Don’t Ever Believe the “B” Word

by Beth Tally

Sunset in the Dry Tortugas

For as long as I can remember, the most special gifts at Christmas time were those in small envelopes tucked rather indiscreetly among the branches of the tree.  They were always the last to be opened and invariably held either tidy sums of cash or an equally appealing check.  We always looked forward to the envelopes because they allowed us either to help defray the cost of buying for others or extend the getting of presents for ourselves.

So it should come as no surprise that, during Christmas of 2005, this ritual created the same anticipatory excitement in its expectation.  We were at Edisto Beach with both of our children and son-in-law, his parents, my brother and his girls, a favorite cousin and some assorted others who wandered in and out during the week.  With that many people, the volume of presents under the tree seemed almost offensive and the number of envelopes on its branches looked like a canopy of snow. 

My husband, John, served as Santa Claus which gave him the authority to distribute the gifts in some fair fashion and to determine the order in which the envelopes would come off the tree.  Our tradition was to open presents one at a time, so it took a while for him to get to the envelopes.  When he did, he methodically started at the bottom, working his way up and around until there was only one envelope left at the very top --- with my name on it. 

I patiently sat there, knowing that in years past his generosity made the wait well worth it.  He handed me the envelope.  His face was so eager and upbeat, I felt sure that whatever amount was inside must be very significant.  I opened the envelope with a little restraint, trying not to appear too acquisitive. 

It’s very hard for an effusive person like me to disguise any hint of disappointment. My attempts at doing so are so transparent that they might as well be cellophane.  As I stared at the contents of the envelope, I knew my face was contorting pitifully in an effort to maintain a smile.  There was no cash or check, just a lovely 10-lb. cardstock certificate welcoming me as a new subscriber to Chris Parker’s weather routing service. 

I knew who Chris Parker was.  While cruising in the Bahamas, I listened to him every morning over a cheap Radio Shack radio that somehow could pick up single sideband frequencies.  He gave a synopsis of the weather and then subscribers could actually talk to him on their SSB radios to get information on the specific conditions pertaining to their particular float plans.  We, of course, couldn’t do that because we didn’t have an SSB and we weren’t subscribers.  John had now changed all of that.  He had installed an SSB radio on Up Jinks and, through the vehicle of my Christmas envelope, subscribed us to Chris’ service.

“Well, my, how wonderful,” I must have sputtered.

“I thought this would be the best thing to do,” John responded, his zeal impervious to any lack of gusto on my part.  “Now we can talk to Chris ourselves and get the information we need while we’re out.”

His logic was flawless, inarguable, air tight.  My Christmas envelope just wasn’t the superlative place for it.  Taking one more pointless swipe through its folds, I pitched it into the garbage bag full of wrapping paper and boxes. 

The gaiety of our remaining time at Edisto soon helped me forget any discontent over the Chris Parker subscription.  It wasn’t until we were back on Up Jinks that I was reminded. Bright and early on every single, solitary morning we’d start our day listening to and talking with Chris.  What’s the wind velocity?  What’s the direction?  What’s the sea state?  Are there squalls?  Is there a cold front?  Can we go from point A to point B by Tuesday?  Can I brush my teeth?  Can I use the head?  Who’s your daddy? 

John woke up by 5:30 to catch Chris on the SSB frequency 4045 and if that didn’t work, then at 6:30 on 8104, and if that failed, at 7:30 on 12350.  By the time we rounded the tip of Florida and bumped our way west along the Keys, Chris Parker absorbed into our routine as if he were a pet on board.

Over time, we began determining every move of the boat based upon the information he provided. His predictions became so sacrosanct that it didn’t matter if what we saw out of the hatches contradicted the forecast.  Our eyes had to be lying. 

By late January, we found ourselves stalled for a week at Dry Tortugas, 70 miles west of Key West.  At that point, we had not decided where we would go next.  John was eager to get to Belize, a four-day, three-night crossing over the Gulf of Mexico.  Since we had never attempted overnights without additional crew, I wasn’t so keen on the idea.  My inclination was to make a one-day trek to the Bahamas. 

There was another boat in the anchorage waiting to leave for Belize.  Its crew had actually made the crossing before and John contended that with an experienced “buddy boat,” the trip wouldn’t be a problem.  I mulled and stewed over the situation, creating intense anxiety in the process.  It was at this point John brought forth his most compelling argument for going --- Chris Parker’s weather report.

“This is the BEST weather window I have seen in five years for crossing the Gulf to the NW Caribbean.” 

When confronted with such indisputable matter-of-factness, I could hardly disagree. It had to be what the Israelites felt when Moses came down from the mountain. 

The afternoon before our departure, we invited the other cruisers over for a planning session to coordinate waypoints and decide communication strategies while out in the open water.  They assuaged every concern I raised with their knowledge.  By the time they left, I was convinced everything would be alright. 

It took them five minutes to get back to their boat and find that their generator had konked out.  They radioed us to say that they would have to head back to Key West for a repair.  Otherwise, they would lose all of the food stored in their freezer.  Very sorry; hate this happened; hope to catch up with you; you’ll be fine; bye-bye.

My fragilely constructed confidence plummeted like the stock market on Black Monday.  Scrambling to salvage the situation, John pulled out charts and a protractor and started measuring distances from somewhere to somewhere else.  He worked feverishly while I regrouped around the task of fixing us some dinner. 

“I’ve got an alternate plan,” he said finally lifting his head from the navigation station.  “We won’t go to Belize.”

There was a momentary up tick from me.

“Oh?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s good.  I wasn’t too thrilled about making that crossing anyway.”

“No, we’ll go to Isla Mujeres instead.”

“Isla Mu-what-is?’

“Isla Mujeres, Mexico.  Right off from Cancun.  It’s only two overnights rather than three.  By my calculations, it should take us 55 hours if we can average a 6-knot pace.”

Before I could open my mouth to respond, he reminded me.  “Chris says this is the BEST weather window in five years.  If we’re ever going to do it, now’s the time.”

Well, there you have it.  Who needed a buddy boat anyway?  I had Chris Parker and one less day on my side.  I sucked in a deep breath.  “Okay, let’s do it.  How hard can this be?”

By John’s figuring, we would leave the next morning allowing for plenty of time on the back end of the trip to arrive in Isla Mujeres during daylight.  I spent the evening straightening the boat, stowing odds and ends, and before going to sleep, securing a patch behind my ear to combat possible motion sickness during our extended journey.

After breakfast, we hoisted anchor and headed south away from Dry Tortuga.  Our route would take us along the northern coast of Cuba in a southwest direction then northwest across the Yucatan Channel towards Mexico and Isla Mujeres.  It was a sunny day with the wind a little friskier than I had anticipated, certainly more than enough to fill both the head and mainsails.  We rocked more than I thought we should, too, but John reassured me as soon as we put some distance between Up Jinks and the keys, it would settle down.  In order to keep our speed at 6 knots, we ran the motor around 1500 RPMs.

This pattern continued for the first day and night.  I settled into as much a sense of security as one could have not being able to see anything but water for 360 degrees.  The afternoon of the second day, we adjusted our course southwest to make the run along Cuba which gave us a beam reach angle to the wind and a boost from the sails. 

After dinner in the cockpit, I took the first evening watch from 8:00 – midnight.  John went down into the salon to sleep before relieving me.  Along about 10:00, I noticed that we were maintaining a little over 7 knots with a pretty good heel to the boat.  I decided to see what would happen if I cut the engine off.  Absolutely nothing changed except for the replacement of the motor noise with the swishing and slapping of water against the hull and the whirr of the wind through the rigging.  We held 7-plus knots.  I depowered the mainsail a little to diminish the heel.  Still 7-plus knots. 

The silence roused John from his nap.  He poked his head up the companionway to make sure everything was okay and I reassured him that we just didn’t need the engine anymore. 

“Go on back to sleep.  See you at midnight,” I said.

By the time he took over the watch, I had depowered both the main and headsails again.  Our speed went unaffected. 

I crawled into the bed down below, really looking forward to getting out of the wind and sleeping.  Around 2:00, even through the throes of deep unconsciousness, my body alerted me to a discomforting sensation.  Up Jinks was heeled over so far I was about to fall out of the bed.  I had to stab my fingers through the seams in the cushions to hold on.  The tilt of the boat seemed like a magnet pulling downward and the hull pumped against the water like a horse jumping over gates.  Going back to sleep proved impossible so I tried to stand and get to the companionway.  I made it up two steps, enough to stick my head out, before my seasick patch raised its hands in surrender and a wave of nausea engulfed me.  I retreated as fast as I could back to the bed.

We had apparently made the last course adjustment heading us across the Yucatan Channel towards Mexico.  The wind direction had shifted to the south putting us between a beam reach and close haul on the sails.  Its velocity crept higher and higher during the early morning hours and by sunrise, clocked 30 knots steadily.  As a consequence, the swells in the ocean began building.  When I finally mustered the nerve to creep up to the cockpit, they were between 12 and 15 feet.  Fortunately, we weren’t banging head-on into the swells.  But, our direction kept them rolling so high on the port side that I couldn’t even look that way.  It was like a wall of water poised to swallow the boat. 

John asked me to relieve him at the helm.  He wanted call Chris Parker over the SSB to find out what was happening.  Ah, yes – Chris Parker; the Chris Parker who usurped my Christmas envelope just a month before; the Chris Parker who was somewhere stateside tucked into a safe, secure hidey-hole while I was wallowing around out in the middle of nowhere hanging on for dear life; the Chris Parker who so boldly proclaimed this time in the cosmos as the BEST weather window in five years.  Well, guess what.  That loud bang you just heard was the window shutting.

I positioned myself on the starboard stern side, constantly looking away from the swells, close enough to the gunwale so that when I became sick, the water from the waves crashing over the bow would race down and wash it all away.  We were no longer in the Yucatan Channel.  It had now become the Puke-atan. 

With the howling wind and waves, John’s voice down below was inaudible, but I gathered he had made contact with Chris.  After about twenty minutes, he came up to the cockpit to join me. 

“So, what’s going on?” I managed to ask.

“Well, there’s bad news and good news.”

“Okay, let’s have the bad.”

“He doesn’t know why it’s this way.  An anomaly or something.”

“And, the good?”

“It’s not supposed to get any worse.”

“Worse?  Worse?  It could only be worse if it were a hurricane.  Am I supposed to take comfort in that?” I somehow got all of these words out before having to lean over the gunwale one more time. 

“Well, it is what it is,” John tried to soothe me.  “And, this is our last day.  We should be in Isla Mujeres by afternoon.” 

I slumped back and folded my arms across my chest.  “You’re right.  I’m sorry.”

For the remainder of the day, we slogged along.  Although performing mightily, Up Jinks began to show signs of the beating she was taking.  Her starboard rub rail hung loose on the side; the sacrificial strip on the headsail tattered. 

Sometime in the mid-afternoon, I spotted what appeared to be a tower in the distance, a slightly darker gray pinstripe superimposed on the overall grayness of the sky and sea.  I noted its position on the compass and deliberately looked away then back again to verify that what I saw wasn’t an apparition.  With the confirmation that it was real, my heart buoyed.  We were approaching land.

I checked the chart plotter.  It showed that we had a little over 20 nautical miles to go to the entrance at Isla Mujeres.  The knot meter indicated a speed between 6.5 and 7 boat knots which projected three to four hours left.  Then I noticed our SOG (speed over ground) was between 3 and 3.5 knots.  We had a 3-knot current against us.  It would be six or seven hours at that speed.
 

Only by the grace of God did we finally make the anchorage at Isla Mujeres in the dark. sometime between 9:00 and 10:00.  After setting the anchor, showers were the first priority.  When I took off the jeans I had worn for the entire trip, they were so full of salt, they stood up on their own as if made from papier maché.  The heavenly hot water coursing out of the shower head rinsed the caked salt out of my hair, racing it down my face and over my mouth.  It was like I was symbolically washing away the whole event.

We ate some chicken noodle soup and collapsed into the bed.  As exhausted as I was, sleep didn’t readily come.  I lay there reflecting about this passage.  In all of our cruising experiences, I had come away with some new knowledge or understanding to help me be more competent at the undertaking.  Other than the fact that I had survived, what was it I had learned this time?  In a nutshell – Never believe the “B” word. If you hear the word “best” in a forecast, batten down the hatches, find a safe-haven, don’t dare venture out.  Because if you do, you’re going to get it handed to you.

(It’s said that Weathermen exist to make Economists look good.  Alas, I’m afraid it’s so.  As a sequel to this tale, recently we were in Placencia, Belize, hoping to go to the Bay Islands of Honduras.  Our friends Cindy and Mike Miller on the s/v Dragonheart were buddy-boating with us.  They are Chris Parker subscribers as well.  I had shared our Isla Mujeres story with them.) 

On March 30, this forecast came by email from Chris: “THIS IS THE BEST WEATHER THE NORTHWEST CARIBBEAN HAS SEEN THIS SEASON.  I ADVISE THAT IF YOU WANT TO MOVE, TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS WEATHER WINDOW.” Cindy proclaimed jokingly “We’re all going to die.”

We provisioned and moved to Ranguana Cay to stage for an overnight passage to Roatan.  The trip should take 20 hours averaging 5 knots.  No problem, not in the “BEST” weather of the season.  We confidently struck out around 2:00 in the afternoon.  By nightfall, our winds were at least 25-knots and gusting above.  The sea state resembled a washing machine with waves crashing against the boat from every which way.  At one point, Dragonheart’s dingy, hung on davits off the stern, swamped with water from a rogue wave.  They almost lost the dingy and Cindy almost broke her arm in the process of saving it.  Around 4:00 in the morning, we lost contact by VHF with each other.  For the next two hours our anxieties overwhelmed us as each boat believed that something terrible had happened to the other.  Fortunately, our good friends Roy and Debi Canon were standing by on the SSB for a 6:00 AM check-in.  Relief flowed over us as we could hear each other’s voices once again.  We ended up diverting to the island of Utila for safe haven. 

As we were coming into Utila, I realized that it was April 1 – April Fool’s Day.  The thought crossed my mind that maybe this was Chris’ idea of some sort of April Fool’s joke.  But, then I remembered we had violated our own rule – NEVER believe the “B” word.  If it’s in the forecast – run and hide!!

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