Struggling against the wind

      The first day started out with a six-hour slog thru muddy Galveston Bay down the Ship Channel, on engine power with the wind dead in our face.  Night was falling as we finally cleared the jetties and made it out in the Gulf.  And then Mother Nature threw her full force and fury right at us.

       The route from Galveston to Tampa runs straight ESE.  But the wind was blowing from the SE – and hard!  Wind speed was a constant 20 knots.  A sailboat can sail, at best, about 40° into the wind.  But sailing at that wind angle is, shall we say, just this side of hell.  The waves are monstrous – some of them nearly the size of a house – and they keep coming, and coming, and coming.  The boat slams into each and every wave with horrendous, violent force.  And then sometimes a wave breaks over the bow, soaking you with icy water.

       At our first meeting back in February, Terry had asked me if I was prone to seasickness.  Naturally, I told him that I was a rough, tough, salty sailor, who had already spent an entire week at sea with nary a touch of problems.  Little had I realized that cruising around a group of little islands is NOT a valid comparison, because in the BVIs, all those islands break up the ocean swells.  And besides, each night we tied up in nice protected coves.  And we only sailed upwind about half the time.

      But here we were, with nothing for the next thousand miles to stop these waves.  And it was only day #1, and I was already in agony, wretching up my guts.  On top of that, the boat was heeled over about 45°, bucking like a bronco on steroids.  In those conditions, you cannot walk, or even stand, or do pretty much anything requiring any kind of dexterity.  Eating is impossible, as is also sleeping.

      When the sun came up after that first miserable night, I took over the helm, and serendipidly discovered the only medicine to fight it:  You take the wheel, and focus all your attention on the ocean, and the horizon.  Concentrate on sailing towards your destination.  Try to find some object to steer towards, such as an oil platform (there were lots of those).  Avoid looking at the boat, or anything on it.  When checking the instruments, try to glance at them as briefly as possible.  And do not look DOWN, ever. 

      The worst place on the boat was below, down in the cabin, because you couldn’t see the horizon or anything.  Stepping down that ladder was guaranteed to force everything right back up, even water.  Sleeping below was impossible too, because every time the boat hit a wave (and the boat hit lots of waves), the hull would creak and groan, and every item in the lockers would shake, rattle, and roll.  The noise was horrific.  And don’t even think of using the head (i.e. toilet) down there.  So I learned quickly to gather anything I might need, such as extra clothes, flashlight, etc, into a satchel bag and keep it up with me in the cockpit. 

      Night sailing was definitely the worst.  You couldn’t see the horizon, or the waves.  At least when you could see the waves, you could dodge the biggest breakers.  At night, they would just splash icy water on you with no warning - and it was cold at night.  With no horizon, I had to find something to steer towards, so to avoid looking at the instruments as much as possible.  So, stars filled the bill.  In the evening, I’d steer towards Arcturus.  Later, when Arcturus got too high, I used the twin points of Saturn and Spica, horizontally side-by-side and separated by about 4°.

       Whoever of us was NOT driving would grab a foam pad, lie flat on the cockpit bench, and try to rest.  You’d be surprised at what you can sleep thru.  When the body becomes exhausted enough, you can doze off no matter how miserable you are.

       With my guts somewhat under control, I forced myself to drink water.  Terry noticed that I was peeing with some regularity, and commented that that was a good thing.  But for four days, I didn’t eat a bite (not counting the stuff I vomited up on day #1).  Terry didn’t eat, either.    

       The weather forecast had said that a front might pass thru on Saturday or Sunday.  That would probably bring rain, of course, but it also held the chance of shifting the wind around to the south, or even better, the southwest.  And also, as we would approach the Florida peninsula, normal wind patterns should shift to a more favorable direction (any direction other than SE was favorable).  Even LESS wind would be a marked improvement.  All I could do till then was wait and hope and pray, and survive.

       I had packed up and brought all my tools for doing celestial navigation.  I had spent many hours practicing all the celestial calculations and plotting from the comfort of my desk at home, and was itching for the opportunity to actually do it for real, on a boat, at sea, with a real sextant.  But in these conditions – forget it!  Again, all I could do was wait and hope for things to get better.

       But the wind change never happened.  And each day, it kept getting worse, as things on the boat started failing.