Cara O’Connor Erin O’Connor Skipper: Neil VanGundy
The following are selected journal entries from the writings of Diane O'connor....
Off coast of St Kitts
June 4, 2003 – BVI off to St Martin ..... From our morning anchor off of The Baths of Virgin Gorda, Neil had us underway for St Martin within 30-minutes of his timeline of 1:00pm.Everything was stowed, the motor had been removed from the dinghy (huge job), and the dinghy double tied.It's odd because even as we sailed away from Virgin Gorda it remained in view for hours. We rounded our way off the south tip of Virgin Gorda with Little Jerusulam off to our starboard.There are many hazards in this passage calling for strick attention to the charts.Almost immediately the waves seemed to get gargantuan as the protection of the islands fell off to our stern. Neil put up the main sail immediately and followed by putting up the Genoa (or jib).With no motor we were making 7-9 nautical miles per hour. We were moving!No problems for hours.The guys ate the chicken sandwiches we had fixed earlier to give them some energy for the long night ahead. After sunset the ocean took on a totally different tone.Neil and Bennett decided that they would be able to sail the entire time with each sailing in 2-3 hour increments. It became very disorienting after dark.To set the scene: there was less than 1 quarter of a moon, the waves were huge and the sky was dark.Since there wasn't much moon or light, it was sailing "by touch" except for the GPS guidance and compass heading that Neil and Bennett held tight to the wind.Both Bennett and Neil felt a sense of dizziness for their first 20-minutes or so behind the helm once darkness fell.The boat was tossing up and down, side-to-side in the deep waves and swells but there was nothing out there to fix their eyes on. In a brief moment of attention loss, Bennett lost the feel of the sail and ultimately all senses of direction.It was very easy to do under the conditions.The boat seemed to calm as it apparently turned around leaving both Bennett and Neil disoriented in the darkness.The compass seemed impossible to square up because it was so difficult to orient the wheel and steer straight.Imagine being blindfolded in a car while moving forward but not even knowing if the steering wheel was turned right or left.Neil took over briefly in an attempt to use the GPS to regain his sense of direction.It worked beautifully as it became obvious the GPS was a most valuable tool. Erin and I went below to sleep around 8:00pm.Cara woke up around 11:00pm to give the guys some support and keep them awake.Neil told her at about midnight that he no longer wanted to talk. At that point Cara came below too. Neil was starting to feel queasy.He had been taking generic seasick meds and didn't feel that they were working at peak performance.You get what you pay for in this case.I offered him some of our Bonine and he accepted.The drugs took effect after about an hour.This should have been the end of the horror story--but no--we go on. June 5, 2003 Around midnight Neil stepped onto the back swimming platform off the aft end of the boat to urinate while Bennett was sailing. Neil's inferior night vision noted, "something didn't look right on the dinghy".After querying Bennett they both decided that something was "really, really wrong!"The dinghy was completely full of water.Neil said that it was like dragging an anchor; there was the tension of a tightrope on the tow line. Before they could address the dinghy problem the boat speed had to be reduced. They turned the boat's engine on. Then they furled the jib.Neil threw on a life jacket, turned the deck lights on and went up front to lower the main sail while Bennett held the boat on a course heading into the wind.Bennett tried to determine where the wind was coming from by holding his head out to the side so that the wind was blowing in his face.Dicey operation for the two of them at best given the crashing waves due to rough seas, strong winds and disorienting conditions. (As an aside, I briefly tried to lie down in the main berth to sleep.It was like pro wrestling on Sat night TV--being picked up vertically periodically and slammed down hard on a mattress. Not very restful.) With the housekeeping complete they decided to attack the dinghy issue. Remember, at this point they were slightly sleep deprived.Bennett had the boat motor slowed to 1200 rpm’s and Neil tied the dinghy off at 10 ft to the back of the boat. They noticed at this point that the tow eye situated on the lower part of the front end of the dinghy had broken. This eye is important because it holds the dinghy's nose up while it is undertow.The backup eyebolt, which saved the day, is located inside the front of the dinghy. Because of its location, it forces the nose down when undertow causing it to take on water. Bennett grabbed the secondary, or backup dinghy tow line and pulled that tighter to bring it up even.The dinghy was totally full of water.Neil studied the problem for long minutes to best determine how to pull the rear dinghy plug so the water would drain while towing.Simultaneously, Bennett was thinking what he would do if Neil did not make the leap into the dinghy and fell into the water. Neil did manage his leap of faith and hit the dinghy square on.He was able to pull the plug, grab back at the mainstay and make it back on the boat.The dinghy started draining (this took a full 10 minutes) and they cinched it up closer with two ropes to keep it stabilized. At this point, you would think that the night’s story would end--but NO-O-O. I woke up to keep the guys company during the long part of the night.At about 1:30 AM Bennett was on and Neil was catching some Z-Zs on the cockpit bench. When Neil woke up he told Bennett to go below to get some sleep.Bennett got to the bottom of the steps and noticed water on the deck plates of the galley floor.I really need to explain this adequately for those of you that have not been on a sailboat before.Between the actual bottom hull of the boat and the galley floor there is a void called the bilge.This is 9 to 12-inches of empty space.There was so much water in the bilge of the boat that it was sloshing over the flooring as the boat moved through the waves.When the boat tossed just right, a spew of water would fountain through the separations in the deck plates as high as 6-8 inches.The other scary part is that we appeared to be riding very low in the water. Bennett initially thought that one of the girls did not set their toilets correctly and they overflowed.When he checked both of the toilets and saw that they had dry bowls.He knew that this was not the problem.At this point Bennett popped up, explained the situation to Neil and had him go for a look.Neil spent a good 15 minutes assessing the problem.Since the bilge pump was automatic the question running through his mind was why do we have so much water?Has the pump failed or is water coming in so quickly that it can't keep up. Unfortunately, there was no way to determine this for certain until we were in port since the bilge pump was definitely running (we could hear it).At this point we are half way between anywhere.The nearest island is 12-hours away even if we motored the whole way.We knew that we could press on or turn back but either would entail approximately the same amount of time.We felt alone and in very serious trouble. In typical problem solving fashion Neil next checked the below-water-line ports that might potentially allow outside water into the boat (stopcocks under the sinks).No water there but he valved off all the ports anyway. Still no certain solution at this point and this caused more concern. A additional thought was that the packing gland around the drive shaft to the propeller might be leaking.This normally isn’t a huge problem unless the packing was blown out completely.There was no practical way to check this while underway and we certainly didn’t have the means to repair it at sea.Bennett opened the hatch to the engine compartment and it appeared bone dry. Neil did locate the manual pump under the captain's seat.We thought we'd give it a go.I pumped for about 10 minutes.I was pretty sure after the first couple of minutes that it wasn’t working but didn’t want to tell Neil right away. It was inoperable. DAMN!Neil said at this point that he was very, very concerned. Erin was sleeping on cushions on the high side of the galley floor, which was becoming closer and closer to getting wet.When I noticed the water was increasing on the floor I woke her up to put her in the berth with Cara or bring her up on deck.She decided to come up on deck with me.Erin expressed some of the fear in all of us when she saw the water spurting through the galley floor boards of the starboard side.Honest to God, the spurt was like a fountain in Rome steadily spewing water out.It was very intimidating--no actually it was frightening. Neil and Bennett were extremely calm and I figured at that point that if we needed a plan they would have told me.Even so, at that point I quietly thought of my own contingency plan.Interesting enough, we were all thinking of contingency plans and none of us wanted to distress the others by sharing. My plan was knowing were the water jugs were, the food was, the life jackets, the flashlight and our billfolds and purse.We could have gotten everything into the dinghy the minute Neil or Bennett said the word. Unbeknownst to me Neil and Bennett also had plans. Bennett' s plan was to put each of us girls into one of the bathrooms and use the floor drain pumps and toilet pumps to pump water out manually until we reached port.If all else fails our passports were in zip lock bags. Neil's plan was to have a girl on the radio doing "mayday calls".Getting the life raft ready and on the front deck in case our boat submerged. He insists he also thought to take the GPS.He knew that the predominant winds would keep us in the shipping lanes and take us near to the Virgin Islands. Although we had a lot of water in the bilge and galley, we didn't detect that we were taking on more from this point on.We just didn’t know why.Neil and Bennett decided St Martin was still our best course.However we would run the engine and put up both sails the remainder of the trip.The engine would keep our tacks tighter and shed some time off our course.Even though we had to tack to keep the sails firm, our totally course time would be less than if we hit the headwinds straight on with only a 75-hp diesel at 3.5 nauts at best. In the morning we ate sandwiches on the deck as if nothing was wrong.Our boat, named Bone Dry, seemed hung heavy in the water (or was it our imaginations) as the sea lapped our butt.Oh that first sight of land was so sweet yet we knew we were so many hours away.We sailed with the motor on until arriving in St Martin around 2:00pm.What a wonderful site this old dock was. As our first experience in long distance sailing we learned a lot.I learned to always sail with someone who knows more than I do.Neil learned that you can never know your boat too well and its impossible to over prepare.And always take good seasick meds. We pulled into Bobby's Marina fuel pump zone on St Maartin's Dutch side around 2:00pm.The girls popped off the boat … June 6, 2003 Bright and squirrelly and after a good long rest, the guys were up and tearing the floors apart trying to determine where the water leak was.Once in port, we learned our front main potable water tank appeared to be empty.This was confirming suspicions that our water problem may have been internal all along.Neil and Bennett were filling up the water tanks and noted that with 1/2 of the front tank full, our boat was looking like the movie "A River Runs Through It". Water was flowing fairly freely under the floorboards at the bottom of the boat.Fortunately, the leak was isolated to the front tank which costs us 2/3 of our fresh water supply.But at least we would have 1/3 of our normal supply to work with.The good news there is that this confirmed that our leak was contained.But… we never determined why the tank was leaking.Water conservation throughout the rest of the trip became very important. The bilge pump actually had not failed, it was plugged.It was plugged with every morsel and crumb that ever slipped through the cracks in the deck plates for the last three years.There was food sludge, wrappers, band-aids, you name it either stuck in the filter or jammed in the suction line.Neil and Bennett cleared all of the filters and the bilge pump started to work again.We learned over a period of time that this would be a very repetitive process.The filters would be cleared and as the water was being sucked up, more stuff would clog them again. June 7, 2003 With the majority of the water pumped out we were underway again, this time headed for Orient Bay, the French side of St Martin.Before leaving the marina, we pulled up at the end of the dock and fueled up with 82 liters of diesel. We sailed approx. 1-1/2 hours or 8 miles around the corner to the French side.This was a truly gorgeous beach. We anchored the boat and Neil took the girls by dinghy to the water trampoline.After bringing the dinghy back to the boat Bennett slung a portable cooler with 4 beers and 2 sodas around his neck and took off swimming for shore. He looked like an overgrown St Bernard.Neil followed shortly thereafter, pausing only to leave his shorts in the dinghy.Oh, have we neglected to mention that this was a "naturalist" beach where clothing was optional?I stayed on the boat and sunned privately.The guys wanted the whole effect. They started off on loungers but were kicked off because they didn't have money to pay for the chair.No problem, down in the sand they went.They were happy as two clams until one of them noticed Cara and Erin walking toward them.At that point they started digging as if they were taking the short route to China.They have managed to cover their"privates" by the time the girls got close.Apparently, this caused a bit of a giggle with some of the other beach goers. During the time on the beach the girls made a complete circuit of the beach and then settled down a ways from the guys and dropped their tops. They were doing just fine until some comments from some young men made them a little self-conscious and they put them back on. Bennett and Neil ended up swimming back to the boat.Neil ate a PB and honey sandwich and then donned his Mr. Potato Head shorts and his dry bag.Bennett ran Neil into Papagayo-the naturalist bar/ restaurant for happy hour.Needless to say, Mr Potato Head didn't make it to the bar!Neil spent the evening sipping Black Russians. Bennett returned to boat just in time to meet 3 young island men that had brought the girls back to the boat.I told them about some large starfish I had seen when snorkeling.They all went diving and ended up lining 9 of them up of the back of the boat.We took pictures. It was unbelievable.Each of them was larger than my two hands put together. They were wonderful guys and they made plans to meet the girls on the beach afterwards.We fixed and ate spaghetti, the girls got dolled up and then Bennett took them into shore to meet their friends then went to join Neil at Papagayo’s.Bennett found Neil on the back patio watching the incredible sunset with his Black Russian.Bennett decided to give up his shorts but retained his button down shirt for cover in case the girls showed up (which they did). There was karaoke at the bar that night.Bennett said later it was a little bizarre looking around and watching people eating, drinking, dancing and singing stark naked. Bennett played taxi that night and brought everyone home-if not in good shape at least in some shape. Monday, June 9, 2003 We sailed to St. Kitts today, which was a distance of 39 miles.We had great wind, and with Bennett at the helm, we flew.We averaged 7.5 nauts with some points as fast as 9.5 nauts. With this type of boat that is "kick ass speed". I must admit we are all adrenaline junkies.Imagine the BEST rollercoaster ride you have EVER been on and then kick it up times two.I'm not sure even that would compare to the feel of sailing on the open waters we have been covering. Bennett says that some of the waves we have encountered make the bow of the boat disappear, as if we are going nose down.There were unpredictable, rogue waves that would smash us from the side or the front with no notice consuming the boat for brief moments in time. Neil says, "The combination of sun, sunscreen, and salt dried on our skins was a sensation that is not for the faint of heart."How true.If we ran out of table salt we need only scrape our skin. When we entered the harbor we were all salt encrusted and needed no exfoliate to take our showers.Cara said we sparkled with salt crystals. We pulled into Port Zante, Basseterre, St Kitts around 3:00pm.It took about 1/2 hour to moor our boat. We had no problems. They told us we could use as much water as we wanted. YEAH. Wednesday, June 11, 2003 We fixed a quick breakfast, topped our water off one last time, made up some sandwiches and headed out early for Montserrat….. We were traveling at 9-nauts or better and encountering swells that would easily engulf the boat. The waves seemed to be around 20 feet high and sometimes it seems like we were just hanging on the edge of the world.At one point, even though I had wedged myself into the sitting area, we hit a wave so hard that it dislodged me, throwing me across the boat and onto the floor at Neil’s feet.I remember opening my eyes with Cara screaming at me to see if I was okay. The most marvelous thing happened during this leg of the trip. It started out with the flying fish (which I personally thought were pretty terrific).But then it got even better.A pod of about 9-10 dolphins took an interest in us and swam next to us for around 20 minutes.It was unbelievable and probably something I will remember forever. It was so magical. Thursday, June 12, 2003 Up and at it early.We pulled up anchor and headed out for our final destination of Antigua. Once again the wind and waves were surreal. It was interesting to note that once we left the BVI we rarely saw another boat.Today we saw two boats so far away that you could distinguish no human life on board. Like the travel to St Martin, St Kitts, and St Barts we were out of sight of land for a time and relied on GPS.This is where I give you the pitch “never leave home without it!”Sailing was exhilarating as usual.Today I decided I would try to read.Do not attempt this while under sail unless the book is enclosed in a Ziploc bag.My book came back from the trip three times as thick as when it left and parts of it were illegible. We reached Jolly Harbor (one of the newest marina areas in Antigua) in early afternoon after passing beach after breathtaking beach.Bennett and Neil agree that these are some of the most phenomenal beaches they have ever seen.Bennett, waxing poetic, says they looked like white sugar. This was by far the most naturally beautiful place I have ever been and I have been to many.Bennett and I have played a game since we have been married about where we would like to live.My chosen place changed last when I went to Costa Rica.However, I can honestly say that Costa Rica doesn’t hold a candle to Antigua and that I could live happily here forever.In addition to the sheer beauty of the beaches, the gracious, welcoming attitude of the islanders was wonderful.They weren’t surly but actually seemed to be glad that we were on their island. We ate out at Al Porto Restaurant and Bar in the harbor....We met a group of 5 sailors there from England.They had sailed North from Guadalupe. When we told them that we had sailed east and south from the BVI they almost swallowed their teeth.They had decades of sailing experience between them and said that they could not have attempted that crossing.We felt pretty damn special at that point.After several rounds we decided to turn in so that we could get a good start exploring the island tomorrow. Saturday, June 14, 2003 (Erin’s Bday) .... What a wonderful trip!We wouldn’t have changed a thing.
