The Second Leg of NARC Rally
By David H. Lyman
This story has not been published, yet.
But, it completes the 2021 NARC Rally story aboard
Schatz Sea. Read Part One else where on this site.
It’s Sunday, November 14, 2021
It's a rather foreboding overcast morning as we dropped the lines, leave the protection of St. George’s Harbour, and venture out into the open Atlantic. We were the last of the NARC Rally boats to escape Bermuda. The dark clouds from yesterday’s storm, forecast to depart with us, promised a better day, but later.
Gregg steers Schatz Sea out through Town Cut into the Atlantic and as we turn left at the Spit Bouy, to be met with a raw SSW breeze at 12 knots with a nasty swell left over from the storm. Gregg and I both popped a Sturegon pill. The main and working jib are unrolled and we head SE, motor sailing 6 knots. By1 pm the wind is now more SW, 10 knots. The swells have diminished. Bermuda has dropped below the horizon, fishing lines deployed and the watch schedule set. We are motor sailing.
It’s 860 nm to the Dutch side of Sint Marrten. At 7 knots, that’s 5 days, but before turning south and heading for the islands, we have to get a bit further East. The waypoint I always head for is 30/60, (that’s 30 degrees North by 60 degrees West). It’s over 200 miles down range, and I’ve seldom reach it, but it’s a good point to aim for. Getting east before turning due South means we’ll have the SE Trade Winds on our beam when he head back into the islands.
We have new crew aboard, Nichol, Dan’s lady friend flew in to join us. She’s a thin, chatty ball of energy, a welcome addition. She and Dan prepare dinner: tuna, rice and string beans. As dusk falls, Katrin and Gregg roll in the main. It’ll not be needed for a few days. The wind is light.
There have been few voyages on this trip south of Bermuda were I’ve sailed the whole way. A large high pressure cell, with no wind, seems to sits here, permanently. One year, a NARC boat ran out of fuel and drinking water, half way down. They call me on Satphone and as I was a day behind them, I agreed to see what I could do. I found them at midnight, rolling in lazy swells, becalmed. I sent over 4 of my spare jerry cans of desiel, ten gallons of water, and a freshly caught Mahi-Mahi. Another yacht that year hailed a passing cruise ship and talked them out of fuel, cake and champaign.
Monday morning, 6 am, I come on watch to find a 6 knot breeze over the deck. Then I realize, it’s relative wind, us passing through stagnant air at 6 Knots. Gregg, whom I relieve, tells me he saw lightening off to starboard. Radar on the chart-plotter shows a rain shower embedded in a wall of dark gray ahead, clear sky astern,.
Seas much calmer. By 8 am it’s pouring rain. We’ve run into the rear end of the stalled weekend storm. By 10 am, I’m hungry. I peel an orange.
That afternoon, Dan catches a 10 pound Mahi-Mahi on his hand line. Half goes into the freezer, the other half is dinner. The sun comes out and the crew has settled in. Conversations in the cockpit turn television trivia, movie characters, old cars we’ve owned, boats we’ve owned or sailed, now we met our wives. “Who is cooking dinner?” Someone asks. “Whose watch is it next?”
There has been very little discussion about politics. Perhaps we’re just tired of US politics. Behind us, clouds are building, another front moves south of BM. It will overtake us later tonite.
For three days we head southeast then south, motoring. Watches stood, meals prepared, fish caught, books read. Calm and sunny days. No wind. The flat, undulating sea occasionally ruffled by a cat’s pawl. Lazy swells from the SE roll under, barely noticed. Puffy clouds around. Shade under the dodger and Bimini is precious territory. Sea weed beginning to bother the fishing lines. Very nice days.
This time tomorrow we should be halfway, 430 miles.
On these long deliveries, the days tend to blur. It’s hard to separate them when looking back. The log book is good for that, but it’s mostly numbers with just a few words “Fish caught.” As a writer I have always kept a journal, more than a log book. What I most want to capture during these voyages, besides the events of each specific day, is how I felt, what I observed, what insight into my being here can I record. A lot of this story comes from those note. During my late night watches, when I’m alone in the cockpit, just me and my thoughts, I now use my iPhone to capture each day, both in words and photographs. I’ve not brought out my big DSLR camera since leaving. My new iPhone 12 is camera enough.
I’ve found it useful to mark the events, change of watch, squall, fish caught with a dot or push-pin on my Navonics app. Another record to look back at. Before chart plotters, before GPS, AIS, it was the sun, a watch, my sextant, the nautical almanac, and a paper chart. XXX 101.
This chart shows the entire Western North Atlantic, the East coast of the US and the northern Caribbean. I’d plot fixed every 6 hours, add notes of wind and sea state, cloud cover and draw pictures of ships passed, fish caught, squalls and rain. I have 20 of these graphic journals at home in Maine.
The sails of Schooner Juno poke above the horizon behind. Dan hails their skipper on VHF 13. They know each other. So, we’re not alone out here.
By the evening of our fourth day out of Bermuda, at 24°26’ we’ve reached the northern edge of the Trade Winds. The breeze has been teasing us all afternoon, but now it’s time to get the sails back up. Full main and genoa are deployed and Schatz Sea begins to move on her own. With the engine off, the silence is deafening.
But with the Trades come towering rain cells. We’ve enter a region of unsettled tropical weather. A string of these cells, can be seen miles away, shafts of gray rain streaming down from the towering clouds. Radar shows them marching westward across our course. Most skirt around us, but when we do get trapped, the wind increased suddenly to 25 to 30 knots, the crew scrambles to roll in half the woking jib and slack the main, spilling the gusts. The boat heels over, the knot meter jumps from 7 to 9 knots, rain pours down. These only lasts a few minutes before we are back to Trade Wind sailing.
It’s Friday afternoon. We’ll we in Sint Marrten tomorrow morning. Our last full day at sea. I’m alone in the cockpit, on watch, everyone else is below watching some tv series on their respective screens The squalls are far behind us now. Winds 15 knots, steady, working jib and full main and we’re doing better than 7 knots on a beam reach. White fair weather pop-corn clouds line the horizon,
I’m content, even happy, to be here aboard this boat, watching the swell roll under, listening to the swish-swish of the sea along the hull realizing we, the human race, are blessed to be here to experience life in this place on the universe. If more people realized the unique nature of this planet and the life on it, they’d take better care of this planet snd each other.
Dinner is fish, coldslaw and fried potatoes and onions. The moon replaces the sun. The watch changes. I’m on. Warm night, gentler sea clear sky and full moon.
48 mikes to Dog Island. Then another 20 miles to the bridge.
I don’t want to let go of this night. I’ll be my last for who knows how long. I remain on deck throughout the night.
We slip past Dog Island unseen. The lights of Anguilla to port. As we round the west end, the wind picks up a little, the sea calm in the lee of the islands. Still sailing at 6 knots.
My iPhone lights up. Specrtrum Mobile is welcoming me back into the world of megabytes! Calls are a cent a min. Texts are 2 cents each. If you need to turn on data roaming it’s 3 cents a megabyte, (or $30 a gigabyte) call +17047313001
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4:44 AM
We drop the hook off what looks like Los Vegas. The shoreline is festooned with lighted high rise condos, hotels, casinos, beach front resorts. When not 10 hours ago there was nothing around us by an open sea and a vast sky above. The Wilderness replaced by commercialism.
The boat is still, the engine off. The woosh-woosh of the bow wave as it swirls along the hull to meet the boat’s wake, now quiet. Champaign coke popped, toasts made, couple separate to share their private arrival. A Mega yacht, ablaze with lights to port, a cruise ship over there, a catamaran just ahead, all waiting to be admitted to the yachting center of the Caribbean at the 9:30 bridge raising.
I sit in the cockpit., alone and pick away at my iPhone, trying to put down in words what this voyage has shown me.
I’d rather be out there, I write. Yesterday was a perfect day. Wind E over the beam at 12 to 15, seas moderate, sailing at 6 knots. Nothing around us but a saucer of deep blue sea and a dome of lighter blue blue above, a few popcorn clouds float by overhead, a small wave slaps the bow as we ride up and down on gentle easterly swells. No phones, no news, no worries. Wished I was out there still.
Perhaps I will be. I’ll find a boat heading back north in the spring. That’s what I’ll do.
And I did, but that’s another story to be told.
My Log on the Navionics App on my iPhone. It keeps track of each voyage. The small dots indicate entry points from this trip (fall 2021). The larger push-pins to the right are from a delivery I make in 2019 on The Dove. The push-pins to the left are from a delivery my daughter and I made last spring (2022) on Oasis, a Tayana 48.
Schatz Sea, the Southerly 54 at rest in Sint Marrtin.
