Caribbean Compass Yachting Magazine - December 2019

— Continued from previous page
Vance is a short, burly man with a confident smile. “Vance Lance, net control.” he
introduces himself. “I’ll be keeping an eye on things — rather,” he chuckles, “an ear.”
We are speechless.
Vance Lance is more than just the commodore of this fleet in which the other men
are captains and the women are referred to as admirals. Apparently Vance has been
around forever. And by “net control,” he means SSB, ocean work, serious stuff. He’s
been there, done that. He can handle emergencies with a radio. He gets people rescued.
He’s the real thing. We are in good hands with Vance.
Vance is remarkably modest about it, allowing most of this acclaim to come from
the officers of his fleet.
That was pretty much the conversation until it turned to insurance rates. Their
annual premiums approach what Jan and I paid for our little yacht. When asked
how much insurance cost us I mumble, “About five hundred US a year.” That’s an
exaggeration — I want us to look good. “What kind of coverage does that buy?” one
of them gasps. “A new anchor and rode,” I confess. That answers — they take it as
a joke.
These people are the antithesis of Jan and me. Most of yachting is somewhere in
between… I suppose.
Then we make our excuses and row home, even though they offer to tow us — so
that we won’t have to row! It’s Jan’s turn to row. It helps keep her looking how I
like her to look. And I like looking at her from the stern sheets.
“See you on VHF in the morning,” Vance calls after us, “Oh six thirty sharp.”
I lean forward towards Jan. “First light?” I ask.
“What about the morning net?” she jokes.
“We want to be out of range by then. Besides, I think the VHF has a blown fuse
or something.”
That means up at four, which we usually do anyway, but kind of sticking with
the pace this time. It’s such a nice time of day to hang out that our usual first
light departures don’t happen until around seven.
Jan manages to get online in the morning, before the surfers and streamers clog
the WiFi, long enough to download an email from Sal and Paula. Distant Horizons
has a big problem. They are hauling out in Portugal. Cancel.
For a long moment, all we can do is grin at each other.
“Let’s get out of here anyway. We’re checked out and provisioned for nearly
a month.”
“Let’s start by doing Bequia Head then down the outer Grenadines. Off the
beaten path.”
“Then maybe the east coast of Grenada? We haven’t been to Grenville for years,”
“We’d be the only yacht there.”
Up anchor, up sail and away.
“They’re already gone,” Vance had reported on VHF at 0630. “Northbound, I saw
them pass the point. They must have wanted a head start.”
That was three days ago. The buddy-boaters are now clustered in St. Lucia shopping
and waiting and beginning to worry.
“They should have been here by now.”
“They might have had a problem and had to stop at St. Vincent.”
“I hope they didn’t have a problem in the channels,” Vance says. “That could be
bad. I’ll make some inquires.”
“Nothing,” Vance reports. “I’ve talked with a dozen yachts along the way and
nobody’s seen them. I’ve issued an alert to watch for their boat. They are confirmed
checked out of St. Vincent and haven’t checked in here. It’s time for action.” Vance
begins the groundwork for an SAR (search and rescue). Some of the agencies seem
hesitant but Vance Lance has dealt with that before.
Jan and I did a night of rolling and bucking under Savan Island, which reminded
us why we haven’t done that for a while. Eddying wind and crossing current in
fairly close quarters.
Then we spent two days isolated in seldom-visited and uncomfortable Maho Bay,
which contains a small promontory with amazing geology that was surely holy
ground to indigenous peoples. The anchorage is utterly untenable for modern
yachts — lots of rock and roll and no WiFi. We use a second anchor to hold us into
the swell that wraps the point. There are reasons why one can count on being alone
in such places.
Then we do a close reach over Canouan to give Sail Rock a fly-by. It’s something
we like to do now and then just because it is so remote — miles above even World’s
End Reef.
Now we’re headed for Les Tantes. We’ve sailed through them a couple of times and
thought we saw a good patch of clear sand but never anchored.
“I don’t think we can get any closer to nowhere than that,” I comment.
“The snorkeling will be great.” Jan answers. “But what about the fact that we’re
cleared out?”
“I knew a guy, sailed these islands all the time without clearing in or out. Any
time he had to, he said that he’d just arrived from the USVI, which doesn’t
issue departure papers to US vessels. And the US Virgins is where we were
cleared for anyway.”
“I’m glad we’re stocked with herb. How ‘bout we linger longer in the Grenadines?”
I nod agreement. “At Les Tantes, we won’t even see passing boats.”
But at Les Tantes we find no place to anchor without endangering the bottom. So
we sail on towards the southeast coast of Grenada, which has several remote nooks
and crannies we’ve long intended to check out.
“These people are unbelievable,” Vance declares in disgust. “But I’m getting the
yachties together and the authorities will see that they’ll have to get serious on this
one. We’ll find them, by God! We’re arranging an air/sea search and we’ll shame
every coast guard vessel in these islands into participating. It’ll be expensive. But
you can’t put a price on a human life. And we don’t abandon our own.”
THE END
Moving Forward
december 2019 CARIBBEAN COMPAss pAGE 29
Caribbean
SECRET HARBOUR
MARINA
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