahama Bay, West End marina. This was rather unnerving with Michael and me on the bow (front of the boat) shining a spotlight to direct Captain Tim around the reefs (in waters that were thankfully clear, even in the dark) as we maneuvered our way inside the narrow entrance. In this case, I think anchoring would have been easier, but hindsight and all that … We got tied off to the main dock and high-fived one another. Yay! We did it! Our first motorsail and we were still alive and the boat was still afloat! Not much beats that feeling. We would discover that every time we completed a crossing successfully, we would feel so good to be anchored/moored/slipped and secure in a new (to us) spot.

Turns out we were lucky we left Florida when we did. Waves were building up in the Gulf Stream, and small-craft advisories (that's us!) went into effect. (Small-craft advisories [SCAs] are issued by NOAA to warn of sea and wave conditions that could potentially put small boats in jeopardy.) It couldn't have been calmer where we were.

My favorite part of the crossing was using the chartplotter (the computer geek in me). I started understanding what I was looking at—after changing the map view—and began adjusting other settings and comparing the electronic maps to our paper charts. Once the chartplotter was just the way we (well, I) liked it, I just watched our little boat marker move across the screen heading along the blue line, aiming for the small anchor symbol by West End, Grand Bahama Island. Of course, there was always the danger that something could happen to the chartplotter, which could be catastrophic because of our lack of paper-chart reading and current-calculating abilities, but that's why we had three backups (our laptop and two handheld GPS units). Did this method take away from the sailing experience? Well, maybe a little bit, but when you don't have a clue what you're doing, it's a godsend to be able to understand something—anything at all.

O
ur maiden voyage was now complete. Boy, did we sleep well. Next up? Customs. Oooh, another first. The customs office opened at 9 a.m. and we were hoping to be sailing by 10. We didn't want another nightfall arrival.

The customs officials were nowhere to be found. 10 a.m. Nobody. 10:30. Sigh. We were learning the meaning of “island time.” We also needed to get moving. At 10:45 we could wait no longer, threw off the dock lines, headed out the cove entrance, and just happened to notice the customs' vehicle pull into the parking lot. Wave to the agents, everybody! We figured we'd just check in at the next island. Who'd know?

We had a fantastic sail. Not a motorsail but an outright both sails up and out sail. We even had a dolphin swim in our wake, just like in the movies.

We lost our mojo though when the winds died about three-quarters of the way there. We turned on the engines and were a bit alarmed when one immediately started spewing black smoke. Abandon ship! Just kidding. We did shut down the engine before the flames made much of an appearance. Since we didn't have time to troubleshoot the problem, we just kept the engine off and limped along on one.

During the sail/motorsail, a couple of times I could see via the chartplotter that we were getting off course and went to ask our napping captain if we were on the right track. Remember, he didn't care about the plotter and was confident in his calculations, so he blew me off. That is, until I more forcefully asked him to recalculate his bearings because I
really
thought something was wrong (this was
my
boat, right?).

Turns out he had entered the wrong coordinate and, now corrected, his GPS meshed with my chartplotter. Yep, both now confirmed that we were two hours off course.

I was too frustrated to gloat. Any hope of getting to Great Sale Cay before dark was long gone. Because of the miscalculation, a 40-mile jaunt turned into a 49-mile jaunt, costing us precious time. Motoring on one engine didn't help either.

Here came another sunset, albeit a beautiful one. And then it was dark.

We arrived on Great Sale Cay at 8:30 p.m. This time we did anchor … with one engine. You know, there's a reason why catamarans have two engines. One side counters the other. Put them both in the same gear at an equal speed and you go straight. Use only one engine and you go off in one direction and wind up turning in a large circle. There is a way to finesse this or you can simply drop your dinghy and use it as your other engine, but we didn't know about any of those options yet, and apparently neither did Captain Tim. So we spun around trying to get the anchor set and hoped no one could see us in the dark (luckily we were alone). If you make a fool of yourself and no one sees, did it really happen?

Once anchored, all the worries of the day fell away. Sure we had a teensy engine fire and a slight detour, but we also had our first great sail and a dolphin visit to boot! We were in a place different from the day before and would be going to a new place the next day too. We were cruising!

The next morning was incredibly calm. I'd never seen anything like it. This is the ocean! How deceptive it could be. Kind of like a sleeping baby! We tentatively turned on both engines, and all was well. Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, we pretended that nothing had happened the day before and motored on. We got about 10 miles into the 38-mile trip when the “good” engine started belching the black stuff. What the …?!

This time we shut down everything and took a look. The water was so clear, despite the 18-foot depth, that we could clearly see the sea grass that was hooked on the propeller. So Michael bravely grabbed his snorkel gear, tied himself to the boat, and dove into the frigid (about 80 degrees—okay, so we're wimps) water. He pulled a big wad of sea grass out of both propellers, so once we restarted the engines (minus the ominous billowing black smoke this time), we picked up considerable speed.

At one point I looked down at the chartplotter and noticed the date—11/10; it was my birthday! Happy forty-first birthday to me! I received the best gift ever when, after an uneventful motorsail, we enjoyed a sunny 3 p.m. arrival. We even had time to practice some boat stuff, like anchoring, steering with the engines, and tying knots.

We were blissfully alone, so we didn't feel self-conscious putting ourselves through the maneuvers again and again. Gaining confidence, I was starting to feel like Bill Murray's character in the movie
What About Bob:
“I'm saiiiiliiiing!”

The third morning in the Bahamas was just as calm as the previous one. That meant no sailing. Sigh. It's hard to learn how to sail that way …

We gunned the diesels and headed about 25 miles to our “final” destination of Green Turtle Cay. Hey, this sailing thing was pretty easy! Just turn on the engines and hit the autopilot! Sheesh!

During this hop, we (I) learned how to use cruising guides, charts, and my trusty chartplotter to select and create routes that would keep us clear of any nasty water obstructions (like other islands or reefs). We made it to anchor by noon. Let the celebrations commence!

Wait! Not so fast! We would have limited time with Captain Tim, so I wanted to run through as many scenarios as we could, particularly while conditions were conducive to do so (boy, did that turn out to be the right call). First we decided to get fuel at the dock (a first for me). I took the helm and put the techniques we had practiced on Allans-Pensacola Cay into play. I managed to get the boat to the fuel dock without running into anything (although I was screaming
in my head the whole time—AAGHHH!), and the “crew” tied the boat to the dock like pros.

Despite all the motoring we had done, we used exactly 34 gallons of diesel over the three days. It cost only $109 for fuel to go the 210 miles from Miami, Florida, to Green Turtle Cay in the Abacos, Bahamas, plus another $1,200 for the captain (including his flight home later). Not bad.

We performed a few more mooring and anchoring exercises before quitting for the day.
Now
we could celebrate. Yahoo! We had done it! We had sailed from Miami to the Bahamas. On
our
boat! Can I get an Arrrr Arrrr?!

I decided to call my mom to share my excitement and let her know we had made it safely. The two previous islands had been unpopulated, meaning no cell-phone towers, so I hadn't had a chance to keep her worry-free. I babbled on and on about how great our trip had been, only to hear dead silence on the phone once I had finally shut up. Hello? Hello?

Did I mention that about a half hour out of Miami our EPIRB went off? An EPIRB (emergency position-indicating radio beacon) is a satellite-tracking beacon that gets tripped only when you set it off during an emergency or it goes off by itself after hitting water, thus enabling searchers to find you. When we heard beeping coming from the unit, all three of us went to stare at it. You have to pull a lever to set it off, so it wasn't as though we had accidentally bumped it. Yet there it was, beeping insistently. Inexplicably. We were starting to worry about it when it stopped about five minutes later. Maybe it was just calibrating with a passing satellite. Shrug.

The silent treatment I was getting was from a distraught mother who thought that my boat had blown up and left her childless. The EPIRB beeping had caused the Coast Guard to call her and Michael's brother—our points of contact—to ask if they had heard from us. The Coast Guard was calm, believing that the beeping was a false alarm, but our families had waited on pins and needles for three days—until my exuberant phone call. Oops.

Since the Coast Guard thought it was a false alarm, they hadn't started a search. I would have been a bit peeved at this except that, had they pulled out all the stops and found us sipping beers in our cockpit in the Bahamas, they would have made us pay for the wasted effort. We did e-mail the Coast Guard as soon as we learned of their involvement to allow them to close the case with confidence.

I can't imagine how scary the wait must have been for our families, but I still can't help laughing every time I tell that story. Looking back, I am surprised that our experienced Captain Tim hadn't done something more, such as get on the VHF to clarify the EPIRB issue with the Coast Guard. Oh well, another lesson learned.