By Jim Cash
We shook hands and I handed him the cashier’s check. He turned to the bartender and said, “Two more beers please,” then turned back to me smiling and said, “My treat.”
I was at the Marriott Hotel bar in Annapolis, MD, and had just committed to having a new cruising catamaran built in South Africa. The benefactor of my up-coming refreshment was the builder and owner of the factory in Durban, South Africa, who was going to send me on my way to my first ocean crossing.
Six months later I stepped off the plane in Durban. Thirty hours before I had fastened my seat belt for the first of three flights starting in Los Angles that would take me literally half way around the globe. March was the height of the summer in Durban and the sun was bright and warm as we walked to the car. The same friendly face that had taken my money and bought me a beer, at that cozy bar in Annapolis, was waiting at the immigration gate. He was anxious to show me the finished product and we headed directly for the harbor.
There she was, a brand spanking new Wildcat 350 catamaran, gleaming white with dark blue accent strips and the name in bold letters spelled out KatĆatomic. A little nucleus symbol separated the two words just like I had designed and e-mailed months before. I’ll admit I was impressed. It was my very first new boat. No one could miss the smile on my face.
It took almost two weeks for the final fitting-out and administrative procedures necessary to leave Africa, and during that time I got to know the skipper I had hired to accompany me across the Atlantic. A fellow ASA (American sailing Association) instructor from L.A. flew in to join us and we grabbed the first weather window and headed south. The shakedown cruise from Durban to Cape Town is the real test whether the boat is up for an Atlantic crossing. This 800-mile jaunt around Cape Aguhlas is some of the most challenging seas in the world. We reached latitudes over 36 degrees south and experience seas of 30 feet and wind speeds of 40 knots as we rounded the farthest point south on the African continent. I got the ride of my life as I saw double-digit numbers appear on the know meter while flying a diaper jib and a triple reefed main. We made 250 nautical miles during the last 24 hours before sailing into Cape Town harbor. My new Gill foulies got a workout and proved their worth, by keeping me warm and try during those inky black night watches without a star to be seen.
The factory yard in Cape Town did some last minute bolt tightening and installed a water maker. We enjoyed the hospitality of the Royal Cape Yacht club before taking the final plunge. This is where it really started to sink in for me. This was the last chance to catch a plane home. After we left the shelter of Table Mountain, the next stop, like it or not, would be St. Helena, a little speck on the Southern Atlantic over 1,500 nautical miles from the African coast. I swallowed hard and said, “Let’s go.” As soon as we cleared the Harbor and saw the last of the jackass penguins, out came the spinnaker. We were in the South Atlantic trades that gently swirl counter clockwise up the African coast and across the Atlantic. We were to have a sleigh ride all the way to the Panama Canal.
| 
|
|
I’ve always been prone to motion sickness and was pretty queasy for the first five days. However, using the patches and some over-the-counter tablets kept me functional for my duty watches. After a while I weaned myself off the drugs and my body acclimated itself to the movement of the boat. We settled into a mostly boring routine of two-hour night watches, sleeping, eating, and reading. I read 17 books novels on the crossing!
The boat pretty well took care of itself. It had a GPS hard-wired to the world chart-plotter, which in turn was also hard-wired to the autopilot. After its initial programming all we did was watch the ocean slide by and plot our position once a day on the chart to measure our progress. We were routinely making 150 nautical miles per 24-hour day. The highlight of the day was at sunset when we treated ourselves to an adult refreshment and watched for the “green flash.” The slowest part of the day was be the night watch. Two hours can drag by very slowly when you are by yourself trying to keep the noise down so your fellow crew members can sleep. On a clear night the sky would be a blanket of white dots, almost undistinguishable one from another. I found myself counting shooting stars, and some nights they seemed to come one after another. A delightful night pastime was to watch the phosphorescent trail of the dolphins as they played tag with the boat. Their arching trails would dart away and return. They could literally swim rings around the boat as we made ten knots through the water.
| 
|
|
The boredom of the open sea would occasionally be punctuated by the shout of “Fish.” We would troll a hand
line with a feather jig, attached to the boat with a bungee cord. When a fish would hit, the bungee would soften the blow and the fish would pop to the surface and skate behind the boat like a boogie board. We would simply drag in up to the swim step give it a “Cane Cocktail”
—a cheap rum-like liquor sold in South Africa was called Cane
—and the fish would pass away with a smile on their faces. Often we would be having sushi hors-d’śuvre for breakfast carved right off the fish. For some reason the taste of fish from ocean to pan, to mouth, all within an hour is one of life’s secret pleasures known only to those who treat themselves an ocean passage.
"Land Ho," came the shout from the bridge deck, in the late afternoon of our 11th day at sea. The low clouds on the horizon separated revealing the distinctive shape of St. Helena Island on the horizon. We were still more than 20 away and had to sail around to the leeward side to the anchorage in St. James Bay. It was three a.m. the following morning before we requested instructions from the sleepy voice on the other end of the VHF transmission to St. Helena harbor patrol. We anchored temporally and waited for the customs agents who arrived at 0830. They checked our papers, assigned us a permanent anchorage area, and graciously welcomed us to their small, but historic island nation.
Of all the fabulous places we visited on the delivery, St. Helena stands out as the most memorable. It is small yet beautiful and has no airport, but perhaps its history is what intrigued me the most. First discovered by the Portuguese in 1502 it soon became a haven for sea travelers due to its natural wealth of freshwater and fruit trees. It became a British protectorate in 1834 and still retains its 19th century values and culture. The population call themselves the “Saints” and are descended from British settlers sent by the East Indian Trading Company, and the slaves and indentured servants from Africa, India, and Asia. St Helena has had many famous visitors who have made their mark here, but perhaps the most notable is Napoleon Bonaparte who was exiled here in 1815 after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. He lived in the Longwood House until his death in 1821, which is now maintained as a museum by the French Government.
As the silhouette of St. Helena Island sank into the eastern horizon we were not to see land again for 17 days. The morning of the third day after leaving St. Helena the crew shouting across the water awakened me. I came on deck to see the sistership to the KatĆatomic, the Windlace off our port quarter. She had been launched a week after us and had arrived in St. Helena the day before we left. After we separated again later that afternoon we were not to see another sign of human existence until we dropped anchor at the island of Fernado de Noronha 300 miles off the coast of Brazil.
This part of the Atlantic, near the Equator is know for Marlin fishing and even though we were not specifically trying, the cry “Fish” on our 11th day from St. Helena, was followed by the expletive “Oh sh--.” Marvin the Marlin
had decided to pay us a visit. Unlike his fellow
picsi he didn’t pop to the surface and skate along after the boat. Even though a baby
—approximately seven feet long and 150 pounds,
Marvin put up quite a fight. On hindsight it may have been better to let him have the feathery lure, but since he invited himself for dinner we abliged. He ended up staying, breakfast, lunch and several more dinners. We all agreed that if we never eat another marlin it would be too soon.
Our fuel stop at Fernando de Noronha lasted only six hours. They didn’t bother to stamp our passports (a courtesy to Yachties) if you don’t stay overnight, because it would cost approximately $150 per person to officially come ashore on this Brazilian nature preserve. So after the brief stay we again weighed anchor and didn’t put down the hook until we were inside the bay outside Port of Price, Trinidad, 11 days later. Half way through this leg we were engulfed by the washout from the Amazon River. Even though we were over 100 miles off shore you could see a distinct change in the water’s color, temperature, and current. For the next two days we were fighting it and our daily progress was down to less than 100 miles. As we passed through the middle, the current swept around to our favor and for the next several days our daily progress jumped to over 200 nautical miles.
| 
|
|
The yacht harbor in Chaguaramas, Trinidad, was a welcome sight. It had been a month a half since we left Cape Town, but I was happy. I had just accomplished one of my life goals; I had crossed the ocean in a small sailboat. We decided to pay for the luxury of taking a slip rather than stay free on the hook, and put into Peaks marina
. The warm showers, the restaurant, the bar were only a stroll from the boat
—what an extravagance. Here is where my Atlantic crew departed, and I waited for my Caribbean and Panama Canal crew to arrive. Trinidad was filling quickly this time of year (June) with the yachts that scurry down from the Caribbean to avoid hurricane season. The talk around the bar was typical yachtie conversation about which harbors were best, which to say away from. But, even in this outpost for veteran yachtsmen, an ocean crossing still turned a few heads.
I fell asleep that night alone on the boat for the first time in over two months. I still had half of my delivery ahead of me to get back to my homeport of L.A., but for the rest of the journey I was never to be outside the sight of land. My first time across was a warming memory.
About the Author: Jim Cash is a professional yacht skipper and ASA sailing instructor for Marina Sailing in southern California, and holds a 100-ton masters USCG license. Jim took early retirement in 1999 after 30 years in corporate management. He now enjoys traveling, teaching sailing, and also teaches marketing at the graduate level for the University of Phoenix at their Southern California campus. You can look for Jim’s other articles in Multihull and Latitudes and Attitudes magazines.
If you'd like to contribute to Our Readers Write section, please send your submissions to submit@sailnet.com.
