 |
| At the dock of the Oakland Yacht Club around 2010 |
As a teenager I lived on or near the Gulf of Mexico and spent most summers hanging out with friends on the waters of Mobile Bay and beaches of the coast. One hot afternoon in 1966, lounging on the end of a pier at Point Clear on the bay, two of us decided to take my friend's parent's Sunfish -- a tiny "sailboat" built for single-handing -- off the dock and learn how to sail.
 |
| Point Clear, on Mobile Bay |
We knew nothing but we were 16, confident, tanned and competent swimmers.
So we took the boat, let the wind fill the single sail, and went off into the middle of the bay with the wind hard at our backs. Maybe a mile or two offshore the water became a bit rougher, the wind harder, and the ship channel busier.
Time to turn back: we pointed the boat to land, and the boat stopped. The wind was on our nose and we began to figure out that the wind and tide was slowly pushing us toward the Gulf of Mexico, not our preferred destination. Freighters were passing us, heading toward South America.
We had never heard of "tacking."
I would not say we panicked, but we began to express some concern to each other. We gave up on the sail, got on our knees and began paddling by hand toward the shore. Eventually we were within hailing distance of the end of the pier where my friend's younger brother was watching from a canvas chair.
We yelled. He ignored us. The wind blew us further offshore. We yelled more, He laughed and ignored us more.
Finally an adult heard the noise, ordered the brother to crank up a ski boat and tow us back to the dock. The brother was amused, but we were not. We received specific instructions from parents that night on the folly of our ways, and gave up sailing a Sunfish.
 |
| A sunfish, competently controlled |
By the time the next sailing opportunity happened, I was a mature married man with a wife and baby, in my late 20s, and better adept at avoiding trouble. An older co-worker named Burke Edwards had purchased an older sailboat, a 32 foot Islander designed for bays and coasts near Cocoa Beach. We rode along with Burke and his wife Beth in the lagoons of the Indian River, maybe twice when he offered us an invitation. Would we like to go the Bahamas with them on vacation? The Bahamas were about 90 miles away from the Florida coast, across the Gulf Stream, in an area affectionately known as the Bermuda Triangle.
Burke was older, and had some sailing and navigation experience, and we learned later could not see well. Plus, in his 60s, he wanted a younger helper along.
Pat's parents lived nearby and volunteered to babysit our less than one-year-old daughter for us to accept the chance of a lifetime.
I figured we would learn as we went. And we did.
We motorsailed down the Intercoastal Waterway for a couple of days, getting used to the boat and the tight quarters. The night before we were to leave at dawn to cross the Gulf Stream, I tried to go to bed early on the dining table bed, but the others were so excited they stayed up, standing near ny bunk, talking loudly. Finally, around midnight I gave us and suggested we leave. And we did.
Leaving the Port of Palm Beach was easy, even at night, but the moment we were on the ocean things changed. There were lights everywhere from fishing boats and freighters going up and down the coast. For three or so hours we were dodging traffic.
Then when things calmed down Burke announced he was going to bed and I was in charge at the helm. His instructions were to point the boat at a certain fuzzy star off to east, don't hit anything, and call him if I needed help.
Before dawn he got up and checked his primary navigation tool, a radio direction finder that could just barely notice the signal from a radio tower at Grand Bahama Island's east end.
 |
| The marina at Jack Tar Resort Bahamas |
Amazingly, around 9 a.m. we spotted the island and the the entrance to the harbor. We felt we had conquered the vast ocean, or at least apart of it. and discovered paradise. We cleared customs, tied up at a dock, cleaned up the boat and broke out the beer. Over the next few days we found beautiful beaches, clear waters, caught lobster off the back end of the boat for lunch and lived the good life.
We sailed down to Freeport, a queasy and rough trip, to get our little stove repaired and then sailed across the shallow banks toward West End, the northernmost Bahama Island known mostly for deep sea fishing in the Atlantic. We ran aground en route, which it turns out is a routine exercise while sailing there, and finally got unstruck when some friendly Bahamians dragged us off the sandbar. A Tropical Depression moved into the area with rain and wind, so we stayed tied up at the dock within easy reach of the beer bar and pool table.
 |
| Walker Key as it looked before developers |
We sailed by West End, and in fairly rough seas started back to Florida. The currents are so strong that to get to Palm Beach we had to aim for Miami, and let the tide push us north. We were doing well despite heavy swells, when the dinghy broke loose and we performed a "man overboard" rescue to retrieve it, and then lost our engine just as the wind picked up while approaching the inlet. We checked in with the Coast Guard and they assured us they would watch us, and then Burke put me at the helm and stood on the bow and directed us through the rolling breakers, surfing our way neatly into port as if we knew what we were doing.
Three weeks aboard a 32 foot boat with friends, we had salt in our veins. It took a while, but we came back to it.
(More to come)
