Our next stop was Vieques. This is one of our favorite places for
several reasons. We once spent a long
weekend here over Christmastime with the Williams. It is also where Connor turned 8 and was
baptized on one of it’s beautiful beaches.
Vieques is also home to Bio Bay, one of our top favorite spectacular
spots we’ve traveled to that we frequently reminisce about. Bio Bay has a narrow inlet from the ocean
from which it opens into wide modest cove that during the day has nothing
really to recommend it. It is at night
that the high concentration of bioluminescent “dinoflagellates” turns this
place into liquid magic. At night
when it gets dark, the water when splashed or moved turns into pixie dust. I believe it has the highest concentration of
‘bio dinos’ and therefore it is the brightest bioluminescent bay on Earth. It is something to behold.
On our second visit a few years ago I was afraid
the memory of our night swim in the bay would not prove as wondrous as the
first. But it did not disappoint. It seemed more magical than I had remembered. And so our trip around the Virgins wouldn’t
be complete without sailing south to share this spectacular spot with Sev.
But it seems mother nature had other plans
for us…
On our way down, the seas were getting rough
and swelling upwards of 6 to 7 feet. The weather
report was fine but calling for a steady gust of wind for several more
days. This meant the swells could
possibly get larger for our return the next day from Vieques, which would mean
the possibility of an eight to ten hour beat back up to St. Thomas against the
wind in even rougher seas. We decided to
head toward Vieques anyway and see how our little band of sailors fared and
gage their willingness to undertake an even longer and possibly more
tempestuous passage if if we returned north the following day.
Within a half hour, the ocean got hostile
enough that we decided to abandon plans for Bio Bay. Sad but prudent. We battened down the hatches and reluctantly turned north and headed back up to St Thomas. The beat back would be mighty enough without
adding five more hours to the leg if we started the next morning farther south from Vieques.
The sun was in full glory but so was the
wind. Dishes nestled deeply in the sink
would fly out occasionally onto the galley floor. Books and chart plotters sloshed to and
fro. Once underway, the boys were both
below deck, each in their respective bunks, snoring away—mostly unaware of the
ruckus except for an occasional jolt launching them off their bed followed by
a hard thud back onto the mattress.
High seas either make you drowsy or sick, or sometimes both. Luckily all three kids slept through most of
it. Chloe, the smartest, she slept on
the aft deck in the fresh air.
Sometime within the first half hour after
we’d turned north the auto-pilot screen went blank and turned itself off. This is not a critical instrument, much like
the cruise-control on your car. It just
means you have to steer. Mark had
charted our course and we just had to keep the heading manually. Our chart plotter was still working and
confirmed we were always on course.
When things get shaky I suddenly become more
interested. When the sea is calm I
usually settle in with a good book and enjoy a leisurely sail. But now that things were getting exciting I
was suddenly interested in steering the boat.
So while Mark was stowing all the objects flying around in the cabin
below I took the helm and tried my best to follow our course.
According to Mark (and the chart-plotter), I
was only on course when intersecting it.
The large waves have a way of turning your coordination into that of a
drunken sailor. I managed to stay on
course in a haphazard line much like the stitching in a sail, zigzagging my way
left and right through the proper course.
Mark said that if I was taking a pilot’s IFR exam, he’d have to fail
me. But when the seas get rough I think
every sailor turns into a drunken one. A
strait line seems impossible.
The seas were generally 6 to 8 feet but would
sporadically mound into a ten-foot soaring precipice pointing the bow high into
the stratosphere and then drop into a gulley on the back side. During these infrequent pitches, the boat
would momentarily suspend in the air before slapping with a hard shuttering thud
on the ridge below. These would often be
accompanied by a breaking wave that would splash and wash into the
cockpit. The combination of which felt
like riding a motorized bucking bronco while simultaneously being a contestant
in a wet t-shirt contest, an interesting blend of activities to say the least.
(Let it be noted that because I was the only participant in either endeavor, I did,
therefore, declare myself the winner of both.
Which on land would be an impossibility, in both regards.)
This was our general endeavor for the next
three hours.
[I've got some GO-Pro footage but I'll have to find better internet to upload]
The wind was whipping so hard that Mark and I
had both forgot the sun was beating down hard and baking us. At the end of the long rocky passage Severin
remarked that we had “trucker’s arms”, a comment that should make his dad proud. Our sun beaten skin over the course of the
sail had coated in a thick layer of shimmering salt with a texture much like a
fried donut shaken in granulated sugar.
We arrived safely and had to wake the kids in
time to show Severin Hassel Island.
Their rough day at sea was a long nap with frequent jarrings to and fro.
We are now presently anchored off Charlotte
Amalie in St. Thomas. We went into town
and got ice cream cones and did a little shopping.
I think the shopping was more loathsome to
the boys than the rough seas.
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