A Caribbean Tale - Annie

by Lindsay Wright on 12 Nov 2007

The old charter yacht looked utterly forlorn; like a maritime little orphan Annie.

She was tied to the dock at Road Bay, on the Caribbean island of Tortola, by chafed and faded docklines. Her fibreglass hull was scarred by minor collisions, chalky from neglect and a marine biologist’s dream of flora and fauna fanned out from her bottom in the limpid water of the marina.

Belowdecks an oily cavity remained where an engine had been and tumbleweeds of ripped out wiring hung from holes in the bulkheads where electronic equipment had been removed.

Roger, who had just bought the boat, sight unseen, from another island, St Maarten, didn’t look a hell of a lot better. I found him slumped over a beer in a nearby bar, looking like a bridegroom who has just found out that the woman beside him at the altar was that months Hustler magazine centrefold.

We both worked for a yacht charter company in St Maarten, part of a team of mostly Kiwi yachties who earned a living piloting tourists around the reef strewn waters of the eastern Caribbean and I’d agreed to help him get the boat back to the St Maarten.

Roger mumbled about waiting for a northerly and continued tracing palm trees in the pool of condensation puddling the bar around his beer glass. A northerly….it was March in the Caribbean and the nearest northerly could be months away – I had an overnight delivery trip in mind….not that sort of time frame.

After a few beers and some intensive cajoling, I bullied Roger down the dock to his boat where he lurched around the deck for a while, sighed and started to poke at the sun faded sails dumped on deck. We began readying the boat for sea.

All this activity attracted a bit of interest from people around the marina and the skipper of a nearby yacht ambled over for a yarn. 'Goin’ somewheres?' he drawled. 'St Maarten…' we said. 'In that thing?' he replied incredulously and walked away shaking his head.

As we worked, a tall, bearded and ear-ringed seafaring looking sort of bloke appeared on the dock. 'Hi,' he said in a sharp east USA accent, ' the name’s Tommy - I hear you guys are going to St Maarten.' We nodded. 'Well, that’s great,' he continued, ' can I hitch a ride?' And he went on to extol his broad experience in all kinds of craft and his virtues as a knowledgeable and energetic shipmate.

It pays to be wary of hitch-hikers in the Caribbean. We’d heard all the stories about drug smugglers and Americans bearing firearms but, well, many hands do make light work, particularly hand steering a lame duck like we would be doing…and we had nothing to steal...so we welcomed Tommy aboard.

'Thanks guys,' he said, and settled himself in the cockpit to oversee our preparations, offering advice and everything except a hand.

When we were ready, we hailed the crew from a nearby super yacht, who towed us out of the marina with their big inflatable dinghy. Once in open water, we winched the battered old mainsail up the mast. 'Hope she lasts ‘til St Maarten mate,' Roger said ruefully. The roller furling jib didn’t look much fitter than the mainsail, but we sheeted them in and got the boat wallowing in the right direction while Tommy continued his monologue.

'Gee guys – this is just great,' he said, basking in the cockpit as Roger and I tacked through the boats anchored in the smooth waters of the bay.

After a while we sailed between two small islands and the boat wallowed up and over the first lumpy sea of the Anegada Passage. That wave left the several thousand barnacles that were clinging to the boat’s bottom – and Tommy - gasping for air. But it had just about the opposite of the desired effect. The barnacles stayed where they were and Tommy went to bed.

'Aahh, see you later guys,' he said with a dismissive wave of his hand and disappeared below.

The passage from Tortola to St Maarten is about 90 nautical miles ( 167 kilometres); straight into the prevailing trade winds, against the north equatorial current and the steep seas of the Anegada Passage. The big charter yachts motorsail it overnight and the average cruising boat will take about 30 hours to cover the distance. It took us 60.

During the first 20 hours, Tommy appeared on deck three times, poking his pallid face through the hatch to ask which island the blaze of lights on our starboard side indicated. The answer was the same each time : 'St Croix.' After the third time, he groaned despairingly and became permanently prone.

Roger and I took turns steering for the first 40 hours, catnapping in the cockpit, yarning and enjoying the warm soft tropical air. Eventually the beer ran out and we decided that we really needed a third hand. Roger went below and roused Tommy who raised his bedraggled head 10cm off the pillow and fixed him with bleary eyes. 'You’re looking at a sick man,' he groaned, slumped back and rolled over. I tried a more aggressive approach, threatening to douse him with buckets of seawater but met with a similar result.

The boat sloshed sickeningly onwards. We abused Tommy from the cockpit, related stories of seasick young girls who had taken their turn at the wheel on Atlantic crossings, threatened to drag him out of bed and lash him to the wheel, but all Tommy did was groan.

A few hours later as we lurched across a star freckled sea, a loud and ominous splashing noise came from below. I looked quizzically at Roger….he looked quizzically at me – each daring the other to investigate. He lost – it was his boat after all – and disappeared down the hatch. Minutes later his head reappeared….'looks like we’re sinking, mate,' he said.

This bald assessment of our situation was greeted by a series of wailing noises from the cabin where Tommy lay, but he must have quickly reconciled himself to meeting his fate because he didn’t stir from the bunk.

Roger launched into a feverish bout of activity and found an open through hull fitting we hadn’t noticed, high on the hull behind some smashed joinery, which was swallowing a prodigious amount of seawater every time we lollopped over a wave. We tacked the yacht to put it on the high side, stuffed a rag in the hole, and took turns pumping the water out. Tommy slept.

Hours later we raised the peak of Saba (pronounced Sayber), the steep volcanic pinnacle that rises from the seafloor south of St Maarten. Tommy’s tousled and haggard head appeared in the hatchway. 'What island is that?' he asked. 'St Croix mate,' Roger replied, quick as a flash. A pitiful look of abject despair slunk over Tommy’s face as he moaned and slunk back to bed.

Just on dusk we sailed into Groot Baie, St Maarten, rounded up into the wind, dropped the anchor and cadged a ride ashore with yachties from a nearby cruising yacht. Tommy stayed aboard and the next day he was gone, thought it was obvious he still hadn’t learned how to operate the toilet.

Roger renamed his boat Carawak and moved her into the marina to begin the long refit that would transform her into his cruising home. A month later, as he bent over the shiny new diesel engine, a shapely young lady in a barely adequate bikini sauntered down the dock and stopped to talk. 'Did this boat used to be in Tortola?' she asked. Roger nodded. 'That’s right,' she said, ' that’s where I’m from. I know the guy who skippered it up here – Tommy - he said it was really rough – his crew were seasick the whole way.'