We waited for our window and we got it...winds northwest at 10 to 12 and
seas in the Gulf Stream under three feet. We had not just waited a week
for calmer weather to make this crossing, we had worked years for this
night. We had crossed the Stream crewing on sailboats from Florida to
Bimini and to Lucaya, but this was our first trip on our boat--just us--to
cruise the Bahamas.
It had been a long and tedious five years. Buying for a song a 39-foot
Pearson--a casualty of Hurricane Andrew--then slowly realizing that we had
to replace just about everything. But we did all of the work
ourselves--removing the engine, even an old 7.5K generator--pulling them
out of the boat using the main halyard. Debbie redid all the canvas
inside and out, and she rolled on the Awlgrip while I tipped. But after
those years of labor, we now lived on a respectable, albeit 25-year-old
sloop.
But it was time to cruise. We planned a two-month trip from Miami to
George Town and back, a well-traveled cruising route. Our plan was to
head over from Angelfish Creek in south Florida to Gun Cay in the
Bahamas in mid-March, an east-northeast route to take advantage of the
Gulf Stream. But the weather wasn't cooperating. Strong winds had sent a
freighter ashore in Fort Lauderdale. We sailed south and hid behind
Pumpkin Key for our weather window. Our first night there had the
weather channel beeping on the VHF, an alert for severe weather near our
location.
We saw the storms coming up behind the tiny island, which offered us
little protection. We had both anchors out as we sat in the cabin
wearing our new inflatable PFDs with lightning striking all around us. I
recalled two recent and recurring memories: the February 2nd storm and a
Miami boat show.
Six weeks earlier a wild storm appeared out of nowhere and hit
Biscayne Bay. A boater at Dinner Key Marina, our home at the time,
clocked the gusts at a hundred knots, and we had 15 minutes of steady
70-knot winds. Like many others at Dinner Key, we had bimini damage, and
a half-dozen boats outside the marina had broken loose from their
moorings and washed ashore. Was this upcoming storm to be a repeat?
Since we were both wearing our new inflatable PFDs, I recalled what
happened at the Miami boat show only a month before. We were in the
market for the new PFDs and were at the booth of a big retailer,
advertising its recently Coast Guard-approved inflatable PFDs.
The manufacturer's rep picked a volunteer to demonstrate the life
preserver. A crowd gathered, and the rep strapped the PFD on the man and
instructed him to give a firm tug on the cord. The guy was a bit too
excited as he gave the cord a hard yank and he pulled the entire
triggering apparatus out of the jacket. The CO2 cartridge shot a rocket
blast of white mist at his feet, accompanied by a loud screech. Needless
to say, the PFD did not inflate. We stood there aghast before everyone
burst out laughing.
We didn't buy that brand, yet as I sat in the cabin with lightning
dancing around us, I wondered if I would remember to tug gently when I
hit the water. But the anchors held, and the storm passed out to sea.
We waited three more days for the strong west winds to clock to the
north and die and finally NOAA gave us a good forecast. Taking
advantage of high tide, we motored out Angelfish Creek at 5 p.m. and
anchored on the outside, prepared to begin the crossing at midnight.
There was lots of shipping traffic in the Gulf Stream, and without
radar it was a bit hairy. The waves on the other side of the apex of
the Stream were bigger than forecast, and I made my ritualistic,
get-it-over-with heave off the rail. But when we saw the silhouette of
the Gun Cay light at dawn, we knew we had made it. Now all we had to do
was clear in.
Clearing in at Cat Cay
I received my slip assignment from the Cat Cay Marina dockmaster over
the VHF and motored down the east side of Cat Cay into the marina. I
missed the small Pier C sign and passed it, having to put the boat in
reverse before heading down past some very big power-
boats to our assigned slip. Debbie stood on the bow with a line. I
turned the wheel to port and slowly Ionia headed into her slip. Debbie
prepared to throw the line to the dockmaster as I pulled the control
back for reverse. Nothing happened. I tried again. Nothing.
"Reverse, Captain," the dockmaster called out calmly.
"I got no reverse!" I yelled.
"Reverse, Captain!" he shouted.
"No reverse!" I screamed back. Despite the fact that I enter slips at a
crawl, I looked toward the dock in terror. On the other side of the
wooden pier and perpendicular to my bow was a megayacht. With no way to
stop, would I go clear through and skewer it?
There were more shouts, then a sound like an Arctic icebreaker plowing
through the Beaufort Sea, only we weren't making crushed ice. We came to
a stop about a foot into the pier. Hello, Bahamas! All secured, I headed
for the bow where the dockmaster stood shaking his head, trying to
suppress a laugh. I had noticed just before impact that he had actually
grabbed the bow pulpit and attempted to fend us off the dock before we
hit, a task not exactly in his job description. He picked up a foot-long
piece of 2x6 planking and pitched it on the deck. "Souvenir, Captain,"
he said, the only mention he ever made of the fiasco, including when it
came time to pay my dockage bill.
 |
Hanging our sacrificial offering of jetsam at the top of
Boo-Boo Hill on Warderick Wells: the starboard bow roller |
 |
Ionia in the sunset anchored off Compass Cay |
I hopped off onto the finger pier to survey the damage. We had hit at the top of the bow, and besides the marina's plank, the only damage was a missing starboard bow roller, ripped off at the weld and laying on the dock. I considered it a minor miracle. Cleared in and given our cruising permit, I still had to restore reverse to clear out of there the next morning.
Leaving Cat Cay
I found the problem: a pinhole leak on a hydraulic line between the
transmission cooler and the casing...that's why I had reverse just a few
minutes before we hit. We could have avoided the entire incident if I
had been prepared by having a spring line ready. It would have been
tied to a midship cleat ready to throw around a piling on the finger
pier to stop us. Lesson learned: Be prepared, because with no reverse,
you got no brakes.
I patched the leak well enough to get to Nassau, but I still needed
transmission fluid. The Cat Cay Yacht Club is a delightful resort with
quaint bungalows, a nice restaurant, but no transmission fluid on the
shelf of its tiny store. The fuel dock had none either. I was reduced to
begging down the row of megayachts. I spotted two captains on the next
pier and came up to them panhandling for some fluid. One looked me over
and said, "You're the one who came in yesterday?"
"That's me."
"Yeah, I think I've got a spare quart, at least enough to give you
reverse." He dug it out of the lazarette of a monstrous blue sport
fisherman.
"Man, what can I pay you for this? You're a lifesaver," I told him with
all sincerity.
"Nothing. Just drink our product," he replied.
"Huh?"
"This is the Anheuser Busch corporate yacht."
"That's great!” I said. "I've got eight cases of Busch Light onboard. I
may be a cheap bastard, but at least I'm a loyal one!"
That quart of transmission fluid did the trick. We were ready to
depart first thing in the morning. I organized a force of neighbors to
throw my lines--sailors who had seen my entrance and were probably more
than happy to assist me in my departure for their own sake.
We had a strong northeast wind blowing into the marina, coming from the
direction I wanted to go. I put the control in reverse and we backed
out. With a pull on the starboard aft line, the bow began to swing into
the wind. All was well until a gust hit Ionia's high freeboard and
swung us back perpendicular to the channel. Using forward and my
newfound reverse, I tried in vain to swing the bow into the wind to
facilitate our escape. No luck. Slowly we were drifting down the channel
between the two piers, toward the shallow, rocky shore. A quick glance
and I saw that this latest spectacle had drawn several of the
mega-yachtees on deck, some of them punching numbers on their cell
phones. I imagined they were calling their insurance agents back in Fort
Lauderdale, collectively thinking that I was sure to hit somebody.
Going forward, we came ever-so-close to the stern of a Broward and in
reverse, toward the bow of a Bertram. The shallow rocks loomed ahead,
yet the bow would not turn into the wind. This was a crisis situation we
were about to go aground. I finally yelled to Debbie that we were going
to try a new tack. On the next shot in forward gear, I turned the bow
down the channel toward the shore. We were going to attempt backing out
of there. Never mind that I didn't even have reverse yesterday, or that
I once had drilled for an hour at Dinner Key to back into my slip--with
no luck. One thing this boat had never done for me was to steer in
reverse in the direction I wanted to go.
We were a few feet from grounding when I finally had the boat parallel
to the piers and hit reverse, red-lining the tach. Miracle of all
miracles, the boat moved away from the rocks, first at a crawl, then
picking up speed until we were flying back straight as an arrow toward
the channel that would get us out of there. We couldn't have drawn our
route any straighter with a waterproof chalk line. We raced by the
yachtees standing dumbfounded on their decks, past my sailor-helpers on
the finger pier, their mouths open in disbelief.
"We've got reverse!" Debbie yelled from the bow as she zoomed past
them. Away from the slips, I turned the wheel and swung the bow toward
the opening in the breakwater, rammed it in forward, and we sped out of
Cat Cay Marina. Despite the engine noise, the wind whistling through the
rigging, and the blood pounding in my ears, I think I faintly heard
clapping. Out on the Great Bahama Bank with all sails set, I tried to
calm down, but the left side of my chest ached, and my left arm tingled
and then went numb. I silently wondered if the incident had brought on a
mild heart attack, but over the next few days the pains went away.
We did make it to Nassau where I replaced the hydraulic transmission
hoses, and finally on to George Town to see the Family Island Regatta .
We stopped at many beautiful and uninhabited islands in the Exuma chain.
At Warderick Wells we made the required hike to the top of Boo-Boo Hill
to make our sacrificial offering. The jetsam we left was a hunk of
stainless with our name and "Oops! No Reverse!" painted in Easypoxy. It
was that hunk of junk, our starboard bow roller. And my infamous entry
into the Bahamas did have one major impact on our trip. We anchored out
the remaining 59 nights of our cruise.