It’s been a cathartic couple of weeks since I last reported. Not that there was any single dramatic event, but in the aggregate I’ve come a long way towards understanding what I’m doing here and how to approach the coming months.
Partly it was realizing that living on Gypsy is a vocation, not a vacation—as hard as I may work to get her fixed up and ready to cruise there will always be another mission-critical project that needs attending to. This frustrated me to no end, until I spoke with other cruisers and realized that they all work on their boats constantly. It’s the nature of the game. Gypsy is an amalgam of countless complex systems—engine, sails, electronics, hydraulics, pumps, winches, refrigeration-- all constantly subjected to the corrosion of salt water and the punishment of ocean cruising. Of course things will break.
Partly, too, it was evaluating what happened on my passage from Virgin Gorda (see GR #5)—why the trip took so long and what I could have done to make it less grueling. I just finished a 17-hour overnight cruise from St. Barts to Antigua, confronting similar conditions, and it was a joy ride in comparison. It’s a matter of understanding when to motor, what sails to use, and how to minimize risk—the fundamentals of long-distance cruising. Not that I’m a pro, but at least I’m grasping the basics.
It was a combination of small epiphanies that brought peace of mind, but nothing has had a more positive impact on my psyche than meeting other cruisers. Until I got to the Dutch side of St. Maarten I hadn’t really spoken with other boaters. I was on my own, and making it up as I went along, which led to some brutal lessons. Last week I passed under the bridge to Simpson Bay, a large lagoon on St. Maarten, and things immediately took a turn for the better.
My first morning, a guy motors up in his dingy and introduces himself. His name is Robin, and he’s anchored in a 38-foot Shannon right next to me. She’s virtually identical to Gypsy, and Robin has been single-handing her around the Caribbean for the better part of four years. He is a wealth of knowledge, and spends hours over the ensuing days explaining how to handle the boat, what to expect in the islands, and countless tips on simplifying life aboard. We go out to dinner, to live music, to a barbeque—I take care of his dog when he goes to St. Barts for the day. Of all the things that have happen since I first laid eyes on Gypsy, there is nothing I’m more grateful for than my friendship with Robin.
After Robin, meeting people comes easy. There’s Bill and Betty, a retired couple from Michigan who are heading to Trinidad. There’s George, the lagoon’s fix-it man, who helps me repair my anchor windlass. There’s Colin, bartender at the local schooner-turned-floating-bar. And Ben, Monica, John, Kathy and Jonathan—all friends of Robin who welcome me into their St. Maarten community. Finally, I’m starting to see the glimmerings of a support network.
And with a better context for what to expect, I’ve made an executive decision: SLOW DOWN. Until now, I’ve spent literally every day for the last two months either working on the boat or sailing her to our next destination. Aside from brief outings I have not had a chance to appreciate my surroundings. The British Virgins have outstanding scuba diving, but I never considered it on my mad dash through the islands. St. Maarten has some of the most beautiful beaches in the Caribbean, but I wouldn’t have guessed from my vantage on Gypsy’s bow rebuilding the windlass. I’ve been racing to Panama—rushing to make up lost time on my tight schedule, but when I stop to think about it I can’t remember what’s the hurry.
Actually, there’s one big reason—hurricanes—but there are better ways to dodge a hurricane than running home. Hurricanes are what everyone down here is bracing for right now. Cruisers are heading south, or north, or east, or putting their boats on the hard and hoping for the best. Hurricanes are your bargain with the devil in this tropical paradise, and you never know when you’ll pay your due.
They start in the Sahara, where intense summer heat builds over the desert and spills west across the African continent. Every three of four days from July to October these warm fronts collide with the cooler air of the Atlantic, and create what is called a “tropical wave.” This is not an ocean wave, but an atmospheric condition—a low-pressure trough that moves across the Atlantic at about 10-15 knots on a direct course for the Caribbean. A tropical wave, should it cross the Atlantic, typically leads to increased winds, and heavy rain as it passes—a 24-hour inconvenience for the Caribbean cruiser, but nothing to batten down the hatches for. What gets scary is when a wave develops into a tropical depression, which builds into a tropical storm, which culminates in a full-blown hurricane.
A hurricane requires a particular set of conditions: the existence of a tropical wave, sea surface temperatures of at least 79 degrees, favorable atmospheric conditions, and proximity to the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), where the northeasterly trade winds of the North Atlantic meet the southeasterly trade winds of the South Atlantic. These conditions are met, on the average, about a dozen times a year, when hurricanes unleash their fury anywhere between Grenada and the Northeast Coast of the United States. When a depression is upgraded to storm (sustained winds surpass 33 knots), it is assigned an internationally agreed male or female Christian name. When winds surpass 63 knots (74mph), it is upgraded to hurricane, and further classified by category I through V (V being the most violent, with winds exceeding 134 knots). The strongest winds are normally within 25 miles of the eye of the hurricane. If you’re in the direct path of a hurricane on a sailing vessel, there’s little you can do but remove all the sails, tighten the hatches, and pray.
Predicting or tracking hurricanes is a notoriously difficult business. Initially I was anxious to get through Panama and escape the hurricane risk in the Caribbean. I was doing it for safety’s sake, and I was doing it because my boat insurance requires me to leave the northern Caribbean during hurricane season (officially June through November). But it turns out they’ve got tropical storms in the western Pacific at this time of year as well. They call them Typhoons, and they can pack a punch like the 150-mile-an-hour winds that recently struck Mexico. There’s no place to hide on the Pacific—for 400 miles from Costa Rica to Mexico there’s hardly a decent bay to anchor in. Initially, as I mulled over hurricane-season strategies with other cruisers I was confronted with an unpleasant predicament—damned if I stay and damned if I go.
But there is an alternative. It turns out that as unpredictable as hurricanes are, there are places they never go. The southern Caribbean, between 12 degrees latitude and the coast of Venezuela, is hurricane free. Insurance policies offer coverage below this line. As we speak there is a massive exodus which takes place every season--boats cruising south to summer in Trinidad, Tobago, Curacao, and numerous other islands scattered along the coast. So the caveat to my executive ‘slow down’ decision is that I will do so in safe proximity to the South American mainland.
I will reach Grenada on June 26 (which, given my current position in Antigua, will require some diligent sailing over the next two weeks), and after that I will take time to appreciate some tropical pleasures. It makes sense from a safety standpoint, and it feels right from a lifestyle perspective. Given all the time and energy I’ve put into Gypsy, it seems ludicrous to sail non-stop back to a ‘real life’ in California. I’ve just starting getting used to this one. It all boils down to one of the many lessons I gleaned from Robin, who sailed a cumulative total of 13 days last year: cruising is about the journey, not the destination.
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June 14 - Dodging Hurricanes
