The St. Maarten-to-Bermuda Run 2013

The crew [from left]: David, me, Boogie, Jill, and Marlies with Kelly in front

It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Bermuda. After overnight showers and a cloudy, drizzly morning, the sun has broken through and it’s simply gorgeous out. We’re tied up at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club in Hamilton, where we arrived yesterday around lunchtime. And I’m sitting in the cabin of Pure, the 70-foot yacht on which I crewed to arrive on this beautiful island, about to do a recap of the journey north from St. Maarten.

And a wonderful journey it was, in a lot of ways. We left Simpson Bay around 10:30am on Sunday. Aboard Pure were my Dutch friends, Boogie and Marlies, skipper and co-skipper of the yacht, along with three other crew and me. The other members of the crew were a Brit named David and two Yanks: Kelly, from Florida, and Jill, a racer from Chicago. We were paired up into three watches: Boogie and David, Marlies and Kelly, and Jill and me. Pretty much everyone was on deck all day long on Sunday, with Jill and I taking the dinner watch at 6pm: we’d cook the evening meal for everyone and then do a three-hour watch from 6-9pm.

As is par for the course for me, spending time in the galley after having not been to sea for a long time, I wound up puking over the rail. And that second 12-hour period, from evening until the next morning, was not especially pleasant, including our second watch from 3-6am on Tuesday. But by lunch on that second day, I was back and settling into the rhythm of being at sea that I so love.

And despite feeling queasy, those overnight watches were sublime and set the tone for the trip. A waxing gibbous moon set right before our morning watch, giving us a dark sky for a bit before the sun appeared. Several shooting stars appeared, and Sagittarius, the Southern Cross and Scorpio made a magnificent march above the southern horizon. But what really stood out was the Milky Way, which arched across the sky in a shimmering ribbon of soft white glow. Being so far from the artificial glow of modern society, we were able to experience the night sky as our ancestors did, and it’s no wonder why they were able to conjure up such magnificent tales to explain what they were seeing. It’s a truly humbling experience to see a night sky like that.

What also made the first couple of days so nice was the actual sailing we were doing. Seas were a wee bit lumpy but we had winds in the high teens from the starboard beam, so we cruised right along at eight, nine and sometimes 10 knots. It was a joyful ride with a reef in the main and the headsail rolled away about halfway. Such a treat.

During the day the bright, hot sun baked skin and deck alike, but it cooled noticeably with each passing 24-hour period. By the time Wednesday rolled around, the air temperature was perfect 70s with a cooling breeze and the deck was cool on unshod feet.

A breeze it was, however, not a wind, and starting Tuesday we ran the engine to keep up the apparent wind and our speed en route. We could have sailed more but this was a delivery so concessions were made. It was a bit of a drag to motor, and also to have the generator running 24/7, but the resulting air conditioning, flush toilets and hot showers were a nice perk. Still, it’s not what I consider sailing and not what I seek when I go to sea.

But those night watches made up for it. Monday-Tuesday night, Jill and I were on the 12midnight-3am watch and the ever-waxing moon obscured many of the fainter stars and the Milky Way, but once the moon set that river of light reappeared quickly.

The sunset watch on Wednesday, after we’d cooked and served chili con carne, Jill and I were treated to an amazing show in the western sky. Just after sunset, amid a stunning gradiant of red to orange to yellow to blue to purple to black, three bright pinpricks of light appeared just above the sea’s surface. Jupiter, up highest, shone brightly while below and to its right Venus was as bright as Hollywood klieg light. And just below Venus and a bit more to the right, tiny Mercury emerged from the nuclear-red sky, an apparition that not many humans ever really see. The show wasn’t limited to the west, however. High in the east, the nearly-full moon smiled on the ocean alongside Saturn.

All of which made for a smorgasbord of celestial objects for this would-be astronavigator to measure with his sextant. That’s right: I pulled out an ancient instrument with which to measure the height of sky objects in order to determine my position on the Earth. I “shot” the sun each day, both at noon and at other times, and also took a shot of the Moon and Saturday and nearby star Arcturus on Wednesday. I’ll run the math when I get home and I don’t expect to be all that accurate, but to have the actual act of shooting the stars finally fall into place mentally and physically for me, well, that was a treat.

So the star geek in me was thrilled with the passage. And the pure sailing (no pun intended) portion of the trip was wonderful too. But it’s a long journey (888 miles) and I knew Boogie would run the motor rather than slow down too much. So I settled into the watches looking for what excited me — in this case, the night sky.

Jill, on the other hand, combined new-to-this-crew inexperience with her racer’s tendency to continually trim the sails and further refine the settings on the boat. The problem on Pure is that almost all the winches were hydraulic, meaning they were quite loud when operated. So during one daytime watch she started trimming the mainsail a bit, hoping to glean one more fraction of a knot of speed out of the boat, only to have a groggy-eyed Boogie emerge from the cabin asking what was going on and remarking about how he’d been in a “deep, deep sleep.” Chastened, Jill’s tinkering eased after that.

Fortunately, the good times didn’t end with our Thursday midday arrival in Bermuda. After a sporty tying-up effort — stern-to in a fierce headwind and choppy seas — we cleared customs, did a quick clean-up on board, and took in the small town of St. George’s. And after a more extensive cleaning on Friday, we walked about a half-mile north of the harbor to a small beach at Tobacco Bay. What made the little indent in the coast so fun, in addition to the on-beach food stand/bar, was that it was Bermuda Day, a national holiday, so everyone on the beach was a local out celebrating the start of the summer season. Little kids stumbled around covered in sand, teens climbed up the rock at the head of the bay and jumped into the clear water, and two people who’d never met before started chatting and soon realized that they shared a great-grandmother.

Everyone was having a great time on a great day, and it culminated for me in a bit of snorkeling, something I haven’t done in eons. The afternoon water was a bit murky but the parrot fish were as colorful as I remembered from my teen years, and the sea cucumbers were like funky blobs of goo on the ocean floor. An irridescently colored angel fish hid out beneath a waving sea fan and an assortment of colorful fish provided ever-changing eye candy. Another simple treat to be cherished on this adventure.

But our final destination was the city of Hamilton so we left St. George’s Saturday morning and motored here in a couple of hours. Yesterday’s focus for me was the Champions League football (soccer) match from Wembley, which we found in a sports bar on the waterfront. The place was packed for the match and true to form, I provided a lot of the off-screen excitement. As the action heated up in the second half, this Bayern Munchen fan got edgier and edgier, until the Bavarians broke through in the 60th minute. I exploded out of my chair in a shout (along with a lot of other fans, to be sure), but as I sat back down I missed my chair and went ass-over-teakettle, hitting the table, breaking my glass and spilling my Guinness all over the place. The booth behind me broke into uproarious laughter (after making sure I was OK) and I began cleaning up. As my buddy Dave McCusker says after every inevitable Luke-spilling incident: “It’s a party.” I’m sorry he wasn’t there to see it; it was THAT catastrophic a mess.

Bayern won so I was happy and our crew (sans Kelly who flew back to Florida Saturday afternoon) went out for a bit of dinner. We enjoyed some really good pizza, only to relearn one lesson about Bermuda: it’s REALLY expensive. After that, it was back to the boat and call it a night.

This morning was a laid-back affair. David and I wanted to stretch our legs a bit so we wandered around town, exploring Fort Hamilton which overlooks the harbor on one side with the Atlantic in view on the other. Boogie, Marlies and Jill took a bus to some naval shipyard park/museum. And then I settled in here to write this gibberish.

But now it’s a stunning, sunny afternoon. Where things were sleepy this morning — everyone was in church apparently — the harbor and docks and streets are now bustling. And I’d like to do something bustling as well so I’m off to see what I can find. More on Bermuda to come…

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Sailing in Another World

It’s late morning on Thursday and we’re about 18 miles out from Bermuda. We left Simpson Bay on St. Maarten in the Caribbean four days and a few minutes ago, and we should be into port by early afternoon. It’s been a wonderful trip with beautiful weather, some great sailing and fabulous nighttime skies. But one thing it hasn’t been is a sailing trip.

A sailing trip is one wherein the journey is the destination. The trip we’re on is a delivery, wherein the destination is the destination. It’s like being in another world from the one in which I reside: it’s a world where money is no object.

For starters, the speed with which we’ve made the journey is due in no small part to the 600-horsepower diesel engine down below, and the gigantic fuel tanks this yacht carries. We sailed for the first two days of the trip, to be sure, with solid winds and a nice following current carrying us northward into the Atlantic proper. But once conditions got to the point where the wind wasn’t lining up perfectly and we couldn’t keep our course exactly where we wanted it, on came the engine to manufacture a more appropriate apparent wind and keep us rolling at more than nine knots (and oftentimes more than 10). And when the wind faded last night, the engine kept our speed up quite well, thank you very much.

In some ways, it’s nice to have that option. In fact, it’s nice in two ways. First, because if you are focused entirely on your destination it’s nice to be able to get there as quickly as possible. But that’s not why I sail, why I go to sea. For me, the journey is very much part and parcel of the destination. Being at the whim of wind and wave is one of the joys of heading out on a trip over the ocean. If I wanted to just get to a new place I’d hop on a plane. No, I couldn’t carry all my toys with me and I wouldn’t have a bed waiting for me when I got there — which is apparently all the owners of this vessel, not here on the journey, want in a boat — but I’d still BE in the new place. I suppose it makes sense, in that world that is foreign to me.

The other way it’s nice to have that internal-combustion option isn’t related to sailing: it’s that if you can afford such a luxury, well, life in general would be a hell of a lot easier.

But it’s not sailing. And it’s why I’ve come to realize that this is likely my last such trip. I’ve enjoyed my time (more on that in a later post) and I’ve learned some new things (as I do every trip with my friends, Boogie and Marlies), but it’s not why I go to sea. Yes, it’s a (relatively) cheap way to see some new places, learn some new skills and build some time at sea, but it’s still too expensive in terms of time and money, and skills and experience not gained, to be worthwhile. It’s a shame to realize this because I’ve had some good times on these trips, but I do believe this is my final delivery (unless a point comes where someone is paying me to do one, but that’s a long ways off).

I had a glimpse of this other world in Antigua in February. And this additional view has made it clear that I’m happy in my plain, old, money-is-an-object world, and I look forward to embracing life there. That’s not to say I wouldn’t mind winning the lottery…

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It’s My Party: The 2013 Heineken Regatta

It was damned nice of the organizers of the Heineken Regatta to honor my birthday by launching the 2013 event on March 1. Damned nice of ’em. Thanks, guys! But it would have been even better if they’d delivered some wind for my birthday.

The annual three-day event — billed as “serious fun,” it’s more than just a sailing race — takes place on St. Maarten, and for the second straight year I was in town for the festivities. In 2013, I arrived from Antigua and the Grenadines aboard the 70-foot luxury yacht my Dutch friends, Boogie and Marlies, were running. The yacht was brought to Simpson Bay for some repairs in advance of its owner’s return a few days later. That meant I had to find another ride if I wanted to take part in the racing.

And fortunately, I found just the ticket: a J-46 owned by a fellow New Englander (from Maine) and sailed by a crew of Rhode Islanders. Added to the crew was an English woman the Yanks had met on Antigua; she was friends with Boogie and Marlies, and on Thursday night asked if they knew anyone looking to crew. Yes, I lead a charmed life.

So I hopped aboard Seabiscuit Friday morning with Nathan (the owner), husband-and-wife team Chris and Damian (sailmakers from Newport, R.I.), John (in sales in the yachting industry in Newport and the de facto leader of the boat), Dave (another Rhode Islander) and Claudia (the Brit), and off we went.

Slowly. Very slowly. Racing on day one is a counter-clockwise circumnavigation of the island from Simpson Bay to Phillipsburg, and while there was enough wind to get started, by the time we’d rounded the corner and were off Marigot on the French side of the island, we (and most everyone else) were becalmed. To say it was a boring, shitty way to spend one’s birthday is an understatement. Bobbing around on the sea baking in the sun surrounded by strangers wasn’t what I had in mind. But it was still better than not being at sea so like the Monty Python’s Brian, I tried to look on the bright side: I was getting tan, I was aboard a sailboat on turquoise waters, there was a northerly swell running that made a wave break out of nowhere on a reef near the island of Tintamare, and when the wind did manage to come up things were fun.

We finished in Phillipsburg (in ninth place) within the allotted time which was an accomplishment. Several boats, including some serious racers, retired in order to make it back to Simpson Bay in time for the final bridge opening of the day. Seabiscuit was tying up in Phillipsburg for the night so that wasn’t an issue. And when we did tie up, I hopped in a taxi back over the hill to my friends’ yacht. Why? Because I wanted to spend my birthday evening with friends and also because I had a private, air-conditioned cabin waiting for me, rather than being crammed into a small boat with five strangers right beside what would become a raucous stage for that night’s regatta party (I guess I’m mellowing with age finally).

On top of all that, despite it being my birthday it was also a somber day: my mother and I shared a birthday. It’s true. She spent her 38th birthday delivering me, the best birthday present I’ve ever received (thanks, Mom!), and this was the first year I’d be celebrating just one birthday on March 1. And it would have been a big number for her in 2013; she’d have been 85.

So instead of drinking too much and hanging out with strangers (half of whom smoked, no less), I opted for a mellow dinner at Jimbo’s in Simpson Bay with my friends. Afterwards, I sat in the cockpit of their yacht watching the stars and drinking beer. It was a nice celebration.

On Saturday, I hopped one of the impromptu buses that run all over St. Maarten ($2 fare!) back to Seabiscuit for two races. There was wind this time and the sailing was fun and energetic. We’d also picked up two new crewmembers — Massachusetts native Becky and Welsh surfer Abbie — who enabled us to have a full crew for the final two days of racing.

We finished the two races (fifth and ninth) in Marigot and, through some aggressive finagling, wound up on the dock in the marina there. Boogie and Marlies had come over to see a bunch of their friends on other yachts in the race and I hopped a ride back over to Simpson Bay in the dinghy for another peaceful night of sleep.

I almost stayed in Marigot Saturday night. I love that side of the island. It’s the French side and being there combines the best of two worlds: it’s like a small Mediterranean village where the restaurants are out of this world and the party scene is as festive as you’d expect in the Caribbean. Walking through the village to head back to Simpson Bay, the smells of the food wafting from the stands set up for the party was almost enough to entice me to stay. But the lure of peace and quiet, and air conditioning rather than cramped cabin space, was too strong.

Sunday featured quite a bit of wind and the sailing was great. Seabiscuit had a great start and we held off the faster boats really well until the offset mark near Grand Case beach. We struggled getting our spinnaker up for the downwind leg and those speedier boats, crewed by people who race together regularly, blew by us. To complicate matters, we wound up in the wind shadow of a much larger yacht and couldn’t get away much before the leeward mark.

When we did round the rock off Anguilla that marked the start of the final upwind leg, things got sporty. The trade winds were up and that upwind leg was right into the teeth of the seas those winds had kicked up. It was a long, wet ride, tacking frequently and trying desperately to hold on to the faster boats.

Seabiscuit rounded one more mark and coasted into the downwind finish line in ninth place, good for an eight-place finish in her class for the weekend (46th of 79 overall). And I managed to take home a souvenir of the Sunday racing. Against my normal protocol, I opted to sail like most of the others on Seabiscuit: barefoot. During one tack, while stepping over the cabin top, I managed to gouge the pad below the big toe on my left foot. I didn’t realize it until a few minutes later when, with my feet dangling over the rail, I noticed blood running over my right foot. Fortunately, Becky had some medical tape so I bound the flap of skin back into place and carried on. But walking has proved difficult even a couple of days later.

It was a good time racing and the crew on board Seabiscuit was made up of the most serious racers I’ve ever sailed with. Still, we weren’t THAT serious and the experience was truly what the regatta promotes: serious fun. No, I didn’t partake in the parties as much as I might have, but to be honest, I was still reeling from a winter that was brutally long emotionally and psychologically. Boogie and Marlies may well have saved my life by getting me out of the dark places into which I’d descended in January and February, and for that I’m grateful. Racing on Seabiscuit was an added bonus (thanks to Nathan for letting me join the crew). Now, in March, I’m optimistic that I am actually going to make it back.

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