Alembic

How lucky I am. We had a parade of warm welcomes from so many dear people on our quick jaunt north for Christmas. In order of occurrence, not in order of importance, because how can you really put these huge bundles of love in any kind of order? The list looks something like this:
Jolie and Dan left the lights on, so that we could tiptoe up to Chloe’s room to sleep when we arrived at midnight.
Jolie set up a perfect first breakfast and a bit of time with her when she really should have been meeting clients.
Time alone with Mom, which is always a rare event that I can never get enough of, so a few hours was a treat!
Then time to chat with Dad even though he was exhausted from four hours with lively Elizabeth.
Kenny and Jenna welcomed us at their new home where their skills of craftsmanship and interior design are blossoming.
Christine, Christian, Cathy and Matt prepared our favorite foods, and arranged a great visit and a cosy room for the night.

Winn Dixie time for me and guy time for Bill to fill our hearts with companionship extraordinaire.
A quick visit with Steph and Teo to make me really miss CBHS and all of its meaningful connections.
Erica stepping off a plane from Colorado with a face so lit up it could warm any planet.
Camp. Nuff said.
Back to Kenny and Jenna’s for Lindsay’s arrival and a day where the girls finished Christmas prep and the boys finished (almost) the deck.

Camp time hiking and family gatherings.
Back to Connecticut for Christmas Eve at Ann and Al’s with most of the Swanson Gang.
Christmas celebrations and overindulging in delicious foods with the Weigels, Kwokas, Woolstons, and Wills.
Dancing at Loose Boots, catching up with our Mt Abram Village family, and lounging.
Dining in Boston with Conor’s parents who were more lovely than I imagined.
One final night at Lindsay’s awesome home in Boston.

Little things meant the most. The hugs, the laughs, the sharing of new ideas and challenges, the plans and hopes that were expressed, the brilliant wisdom and recollections from the hearts of those we care about. I was so topped off by the time we had to say goodbye, that I knew that this journey to Maine was well worth the time and expense. I dissolved into tears saying good bye to Sue Luthe, because she said she would take care of our children in our absence. This is the hardest part of our cruise; leaving behind our children and all of the people we love. Thank you, Mama Sue, for always being there for the Mt Abram family. And thank you to all of my siblings who cheerfully lend a hand every time a family member is in need.

Seeing Alembic again gave us a huge sigh of relief for many diverse reasons. First, she was safe and unharmed by the storms that had charged through during our absence. Second, Colombian officials hadn’t taken her into custody as a result of our expired documentation. Third, we were home in our cosy, efficient space. And fourth, we could again focus on each other, and our upcoming adventures. The sigh of relief was balanced by the melancholy feelings of already missing our loved ones. My challenge today, and in the days to come, is to fully engage in the adventure at hand. Whether I am deep in conversation with a loved one, battling enormous seas, sailing in light air, coming ashore in a foreign land, swimming with new species of marine life, or planning our next voyage, I hope to be able to be wholly present.

I have launched into another world. I’m currently flying miles above the earth on a Jet Blue airplane from Cartagena Colombia to New York City. Bill and I are on our way home to Maine to spend Christmas with family. After living aboard Alembic and traveling on the ocean where I could simply reach over the side and dip my hand into the seawater, this flying vessel interrupts my sense of connectedness to the earth. My world for the past three months has become more and more simplified as I sail, swim, and walk on or near the ocean.

Most of my time has been aboard or very near our compact sailboat, Alembic. We swim close to the boat, and venture a bit further away by dinghy to reach areas too shallow for our five foot draft. Sometimes we roam on foot on nearby shores to meet people, exercise, or shop for food and boat parts. Other times we paddle our SUP (Stand Up Paddleboard) around an anchorage for exercise, exploration, visiting people, or as a visible buoy traveling beside a swimmer (Bill or me), so the swimmer doesn’t get run over by passing boats.

The number of hours I have been apart from the boat has been minimal. In the past three months, I can count the number of times that I have traveled by means other than by boat, on foot, or swimming. Here’s the count: we took a taxi in New York City, rode bikes in Cape May and in Oriental NC, rode in the cars of Jim and Anne, Rick, and Bruce a few times in Annapolis to pick up boat parts, took a taxi to bring Lindsay to and from the airport in George Town, took one bus ride to Cartagena, and one taxi ride to the airport to catch this plane. That’s it! This adds up to about ten hours of travel other than by foot, swimming, riding the dinghy, or sailing.

Some people ask me “When are you coming back to the Real World?” I think I am living in the Real World when I sail by the wind, catch rainwater from the sky, eat fish from the sea, charge batteries by solar and wind power, walk barefoot on the ground, and stay continuously mindful of the weather. Each day, I rise with the sun, sit in the cockpit with my tea, and contemplate my day’s adventures. Each night, I watch the sun set, and consider when the moon will rise. This feels very real to me.

I don’t want to be judgmental; after all, this trip is about finding peace and perspective while opening up my lens for a more broad view of the world. I won’t interpret the term Real World because it is different for everyone, and each of us has to define it from our own unique experience. I am grateful every day for this opportunity to explore the meaning of Real World for me.

All I can say for certain, is that I feel confused right now, up here in this plane. I have missed my children, parents, other family members and friends terribly while I sail, and look forward to seeing most of them on the other end of this flight. This flight is linking my separate worlds in time, but not helping me figure out how to link them in my heart. I suppose I must learn to navigate my discreet Real Worlds. And perhaps they are more connected than they appear.

Getting to Colombia was our biggest nut to crack. The Caribbean Sea is known for relentless high winds and seas, and this would be our first venture to a truly foreign land. Bill and I had sailed to the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Dominican Republic decades ago, but had not ventured further south. I can’t tell you how many hours we stared at the Pilot Charts (statistical data on wind and wave conditions by month) and talked with people who had sailed here before. The clear message was that the winds would blow at least 25 knots and the seas would be at least eight feet. These conditions are nothing new to us or to Alembic, but we were concerned about traveling three days straight and being overwhelmed if the conditions piped up. The Christmas Winds, we learned, were notorious for escalating to fifty knots and thirty foot seas, and could begin any time in December.

Chris Parker, our single sideband weatherman, had advised us to hang tight before moving south of the Windward Passage (the body of water between Cuba and Haiti) so we tucked in to Haiti for five days. We experienced almost zero wind in our protected anchorages there while the Caribbean Sea roared just south of us. Once we had the okay from Chris, we said our goodbyes, raised the anchor and headed due south. Within three miles, our zero winds turned to twenty and the seas were confused as we tried different sail arrangements. Up with the mainsail, two reefs; out with the genoa, roll it back in halfway for a smaller sail; up with the mizzen, reef that too; up with the inner jib; down with the mizzen. Finally, we settled with the double reefed main, inner jib, and a genoa that we could use as a throttle. We rolled it out when our speed went down and in when our speed was uncomfortably fast. We tried to sail Alembic under eight knots because more than that just caused more crashing into the seas.

Soon, we settled into a nice routine of watches. Bill and I traded being in charge every two hours. This allowed for plenty of off watch time to try to sleep, cook, and navigate. Alembic was fabulous. I highly recommend this boat to anyone. She seemed to relish the wind and rolled gently with each wave that passed under her keel. A beam reach (wind directly on the side of the boat) is the perfect angle and this was the position the entire three days. When larger waves approached at a rate of about once every half hour, we were showered with a spray that soaked the entire boat except the area under the dodger. So we hunkered down in the two corners of this dodger while the autopilot steered. When we ventured out further in the cockpit to adjust sails and search the horizon for any other vessels, we risked getting drenched.

Once in a while, a huge set of rollers would arrive and Alembic tipped to port and starboard, scooping seawater with her gunwales. These rivers of water roared down the length of the boat, spilling overboard as she rolled, and draining final contents down the scuppers. Certain that water was making its way below, I kept checking for leaks. As water rushed past the seven ports (windows) on each side, I was pleasantly surprised to find only a few drips onto our stove, a few more onto a wooden cabinet, and a few more onto a shelf where we keep hats. Zero water made its way to any electronics or cushions, which are damaged by salt.

Knowing Alembic was handling these conditions like a champ, we assessed our own safety and comfort. Unfortunately, there was no moon during our passage, so it was “dark as a pocket” as Bill kept saying, by 6:30 pm each night. You could feel the rhythm of the ocean but see nothing, and mother nature likes to throw new beats in now and then. At one point, during my watch in the dark, a huge wave happened to crest just as it reached us, and dumped an enormous bucket of water into the cockpit. Now this bucket was the size of the biggest dump truck load imaginable. It roared over our dodger and bimini and submerged the wheel momentarily. The aft companionway (steps down to the aft cabin) had a door in place, but the wall of water pressed so hard and allowed a few gallons to spray through the seals, soaking everything below. Luckily this only happened once. This put my level of comfort on edge for a bit, but I soon realized that this was a fluke and would probably not happen again. Luckily it didn’t.

To be safe, Bill and I always wear our inflatable PFD’s and connect a tether from these to pad eyes in the cockpit. When we need to venture out of the cockpit to adjust sails or perform other tasks, we clip our tether to a jackline. This is a long piece of webbing that runs the length of the boat. We have one to starboard and one to port. Often, this connection to the boat seems overkill, but imagine one weird wave coming by, just as I’m out on the bow. If I slip and fall overboard, Bill would have a hard time turning this boat around and finding me in the seas.

Settling in to our routine, we found that this trip was much less worrisome than we had envisioned, weather-wise. What was more alarming than the wind or seas, were the ships we had to navigate around. This area is like a super highway for tankers, cruise ships, and tugs. Again, true to Bill’s nature, we were well prepared. We had purchased a new VHF just before leaving Maine, which is equipped with AIS. This is a system, somewhat like Radar, which shows you where the ships are within a fifty miles radius. We have radar, so this may seem redundant. However, Radar falls short on several counts. First, we rarely used radar because it drains our batteries quickly with its huge power consumption, and second, it only gives us a spot on the horizon. AIS identifies the ship with its name, location, course, and time and location of nearest point to us. For example, it will say that the closest point of approach may be 2.5 miles in 34 minutes. Of course, when the calculated closest distance is less than a mile, we alter course, or contact the ship by radio and come up with a plan to pass safely. I have radioed many of these ships in the night and they are happy to talk and even alter course for us. They often see us as a tiny blip on their radar screen, but have no idea of our vessel type, course, speed, or anything else. We do not transmit an AIS signal at this point. We may consider adding transmitting, in addition to receiving, AIS data.

During our third night out, our AIS system indicated that there was a ship towing cables that were six miles long! Our radar certainly would never have picked this up. I called the ship to see if the cables were submerged, and if we could sail over them. He said they were seismic cables on the surface and we needed to steer around them. He also indicated that there was a chase boat (a tug) staying at the end. This boat was not showing up on AIS or Radar with the current weather conditions, so speaking to this Captain was a life saver! We altered course significantly to avoid any issues, and gave thanks for our AIS yet again.

After this encounter, our sail began to ease in every way. The sun rose, shedding light on our world which was surprisingly calm! The seas had eased to a very settled state, unlike what we had expected. Everyone had told us that the coast of Colombia would be wild with crazy seas coming from winds whipping from the enormous mountains of the coast. This was not the case. Our strongest winds, over thirty knots, were one hundred miles north of the coast, and now, at fifty miles out, we were experiencing our lightest winds of the trip, about twenty knots. I stared at the horizon for hours, creating mountains in my mind out of the cloudy skies. I told Bill “this feels like Maine in the fog!” because I couldn’t see land through the haze. Finally, at about eight miles offshore, the huge mountains appeared, and our hearts leapt. We had arrived!

After this point, we sailed easily into the harbor. Two kind men in a large inflatable escorted us to our dock and helped us tie up. This was a first; never before had anyone ever escorted us into a marina. I knew right away that I would like Colombia.

How do you help a struggling community? The first step is to listen carefully to the voices of the individuals. Ask the right questions, consider the responses, and continue to ask questions until you get the real story. Then get the story out there to people who can make a difference.

Imagine a woman who knows how to ask the important questions. Now, envision this woman teaching 93 teenagers to ask these questions. You can see the impact. This woman is my dear friend Susan. She has been doing this year after year. Training students to become documentarians. They create the most heartfelt portraits of real people who struggle. The students develop compassion, curiosity, writing skills, videography talent, and editing skills to produce professional quality documentaries to share the message of need.

Susan, please come, with your young scholars, to Haiti. They have stories to get out to the world. Haitian voices have not been heard. People are afraid to come to Haiti because the loudest message is that of violence. During my five day stay I only witnessed gentle kindness, gifts delivered to my boat every fifteen minutes, smiling faces of young and old, curiosity about my travels and my boat, skilled craftsmanship in building boats from felled trees and scraps of fabric, expert sailing and paddling skills among the very young and very old, gardening efforts in the bone dry dirt, and an ability to last days without food.

I tried to capture the essence of the community of Ile a Vache in photos.

Cruisers have told me to avoid taking photos of people, so most are of the village. One enterprising man had transformed his home into a resort for visiting tourists.

This was the only effort toward tourism, sanitation, and connection to the world wide web that I witnessed in the village. My tour guides were teenagers

and certainly did not show me all of the local developments.

Popular shared areas in the village were the playground, the church, and the boat yard where they constructed dugout canoes and more elaborate water craft, all without electricity or modern tools. Also noteworthy, were the street lights. While the island had no general electricity, there were many solar panels to power the street lights.

A few foreigners have come to this island to build establishments and locals have benefitted vaguely from the jobs and tourism. One French man came decades ago to build the Port Morgan Resort. Strolling through this resort, I met the proprietor, but encountered zero customers. Another woman came to help children and opened an orphanage. While this facility was too far away for me to visit on foot, I have heard that she continues her efforts with minimally funded success.

The landscape and access to the ocean is second to none, which begs the question: why can’t this island become a thriving tourist attraction? How can this community help itself? Most locals have inadequate food, no sanitary facilities, and cannot read or write. While I don’t want to inflict my ideals on any individual, I witnessed too many people begging for food, boat supplies, clothing, and revealing to me that they are barely surviving. I wish I could wave a magic wand and bring some ease to this lovely region.

Please, Susan, you are the magic wand. Please come to this lovely place, with your eager young people, to listen to their stories, and show the world how much they have to offer. Thank you for considering.

Haiti wasn’t even on our itinerary. But here we are! And loving it! We left George Town on Monday for a glorious sail out of the harbor and into the Atlantic. The wind was right on the beam, which is ideal, and fifteen knots in strength. Alembic seemed to be rejoicing with us to be back out to sea again. The Hog Cay Cut was surprisingly simple to pass. Many cruisers told us that it was too shallow, and the charts showed spots that were only 2.5 feet. Yes, we draw five feet, but those soundings are for average low tide. High tide this day was extra high, about 3.5 feet above the charted depths. So we planned our trip around this time. The other option, sailing north of Long Island, would add 100 miles to our trip.

Since the grocery store closed at 11am the previous day, and we missed this, we had to shop the day of departure. This set us back a bit, arriving at the cut almost two hours after high tide. The ebb was running swiftly, confirming that we missed the high tide, but the most shallow report from our trusted depth sounder was 6.9 feet. Yay!! We were on our way!

The rest of the day was blissful.

Our autopilot steers, so we just sit back and enjoy. Trimming sails every so often, making meals, eating, and fishing kept us busy, but certainly didn’t wear us out. We had considered stopping in Great Inagua for a rest, but no resting was necessary, so we kept on sailing, right into the Windward Passage, between Cuba and Haiti.

Listening to Chris Parker, our weatherman on SSB, we decided that proceeding southward after the Windward Passage wouldn’t be the best idea. The first day or two would be fine, but the third day would be a wild ride, according to the weather gods. So, what to do? Our ideas of stopping in the Turks and Caicos or Great Inagua were no longer an option, Cuba may need some preplanning, and Haiti… We never really had considered Haiti a possible stopping point.

Luckily, I married a Man with a Plan. Bill always researches. Anything. Anywhere. He had read up about several spots in Haiti as emergency landings if we were having issues. The first place, Anse D’Hainault, was an anchorage on the western end of the Tiburon Peninsula, and the second place, Ile a Vache, was an island around the corner, further south then east.

We decided we would check out the first on our way south, since it was on our course. The sun had set (with the magical Green Flash) two hours prior, leaving us with zero visibility in the moonless night. We decided to skip this place because there was not a single nautical marker or boat showing anchor lights. We were not keen on being the only boat in an anchorage. Carrying on, we sailed blissfully in very light wind and almost zero waves. As we rounded the corner of the peninsula, the winds began to pick up, with waves to match. Soon we were in large confused seas (waves coming from several directions and colliding with each other) with, again, no visibility. Staring into the blackness, we let our ears help us see. We heard voices nearby; sailors in dugout canoes with no lights, and also heard crashing surf everywhere.

Maybe we were tired from three days offshore, maybe we were worried because our trusty GPS was about to go blank (it doesn’t cover this area of Haiti and our mediocre iPhone App Navionics would be our only chart),

 

maybe we were allowing stories of unsafe Haitian shores to invade our brains. We panicked. For the first time ever, Bill and I were scared. Scared that Alembic would be dashed onto rocks by a wave, or that we would hit one of these many small unlit fishing boats, or… we needed to do something fast. We turned around.

Bill’s thoughts were dramatic: “Let’s go to Jamaica! Or Panama! And skip Colombia all together” Mine were simpler: “Let’s go back to Anse D’Hainault which is situated in the shadow of the wind, so calm and peaceful” We began to think clearly again, once we were headed west in this strong east wind. The ride downwind is always surprisingly peaceful, compared to trying to sail right into the wind. We motored around the corner again, headed north, and dropped anchor in the harbor at 11:30 pm, having no idea what it really looked like. Sleep came quickly this night.

Waking at 6, as usual, to listen to Chris Parker’s forecast, I slipped my head out of the hatch to see our new digs. The harbor was a perfect semi circle, large enough for one hundred boats, and we were the only boat anchored here. There were plenty of other boats, either meandering about the harbor, or laying on the beach, waiting for someone to drag them into the sea. Every boat was a dugout canoe. Boys and men were paddling or sailing their craft skillfully. Each boat had a gallon jug with the top cut off; perfect for bailing. I couldn’t figure out if the water entered the boats over the low gunwales, or through leaks in the hull. Either way, they required constant bailing.

As soon as my head rose above the cabin trunk, the parade of visitors began. How nice of them to allow us to sleep before their visits! The first boat had two young men paddling and bailing. I was under the false impression that my French would allow us to communicate with the Haitians who speak Creole. I struggled to understand a word of their welcoming speech. When two more canoes joined the first, I thought Great! These young kids will translate. I find that young children often speak more clearly than adults. Well, my French and the children’s eagerness helped, but the confused communication continued throughout the day. Hand gestures, laughter, repeating many phrases, and persistence all played a part in the steady stream of back and forth. We never left the boat because we were not checked in through immigration or customs, so they came to us.

While the exchanges of heartfelt thoughts were much more valuable than the exchanges of goods, here is a list of the give and take of goods:

We received four lobsters, one large mackerel, a gigantic pile of plantains, two oranges, one huge avocado, one mango, a grocery bag brimming over with sugar cane, many candles, and home made soap. The items we gave were twelve dollars, an old dive mask, two slices of bread, a cup of our tap water, five pens, one pencil, twenty pages of paper, and two spools of thread with a needle in each. Now if anyone was doing any accounting, the day didn’t end up fairly. Some people received more than they gave, and vice versa, but all seemed happy. Not one Haitian haggled with our offerings. They happily accepted whatever we gave them in exchange for the “cadeau” they brought to us. The only disappointments were when we refused many “gifts”. We just couldn’t take more fish, lobster, and coconuts. And we didn’t accept any invitations for trips with them. One young man came to the boat four times, trying to get me to go to visit with his Mom. He desperately wanted us to connect. I encouraged him to bring her to Alembic, but he explained that she didn’t swim, and that “she would die”. Bill also refused many offers to join the young men on fishing expeditions. I already regret our refusals. We were just not ready to leave Alembic unattended, or to leave each other in this foreign land.

Photographing the Haitians is generally not welcomed, according to other cruisers’ opinions, so the images of the day are safely tacked in my brain, not my photo albums. Impressions that stand out are: The tiny canoe with three children, the youngest being naked. The thirty something man who launched into a dramatic story, even placing tears in his eyes with dips of his finger to the sea, about his dad having heart problems and his needing money but the story had so many conflicting pieces of information. The boy who stood in his canoe trying in vain to ask me to tie a knot in the bag of paper and he finally pointed down to the canoe which was brim full of water. He just wanted to get the paper to shore dry! The same boy asking me to write my name and Bill’s name on a paper, then refusing to write his own but insisting I write it as he repeated: J. Gerome. He didn’t spell it out, nor did he verify that I spelled it correctly. At age 17, he could not write his name. The man and his son who had a dive mask that was so old and worn out that the plastic looked like it had melted right down to the flat piece of glass. How they could use this was a mystery to me. The “potty beach” where we could see a steady stream of people come to squat, some with buckets, some without. The young man who clung to an empty bottle as floatation for hours as he bobbed around Alembic, chanting, singing, speaking, but never engaging us in conversation or answering any of our questions. The grown boy who had a fishing line stuck in his teeth. He was paddling, bailing, and fishing, all at the same time and two hands were not enough, so he employed his teeth. It must have been lodged there quite securely, as he never attempted to remove it, even when he talked.

As the day drew to a close, I was filled with awe for these people. Everyone was kind, friendly, and eager to meet us. I wondered how often cruisers dropped anchor here. When I asked this question to several visitors, I received inconsistent answers.

So many more questions are pounding in my head, but they cannot be answered with words, so I have to be patient and allow my wonder and understanding to grow quietly. Why are there no girls above age 9 in the boats? Are there adequate jobs for people here? What percentage of people read? Write? Teach? Do people here have hope for their and their children’s future? Where is the violence that you always hear about in Haiti? Has anyone explained the reasons for better sanitary conditions? Does this matter? The list goes on and on…

One huge hope for me on this journey is to blur the lines between Us and Them. I have a goal of becoming one with foreigners from many countries. Residing in Haiti for less than 24 hours now makes me realize that the line between us has only become more established, not less. I have more questions than I ever did. I have more pity than I ever did. How can I move toward a better frame of mind, where acceptance is natural, and we can learn from and enjoy each other? Without judging. Or trying to “fix it”? I hope to move toward this goal steadily. We shall see…

Written November 29, but posted December 11 when we finally got wifi!

There is no greater joy than to see the smiling face of your child. She may be 23, and not a child anymore, but she will always pull my heartstrings like no one else. Ok, Kenny and Erica will do the same, and Jenna too.

We ran to each other when she stepped off her plane and onto the tarmac. The ancient security guard shouted “Get Back! We will send her right back to the US”. There was a fence between us, and we couldn’t even talk through the fence. Torture.

Finally, she emerged from the Customs area of the airport and we could hug and begin our mile a minute chatter to catch up on everything we missed in the two months apart. Even though we text regularly, there is nothing like face to face blabbering.

Luckily, Lindsay is a great sport. Learning that we may have fifty knot winds that night and that the boat might sound like a helicopter while we try to sleep, and that we may not be able to sail, or snorkel, or go anywhere, didn’t really bother her. She is always up for an adventure.

We had a great ride back to Alembic on the water taxi. Our dinghy probably would have flipped in the wild winds so we opted to splurge for the ten buck ride. We laughed the whole way across the harbor with these local guys!

True to her promise, Lindsay slept well, with only one late night excursion on deck to stop a rope from flailing above her berth. It sounded like an erratic drumbeat that wouldn’t stop. Once that was quieted, she was back to sleep. A few hours later, she woke again to find her berth soaking wet. The hatch above her head was open a bit and the driving rain pelted in. How she slept through that soaking is beyond me! Many people don’t fare so well on a noisy, wet boat in a storm with winds up to fifty knots.

After watching the wind speed indicator hover around 38 knots and the seas curl around the south end of our island, causing Alembic to rock fitfully, we decided to venture off in our dinghy. Who cares if we got soaked; we needed to stretch our legs! We hiked across Stocking Island to the windward shore where the waves pounded the beach. We got a bit lost, trying to follow overgrown trails, but found our way again.

We headed to Chat n Chill for Conch Fritters and a cold drink.

Here we met many people we have gotten to know this week. Friends on Zippadeedodah welcomed us to their table in the Tiki Hut. They proceeded to tell us endless stories of their antics on boats and in foreign lands, validating Lindsay’s understanding that cruisers are game for anything. Realizing that this day was Thanksgiving, we all hatched the plan to take the water taxi to GeorgeTown and splurge on a dinner and dance night out. The food was decent, but the music was excellent. Calypso tunes played by Nigel and his band were perfect for dancing. Lindsay was spun around the dance floor all night by several people. An older local took turns with every woman present and really got the party started. Then our taxi driver arrived and showed her a few moves. Lastly, a young man she had met on the plane showed Lindsay how to swing quickly and gracefully for hours.

Friday proved to be the sunniest day of Lindsay’s visit. We hiked on the northern end of Stocking Island and ran into Lindsay’s friend Emily from Northeastern.

Emily was with her family and close friends, all Belizean. They were a hoot and filled us with great stories of Belize, making us look forward to this country more than ever.

Saturday was rainy again, but we hiked anyway. Bill had a bruised foot, and Lindsay and I had blisters from sand grinding at our skin, but we were all determined to leave no trail on this island unexplored. Satisfied we had walked every inch of the wonderful trail system, we headed to St Francis. This is an establishment which caters to the cruisers. Saturday is Cheeseburger in Paradise from 2pm on. Bahamians start early. Lindsay’s new friend Katie from her flight in was there with her family.

Ric and Sherry, friends of UVM friends, were there and we finally connected in person. People we had played volleyball with last Sunday were there. A great afternoon for all.

Lindsay’s flight was Sunday at 2, so we had to make the best of every moment remaining. We motored over to Kidd Cove to be closer to town.

As soon as we dropped anchor, dolphins came into view. We jumped right in! Amazing! They allowed us to frolic with them for a long time. They seemed to enjoy us and somersaulted exuberantly within arm’s length. Their bodies were blubbery smooth to touch, and their endless squeaky chatter was spectacular. Finally, sufficiently exhausted, we got into the dingy and rode over to a snorkel spot.

Unfortunately, this was a let down, as the fifty knot winds, three nights in a row, caused the reef to be cloudy.

Showered and ready to fly, Lindsay had one last adventure. We explored George Town as a ghost town.

The liveliest place was the Library, where the cats greeted us, hoping we had food. We learned that everyone celebrates on Sunday and shuts down all of the stores and straw markets. I was disappointed that Lindsay couldn’t pick out a treasure to take home, but knowing Lindsay, this was not a priority at all.

Saying GoodBye at the airport was sad, but we all have things to do which require our parting. Lindsay’s final flight would put her in Boston two hours before her med school lab begins, and we have preparations for our departure from George Town the next day.

Thanks Lindsay, for helping us to see that stormy weather for four straight days does not mean you have to stop playing! We love you and look forward to many more adventures together.

Written Nov 22, posted Dec 11 when I finally got wifi!

We have arrived. Georgetown is the end of the road for so many people. To go further south takes a certain amount of ambition. They call the islands further south the Out Islands. This is truer than ever this year. Just beyond Georgetown you find the islands which were so hard hit by Joaquin. The hurricane hovered over Rum Cay, Long Island, Crooked Island and the Acklins, for days, destroying many homes and businesses. We met a man today who has property on Rum Cay. Every home lost its roof, the mail boat doesn’t come because there is no dock to tie to, and the vegetation was demolished. He is raising fruit trees here in Georgetown and is imploring anyone heading that way to bring a tree. He hopes to bring sweetness back to his home.

Another reason people don’t go further is because this is such a safe anchorage with endless beauty, community or tranquility (you choose), and activities to keep you entertained for months. We first dropped anchor in Kidd’s Cove, right in the heart of Georgetown.

Taking our dinghy under the bridge into Lake Victoria was amusing. Once tied up in there, you can walk all around town. Groceries, hardware store, straw market, and an ice cream shop caught our attention. There are plenty of restaurants, bars, boutiques, and dive shops as well. A thriving community of sailors who are passing through or staying all winter, charter boat crews entertaining guests, local folks, and vacationers who choose to stay ashore all mingle together in harmony here.

One cruiser organized tutoring at the school in town. I couldn’t pass up this opportunity! The children were eager for the attention, and the teachers were pleased with the positive influence it was having on the children’s ability to read.

Peace and Plenty is probably the oldest and most popular stop in the town of Georgetown and Chat n Chill is the hotspot across the harbor on Stocking Island. A one mile dinghy ride yesterday gave us a chance to check out this new hotspot by ourselves. The season has not really started yet, as most boats are still in Florida or further north in the Bahamas. We hear that the season kicks into high gear sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas and is booming all winter and well into spring. We have arrived early because we are eager to move further south toward the Western Caribbean.

Stocking Island has developed significantly since we were last here in 1988. At that time, there was no electricity or running water on the island; it was just a fun place to play volleyball on the beach and have picnics with other cruisers. Seventeen years ago, Chat n Chill opened and capitalized on the volleyball and picnic idea. Now they have signs “the Chat is free, but you pay for the Chill” No more BYOB. Yesterday was almost deserted, but today, Sunday, was a mob scene! People filled the water taxis and any boat they could find to get here. This is the one day that this beach is bumping. They call it Pig Roast Sunday, but people are here for much more than the food. We played volleyball with about twenty other cruisers for hours, while families frolicked on the swings, teens challenged themselves to the slack lines, flirtatious masses drank cocktails from plastic cups while standing waist deep in water, and everyone mingled with an air of kinship.

So many stories…Older couples returning here to winter on their old floating hulks. They just leave the boats, fly home for the summer, and return for a new season each November. Young couples trying out the boating lifestyle. Many people traveling on huge catamarans, orchestrating their busy schedule of visiting guests. Charter captains entertaining their new cycle of customers. Locals who long to leave to see the US joke with the cruisers and ask for passage off of their island. The community is wonderful and helps each other regularly. One boat got tossed up on the beach in Joaquinn, and every day people helped dig it out.

Finally, on an especially high tide, it floated! Curiously, I didn’t meet a single person who was heading further south. As we were saying our good byes, most folks ended with “See you next week” and will be here for many weeks to come. Sadly, we will not.

Picture this: A foreigner walks into a classroom full of six year olds and says: “I’m here to take Shamal, Darious, and Mark”. The teacher allows this stranger to take these youngsters out of the school, into the busy street, and down the sidewalk. The teacher doesn’t even get up from her desk; doesn’t ask the name of this stranger; and doesn’t ask when the children will be returned. She simply smiles and carries on with her other darlings.

This would never be allowed in the US. A person entering a US school is required to have a badge or other means of showing employment there, or must report to the office, sign papers and get approved before proceeding past the entry. Many people do not proceed past this point. Even students’ parents are restricted to staying at the entry unless prior arrangements have been set up by the teacher. Upon entering a classroom, a visitor would immediately be approached by the teacher and the intent of the visit would be confirmed.

The school I visited today had no front office, no one to check my credentials (it’s a good thing, because I had nothing with me except my hat), no security whatsoever. The small building had two classrooms and a small dusty front yard on a very busy street. Rather than feeling dirty or neglected, however, this school seemed alive with laughter, energy, exceptionally friendly and kind children in the care of motherly teachers who had complete control of their exuberant youngsters.

I had the joyous opportunity to bring these three boys into the town library where they could pick out books and read to me. However, a quick assessment revealed that none could read. We switched gears to playing with letters and considering what sounds they make. I had been given instructions from another cruiser, who volunteers here three days each week, to have these children read to me or proceed with any pre-reading skills. Their focus was excellent until they heard the bell ring at their school nearby. This bell signaled snack time. They dashed back down the sidewalk, dragging me by the hand, to collect their snacks to bring back to the library. Unfortunately, their sugar high from the cookies and juice triggered a rapid decline in focus.

The legalities of the school may be drastically different from those in the US, but the vibrancy and eagerness to learn were alive and well in the children. It made me reflect, yet again, that children are the same everywhere; it’s the adults who are different. The adults at this school exuded such a sense of calm; they trusted the adults who arrived; they trusted the children to behave. I left with a powerful sense of “these children are in the right hands”.

Wow, I am 53 and I don’t wake up 5 days a week to an alarm clock, commute 45 minutes, work a long day, commute another 45 minutes, and arrive home late for dinner. This was my life for more than 25 years. In fact, I had not taken 2 consecutive weeks vacation during this entire period. The last time I had been without a job for an extended period was when I was 27 and took 10 months off to sail throughout the eastern Caribbean. Helen and I ended that trip “broke and pregnant” and quickly settled ashore in Yarmouth, Maine to jump start our careers and raise a family.

I don’t usually like to dwell on the fact that I am not working. Too many of my peers find themselves involuntarily out of work. I have been blessed to have worked for a wonderful, successful company for the last 13+ years developing and launching an innovative medical device. I agonized over the decision to leave this position for a long time. We reached the point in our family life when our youngest child had successfully transitioned to college in Colorado. A primary motivation for my career was to support a stable home life to raise our family. With this objective fulfilled, I sensed that we had an opportunity to make a change. I also spent way to much time thinking about big adventures and worrying that I would get too old to pursue these dreams if I did not get started (mid life crisis perhaps).

So I met with my boss, gave an extended notice (10+ months), and started the slow process of changing lanes. I left full time, white collar employment 7 months ago at the end of March. Between April and August, I kept busy renovating an old home that we bought as income property. I had been worried about being bored when I left my full time job and thought I needed a project to help transition. It was a busy summer but ultimately successful. When we left at the end of August on a shake down cruise, the house was basically complete and occupied by wonderful tenants for the winter.

Since August, the process of shifting gears has begun to accelerate. For starters, I am completely “off the clock”. We wake up each morning with the sunrise. No alarms, just following the cadence of the sun and life outside the portholes. We go to bed early except when we go ashore for a cold beer and entertainment. I only shave when I feel like it and when its warm I wear only board shorts and a tee shirt.

Some habits are hard to break. While working, I watched email around the clock. The last thing I did before bed and the first thing I did in the morning was look at my phone and scan email. My phone was always in my pocket. For many years this was an obligation. I had job responsibilities that spanned multiple shifts and time zones so there was always fresh news. Now my correspondence (email, text, satellite message, and Facebook) is mostly family and social. I still check for messages way too frequently but at least I have stopped carrying my phone. Baby steps…

During my working years, a part of my brain was always engaged in thoughts about work. It definitely was a major part of my life. Now my mind meanders through a range of thoughts and topics. Weather (past, present, and future) is one dominant topic followed closely by boat maintenance. Given that our objective for the next 7 months is to have a rich journey sailing and exploring the Bahamas and western Caribbean, weather and a ship shape boat are a major influence on success.

As I settle deeper into my new lifestyle, I hope to continue the process of “changing lanes”. I am looking forward to leveraging new skills and creativity in a range of possible activities. For now, my energies will be directed toward our current cruise. Who knows what other adventures are in the future. I am enjoying living more in the present instead of always planning for the future. There is a plaque in the galley of our boat that states “Dum vivimus vivamus”. I believe that the translation is something like “while we live, let us live”. Sounds like good advice for now.

So you think our weather in the Bahamas is tropical bliss? I know I shouldn’t complain. After all, Erica in Colorado is testing out her new-to-her car in the fresh snow, Lindsay is adding a layer to her running/biking attire, Kenny and Jenna are rushing their post hole digging for the deck building project to get deep while the ground is still pliable, and our Maine friends are buttoning up summer homes to keep out the harsh winter elements. Many of our days are delightfully warm, with ocean water temps in the eighties. But sometimes we have to endure rugged weather too.

Even our new best friend, Chris Parker, a meteorologist extraordinaire, is saying things like “it’s not a matter of IF the weather will get nasty, it’s a matter of how nasty it will be and for how long”. We listen to his broadcasts at 6:30 every morning on the single side band radio to learn of the latest developments. He gives details for the Caribbean, the Bahamas and the east coast of the US. He chats with individual boaters and gives advice about when to leave port, what to expect, and how to navigate around lousy weather. There is no privacy on SSB radios, so we listen to all of these conversations, partly because we are nosey, and partly because we learn from each conversation. Lately, he has been telling people to stay put, to wait out this steady parade of gusty squally weather.

We watch sailboats leave an anchorage, venture out toward a new location, only to return within a half hour because it is too rough. The wind pipes up to 25 or 30 knots and the waves start to grow. Everyone has a different threshold for rough weather. We see it all: people with dogs or kids who can’t handle waves, old tattered boats which take on new leaks every time they get splashed, charterers who are only out here for the week and don’t really know how to operate their rented vessel, people who are injured or aging, and people who are big chickens.

Luckily Alembic is a very sound vessel. She was built for rough weather. Actually, she is somewhat of a slowpoke unless the wind hits 15 or 20 knots. Knock on wood, there are no leaks at all right now (we recently fixed two major ones) so we don’t mind getting soaked by sea water repeatedly. The water doesn’t make it below, and the next rain squall washes the decks. So Bill and I have been moving almost every day. Slowly creeping down the Exuma chain of islands to Georgetown, we are enjoying new islands, trying out our sailing skills in high winds, testing Alembic in these conditions, and discovering how easy it is to keep going. But we are not crossing oceans. We are traveling between 7 to 30 miles per day. We pick up our anchor and head out of a protected harbor, raise sails, listen to the winds howl in the rigging as if we were a helicopter ready for lift off, and settle in to a pace that is manageable. Knowing we have a new protected anchorage every few miles to duck into gives us tremendous peace of mind. And the sailing has been only on the Bahama Bank, which is shallow everywhere, making the wave build up minimal.

There are breaks in the squally weather, and we manage to snorkel, play with swimming pigs, go hiking, and SUP to explore new places. I actually think I will miss this stormy weather when it disappears. The coolness is welcome, the water tanks are full from rainwater which is much better than the slightly salty purchased Bahama water from a hose on a dock, and the sky patterns are incredible. We certainly live by the weather out here, and we are learning to appreciate all types.