| Lydialog
a
voyaging boat's Pacific & Atlantic diary
Lydia B e-mailed a continuous
log of her voyage to the UK from the Pacific Northwest from 2001 to
2003. |
|
Cabo San Lucas (Feb2/02). Well -- here we are at last! The long wait in San Diego, Californian outpost of the safe, known, gringo world, is over. Lydia B has just rollicked down Baja Mexico, glimpsing whales and gales, and is now tucked into Cabo San Lucas for the night. We got here in the middle of the night and anchored in darkness just off the beach of this fun-and-fajita holiday town, rather than negotiate a strange new harbour entry when we were depleted with tiredness. Over the last eight days we've covered over 800 sea-miles. Lydia B's been going like the clappers for Panama and the Caribbean. Sadly, though we managed a couple of fascinating overnight stops in the last week or so, and have at least tasted a flavour of remote, terra cotta Baja, we haven't had too much time to really smell the roses (as friends back at base -- Brentwood Bay, Victoria, BC, Canada -- are constantly urging us). It's a sort of battle between two distinct urges -- the urge on the one hand to go old-fashioned voyaging in a small, capable boat, putting sea-mile after sea-mile past our keel because the going is exciting, and on the other the wish that we could stop and meet more of the wonderful people we know we're passing by ashore. It might be we'll never pass this way again -- though that's isn't a thought we spend too much time on, knowing there are so many fascinating things and people further down the road. You just have to look at the chart. With the prevailing wind on our backs we have Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and the amazing Las Perlas Islands of Panama ahead of our bow. Then the Caribbean and Cuba. 'We' on this leg of the journey is myself and Chris, a young Aussie travel writer from Melbourne whom I met in San Diego. Rachel, who so far has sailed 3,000 miles with me from British Columbia to the Queen Charlotte Islands bordering Alaska and down to San Diego, is heading back to Wisconsin for a couple of months to attend to some personal things and I hope she'll be rejoining me in Panama. Chris is a great guy and it's been wonderful letting Lydia's reins out. She's rewarded us with some great sailing in a whole variety of weather conditions. The only damage so far has been to the mainsail when we got caught overnight in a chubasco off Cedros Island -- a fierce offshore wind generated by heat and high barometric pressure over desert on the one hand, and low pressure offshore. We were reefed down to the maximum, but it still tore the top eight slides from the mainsail luff (the leading edge of the sail). Seas were, of course, big and ugly -- these things always happen when you're most tired and longing for a break in the buffeting -- and we were constrained by having to follow an almost impossible course through a twelve-mile wide passage between rocks. That might seem a lot, but from the cockpit of a little boat in foaming, noisy, wind-torn darkness, it isn't. However, we did it, marvelled at our prowess and limped along until daybreak with a loose-luffed main, held only by the halyard and the headboard. Then after a rollicking, six-to-seven-knot sail for several hours under headsails alone, still with the land wind hard on our port beam, we got into a huge, reasonably protected bay -- Turtle Bay -- and were immediately met in the moonlight by a grey whale broaching 75 yards or so on our port bow. It came towards us -- we were open mouthed in exhausted awe by this time -- crossed our bow just a few yards ahead, then came back and broached again right along our port side. We think these animals, like dolphins, are intelligent. In fact, we rely on it -- there's nothing we could do if a whale decided to charge us; but they don't. Next day, flying the spare main and having e-mailed San Diego for some back-up slides and nylon tape, we put out to sea again, going 60 miles out in search of a dying wind. It died, of course. But the sea always rewards you. In the glassy calm of the next day we were privy to everything that moved for miles around. The best catch was a large school of dolphins in a fun-and-feeding frenzy. It's impossible to deny that these creatures enjoy life. They couldn't be doing anything else, with their playful crossing and re-crossing of Lydia B's bow-wave, sometimes leaping clear of the water. Somehow they communicate their pleasure to those on board. They leapt, dived and turned over alongside for us while we photographed them, then came back for another session when Chris discovered his camera had contained no film. And just for extra, a turtle lazing on the surface with a passenger bird on its back. Then we were heading 70 miles out in a straight line for Cabo San Lucas, right on the rocky end of the Baja promontory 190 nautical miles southeast. No more drama -- though we escaped running over a Mexican trawler's fishing nets by no more than 40 yards. He called us on the VHF and suggested a port-to-port pass -- but since he wasn't showing any navigation lights, we made a guess -- the wrong one. This is Mexico. So today we've had showers, done the laundry and cleaned the toilet and the kitchen. Two blokes unattended know how to splash the bacon fat around. We've topped up with diesel, will top up with water tomorrow, do a small repair to the old mainsail, get some ice, some fruit and maybe some beer; had an al fresco meal of lobster, beef, chicken, mahi mahi and Corona by Cabo dockside tonight, nearly got rooked by a thoroughly entertaining restaurant customer tout (who is the British guitarist who wrote a song for his dead son?) and will get on our way south towards mainland, tropical Mexico. Manyana. More anon from Lydia B. Love & best wishes, Ian. Thurs
afternoon: we've now left Cabo, heading directly for Puerto Vallarta or
further south, if the wind's good. Sat 0200: -- The
wind WAS good. At this moment Lydia B's relaxing at a leisurely 4.8
knots with a flattening sea, moonlight and the remains of an energetic
wind that poured steadily out of the Sea of Cortez as we crossed the 200
miles from Cabo to mainland Mexico. The wind meter rarely fell below 30
knots all Thursday night, raising big, breaking seas that periodically
washed the boat from stem to stern and tumbled over us into the cockpit.
We tied ourselves to the lurching boat. But both the wind and the water
are warm -- we're getting closer to the tropic of Cancer. You have
to marvel at the power of the sea. One second Lydia is slipping off the
top of a new breaking crest as it passes under her keel, her starboard
deck under foaming water as she tumbles at 45 degrees; the next second
she's sliding down into the trough behind the wave crest, and in the
next her eight laden tons are being hoisted 15 or 20 feet like a
weightless toy to the top of the next crest. The air's full of noise and
spray blown from breaking crests. But it's steady on our port beam
and pushes us 100 miles on our way all night, flying only a little
staysail to give us control yet some speed too. Tonight, however,
the only noise -- apart from Chris's snoring in the off-watch sea-berth
below -- is a quiet ripple of water as the port and starboard
streams flowing over the hull combine on the stern to form a modest
wake. Helming is being done by the third crew, the Monitor -- the
dexterous and dependable servo-pendulum self-steering device that needs
only water-power to keep the boat precisely on course. It's time to
sit in the cockpit, watch a sky lit by a haloed, waning moon, then
the first streaks of dawn off the port bow, and have a cup of tea
(we brought about 1,000 tea-bags) and toast with apricot jam. It's the
most amazing thing to be slipping quietly down the Pacific ocean
with a warm breeze pulling Lydia along. The pictures: 1. Dolphins at sea. 2. On the bow. 3. Pacific sunset. 4. Moon, masthead and British red ensign. 5. Chris tying off a headsail halyard. 6.Turtle. 7. Turtle Bay, Baja Mexico and fisherman's panga. 8. Rachel deep into the stores. 9. Grocery delivery -- Cabo style.
Hello,Friends: You know what they
say -- any puerto in a storm! This one, aptly named, is Puerto Angel,
some 240 miles past Acapulco towards my immediate goal of Panama. It's
on the threshold of the dreadful Gulf of Tehuantepec; I got a sharp
reminder of that fact as Lydia B sailed in around mid-day yesterday, two
days and two nights out of Acapulco. But wait! There's
another chapter in the crew saga. Chris, who joined me in San Diego for
the leg to the Canal, suddenly left -- I think the term is 'jumped ship'
-- in Acapulco, apparently succumbing to pressure from a girl-friend
back in California. Thanks to the smart, hi-tec system I've installed on
Lydia B, she was able to e-mail him several times a day while we were at
sea. Cry for me, Mexico! So now it's for
real. I'm single-handing, to Panama at least. There's another 1,000
nautical miles to go -- starting with the Gulf of Tehuantepec just as
soon as I'm sure there's enough of a lull in the northerly gales that
start in the Gulf of Mexico, get compressed through a gap in the Sierra
Madre and burst southwards over the gulf on the Pacific side. It has a
terrible reputation. So I'm studying the weather forecasts and preparing
for the 150-mile dash -- with one foot on the beach, as the advice goes. Yesterday's entry
into this idyllic little port (a typical southern Mexico village of a
few hundred people) was nothing short of hair-raising. All the way down
from Acapulco conditions at sea were benign, with gentle sailing breezes
by day, more or less flat seas, and calm conditions overnight. By
setting up the radar's watchman zone, which triggers an alarm if
anything enters a designated area, I snatched a few hours' sleep
underway. For entertainment (astonishment, really) I watched a lightning
storm over the Sierra Madre ashore, photographed an amazing
sun-reflection in distant cumulus clouds over the Gulf, saw a large ray
leap clear of the water and flash its white underside at me, and saw
turtle after turtle, floating idly on the surface with no more than its
shell visible, raise its prehistoric head, like a golf ball waiting to
be tee-d off. All this, and steering by the southern cross, a new-found
friend. But an ominous
heaving of the ocean 25 miles out from Puerto Angel signalled something
new. No waves, just a very long, very big swell coming from the east.
Wind and weather was still benign overhead. It was a sure sign of
something major a long way off in the Gulf of Tehuantepec. By the time
Lydia reached the entrance to Puerto Angel the gloves were off and we
were getting buried in 12 to 15 foot troughs, working hard to keep a
straight line up the 100-yard entry channel. Even though the boat is
still rocking -- sometimes quite wildly -- inside the harbour, it's a
relief to have the hook firmly down. I've never anchored in foam before. I'll study the
reports of the weather station set up specially for the Gulf before I
make my dash to Madera, on the border with Guatemala. Meanwhile I've been
getting acquainted with some delightful people in Puerto Angel. First
came an ola! off the side of Lydia yesterday from an official of the
Port Captain's office -- would I please go in the official panga
(universal, beachable Mexican fishing boat) to meet the Port Captain and
do the paperwork? That's an education in itself. This port has no boats
other than pangas -- few cruising boats come here because of the
Tehuantepeckers. But it has an air-conditioned government office staffed
by at least half-a-dozen Mexican officials, in meticulously pressed and
starched white epauletted uniforms with badges of rank, who process
Lydia's entry to Puerto Angel as though it were a 20,000 ton freighter.
I shake hands with Senor Ruiz, the Port Captain, sit down at his desk,
practice my few bits of Spanish and we have a delightfully charming
conversation about who I am, where I'm coming from and going to, why I'm
coming to Puerto Angel etc. "Solo!" he exclaims. He suggests I
write him a letter -- in English -- there and then saying I came into
Puerto Angel because of bad weather. Copy after copy is made of several
documents, passport & ships papers and I'm to take a taxi next
morning to Potchutla, a large town 12 miles inland, to pay at a Mexican
bank for Lydia's entry and exit dues totalling 296 pesos -- about US$30.
I get the strange feeling the Mexicans have been doing this same job the
way same since the conquistadores, with the addition of type-writers,
computers and copying machines, without noticing there's no longer any
job to do. It's so beautiful in Mexico! But on the whole it seems fair
that a Brit, whose nation ambushed so much gold bullion and jewels from
the Port Captain's ancestors in the days of the Spanish Main, should
have to cough up 20 quid for stopping by. If I go to Huatulco, a few
miles nearer the Gulf, I'll have to do this all over again. So I get up early,
hail a passing fisherman in a panga and hitch a ride ashore. You should
see these people. 100 yards from the steep sandy beach he stops,
reverses slowly, goes forward slowly and gets the rythm of the beaching
surf. Then he throws the throttle of his 65HP outboard open wide, gets
to 35 or so mph, tells me to get down on the nets and charges for the
beach, tilting the motor as we leave the sea behind. We're now 40 yards
inland, 10 feet higher and the boat's stopped. That's a Mexican panga. Then it's into a
taxi for Pochutla -- 7 hot bodies in a four-seater, sticky leg stuck to
stranger's sticky leg, careering up and down the mountain, stopping only
for an unexplained miltary roadblock and umpteen sleeping policemen,
strategically placed nowhere in particular. But Pochutla, a large
agricultural town, is everything I've come travelling for; totally,
exquisitely Mexican and so full of colour and people buying, selling and
being, so far away from European life it's impossible not to see your
own culture in the obverse. I forgot my camera. But really, did I need
it? I load a bag with
pineapple, oranges, bananas, tomatoes and fresh bread and get another
taxi back, a small, elderly lady sitting on the knee of an elderly man,
total strangers. I find Arturo at the palapa (palm-roofed beach
restaurant) where I ate grilled fish last night and he gives me a panga-ride
back to Lydia. So neat, tidy, expensive and privileged. I must make time to
get some weather info. Love & Best
wishes, Ian. Pic captions: (hope they’re in order!)
9. frigate1 – Frigate-bird -- swallow-tailed witch-scavenger
Barillas, El Salvador, Mar 2/02 Hello Friends: It's just gone five in the morning, it's deliciously cool after punishing heat yesterday, Lydia B's motionless in still water on a mooring buoy in the mangroves of El Salvador and all is silent, save for the faint noise of a generator ashore and the familiar, endless ticking of shrimps flicking their tails on the boat's hull and the screeching of monkeys in the trees. I think there are howler monkeys around here. We -- that is, Lydia and I -- sailed in yesterday after completing the Tehuantepec crossing and by-passing Guatemala. We rendezvous-ed off the El Salvador coast with the four other boats we set out from Mexico with and were led by a local panga past huge, breaking surf into the lagoon of Bahia Jiquilisco, then through winding, dense mangroves overlooked by smouldering, active volcanoes -- Usulutan and San Miguel -- until we came, two hours later, to Barillas. A panga was waiting to take my bow-line and tie Lydia to a mid-channel buoy in the fast-ebbing current, so I didn't have to execute the choreographed panic that single-handers have to go through in these tight situations, stopping on the buoy exactly the right distance ahead, then falling back with the current while I put the motor into neutral and run to the foredeck with a boat-hook. Just as well, because I was fully stretched after four days at sea. I think I'm in a film-set. You know -- one of those Hollywood B-movies about politico-miltary plots in banana republics? (I'm showing my crude, first-world culture -- which, of course, is precisely why I'm in Central America in my boat, tasting the real thing). El Salvador is one of the most beautiful countries I've been in. The scenery is quite stunning, from the high mountains of the Sierra Madre through lush, green jungle to tropical, palm-lined, white surf beaches. It's a northern European's dream of where in this world it's nice. But El Salvador is also one of the world's poorest countries. We saw ordinary life among the villages on the shores as we sailed in. Houses are not mortgageable here; they're mostly sun-shades, more than houses, made of sticks and palm-leaves. I was reminded of the amazing disparities of this world as Lydia, packed with expensive technical and indulgent goodies (and this is a comparatively modest, little one -- you should see the others!), passed a family of a man, a woman and a little girl in a dug-out canoe. They waved cheerfully and I waved back -- but what a distance! Here at Barillas we visiting sailors are lounging in all the comforts of one of the best marinas I've seen in the whole of North and Central America. Everything's exquisitely, neatly organised, from the watered flower gardens, tended grass, air-conditioned computer-room with a dozen smart new computer-stations, (I can hook up my own lap-top to send this from one of half-a-dozen outdoor computer terminals under palm shades in the gardens, then take a dip in the nearby pool); wonderful hot-and-cold showers, open-air palapa restaurant. The El Salvadorians are wonderfully, smilingly friendly. Remember the entry and exit formailities in Mexico? Here they were done with no fuss, much charm and no dollars by four uniformed officals who visited and came aboard Lydia shortly after we arrived. Since I'm a Brit, my visa cost nothing (Americans pay ten dollars). Today, they're taking us to the town of Usulutan, a few miles inland, to do some shopping; no charge. All this is basically nowhere, in the middle of a swamp. So how does it work? Who pays for it all? (Not us -- it costs eight dollars a day to stay here -- though the only money they want is dollars, not their own colones. El Salvador is phasing out their own currency). I've been nosing around. The clues (for a B-movie watcher) are the ultra, almost miltary-style, polish and organisation, and the acres of expensive equipment and (though very discreetly and still charmingly friendly) one or two dark-uniformed men with pistols in polished leather hip-belts. El Salvador has 14 wealthy families, and this has something to with one of them. Barillas marina club started out in the days -- just past -- when the families ruled the country. It was a weekend retreat (new President Flores drops in nowadays with his entourage for a meal at the Barillas restaurant. He’s a close friend of Juan, the owner and member of one of the 14 families). Recent social and miltary upheaval has turned El Salvador towards democracy and re-distributed land into farming co-operatives; but wealth has a habit of re-organising friendships and re-appearing in a different guise. Plus ca change!! But I'm not on a film-set. This is real life in El Salvador. I'm dying to see how it compares in Usulutan today. Isn't travel fascinating! Love & best wishes, Ian. Later, after Usulutan. Oh, boy! If you have eyes to see and are in the mood, you could be shocked by the contrasts in this country. We piled into the air-conditioned marina bus at 9..0 this morning, exited the steel marina gates after picking up an armed guard and bounced along a dirt road past sugar-cane fields fronting the volcanoes for ten miles or so before we reached the paved highway into Usulutan. We drove through a scene of subsistence agriculture -- sugar-cane and coffee principally -- and of mud-and-wattle, iron-roofed shelters that are home to so many of El Salvador's people, with only the occasional brick house. This really is a poor country. It's so easy to miss it, whereever you go in the world, unless you look outside the tourist comfort-zone. US reserve forces are here -- of course, they're helping to build schools etc. Anyway, we did our shopping -- everything is very, very cheap here, though there seem to be few shortages. I walked with my camera through the back-streets to the market area. Everywhere I went, people were friendly, welcoming and rarely refusing to let me take a picture. Back-street life in everyday El Salvador gives me the same message I got in Africa and Asia -- that these are tremendous people with small material goods and a lot to teach visitors from the first world. The symbol of El Salvador worn by men is the machete, used to work the crops. They wear them routinely, fastened to a waist-belt or hanging from a shoulder, always sheathed in a hand-made, decorative leather scabbard fringed with leather thongs. I wanted one for a momento of these people and went in search of a hardware store. The machete was there alright, and I bought it (for three US dollars and seventy-seven cents) but not the scabbard. So I stopped a man in the street, admired his machete and he offered to sell it to me for ten dollars. I'm now a sailor with two machetes. The pics: 1.
That bird on its landing approach to my wind generator. Hello, Friends: Sometimes you have days that reassure you people are decent. I didn’t intend to come to Nicaragua after leaving Barillas in El Salvador last Friday, and was heading straight for Costa Rica. It’s the mistake you often make, following the beaten track because – well, because it’s the beaten track. I can thank the Papagayos for getting me to Masachapa. Lydia and I cut a straight line overnight across the Gulf of Fonseca , bordering El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, aiming for a brief stopover in a bay sailors have called No Name, for the simplest of reasons. The other four boats hugged the shore, but with much longer waterlines they’re normally faster than Lydia, so I assumed they were all ahead of us by Saturday. Then the Papagayo wind arrived, howling across gaps in the Nicaraguan mountains from accelerated trade winds in the southeast Caribbean, and all of a sudden a leisurely sail turns into something more hectic. Fully reefed and now with only a staysail up front, we spent the next five or six hours wetting our starboard deck as the Papagayo screamed off the shore at us in regular bursts up to 40 knots. I concentrated non-stop, exposed in the cockpit to mid-afternoon tropical sun, adjusting the Monitor self-steering. Since Lydia has much in-built weather-helm, each gust pulled us left of our track, and each time she had to be put back. The ride was comfortable enough, and fast;. Lydia B really is a delightfully tough sweetie in heavy weather. But by early evening too much sun in the cockpit and too little sleep the night before had me on the edge of hullucination. Bits of my memory of the previous 24 hours were going missing. Masachapa is a township sprawled along the beach; there’s no dock, but a local boat that had just passed me was anchored there, so I called the day quits at 5.0 in the afternoon, dragged the sails down, turned sharply left, nosed over shallow water watching the depth-sounder all the way, dropped the anchor in the open roadstead by the local boat and poured myself a whisky and ginger. It seemed the sensible option. No sooner had I done that than four fishermen in a panga came alongside and suggested I might be in line for breakers there. So I upped anchor again (and it’s a manual, not an electric windlass. There’s 170 feet of 5/16 chain weighing a couple of hundredweight, and an anchor another 35lbs) and followed them half-a-mile along the beach to a safer spot. That’s where I now am. The Papagayo is still howling, but since it’s an offshore wind the seas are flat and Lydia’s sitting comfortably, held by a waterline anchor pendant. But where were the other four boats? I could hear Indara’s VHF transmissions, but they failed to pick mine up. So where were they? Here’s what Tom on Tai Tam told me in an e-mail sent on the HF radio next day: Hi
Ian, We
really hope that this finds you in reasonable condition. I have tried to
hail you on 4A at our times but to no avail. We (Wings, Indara, Wild
Blue and Tai Tam) really got hammered yesterday afternoon with winds to
40 kts and very terrible seas wherever we went - closer to shore and
further out. We then
decided to put into the "No Name" anchorage at 11.30.444 -
86.10.247. Indara got here just at about 1800 and we pulled in at 1900
on Saturday. Wings, who did not put his sails up at all arrived at about
2200 and Wild Blue at midnight. What a ride! The wind was ok - we had a
3rd reef and the stay sail and the boat handled well with it - but the
short, choppy 3-4 secs. 6-8 ft seas really did a trick on the boat.
Water all over the dodger and bimini and then filling the cockpit. Then
my anchors worked a bit loose despite my serious setup to restrain them
and I had to go (naked) on to the bow with the boat plowing into the
seas and me getting fully submerged. Fair
winds and be safe Here’s
the second message I sent back: Tom
-- I re-read yr account of ydy and maybe didn't appreciate what a tough
time you all seem to v had. Did anybody take any damage? I hope t kids
are OK. Incidentally, I watched Wild Blue plunging quite markedly. She
looked as though she had too much sail forward -- wasn't built as a
ketch, by any chance? I'm puzzled, though. I thought all of you were
ahead of Lydia; but Wings & Wild Blue perhaps weren't -- I anchored
here at 1700 for my w & g. I maintained 5.5kts in the wind, and more
in t gusts, and it's only 27nm to No Name? I got your xmissions on 16
fine, but nobody seems to have picked mine up (tho I suspect I might v
bn on low power)? Pse
remind me of t 4a(HF radio) times & I'll make a better effort to
tune in -- and thanks for being concerned. What's t plan now? Bestest, Well,
what we’re doing is sitting tight until these Papagayos slow down a
bit. Which is how I came to get more Nicaraguan hospitality today. Four
more panga fishermen came alongside, curious about this rare visitor
flying the British ensign alongside their own blue-and-white courtesy
flag. (Masachapa’s not on the beaten track. Everybody’s coming to
take a closer look). Before long they’ve gone back to pick me an
enormous bunch of mangoes from trees lining the shore, brought some ice
for Lydia’s rapidly warming cool-box and two freshly-caught fish – a
barracuda and a mackerel (though not quite the same as the Mackerel
I’m used to in England). I give them a few cans of beer and they reach
into their coolbox and give me a half-finished bottle of coca-cola.
Against all the security advice, I invite Danilo, the panga-owner and
his mate on board and show them round. They’re fascinated. Then they
shake hands, dive from Lydia’s side-deck, swim to their panga and wave
goodbye. These people are always smiling. They returned later in the
afternoon, this time bringing ripe melons, more fish and a full bottle
of coca-cola, plus a friend, Roberto. We sit in Lydia’s cockpit and
stumble with Roberto’s few words of English, my few words of Spanish
and much sign language through our histories. Danilo has two children,
one aged eight and one of a few months; Roberto has two and another on
the way. They look a little sadly at all Lydia’s electronics, and ask
how much my boat cost. I ask how much Danilo’s panga cost. Lydia would
buy a dozen Nicaraguan fishermen a fully-equipped panga each. Nicaragua
is so poor, says Danilo, GPS imports are not allowed. He eyes one of the
empty jerry-cans tied on deck. I need it, I say. Overnight I’ll think
I can spare it. I’ll also thin out my overfull wardrobe. It’s
unlikely Danilo and Roberto will go travelling in Europe when they
retire. You
smile at the dragon and it smiles back. I’m
spending the day writing this log, watching pelicans plunging from a
great height to catch fish in the sea and have just eaten the remains of
last night’s curry – a rarity, because in the 90-degree plus heat
here I’m not cooking an awful lot. Barracuda for supper tonight, of
course. I talk with other boats in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Costa Rica
at the 7.0pm schedule. Lydia’s sitting stern due south into the
Pacific, the ocean’s rolling under her keel towards the miles-long
sandy beach and the hot Papagayo’s still howling. Sometimes it’s
furious, though I’ve stopped looking at the wind-meter. The wind
generator’s working overtime -- but it’s keeping the battery-bank
full. Love
& best wishes, Ian. PS:
sorry I can’t send photos from on board. I’ll catch up when I get to
Costa Rica.
No
Name, Nicaragua, Thurs March 21. N11.30, W086.10. Hello,
Friends: I'm
trapped by wind at the bottom of Nicaragua. By 6.30 this morning I'd
taken the weatherfaxes from the US Coast Guard station at New Orleans,
Louisiana and was ready to go further south -- I'm only 650 miles from
Panama now, anxious to get there and turn north again in the Atlantic. The
Papagayos are named after the Gulf in Costa Rica just a little way
south. Like the Tehuantepeckers we tasted a short while north, they
start in the Caribbean and come hurtling through gaps and over low land
(hereabouts over Lake Nicaragua), getting magnified by heat ashore. They
blow routinely at 30 knots (about 34mph); a gust was clocked at 63 knots
(over 70mph) by a cruising sailor a couple of weeks ago. His inflatable
dinghy was blown out of the water and burst. Best way I can describe it,
when a gust hits Lydia B, is this: her wind generator, mounted on an
eight-foot pole on the stern and normally more or less silent, suddenly
sounds like a propeller-driven aircraft throttling up at the end of the
runway for its take-off. The boat, all 7 tons, leans over, stretches the
sag out of the heavy anchor chain, pirouettes and starts to sail. Then
the gust passes and the chain sags again, pulling the boat back to where
it was. So far the anchor has stayed buried in the mud. The GPS -- who
said technology's no good? -- will buzz me if Lydia B moves more than 30
yards in any direction. So
this morning I unhanked Lydia's head- and stay-sails, stowed them below
and hanked on the heavy storm jib (the mainsail was left double-reefed
from yesterday). I haven't got a lot of use for the regular headsails
right now. But the wind just got stronger. Now the forecast by one of
the amateur weather pundits -- who's very often right -- is for 40 knots
tomorrow (gusts come 40 percent higher). So I went nowhere, and nowhere
looks a possibility for tomorrow. Frustratingly, I've only got about 100
miles to go to finally say goodbye to the peckers and the papas. Then I
expect to be motoring in calm. That's the Pacific! So
to while away the time (besides enjoying writing to you) I've e-mailed
NOAA (the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) --
that's the outfit that does all the weather predictions and sends them
out by fax to people like me on boats -- to ask them why their forecasts
for the Papagayo area seem consistently to bear no relation to
actuality. It's lore among sailors. Today, as with most daily
under-estimates, they forecast 15 knots. That would get anybody's
grandma and granddad out on the water for a pleasant day's sail. (I
thanked them very much, though, for the vital service they provide). Back
comes a very prompt e-mail from Martin C Nelson, lead forecaster at
NOAA's Tropical Prediction Centre in Miami: "ZQLW6@sailmail.com
wrote: >
consistent discrepancies between your wind strength forecasts for
the inshore Pacific side and actual conditions. 'Yes.
A very difficult area for us for us to forecast, similar to our
problems in the Sea of Cortez. We
rarely receive ship reports and there are many errors in the reports we
do receive. The local
terrain has many effects on the near shore waters, turning strong winds
on/off at different times of the 24 hour day.
Our models don't
work well close to land under local influences.
Also, some of our best polar-orbiting satellite observing tools
are contaminated close to shore. >
My experience is that you are more accurate for the Gulf of Tehuantepec,
which I've just crossed with your help. 'Easier
because we have developed techniques based on consistent observations
that occur hundreds of miles to the north both on land and on stationary
buoys. Also Tehuantepec is
much larger. Isn't
that nice! I
think I'll get the clippers out and try and give myself a haircut
tonight. If I had spare water I'd do some washing -- the boat, I mean.
It's caked from stem to stern in sun-baked salt washed aboard in the
last few thousand miles. On top of the salt is a thick layer of dust,
made airborne over great areas by constant sugar-field fires. Sails,
sheets and halyards are now Central American terra cotta colour. But I'd
better wait and see when I'm getting out of here. I might need all
that's left of the 90 gallons I put aboard in El Salvador. Love
& best wishes, Ian.
Hello Friends: So this is why we do it. It’s romance. It’s why we endure moonless nights groping through the darkness in our little boats thousands of miles from home; getting thrown around by big, driven seas and breaking waves we can’t see until they hit us; getting tired, wet, hungry and sometimes a little afraid; always hoping to get there soon and safe. Sometimes, of course, sailing exhilarated in tropical sunshine on blue water under a blue sky, Lydia B leaning to a steady 15 knot breeze on her favourite quarter, a white bow wave curling out as she puts mile after mile under her keel, led by playing dolphins, sailing herself while I make another cup of tea. The reason’s here at the Panama Canal. My little boat and I sailed here last Thursday, tied to a mooring at Balboa Yacht Club and are now 4,683 miles away from the friends we left in British Columbia, Canada. That’s the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica ago. Some of them, like family and friends in England, have sometimes asked why I’m doing it. The answer – as good as I can think of, anyway – is in watching the freighters from every corner of the globe that arrive non-stop, 24 hours a day, every day of the year to cross this amazing 50 miles of engineering that link the Pacific to the Atlantic. It links people everywhere in the world by trade. It’s what happens with so much of what we buy in supermarkets and drive on roads everywhere, before it reaches the neat, clean, clear-wrap stage. I’m moored at the Pacific end of the canal – I’ll take Lydia B through it in another week – right by the Bridge of the Americas, linking central to south America. The freighters pass, separated by feet, in both directions up a narrow channel a couple of hundred yards from my mooring, rocking Lydia with each passing wake. ‘Bow Heron’, a chemical tanker from Norway; ‘Asian Olive’, a banana carrier from Singapore; ‘Sea Tiger’ from Hamburg, stacked with containers so high on deck you wonder how the vessel doesn’t fall over; ‘Nerano’ from Malaysia with oil; car-carriers, general freighters, smart new ships, rusty old ones; fully laden ones, empty ones; some clanking, some purring. A few imposing white cruise liners too. And, of course, an accompanying stream of Panama Canal Authority tugs and pilot boats beetling never-endingly back and forth to meet new customers. Trade, pleasure – its all here at the Panama Canal. I wonder if John Masefield passed by here (you know – ‘I must go down to the sea……’). Though it’s been administered by the United States for much of this century and Balboa has nothing if not a stately American colonial feel with its grand, cream-coloured buildings and wide, palm-lined avenues (so like the colonial elegance of Raffles Singapore and Semiramis Cairo), it’s now entirely in Panamanian control. The taxi-driver pointed out General Noriega’s ex-headquarters (remember him?) when we passed on the way to Flamenco to find old tyres to use as Lydia B’s extra fenders in the canal. The canal is part of Panama’s staple income. Transit fees for Lydia B – all 30 feet of her – will amount to about US$700. That includes having her officially measured to see if she fits the canal – after all, she’s just another ship as far as the canal authority’s concerned. She’ll be just another name on the day’s transit list. The big ships pay something like $45,000 dollars each time they go through. (I haven’t counted them, but there seems to be one every 20 minutes or so, round the clock. Officially there are 13,000 transits a year. That works out at about a billion dollars annually). The alternative for us all, of course, is quite a long way round Cape Horn, not without its own discomforts. So maybe it’s a bargain at the price. We’ll motor through – sailing isn’t allowed – flying the national (British merchant navy red in Lydia’s case) ensign in its usual place on the backstay, and the Panamanian courtesy flag from the starboard yard-arm, exactly the same as the big ships ahead of us. I wonder if they’ll see, painted on Lydia’s starboard quarter, her port of registry – ‘Maryport, UK’ –and wonder where Maryport is. A century ago, of course, before the advent of the Panama canal, they surely would have known, because these Cumbrian places were once major Atlantic trading ports. Isn’t this just the stuff of romance! Then I have to have an official canal authority adviser aboard, plus four line handlers to keep us in position when the lock chambers start boiling with incoming water to lift us over the Central American isthmus; and they’ve all got to be fed. We’ve got some homework to do before we start out. Luckily I’ll be re-joined by Rachel, who sailed with me and Lydia between the Queen Charlotte Isles, on the Alaska border in the far north of British Columbia and San Diego, southern California, on the border with Mexico.. I’ve already forgotten about the Tehuantepeckers and the Papagayos, the merciless offshore winds that gave us such a buffeting off El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. They’re part of the memory, and a distinct building-block in our sailing experience, for I feel now there’s little that Lydia B won’t take us safely through, if we do as she tells us to do. She understands the seas. They’re a bonding process, and I’m a little in awe of this boat. She’s been cleaned underwater, we have a few small sail repairs to do, the brass is being polished, her water and diesel tanks filled again, fresh stores put aboard and an electrical glitch with navigation lights to investigate. I suspect there’s a salt-water short-circuit in the forward chain locker. So far she’s enjoyed every nautical mile of the way. I think she’s looking forward to the Atlantic, going north and long summer days after the twelve hours each of light and dark this near the equator. We’re at 07 degrees North now, but we’re headed steadily north from here since Punta Mala at the bottom west side of the Gulf of Panama last Wednesday. It’s a good feeling to be pointed towards my northern roots. Then we’ll set off for Miraflores, Pedro Miguel and Gatun locks, probably holding our breath, hopefully in company with friends on other boats we’ve got to know on the long way to Panama. Love & best wishes,
Nassau, Bahamas, Tuesday, June 11/02. Hello, Friends, They say
events are character-forming. I’m writing this on my lap-top in the
departure lounge of Nassau airport. That’s right -- Nassau in the
Bahamas. I should be in Key West, Florida at the nav table on Lydia B,
where all the rest of these Lydialog chapters
have been written. But let me go back a bit, because the last you heard from Lydia B was from Isla Mujeres, island outpost of the Mexican Yucatan. We left there last Thursday afternoon, taking advantage of a coming break in the series of Caribbean thunder squalls that will from now on increase until full-scale hurricanes arrive from sometime soon until November. They give them nice, cosy names like Henrietta and George, but there’s very little that’s cosy about them. The first two or three days were quiet as Lydia B sailed and motored in a near-absence of wind across the Yucatan Straight, then 50 miles off the northwest coast of Cuba. Currents were supposed to be with us, but we never found them. As we entered the Florida Straight and neared Key West on Sunday night we switched onto the newly within-range VHF weather broadcasts of the United States National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA does a great job of forecasting weather for sailors, and it’s been good to be back listening to that stacatto, automated voice out at sea. You get to like it as the voice of a slightly retarded but very helpful friend. Anyway, we could see on Lydia’s port bow a building mass of black cloud over the Florida Keys and knew something was brewing. In the night-time darnkness these clouds look sinister and unreal. They have an ominous shape, billowing grey-black, blotting out the stars that reassure us we’re going in the right direction, dense rain-squalls shafting to sea-level which we pick up on the radar. Sometimes you can see them far enough ahead to steer round them. Sometimes they’re so big and develop so quickly you can’t get out of the way. Next we were listening to a special NOAA storm warning of gale-force winds, deadly lightning strikes, very heavy rain and waterspouts. Already tired after three nights at sea, we battened down for an onslaught, reefing just in time before it hit us. Our only hope was that the storm was moving west. We were towards its eastern end, and moving north-east, though battling a 3-knot west-going current counter to the infant Gulf Stream emerging the Gulf of Mexico. But these storms are generally short-lived and we were lucky. The bulk of it crossed Lydia’s bow and we escaped with a lashing from its eastern edge, illuminated by immense lightning flashes. We got thrown about a bit. One entire bookshelf disgorged itself onto the cabin floor and salt somehow penetrated where there was no conceivable way in. But we emerged safely into daylight ten miles south of the main shipping channel into Key West. The sun rose, Lydia shook out her mainsail reefs, flew her yankee headsail again and galloped up the bright, buoyed channel through water pale blue from sky and sand, alongside a big white cruise ship heading for Key West to disgorge yet another load of overnight trippers. They lined the rails to photograph Lydia as the ship overtook us. Did they wish they were sailing on our adventurous little boat rather than the big, comfortable liner? Pretty well exhausted, we dropped the hook off Wisteria Island opposite town, called up the US coastguard on the VHF to ask about entry formalities to the United States and – well, that’s when things took off. Clearance formalities are done with the US Customs, who issue a cruising permit for the boat, with the Department of Agriculture who vet incoming fruit and veg (we surrendered all ours – Mexican oranges, onions, tomatoes and garlic); and with the Department of Immigration, who guard the many scattered gates of this immense, cosmopolitan country against undesirable intruders. They do their job with the unsmiling, unsentimental, unhearing dedication of a pack of Weimaraners. It’s the cold unsmilingness that hits a lazy, laissez-faire English person like me. It’s struck me with sudden clarity, three years into North American life, that there really is a difference between national cultures, and it’s to be found somewhere, chillingly, here. In the last few days I’ve felt a new affinity with my European – I think it’s that, not just English – roots. So here I am, newly arrived in America – with US citizen Rachel alongside, knocking on the immigration office door, passport ingenuously in hand, voluntarily reporting our arrival in the United States and seeking permission to cruise up the East coast. On the other side of the split, counter-top door is a woman in white T-shirt with INS INSPECTOR in big letters on the back, macho navy blue heavy cotton shorts festooned with bulging patch pockets and crotch creases and white, turned-up running shoes. She has straight, blonde hair and I’d guess is about early forties. Her waist is hung with a stiff black leather belt containing holstered revolver (soon I haven’t the faintest doubt she’d use it), several ammunition pouches, cell-phone (or phones) and gas or pepper spray. I can’t quite decide if her look is mean or worried. I’m scrutinizing her for evidence of femininity. Her posture is more that of a hunting male panther, with dandruff. She doesn’t walk; she swaggers to impress. So far, I haven’t a clue what’s about to happen. Panther-woman keeps our passports. Rachel’s is cleared, but not mine, though she doesn’t hand it back to Rachel yet. Stapled inside mine is a US 90-day visa-waiver from August 2001, which I should have handed in when I left the USA on the way down the Pacific coast from Canada to Mexico. I didn’t, so (says panther lady) I was illegally in the United States from mid-November to January 21, when I sailed south from California. Quite erroneously, the valid six-month cruising permit issued in Washington State, way back up the Pacific, had managed to convince me my presence was legal. More than this, says panther lady, I didn’t have a current visa to re-enter the United States. (British citizens don’t need one, but I discover they do if they arrive by private boat. If they’re heard at all, these rules are whispered, not shouted). Panther lady steps aside to make out-of-earshot phone calls to head office, returns and announces I have to leave the country immediately. I can choose either to leave on Lydia B, given a few hours to re-provision and escorted to the 12-mile limit by the US coast guard, or I can fly out of the country. ‘But my boat; it’s my home….?’ – ‘You WILL be leaving by tomorrow night….’ Not a trace of sympathy, no feminine softness. This lady’s in command of the trees. It takes a while for things like this to sink in, back on Lydia B, anchored just off town, overnight. I keep thinking: they just want to scare me. We’ll go in tomorrow and they’ll wag a stern finger and say they’ve decided to issue a visa after all. They’ll see I’m a harmless pensioner. In the morning we’re again chasing up flights to Nassau on the internet, car hire companies for the drive from Key West to Miami, Greyhound buses and the US Embassy in Nassau. Will I get a visa quickly – or at all? Isn’t there an outside chance I won’t be allowed back into the United States and I’ll be parted for good from Lydia B, left with Rachel alone on board? What then? Panther woman has neither guarantees nor visible concern. I keep asking questions, meekly suggesting that although I accept I’ve broken the rules, I haven’t done much harm. Goodness, I’m a pensioner these last four days, fresh from my 65th birthday at sea. Panther-woman pokes her face at me and warns me – B-movie-style – she’s getting upset. That’s the last thing, I guess, you want to make an immigration inpector do. I shut up. At last we find a flight from Miami to Nassau and book it. I have to pay for it when I get to Miami airport. Not good enough, says Ms immigration lady. She phones the airline herself. I have to pay for the flight before I leave Key West. She wants to see the ticket. Can’t, says the airline. Go and find a local travel agent, says the blonde panther; book it again. Which we do, then return and show her the ticket. Then, having hired a car and tossed a few things into a back-pack, we abandon Lydia B on her anchor-chain and drive to Miami, Rachel at the wheel. It’s a beautiful drive up the Florida Keys. But is this the last time I’ll see it – or Lydia B? Of course not. I’m dramatizing. Which is exactly what you do in these circumstances. Soon I’m in the air, then I’m giving my late-night story to the Bahamian immigration service at Nassau airport. There’s a problem -- there’s no US stamp in my passport to account for my provenance. The Bahamians sympathise, are friendly and give me ten days to get the US visa. An officer finds me somewhere to stay. I bed down after midnight in a seedy, empty hotel – “under new management” (though that seems to be a total staff of one mildly-spoken, polite Indian gentleman from, he says, Madras. Don’t tell me any more that national cultures aren’t different.) near the centre of Nassau, just round the corner from the American embassy. No tea, but I manage to get a cup of lukewarm coffee and a shower. The Hilton’s on the opposite side of the road. But the sheets are clean – and anyway, I’m bushed. In the morning as I’m collecting up my overnight things there’s a huge thunderstorm. Nassau roads are awash. I’ll get drenched on the 200-yard walk to the embassy. It isn’t a very encouraging self-image. I see myself dripping onto the embassy carpet, belongings in a white cloth shopping bag, pleading to be let into the United States. They’ll already have seen my criminal record on the computer. Panther lady will have made sure. I’m tired, hungry, homeless and disorientated, like the bag-lady on the streets of London. I get to the visa application office five minutes before official opening time, open the door – and an confronted by a sea of queueing Bahamians all after the same vital piece of paper as me. It’s going to take ages to deal with all these people. My hopes for a return to Miami on the five o’clock flight that afternoon plummet. Or is it just because I’m tired and short of food? I fill in the visa form and hand it in with $65 dollars. Yesterday it was $45; it’s gone up just because I’m bad. In answer to the form’s question ‘Have you ever been refused entry to the United States?’ I say ‘yes’. There’s a 20-minute wait. The Bahamians seem to be getting their visas and leaving one by one. No word of mine. I’ll never see Lydia again. Then a female voice comes over the loudspeaker – ‘Ian Laval. Please go to window three.’ It’s an older State Department official. She has my forms. But she’s smiling. How I need that smile! She asks what I’m doing in North America. Sailing a boat from British Columbia to England, I say. She smiles again. I gobble it up. She points to my answer about being refused entry, and I recount the previous two days’ events at the Key West immigration office. She checks the computer and seems already to know. ‘Why…….?’ she begins, then pauses and seems to want to tell me she’s surprised I was summarily thrown out. She can’t, of course. Then, pointing to my Cumbrian origins on the application form – “ Do you know Carlisle Castle? I was there two years ago. I was posted to the embassy in London”. Crisis over. My hopes soar. Somebody’s human. My visa is ready ten minutes later and I walk out onto the streets of central Nassau. There are still huge puddles, but the rain’s stopped. I’m in a typical English town, where traffic drives on the left and friendly, white-jacketed policemen, with no guns, saunter in pairs along the pavements of The Bay, the main shopping street. I’m no longer a bag-lady. Somebody wants me. I have a beer and a burger at the Pirate Bar and make the airport in plenty of time for the 5.0pm back to Miami. It’s delayed an hour – but what does that matter? I’ve e-mailed Rachel, who’s driving the 140 miles again from Key West to meet me, having dealt the previous night with her own crisis aboard Lydia. A Canadian boat dragged its anchor and drifted into Lydia’s bow, being stopped just after colliding with Lydia’s bowsprit. Lydia took it on the chin. There’s no damage, except to nerves. We’re back on Lydia by midnight. Legitimate.
Key West, Saturday, June 15. Strong southerly winds and heavy rain continue and Lydia’s bouncing around on her anchor-chain.We’ve had another wicked line-squall this afternoon. Torrential rain driven by a 40-knot wind blotted out virtually all visibility. Caught in a strong tidal current at her anchorage off Key West, Lydia didn’t know which way to point, to the wind or the stream, and we stood ready in case she waltzed her anchor out of the sand. But she didn’t. The thunder’s still rolling around. In the next couple of days we’ll take a last look round this attractive sub-tropical town, with its streets of well-kept, white wooden houses, green trees and busy pleasure-dock scene and get ready to leave northwards up Florida as soon as this weather lifts. Key West’s atmosphere belies that of the US immigration service and Panther lady. She asked – I don’t know how anxiously – if I’d be writing about it. Yes, I said. But I’d try to be fair. Love &
best wishes These pics are all Rachel’s.
Hello, Friends: Feeling a bit poor and want to know where all your money went? Take a look down here. Lydia B’s now sailing (chiefly with the iron genny, that is) up the Intra-Coastal Waterway, a sort of ditch inside the US east coast that takes you in relative safety from the weather as far as North Carolina and the Chesapeake. I’d call it a canal, but that gives no impression of the mind-boggling private wealth lining its southern banks. The buildings and boats you pass for hundreds of Florida miles are anything but derelict industrial warehouses and rusting coal-barges. The glitz began at Miami, where we arrived at the end of a tough, offshore passage from Key West, riding the Gulf Stream flowing north-east outside the reef that guards the southern tip of this orange-growing holiday state. Short of somewhere to anchor, we tied up at a marina beneath the sky-gazing hotel blocks of Miami Beach. Clean, white concrete (even if it was behind locked security gates), someone to take a line as we approached and tied up Mediterranean-style between wooden piles, a shower ashore for the first time in ages – we’ve been so long at sea, living continuously with sticky sweat. And a deli a few yards away for coffee and a croissant next morning before pulling out, past the city-centre dockyards, the maze of route marker posts – red triangles to port, green squares to starboard – on up the ICW. It’s all so different. Across a confusing waterway junction in downtown Miami, Lydia B pushed through town by wind and tide, searching for the correct exit before we miss it and all the time watching the depth gauge – shoals and shallow water in the ICW are the daily problem now – and soon we’re rounding the bend to the Rickenbacker Highway Bridge, with a main-road span 76 feet over the water – plenty of height for Lydia B – then the Venetian Causeway highway bridge, the first of dozens of lifting bridges (mostly bascule and double bascule, as they’re correctly called). We call the bridge-keeper up on VHF channel 9 and ask him or her to let us past. “Come right on down and we’ll get you through.” We say a “thankyou. Lydia B standing by zero nine.” We’ve by now got our radio patter pretty sharp. Bells clang, road barriers come down, traffic stops – country lane or Highway Route 1, it makes no difference – the bridge lifts and Lydia B, all 50 feet of her from sea to mast-top radio aerial go through the bridge and we call a radio thanks or wave to the keeper looking down from the turret before there’s another bell-clanging and the bridge closes. It works like clockwork, even for this insignificant little ship. This is America. So far we’ve touched bottom only once, pushed aside by a speeding powerboat that bounced us with its wake and dropped Lydia B onto her bottom as we edged out of the way to the side of the channel. But the bottom’s soft mud and it was a gentle reminder not to be so English polite. As I say, this is America. Vero Beach, where we are now, is a typical, municipally-owned marina. We’re on a mooring buoy for eight dollars a night – though we have the use of showers and washing machines etc ashore, plus unlimited access to midges (no-see-ums) from the neighbouring mangroves. They pack a fearful punch and just love this still, damp air, so we’ve got bug-netting up and a citronella candle in the cockpit. In fact it’s critter-ville on Lydia B at the moment. We’ve had an infestation of cockroaches, probably brought aboard with the groceries. Swatting them’s a waste of time – they’re greased lightning and seem to be able to tune into your attack mode before you can lift a hand. So we’ve got cotton-wool balls soaked in insecticide in locker-bottoms, plus a dozen roach hotels stuck up round the boat. The idea is that they scurry out for a quick meal and don’t live to regret it. I think we might be winning. We’ve got rid of our accumulated rubbish (garbage) – a constant problem on a travelling boat (that’s ‘traveling’ to North Americans. Even the language is different). We’ll fill up with diesel and water (no longer having to worry if the water’s drinkable. It’s America), empty the sewage holding tank (which we usually do out at sea, but not in the ICW, where it’s illegal anyway) at the marina pump-out and be on our way northwards tomorrow. Soon we’ll be in Georgia, then the Carolinas, North and South, listening intently to NOAA weather radio for the possibility of cyclonic weather in the distance and keeping an eye open for bolt-holes to batten down in. They take hurricanes seriously round here. I’ll be glad to reach the Chesapeake. Love & best wishes, Pic captions:
Hello, Friends; We’re at the peak. This, surely, is the Most Important Place Lydia B has sailed to; Washington, District of Columbia, capital city of these extraordinary United States. Still carrying green travel stains from sea-growth around the waterline and Caribbean barnacles beneath it, Lydia’s anchored in the middle of town, a quick walk away from the White House, the Capitol building, the -foot high Washington Monument and a list of monumental marble memorials, museums, galleries depicting American life and federal government offices (equally marble and monumental) as long as your arm. If I’d arrived from Mars with only a potted history of the Earth’s civilization to guide me, I might have thought, looking at these innumerable columned porticos, that I was in ancient Greece. It’s breath-taking. Of course the cars, the pavements full of suited men with polished black shoes (you notice things like this after a year at sea) and smart lady civil servants, the tourists, the cops manning road-blocks at every sensitive street corner (security in the United States nearly a year after September 11 is in high alert mode. It’s hard to over-estimate the impact on the nation of last year’s terrorist attacks) and the fleet of navy-blue presidential helicopters, “United States of America’ painted on their sides, buzzing VIPs from the Pentagon and the White House to Dulles airport by the Potomac give it away. It’s the loudly-ticking heart of (official) America, 2002. To get here we sailed up the Chesapeake from the US navy shipyards at Portsmouth and Norfolk, Virginia, then up the Potomac River – really a wide affair, several miles across in its lower stretches. Although each fresh Atlantic tide brings salt water, here it’s a fresh-water river flowing through the capital. With a bit of luck Lydia’s slime and barnacles will die and fall off before – finally – I haul her ashore at one of the many little Chesapeake yards further south. I’d planned to have done that before now, but decided Washington in company with Australian and French friends aboard two other boats was a bigger attraction. We’re a little group of curious international observers. Martine and Olivier on Noed’coco from Nice and Carol and John on Nerissa from Melbourne. Each night over wine and tired feet we discuss the impact -- on us -- of Washington and America. We sit in the 90-degree heat on the low, railinged wall in front of the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue (is George Bush at home?); we spend fascinated hours at the Museum of American history (and see with comic relief that the saxophone belonging to Bill Clinton, the favourite bad boy among American presidents, is there in the display. So what’s his tune now?); the Smithsonian’s Museum of African Art, the Museum of Flight and Space, of Natural History; The Spy Museum – one block from the FBI headquarters; the Renwick gallery of American crafts (where twigs-stuck-together to make bird-nests and strange shapes reminds me, sadly, of my own compatriot pseudo ‘art’ stuff); at the monuments to Lincoln, Jefferson, Roosevelt, the Vietnam War, the Korean War (yes, the monument to the Second World War’s a-building now, opening 2004 at one end of the Thinking Pool, in the long, imposing, tree-cleared vista between the Washington monument and the Capitol); the National Law Enforcement Officers’ Memorial; we join the huge (marble) three-building Library of Congress and get official, photo-bearing cards in a vain attempt to find an internet computer to send our impressions home (no mean feat this. We’ve undergone so many security inspections in this security-swamped capital our bags spring open automatically at each new federal door. Nearly all of the security staff probing inside my backpack with the drum-stick they all use are black. There’s a self-conscious effort to include ‘Afro-Americans’ in all this Washington history-painting). Marble facing slabs on towering buildings and huge marble columns are everywhere (where on earth is the factory, and is there any marble left in the world to quarry?); they look as though they were put up yesterday, or maybe the day before, when Congress issued the order to create American history. American, Chinese (newly outnumbering the Japanese. Now there’s something to think about!), Latin American and goodness-knows-where-from visitors – but mainly American, children in tow -- are trooping all day long up wide marble steps to the enormous, shadowed statues inside the various monuments to past presidents. For the life of me, I can’t stop thinking of Mayan temples. What’s more, all this is free. Open-air jazz at l’Enfant Plaza, Venezuelan music at the Hirschhorn gallery – it’s there to enjoy for nil dollars. It’s too much to take in. Suddenly, after the long haul inside the Atlantic coast through Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina and Virginia to Maryland (and remember, Lydia B travelled Washington State, Oregon and California – the whole of the Pacific side -- too), just when we thought we knew a thing or two about America, we see we know nothing. So many of our perceptions of this enormously wealthy, able and mightily armed, hotch-potch, cosmopolitan country (it’s impossible not to see the guns, the muscle and the cops) have been naïve. We’re trying desperately to work out if Americans are bold and sage, or timid folk with a lot of money. Perhaps when there eventually is a true American race (native Indians don’t seem to figure over-much in this scramble to write history; though they’re half-way through building a museum for the Indians, too) we’ll get to know. For now, in Washington, they’re digging hard to build a past, quickly. Now, that’s what’s different about America – they don’t hang around; they jump right in. Culturally overloaded, the five of us spent yesterday biking (we all have bikes aboard) to the flea-market at Georgetown, a lovely – Georgian, of course – suburb of Washington, to the canal to watch the old mule-drawn barge, laden with tourists and run by people in Georgian period costume; and picking up some rare bread at La Madeleine, a French bakery-restaurant on the high street. If there’s one thing Americans just can’t do, it’s bake bread; they make it far too sweet. There has to be something Europeans are better at, eh? Pic captions:
(Lydia B wintered ashore on the Chesapeake in Virginia, at a little place called Deltaville, from August, 2002 to May 2003. Ian Laval bought a Chevy camper van and drove 13,000 miles principally round the United States -- up to Montreal, then across the priairies back to British Columbia and on over the high desert of the US West to the southwest, Texas and back to Virginia via Georgia and the US southeast).
Hello, Friends. I think I've been watching too many spy films. It's hard, the way things happen, not to feel I'm in the plot. Is it Key West all over again? I'm still in British Columbia, at friend Bruce's, thinking about continuing this land journey southwards as soon as Christmas is over. Right now the afternoon light's fading to grey and I'm sitting in Bruce's kitchen overlooking Saanich Inlet and Anglers' Anchorage, the home-from-home dock north of Victoria where I first brought Lydia B three-and-a-half years ago, then spent the happiest of times with many Canadian friends before sailing south in September 2001. It's been quite a thing meeting them all again. The place hasn't changed much, thank goodness. But strange, walking down the dock with no Lydia B to step onto. I'm missing her. The Chevy van I drove across America is parked outside. They're good, vans -- but they don't have personalities like boats do. Crewing on Bruce's Sea Bear for the Sidney parade of lights a couple of weeks ago stirred the need to take Lydia to sea again. I'll be back in Virginia in the spring, say good-bye to the United States and set out across the Atlantic for Maryport, my home port, in May. Imagine it -- sailing up the Irish sea with a beam wind, a clean shirt and Natalie McMaster's Nova Scotia fiddle turned up loud! And what after all this? Now, there's the question. Why does it take so long to discover that the world really is an oyster? But back to yesterday. My head's moving on from BC. I need a space to disappear to and do some serious writing. This is the 26th edition of Lydia B's log; I need to pull together the events of the last two years. Maybe in the mountains of New Mexico, among the Navajo Indians I studied as a student social-anthropologist at the London School of Economics. Not exactly yesterday! Remembering how things are between me and the United States Immigration Service since my summary ejection at Key West in June (they warned me, as they filed my finger-printed record into the bad-boys computer system, that henceforth I'd have a hard time whenever I entered the United States. And so it's turned out, with a grilling at Washington Dulles airport and a 'random' search at Sault Sainte Marie on Lake Superior) I thought I'd better think ahead to next March, when my US visa expires. You see, I can't start out across the Atlantic until May, so I'll need a visa extension. Better enquired about early in Victoria, the BC capital, I thought. I just need to know the form. So I search the Victoria phone book for US Immigration numbers in Canada. There's one on Wharf Street. I know just where Wharf street is, down by Victoria harbour -- the most beautiful harbour I've ever seen. See how maudlin I'm getting about Canada? I phone them -- and get an answerphone. Same thing again. And again. Seems it's only a number to leave messages on. Nobody wants to talk. Don't the Americans want floods of visitors spending money, for heaven's sake?There's a Vancouver number -- long distance from Vancouver Island -- that says there's no charge for calling. No charge for calling? I call the Vancouver number and hear a recorded message. I can indeed talk to a United States Immigration officer -- for a dollar fifty US (a pound sterling) a minute. Perhaps they're raising funds to bomb Iraq? I'm thinking now. There are US immigration officers down at the Coho ferry. That's the rolly old ferry that crosses Juan de Fuca Strait twice daily between Victoria and Port Angeles. I know because I took it a couple of weeks ago to stay with friends at Gig Harbour for Thanksgiving. Twenty-one of us sat down to a turkey dinner. I thought as I emerged from dense fog into sunshine on the drive back past the Olympic mountains what a lovely place northern Washington state is. Anyway, I drive the Chevy down to the harbour, put four quarters in the parking meter outside the ferry office, run up the steps and find a male clerk picking his fingers behind the window. The place is deserted -- next ferry's three hours away. The clerk's big, crew-cut, middle-aged, bored, unshaven and dressed as though he's just done a sweaty day digging the vegetable allotment. A compatriot's slouched over the day's paper at a table. I'm not too hopeful. But I explain my visa situation and say I'm having trouble talking to a real live US Immigration service officer. Friend looks wanly up from his newspaper; both nod knowingly that they're not surprised. I'm getting the picture. It tallies with what I'm seeing and hearing more and more as Americans -- the ones whose job it is, that is -- wind up their border security fever in the light of Iraq and terrorism. I'm keeping the word 'paranoia' in reserve. Crew-cut clerk, though, turns out to be helpful, in a nonchalant, slow sort of way. He makes a phone call. "See the Visitor Information Office in the corner of the harbour?" he says, elbow on his desk, pointing across the passenger hall, out through a window and over the water. I see it, puzzled. But it's a Canadian office. What’s that got to do with US immigration? No matter. "There's an immigration officer in there. Go up the stairs. She's waiting for you." And what's the office called?" I ask. "How do I know it?" "Don't ask. There's no name on the door, but it's the only one," says the big guy with the crew cut. I don't think I'm supposed to ask for any more details.The picture's filling out. Finding a US Immigration officer to talk to is like finding hen's back teeth. They've gone to ground. Maybe it's because, unlike US-based immigration officers, the ones in Canada aren't allowed to wear their guns. I remember when I sailed on the Coho two women US Immigration Service officers wore something hinting at a smile instead. They were chaparoned by armed Canadian police. Are they afraid of getting attacked abroad? Now there's a cultural observation! So I walk round the harbour to the information office. I still don't believe it. Inside I ask the (Canadian) girl behind a stack of visitor information leaflets if she's heard of a US Immigration office here. "Come this way," she says, and lifts the counter flap. I go behind and follow her, round a corner and down some stairs, past doors with no writing on them. The last one's locked, so I press the bell. It's still unidentified. Through the glass I see a tall, wavy-haired, middle-aged man in civvies -- no US Immigration Service black uniforms with yellow "Inspector" flashes on the shoulder. The door buzzes and I'm let in and am immediately confronted by tall man's pallid, unsmiling face. Is is fear, or in-your-face? Each time I see these faces -- and I've seen plenty on my travels through the United States -- I'm unnerved. My guilt complex about Key West and panther lady takes charge. I sign the book and go through the whole visa explanation again. The man says to wait there and takes my passport into a back room. Five minutes later he's back. Has he checked me on that computer? There's a pause while he searches for the words. "You know when you're pulled over for speeding in the United States," he starts. "Sometimes the cops book you, sometimes they give you a warning....." Good grief! They locked the door behind me! "Well," the man goes on. "What I'm trying to say is, there's a right way and a wrong way to deal with this. Some of us in this office would just tear your current visa-waiver out of your passport and give you a new one for six months. Simple as that. Some would do it the right way, so you'd have to apply in the United States. Maybe Phoenix, Arizona." I think I'm getting the drift. I don't think he wants money. I might be free to go soon. "When you leave Canada and come by here, ask for Russell or Fred. If you're lucky and one of us is here, you'll be alright." Tall man seems to be reaching out through verbal handcuffs from this point on -- though when he hears about my boat voyage he wishes me the best of luck. I exit the no-name door, up the steps and back into the legitimacy of the Canadian Visitor Information Centre. I think I've just had the privilege of meeting a sentient United States official struggling to make sense of White House heat on border security. At the end I sensed a smile, even if I couldn't see it. Have
a Happy Christmas and New Year, The pics: 1. Senanus1: The view from Bruce's kitchen over Anglers' Anchorage. Lydia B's old dock extreme lower left. 2. 'Sea Bear' lit for the Xmas parade. Hello, Friends: It's nearly time. At long last Lydia B's almost ready to go back into the water. There's a last-minute hitch with the alternator (what else is sailing, if not a series of hitches?) which we hope to overcome today. Launching's scheduled either tomorrow or Saturday; we need a couple of days on the water to check the rigging, make sure all the new through-hulls are water-tight, stow the bike, secure everything below, decide we've got everything on board that we need to be on board, then head out into the Atlantic for England. It's been a long wait. Dave Anderson, who's crewing with me, arrived from Brentwood Bay, British Columbia, a week ago, guitar in hand. He's deep into a Bob Marley song at present. We think Lydia B's in good shape to handle 3,200 miles of ocean. But it's a tough place, with plenty of opportunity before we reach the Irish Sea and Maryport in a month or so for water, humidity and general stress to take their toll. We have to be able to fix it ourselves. Most of the stores are on board. That's something like 200 tins of meat, veg, baked beans, Szechuan and goodness knows what else sauce, pasta, rice, dried potato, Mars bars, powdered milk, Dave's beer, my whisky and ginger (five-o'clock still comes round each evening on the ocean); forty-eight gallons of diesel fuel for the engine and saloon heater; sixty-five gallons of fresh water in the two tanks under Lydia's settees and ten in one-gallon bottles scattered in any remaining spare corner. Plus an emergency hand-powered watermaker, permanently stowed in the ditch bag under the saloon table, and a tarpaulin to catch any serious showers of rain we happen across. There aren't many spare corners. The boat's carrying almost two tons of gear and supplies (including things collected on the way through the Pacific, Central America and the Caribbean. Not least of which is a hundred-weight or so of cocobola timber bought at a small sawmill in Panama. The axe has already fallen on some of it, but the rest will reach Maryport, England, to be used for furniture-making. Then there was the bucketful of fire agates and other rock samples collected from Arizona on the winter Chevy trip. There's been a general weeding-out of anything adding unacceptable weight. Patrick and crew on Plein Sud, a Swiss boat that's almost ready for the Atlantic crossing, will be heading out from the same Deltaville yard about the same time as Lydia B, making for Bermuda, the Azores and the Mediterranean. Paul, a Danish Canadian on Sealise, will be a couple of weeks behind us, heading back to Denmark. Mike and Gill, Vancouver Canadians on Khamsin with whom I sailed from Key West, Florida, are heading north up the US east coast before completing a circumnavigation back to British Columbia. It's a time for saying goodbyes -- and au revoirs. Long-distance sailors tend to keep in touch. If
things go to plan, we'll be making a non-stop crossing via a slightly
more northerly route -- between 38 and 40N, minding the ice that this
year has drifted south to 42 degrees, then skirting the Azores high
pressure system and turning further north for the Channel,
with first landfall at the Scillies off Britain's southwest corner, if
the weather co-operates. The Scillies rocks are the graveyard of
many yachts in bad weather. The alternator's been tested and seems OK. So it's back to the drawing-board and a systemmatic examination of the wiring, plus a phone call to James, its part-author back in BC. It's a frustrating time for a problem like this. However -- there's a gale brewing on the Chesapeake this weekend which would have probably have delayed our departure anyway, so perhaps nothing will have been lost in the end. For the rest, it's a saying of goodbyes to Deltaville, this sleepy little Virginian country peninsula sticking out into Chesapeake Bay, former boat-building settlement in the hey-day of wooden boats. Sailing and marinas are still its only business. Nothing happens here at any particular speed, as I've discovered trying to sell the Chevy, redundant since the trip round the US. I'm leaving it at Fast Eddie's, a vehicle sales business on Highway 33 near the little town of Saluda. Only Fast Eddie's no longer Fast Eddie. There was a problem with his lady partner and she took off with the name and established her own vehicle sales business. She got the name, so she's Fast Eddie now. Now, at this time of year, Deltaville's fields and trees are lush green with spring growth. It's a beautiful place and it's sad to be saying goodbye just when I'm getting to know people. And am I sad to be leaving North America after four years -- four years that were intended to be no more than one? I am. It's been a process of continuous discovery. There's a great deal to assimilate. I thought in England I knew something about America, but I see now -- especially after travelling round it in the Chevy during the last winter -- I knew very little. It's been fascinating. Sometimes frustrating and puzzling, but interesting and surprising, always stimulating. More from the Pond as we make our way across it.. Love
& best wishes, PS: we solved the electrics crisis. The fault lay with a corroded fuse-holder in the alternator's field circuit. We're back on track and Dave's recovered from the shock of suspecting that his installation of a new shore-power charger was the cause of the alternator glitch. The pics: 1. Lydia1: Lydia B after the paint job. 2. gonesailing: I did. 3. crew1: Dave Anderson, Lydia & me. 4. deltahouse: summer-time Deltaville. 5. churches1a: you're never far from a church in Virginia. 6. tranquillity1: tranquillity in Deltaville. 7. sud2a: Patrick (Plein Sud's skipper, on the ladder), Michel, Nathalie and Georges. 8. Mike and Paul working on Khamsin's hull.
2000gmt Wedy. N36.56 W075.42 Hello,
Friends: OK
-- we finally made it. After a rollicking start out of the Chesapeake
this morning, helped by outgoing tide and a sunny breeze on the port
bow, we're now in the Atlantic heading for England. We escaped
with a typical east coast American thunderstorm on our tail,
making over seven knots out to sea on the edge of the squall wind. But
it didn't last. The wind's died and we're down to a couple of knots or
less, drifting north with the Gulf Stream. Overhead we're getting
numerous displays of American airforce and navy power -- the
Chesapeake's the US navy's home. The sun's out, it's pleasant and we've
just eaten our first supper at sea -- stewed everything prepared in
advance in the pressure cooker. At least Lydia B's giving us a gentle
entry into the ocean while we find our sea legs again. I've no doubt
that somewhere along the next 3200 miles to Maryport we'll run into much
harder weather. For
now, though, it's goodbye to the United States. We spent our last US
dollars yesterday on lunch at Salt Ponds marina, a little way up the
Chesapeake from Hampton, where we went to replace Lydia's starter
battery. When we got there we found we didn't need it. The current
battery's fine, save for a faulty connection. But the marina was
hospitality itself, offering us free dockage and showers for a few
hours. It's useful being British here since Iraq. The
wind's picking up from the southeast. Down here at the nav station I can
hear the wind generator whirring again. We'll
be settling into our first night at sea soon. Dave, my Canadian crew, is
at the helm hardening the main, yankee and staysail sheets. I can hear
the sea gurgling along the hull. Lydia's off again. |