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November 12th, 2009 – At Sea, 13 35N, 060 40W
by Herb McCormick
The way Dave Logan remembers it, when he visited the island of St. Lucia, a lush, green, mountainous oasis in the southern Caribbean Sea, the small inlet right off the fine beach fringing the popular anchorage of Rodney Bay was little more than a glorified swamp. But skipper Mark Schrader asked me to see what I could discover about clearing customs and perhaps stopping at the island to top off fuel tanks, and not one but two reliable sources – Cruising World Deputy Editor Elaine Lembo and Puerto Rican sailor Thomas Cordero – both mentioned a new facility right inside the harbor by Rodney Bay.
When I passed on my findings, Logan was incredulous and spent a long time ruminating at the navigation station, poring over charts. No way, he concluded, there was barely enough water to float a rowboat. But on Tuesday evening, perhaps on the whims of a wing and a prayer, we pointed the bow of Ocean Watch into the narrow channel carved out of the beach and drove in anyway.
It had been a weird night, with pulsating cells of self-contained weather systems – each of them a yellowish bruise on the radar screen – dotting the seascape. The most violent of them, which we drove around, right before sunset, was distinguished by the twisting, snakelike waterspout climbing toward the heavens. Once the sun was down, flashes of heat lightning continued to blink all around. It seemed like a good night to pull off the Interstate and take a breather.
So we did.
We hadn’t been at sea long, only a couple of days out of Puerto Rico, but the aroma of land was still strange and distinctive: smoky, earthy, flowery and pungent, all in the same sniff. In the intervening decades since Logan’s distant vacation, the inner harbor had indeed been transformed, and the once muddy waters were now dredged and developed, with marinas, fuel docks, condominiums and homes all over the place.
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| Someone had decided that blue dock lights were a good idea. It made it look like abour a hundred police cars were parked atop the water. |
The plethora of lights was fairly confusing, but the directions to our slip at the new IGY mega-marina were pretty straightforward. Even so, someone at IGY – the company has facilities through the islands and on both sides of the Atlantic – decided that blue dock lights were a good idea, and as the sailing and cruising season hasn’t yet started in the islands, the piers were pretty empty and the bluish illumination – it looked like about a hundred police cars were parked atop the waters – made the surreal sight all the more perplexing. But suddenly, someone was waving a flashlight from the dock and moments later, we were tied up and secure, having cheated death yet once again.
With unsteady steps, we strolled up to the marina bar for a cold drink before bed, where an incredibly inebriated local, who looked like Barack Obama probably will by the end of his first term, regaled us with pointless stories and incomprehensible advice. I’ve never been happier to see a bar close in my life.
St. Lucia, apparently, has decided to become a major player in the international yachting scene and the IGY facility was pretty grand. For nearly 20 years, an event called the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, or the ARC, has called St. Lucia home. Starting in the Canary Islands, the ARC generally attracts well over 200 yachts filled with sailors looking to escape to the islands, who are drawn to the event for the camaraderie of like-minded individuals as well as the practical and safety advantages of crossing an ocean by cruising in company. A cruising sailor and author named Jimmy Cornell founded the ARC, and if Yankee Stadium was the house Babe Ruth built, the ICY marina may well be the docks that Jimmy built.
In St. Lucia, a floating ensemble of islanders known to cruisers as “the boat boys” have become famous, or
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| Gregory the boat boy couldn’t have been friendlier, and the grapefruit and bananas he sold us couldn’t have been tastier. |
perhaps infamous, depending on your view, for the zeal and tenacity they display to visiting sailors. They peddle all sorts of wares, and yes, some can be pests, but Gregory, the boat boy who came alongside Ocean Watch the next morning – his small skiff festooned with flags and fruit, so much so that it was impossible to say how he steered from within – couldn’t have been friendlier, and the grapefruit and bananas he sold us couldn’t have been tastier.
As the skipper cleared customs, I took the somewhat illegal opportunity – I wasn’t officially “cleared” into the county – to launch one of our Little Wing carbon fiber kayaks and have a good look around. My last paddle was off the glaciers of Pond Inlet, at the head of Baffin Island; this one was decidedly warmer. The pass into the harbor looked even hairier in daylight, if that was possible, but the adjacent beach was highly inviting so I pulled the kayak up on the sand and took a luscious dunk in the drink. Life was very good.
Back on the boat, the captain returned, stamped passports in hand, and we ambled back up the dock to breakfast. As we ate, a gigantic sailboat, well over a hundred feet, pulled into the slip right next to ours, a humbling sight if ever there was one. Now don’t get me wrong, we’ve all come to deeply love and respect our steel 64-footer, but alongside the long, long blue yacht called Mystere, Ocean Watch looked like a dinghy…heck, our mast only came up to the second spreader of the four-spreader rig of the superyacht.
At midday, we pulled over to the fuel dock to take on diesel and were greeted by yet another pair of friendly, happy folks; honestly, everyone we met, even the plastered guy, was like a walking, talking Chamber of Commerce. I mentioned the many obviously brand new “McMansions” that I’d seen on my paddle, grandiose palaces that would’ve been right at home on the Intracoastal Waterway in Fort Lauderdale and Southern Florida, and pointed at one right across the way.
“So, who owns that, an American or an Englishman?” I wondered, realizing the moment the words left my mouth that it was probably a bad assumption and a poorer question.
“No, that’s an islander, mon. He makes the pepper sauce,” was the reply.
“Business must be good,” I said.
“Very,” he concluded.
With our tanks full and the bill paid, we were ready to shove off and resume our mission. But, well, we didn’t. Why? We’ll let the skipper explain, in his latest Captain’s Log:
“No doubt St. Lucia is an island paradise worthy of more attention than we had time to give. The plan was to arrive in time for a meal prepared and served by others on the night of the 10th and then clear in and out with customs and immigration after topping up on duty free fuel – and leaving on the 11th.
“The wind didn’t cooperate so we arrived too late for anything but an island rum drink on the 10th and when I mentioned to the very helpful customs and immigration officers the next morning that we were just staying a few hours their eyes widened and without hesitation they said, ‘You can’t do that . . . this is paradise, you must stay.’ I’m of the opinion that only a fool ignores good local knowledge, particularly if it’s wearing a badge – so we stayed an extra night.
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| A short dinghy ride was the highlight of the day. Jumping into the 82 degree water made the Arctic feel very far away. |
“After we fueled up, the short dinghy ride out of the new and impressive marina to a white, sandy swimming beach was the highlight of the day. We motored fairly close to shore, threw the small dinghy anchor over and swam the rest of the way. Jumping into the 82° clear water made the Arctic feel very far away. Herb took a long swim along the shore but most of us just paddled around or stood on soft sand, water up to our necks, thoroughly enjoying the feel of the ocean and relief from the heat. At the end of the day when the rest of the crew expressed their appreciation for the skipper declaring a day off I just nodded. Thanks for the advice, Mr. Customs Man – you made the OW crew very happy.
“We’ve had requests for images of Ocean Watch sailing in warm waters. ’s true that most of our archived images show snow in the background or ice around the boat, so at the request of Mr. Thoreson we spent an hour or so before heading offshore sailing along a very scenic bit of St. Lucia. Rick and Jen volunteered to be dinghy driver and grip, respectively, so David could concentrate on taking the pictures. Herb, Michael, Logan and I put Ocean Watch through her paces sailing close to the headlands and then weaving around the boats in the anchorage. An hour of that and all involved were drenched in sweat but happy with the results.
“We dropped sails, loaded the dinghy and crew on board and said good-bye to St. Lucia. Well, almost . . . St. Lucia is 14 miles wide and 27 miles long. The afternoon southeast (more south than east) wind is light and the only reasonable course we can make under sail takes us along the spectacular windward coast of the island. Sometime I’d like to come back for a longer stay. I’m sure I’m not the only one on this crew to make that pledge. Logan was here 30 years ago – and I know he’d like to return.
“Over the next few months we have some long sailing legs ahead of us but this one from St. Lucia to Rio via Fernando de Noronha is the longest of the voyage. Fernando is just under 2,000 nautical miles from our current position, and Rio is another 1,400 nautical miles from there. The days will be very hot, the wind will likely be easterly and we’ll be close reaching at best for at least two weeks to Fernando, where we’ll stop and spend a couple of days touring the tiny island marine sanctuary before continuing on to Rio. For now, pace and adjustment to ocean sailing are the order of the day. It’s something I’m sure we can do.”
By late afternoon, Ocean Watch was close-hauled in those moderate southeasterly trade winds. Our one-day Caribbean cruise was certainly short, but it sure was sweet.
- Herb McCormick and Mark Schrader and photographs by David Thoreson
This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
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