Third day, Sunday May 23, Anchors aweigh:

We rose at 6:30 am with much to do this day. Bags packed, all the crew met downstairs for breakfast at 7:30am. The food was again excellent. Checked out at 9am we started paperwork at the main office to take over the helm of Wind Dancer. The Barefoot crew kindly ferried our bags down the steep hill to the dock, and this was much appreciated!

Next was the chart briefing. We received excellent info about all of our potential stops, and do’s and don’t with the boat boys (vendors). One generally anchors in SV&G with one notable exception: Mustique. Here one must take a mooring ball and pay $80 US for a 3 night stay, even if you are only staying one night. Anchoring elsewhere is generally done in 9-12 feet of water, as compared to the BVI where one usually anchors in 15-20 feet of water. It took me a while to get comfortable with only having a few feet of water under the keel, but the holding is generally good. The boat boys can be a great help and we had great experiences with all of them throughout our trip. We’d been warned not to follow someone in to a mooring and then pay them, because they may not own the mooring! However, it’s generally safe to follow a boat boy to an anchorage location. They know the water. We would often give them a couple of dollars EC (exchange rate $2.68 EC for $1 US) or a beer for leading us in. Lastly, our briefer mentioned with a wink and a nod that Petit Martinique (PM) was not part of the Grenadines, and was actually part of Grenada. However, there is no Customs and Immigration (C&I) on PM. This makes PM something of a smugglers paradise, and virtually any type of goods can be had there.

After the briefing it was off to the dock! Wind Dancer was stern-to the dock with the bow on a mooring and the stern tied down tight to the dock. The day was fresh, and she was bucking like a thoroughbred in the gate, ready to run! Provisions and bags were aboard and it was time for inventory. Here’s where some trouble started. Down below in the near windless 90-degree heat we poured over clipboards and dug through closets, lockers, and drawers to verify inventory while Wind Dancer bucked and charged against her dock lines. Woody was the first casualty and had to bail-out for the fresh air above. Lisa was next, and about an hour into it I’d had enough and also had to bolt up the ladder into the fresh morning air. Whew! Barb has a cast-iron stomach and didn’t seem to notice the motion at all – much to the chagrin of the rest of us! We passed around Dramamine and back down the hatch we went. Another hour later inventory was completed and but I’m afraid the damage had been done to half the crew, who were looking as pale as bleached coral. Maybe they should have passed on the extra bacon and sausage at breakfast!

By 12:30pm everything was stowed and we were ship-shape for sea. At 12:43 the Barefoot crew took us off the dock and it was only a matter of minutes before the last of the Barefoot crew stepped into the chase boat and finally she was mine! It’s hard to describe the feeling of satisfaction you get from taking command of even such a tiny ship, with the world laid out in front of you - full of unknown adventure that is yours for the taking! The wind was 15-20 knots and not knowing the sloop we pulled the main out, leaving a handful of wraps in the mast and likewise a few wraps of the jib on the forestay. Thusly reefed we set our course at 160 True, aiming well to the east of Bullet Cay, a distinctive feature off the east coat of Bequia… our destination was Mustique. We soon shut down the engine and we were sailing!

In the Bequia channel the current got its claws into us and started setting us at an alarming rate. I’d budgeted 15 degrees of leeway for the current - one knot sideways for every four forward, but it was not enough! We hardened up against the wind. With the reefs in, Wind Dancer was weighed down, only doing about 3.5-4 knots, and barely leaning over. She was sluggish and docile. Heavy and stiff. She wanted more sail and needed more sail – so we let it all fly and her speed picked up to 4.5-5 knots. Soon we were bashing close-hauled into 6-8 foot swells, a wild romp, but still the current had us and it was obvious we’d not make the north point of Bequia with enough clearance that one should prudently give a rugged lee shore. We had to tack.

We made our tack but our windward progress remained pitiful. Mindful of the clock we tacked back and I fired up the Diesel to get us over the hump so that we’d be sure to make Mustique before nightfall. Once abreast of Diable Point, Bequia, the current eased and it was clear that we’d make our easting so we shut the engine down again.

By this time the wild ride had done its worst and Woody was talking to someone named Ralph who was apparently hiding below the lee rail. I feared that Lisa would soon join him. I was doing just ok, and Barb was looking east into the teeth of the wind with a gleam in her eye that said “Is this all you got!?” Barb found some crackers and water and this was lunch. Nobody wanted more, and nobody, save Barb, was brave enough to go below to find more!

Sometime into the third hour all of the instruments failed. GPS, knotmeter, wind speed, chartplotter, autohelm, depth-finder, everything. Romping along at 5 knots into these seas with half the crew sick I was not about to hand over the helm and go below, nor was I going the send someone else below. I always bring my handheld GPS with Bluecharts which was suction-cupped to the helm station, so there was no issue about knowing where we were. Plus, navigation here is basically line-of-sign anyway, easy-peazy, so unfazed we just romped along without them. The current eased behind Baliceaux and we pointed off the wind about 10 degrees and wind dancer surged ahead, occasionally hitting 6 knots on a close reach. This was sailing! No namby-pamby down-wind milk cruise for us! Woody continued to talk to Ralph about every 15 minutes, and we all felt horribly for him.

Four hours after departure we entered the lee of Mustique. I was a little tired but excited after a wild ride. Woody was completely spent and I can’t say that Lisa was in a whole lot better shape. She never went to the rail to talk to Ralph, but she thought about it several times! Barb was grinning at me as if to say “I know I can kick your azz out there if it really gets rough!” and I was not about to call her out on it. She would have been the last crew standing. Time to pick up a mooring and lick our wounds!

We pulled in the jib, let the main luff and I grabbed the key to fire up the Diesel, turned it, and nothing happened. No click, no sluggish grunt, zippo. I tried it a couple of more times and still nothing. I’d just fired it up two hours ago! So we have four options – 1) Go below and debug the problem while drifting out to sea, and possibly eat up all of our daylight without finding and fixing the problem. This did not guarantee a restful night! 2) Get the outboard on the dingy and tow the yacht in. 3) Sail to a mooring. Forgetaboutit! Too much precision required. 4) Sail to anchor. We got the outboard on the dingy and fired it up. I know it was the last thing Woody wanted to do, but he jumped right in there. After some further though I decided that towing us in with the dingy would be fraught with issues. The dingy driver would never be able to hear me call directions. I would not be able to see him well, and then there was the tricky part of trying to manage a powerless yacht and dingy in a mooring field. This plan had the word “cluster” written all over it. I decided to anchor under sail. Heck, that’s how they did it in the old days!

Passing by the anchorage another boat came in and I let him know we had no power and we would sail to anchor. He throttled up, made a pass through the mooring field, and then came back to let me know that the water depth was 25 feet right off the last buoy. This information was gold because I had no depth finder since everything was dead. I owe that Captain a beer, but never found him again! We pulled the jib back out half way to balance the helm and passed by the anchorage on a broad reach. When I judged that I had enough sea-room, and more, to make it to my spot we tacked back and ran close-hauled towards the mooring field under shortened sail.

Sailing to anchor in a specific spot takes judgment, skill, and knowledge of the boat. I knew I had one good shot at this, and if I missed, well, things could get a little dicey. You must consider leeway of the boat under sail, it’s momentum after depowering the sails, the strength of the wind against the boat as you coast in, and you must always, always have a bail-out strategy if the anchor doesn’t hold or if you miss your spot. If the anchor did not hold we’d have to pull that heavy plow and chain back up by hand (no power for the windlass), jibe back out, and reset for another try. With the sun headed for the western horizon at an alarming rate I REALLY wanted to get it right on the first shot. I had not done this is a very, very long time and I knew my skills were rusty. I also had not knowledge of this particular boat under sail, save the last 4 hours. Fortunately we did not have to anchor among other boats, and we’d be at the outskirts of the mooring field, and the bay was wide with no hazards. It was about as easy as it gets, all things considered. I knew we could do it… it was just a matter of getting it done before it got dark!

So in we went, and with two hundred yards to go we started depowering the sails and pinching up to slow the boat. Barb and Woody were at the bow ready with the anchor and Lisa was in the cockpit with me to handle the sails. One hundred yards out we pinched up more, and slowed more, continuing to draw the long arc through the water that I had formed in my minds eye. Fifty yards from the spot we rounded up and I let the jib depower - we’re almost there – just can’t lose too much speed least the wind drive us backwards. Thirty yards to go I let them both luff, made the last 10 degree course change and we slowly coasted to a stop, more or less at the exact spot I was aiming for. Ruefully I mused… don’t ask me to do that again!

“Drop the anchor!” I shouted, and I heard the chain rattle off the bow roller. Thankfully nothing jammed. With most of the chain out I had them stop to avoid piling all the chain on top of the anchor. Quickly we drifted back and suddenly I realized that the anchor was bouncing. “Let more out!” We put out about 150 feet, wanting to err on the side of more than necessary vs. not quite enough. We drifted back, farther and farther, the bow rounded up, she was beginning to catch! Would she hold? Yes! First time! Whew!

But the excitement was not quite over. As she settled we swung nearer and nearer to an occupied mooring, and the Captain was soon on deck, watching me carefully! I shouted “We have no power!” We were not all that close, maybe 30 yards, but he quickly scrambled someone forward and they slipped the mooring, motored off, and grabbed another ball. Somebody else I owe a beer!

I flopped down in the cockpit to assess our next move. We’re not supposed to anchor at Mustique. I eyed the mooring. We’d swung back away. Maybe 50 yards total. I walked forward and eyed the spare anchor line and judged it was enough. We brought the dingy forward, piled all of the line from the spare anchor in it, and I tied on the huge 10,000 pound breaking strength stainless carabineer that I’d bought not one month before, expressly for this purpose. This moor ball had no pennant like they do in the Virgin Islands… just a bare ball and shackle. I wanted to make this easy. One clip and we’re in. Woody and Barb motored away in the dingy trailing the heavy line behind them, clipped us in, and returned. We then brought the anchor line all the way aft to the cockpit and put it around the largest winch we had – the port jib sheet winch. Barb and Lisa took turns at the crank and slowly winched us up to the mooring. Bless them! By pure fortune a kayaker came by to find out what the heck we were doing, and I pressed him into service – he paddled a dock-line out to the ball and we rigged a back-up to the carabineer. Whew. Not quite done yet! I still had the anchor out and it was not suitable to leave it there.

We made preparations to retrieve the anchor as the sun kissed the horizon. Still no time to dilly-dally. I could not help but notice about 100 yards up wind a fit man taking a shower on the back of his boat, al-fresco, and without the encumbrance of any clothing. I pointed it out, and the ladies grinned. We piled the line from the first anchor in the dingy, threw in a fender in case we could not break the anchor out and had to buoy it for the night, and Lisa in her little yellow bikini and I jumped in the dingy and started hauling in line. It was rough sledding, and really a job for the windlass. We finally got to the chain and then it got really heavy. In the mean-time the showering man had disappeared. We pulled together in a vertical tug-of-war and horsed that chain up 3 feet at a time. With a hearty tug we broke the anchor free. Then it got really hard! Finally we got the anchor under the dingy and being an inflatable I feared there was a fine chance of holing the dingy if we tried to haul it onboard, and I had no interest in hanging onto a 50 pound anchor and 50 pounds of chain in a sinking dingy. Just about this time the man reappeared, fully clothed, jumped in his dingy, and sped over. He was French. He looked at us pityingly and asked if he could help. He must have seen the look on my face, and that I was ready to accept his offer, because he quickly added, “I would help you wiz ze anchur, but I just took ze showur!” With this announcement he sped back off to his boat, leaving us there holding the chain and laughing ourselves silly! In retrospect I think he just wanted to come over and get a closer look at Lisa’s bikini!

We made it back to the boat and offloaded the anchor. Barb and I then sped off in the dingy to buy a couple of bags of ice at Basil’s bar to keep our food from spoiling. At Basil’s we called Barefoot and left messages on two different numbers. By the time we returned to the boat, the lights were blinking on and off in a very peculiar manner. Cabin lights, deck lights, then all dark, then back on again. It seems that Woody had started digging around in the floorboards and found that both terminals on both batteries were loose and corroded. We broke out the pliers and file on the multi-tool and soon had everything gleaming, sprayed down with WD-40 and cranked down tight. We raced back up on deck and she started at the first turn of the key. Success! Now we could have a well earned beer.

To be continued...

Wind Dancer at the dock.

[Linked Image]