ALL’S SWELL THAT END SWELL…..
All passages are unique. We’ve had easy, straightforward journeys with night watches where we can study and wonder at the night skies during watches, some passages challenge us, and challenge our relationship with each other. Generally, we have been fortunate. Our blog is an honest account, with highs and lows, it would be boring if all we wrote about were the good times, wouldn’t it? So here’s an account of a passage that didn’t turn out as we’d planned!
Terry and I prepared for our planned 5 day passage from the Dominican Republic to St Kitts. We had studied various weather and wind forecasts for days as we were heading into the prevailing trade winds, I had cooked food for our passage, the obligatory hard boiled eggs, potato salad and cooked mince in a tomato sauce. Everything on the boat was checked, and charts primed on the chart plotter. The evening before when I was cooking and Terry was getting the paperwork for clearing out sorted, we had a lovely surprise, Brian and Coralie had arrived at the Marina! It was so good to see them both, and we gossiped and shared a delicious pot luck dinner on Inga with G & T aperitifs, tender steak, fried rice, garlicky chicken and French beans, red wine and rounding the meal off with fresh papaya and cake.
At 8am on the 28th the weather was calm whilst we awaited arrival of the Coastguard to sign off our Despacho, we couldn’t leave without this final rubber stamp. Four men walked down the pontoon two from the Coastguard known as the Armada the immigration officer and a gentlemen from M2 the drug enforcement agency . They asked to go onboard to inspect Sisu. We beckoned them in, Terry following them into our boat. The Drugs officer mimed sniffing cocaine and asked if we had any. “ we laughed we don’t even smoke” said Terry. I think this was a standard ruse to unsettle potential drug smugglers, did we look that edgy?! The Drugs officer poked around, he asked for a floor board to be taken up. Boats have areas in the bilges under floor boards to store all manner of things, in this case he found a plastic bags of Copper powder. “What’s this he signalled ?” our lack of Spanish not helping. Terry had to explain it was for anti fouling the boat by sign language. We were glad he didn’t try to taste it, or ask Terry to taste it, as it’s lethal if swallowed.
Tipping of officials is normal here as they are paid very little, however we’d spent the last of our Dollars and Pesos in the most expensive clearing out procedure yet, we did offer a bottle of wine. This was politely refused and all our papers signed off.
Terry and I were on board getting ready to cast off, we were both in the cockpit. “OK! You can go now!” shouted the Drugs Officer from the pontoon or at least that what we think he said. Terry and I have our routine. He helms, and gives instructions when he’s ready for me to cast off. I then shout back to him when we are free whether than be a mooring buoy or, in this case, the pontoon. It’s a delicate manoeuvre reversing out of this Marina. We had to reverse past two tall wooden pilings on either side of Sisu’s stern, the gap was narrow and Sisu’s not keen on reversing…. I didn’t have time to get to the bow, where I could cast off when we were ready, just as I got to the bow, to my dismay, the Security Guard and Drugs Officer had already untied our ropes and were both passing them to me at the same time! We were already going backwards, this could all get messy……. I glanced back to the starboard side deck, we were swinging towards one of the pilings! I raced down the deck and with both hands literally pushed us off the unyielding wooden piling, Sisu’s anchor came closer and closer to the piling! “How clear are we?” called Terry. “I’m not sure we are!” I called back, pushing against the piling, slowly, slowly Sisu just cleared the piling with an inch to spare. What a bloody exit, Sisu is not a motor boat, she doesn’t reverse like a car, the guys here are used to boats having bow thrusters, we have to use patience, gentle tweaks on the engine and at times, depending on the wind condition, everything crossed in the hope that she will behave! Fortunately, those who own similar boats empathise completely!
It felt good to get out, we waved goodbye to Brian and Coralie and focussed our minds on the passage ahead. We motored past the dangerous surging necklace of coral reef, incredibly there were surfers close by our starboard as we went past, as if we didn’t have enough to watch out for!!
We put up the mainsail and motored down the coast against the wind. The waves were fine, but bigger than we’d anticipated and before long Sisu was pounding into them. We knew this could be a tough passage, sailing head into wind is never particularly pleasant. You’d only do this if there’s really no option, and for us to reach St Kitts, this was our only option. After a while the swell built up into bigger seas like that of an Atlantic swell. As Sisu gamely punched her way through the waves, large volumes of seawater would pour down the decks, the drain holes struggled and bubbled trying to drain, we’d never seen so much water pouring down the decks. She would rear upwards, as she came bow into each wave, riding up and back down the other side, as swiftly as she’d ridden a wave, another wave followed, she hobby horsed through the 10 foot high swells, no easing up for her at all. Our speed suffered, with winds of 10 to 15 knots on the nose and our speed of 5 knots we were motoring into 20 knots of head wind, Sisu kept on battling into the seas, bearing the brunt of each wave, with a lurch, she’d hit the wave, like hitting a brick wall, then lunge forwards, her speed, such as it was, decreasing sharply then recovering a little, then a lurch, then a rocking lunge, then forwards, lurch, lunge repeat……….. the motion was dreadful, and we potentially faced five more days of this…… Ah well, we would just put up with it. I began to feel sick with the motion. Terry was concentrating completely on helping Sisu. This wind was rather more than the forecasts we’d studied! All day this continued, we didn’t have a chance to eat properly, and keeping up our fluid intake was difficult. It wasn’t dangerous, just bloody uncomfortable. By late afternoon I went below, but the cabin was like being within the hot innards of a bucking bronco. I lay down and realised I was lying on top of a wet duvet cover. Bugger. In the heat we had developed a leak in the cabin, it’s common where screw holes have been sealed, for the sealant to dry and shrink. I didn’t care, waves of nausea ran over me, like the seawater over our decks. I just managed to get off the bed in time to hurl into the galley sink, thank god there were no dishes……. Being sick doesn’t unduly bother me, it’s horrible but passes and I just get on and deal with it. I came out into the cockpit, Terry had heard me and saw me clearing up, I leave it to your imagination. I couldn’t face heating up the mince, and the motion as we pounded into the waves head on as such that juggling with a pan just wasn’t viable, especially the way I felt. We had a bowl of potato salad, food is vital on a passage, no matter what, energy and strength reserves are quickly depleted. Terry had a decent bowlful, I struggled with a few mouthfuls. I’ll spare you details, but once again the Dodgers took a thrashing, I was worried however that the acid would spoil the oiled teak toe rails I’d worked so hard on back in Curacao, it’s good stuff though and the wood didn’t suffer! All through the night I was regularly sick. Being stubborn I did my stint of watchkeeping to the best I could. Terry couldn’t sleep below, the bed was like a trampoline, I certainly couldn’t go below and in the cockpit we were regularly catching the spray, we struggled through the night as we worked our way slowly and painfully across the Isla Mona passage. This is a channel between Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, in the middle of the channel is a small Island called Isla Mona, a funny coincidence as the Isle of Man is also known as Mona’s Isle. Not so funny for us that night though, we were shattered. I was shaking and clammy with sweat as I projectile vomited regularly, my stomach and whole core seizing as the muscles tried to hurl out my insides too. My throat was aching, I just couldn’t stop. Small spoonfulls of yogurt, water, anything were ejected loudly, violently and for what felt like for ever as another spasm would grip me, as I clung to the rails, convulsing and squawking, unable to even catch my breath, the phosphorescence catching whatever came over the side, a brief sparkle into the wind. I’ve never been this ill, it was frightening and I was becoming seriously dehydrated too. I had to crew, and we are a team, so, in the early hours of the morning, checking with Terry that he would be ok for a little while, I chanced a lie down, beyond caring. I lay feeling utter crap, my keep at it attitude had decided it had had enough, stuck two fingers up at being stoic and slunk off. Early in the morning,Terry called down and said we needed to put a reef in as the wind had shifted. I hadn’t slept anyway, pulling my stoicism by the shoulder and dragging him back into the game, I dragged myself upright and didn’t even manage to get my life jacket on before dry heaving loudly into the galley sink. With shaking hands, clammy sweat running down my face I shrugged on my life jacket, grateful for the cool air outside. What a sight greeted Terry. He later said he’d never seen me looking that ill, white faced and hollow eyed. He looked slightly better, just knackered. I went behind the wheel and concentrated on keeping Sisu steady, feeling as weak as a kitten whilst Terry put in two reefs. This was not a good situation, we were both exhausted. The area of dropped sail was all over the place, Terry had a helluva job getting it into the stackpack. It was a good move as the wind increased further as we edged down the Puerto Rican coast and the seas got even bigger. We were managing only two to three knots. It was an awful time, we can deal with conditions, but what if the rest of the passage was like this, or worse?? What to do, we could now see squalls over Puerto Rico, could they be heading our way to make life even more interesting? A decision had to be made. Terry weighed things up. We didn’t have American Visas so we couldn’t land at Puerto Rico, the USA controlled islands are the only Island in the Caribbean where you need a visa to enter !!! We could take a chance and anchor in a bay or an even bigger chance by just going into the nearest Marina with the possibility of being turned away for the want of a piece of paper. It was mid afternoon, the conditions made it too dangerous to anchor the nearest bay which had numerous low lying islands to negotiate was out of the question as the Islands were often hidden behind the waves. It would be foolish to try and negotiate sailing into an area we knew nothing about in these conditions. So, on Friday 29th December we reluctantly decided to turn back something we had never done before, a seamanlike decision but not a happy one. If I continued to be this ill then Terry would have to solo sail and he was exhausted too. We’re not quitters, but we’re not foolish. We were gutted, so gutted. We had been looking forward to seeing new Islands and friends that we had missed last season. What a blow. We turned Sisu’s bow away and now with the wind behind us, her motion eased immediately, she was back in her comfort zone. Sod’s law being what it is, after a couple of hours, the evening sky so angry in the direction of where we previously were, cleared. West ahead of us, a gentle blue and pink sunset tried her best to make us feel better about the situation. Bugger and damnation. I think we can safely say it was a low point. We would have to clear in through immigration again in the Dominican Republic, spending more money, after we’d just spent a lot clearing in, and out. But it was the wisest and safest decision. Just bloody gutting! Terry was shattered, I felt so much better now the sensation of being thrown forwards into a brick wall had ceased, so I took over watches and Terry slept. We decided to have a slow, steady overnight sail back. What a difference just turning 180 degrees made. Wrong bloody way though. After a few hours sleep each, we felt a bit better. We can rethink our plans, but for now we’ll rest and recover. It had been an incredibly testing time and we ached all over.
30th December. By 0630hrs we were nearing where we would stop. It was my turn to sleep, Terry suddenly shouted “Fi!, Fi!” “Whassamatter?” I called up. “Dolphins!” Terry replied. I carefully sat up, still feeling weak. I came into the cockpit, four dolphins and a calf were cavorting around us! The first dolphins we had seen this season!! Their visit to us seemed to say “It’s ok, all will be well, trust us”. We felt our hearts lift for the first time since conditions deteriorated. Their joy and just being alive and living absolutely in that moment of time, lifted us too. They were right, live in the moment, you cannot change what has happened, you have no control over weather conditions and what may happen in the future, but you can embrace that moment in time when things are good, so do it! We looked at each other and smiled. Hey, we make new plans, so, it’s going to cost money once more, but this will balance out in the free anchorages we stay at over the season. Maybe this all happened for a reason, who knows. Being bloody miserable isn’t going to change the situation. We watched them twist and turn with each other, under our hull, playing alongside us. Then as if they knew they’d made us feel happier, they left, having done their job.
We neared where we would stop, a long ivory sanded beach lined with palm trees, near the little village of Bayahibe 10 nautical miles further down the coast. It was idyllic and just what we needed. We carefully threaded our way through the shallows, watching our depth, slowly motoring over shallow areas of seagrass and dropped anchor in a turquoise sea. We hoisted up our yellow Q quarantine flag to say that we had not yet cleared in, and slept half expecting a visit from the coastguard but no longer caring.
sisu journey 