Storytime: Bermuda

— It was deep into a cold fall in Connecticut when Greg and Mel decided to cast off the docklines and set out for warmer climes. A bad weather system had just passed through, and Captain Greg spent hours poring over multicolored weather maps and squiggly lines that were just as pretty as the fading fall colors. “We have a small window to get out of here and make Bermuda!”, he said, “With the help of the Gulf Stream, we could outrun the next wave of bad weather that will pop up in a few days.”

The word “outrun” should have given Mel pause, but her brain was frozen.

And so on a crisp fall morning, their catamaran The Intrepid Jerry set off through Long Island Sound and into the North Atlantic, a particularly powerful sea.

They had about 12 hours of good sailing before the winds and waves picked up. Dinner plans morphed into microwaved hotdogs and ginger ale. The cat moved from the saloon to a shoe cubby under the bed. They attached their lifevest tethers and donned their foulie pants. The watch schedule was modified with shorter shifts to account for the mental energy spent monitoring the changing weather.  Someone was always at the helm, occasionally helping the autopilot with some weather helm that would kick in at the crest of the big waves, even if all they had was a jib out. They progressively reefed and then put the mainsail to bed.  But they were coping well, as they had seen 30 knots and 10 foot waves before.

But as the boat bouncily flew through outer space at 8.5 knots on that first moonless night, Mel’s stomach clenched with dread, as she knew a few certain uninvited guests were bound to arrive at any moment.

Ahoy, Mr. Breakage!  (Not his actual name. Actual name censored, for the children. Actual name: Mr. Fuckery.)

Mr. Breakage arrived with much cacophony, as usual. First, he admired his previous work, in which he broke the annoyingly bespoke Italian sliding door latch to the back cockpit, producing very satisfying bangs whenever the seas kicked up and the crew’s jury-rigged closure mechanism broke free.  Then he got to work.  First, he broke a car of the mainsail, found when reefing. Then, he broke the screw that locks the helm.  To complete his helm calamity, he made the wheel shudder and snap with each big wave, presumably due to slippage of the autopilot servo motor.

Mr. Breakage was so busy, he was unable to welcome the next guest on the boat, Mr. Lurch. (Not his actual name. Actual name: Mr. Shitshow.)

Now Mr. Lurch is a bit of a bully, and he likes to push boats around with his wind and waves.  He also gets bored easily, and so the wind he makes is often gusty, and the waves he makes can come from three different directions. He is especially fond of something called “Beam Seas.” He likes to lure a boat into a state of relaxation, called “running downwind”, and then smack them upside the head with a Beam Sea. How he howled with delight through the shrouds as Jerry rocked side to side after each smack and Mel emptied buckets of water out of her boat shoes! Two or three days into the trip, Mr. Lurch preferred to keep the wind steady between 38 and 43 knots, throwing in a blow up to 50 knots or so every 15-30 minutes.

Mr. Breakage was not to be outdone at this point and decided to increase the calamity by ripping the zipper of Jerry’s enclosure, allowing the Beam Seas and 45-knot needle-like raindrops to drench Greg and Mel even more. Mel started to align her sopping wet socks in a little parade under the cockpit table.

The howling of the wind and the lurching of the boat drove the crew crazy, and so they decided to combat the exhausting pounding from the waves by stopping the boat in the water by deploying their para-anchor off their bow.  This parachute creates vortices that suck the power from the upwind waves. The para-anchor worked so beautifully at deflecting Mr. Lurch’s favorite big waves that he became enraged, increasing the wind up to 56 knots, packing the waves closer together, and snapping one of the ropes holding the anchor to the boat. 

Cue Mr. Breakage, who always appears when lines are in the water. After a series of events, Jerry found himself with a fouled starboard engine prop.

After enjoying the 12 hours of rest the para-anchor brought them, Greg and Mel decided to heave-to. With his rudder lashed to starboard and the jibsheet secured to port, Jerry bobbed in the ocean, going no faster than 1.5 kts, holding a wind angle of 60 degrees starboard.  Captain Greg realized that Jerry, with his big, pointy and yet fat hulls, was essentially his own para-anchor when hove-to, with wave-canceling vortices probably swirling all around him.  Well, darn it! Heaving-to is cheaper!

Meanwhile, Mr. Breakage continued to add to the list of “Boat Things to Fix” by disabling the port engine’s alternator.

Finally, Mr. Lurch became bored. He shrunk his waves by a few feet, tapered the wind down to 20 knots, and left. The crew rolled out a reefed jib, kept the broken mainsail tucked away, and ended up motorsailing close-hauled to Bermuda.  Mel chuckled to herself, as she knew Mr. Breakage would have a harder time making trouble without Mr. Lurch around.

Land ho! As Jerry happily motored into the channel to Saint George’s Harbor, the “Maritime Sick Bay of the North Atlantic”, Mel and Greg giddily stared at the clear, aquamarine waters overlooked by rows of pastel party mints for houses.  They weren’t in Connecticut anymore!  Could it be true? Did a tornado of saltwater plop their home down in a magical fairyland?  After their yellow Q-flag was hoisted, Mel was startled by a weird sensation – were her armpits also crying tears of joy?

No darling, that was sweat.  Lo and behold, above them hung a sun returning from its five-day vacation, peeking out between deeply apologetic white fluffy clouds. The crew whipped off their crunchy foulies, piling them atop the sticky laundry volcano they began constructing back when The Captain thought it would be okay to leave the master berth hatch open in a gale because he was starting to get hot.  As she managed the helm and Greg went forward to drop the anchor, the knot between Mel’s shoulders relaxed as she imagined the epic nap she was about to take.

“Wait, what?” she found herself sleepily saying into her headset just moments later, after she lost sight of Greg as he bent over the anchor locker. “We have to get a mooring!” Greg said. 

Guess who was not done with them yet? Mr. Breakage. The windlass had no power.

At this point the Bermudan Coast Guard found their big ol’ hobbled catamaran intriguing.  And so it was with an audience of five Coasties that exhausted Mel and Greg secured Jerry to an old Navy mooring. This took a while, as tired Mel still had a little raw trauma regarding bowlines, and she was re-learning on the spot how to maneuver a Leopard 48 with only one engine. (Mel never fully understood the layout of the hospital she worked in for seven years, taking lefts when she should rights, and so you can imagine how successful she was at compensating for propwalk with Jerry’s remaining engine…)  With the dinghy, something called a “D-Ring”, and yet again more line, Greg secured Jerry to his new best friend, which the crew later dubbed “Rusty”. As the Coasties searched their boat for contraband, the closest thing being the Chia seeds Mel optimistically bought to make protein balls that never materialized, Mel lay on the floor in a position that did not aggravate all of her bruises, processing, feeling deliriously grateful for being in Bermuda with her husband, her cat, and all 12 limbs aboard intact.

“Well, that sucked,” she thought, “But it’s soooo much better than appealing insurance denials.”

The End.