Heading East Again

Tuesday, January 13, 2009
We are leaving Barbados, eastbound, and entering the Atlantic. Already, the swells are deepening, with longer periods between. It is rough, and wind is blowing out of the northeast at 20 to 25 knots. The day is clear and two boats are pulling, one on each pontoon. Our own contribution is 6200 kilowatts going to eight thrusters, each thrusting at 33%. The DP system holds heading for me, but I am setting such deltas in surge and sway as are required. The island curves back to the north as we proceed. On our course from here, it is 1800 miles to the equator, 5353 miles to Cape Town, and 10,564 miles to Dampier, Australia. The wind is the northeast trade, and it brought European explorers to North and Central America. That includes Columbus, who landed on Barbados, as well as St Vincent. The latter, he landed on 22 January—St Vincent’s Day—hence the name. At our current 6.6 knots, Cape Town is 33.2 days away. Hopefully, we can make better speed soon.

At Barbados, our nautical charts finally caught up with us, complete with the Gulf and Caribbean, which we have all ready traversed. They did not send the north Atlantic, which we are in now, that runs from the pole to the equator. So, once more, we are chartless and will remains so for almost 2000 miles, until we cross the equator.
Had I a compass, I’d look very smart;
I’d set it right down on an up-to date chart.
The gyro I have reads out the degrees,
But I haven’t a map, and I’m lost on the seas.
If you happen to know about headings and throttles,
Please put some maps in some sea-worthy bottles.
Throw them as far as you can in the foam,
Then if we miss Africa, we might can find home.
I’d do it by stars, or by word of mouth:
Doesn’t the sun come up in the South?
No sweat on navigation, Prince Henry. If I head east for five or six thousand miles and run into land, maybe it will be Luanda, or Port Harcourt. I’ll stop and ask somebody: “is this Africa?” If he says yes, then we’ll go south and follow the coast line, then stop and ask somebody: “Is this Cape Town?” But what if we land in Spain and they say “no, this is not Africa. You must fill out this form and present your charts for approval before we can release you to Africa.” We have no charts and might end up in the Torrejon jail. Of course, they may pay us to take this eye-sore away from their shore. We could threaten to drive it near shore and leave it sitting on the bottom. None of us speak Spanish, though, but, I can learn it, just like German. I still remember the first lines of German that I learned: “Wo ist Herr Doktor Gruber?”—where is Mr. Dr. Gruber? Foreign languages are not completely out, but I had a Frenchman teaching first semester French who critiqued my first oral exam: “some of the words are right, Monsieur Griffith, but the dialect is not suitable.” The first German vowel I had to conjugate was “to go”—ich fahrt, ich bin gefahrten, and so on. Unhappily, I mispronounced it, to the great glee of some class mates. It sounds like fěrt, fěrten—and not as it appears. Thus, maybe I’ll learn Spanish in case we hit the Spanish coast. I already know some, anyway:” como esta frijole?—how you bean?” I can not find an upside down ?.

It is rougher than a wash board out here. The sea state is transitional between the Caribbean and the coastal Atlantic. Lots of current blows up from the south. Meanwhile, we are pitching and rolling four or more degrees. The best speed so far has been 6.7 knots, and the worst 5.9. There are still no phones or internet, so we are alone out here, and the crew worries about pay, bills, and families.
“Alone, alone; all, all alone—
Alone on a wide, wide sea,
And ne’er a saint took pity
On my soul in agony.” (Coleridge, Rime…)

I saw a movie with Laurel and Hardy in the French Foreign Legion. The troop was in the Sahara and marching single-file when a bad sandstorm hit. Every trooper grasped a belt, or pack, or other object of the man in front of him in order to stay together and not be lost, and the squadron marched on. They marched all day when the storm finally dissipated, and there was Hardy, holding on to an empty bayonet scabbard with nobody attached, and Laurel hanging on to Hardy’s belt. That is how I feel now, following these two silly boats in rough seas. Crikey! We could separate and they end up in Denmark and we in Marrakech, hanging on to a limp cable and wondering how South Africa became so sandy. There was a young captain explaining to us lieutenants how it is not possible to be completely lost, because you already know where you aren’t. In truth, I am not lost, and know with precision where we are.

It became too rough for our old tub, and we had to reduce speed to four knots. That’s fifteen minutes per mile, a normal walk. We hope we don’t have to ballast down, but we are really taking a beating. Doubtless, some bathrooms are ankle deep in puke. That is shameful, because dinner tonight was one of Mooney’s masterpieces. Wimps.

Looking out the window, it is darker than the inside of a cow, except for the two boats in front of us. They are lighted, and move half- way up the window, in unison, then ride back down and out of sight. They are much smaller than we, so their ride must be a real head-knocker. I am spending a bit of time hoping this stuff will settle down some.