|
Journey of the Snowgoose
Excerpt Four ...
At 9:15 AM the wind is fifteen knots, cumulous clouds, fair weather, seas three feet.
Our course is 67 degrees and it took us two hours to go two miles this morning,
picking our way around coral heads with the sun in our eyes. Then it was a joy
to be in the ocean for five hours. Galapagos Bound and Talaha didn't come with
us. Sea Spell, already in Calabash Harbor, talked us through the barrier reef
with her radar. Immediately we are over the side to cool off. We have roly-poly
seas on our way to Clarencetown, Long Island this June 11. With those seas we
changed course to 60 degrees to stay clear of the stag horn coral rising from
the sea at the north end of Long Island. An eerie and wonderful sight. We saw
a lot of flying fish today, some landing on our deck. At 0935 hours we changed
course to 150 degrees to sail south along the island's eastern shore and spotted
the Atterly Mast Light bearing 210 degrees and swept into the narrow harbor
entrance with huge rollers close by on our left. We anchored off the mail dock
at 1745 hours after sailing 65 miles. It was a white knuckle day for Honoree,
so she had some of our supper as a reward and is happy again. June 12, our
first stop is to see the bread lady. We admired her goat and signed her guest
registry. What a surprise to see our friends aboard the Obligee, Carl and Joyce,
had signed two days earlier on their way back to the states. We'd traveled the
Erie Barge Canal with them last year. The late Father Jerome built an Angelican
church here, went to Europe, converted to Catholicism, came back and built a
Catholic church. We looked into each of these cool, dark, twin-spired churches.
At the only store we bought $10.00 worth of Cool Aid, which says something
about thirst and this hot weather. The bread lady gave us a tour of her house
and asked us for a rope to tie her goat. When Bill gave her a piece of nylon
line she said it was too thin and probably wouldn't hold the goat. In the
evening we sat aboard Sea Spell for a drink with Joyce and Gil from Toronto.
The wind is almost on our nose, twenty knots and six foot seas as we leave for
Atwood Harbor in the Acklins this morning. Under main sail and genoa, I'm in a
cold sweat. I just spent ten minutes in the head trying to get my pants back up.
Bill and Honoree have vomited all over the place, Bill from going forward to
reduce sail when he got tangled in the lines. I could see him on the bow taking
green water up to his waistline. He was sick for about four hours, lying in the
cockpit, wanting to die on the spot. Finally, forty miles later, we had some
easing of motion because we were in the lee of the Crooked Islands. At dusk we
finally anchored at Atwood. The boats already in there turned on their masthead
lights and talked us in with their radar. We met a Cal 39 named Tuto Tuo, which
means "all yours." It is owned by an Italian named Vince with two American boys
as crew, gorillas, boaters call them. Vince is an importer-exporter of jewels
who lives in Venezuela and wants us to go home with him. Hmmmm. We had conch
for supper on their boat.
It is June 14 and we are resting a day, as are Sea Spell and Enterprise, both
motor sailers. Tuto Tuo sailed for Venezuela. A brief squall came through and
we had fresh water showers and hair wash before Bill uttered his famous line
to the boat anchored aft of us: "You are dragging your anchor!" He will never
live down the fact that we were dragging our anchor into them.
Our course is 150 degrees to get past Plana Cay on the way to Mayaguana Island. . . .
by Barbary Chaapel
|
|
