THE NIGHT WE SANK
Long Ago and Far Away
copyright 2013 Edwin P. Cutler
A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT IN BERMUDA
It was a dark and stormy night on the island that Mark Twain compared to heaven. He also said that since Bermuda was eight hundred miles out into the North Atlantic, you had to go through Purgatory to get there.
On this particular night, Wendy looked out the window at the NASA satellite tracking station in St. Davids and said, "I don't want to go home tonight."
Wendy and I are probably the only two mathematicians who have sailed into a tropical island and gotten jobs as mathematicians. We had sailed out of the Chesapeake Bay in early November and wondered if we were crazy when a northeaster tried to push us ashore on Virginia Beach. But our boat, the Romarin, grabbed the wind and rode the waves as if she was back in the English Channel where she was born.
Being mathematicians and since in 1986 the Global Positioning System satellites hadn't been tossed into orbit yet we were navigating with a sextant. Shooting the stars and sun had been fun down in the Caribbean. But this was the North Atlantic, it was November, and there were no stars or sun. So we were forced to rely on dead reckoning.
It soon became obvious why guessing where you were by projecting your course ahead with only a knowledge of your speed in the water and which way the compass was pointing had been named dead reckoning. What with currents that depend on the tide that depend on the phase of the moon that we couldn't see, we began to wonder if the Romarin might join the wrecks along this coast that has been coined the graveyard of ships.
When a huge freighter passed to the west of us, between us and the dreaded coast, we relaxed and continued sailing as close to the cold and clammy wind as we could without luffing our sails.
But suddenly, on our seconde day out, in a matter of minutes, the sky cleared and the air warmed, the water warmed, and Booby birds swept across our bow trying to catch the illusive flying fish. We were in the Gulf Stream.
Now, as everyone knows, the Gulf Steam flows out of the Caribbean between Cuba and the historic Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, up past the Florida Keys, and along the U.S. coast until at Cape Hatteras, it heads out across the North Atlantic. Crossing the ocean, it passes north of Bermuda. We were going to have an easy ride to Bermuda, or so we thought.
For two days we made make-believe speed over the ground riding the Gulf Stream with west winds hurrying us east. But then we sailed into the Bermuda triangle. The west wind backed around to the southwest and we knew a cold front was going to hit us.
We were ready, we shortened sail in anticipation of a wind shift. But this was not the Caribbean or the Chesapeake Bay. This was the North Atlantic and when the cold front hit us, the wind shifted from southwest to northwest in less than a minute and came riding on foaming white horses that galloped toward us on heaving seas. Where we had been speeding, we were now flying.
But to get to Bermuda you must sail through the northern edge of the Bermuda triangle, through an earthly form of Purgatory, as Mark Twain did years ago on a small steamer. A fellow on Solomon's Island in Maryland had told us that North Atlantic storms last three days. This was a storm the Romarin could handle and in three days we'd be a lot closer to Bermuda, so we grabbed things to hold onto and grinned at each other.
But Aeolus was not through with us. Oh, No! Wendy wailed when the wind clocked around to the north and then the northeast. A northeast wind opposite the northeast flowing Gulf Stream must be the torture Mark Twain was referring to, for now the white horses began to buck and kick. The waves, confronted with the wind in their faces, stood straight up, reaching the unprecedented height of at least fifteen feet.
Fortunately, we were heading east, not northeast, so we were sailing almost parallel to the waves. Going south against the waves would have been impossible and going with them would have plunged our bow and following seas would have pooped our stern. As it was, we climbed up, up, up the faces of the oncoming waves then slid down, down, down into each following trough. Looking up from the bottom of the troughs, the next oncoming wave appeared to be as high as the spreaders half way up our mast. I wondered if we could see over the waves if we were up there, but I couldn't get Wendy to go up and see.
Holding on as the boat rolled, pitched, and yawed was exhausting and every muscle was soon aching. But we had always ached days into an ocean passage and knew we would soon become acclimated. The exertion was good for our physical future if not for our present peace of mind.
Finally, Aeolus grew tired of torturing us, the wind eased just as we sailed out of the Gulf Stream. By the time we got to Bermuda, we were convinced, once more, that sailing was the best way of life. After all, the hills of that lovely island are covered with houses of every color and shade of the rainbow. The aspect was of a garden with quaint cottages planted like flowers on the green rolling hillsides.
But rest not. Bermuda, a corner of the fateful triangle, has its share of stormy weather. Soon after settling there, we were whipped around in one hundred and fifteen mile per hour winds by Hurricane Emily. But with two anchors out we held while other boats drug and some were lost. One boat called on the emergency radio, "We're stuck on the rocks! What'll we do?" and the harbor master came back with, "Step ashore and get out of the rain." But the eye of the storm passed, and the wind abruptly changed direction so the boat was washed off the rocks with no major damage with the crew still on board.
`Everyone was not so lucky. A lady screamed into the same radio frequency, "We're aground! We're on the beach on Christmas Tree Island!" But after a moment she giggled, "At least we've stopped dragging all over the harbor."
The storm of this tall tale was months after we were working at the tracking station. We often worked on the tracking station computers far into the night because there were fewer interruptions and we could get more done. Stepping outside, on this dark and stormy night, we were amazed that the wind and rain were so threatening. That was when Wendy said, "I don't want to go home tonight."
Home was on our sailboat which was attached to a mooring we had put down in St. Georges Harbor. The mooring consisted of a discarded cylinder liner from the diesel engine of the Bermuda Light and Power company. It was seven feet long and three feet in diameter and weighed just over a ton. Fifteen links of a ship's anchor chain, each link weighing forty pounds, were attached to the cylinder liner and twenty feet of half inch chain led up to a float where the boat was sturdily fastened. We weren't worried about our home, the problem was getting there.
First we had to ride double on our moped, three miles along side the landing strip of the U.S. Navy airfield. Then, after leaving the moped with the Marine at the gate, we would get into our dinghy and put-put out to the Romarin. Simple, right?
We had done it many, many times at night but never against a wild wind with rain obscuring the anchor light that would welcome us. We were, however, prepared. Our five thousand dollar laptop computer was carefully tucked in a backpack which was strapped on my back. Over this, I, like Wendy, had on my ocean-going foul weather jacket and pants. What's more, we each had on a pair of brand new boots -- beware of new boots.
We bailed rainwater out of our hard, plastic, unsinkable dinghy, started the engine and cast off, straight upwind, heading for home. The dingy pitched into the oncoming waves and splashed our faces with sea water. We were glad we were properly dressed, but to keep the bow as high as possible, we slid back toward the stern of our little boat.
All went well, until I felt the engine having trouble keeping us going and, when I turned the rudder from side to side, I could not steer us. I reached down for something and my hand dipped into water! We had been shipping water over the stern and the dinghy was nearly full of water. We were sinking!
"Bail, Ed! Bail!" Wendy cried out.
`But it was too late. The swamped dinghy settled into the water. We felt water filling our new boots, creeping up our pant legs and up inside out clothes. If you've never been sunk before, you can't possibly know the eerie feeling of going down.
To our dismay, the buoyed dinghy that was not supposed to sink, didn't. Instead it turned turtle and rolled over. I was left holding onto its side, yelling for Wendy. She was trapped inside, underneath, breathing in a pocket of air. That would never do, so she dove down a bit and came up on the side opposite me, yelling, "Here I am, I'm okay!"
Being a cool thinker in threatening and confusing circumstances, she exclaimed, "Put the computer up on top of the bottom of the dinghy!"
How could I. It was inside the backpack which was strapped to my back inside my foul weather gear which was buttoned up around me.
We clung to the dingy while the wind and waves carried us slowly back to shore. When we felt the bottom with our new boots we climbed out and drug the dinghy onto the grass with its engine propeller sticking up instead of down.
We decided to call a coworker and ask him to put us up for the night, and walked across the road to the gate, hoping the guard would let us use his phone.
In the shelter of the guard shack, I took off my foul weather jacket, took off the back pack, pulled out the computer and laid it on his desk. While we watched, it started whirring and grinding. Salt water carries electricity and switches were shorting and closing, turning the soaked computer on. Before I could react, it started smoking. I yanked the side open and pulled out the battery -- too late -- more than switches had shorted out. It was a total loss.
The friend we called came in his car and took us to his house for hot showers and a dry bed. His wife welcomed us with the best hot chocolate we had ever tasted.
We later realized that if we hadn't been wearing our new boots, our feet would have gotten wet and we'd have been warned the dinghy was filling with water.
The moral of this story: beware of new boots, ours cost us five thousand dollars.