We arrived back in
Charleston, via a night in New York, and were thrilled to find Hullabaloo in
one piece with no hurricane damage at all!! A few boats had sunk and there had
been lots of flooding, but we had been safely tucked up out of the water. There
didn’t appear to be any cockroaches either, big smiles all around.
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| Stormy times ahead |
We had hired a car
so that we could provision before leaving America. On our first trip to Teeter
Harris I nearly killed us trying to drive up the freeway the wrong way at a
junction, lots of honking of horns and much yelping from my passenger, and me
come to that! On my fourth trip things had improved and I managed to navigate
my way there and back all on my own with no incident, and that despite hearing
on the radio that Trump had won the Presidential election.
We filled the boat
with food, beer and wine knowing that once we got back to the Caribbean there
would not be the huge choice of fresh food.
We prepared the boat for sea, putting the sails and spray hood back on
and then kept ourselves busy fitting new lights whilst we waited for a part for
the generator that had been overlooked by the yard and then in turn the
suppliers who forgot to ship it. The weather was quite warm in the day but
freezing at night and we were itching to leave.
We loved our time
in America; we were overwhelmed by the friendliness’ of the natives and enjoyed
learning about their culture and history and experiencing the vast differences
between the different States as we worked our way up, and then back down the
Eastern Seaboard. It almost felt like home. We will miss the ease of
provisioning, particularly the rather splendid avocados; obviously all the bad
ones get shipped to the UK. Slightly concerned about the huge chickens that are
obviously roaming somewhere in the country… We will not miss the price of wine!
The forecast was
for 20 to 25 knots for a couple of days and then it looked likely we would have
to motor. As we left the harbour it was obvious this forecast was wrong as the
breeze got up to 35 to 40 knots and we started to bash our way through a rather
lumpy sea. Out came the seasickness watch, a couple of hours in and I was in my
bunk, the skipper was not feeling a hundred percent either so dinner that night
consisted of a chewy bar. Only nine or ten days to go.
Our journey across
the Gulf Stream in these conditions was similar to being in a washing machine.
There was no room for the boat to land between the waves that were battering us
from all directions; it felt like we were being punched from all sides and the
interior framework of the boat was creaking in the process. Lying in my bunk it
seemed quite funny after a while, until water started pouring in through the dorades
soaking the bed! We had been hit by a huge wave that had swamped us, it sounded
like an express train as it rolled towards us and it managed to rip the spray hood
off in the process. Andrew manfully wrestled it down below whilst I mopped up
the aft cabin.
Unable to go on
deck for long as we had nothing to shelter behind, we just sat below watching
bucket loads of water pouring through the closed hatch, heartbreaking as there
was nothing we could do to stop it. The forward cabin had suffered a similar
fate to the aft, in all we were in possession of a rather soggy ship. The
electrics were suffering too.
We had a couple of
days respite from the weather and I managed to progress from Desert Island
Discs to books and movies on my watch. We downloaded a new weather forecast and
knew there was another front on its way but we were not concerned. However
Andrew was edgy all day not liking the look of the clouds and the barometer
falling. His concern was spot on. We
started to experience a few squalls and then the wind started to increase and
we both went on deck to shorten sail as the waves just got bigger and bigger.
It was after midnight so pitch black, we were both in lifejackets and clipped on
and Andrew was having to helm with just a tiny bit of staysail out. I went below to put on some oil skin trousers
and was instructed to stay below and watch the radar to see if I could work out
which way we should steer to avoid the weather.
As the wind
increased to 52 knots the rig started to shake and peering out of the hatch
Andrew looked tiny in comparison to the huge waves surrounding him. It is at
times like that, two hundred and eighty miles out to sea, that you are very
pleased that you have a skipper who has spent so much time preparing his ship,
it gave me great confidence in her ability to survive the storm and I was also
very grateful to be in a bobbing boat!!
After about two
and a half hours the wind had subsided enough to put the autohelm back on and
my very weary shipmate came down below. In the midst of all this we had heard
on the radio that a catamaran had capsized thirty miles North of us and the US
coastguard were looking for a vessel in the vicinity to go to the rescue of the
three crewmen who were in the dingy. Luckily for us, and them, there was a super
yacht nearby who could help them; heading back into the storm would not have
been fun. Happily there were no casualties.
We had developed a
knocking sound on the rudder, Andrew went aft to see if he could work out what
the problem was, reporting back he informed me that he thought the rudder was
coming loose, yes I said, I think so too.
Next question what might be the outcome, we would get swamped, best to
pack the grab bag. I hadn’t been scared until now! Andrew was exhausted after
his heroic stint on the helm and wasn’t going to be much use to me tired if it
all went tits up so I packed him off to bed and set about packing the grab bag and
talking myself out of my panic. The former took over an hour and was a lesson
to us that we should have packed it before we left. I had a list to fill and
one item was Personal Medicine, this I translated into Nicorette’s and HRT, as
this would at least stop us from killing each other should we end up in the
life raft!
Day light arrived
and with it we were able to look more closely at the rudder, happily it was the
autohelm connection that was making the noise, nothing we could do about it
except cross our fingers crossed and hope it all stayed attached until we
reached the BVI’s. So the good ship Hullabaloo continued on her way, popping my
head through the hatch to check for traffic I thought she resembled a runaway
train as she charged seemingly unaided through the sea. We were both very happy
to reach Jost Van Dyke after nine days at sea; the sight of land was a very
welcome one.
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| Land Ahoy |
I have to admit I
was quietly pleased with myself that the initial panic quickly subsided. I was very grateful that I had done a sea
survival course so I knew what to expect and what to prepare for and of course
I have been mentally preparing myself for the last thirty years for such a
situation. And it is much easier for me as I am not the skipper and thankfully
such a bad helm I got off lightly in the middle of the storm. Andrew was
brilliant and very calm as he always is in a crisis. It was definelty the
toughest sail of both of our lives so far and strangely it has given me the
most enormous buzz. Sitting in my armchair in my dotage it will be up there as
one of the highlights of my life, strange as that might seem…
Andrew meanwhile
does not want to experience another storm!
