Jan and I do this to each other every so often, accept an invitation that we normally wouldn’t – but then feel obligated to honor. The gathering at hand is her fault. We give each other slack though. It’s part of what keeps us happy. But avoiding this sort of thing is part of it too.
Still, I’m the one who really screwed up. I’m responsible for roping us into a rendezvous with the yacht Distant Horizons. And in the US Virgins no less! We are in the Grenadines now, well south of the Moral Curtain. Lying Bequia, in fact.
Jan and I became fast friends with Sal and Paula many years ago in the Bahamas when they were aboard their little starter boat, which was shallow enough to have fun in the Bahamas – and we did! Then they graduated to an ocean-crossing boat and decided to see the world. They are now beginning their second circumnavigation. Their first Western Hemisphere stop will be the USVI to rendezvous with non-passported family before they’re off for the Panama Canal. We haven’t seen them for more than a decade and might not be here the next time they go around.
Anyway, this isn’t the kind of rendezvous that we do, not lately. Jan and I agreed that our last visit to St. Thomas would be our last visit to St. Thomas – and that was long ago. Still, this adventure somehow struck us as cosmic… at the time. More cosmic to me than to Jan – I was the devil’s advocate.
And we’re leaving tomorrow. So that kind of adds weight to Jan’s sin, the gathering we are attending now.
“We’ll be leaving early,” we announce first thing upon our fashionably late arrival. “Early departure.” And it will be. The boat is inspected, provisioned, stripped of her harbor amenities and we’re cleared out. Once the dinghy’s on deck we’re ready to go at first light.
“We’re all departing tomorrow too,” our host announces. “Four boats. We’re buddy-boating up the islands. You can join up with us.”
“We’re a lot slower than you guys,” I automatically answer.
“No problem. We aren’t in a hurry. We’re doing a shopping stop at St. Lucia. You’ll be able to catch up.”
“We’re not very good at schedules,” Jan says. “Too many variables.”
“You don’t have to worry with us. We’re pretty loose. We gather on VHF every morning and wing it from there. Oh, here’s Vance, our commodore.”
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 $500 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 wi-fi, 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 06:30. “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 wi-fi. 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 Worlds 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.”
________ END _________
Caribbean Compass Dec. ’19