A Tale Of Whales, Waterspouts, Flying Fish And One Noble Cat

The punchline of this post involves a flying fish.

But mostly it's about whales, waterspouts, a bit here and there on deserted islands and lastly, the charity and kindness of fellow sailors -- in this case, Peter, Mary and Sophie aboard Neko.

... when last we left off, Noi, Scott and Doug were in Georgetown, the sailing capital of the Exumas. Noi was gearing up for the professional beach volleyball circuit and Scott was reveling in his new-found status as the Texas Hold 'Em champ of Stocking Island. Doug was enjoying both the rum punches and the Brazilian bikinis a little too much for his own good.

As much as we all liked Georgetown, it seemed time to move on. When we got what we thought was a long enough weather window to get to Turks & Caicos, Doug and Noi pulled anchor and we slowly motored out of the harbor, following our track back in order to dodge shallow coral heads. Our friends on Gratitude, Jeannie and Peter, were behind us and planned to go to Mayaguana, which was our own fall-back stop (it's about 40 miles closer).

It was a bit rough getting out of the cut, which it often is. Imagine trying to pour tons of water in or out of a small opening -- and then twice a day trying to pour the whole ocean in the opposite way. What is created is a bathtub effect right near the relatively narrow cut. At the wrong time of day and/or in the wrong kind of weather, it can quickly go from just unpleasant to downright dangerous.

We got farther ahead of Gratitude than we expected, demonstrating once again that the concept of "buddy boating," which sounds great in theory, almost always falls apart in practice. Both crews anticipated this, so it was not alarming. After a few hours we got a call from Peter and Jeannie on the VHF saying that they had a few issues in the rougher-than-expected conditions and had decided to put in at nearby Long Island. We had problems communicating though -- mostly we could hear them but they couldn't hear us. (We didn't find out until days later that after Long Island they subsequently decided on a more ambitious plan to go straight to Jamaica. They made it! Good show, Gratitude!)

About this time, we started to doubt that this very narrow weather window was going to be long enough for us to complete a two-plus-day passage to Turks & Caicos, or even to reach Mayaguana before the wind turned against us and we'd find ourselves motoring into a short (and unpleasant) wind-driven chop. Plan B? There was Rum Cay, a small island community that had suffered quite a lot during Hurricane Joaquin. But it would have us getting in after dark.

Although we have violated the rule about not approaching an unfamiliar harbor in the dark from time to time, it's not a good idea to tempt fate, especially in the reef-strewn Bahamas. The other option was Conception Island, which (along with Rum) was one of Columbus' stops in the New World. Today it's a land and sea park, somewhat similar to Waderick Wells. There was an anchorage there that offered good protection for the blow we were expecting, with winds clocking from north to northeast, east and southeast (the typical pattern of a cold front). We knew we'd be there for a few days without cell phone service and maybe no one else on the uninhabited island.

The anchorage at Conception proved a delight. We were the only boat there and, as we soon found out, the only boat on the whole island, save for a three-masted schooner anchored on the south end who left within hours of our arrival. We took the next day to dinghy ashore and effect a desultory exploration of the island, a fairly typical south Bahamas cay that nonetheless has a beauty all its own. It was wonderful having an island unto ourselves for a few days.

When the weather offered an opportunity, we decided to make a quick sail over to Rum Cay to stage ourselves there for a somewhat shorter hop to Mayaguana (we'd decided by then that maybe Turks & Caicos was too much in one go). 

Along the way, we caught a sailfish! When it hit the line, we knew it was something big. By the time we got it close for inspection, we were surprised that our reel and lure (thanks, Ardi!), had managed to bring in what is a major game fish. It was a Hemingway-esque moment for the crew of Symbiosis. Unfortunately, it is not a fish that is really good to eat. Strange that is, as it seems to be so closely related to the swordfish, which is of course on the menu at expensive restaurants. Much over Noi's protests, we cut the line and lost the lure. I feel bad that we couldn't remove the hook and lure, which could cause the creature some major inconvenience -- or worse. But, the prospect of landing the five foot (?) fish and dealing with the sharp bill to remove the lure (and quite likely killing it in the process) didn't seem worth the risk.

Rum proved not to be nearly as "devastated" as we'd been led to believe. Lots of houses and businesses still standing, although several of them were in the process of getting new roofs installed, no doubt due to hurricane damage. In any case, we did not go ashore and after a sleepless night due to a very unpleasant surge, we shoved off the next morning for Mayaguana.

Rum Cay.

Rum-to-Mayaguana went more or less smoothly. We got a few bites and nearly caught a mahi mahi, a fish we've been hoping to catch since we left the states. It hit hard, putting up more of a fight than even the sailfish had. It broke the surface a few boat lengths behind us and I (Scott) could see that it was easily as big as the sailfish, but of course iridescent green and blue. A beauty that would have fed us all for days. It was not to be. Moments later, it was obvious that nothing but a lure was on the line any longer. I saw a black-tipped shark swim by near the end of the line. It either took the mahi from us or got him after he wriggled free. Just another one of those stories "the one that got away" stories. Sigh.

Mayaguana is a pleasant little spot. We anchored on the south side in Abraham's Bay after motoring along a circuitous and coral-studded path from the western side. The people in the small isolated settlement are quite friendly and helpful. Doug arranged for a flight out. I arranged to get some diesel. A guy named Scully who is described as the local fixer-cum-ambassador in the cruising guides said he could scrounge up 10 gallons for us at $6 a gallon (the Bahamas premium plus a cut for Scully). Technically, we already had enough to make it to our next stop, which at this point we had decided would bypass Turks and lead straight to the Dominican Republic. If we had to motor the whole way, we'd probably make it. But the margin of error was tight and I felt better having the extra 10 gallons aboard for contingencies. The whole affair of actually getting the diesel ended up wasting much of an afternoon. Scully turned out to be not quite as reliable as we'd been led to believe. Anyway, we did eventually get it.

Abraham's Bay, Mayaguana

Next day, Doug was off on a plane and Noi and I returned to the boat and got things ready to shove off for the DR then next morning. We had decided to try the narrow southern cut that would save us quite a bit of time over backtracking to the west. However, at the last minute the skipper chickened out. It probably would have been just fine, but there was one tiny spot where the charts are unclear on the depth, which is obviously at or near a minimum for Symbiosis there. We just did not want to take a chance. Retrieving caution from the wind, we went back out the way we came in.

En route to Hispaniola we had an on again, off again, combination of good sailing, motor sailing (motoring with the sails up, which gives you an assist and allows you to burn less fuel) and plain motoring (yuck!). The seas were mostly calm and we had no real problems, at least initially. Nothing was biting, but that was OK, too.

In the Caicos Passage off the west side of Turks & Caicos, Noi spotted whales on the horizon! They were fairly far off, but we could definitely see them breaching and using their flukes to slap the surface. We are pretty sure they were Humpbacks, but can't say for certain. Seeing these huge beasts from one's own small boat is something we won't soon forget. It's a really different experience than seeing them on a tour. This is the open ocean -- just you and them! We never got closer than maybe 3 to 5 nautical miles from them (and we got the distinct impression they were actively avoiding us), but it was still a spectacular encounter!

Our next run in was with Mother Nature. We had missed a few squalls here and there, but on the second day out an ominous one loomed on the horizon and it looked difficult to skirt. Worse, we soon noticed waterspouts (seabourne tornadoes) forming on its leading edge. Right in our path! We motored hard to try to pass to one side of the storm. For some time it was touch and go, but the waterspouts disappeared and we motored through the squall, which actually turned out to be quite benign. We didn't even see 20 knots. Still, an anxious few hours.

One of the problems with planning a passage like this is how to time your arrival. Usually, you shoot for a morning landfall. You want to see the entrance and you want plenty of daylight to get in. This was the case for our planned landfall at Luperon. The problem is that the wind and waves are fickle. The rule of thumb is to plan to make 100 nautical miles a day. That's averaging 4 knots. If there's decent wind, or if we motor (or motor sail), we can easily do 5 knots (120 miles) and not infrequently, 6 knots. On a two-day passage, the difference between 4 knots and 5 knots, for example, is 40 miles, or about 10 hours. If you're purists (which we aren't), you would simply sail the whole way and either get lucky with arriving at exactly the right time or else heave to (stop the boat by using the sails on opposite sides) to wait for the right time to enter. Or you could try to sail, but have a rule that if your speed falls below a certain threshold, you turn on the engine. This is something we try to do, but even that doesn't always work out.

As we got closer to Luperon, it was obvious we needed to dial things back or we'd end up there well before daybreak. As a result, we had the engine barely above idle, motoring at 3 knots or so in fairly calm seas. About 25 miles out, I heard the engine make a funny noise. Then, it suddenly shut down. Shit. It was dead calm and we couldn't sail. We needed to make it in by the morning for two reasons: one being that the north shore of the Dominican Republic is notorious for getting very windy and very rough after about 10 a.m. The other was that a major cold front, with possibly 30 knots of wind and big seas, was forecast to reach us later that day.

I immediately suspected a clogged fuel line from dirty fuel. Just before we left Mayaguana, I changed two of the three in-line fuel filters because I suspected we may have gotten some dirty diesel in Georgetown. I checked the first filter, designed to catch the big stuff, and it looked clean. But by opening it up to inspect it, I was inevitably introducing air into the fuel line, which meant the necessity of re-bleeding the engine -- a somewhat time-consuming and tedious process. In any case, I hadn't made a definitive diagnosis of the proximate cause of the shut down, something that might take hours and at worst prove impossible. We needed to get into port.

I issued a cautionary "pan, pan" call on the radio -- an announcement that says you're in trouble, but falls well short of a "mayday," which clearly was not our situation. In short, we needed a tow into Luperon and were hoping a fisherman might help us. No one answered.  I then issued a "securite" -- an informational broadcast announcing our position and that we were adrift. This was to make sure no one thought we were underway and hit us. At this time of day, one's navigational lights should tell the story, but on a small boat, there really isn't a proper lighting configuration to say "I am dead in the water." After that, I went forward to put up the sails in hopes of getting at least a breath of air and making some progress toward Hispaniola. We were still too far out to reach anyone on land by radio, and besides, it was only about 1 a.m., so who would be listening at that hour?

That's when Noi, who was at the helm, noticed a catamaran, Neko, on the AIS (a device that tracks boats via a VHF signal). I knew that boat! Although I'd never met skipper Peter Malloy and his wife, Mary, in person, I had interviewed Peter via email for a story I had recently finished for an upcoming issue of Cruising World. Noi thought Neko was going in the opposite direction, perhaps leaving Luperon for points north. There was a chance the skipper had the skinny on who to contact to get a tow once we were in range of Luperon. I called Neko on the radio and Peter answered. He said he'd heard our pan and securite broadcasts and was just sorting some things out on his boat before calling to ask if he could assist. In fact, he too was heading for Luperon, trying to get ahead of the same cold front we were hoping to beat. 

Peter said he was reluctant to tow us 25 miles. It can be difficult or dangerous and hard on his engines, which were after all designed to propel one boat, not two. I would have had exactly the same concerns if our situation had been reversed. But as we discussed it, Peter said he'd give it a try. He would tow us to the harbor; however, like us he'd never been there before and didn't want to try to bring us all the way through what looked on the charts to be a narrow and intricate entrance. He was just being prudent. I would expect nothing less.

I went forward to take down the mainsail and discovered it jammed at the top! We needed to get that down, as having it up in any kind of wind could have seriously complicated the tow. I called Peter and informed him of the problem and we concurred that it was better to not try a tow unless I could get the main down. If I forced it down the track, I risked ripping it, but it seemed at the time we needed to take that risk. We could always repair the sail later. Then I had an idea. I attached a line to a cringle (ring) on the sail's luff (front side) and ran it down to the winch that is normally used to raise the sail. I cranked it and the sail popped and began running down the track. Whew!

I called Peter back and asked if he was still willing to give it a try. He said yes, maneuvered up to us and after one failed try we managed to toss Mary a messenger line and send over the tow rope. The several-hour tow to Luperon was mostly uneventful except for one moment when a flying fish breached the surface, glided under the bimini and grazed my face before landing with a squish on the stern deck. Yep. You can't make this stuff up!

Our heroes aboard S/V Neko towing us into Luperon.

We got close to Luperon, called Puerto Blanco Marina on the radio and got an answer from a very American-sounding fellow. Thomas said he'd get in his skiff and come out and take over the tow from Neko. It turned out that this fellow, aboard his boat, Ciganka, was simply a long-term liveaboard in the anchorage. He showed up along with a swarm of other dinghies to assist us in getting in. It was quite a surprising and initially confusing scene. At first, I had no idea who these people were. But it all went like clockwork from there. Neko dropped the tow line and Thomas hip-towed us in with his skiff and 15 hp outboard with Symbiosis providing the steering.

The anchorage that unfolded before us is without a doubt one of the prettiest we've ever seen. Much different than the Bahamas, this was a mountain-and-mangrove ringed spot that is simply breathtaking in its beauty. And extremely well protected. It felt like a spot we wouldn't mind spending some time in.

Luperon harbor.

Home. For awhile, at least!

Raising the Dominican courtesy flag!