That Sinking Feeling

The morning sun was just beginning to make a showing across the dark night sky, dusting the mooring field of Wallilabou Bay in purples and pinks. Headset on, engine warm, we whispered through pulling up the anchor in the pre-dawn light. The air was still.

Minerva anchored and tied stern-to-a-tree next to the mooring field in Wallilabou Bay, St. Vincent 

The boat boy that had agreed to come out at this ridiculous hour was quietly floating alongside Minerva on his busted up paddle board, his two small dogs sitting on the board with him, looking up curiously at Chloe. He had freed us from the shore and I had just stowed the really long stern line.

The air was still and eventually all of the anchor chain made it back onto the boat, the echoes of the chain through the gypsy the only noise in the bay. I secured the anchor. Lance put the boat in forward gear and then... KERTHACK WHAM THUD THUD THUD. Minerva shuddered. The birds took flight.

Lance slipped Minerva out of gear and popped open the engine compartment and reported over the headset "We're taking on water. Lots of it".

Sure enough. The shaft had somehow shifted away from its rightful place and water was spewing in.

Like a caped superhero, Lance leapt onto the warm engine and started to wrestle the shaft into its rightful place. There are normally 4 bolts holding it into place, now there was only one but he found the missing 3 in the bilge. I slipped past him and opened the tool compartments to produce the tools that we needed as he shouted his list. I was handing him the last socket wrench and a big rubber mallet when the wind popped up. It was sudden and strong, and blowing us down into the mooring field where the other boats slumbered. Of course, it would have been helpful if it had been blowing us out to sea, but what fun would that be?

In Wallilabou Bay, it's deep all the way up to shore. We had dropped our hook originally in 70 feet of water and then backed in, had a boat boy tie our stern line to a tree on shore that was about 50 ft away. Now we were at least 200 feet from shore and the water under the boat was at least 90 ft deep. I dropped the hook, pulled out all the dock lines and deployed the fenders on the downwind side. The boat boy was still hanging around on his paddle board, I handed him the longest line and while he paddled to shore with it I extended our stern line by tying one knot after another as fast as I could; 6 lines later we were tied to a new tree on shore and no longer a threat to the other boats.

Re-stowing the line locker post-disaster

By then Lance had 3 of the 4 bolts back on. The 4th just wouldn't go. We caught our breath while timing the slow leak, then tentatively fired up the engine and put her in gear. There was a small shimmy, and the pace of the small leak held steady. We put her in reverse. Smoother, no leak. We had an appointment to keep with the government vet for Chloe's clearance (hence the reason for starting the venture at such a ridiculous hour), the wind was good to sail us there and the leak had slowed to a trickle so we re-released the stern line, paid the boat boy a bonus, and made our way to St Lucia. We set an hourly alarm to count pumps with the manual bilge pump, and after 6 hours of checking agreed it was not leaking worse than before.

It was hours after we were underway before we really noticed the burns Lance had received from his engine hug. Open wounds. Not too serious and easily treatable but best to avoid contact with tropical seawater until healed. So no diving in St Lucia for us.

Pigeon Island near Deshais, Guadalupe is home to Jacques Cousteau's national park

Martinique, Guadalupe, and St. Martin followed. Eventually Lance was able to get the 4th bolt on but it fought him all the way and didn't feel like it was happy there. We monitored the situation regularly and while the leaking remained minimal and steady the new prop shimmy was unsetting. We decided to get professional help before heading across the open Caribbean sea or into the lonely Bahamas.  A damaged prop or propshaft could mean a haulout and a potentially lengthy or expensive repair and we started strategizing our options this close to hurricane season.

Our good friend Ton was in St Maarten and dropped by, and much to our relief pointed out that the part that was damaged is meant to be sacrificial, its job is to protect the engine from prop or shaft shenanigans, and the bolts were simply loose. So it did its job but gave its life. In a rare stroke of luck the replacement part was readily available at the local chandlery. The shaft was not damaged. One beer and an hour later, Minerva was back to 100%.

The sacrificial part. It's clearly visible why the bolts didn't want to happily go back in place.

We are once again free to roam. And it's time to high-tail it out of the hurricane zone. We are still undecided in which direction we will go, but are definitely feeling the need to get moving to somewhere safe for the season.

Bequia, Fit for Thieves and Scoundrels

We flew around the point under full sail. The ten-foot waves that had been battering us from the main island of St Vincent had relinquished their grip, leaving us with a comfortably surfable 4-foot wave pushing us around the corner. We tucked in against a giant mega yacht, rolled in the headsail and surveyed our destination: Admiralty Bay, Bequia, one of the most protected anchorages in the whole Caribbean. The perfect place to hide out the coming windstorm, reconnect with sailor friends from Trinidad, and prepare the boat for a couple weeks of self-sufficient lonely island hopping.

The Starship II rests alongside us between squalls in Admiralty Bay

The village on the hill above Admiralty Bay looks like a set from Wes Anderson - the homes cling to the mountainside wearing every color of the rainbow. The cars rushing to and fro seem to climb vertically. The buses and taxis and locals zipping around honk frequently, especially when making blind corners on sharp inclines to warn one another they are on the way, and very likely in the way. There are plentiful markets, restaurants, a chandlery, and lots of dinghy docks to choose from. In general, the tourist doesn't have to worry much about crime, just mischievous children. A friend had to swim after his sailing dinghy and sail the children back, despite the fact that he had told them to keep it on the sand they had overloaded it with young boys and were unwittingly drifting out to sea. From that moment on we all got more vigilant about locking our dinghies, the winds are strong and not all of us can swim as quickly as Tommy.

French maps from the early explorers charted this as a good place for boat repairs. Otherwise, they noted it as only fit for thieves and scoundrels. This actually tracks historically; Blackbeard seized La Concorde at the neighboring island and right here in Admiralty Bay is where she received her full compliment of stolen cannons, a pirate crew, and her name was changed to Queen Anne's Revenge.

Typical taxi on Bequia - Toyota or Nissan pickups with a bench down each side of the pickup bed above the wheel well. The tax driver puts out a stool and drops the tailgate to let customers in and out. The canvas sides are rolled down when rain threatens.

The island has no fresh water of its own, and is therefore horribly unsuited for agriculture of any sort and the ruling class recognized this. But the government wanted the land populated so they granted land to "poor people of good character" who wanted to make a go of growing sugar, the popular commodity at the time. It was really only economically feasible with significant slave labor effort and cheap trade with the American colonies. But after 1776 the young country of America felt disinclined to continue the cheap trade and the prices for tools and raw materials increased significantly. Not long after that slavery was abolished. Sugar quickly became a losing proposition for the plantations of the island. Other crops were tried but in the end the people of the island were starving, plantation owners and freed slaves alike.

On the south end of the island in Friendship Bay is a shallow reef with a small island. American whalers recognized its value as a place to process their kills. Enterprising locals noticed an opportunity forming. One particular islander sailed to the Northeast USA to learn the craft of whaling, and even managed to bring a whale boat back to the island as a prototype and a new industry was born. Boat builders, whalers, all kinds of boat support popped up and the island's people once again had a purpose and a path to profitability. The industrial revolution was lubricated by whale oil, the night was illuminated by whale oil and everybody on the island developed a taste for whale meat. In no time at all whaling became a permanent part of Bequia culture and acts of bravery bestowed a source of pride, the story-telling shared from elder to child.

Friendship Bay, as seen from the boat museum.

To this day, Bequia is one of only four countries that holds special dispensation for whale hunting, up to four per year although last year they killed only one and some years none at all. The locals view whale hunting as integral to their culture, the anchor that keeps them from getting swept away by tourism, which is now by far the more prevalent commodity of the island. 

Whale boat, seats 6. Freeboard clearance, mere inches. Bravery required, much.

The school children developed a song to announce when a whale spout is seen, and the island joins together in the energy of the hunt. The whales are processed on the same reef they were hundreds of years ago, and the meat is shared among the locals. Beautiful crafts made from the whale bones can be bought at the outdoor market.

Locally made bone jewelry

It's moments like this that I remember that I am merely a visitor. My opinions on the matter of whale hunting matter not one bit, as it's not my culture and it's not my life; it wasn't my people that were saved from starvation by the hunt. I am a guest - my job here is only to learn. Whether or not to buy beautiful jewelry made from whale bones? That's a question still being debated.

https://www.noforeignland.com/boat/-1