Delight to Disaster - a cruising story from Mima

by Mark Wheeler on 6 Jul 2008 How quickly can delight turn to potential disaster. Mark and Sue Wheeler were cruising in the Gulf of Mexico on their yacht Mima with their two children, Amy and Marshall, when the following incident occurred recently.

Sailing as a cruising family, complete with home schooling, they had already had some wonderful experiences, but could never have guessed the potential disaster looming while on a visit to some islands they expected to be idyllic – coral reefs to explore, and thousands of birds.

As cruising sailors, we can all take a lesson from the story, which Mark vividly recounts:


After a fast and furious sail we arrived in a group of Islands known as Banco Vivorillo. Located off the northeast coast of Honduras, this small group of islands and surrounding coral reefs are home to thousands of birds and visited only occasionally by people.

We had heard much about these islands and the wonderful abundance of sea life and we were glad to be here and anchored.

The morning following our arrival, when finished with her school work, Amy asked if I would take her to the islands to photograph some of the birds and check out our new island home. I was glad to oblige her and off we went. For the next two hours we photographed and explored two of the three islands.

It was a thrill to watch Amy get excited about the birds and photograph them. We compared the size, composition and location of the various nests as well as the size, color and number of eggs per nest. We just had a great time the two of us marveling at God’s creation.

With two islands down there was just one left to explore. Off we went to check out the western most island. As we approached this mound of coral rubble with a few low lying bushes masquerading as an island I knew we were in for a treat. We were greeted by 4 Masked Boobies all lined up waiting to be photographed. We hurriedly pulled the dingy up on shore and for the next hour took literally hundreds of photographs of Brown and Masked Boobies and Magnificent Frigatebirds.

All my life I have read of explorers and adventurers that upon discovering new lands also discovered local fauna with no fear of man. I have dreamed of being in a place just like this for decades. We walked freely among adults and young and seemed to be nothing more than a curiosity to them. As Amy and I walked around the bottom end of the island I was keenly aware that a lifetime dream had just been realized.

As I raised my head from the birds and looked out to sea my dream in a moment was turned into a nightmare. Two hundred yards off the shore I could see our dinghy floating out into the ocean. In our haste to see the birds we had not tied off the dinghy and as the tide rose it had been carried away.

I immediately made for the water and began to swim. As I began to swim I consciously told myself to settle down, breath smoothly and settle into a groove. Having done a few distance swims and run a couple of marathons I knew this would be a marathon swim but continued to crawl toward the dinghy. As the minutes went by and I continued to swim I felt that I was not making any progress toward the dinghy as it was moving too. I began to realize that I had a choice, return to shore or go for the dinghy. If I swam much further I was afraid I would not be able to make it back. I was tired and I knew from our charts and could feel in the water a strong current. I finally decided that today was not a good day to drown and return to shore, exhausted.

As Amy and I stood watching the dinghy on the horizon we placed three sticks in line pointing to our last sighting of the dinghy and worked our way around the island. Once on the other side we were still about two miles away from Susan and Marshall onboard Mima. We found the remnants of an old tarp and made a flag and began to wave it hoping they would see and come investigate. Two hours later and still waving the reality of nightfall was settling in and I decided I needed to act.

I gave Amy a kiss and promised her that I would return and made her promise me that she would not try to leave the island herself under any circumstance. I set off walking across the barrier reef to try and get as close as possible before I began to swim. I should point out here that I had no shoes and although I have swam a mile twice before this was a lot further. To my surprise I was able to walk well over a mile on the reef before I began my swim. I should also mention that it was Amy’s idea to walk on the reef to get closer to the boat and end up more down current. What a smart girl she is.

As I got closer Susan realized something was wrong and heard me yelling help. I was hoping she would pull anchor and close the distance to reduce my length of swim and then we would go get Amy. As I swam and swam and Sue stood there watching I was furious. Why aren’t people helping? She got in the water and began to swim toward me with my fins. Upon reaching me I asked why she had not come to get me and she informed me that once again the engine would not start. Let me tell you it was like someone stuck a knife in me. My little girl is all alone on the island and I am so tired of fixing this boat. I put on the fins and got to the boat as quick as possible.

Still no luck starting the motor and we were busy talking about what we should do. There were no other boats around to help and we tried the VHF radio to see if we could contact a boat we knew was on their way towards us earlier that day, all to no avail. So Susan packed a dry bag with water, granola bars, portable VHF radio, flashlight, snorkel gear and some clothes and got in the water with a boogie board to swim back to towards the reef to walk to Amy. Our plan was for her to get to Amy and then walk together across the reef again and swim to the boat. I did not think I could do it again and I had to figure out the motor.

I was able to get the motor running by the time Sue got to the reef to begin her walk across, with shoes, to Amy. She assured me via the portable VHF radio she was alright so I said I was going to run and see if we could find the dinghy and then get back to her and Amy. This entire time I could see Amy through the binoculars waving our flag just as she had been told. Quite the girl. I wondered what she must have been thinking seeing Mima motor away from her since she probably couldn’t see Sue on the reef walking towards her yet.

Marshall and I made a beeline for the far side of the island and with the three sticks lined up (the ones Amy and I had set up) off our stern we were pointing due West, 270 degrees. We put the hammer down on Mima with Marshall at the helm manning the autopilot and monitoring the engine. I grabbed my binoculars and climbed the mast to the first spreader. I knew that at 8 knots we would close the distance fairly fast, but would we be able to see the dinghy? We had less than an hour of light left.

We stayed on course and as the minutes passed I began to doubt we would find it. As I was beginning to calculate how many more minutes we would continue before turning back to get the girls before dark something on the horizon caught my eye. It couldn’t be, but as I watched through the binoculars I was able to get a compass heading of, you guessed it, 270 degrees.

Within a couple of minutes I confirmed that what I thought was a just an abnormality in the water’s surface was our dinghy. We came alongside 10 minutes later and retrieved the dry bag from the dinghy and tied her up and we were off, back to get the girls. The dry bag contained my Zeiss binoculars, digital telephoto equipment and Amy’s camera gear, which along with a new din