Dickie, you’ve started something. Now I’ve been asked to post a story Dennis wrote as an email to friends a few years ago about…

Dennis & Marty’s Excellent Adventure

Marty asked if I wanted to go on a bit of a busman’s holiday with him down to Carriacou for the weekend, and I thought, why not. The only time I ever actually get a break from work is when I physically remove myself from the island. The plan for Friday night, then, was to go out for dinner then shove off around 9 p.m. and sail through the night to arrive in Carriacou in the early morning. Jean from Moonhole was going with us, as well as a fellow from Tradewinds (the yacht place by the old Harpoon Saloon), and one other guy (who also worked for Tradewinds) as an extra hand. The mission, then, was to deliver a broken-in-two mast to a welder in Carriacou then tow another 32-foot catamaran (that had been purchased by the fellow from Tradewinds) back to Bequia.

I met Marty down at the restaurant where the old Harpoon Saloon used to be. We got into a pretty good BBQ dinner they had going on that night. Jan and Louie were playing “cruise ship” music. Jean joined us later on, but not for dinner. And Neil Sanders (who was running or otherwise operating the Bequia slip at the time) also joined us at the last minute. Towards the end of dinner, through conversation, it became apparent that we had a limited selection of music for the trip. I jumped in the car, drove back home, gathered (with Sue’s help) an eclectic selection of some 20 CDs and headed back to the boat. We cast off a few minutes later and motored out with the tide past Moonhole through the West Cay gap (nearly full moon, so navigation was OK) and set sail. There were six of us on board: Marty, Jean, Neil, Leon (purchaser of the not-running catamaran to be towed), young Miguel (18 years old and from Portugal), and me, Dennis – the least nautical of the lot.

To describe the night sail as awesome would be inadequate. The moon was about seven-eighths’ full, the seas were calm with a steady warm breeze, and the sky was crystal-clear. I’ve never experienced the likes of it. Marty assigned one hour watches at the helm, but it was such a beautiful night that everybody pretty much stayed up anyway. My watch was second, the run from Isle à Quatre to Canouan - where we would be least likely to hit anything.

The southern sky has about triple the number of stars as the northern sky, so when the moon set just after midnight it was truly breathtaking. We were coming up on the lee of Union Island just after 2 a.m., and were now into (for me, at least) unfamiliar waters. All of us stayed up throughout the night, off and on, sipping on ice-cold Heineken’s, taking turns at being DJ with the CD player, and grabbing catnaps up on the net at the bow. I was snoozing there sometime after 2 a.m. when a flashing light woke me. Marty and Neil were on the bow with the big search light, waves breaking everywhere off our bow and to port (towards land). We had cleared Union and were now approaching the north lee of Carriacou. The water was shallow, and Marty had not been that way in a while. He chose to bear off west and keep a more comfortable distance from land. Neil had better familiarity with the navigation lights, so it was just as well he’d boarded with us at the last minute. It was pitch black by then.

Going on about 4 a.m. and everybody was up, either on bow or beam lookout, with Marty at the wheel. We sailed past the lights of Hillsborough, Carriacou’s main town, and picked up the navigation lights to Tyrell Bay, our destination. Marty then put me on the helm (Yikes!) and went to bow lookout. Ahead slow under motor now, I drove us the last couple of miles into Tyrell Bay where we set anchor at 4:30 a.m. Everyone then found their own comfy spot and promptly fell asleep. I lay out on the net and watched the stars until sleep overcame me – about three seconds later.

I woke up to a bright sky at 6:30 a.m., the sun not yet having cleared the line of low hills to the east. Propped up on my elbows and looking around, I thought, “Geesh, what a pretty little bay!” About twice the size of Bequia’s Admiralty Bay, it had lower hills, and a quarter of the number of houses. There was also mangrove along the north end. Everybody else was soon up and Marty moved Passion over to tie up alongside of the welder’s floating workshop. Marcel’s set-up consisted of a plywood building built on top of the hulls of an old 60-foot catamaran. His reputation was second-to-none and apparently he has a steady stream of customers. Once the business of the broken mast was discussed, Marcel ran us in his dinghy the 100 yards over to the marina. We then met the marina owner and arrangements were made to transfer the 1200-pound mast, in two pieces, from Marty’s deck on to shore, using their travel-lift. The marina owner directed us to an adjacent store and small restaurant that was part of the premises. There we indulged in steaming mugs of fresh strong coffee served with a pitcher of hot milk. Ahhhh!

With the technicalities squared away we arranged for a rental car (delivered to us in fifteen minutes by a really nice lady) and Marty, Jean, Leon, and I headed to Hillsborough to check in with Immigration. Leon also had to fill out more papers because his boat would be leaving the country. We thought that rather than go to the police station en masse, it would be best if just Marty and Leon went in. (Marty, as captain, had all our passports.) Jean and I would wait nearby. We sat on the steps of the tourist information office about a hundred feet away from the immigration door at the police station. After about a half hour we heard some sort of commotion going on from the direction of the office Marty and Leon were in. Jean and I thought it best to sit tight just in case Marty had got into some kind of a row with the officials. We had put the boat into Tyrell bay and not Hillsborough where you’re supposed to check in, and you know how officious these places can be when it comes to their paperwork. While sitting there I kept looking at a concrete bust, placed on a pedestal, of Grenada’s first Prime Minister. Someone had placed a pair of glasses with thick dark frames, of the same style that the PM had worn when he was in office, on the bust. I cursed myself for not having brought my camera.

Presently, Marty and Leon emerged from a direction opposite to where this commotion was still going on, and said that everything went smoothly and the officials hadn’t even asked where we were anchored. We took Leon back to the marina to deal with his boat. Then Marty, Jean and I headed off to explore the island. We drove around for quite a while, mostly getting lost – we had no map or any idea of the lay of the land. Carriacou is about twice the size of Bequia but with half the population. Eventually we picked up an old man who was thumbing a ride, thinking we’d get directions from him. He was moderately inebriated and told us he was on his way to a draughts game. After not more than two hundred yards he motioned that was where he wanted off – a small store and rum shop, some men sitting out front playing dominoes. He thanked us profusely and then gave us directions to “Windward,” the place at the north end of the island we were trying to get to, mentioning that the road was “not good.”

The road was indeed “not good” for sure, consisting of a rough dozer-cut that had seen about a dozen rainy seasons. We eventually found our way on to the north shore and were looking for a shipwrecking ground that Marty had heard of. And there it was – scores of old boats, ships, and other craft either run up on the beach or wrecked on nearby reefs. Just before arriving there I noticed what seemed to be a running length of graveyard along the beach. There were hundreds of headstones, through the trees and on the sand, with some right at the waters’ edge. It was a bizarre sight. We got out and walked along the beach looking at, and poking around, the derelict hulks of ships and boats. Fascinating, actually.

In the car again we started to make our way back to Hillsborough, but not before stopping a woman who was jogging by to ask for yet further directions. Marty (on a long shot) also asked if she knew of a couple, the Coopers, that ran a guesthouse at that end of island. Marty had met them about five years back. She did know the guesthouse and said it was about a mile further on. We found it and talked with an English couple who had apparently bought from the Cooper’s about 4 years before, but did not know the previous owners’ whereabouts. On leaving we asked if there was a good place to get a late, 2 p.m., lunch in Hillsborough and the guy replied, “Yes, Bill Patterson’s.” Jean wanted to make a note of it, but I said not to worry; I’d remember that. I’d gone to school with a guy who had the same name.

Bill Patterson’s, across from Gramma’s bakery, was a rum shop with a three-table restaurant out back facing the beach. On a little chalk sign in one corner was written “Lambi Today.” After forty-five minutes, and several cold beers, “Bill” brought out three platters of curried conch, cut in big chunks, with rice, plantain, and salad. It all evaporated in front of us. We finished our beers and paid the EC$60 tab, a bargain for three of us, and headed back to the marina. By then it was a little past 4 p.m.

Back at the marina we met up with the others. Leon and his helper, Miguel, had been making his boat ready for the next day. We all went to have EC$5 showers that the marina advertised, picked up some premium rum from the little store, went back and sat on the stern of Passion to watch the sun set, rum and coke in hand. (The marina guy said it was okay to stay tied up to the dock where the travel-lift was because nothing else was going on that day.) While there, a man rowed by in a skiff and asked, “Any clams today?” There were buckets of fresh clams in the bottom of his boat, harvested from the nearby mangrove. Regrettably, we had to pass since we were just on our way out for dinner and then would be leaving at first light in the morning.

We ate at the same place we had coffee that morning. Excellent pan-fried tuna and a couple of bottles of really nice wine, for six of us, came to EC$200. Sometime around 10 p.m. we got back on Passion, rigged up the towing harness, picked up Leon’s newly acquired catamaran, and moved back out to the middle of the bay to anchor in about the same place as the previous night, ready for a quick departure the next morning. I settled into my same spot on the net to sleep under the stars again.

You rarely meet someone with as much enthusiasm as Leon. In his early forties, he worked as the mechanic for Tradewinds. He had borrowed money to buy this old catamaran to fix up, with the intention that he and his wife would then move on to it and live aboard. His wife was to learn of this plan the next day when she saw the boat for the first time.

In the grey light just before 5 a.m., we pulled anchor on Passion and took up the towline slack. Leon and Miguel were, however, having trouble pulling their anchor. We used Passion to try to pull their anchor off forward, then sideways, but even under full throttle it wouldn’t budge. Marty sent Miguel down with mask and snorkel to have a look. He was back up in a few seconds to say, unbelievably, that their anchor had hooked underneath the mooring chain of an old ship anchored about 200 feet away. Leon then went down, but to no avail. Marty paced the deck, then donned mask and snorkel himself and went over. We were shining lights in the water to try and see. A long minute went by, then another 30 seconds. Marty finally bobbed to the surface, and between long-rasping breaths he hollered to Leon, “What are you waiting for? Pull it up. LET’S ROLL!!!” We were underway two minutes later, having lost an hour.

The weather was good that morning with a southeast wind and a slightly following sea, allowing us to make 6 or 7 knots even with the tow. There was a lot of lightning and heavy cloud in the very distant south, but it was moving past us. We were sparsely provisioned, with only three baguettes and part of a stale loaf of bread from the previous day, odds and ends of cheese, and some drinks. Marty suggested that once we were in the lee of Union Island we could pull the tow up and, remembering Leon had said there was a working galley stove on board his catamaran, boil water for coffee. We were all dying for a cup of coffee.

When we arrived, we brought Leon’s boat up to our stern and handed off two thermoses of fresh water. Leon popped his head up from the galley a moment later holding two thumbs up. Two minutes later he reappeared with two thumbs down.

Marty yelled, “What’s wrong?”

Leon replied, “I ran out of gas.”

Marty walked slowly to the stern of Passion, put his foot on the towline and said, “Well, Leon, we’re going to cut you loose now. Good luck, then.”

Leon said, “Can you pull us up and pass some food over? We haven’t got anything on board.”

Marty turned to us and said, “Put some stuff in a bag, and give him the old bread too.”

Jean said, “That bread’s pretty stale.”

Marty replied, “Leon was in the navy; they’re used to eating shit like that.”

We got underway again. Leon standing up on his deck and beaming looked like Admiral Nelson. My hopes of coffee dashed, I filled a cup with Coke, turned to the others and said, “Caffeine is caffeine.” The others followed suit.

We continued to make good time and by about noon we were just a few miles off Isle à Quatre. Marty had fixed himself a celebratory rum and Coke and sat it on the consol. We had dodged a few passing thundershowers in that past hour and could see a big one to the north-east that we weren’t going to be able to miss. About a mile or so off West Cay at the end of Bequia the squall line slammed into us. Christ! The rain was driving horizontal under the canopy without even touching the boat. Visibility was a boat-length and we could hardly see Leon’s boat at all. Marty stayed on the wheel with the rest of us on the bow trying to watch. We must have taken on 2 inches of rain in 10 minutes, and it wasn’t letting up. All of a sudden Marty ran to the stern and pulled the port engine hatch cover off. “OH SHIT!” was all we heard as Marty disappeared into the engine compartment. Neil took the wheel and turned us hard west, and out to open sea, as we had no idea where we were. The bilge had flooded and water was already up to the starter motor. The little scupper hole in the deck rim where the hatch cover sits had become plugged with a tiny piece of debris. All the deck water was pouring in. The fuse box for the bilge pump on that side had shorted and melted into a blob. Marty was wallowing around in oily bilge water trying to rig up a length of hose over to the other bilge pump. It wouldn’t prime so he started the siphon by mouth. The wind howled and the rain poured; Steppenwolf was still blasting away on the stereo.

As the rain diminished we could see we were about a mile or two down from West Cay and in a line with about the middle of Admiralty Bay. The bilge was pumping. We could see our oily wake. Marty squirted Sqeezy all over himself and we hosed him down. “Where’s my rum and Coke?” he asked. It was still there on the consol, mostly water by then.

We motored in and put Leon’s boat on a mooring then tied up to the fuel dock. Two rounds of drinks were quickly downed and we began to gather up our soggy possessions. A successful and most enjoyable voyage, we all agreed. As Marty put it, the flooded bilge event was the most minor of blemishes on an otherwise perfect trip.