In the Dinner Key Anchorage, Mike, a stocky white-haired man with a stern brow anchors next to me for several months, flying Canadian colors over Peapod, his home-built steel boat. We pass each other’s boats enough times to become friendly. Peapod is cleverly put together; Mike tells me with a smile that her mast is actually a salvaged aluminum telephone pole. I know my way around town so I give him directions for where to find what in Miami. When he’s ready to sail on, he invites me aboard to thank me for being a good neighbor. To my surprise, his wife Betty is with him; I have never seen her aboard. “I’m happy on the boat,” she explains, “but I don’t like it when the wind blows and the rigging starts rattling. I’m happier when it’s calm; when we’re at anchor and the boat isn’t heeling over.”
Having come down the Intracoastal Waterway from Montreal to make final preparations in Miami, Mike has Peapod ready to leave for the Bahamas as soon as the weather is right for a Gulf Stream crossing. “We’ll be staying at Little Dove Cay in the Exumas,” he tells me. “It’s a private island; we’ll be the caretakers. Stop by for a visit if you get down that far south.”
November, 1989: I’m alone now; alone in a strange country on a small boat.
I don’t know anybody.
I am unfamiliar with these southern islands.
Winter; a time to watch the sky for telltale signs of cold fronts racing down from arctic latitudes; a time to stay close to sheltered harbours. But I’ve crossed these Yellow Banks twice already, once in rough weather. I’ll shoot back down from Nassau and then island-hop south. Though I’m not sure how far I’ll go or where I’ll end up, I make Georgetown in the southern Exumas my goal; that’s the place Trimaran John always talked about.
The Exuma Cays are of a different character than the comparatively lush Abaco chain to the north where a large main island and a chain of out-islands define the boundaries of a protected bay. These islands are a battleground where ocean and land fight for dominion. The waters are clear and colorful and vibrant, but bleakness lives here, too. Gone are the pine forests and hardwood hammocks. Tortured rock formations and thin scrub vegetation rule here. The Exumas are rugged and desolate; an intimidating landscape exotic and remote. Twice daily, the tide pulls unfathomable quantities of water on and off these banks. With no large mainland to moderate the current, the islands take the brunt of shifting tides, making the cuts between them subject to fast moving currents and wandering shoals, rendering it prudent to traverse them when the tide is nearly at ebb or flood.
Allen’s Cay is the northernmost anchorage in this chain of islands that stretches southward from a point forty-two miles southeast of Nassau to a latitude just south of Havana, Cuba. Uninhabited except by a species of Bahamian Marine Iguana, Allen’s Cay is really a cluster of small islands that encircle the white sand bottom of a pristine lagoon. Over millennia, tidal currents carved a deeper ring of blue around the shallower middle. The southernmost islet is U-shaped with a small beach inside its curve marking the end of this gorgeous, other-worldly anchorage. The colors are supersaturated. The sand bottom provides good holding ground.1
I row over to the beach. Three iguanas crawl from the foliage to greet me, looking I suppose, for a handout. I neglected to bring an offering so I’m grateful to have read in the Cruising Guide they’re vegetarians.
Back aboard Blue Monk, I prepare an evening meal—just chopped vegetables and rice—but I enjoy my hot supper way out here so far away from everything and everyone.
I light the kerosene lamp that illuminates my cabin and look over my chart to plan tomorrow’s route.
Little Dove Cay appears beneath my finger.
I remember Mike’s invitation.
The tiny island is right on my way and slightly off the path more frequently taken by other yachtsmen, a perfect next stop.
After a half-day’s easy sail, I drop a hook in the seagrass next to Peapod with her waving maple leaf ensign.
Mike is pleased to see me. He introduces me to his son, Roy, an amiable, dark-haired man in his late twenties, and invites me to stay a few days.
I enjoy meals with them, catch up on old times and attend to a few chores on the boat. Roy helps me work on my outboard motor. Most likely, dirt is clogging the the fuel system and that’s why it’s been running rough. We accidentally drop it overboard and after diving down to attach a line, end up having to tear it apart anyway to clear out the seawater. Three weeks worth of dirty laundry are scrubbed in a big galvanized tub with a washboard and sweet rain water from the cistern over which the house is built. Hermit crabs scatter as I walk the beach followed by two playful dogs. I string my hammock between two coconut palms and relax with a book and a pillow.
Mike shares news of misfortune. Betty took her own life a few months before my visit. He motions solemnly to a far corner of the island where she is buried in a secluded spot.
The water clears.
Back in Miami, months passed before I even knew she was aboard. When I finally met her, she spoke only of fear; fear of the sound of anchor chains rattling; fear of the boat heeling over under sail. Betty hid in the small, floating shelter her husband built—away from noise and disturbance—and still she was afraid. Mike carried her to this quiet and peaceful island, to a sanctuary where nothing threatened, to walk free in the sunshine along a white beach shaded by coconut palms, listening to the chuckling of the waves, feeling the cool sand between her bare toes, to a place where she could free her spirit from fear.
But though we arrive in Paradise full of hope, we carry our demons with us. When Betty gazed into the waters of her own soul, she saw only sharks, stinging jellyfish and spiny, poisonous things. There were no more loud noises, bright lights or angry people to blame; only imagined vitriol whispered by a cruel sea, carried on an ill wind, distorted by a troubled spirit. With nowhere else to run, to quiet the howling torment, she fled in the last way she could.
Her body lies forever under the palms beneath a mound of coral rock and conch shells, her spirit consigned to this tranquil place to celebrate freedom from fear, to gaze affectionately at a husband and son who mourn her passing, to embrace a world of serenity and peace. There could be no more beautiful heaven.
Clamped securely to its mount on my transom, the outboard runs better—not perfect, but better. Good company and land underfoot have been restorative. The sand and coconut palms and crystal blue water are sublime.
But Little Dove Cay is only a stopping point; a temporary destination; a place to absorb the shock of the last passage, regain balance and prepare for another leg of a longer journey.
The morning is cool.
The wind is fair.
The sea beckons.
I lash my oars to the cabin top. I haul the mainsail aloft and stow my sail covers in a cockpit locker. Anchors release their grip on sand and seagrass. I secure them on the bow.
Past the tip of the island, the wind increases.
Blue Monk heels and accelerates.
I ease the mainsheet to take pressure off the helm.2
Sailing alone into the unknown, across shallow waters hiding corals and currents, I too, am afraid.
It is the price I pay to feel alive.
1. some anchorages offer better holding ground for anchors than others. Sand and mud admit the flukes of an anchor more readily than dense seagrass or flat, rocky bottom.
2. If the mainsail is too tight, the helmsman must fight the boat’s tendency to turn into the wind. Letting the sail out balances the boat and relieves pressure on the tiller, reducing “weather helm.”
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