Coping Strategies

I am a cold weather person.  I like cool crisp air to breath.   My brain works best at temperatures below 65 degrees Fahrenheit.  A doctor once told me that I probably have a high number of some platelet in my blood relative to the average population, which makes me this way.   So being in the tropics for the last two and half years has had its challenges, and I have developed some coping strategies.  Here, now, I share them with you in the hopes of dispelling illusions that I am on some sort of permanent, idyllic vacation.

On land I have several strategies.  I seek out the freezer and refrigerated sections of a grocery store---not something one can always rely on in the Pacific, but certainly here, in the Caribbean, they can be found.  If there are large refrigerator cases, I lean back against the glass and let the coolness penetrate my skin.  I have been known even to open the door briefly.  Freezer sections are usually bins, so I slowly peruse all the items leaning over as much as I can into the cold bins.  I carefully examine everything, trying to seem like a serious discerning shopper, but not taking so long as to arouse suspicion that I may have some nefarious intent.

If there is an air-conditioned shopping center, I will loiter as long as I can.  To Jon, this is a waste of time, since I am not even shopping, and it can be really boring.  But the walking does me some good and I savor whatever moments of AC I can gather.

Later, long after the grocery store is a distant memory (usually in less than half an hour), I am again hot, so then I go off in search of ice cream.  This is an excellent coping strategy, which I highly recommend.  It not only cools me down on the inside, it tastes good.  Jon is used to such excursions and even joins me sometimes.  YUM.

On the boat, I have several strategies to stay cool.  If the water is clear of crocodiles (that is, as long as we’re not in northern Australia), I jump off the boat into the water.  This is a common strategy among cruisers everywhere.  The benefits are immediate.  Being on a catamaran, is especially beneficial because we have two hulls.  I can swim underneath the bridge deck, which joins them.  It is shady there.  As brown as my skin has become, you wouldn’t suspect that I hide from the sun, but Jon and I both do.

Yum.

We also eat Icy Pops, those frozen plastic tubes of colorful sugar water.  YUM.  I refer to them as my Cadmium rods, since they prevent a complete and total thermonuclear meltdown of my inner core.  These are precious.  Australia was the only place I’ve been able to buy them abroad, but I seriously stock up on my occasional trips back to the States.  Wal-Mart sells them for about $5 for 48.  That is a good price, but when you add how many I purchase with how much they weigh, the amount of money I have spent on overweight baggage makes them precious indeed.  Jon, too, shares in this coping strategy.

During the high heat of the day, when the people who live in hot climates take a mandatory siesta in order to escape the heat, I often lie, in a semi-catatonic state,  underneath my 12 volt fan, nearly naked, wiping a cold wash cloth over my body and holding an ice pack on my head.  Please Do Not Try To Visualize This.

Finally, when I am desperate to save my sanity, I resort to the mind-over-matter psychological technique of visualization.  I imagine myself somewhere high up in the Swiss Alps, where it is so cold that I have to wear wool sweaters and drink hot cocoa. YUM.

So the other day, Jon and I were ashore in Falmouth Harbor, Antigua, where we have been watching the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta.  There is a dockside café called Seabreeze, where, in exchange for a small purchase of food and drink, they let you have free WiFi and watch their television.  Jon was watching the intense semi-final match in the UEFA Champions League between Chelsea and Barcelona.  I was intensely utilizing land-based coping strategy #2—I was eating Hazelnut Gelato—when I discovered yet another coping strategy.  Humor.

The busy waitresses in this café rarely slow down; the business has been brisk with all the racers and spectators.  But this was the day after the last race and things were calmer.  I finally got the chance to read what was printed on the back of their T-Shirts.  For your amusement, it said:

Heaven

is where 

the police are British

the cooks Italian

the mechanics German

the lovers French

and it is all organized by the Swiss

Hell

is where 

the chefs are British

the mechanics French

the lovers Swiss

the police German

and it is all organized by the Italians

… now that would be a Euro crisis!  I had to chuckle and actually felt better. But I think I’ll have another cup of that Hazelnut Gelato for good measure.  YUM.

My Father

Crotch Island Pinky, built by Peter van Dine

My father, who taught me to sail, turned 80 years old this week, a week in which the Antigua Yacht Club hosted its 25th annual Classic Yacht regatta, featuring the kinds of boats my father loved, the boats which provided me the formative sailing experiences of my life.

In addition to teaching me to sail, my father taught me to appreciate the fine lines of a traditional sailing craft.  Our family's first sail boat was a Crotch Island Pinkie, a cat-ketch, sprit pole-rigged open fishing boat from the coast of Maine. Its hull was rendered in fiberglass, but the masts, lines, and rigging were traditional:  the sails were spliced onto the mast using line, and the spritpoles that held the upper corners of the square sails were kept tight using lines secured to small wooden cleats.


Dutch Courage -- as the little vessel was called -- sported neither a cabin, a galley, an engine, nor a head.  It was originally designed as a basic fishing boat, whose design evolved over generations of northeast Maine fishing villages, and remains one of the best examples of a sturdy, functional offshore fishing craft.   We sailed a lot of miles and visited a lot of coves in that boat, making do with a makeshift awning for shelter, a sterno can for a stove, oars for power, and a bucket for a toilet.  It was the first boat I was allowed to sail by myself, and we spent many weekends on it, deepening my love for the traditional boat.

Our next boat, built by the same builder, was a Tancook Whaler, another traditional design whose geneology also began in the fishing towns of the Atlantic provinces.  This boat, also named Dutch Courage, featured a classic schooner rig, with a flying topsail that was a joy to strike, filling the area between the two mast tops.  With a "real" cabin, we could entertain on this delightful little boat, and I spent many weekend days and nights on her during my high school years.  My father also joined the now-defunct Chesapeake Traditional Sailing Association, a decidedly loose-knit group of sailors who shared my Dad's passion for classic boats.  Annual "regattas" were a highlight, and I believe my memory serves me correctly when I recall my father winning a few awards -- in one case, I think, for last place.  It was that kind of Association.

Flicka, a 20' sloop

Subsequent family boats took a more modern turn, but my father always insisted on boats with classic lines:  the Pacific Seacraft Flicka, also named Dutch Courage, and then, his last boat, named after his mother, Wilhelmina, the Crealock 34, a still-venerated bluewater capable sloop.  The Flicka occupies a special place in my heart; it was the first boat Jennifer and I sailed together on a fall weekend, just after we met at Princeton.  I'm not saying that Jennifer had to pass a test, like the bride-to-be in the classic movie Diner, who was tested on her knowledge of the Baltimore Colts, but it was a lot easier to continue to court her once she evinced a love of sailing!

My father's first concern in buying a boat was the quality of the design -- our boats needed to look like sailboats, with a nice shear, fine lines, and a deep keel.  His second concern was the quality of the construction; each of his boats was well-built, and in fact, both the Flicka and the Crealock have circumnavigated.  Well down on the list were any of the normal amenities -- galleys, head space, and a head.  In fact, our Flicka did not have a head per se; buckets sufficed for years until he finally broke down and bought a portable marine toilet.  The net effect of these purchasing decisions was to limit our guest list to serious sailors; dilettantes need not apply.

Crealock 34

The final boat, the Crealock, the one named after his mother, finally hit all cylinders:  a full keel sloop, with a proper staysail, a galley, comfortable sleeping accommodations, a real engine, and, yes, a proper head.  My parents spent a lot of time on Wilhelmina, largely free from the demands of their six children, who had mostly left home and started families by then.  Eventually, my Dad sold Wilhelmina, but not before conveying to me and my five brothers a love of sailing.  Today, two of us own boats, and my son, David, continuing in the tradition, has also purchased his first boat -- a Laser -- which he races.

These days, while my Dad no longer sails, he nonetheless spends his summers at his house at Somesville, Maine, at the tip of Somes Sound, on Mt. Desert Island, Maine, surrounded by the boatyards that designed and built many of the schooners that still grace the waters of Maine, the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean.

Happy birthday, Dad!

*************

And, below, some pictures from the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta -- a kind of pictorial birthday gift for the person who instilled in me a love of sailing and a love of traditional boats:

The classic Stevens yacht, Dorade, whose name became synonymous with the air vents
still used to provide fresh air -- but not sea water, to the cabin spaces below.

Eilean, a lovely 1936 yacht

Gaff-rigged schooner; note the wooden hoops used to connect the sails to the mast

Firefly, a Dutch racing yacht; classic lines, but only one year old

Wooden hoops, lined in leather, to secure the sail to the mast

A modern, but classically-designed sloop; note the size of the main sail!

Music for the eyes; hundreds of diagonal lines, each used to control the gaff of
 traditionally-rigged sloops and schooners

Rebecca, a gorgeous 140 foot ketch out of the US

Just before the start; schooner under near-full sail

Heading to the upwind mark; too breezy for the main topsail!

Racing!  These large classic yachts don't need much wind to sail fast.

Every yacht race features water balloons --
harmless projectiles to distract the competition

Leaving Guadaloupe on our way to Antigua; some weather to the west

Dominica

Mango Man, Dominica

On our way northward to St. Maarten, where we'll leave the boat for a few weeks to visit home, we spent some time in Dominica, one of the loveliest, least-developed islands in the Caribbean, and one that grabbed our hearts and souls.  So many of the islands down here have been thoroughly Westernized, filled with cruise ships, all-inclusive resorts and chain restaurants. Dominica is one of the least-visited and least-populated islands in the Caribbean, with about 70,000 residents, and garnering less than one-half of the tourists of even Haiti.  Its GDP per capita is one of the lowest in the Eastern Caribbean, in part the result of its decision to become independent in the late 1970s.

Crater lake, in the center of Dominica

One of the reasons for its lack of development is its geography: seven volcanos, no white sand beaches, mostly rain forest, and a forbidding topography.

Columbus crumpled up a piece of paper when he described the land to Queen Isabella, trying to convey the jaggedness of the island's valleys, gorges, and peaks. Dominica boasts the world's second-largest hot spring lake, and the near constant rainfall at its peaks fills the island's many rivers to their bursting points, year-round. These rivers tumble downwards hundreds of feet, creating spectacular waterfalls.

Jennifer, lower left, at Trafalgar Falls

The island is trying to capitalize on its principle asset:  its mountains, rivers, hot springs, lakes, waterfalls, rain forests, and jungles. Eco-tourism, Caribbean-style, is the main attraction for outsiders, and for that, you need to hire a local guide, since the government essentially prohibits self-guided tours. We spent a day diving the waters of Dominica -- we were fortunate enough to see our first full-sized sea horse (Jennifer had spotted a pygmy sea horse in Indonesia), and, on our second dive, we swam among underwater volcanic vents, spewing boiling water into an already-warm coastal sea. While we usually engage a divemaster, Dominica requires you to hire one if you dive here; they've also cordoned off a lot of the coastline as marine reserves, to their credit.

Sea Bird, our river guide in Portsmouth

To hike in the mountains, you also need to hire a guide -- we hired Sea Cat, in the town of Roseau, the island's capital.  Sea Cat -- whose birth name is Octavius, took his nom-de-guerre from the local name for octopus -- sea cat. We spent a few nights moored off Sea Cat's dock, and a day touring the inland. In a reminder of global geo-politics, we learned from Sea Cat that not only had the Chinese funded the construction of the impressive local cricket stadium, but also that his daughter was in China, attending veterinary school on a scholarship. After leaving Roseau, we headed up the coast to the tiny village of Portsmouth, and engaged the services of Sea Bird -- no relation -- as we went up the only navigable river in Dominica to check out the island's abundant bird life.

Freshwater stream, Dominica

Like Sea Cat and Sea Bird, the other water taxis and tour guides usually take on memorable names.  In Portsmouth, there was also Providence (on whom one could surely rely), and Lawrence of Arabia.  Sail boats also have interesting names; so imagine our chuckle when we heard the following hail one blustery Pooh morning: "Lawrence of Arabia, Lawrence of Arabia, this is Christopher Robin, please come back."

The island is not immune to the lure of the West; a number of the scenes in the second Pirates of the Caribbean were filmed here.  Happily to these sailors, those sites have been largely left to fade back into the jungle -- a few years after filming, no evidence remains, and the sites have not been exploited for Pirate-tourism.

Dominica seemed to us most like the islands we fell in love with in the Pacific -- wild, remote, and still filled with a sense of exploration.  Below, some more pictures of this delightful island nation.

Tree roots, on the Indian River, Portsmouth, Dominica

Hummingbird, Dominican rain forest

Sun setting on the Caribbean Sea

Jen, enjoying a hot water massage

Greenback Heron, Dominica

Sea Cat's dock and house, to the left of the blue two-story guest house

Windward

Pylades, left foreground, Fort-de-France in the back

We are anchored off the town of Fort-de-France, the capital of Martinique.  This is the largest of the Windward Islands, volcanic in origin, and the birthplace of the Empress Josephine, Napoleon’s wife.  Six weeks ago, we were in St. Helena, where Napoleon died, so we’ve come full circle in manner of speaking.  There are about a dozen or so other boats in the anchorage, making this one of the less crowded spots we’ve been since arriving a few weeks ago from St. Helena.  It’s taken a bit of getting used to, these crowded anchorages, filled as they are with charterers, winter cruisers, and dayboats taking tourists out for a sail and a swim.  We’ve lost the sense of tight community we felt everywhere since Indonesia, where the only sailors we would encounter were blue-water sailors, usually circumnavigators.  We're slowing re-acclimating ourselves to the diversity of the sailing community.

On St. Lucia, we spent a few days at the lovely new marina, drawn by the opiate luxury of 110v electricity to power our air conditioner, the convenience of stepping off the boat onto a dock, and the aromas and sounds of the ten or so bars and restaurants on the marina grounds.  But, after giving the boat a thorough cleaning and the hulls a well-needed wax, and after attending to some medical and logistical items ashore, we knew it was time to leave.  We motored across Rodney Bay, and dropped the hook just off Pigeon Island, which, owing the creation of a causeway from the spoils of the marina dredging, is no longer an island.  No matter; it’s a lovely place, and while the anchorage is crowded, we spent some lovely time with some cruisers who spend every winter on the boat in the clear blue waters and skies of St. Lucia.

Frigate bird, gliding above

In the anchorage, surrounded by American and French boats, and the blaring beat of reggae-rap-disco music coming from the resorts and bars that line the sandy beaches of Rodney Bay, we were reminded of the enduring charm of these islands.  Overhead, a massive frigate bird circled, its forked tail guiding its flight as it scanned the water below for bits of fish to scavenge. We had last seen these somewhat ominous birds in the Galapagos, by the thousands, the red throats of the males bulging outward in their mating displays. Their continued equatorial presence is reassuring somehow, letting us know that nature retains a sense of dominion over these islands and waters.

Gregory, driving his flagship of provisions

Meanwhile, making the rounds of the anchorage in a rickety wooden boat, its engine belching black smoke, Gregory the Flag Man offered up fruits, breads, and vegetables to the cruising community.  Even though he promised that the mangoes were picked in his grandmother’s backyard, our new cruising friends burst the romantic bubble by assuring us they’d seen Gregory in the local supermarket every morning.  No matter; he recalled for us the small boats in the Marquesas that offered us pamplemousse and bananas, rowing to our recently-arrived boat from their little island, an island with neither grocery store nor marina.  Here, in the Caribbean, amid frigate birds, tourist development and crowded anchorages, we see what might someday become of the more remote islands of the Pacific and Indonesia …

Small beachside resort at Grande Anse D'Arlet

After our long passages, our new sailing distances have also taken a bit of getting used to; we pulled up our anchor in Rodney Bay at around 8 am, and by noon or so, we were settling into a small bay midway up the adjoining island of Martinique, in a small village called Grande Anse D’Arlet.  Clearing in was a snap. Unlike Barbados, which required us to tie our boat alongside a rickety pier, pay US$50, and fill out innumerable forms, the French laissez-faire attitude seems right for these languorous islands.  We dinghied ashore, went up to a dedicated computer terminal in the little restaurant, filled in a form electronically, hit “send,” and then printed off our clearance.  No fees, no muss, no fuss.

Finding an ATM to get some Euros was another thing, however, and the nearest source of cash was a very long walk away … so we went for a swim, ate on board, spent the night, and then moseyed around the point to here, where we are nestled against the looming walls of the actual “Fort”-de France.  Unlike St. Lucia, which has been independent of England since 1979, Martinique revels in its colonial status, or, perhaps more accurately, in the accompanying Paris-borne subsidies.  The city – for we’re talking a few highways, a few high-rises, and a distinct urban feel – sounds, smells, looks, tastes, and feels like a bit of transplanted France.  Less influenced by any local or indigenous culture than, say Tahiti, the island of Martinique seem like a perpetually sunny France, populated by people whose family trees include healthy mixes of transplanted Gauls, slave-shipped Africans, and, over the last 100 years or so, the melting pot of Caribbean cultures.  Despite their cosmopolitan genetics, however, locals remain true to their Frenchness. No one in Martinique speaks – or at least admits to speaking – English.  Qu'avez-vous dit?

Pigeon "Island," St. Lucia

Just after we pulled into Fort-de-France, we were delighted to see our good friends Fergus and Kay, on Pylades, anchor just alongside; we met them first in Bora Bora, and then our paths have crossed repeatedly as we each made our way around the world – Indonesia, Cocos, Mauritius, South Africa, where we spent New Year’s Eve together at the Royal Cape Yacht Club, and now here.  They head back home to Galway, Ireland in a month or so, having completed their circumnavigation on a steel boat they built by hand, learning how to cut and weld steel, to work the wood for the interior, and to assemble the mechanical and electrical systems needed to steer a boat safely around our globe.  What an accomplishment, to sail a boat you built yourself around the world!  We’ve become very good friends with them, and will miss them as they sail east toward home. 

Congratulations, Fergus and Kay, and we hope to see you again!

Next stop:  Dominica.

St. Helena to Barbados - Passage Pics

 Some pictures from our 3700 nautical mile, 29 day passage from St. Helena to Barbados:

Wing and wing, sailing into a setting sun

Lines of Sargassum weed, a sign of the North Atlantic

Jennifer, on the bow watching the dolphins play

Sailfish, caught a few days out of St. Helena

One of the many circling rain cells as we crossed through the doldrums

Brown Noddy, one of several that spent the night with us, resting

Portuguese Man of War -- a sure sign we're in the North Atlantic

Flying Fish, just taking off; note translucent wings.

Cognitive Dissonance

I do not write blog posts at sea.  I get seasick if I am on a computer for very long.  In fact, I read on a boat lying down for the same reason.  Not seriously seasick, but it’s like the motion sickness I get if I try to read in a car.  This can be a liability on a circumnavigation, especially on long passages.

Jon and I just finished our longest passage a week ago.  Twenty-nine days from Saint Helena to Barbados.  And thirteen days from Cape Town to St. Helena meant that we spent forty-two of forty-nine days at sea.  The passage from Africa was so much more than just sea days, however.  It was leaving what was exotic for us, the Pacific islands, Indonesia, the Indian Ocean and Africa for what was familiar:  the Western Hemisphere and the Caribbean.  As we left the Southern Hemisphere for the Northern, we reentered the tropics and approached the hot and intense equatorial sun.  We crossed the infamous doldrums of light to no winds.  I often thought of the song by the seventies band America with the lyrics, “the ocean is a desert,” while I thought of myself as that familiar cartoon of a ragged man crawling in the dessert on his hands and knees, saying “water, water” only I would be saying “wind, wind.”

To top it off, I got a stomach bug our last two weeks at sea and am still recovering.  This final insult to body and soul perhaps best explains, if not excuses, my general sense of grumpiness since we have re-entered the same time zone as home.  But grumpy I am.

As we sit on our boat, anchored in gorgeous clear water in Carlisle Bay off Bridgetown with its two miles of beautiful white sandy beach and surrounded by sea turtles, loud thumping techno dance music penetrates the thin walls of our hulls.  Jet skis abound.  Catamarans covered with dozens of tourists come and go throughout the day, offering them a couple of hours of swimming and drinking rum off a boat in this beautiful bay to complete their island paradise experience.  Some carelessly leave their traces of plastic cups on the ocean floor.

And then there are the large cruise ships, making ever so brief stops to disembark a lot of tourists who have come to enjoy a bit of paradise as well, albeit a bit myopically.  Some tourists are actually pink people whose introduction to the tropical sun has come a bit too abruptly.  I witness two husbands standing in a shopping area passively dazed as their wives examine cheap unnecessary plastic objects (my general term for junk) that they don’t need and could just as easily purchase at home since it’s made in China. Taxi drivers seem to outnumber tourists three to one and they compete relentlessly for the opportunity to offer tours.  But harbor no doubt.  These tourist dollars drive the economy today, having long ago supplanted the sugar plantations.

(This scene occurs not only in the Caribbean.  Jon and I also experienced it in Bali.  Here was a beautiful island that was home to a unique form of Hinduism and was known for its peacefulness and spirituality.  Yet it is overrun with drunk marauding Australians (as well as some others) who feel they have a God-given right to behave badly.  And the Balinese and other Indonesian migrants frantically chase after the tourists’ dollars in hope of acquiring some of the same material things these westerners had, while also acquiring the western form of stress.)

The poverty in the Caribbean islands stands in plain sight for anyone to see.  Alcoholic men lying in a side street passing a bottle of rum and pissing in broad daylight.  The local market sells pig heels, pig tails, pig tongue and lamb necks, because the better cuts go to the hotels and restaurants, and are largely unaffordable anyway.  Crime, particularly thievery, is high.  Our dinghy engine has to be locked to the dinghy.  The dinghy has to be locked to the boat or when ashore, to the pier.  Our fuel jugs are locked.   The last time our boat security was such an issue we were in Panama.  And Barbados is one of the wealthier islands in the Caribbean.

And then there is the legacy of colonialism and slavery.  First of all, the indigenous peoples of these islands were killed off shortly after the Europeans (mainly the English, Dutch, French and Spanish) came in the early 1500s.  Arawaks and Caribes no longer exist.  Slaves from Africa were brought here to work in the sugar plantations.  Europeans not only got sugar for their tea and pastries, they got rum, the drug of choice to pacify restless sea crew and anyone unhappy and ungrateful enough about being held as a slave.

Slavery ended in the Caribbean about a generation or two before it did in the United States, so that was a long time ago.  In most of the Windward and Leeward Islands, colonialism officially ended more recently, in the 1960s and 70s.  But the legacy of both can still be felt today.  For me, I experienced it in an unfamiliar manner.

Prior to arriving in Port St. Charles to clear in, I contacted Customs to notify them of our arrival.  Our repeated efforts to contact port control (the usual first step of entering a country by boat throughout the world) had been unsuccessful.  When a man on the radio finally answered, I gave the usual information and asked how he wanted us to proceed.  He said nothing.  After about three minutes of waiting, I called back to confirm that he had heard me.  Nothing.  Not even a request to standby.  Finally, after about ten minutes, he said that a mega yacht was departing and to wait.  That was it for guidance.    Once in Customs, Immigration and Quarantine, clearing in was dealt with, not in a friendly manner, but not necessarily in an unfriendly manner.  No one said welcome to Barbados, although the Custom lady did give me a brochure on how to raise a Christian family.

Upon landing at one of the beach establishments once we were anchored off Bridgetown, I was promptly escorted to a street side booth to pay a $10 cover charge for the privilege of coming ashore and inquiring as to the nearest grocery store.  No one said welcome to Barbados.  They didn’t even try to be nice.

In search for place to purchase Internet minutes--something I thought I have become quite adept at after all the different countries we’ve been in—I went into about a dozen establishments that advertised Lime Wire top offs.  When I asked to purchase Internet minutes, the store clerk would turn silently and walk away…. to ask the manager.  It seemed so odd that they did not say, “one moment please I’ll go ask someone who might know.”  Inevitably, the manager would tell me that they only sold cell phone minutes and had no idea where I could purchase Internet minutes.  The next day, I succeeded in my quest.  Turns out that the same prepaid minutes voucher I would buy for cell phone minutes could be used for Internet minutes.  I doubt that I was being toyed with by all the vendors I had tried previously, they probably genuinely did not know, but their coldness was unsettling just the same.

At the grocery store, I handed the check out clerk my shopping bags, saying that I had brought my own and did not need plastic ones.  She proceeded to throw them aside and put my groceries in plastic bags.  A bit stunned, I began to repack my items in my own bags.  To which she barked back at me that she couldn’t read minds.

Seeking emotional solace after that unpleasantness, I went to a fast food chain for a milk shake.  The lady who took my order completed the transaction without the ugliness I had just experienced in the grocery store, but there was no response to my smile, to my hello, to my thank you.  No welcome to Barbados.

Feeling confused, I wondered if this was an urban thing.  Like what a Midwesterner feels upon first being in New York City.  Or had the heat or too many tourists just made everyone here grumpy.  I missed the gentleness and generosity of Polynesian culture.  I missed the welcoming kindness of everyone I encountered in South Africa. 

And then a fellow cruiser, who had lived here before, explained it to me.  He said that here, the people equate service with servitude, and servitude with slavery.  I wasn’t treated rudely because I was a foreigner or because I was white -- they treat every customer, visitor or local, that way.  It’s their way of distancing themselves from the posture of a slave.  That is their legacy.

Looking at the white tourists on the catamarans and the white tourists laying on the beach chaises, all slathered in tanning oil in skimpy bathing suits, I wondered if the locals ever smiled at the irony of how white people try to get darker skin.

Perhaps it is too easy for me to criticize as I sit on my boat and sail around the world— truly something few in this world can afford to do.  But I have looked from afar these last few years as Americans and Europeans have careened into a head on collision with economic reality, and suffered a psychological whiplash from which they have yet to recover.  Yet it is clear even from a distance that unrestrained greed and relentless consumerism has taken a toll on western civilization in recent years.  To me, these huge cruise ships represent such over-consumption on a massive scale.

John Lewis Gaddis, in his recent biography of George Kennan,  notes that Kennan wrote in the early 1930s that an absence of consumerism in the Soviet Union would lead to a bitter disappointment in an artificial ideology.  But having long bemoaned the excessive consumerism in America (decades before that message was co-opted by John LeCarre’s George Smiley), Kennan also noted that too many “automobiles and ice boxes” would also crash their ideology and society.   I don’t know where the happy balance lies, but as I watch the tourists gyrate and grind to the thumping sound of techno while they throw down their rum drinks and tan their bodies in paradise, I know that I am struggling with the cognitive dissonance of it all---a form of culture shock (or is it culture ambivalence?)--as I return to the western hemisphere, to America and to home.

Re-entry can be bumpy.  I am off in search of ice cream.

Rites of Passage

An out-of-order post, written after we passed through the doldrums about 10 days ago, and posted here in Barbados, where we arrived yesterday, safe and sound.  We spent today doing laundry, cleaning the boat, launching the dinghy, and look forward to 6 weeks of cruising the Windward and Leeward islands of the Caribbean.

More posts to follow, with pictures, as we sample the various islands.

*********

The large scale weather patterns on either side of the equatorial Atlantic Ocean are breathtakingly predictable, consistent, and timeless.  Heading north from South Africa, one moves ritually into the southeast trades, through the doldrums, or, as it is known by meteorologists, the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), and then into the northeast trades. Three distinct weather zones, each governed by the laws of physics: air moves from high pressure to low pressure; the earth's west-to-east rotation imparts a west-bound direction to north-bound air in the southern hemisphere and south-bound air in the northern hemisphere; and where competing southeast and northeast winds meet, at and near the equator, instability reigns.

Leaving the Cape of Good Hope, on a northbound passage, a sailing vessel will experience consistent southeast winds around and beyond the tiny islands of St. Helena and Ascension, as the crew skirts the edge of the massive year-round South Atlantic high pressure system, its counter-clockwise winds defining the weather.  These southeast trades blow consistently as one sails northwest toward Brazil and the Caribbean.  As one approaches the equator, the influence of the South Atlantic high begins to wane, but not before delivering a thousand miles or more of gentle following breezes.

This makes for lovely sailing, and so it was for us, leaving Cape Town and then St. Helena for Barbados, our now-chosen port of call in the Caribbean.  The mainsail of our catamaran, limited in its ability to extend perpendicularly from the boat's centerline by the two swept-back shrouds, is not especially suited for dead downwind sailing, so we deployed our two headsails - our genoa and the larger genaker - in a wing-and-wing arrangement, one on each side of the boat. We set the autopilot on a course dead downwind, and let the southeast trades push us along at about 5 knots, as the boat's stern lifted and surfed gently down the following seas with each passing swell. We're not especially fast under that sail configuration, but the boat is stable, it's very little work, and it's very comfortable.  Other boats our size are faster by a bit - maybe averaging 6+ knots, but we like the steady, effortless glide of our conservative approach.

We left St. Helena on a Tuesday, the 28th of February, and sailed merrily northwest, in a following wind for two weeks, rarely adjusting a sail, catching up on reading, listening to podcasts, doing some writing, and enjoying the isolation of our little corner of the planet.  Day in, day out, we sailed dead downwind, adjusting course a few degrees every day or so, rarely straying from the rhumb line, the direct course connecting our point of departure and the southern tip of Barbados, several thousand miles distant.  A gentle passage leg on the way to a distant landfall.

But eventually the winds diminished, blue skies turned cloudy, and our boat speed fell.  As with the thousands of ships and boats that have gone before us on this journey, we face the requisite and unavoidable crossing of the doldrums, with its windless days and nights, relentless gray skies and torrential rains.  A brief rain shower on March 11th, another on the 12th, and then, on the 13th of March, a few hours after crossing the equator for the second time on this circumnavigation, we enter the twilight zone of the doldrums as the wind falls silent, and the skies open up.

What's going on? Around the equator, where the southeast winds of the southern hemisphere meet the northeast winds of the northern hemisphere, confusion reigns inside the Kingdom of the Weather Gods.  Southern air flowing north meets northern air flowing south, resulting in a Mexican standoff, neither flow willing to cede, neither flow strong enough to prevail.  Without the wind-borne dissipation of the tropical ocean's evaporating moisture, humidity levels rise, clouds form, and eventually, the skies become too heavy and the rain begins to fall in great striated sheets.

These are the doldrums, the price mariners pay for the steadiness of the north- and southeast trade winds.  Little to no wind, hot, sultry weather, frequent squalls and thunderstorms - and perversely, the stronger the trade winds, the more severe the weather inside the doldrums.  For boats headed north, to London or New York , these windless conditions cruelly repeat themselves, usually absent the cooling rains, in the so-called Horse Latitudes, which lie beyond the northern edge of the northeast trades.  There, 18 and 19th century ships would drift for weeks on end, and the logs of these captains and crew talk of men going mad.  Navigators looked for signs that one or another of the competing weather systems would prevail, bringing wind and an end to the rains.  With no wind or waves to disperse the effluent, ships lay adrift amid vast stagnant islands of animal and human waste. Non-essential cargo would be jettisoned in an effort to lighten the boats.  Discipline became a problem.

 Apart from a doldrums-inspired brief obsession with computer solitaire, we are spared much of that scene, thankfully, and encountered no thunderstorms.  Rain, on the other hand, arrived in abundance. We motor across smooth seas, as rain cells, weaving drunkenly across the ocean, surround us with dark clouds and the constant threat of more rain.  One cell appears before us just a mile away, but slides away to the south, while another, barely visible a few minutes ago, re-appears just behind us, overtakes us, and pours thousands of gallons of warm, silky fresh water onto our decks and cockpit.  One day, we experience a near continuous succession of drenching rain showers, their combined precipitation reaching levels that we haven't seen since our last foray through the Pacific Ocean's ITCZ , on our way from Panama to the Galapagos, several years ago.

Over the course of several days, having motored under alternating engines to spread the wear and tear, we still have no wind, and it seems like we're never going to have a dry boat.  Humidity levels are so high that everything inside the boat glistens with a sheen of dampness; we can't keep our kitchen towels dry enough to wipe the countertops; the floor is slippery and the beautiful Persian rug bought by my brother and sister-in-law in Iran is so damp that we're worried about its stitching, about permanent mold spots.  These rugs are made for arid climates, not the persistent wetness of the tropics.

Unexpectedly, the skies clear and we have a day of brilliant sunshine, but still no wind, as if a truce had been engineered between the competing weather systems, or perhaps the sky had just run out of water.  Everything inside goes outside to dry off - the rug lies across the boom, the throw pillows on the cabin top, towels and clothing hanging from every line, our sheets laid out on the trampoline.  Blessed dryness - so, energized, we take some bleach and wipe clean the ceilings and corners of the interior.  If it doesn't rust on a boat, it molds, never more so than now, in these doldrums.  Vigilance is essential; prevention is everything. We tell ourselves that we must be through the doldrums, that the anticipated northeast trades are imminent, that soon we can start sailing again, turn the engines off, at last free of their unnatural noise and vibration.

But that night, the Weather Gods mock our optimism; they remind us of their dominion over this realm, and their rains return in an encore performance that puts their earlier display of precipitation to shame. We can hear them say, echoing the Crocodile Dundee line: "Rain?  That's no rain!  This is rain!!!"  It's as if the ocean is turned upside down.  Under a low featureless sky, the clouds gradually morph from vapors  to waterfalls, and thick long exclamation points of recycled ocean water pelt the boat, overflow our gutters, and run sheet-like down our windows and hulls.  The rain fills our mainsail cover so that it bulges with water, the water oozing out of the tiny pores of the canvas, bleeding more rain onto rain.

As night falls on our fourth night in the doldrums, our fuel tanks read one-third full - we've been motoring non-stop for nearly 90 hours, at the rate of 1.7 liters per hour, moving northwest at 4.7 knots, trying to punch through the northern edge of the ITCZ.  If we hadn't been blessed by the day of sunshine, our spirits would be as soggy as the weather; as it is, we're wondering whether we'll ever experience sun and wind again.

And then, under a drizzling sky, just before the waning quarter moon appears on the eastern horizon, a suggestion of wind from the north, and, to the west, a smudge of lighter sky, a patch where the refracted light of a long-gone sun reveals a break in the cloud bank.  Our hope springing ever eternal, we raise the main to catch the breeze, convincing ourselves that wishing will make it so, and we suffer through the clattering of our sail, as the boat rolls in the modest swell.  A new version of the Mexican standoff:  can the wind prevail over the swell? I'm reminded of the Tom Waits line: "My steak was so tough it attacked my coffee, which was far too weak to defend itself."

At first we motorsail, the thrust of our slowly-turning engine giving us enough of a push to keep the sails full, just barely.  Then the winds gradually increase, to 8 knots, then 10 knots, and the mist disappears.  Soon, we're ghosting forward at 4 knots under our sails alone, the first time in days our engines have had a real break.  Midnight comes, and the risen moon backlights a scrim of clouds in the east; fuzzy dots appear overhead as the light from distant stars penetrates the thinning humidity.  The wind picks up, the breeze steadying from the east-northeast.  Five knots of boat speed, and we can start to hear the schuss of our twin wakes converging on our stern.  Dawn arrives, the rising sun revealing the absence of low clouds, the absence of rain, the wind on our right cheek confirming what we now know to be true: we've passed through the doldrums, and are sailing again, our passage resumed. The North Atlantic's high, with its clockwise winds, now defines the weather: we're in the northeast trades.

Mid-morning, we're flying along at 7 knots, the wind a steady 15 knots on the starboard beam, our sails as full as our hearts.  We can expect these winds to hold, and perhaps strengthen, for the 10-12 days it will take us to reach Barbados.  It's a lovely point of sail for us, allowing us to fly both our main and our genoa, and we expect to make good time.  The seas fill with skittering flying fish; floating lines of yellow sagassum weed extend along the direction of the wind, like yard markers across our path; we begin to see the bluish transparent air sacs of Portuguese men of war, their ridges limned iridescent purple. We've crossed the equator, passed through the doldrums, and are now surrounded by the waters and marine life of the North Atlantic Ocean.

 We count our blessings; cruising friends just one hundred miles to the west of us endured nearly six days in the ITCZ, victims of its wandering nature as the competing wind systems of our two hemispheres vie for supremacy.  Then again, friends that passed this way a week before us had a short two-day crossing of the ITCZ, proving that even predictable weather patterns have their idiosyncrasies.  It doesn't matter; we're all sailing now, bound for different destinations.

As we continue to make our way northward, reflecting on the three distinct wind zones of the equatorial Atlantic Ocean - the southeast trades, the doldrums, and the northeast trades - we are reminded of why we are drawn to quixotic enterprises like sailing around the world.   We do so in part to remind ourselves of the scale and timelessness of natural forces, and to understand that any change in prevailing winds or our life's direction requires a period of transition, where it's frequently cloudy and wet, where progress stalls, and where the prognosis becomes uncertain.  We sail across oceans because we enjoy making sense of the vagaries of weather, and because we appreciate a sunny day amid the rain, and the winds after the calm.  We sail for the rites of passage and the promise of a landfall.

For all these and a hundred reasons more, we sail.