Grenada to Margarita July 2007

I am now in Margarita, Jenny has been crewing with me for two months and flies out tomorrow. The plan is to do nothing for awhile, but clean up the boat, do some minor maintenance and catch up on my reading and emails.

The 90 mile, downwind, down current, overnight passage from Grenada to Testigos went quite well. I put up the spinnaker as we left St Georges, Grenada just before sundown and took it down as we approached Los Testigos a couple hours after sunrise. The wind was light, only 10 to 14 knots apparent so slight wave action, but with a favorable current we made good time. Some French boats left St Georges at the same time and a mixture of five other boats, including Drumbeat and Dreamtime, left Prickly Bay a couple hours before I did. I stayed in radio contact with the ones I previously knew all the way across and we all arrived at about the same time and anchored in reasonably calm water, close to an idyllic cut between the islands where wind driven water passes over a cut of shallow water.

The first day in Testigos was very laid back. As I get very little sleep on the first overnight I was ready for some reading, napping and doing little, if anything.

The second day I went with some of the other cruisers to explore one of the small islands I had not walked before. Given the sea ravaged coastline of eroded volcanic rock, carving deep grottos where the waves crash and echo, it is indeed a rugged place. During times of larger waves I am sure the caverns spout and the surrounding rocks show evidence of having been washed and puddled over the millennia. Finding our way through the cactus and brambles, I often wondered if we would see bier rabbit, was challenging, often finding ourselves in a box canyon of sorts, retrace our steps to find another way through. The local goats do not seem to have much of a problem, but then they have a much lower center of gravity.

In the afternoon we moved our boats to another anchorage that is closer to the larger attraction of Testigos, the beaches where the Leatherback turtles, the largest of the sea turtles, come ashore each May, June and July full moons to lay their eggs. Security is always an issue, so we decided to split the four boat crews into halves and go on separate nights, to avoid leaving the boats or the dinghies alone.

On the way to the next anchorage a problem that I had been ignoring raised its vicious head and said ignore me no longer. Actually I had intended to take care of that as soon as I was anchored, really I did. One of my engines had been cooling with about half water for the past few times it was run, indicating a problem, but it seemed to be alright if I kept the revs down to half throttle. The other engine had stopped cooling all together the last time I used it, so I did not want to run it at all, or at least only a few minutes. Still, I felt a move of less than two miles albeit into a full knot or more current, in wind of only ten knots, would not be a problem, yeah right, any problem that is not addressed, suddenly becomes a big problem. Remember, expect the unexpected to happen, at the most inopportune time. Well as I left the first anchorage I set the headsail to do part of the work and limit how much I needed to run the half cooling engine. About half way there the wind switched to right on the nose, which is always normal, and increased to twenty seven knots. With one good engine I need full power to motor into that much wind, without a current against me. Being less than a half mile from where I wanted to go, standing still running the half cooling engine at half speed, I started the non cooling engine. It would be alright as long as it contained cooling water, which it did. Anyway, the slow movement held me back for longer than I had hoped, the non cooling engine overheat alarm came on which required shutting it down now, and the other was still not up to the job, I stopped, dropped the anchor and realized, dumb shit, fix it now before you damage something. After putting impellers into both engines I was cooling again and ready to move. Except now I had one melted muffler, so that engine could not be used. Just another lesson, do things when they need to be done, not when you want.

I offered to shuttle the other two crews ashore just before sundown and watch over the boats at anchor until they called for a ride home, which was 0130. From the small beach access a challenging walk up a sand dune, as vertical as any black diamond ski run, with loose, deep and slippery sand that grabs at your feet and shoes as you struggle up its slope before it levels out on the top of the dune. This dune has been built over thousands of years of outflow from the Orinoco River in South America. The sediment is carried to the face of this island, where the current swirls and the sand particles drop out, the waves bring the sand to the beach where the wind carries the sand up onto the dune, now a couple hundred feet tall. This also offers the turtles an excellent place to lumber up the beach on the gradual incline of the windward side to lay her eggs above the high tide mark.

The teenage female turtles will return to nest on the same beach where they were layed up to ten times per laying cycle. The males will never come ashore after that frantic race to get from the nest, through the horde of feasting sea birds, to get into the water where the ravenous fish await them. I have been told that fewer than two out of a hundred hatched will survive the first few hours.

At sexual maturity, about fifteen years old, the female turtle will be about four feet long, nearly three feet across and more than seven feet from end of flipper to end of flipper, weighing more than three hundred pounds, all on a diet of jellyfish. The largest found by man was a male that weighed in at two thousand pounds. She needs to use her front flippers to drag her huge body out of the supporting seawater, to begin her twenty to thirty minute trip over the soft sand to a place where only she can decide to dig her nest. Digging with her front flippers to disguise her body with sand, then using mostly her hind legs to dig the hole for the nest, before laying a hundred or so eggs takes another thirty minutes. Then she will cover the nest, smooth the sand, then dig another hole next to the last, cover it, then move to dig another, cover it and then dig another. This is thought to be a form of camouflage to protect the nest. She does a lot of resting while all of this work is going on. She will then drag her eggs lighter body over the sand and once again into the sea. The survival of the species assured until the next moon.

On the night I did the shuttling three turtles came from the sea to lay their eggs, on the night I observed only one came out. Still a very impressive display of Ma at work. The young turtles will hatch in about fifty to sixty days to begin their race to the sea and relative safety.

Rescue at sea

I left Testigos for the fifty mile, downwind, down current trip to Margarita. This time, given the wind angle and expected heavier wind I put up main and headsail. The heavier wind did not happen but while sailing along during the first hour I observed a sportfishing type stinkpot maneuvering in what appeared to be fishing a school of baitfish. They were doing large circles about three miles north of me and appeared to be using a lot of power because the boat was doing a lot of smoking. During the following half hour or so, the erratic movement continued but seemed to slow and the amount of smoke increased, so I got the binocs to take a closer look. It was now that I saw flames on the deck. Fire is one of the most concerning problems that can happen to any boater. It denies you the boat, takes away all of your safety equipment and causes you to abondon ship when it may not be convenient, but so does sinking. Now it was good that I had set main and headsail because I did not need to take down the spinnaker to change course, which I did immediately, reset the sails for the new course, started the engine for greater speed and once on course I called friends back in Testigos on the VHF radio to request that they contact the Coast Guard to advise of a vessel in distress.

It took me nearly a half hour to cover the distance between us, and during that time I was advised by the friends in Testigos that a fast fishing boat had been dispatched and was on the way, they should have no problem finding the wreck as it was now a billowing plume of thick black smoke. I had Jenny fill small water bottles, take some pictures, get a retrieval line ready and told her what to expect when we found people in the water, we were as ready as we could be. Just so far away.

As I approached the burning hulk I continued looking for people in the water or on deck while I reduced sail and was prepared to heave to for picking up victims. Given the intensity of the inferno I did not expect to see anyone on deck, but they could have been hanging onto lines connected to the hull, they were not. As the wind was light, less than fifteen knots, the sea swell was mild, perhaps three to five feet. Heads are very difficult to see at any distance in those conditions. My plan was to get close to the wreck, a couple hundred feet, then turn into the wind, thinking that anyone leaving the boat would not drift as quickly as the boat, which was driven down wind. Once I was certain no one was near the boat I turned into the wind, keeping an eye on the water ahead I began to see debris, fuel cans, loose life jackets, sadly with no one inside of them. I continued motoring into the wind watching ahead and to both sides for any sign of life in the water. Then, a hundred yards ahead, a cluster of small dots that I knew were heads of people began bobbing above the tops of waves, one of them was even waving. I still had no idea how many, but that did not matter. This was when I first saw the distant fishing boat coming from Testigos, so more help was on the way, I also saw another cruising boat that had altered course and was approaching from a mile away.

I maneuvered as close as I could to the closest head and he swam to the boat, Jenny then threw the float and line to the next and he was pulled in. They had not been in the water that long and seemed to be in pretty good shape, but readily drank the water offered. The fishing boat coming from Testigos continued getting larger, but still a long way off and another could be seen approaching. One of the first two men took the throwing line to the bow and was ready to begin helping the next guy aboard. It was clear they all spoke only Spanish, and I was able to ask the first one aboard, 'quanto personas' Spanish for how many people, to which he replied quatro. We now know that all four were nearby and in sight.

The third guy aboard seemed to be injured and was very slow coming up the swim ladder. The second fishing boat had now arrived and was searching the area. Then as I motored toward the last man in the water, who did not seem to be participating in his rescue only laying back in his life jacket, not swimming or waving, he was found by the fishing boat and hauled aboard. The fishing boat motored over to us and two of the ones I had were transferred to the fishing boat, the last jumped into the water to swim over to the fishing boat and was hauled aboard. With lots of waves and gracias, they headed for Testigos and the safety of dry land. Just another shitty day of fishing in paradise.

The time spent during the rescue would have an adverse affect on our time left to get to Margarita. We still had 47 miles to go and less time to get there. As the wind was not as heavy as expected we put up the spinnaker and took down the rest of the sails. This increased our speed by nearly a knot and would be enough to get us there in daylight. Given that we were still nine hours away it was time to get back to the book, a Dean Koontz thriller, as if I needed more excitement today. A bright sun and fully charged battery from motoring during the rescue I started the watermaker to put some water into the tank for my time in Margarita.

By the time we had approached to within five miles of Margarita the wind began to die. This is kind of normal and I needed to replace the power spent running the watermaker, so we started the engine, took down the spinnaker and motored the last five miles, anchoring with a half hour of daylight left.

Now safely anchored in Porlamar it is time to catch up on so many things, varnish, reading, emails, get my six month overdue annual letter for last year finished.