“Jess! The boat, it’s sinking!” Anna thrashed in the water then spotted the dolphins. “Oh my god! Do they bite?”
“Don’t get tangled in the lines! Don’t get under the boat! No they don’t bite. Forget the dolphins.” I didn’t know if they bite. All I could think of was Anna being slammed against the hull by the waves. I found the spinnaker lines, tripped the cleats and got the yacht upright. Yet again, the floorboards were afloat. The inundation was extensive and cleanup took hours in a rough sea. Gibraltar and repairs felt impossibly distant, and the wind vane contraption, which had been a saving grace, was way beyond jury rigging.
“We’re screwed!” I bellowed at the thing. And we were. “It means we’re on the wheel every single second from here on in.” I responded to Anna’s puzzled look.
Tom responded to my expletive peppered description of the situation by emailing:
Harvey probably pulled the wind vane off a wreck in shallow water, polished it up and sold it to you. Electrolysis from being in the water eats the steel, makes it brittle. Can’t be fixed. Can’t weld it. It ain’t worth shit. I’ll make some calls and see if we can get you another one in Gibraltar. Friend at the marina says he’ll look after you. You’re making miles now, at least.
The Mediterranean weather gods observed the mangled wind vane from on high and commanded the sea to issue forth another blustery gale. It was only fitting it should be right on our nose. Shadow heeled hard over and slammed its way through steep waves. One of us was on deck at all times, taking the brunt of nature full on. The other, down below, was no better off. It was a disaster area of wet clothes, dirty dishes, tools and garbage crashing around. We’d taken to eating right from tins, chewing through our ample but uninspiring supply of actual food. Somehow, provisioning had included a ludicrous supply of hyper-salty olives, pickles, and condiments. Cooking was out of the question, and doing anything on board was a slippery uphill fight. As a result, maintenance took a hit and things started breaking down. One system after another, jury rigged or not, failed in a slow motion cascade. Sailing had become a matter of hang on, shut up and endure.
The wind died approaching the Spanish Riviera, but the waves didn’t notice and kept right on bashing away. We had no choice but to run the motor. Then, without wind, the fog settled in. The need to navigate in fog led to the discovery that the radar had failed. While Anna motored blind in the busy waterway, I tried, in vain, to resurrect the failed on board GPS chart plotter navigation system which had also died en route. Finally, I rooted through my reeking wardrobe for the hand-held backpacking GPS Gavin had included in the care package. “Just in case you want to know where you’re going!” He’d punctuated his now moldy note with a maniacal looking happy face. “Good ole Gavin saves the day.” I muttered.
Then one morning, if you can call 2:00 am morning, a desperate need for coffee proved that the water desalination unit had also shuffled off its mortal coil. With a lot of swearing, a metal bar, a hammer, and continuous dashes down from the helm while Shadow meandered aimlessly, I managed to put about sixty liters of fresh water in one tank. Then the unit failed completely and dramatically. Doing the math, over and over at the helm, convinced me we had enough water to make Gibraltar. Anna, on the other hand, didn’t share my optimism and, withdrawing, spent her waking hours at the helm staring beyond the magnetic compass into the fog.
To top it all off, two hours before sunrise within a couple days of Gibraltar, we lost all electrical power. The engine was running, but the alternator and the batteries were dead. Since the starter was electric, and there would be no way to re-start the engine, it was imperative we kept it running.
When Anna got up to relieve me at the helm, I pulled a floor panel, unscrewed an access port on a below-floor water tank, stuck in a drinking straw, and repeatedly sucked up mouthfuls of fresh water to spit it into the kettle. Eventually I’d accumulate enough water — and spit — for a cup of coffee. Without electrical power, it was the only way to get at the last of our fresh water. Luckily the propane stove worked without electricity, or so I thought. Turns out propane is fed from the tanks through an electrical shutoff solenoid which, without power, is permanently off. Swearing and thrashing around for tools, I performed a quick and dirty bypass of the propane cut-off solenoid. Nothing gets between me and my coffee.
Electrical power or no, we urgently needed to make contact with Tom regarding landing in Gibraltar. The satellite modem ran off the boat’s now defunct electrical system. The solar panels didn’t gather enough diffuse sunlight through the fog to do anything for the huge battery banks. They were, however, generating enough electricity to power the satellite transceiver directly. I scrounged wire from an extension cord and hardwired the transceiver’s power input to the solar panels’ output. Its lights went green and it found a satellite. I hooked up the Dell to apprise Tom of our current state of disrepair and check on the arrangements he was making to enable us to land.
We’re now 50 hours from Gibraltar. Looking forward to meeting your friend, Reg, and stopping for repairs and rest.
This is our current state: *failed radar *failed autopilot *failed wind vane self steering *failed water maker *failed engine alternator *no on board electrics or engine starter — engine is running now *two functional sails *almost no fresh water *no charts for the Atlantic.
Tom sent along the details of the meeting he had set up with Reg, one of his many international friends in the right places, and made it clear that Anna would not be able to leave the vessel. Then he cryptically suggested I keep my unmentionables, like film, well hidden.
THIRTY-ONE
We should have seen the Rock of Gibraltar. According to hand scrawled GPS coordinates on a paper chart, we were right there in its backyard. An oily fog kept us from seeing anything: the Rock, the anchored freighters or the ships plowing toward us. Warnings on the chart, ponderously slow wakes out of nowhere, a nearly subsonic throbbing and a heavy smell of scorched bitumen were the indisputable proof, we were lurking blind in the midst of giants. No radar, no lights, no depth sounder; we weren’t about to move above a crawl in that murk. With nothing much to do but wait and try not to hit anything or get hit, Anna took the helm and I went below for some shut-eye between damp, stinking sheets.
Two hours later, after a sort-of sleep, I was standing in the companionway trying to make sense of a steel cliff rising through a thick haze. “Holy mother of god. What…”
“Some kind of ship. It’s huge, it’s anchored, it’s not moving and I can see it. Gives me a point of reference and we’re not going anywhere. Nobody’s going to run it down so we’re safe here until the fog lifts.” Anna had us idling in the shadow of an anchored liquid natural gas carrier.
“Well done!” I was impressed with her logic.
Anna smiled.
When the rising temperature started to consume the mist, we could make out the milky outlines of dozens of anchored freighters and finally The Rock of Gibraltar itself.
Gibraltar was more of an industrially scarred mountain than a rock. Visual reference to anything was a relief, though, and we followed the shore around to the marina. At the check-in the dock, I jumped off and tied the lines. Anna, as instructed by Tom and following carefully laid plans, stayed on board with the engine running.