Caribbean Compass Yachting Magazine October 2017

— Continued from previous page
On the stroke of midnight, church bells in Gustavia
rang madly and the vast assortment of boats signaled
their celebrations with all manner of horns. The
sounds emanating from each vessel — from small
bleating foghorns like ours to the deep rumble of the
larger ships’ — were like a hundred-piece orchestra. It
was extraordinary, and touching beyond belief.
Citizens of the world were expressing a mutual joy. It
seems likely that others beside myself cried and
prayed for peace in the world — we were confident it
would come.
The Nightmare
We sailed on up to Marigot, St. Martin, and began
our three-week wait for a new mainsail to be made in
Guadeloupe. One night the wind came up, more and
more furiously. No way to sleep — even Don, who slept
through anything, gave up. The wind howled through
the hatches we couldn’t close as that made breathing
impossible. The unsecured halyard inside the mast
began to slap wildly and noisily as Aquilon rocked
uncontrollably from side to side. For a few minutes,
and to no avail, I tried the normally comfortable forward
berth where the racket usually lessened.
The anchor chain groaned and screeched, the boat
bucked and snorted. The noise was constant — bang,
bang, bang, quickly, quickly. The anchor clamor
sounded like a car accident. Stuffing our ears with
paper towels was useless. Of course most storms seem
to come at night, making everything worse.
CHRIS DOYLE
As the wind increased, anchors dragged and boats
crashed into each other. We thought we’d be safer if we
could move and try to avoid these collisions. Don valiantly
went forward to haul up the anchor. At the
helm, trying to bring the boat forward slowly to take
strain off the anchor rode and help Don, I couldn’t
keep Aquilon’s head into the wind. She has a massive,
heavy tiller, not a wheel, making this more difficult.
Luckily, Don came back and put us in reverse — so
much for his crew’s reaction in an emergency.
It seemed our best shot was to extricate ourselves
from the seething harbor. We proceeded carefully,
slowly and broadside to the furious wind and waves to
a spot outside the breakwater. Don set our strongest
and heaviest anchor, a fisherman, and then the
Danforth, for a fail-safe. We huddled in the cockpit,
but both anchors dragged and soon we found ourselves
almost surfing, very, very close to the beach. A
horrible, frightening feeling. We were about to run
aground. With a huge effort, Don extricated the two
anchors and we made our way back into the melee. I
don’t recall who was at the helm (though probably I
was) as we nearly clipped a fancy sloop. The captain
rightly yelled at us, but we anchored safely.
It was still blowing madly, but we endured that awful
night, sleepless and exhausted. Finally it was dawn
and the wind calmed down. The captain of the other
boat gave us a big exculpatory smile. “It happens to all
of us,” he said after our profuse apologies. He told us
an enormous tanker outside the harbor had gone
aground owing to the over-75-knot winds.
The Sweetness
The horror of that night receded as we sailed along
happily to Luperon, Dominican Republic, a perfect
jumping-off point for the Bahamas. Our introduction
to the island was memorable. We walked along the
unprepossessing dock to the Comandante’s office for
our check-in and found him sitting on his window seat
in an alcove, shaving and watching TV. He didn’t look
at us when we sat down. Formalities and manners be
WWW.EATDRINKTRAVELBEHAPPY.COM
Top: ‘We spent a Thanksgiving
in Trois Ilets, Martinique’
Left: ‘Three years earlier,
we were lolling on the beach
in Trellis Bay, Tortola…
Our fate was sealed’
Bottom: A favorite stop —
les Iles des Saintes
damned. He finally interrupted his labors about ten
minutes into our visit and gave us entry papers. The
Comandante was the oddest person we encountered
during those seven months.
But Carlos the fishmonger was the sweetest. I practised
my Spanish with him in his minuscule shop. Our
friendly relationship was created and sealed by my
initial, ridiculous request for huesos (bones) instead of
huevos (eggs). A modern-day diplomat, Carlos not only
took it in stride but rewarded me with an endearing,
understanding smile.
We waited two weeks for the wind to subside and
allow us to continue on to West Caicos. Our favorite
activity was trying to sneak into the all-inclusive
hotels along the beach, hoping to enjoy their lavish
buffets (our nautical repasts were very unimpressive).
We always failed as we weren’t wearing the requisite,
telltale bright bracelets on our wrists. All the guards
spotted us right away and summarily removed us from
the grounds.
When wind conditions improved enough after two
weeks, we paid a sad farewell visit to Carlos. He welcomed
us and asked, “You like Coca Cola?” “We LOVE
IT,” we answered. He jumped on one of the omnipresent
rickety motorbikes and took off, leaving us
wondering what to say to his wife, now left with the
fish. Finally we gave up and walked down to the dock,
certain that our pal the Comandante would be too
busy tending to his chin and his soap opera to notice
us. Carlos careened down the dock at top speed with
an enormous grin, bearing two huge bottles of Coke
and a Sprite. How much nicer could a person be?
And so it went — sublime to ridiculous to nightmarish.
We had them all, and made it home anyway.
CHRIS DOYLE
OCTOBER 2017 CARIBBEAN COMPASS PAGE 21