There to here

Sunrise leaving Great Harbour Cay for the crossing

“Department of Homeland Security”...that name has always seemed like “1984” speak to me; something some addle brained bumbler came up with to try and assure other addle brained bumblers that he was in command and doing something useful. It is hard to say if the actual organization is less “Big Brother-ish” than the name implies, or if it is more. In any case the Miami office gave me 24 hours to check in after we got back to the States. I got a new passport since they had issued my local boater card (also called the SVRS - small vessel reporting system) which, somehow, made me a security risk again. So I dragged my weary bones out of the berth the morning after a 35 hour, 140 nm passage, caught the mooring field shuttle, took a couple of different buses over to the Port of Miami, walked up the stairs to the office, and handed The Man my new passport and my old local boater card.

Sailing the first 18 hours of the crossing

He poked around in the computer at his desk, which is likely linked up with every other government computer in the world, along with the computers that my bank, phone, and Internet providers use. And, if someone so chose, I am sure that at least some of those government computers can look at everything on my personal computer. I guess he added some kind of comment to my file about me having handed him my new passport (which they obviously knew they had issued to me) and my old local boater card (which – equally obviously – they knew they had issued to me). Then he handed them back to me and sent me on my merry way.

What I thought odd was that The Man, like everyone behind the bullet proof glass, was dressed in the full black ninja outfit, combat boots, and with a very serious looking weapon strapped to his hip. He, and his compatriots, were obviously very serious people, warriors, those not to messed with; the ones who appear out of the night, breach the barriers, kick the asses and take the names. Since we are constantly told just how deep is the danger we are all in, how close the bad guys always are, one would think the Department of Homeland Security could find some capable clerks to poke around in the computers and make the notes, and let the warriors go about their warring.

Then again, maybe the Department of Homeland Security dresses their capable clerks up like ninjas and lets them carry guns because someone has to look the part. The real warriors, the ones who do the actual ass kicking and name taking, likely don't dress the part. Instead they wear the same kinds of clothes the bad guys wear, carry the same kinds of guns, get the same kind of haircuts, and lurk in the dark places the bad guys lurk. They pick up the rumors, run down the hints, and search though the murk to figure out what the bad guys are planning. They board the ships that need be boarded and force open the shipping containers that need to be inspected. They follow the money, listen in on the suspected phones, rummage through the suspected computers, and stalk the dark recesses of the web and the world.

It almost has to be that way because making a middle aged white guy, who has already signed on for a background check, drop by the office just because he got a new passport is a waste of everyone's time. If the powers that be actually regarded that as some kind of real security the bad guys would have taken over the place a long time ago.

I say “almost” because, well, it might all be a bit of a sham. How else would they pry literally trillions of dollars out of our collective pockets to pay for “security” while under-funding virtually every social program in the country? Americans are generally pretty good folks. We wouldn't normally let kids go hungry, sacrifice our own kid's education, close down research into weather and physics and space, trash the environment, and condemn veterans to homelessness and poverty. Normally. But where the money goes that we would have spent on those things, other than buying ninja suits and serious looking guns, is secret. Most of what they say they do is also a big secret. I know that the Congress and the Senate are supposed to serve us by keeping an eye on such things, but when was the last time any Congressman or Senator did anything in the public's interest? I guess your view of the sham percentage in all of this rests on just how much you trust the Congressmen and Senators to do the right thing.

Sunset the end of the first day

The 35 hours, 140 nm passage from Great Harbor to Dinner Key went pretty well, if an average speed of four knots can be described as doing well. Truth to tell, having Miami in sight for more than 6 hours before finally dropping the hook was starting to get on my nerves. We were doing barely three knots at that point, the Beast struggling to push us against the Gulf Stream. We had a small problem rolling up the jib again and, again, that was an 0300 in dark, dark, morning thing. Even though we were pulling it in because the winds had died away to near nothing, it still rolled in up funky. While trying to fix it later the furling line got all snagged up, again.

So, on the way home from the DHS we stopped by West Marine and dropped about $200 on new blocks. Back at the boat we rearranged the furling line run and added the new hardware. We also noticed that the spare jib halyard, the one we have hauling around aloft for four years without ever using it for anything, lay really close to furling block at the top of the sail, and that it could easily hang up the whole operation. Since we have the spinnaker halyard for hauling the Ding and the anchor (if necessary) there seemed no good reason to leave that potential problem hanging up there.

So this morning I dropped it, only it didn't drop the whole way. The end, in free fall from the top of the mast, somehow managed to tie itself around the upper spreader as it fell. And I mean tie, as in an honest knot, not just snag as one might guess. How that happened is beyond me, except that Kintala still hates me on some days. And, some days, I hate her right back. Fortunately we picked this morning to move from the rolling, pitching, ugliness that is the Dinner Key mooring field in a southeast wind, to the serenity and quiet waters deep inside No Name Harbor. Untangling the wayward halyard was an easy, 10 minute foray aloft on a boat sitting as still as could be.

Land Ho! Miami on the horizon

After that, the deck was secured and the Ding went overboard. We need water, a bit of food, one LPG tank filled, and a good night's rest or two before heading south once again. From anchored off Great Harbor Cay to the weekend party that is No Name Harbor...sometimes we go pretty slow, but it is hardly ever dull.

No-Name Harbor, Kintala front and center

The lineup of boats waiting to depart for the States in the morning

Our neighbor in the anchorage at Great Harbour Cay

The last of the pretty turquoise water pictures for a few months. Stay tuned for more!

The Winds of Change

We are waiting out a minor blow anchored on the west side of Great Harbor Cay. As I type, the cold front is just overhead, big fat drops of rain are bouncing off the deck, and the wind is moaning through the rigging with gusts estimated in the 25 to 30 knot range. Since the bulk of Great Harbor Cay lies between us and the wind, it is a pretty stable ride. It is what we expected, though this whole weather set-up is a little odd. This cold front is the leading edge of a high pressure area passing to the north, so all of the associated winds have been from the north and east.

This would be an ugly place to be if the incoming weather was the more common, cold front related to a low pressure area moving in from the west. If that were the case, one would expect significant west winds and the chance of even higher gusts in possible thunderstorms and down bursts. If there was any real possibility of sustained west winds over the next few days Kintala would be sitting at a dock at Great Harbor Marina, in spite of the $2 / foot / night fee.

Instead, we are tucked up close to a windward shore so it should be comfortable enough. The Mantus anchor is sunk deep into the bottom, only its hoop showing, with 80+ feet of chain laid down. (I love being in clear water. There is a certain amount of comfort to be found when one can look at the anchor and see how well it is set.)

There are at least eight other boats anchored around us. The assumption is that they have made the same assumptions about the weather that we have. It is always reassuring when a bunch of boats anchor up around you when weather is inbound. It isn't a matter of having any control over what the weather is doing, only an indication that one has chosen wisely in response to the motions of sky and ocean.

That is close to the bottom line of what it means to be a cruiser. The only thing we really control is how we respond to completely indifferent winds and seas. There is no malevolence involved. There is no benevolence involved. This bit of ocean and island were here millions of years before the first human sailboat dropped a hook nearby to hide from an east wind. They will likely be around millions of years after the constituent molecules of the last human sailboat (or the last human for that matter) have dissolved back into the water, air, and earth.

After this weather passes, Kintala will be headed west once again, sailing into the waters of the US within just a couple of weeks. By that time I suspect I will have started checking the news again, at least once in a while. I don't expect there to be anything new since the last time I looked. Word of anything major, say the current POTUS acting like a rational, adult human being, would have certainly trickled down to us somehow.

The feeling among all of the people we have chatted with in the Islands, and most of the cruisers we have run across (including one from the great dysfunctional state of Texas) is that the current administration is a kind of monstrous anomaly. “How could this have happened?” being a common refrain. It is not a view I happen to share.

The current administration may be a particularly crass and clownish expression of American politics, but it is still consistent with much of American mythology and ideology. Both political parties see consumerism as a valid economic policy. Both see crony capitalism, deeply influenced by corruption and influence peddling, as a perfectly acceptable means of managing a nation. The Republican partly and the controlling wing of the Democratic party both act as if running a nation as a business is the only proper approach to government.

With that idea, our government works based on the view that most Americans (and virtually every other human being on the planet) are nothing more than a resource to be ruthlessly exploited for the benefit of the few. Benefits like healthcare, education, clean water, and retirement income, are exclusively for those who rule, rewards for clutching the levers of corporate or political power. The current administration is particularly adept at highlighting this belief, making even the deranged kings and sociopathic potentates of by-gone ages look like humble and caring public servants.
The crony capitalism of America doesn't work anymore. Corruption is rapidly undermining any legitimacy government claims for itself. Even “normal” capitalism doesn't work when most of a nation's labor is automated. Put millions of truck drivers out of a job, have the vast majority of their wages concentrated in the hands of the individual who invented the auto-truck, and repeat for clerks, accountants, doctors, factory workers, technical advisers...incomes once distributed over millions upon millions of households now concentrated in the hands of a few. Capitalism is being twisted into outright oppression before our very eyes, and many of us are victims. But such a corrupted capitalism serves the purposes of an insular and fossilized government/corporate elite quite well. They could choose a different path, but it would mean surrendering power and treasure. Neither of which they will be inclined to do, at least, not of their own volition.

War does not work as war once did. Nearly every war since WWII has been an open-ended conflict, resolving nothing, settling nothing, defeating no one, just sort of petering out leaving open wounds that soon fester into some new war. Yet war is now American government's single most defining characteristic. In America, spending on human issues is curtailed in order to fund the war machine. Threatening war is the only diplomatic policy, engaging in war the last throw of the dice to keep a faltering economic system barely functioning.

In spite of decades of continuous failures both parties continue to subscribe to the politics of capitalism, imperialism, authoritarianism, and militarism. Everyone in government insists that what is good for them is good for the rest of the world, that what is good for (some) Americans is good for all of humanity.

Those illusions, those policies, are at the root of American's fading from the leading edge of history, its loss of place in the family of nations. But anyone who dares suggest such a thing, particularly on a national stage, is instantly and relentlessly attacked by the most efficient and effective propaganda machine the world has ever seen. Anyone who refuses to toe the line of “American Exceptionalism” finds it nearly impossible to get elected to the office of Dog Catcher of Podunksville, Boondocks; let alone any national office. There are a very, very few exceptions. Party wonks and corporate media ensure that they are feeble voices echoing in mostly empty rooms.

Only a radical change of world view, a near complete rejection of the politics that have ruled America for the past half century or more, will mark any chance of the US once again being on the leading edge of progress toward a future that holds some promise. An American government that sees itself as one part of a complex web of human interaction, that values wisdom and understanding, and knows that compromise and capitulation are not the same thing, could help fulfill such promise. It would also be the only approach that would help the nation safely navigate the changes of a radically evolving, global human society. For, whatever is around the corner, none of the economic, political, or militaristic forms of the past will suffice.

That radical evolution, much like the movement of the sky and the sea, is beyond the influence of any single nation, and certainly any individual. In a way it, also, is neither malevolent nor benevolent. It is simply the way things are unfolding in this tiny corner of the universe, like a incoming cold front or a building high pressure area. Navigating safely through takes accepting that such an evolution is inevitable, and making wise choices in response. This is not to say that governments, including that of the US at the moment, can't be malevolent. Only that the overall evolution of human kind is ongoing with no particular guidance other than what we provide for ourselves.

Completely fading from the picture, as a nation, is also an option - just like any individual sailor could chose to anchor on the other side of the cay, close to a lee shore, and risk loosing everything should the anchor slip in the dark hours of the night. The earth, like the rest of the cosmos, is utterly indifferent to the existence of the entire human family, let alone any single group living inside a set of contrived and temporary boarders, walls notwithstanding. Should we make the unfortunate choices that land us on the rocks, the rest of the cosmos will not even shrug.

Clearly American government isn't up to the challenge of making wise choices at the moment. Maybe it never will be again. Maybe, after years of self-indulgent hubris, arrogance, and self-imposed ignorance, America's political machine is too badly broken to be repaired. That is also just a part of the unfolding world that is beyond the influence of any individual. Something each of us needs to take into account as we make our own, personal, choices.

 The cut into the Great Harbour Cay Marina

 Very cool retro loaner bikes from the marina

Love this Tings Necessary sign

 The calm before the storm

 The Beach Club restaurant on one of the prettiest beaches in GHC

 The view from the Beach Club Restaurant table

The channel into GHC Marina is in the background

 Top of the cliff at the caves

Not a very good picture, but this is the first hamburger bean I've ever found after looking for 4 years

Videos

We're in a marina for a night and they actually have fast enough wifi to upload some videos, so enjoy!

Lonely Places

“What the hell am I doing?”

I don't have that thought often, never had it back when I made a living in the sky. Even if I had back then, no Pilot in Command has ever expressed such a feeling out loud while performing the duties of his or her trade. But, half way between the west cost of Abaco Island and Great Harbor Cay, at 2300 on a pitch black night, and out on the bow of a sailboat pitching and rolling in five foot hissing seas, there is no one around to hear such an admission of doubt.

What I was doing was trying to get the jib on deck without dropping a sheet off the heaving boat to get tangled in the prop. That would have been a sure way to make a bad night even worse. There was a better than even chance that the entire sail was about to end up in the water to get tangled in the prop. That would have been an even surer way to make a bad night worse. The surest way to make the night the worst one possible would have been to end up tangled in the sail and join it the water myself which, at the moment of the expletive quoted above was uttered, seemed the most likely outcome. For, at that moment, the boat had rolled hard to starboard, I was sliding off the Ding toward the water, jib halyard trying its best to break my left wrist while I tried to gather in the falling sail with my right arm. Compared to me at that moment, a one legged man in an ass kicking contest would be a potent and capable adversary.

Sunrise leaving Lynard Cay

I have been in a lot of lonely places - a late night solo motorcycle run along the south rim of the Grand Canyon on Route 40 in Arizona, sitting in the single seat of a show plane over a desolate part of Canada while thunderstorms pushed me toward the tops of the pine trees, trying to nurse a King Air back to a cloud-shrouded runway with one engine running and the other locked up with a prop that wouldn't feather - places where there was no one around to help and no opinion but my own that mattered. I can now add the foredeck of Kintala headed to the Berry Islands to that list. (It is, by the way, a very long list. I am sometimes amazed I lived long enough to try this cruising thing.)

We were not supposed to be there. The plan had been to leave Lynyard Cay for a long day sail to the southwest side of Abaco Island. There we would anchor up for the night, making Great Harbor the next day. The first part worked out okay. We left Lynyard at dawn and motored through the cut out into the open Atlantic amid a small group of other, like-minded sailors. Winds were out of the NE with waves of four feet on a five second period. Ugly for anyone headed upwind but not bad for anyone headed the other way. With two reefs in the main and the jib flying, Kintala often showed better than 6 knots for much of the day.

With daylight to spare, we swung around the south point of Abaco island and closed on the anchorage. There was a disagreement between the Navionics and Garmin charts as to there being enough water for our 5 foot draft. The water itself didn't look promising and Deb just wouldn't go in there as an experiment. I halfheartedly disagreed. A pilot who refuses to trust published charts is useless and, likely, soon to be departing this earthly realm. (Much, it is assumed, to the disappointment of his passengers.) But the fact was the water really did look shallow, and I wasn't interested in risking everything I own in this world on Navionics' insistence that the water was deep enough being correct while Garmin told a different story. And before anyone lauds the fact that Garmin is better in the Bahamas since it is base on the Explorer charts, our experience has shown that, in fact, Navionics is actually the more accurate one. The fact that I can't trust published charts is a part of the marine world that just drives me bonkers. I would make a bet that the US military knows the depth of the water world wide to within a few inches but, somehow, that information is too sensitive to share. Which also drives me bonkers.

With no other good option showing itself on the charts, and several hours of daylight left with which to make some hay, we decided to keep going toward Great Harbor. It was an impromptu “all night sail” decision, some of which have worked out okay for us...and some of which have decidedly not. The worst sail we have had since leaving on Kintala occurred in this same area our first year out. But out of options is out of options. Onward.

At first all was well. Sailing far off the wind on just the jib, Kintala was hauling the mail. There were times when the boat speed nearly touched 9 knots, though the GPS showed a more reasonable 7+. Which is still hauling the mail on a night run with the waves hissing by and the boat rolling 50 degrees or so. Deb had the wind vane working and was keeping the watch. I was on the cockpit floor trying to stay warm and hoping to get a little sleep before taking over.

Cruise ship traffic complicated navigation a bit. As far off the wind as we were sailing, and the speed at which we were going, narrowed the compass headings we could safely hold. Several of the light-flooded behemoths (I think there were seven in total) passed less than 1.5 miles away. A couple wouldn't answer our radio calls to ensure that they knew we were nearby. As the night wore on, the winds, already higher than forecast, picked up up even more, stoking the waves as well. From my vantage point from the floor of the cockpit, the white caps on the waves were just about even with Deb's shoulders as she sat braced in at the helm. I was almost glad the moon wasn't up yet so I couldn't really see what we were sailing in.

The heaving, rolling, Nantucket sleigh ride we were on started messing with the jib, which began to slat and bang at times, shock loading the rig and sending shivers through the boat (and crew), all while crashing through the water at hull speed. With a cruise ship too near to windward to be comfortable, and fearing an accidental jibe if we fell off any further, we decided to wake the Beast, roll in the jib, and get off this ride.

For the second time since we left the dock on this trip, the furling line back lashed and jammed.
And so I found myself in one of the loneliest places in the world, where there is no one else in the universe and time flows at its own rate. I was up there for hours, though only a few minutes passed for the rest of the world before I flopped back into the cockpit with the task complete and Kintala back under some semblance of control. All I could think to say to Deb was, “Hi Honey, I'm home.”
A massive Adrenalin hit will do strange things to your sense of humor.

With the deck completely fouled, we were counting on the Beast to behave and carry us through the rest of the night, which it did without complaint. At 0230 in the morning we had turned the corner around Great Harbor, finally putting a chunk of land between us and the wind and waves. Deb tip-toed Kintala in among the anchored boats while I pawed through the disaster on deck to toss the hook. I was cold, wet, and exhausted, and extremely happy to be tossing the hook at 0230 in Great Harbor.

The next morning we woke moving slow, both of us sore from the adventures of the night before. Still, before the day was done the deck was straightened up, with all sails serviceable once again, lines run and stowed, and the Ding in the water. We even managed a short run into town for some provisions, and discovered the little market sold ice cream. We enjoyed a dish full each, celebrating a safe return from one of the lonely places.

The anchorage at Great Harbour Cay