Not So Skookum: A Sailing Adventure (Part One)

     Sometimes crisis requires fast action, a nearly unconscious response. Other times a situation offers the luxury and curse of a long period of reflection. I've often imagined falling off a boat out at sea, the initial shock and fear quickly giving way to resignation as the boat fades into the distance. Recently in the Bahamas this terrible vision became reality. So there I was, two days into a sailing trip, calmly watching my boat fade slowly into the distance. The boat wasn't moving, but I was, caught in a rip current and pushed farther away minute by minute.  I was swimming hard and making no headway, just losing more ground. There was plenty of time for reflection. First, the things in my favor: the boat was at anchor, with my two friends  on it. Also there was land nearby. A small island sat just a few hundred yards off to my side. I wasn't going to drown. Then the cons- I had jumped in the water to relieve myself, and as such was buck naked, ill prepared to traverse this island far enough to get up-current of the boat. The islands of the Bahamas feature a topography straight from Dante's Inferno- an eroded limestone known as iron shore that resembles the surface of a fossilized English muffin. Crawling naked across it would have reduced me to a bloody, howling, sun burnt husk of a man. I had to get back to that boat!
     The trip was not going smoothly. When Ben, an old friend from Alaska, had called and said he'd like help moving a sailboat for a friend of his, from Florida to St. Thomas, I jumped at the chance. Just pay for food he said. We'll catch fish and snorkel and sail and drink rum. When a work obligation during that time period had been cancelled, the choice was easy. I tossed mask and fins and plenty of sunblock into my bag and headed to Nassau.
    Unfortunately, I also packed bedbugs from a dodgy hostel in Guatemala, and spent my first day in town putting everything I had into a commercial dryer and turning the knob to the "grilled cheese" setting to try to smite the beasts before I brought them aboard. As it was, the weather was terrible, so we weren't going anywhere anytime soon. The trip from Florida aboard S/V Skookum had been a tough one for the original crew, and morale was pretty low. Also, one crew member also joining in Nassau had recently become pregnant. She and her husband had made the trip to the Bahamas, but were questioning the wisdom of  a trip that would  entail amplified morning sickness and lack of access to definitive care.
     Skookum— named after classic native Alaskan word meaning "strong"— is a 36' Hans Christian,  a legend in its day but now a project boat with a bunch of problems large and small. We were a week behind by the time our trimmed down crew of three finally pulled anchor and headed for the Exumas. Now, just a day later, I was watching my floating home slowly fading into the distance.
   The stereo was cranked when I left, and my two compañeros, Captain Ben and his college friend Kavour, were just settling down for a siesta. A naked torture scramble was looking more likely by the minute. I yelled anyway. I hollered, and shouted and yelled again. I swam, harder this time and yelled again. Treading water to rise as high as possible, I looked at the hateful island and screamed with all I had. A few seconds later Ben popped out on the deck and jumped in the dinghy to fetch my sorry bare ass. By luck, he'd turned off the tunes just moments prior in preparation for nap time.

Things turned around for the crew after my rescue. We jumped off the boat that afternoon and found scattered coral heads teeming with reef fish. Learning to use the pole spear took some time, but eventually Ben and I headed back to Skookum with several fish, including a prize grouper killed instantly with a perfect head shot. For the next two weeks we enjoyed the freshest, most delicious fish every day, either from spear-fishing or trolling behind Skookum while we were underway. We would jump around like excited kids when the line started peeling out, fight the fish from the port side deck while rolling with the boat, and when we'd dragged one aboard, give thanks to the creature for it's sacrifice. A piece of driftwood Kavour found at Allen's Cay was propped up on stern pulpit as a wonderful makeshift filet station. Soon we had a constant supply of fresh fish in the fridge. The crew gorged on sashimi, ceviche, and all manner of grilled and fried filets. It's an amazing way to live and eat and one of the best parts of travelling the sea.

Skookum poked it's way down the Exuma chain, holding five mph on a good day. Sometimes we ran under power, more often under a combination of power and sail. On blissful occasions we killed the diesel engine and travelled by wind alone, the forces pulling and pushing our 20, 000 pound floating home effortlessly through the crystal waters. With music wafting from the cabin we'd toast our tremendous good fortune.
On Hawksbill Cay a simple hike up a mangrove slough and over to the other side of the island provide escape from the dozens of other boats moored in the bay. Here we found a dazzling white sand beach without a soul, with gentle rolling surf and the most amazing spectrum of blues. We stretched our boat-bound bodies and wandered around on the beach in a psilocybin daydream. Stretched out on a limestone bench worn smooth by many years of surf,  I let the sea foam envelop me with each breaking wave. As the shadows grew long we returned to the boat to watched, as we always did, for the mythical green flash. I've never enjoyed a failed effort as much as my years-long search for this phenomenon.
We checked out the swimming pigs at Staniel Cay, as well as the Thunderball Grotto made famous by James Bond films, then high-tailed it out of there as fast as we could, anxious to trade the country club yachtie atmosphere for more remote environs.
Crossing through the Exuma chain meant the more exposed Exuma Sound on the windward side of the islands. The sailing was wilder and the fishing much improved. Close to Georgetown we battled several mahi-mahi, stocking up food rations for an unexpected layover while we waited for the repaired auto-pilot to arrive via Fed-Ex. I had been filling the machine's role since Nassau and loving it, but Ben pointed out that the auto-pilot holds a straighter course and requires a smaller energy input than I do. Soon I appreciated the ability to run around the boat— catching fish, cooking meals and watching dolphins, all while a small machine held our precise course. We travelled for many days this way, only scanning the horizon from time to time to ensure we weren't on a collision course with a big tanker.
Skookum's problems had not disappeared and Captain Ben was constantly fixing some things and worrying about others throughout the trip. It's amazing how many different systems one relies on during a sailing journey- the boat rigging that keeps the mast and sails in place, the sails and related gear, the anchors and related gear, the engine and propeller and related gear, the electronics, plus all of the things that allow a boat to be a house, e.g. batteries, inverter, refrigerator, water pumps, toilet, plumbing, and on and on. In a best case scenario, constant vigilance and routine maintenance is required. But Skookum was not best case. A very well-made boat built by an acclaimed boatwright in the early 1980's, she had fallen victim to neglect in the 90's. Abandoned in a Florida boatyard for many years, she was mere days from being chopped up when Ben's friend traded an old Harley for her seven years ago.  Like an animal rescued from euthanasia at a shelter, she had been nursed back to health and made a tremendous recovery, but still had some intractable behavior issues. A few weeks past Nassau we were still many hundreds of miles from St. Thomas and the odds seemed stacked against us. Still, all that tended melt away as we served up heaping plates of sushi while slowly bobbing on a secluded anchorage, dripping from a swim in perfectly clear water and watching the sun dip below the horizon. The green flash remains elusive, but life, for the moment, is perfect.