1987 Leprechauns Tour to British West Indies

Monday, November 16, 1987, 4:30 p.m.

We pulled anchor and sailed east for approximately 3 hours in the prevailing south easterly wind, then tacked northwest to a palm lined sand beach flanked by cacti and shrub covered granite hills.  The shrub-like trees fruit with the manchineel or “poison apple”, a tiny fruit containing a blistering milky juice which burns to the touch.  There was real concern about the security of the anchorage in the conch strewn grasses covering the sandy bottom of Machineel Bay, Cooper Island, British Virgin Islands.  Bob, John and I checked the anchor lines.  I could see the plough two-thirds embedded into a mud bottom, however, I lost the danforth in an undulating field of sea grass.  It was a mild surprise to see no fish; conch seemed to be the sole animal life.  The sea bed was like a desert, sand, mud outcrops, and sparse grasses. 

After we’d checked the anchors, and had eaten our onboard barbecue, we watched the sun dive to the sea beyond the horizon wall, a silver comet plunging through smokey, scudding, cumulus into the vast sheets of shining latex.  The great black dome displayed a startling brilliance of fluttering stars and softly luminous planets accentuated by the pewter crescent of a milky moon.  The boiling grey-tipped cumulus stretched across the smokey sky top-flattened by the constant S/E wind whose strength registered in the whining of the waxy tree shrubs lining the ridges of the Cooper Island hills.  Machineel Bay at Cooper Island is fitted with about a dozen mooring lines in its sandy cove protected by the mountainous spine of the island.  Moorings had been filled by the time we arrived; we secured our position with both anchors in the sandy bay.  The steady wind was punctuated by gusts of 20 knots accompanied by blasts of driving rain.  The sea in the basin was choppy, unlike the rolling swells of Drake Channel; wind force and direction seemed unpredictable and threatening.  Three boats followed us in; one couldn’t find anchorage, so headed to open sea under power; the other two dug in.  The bay was now crowded; moored boats and anchored boats, their dingys swinging capriciously about their anchor lines in the gusting wind and pitching sea.

I was on first watch.  By midnight, everyone except the captain Maurice Larcher and myself had gone below.  I told Maurice I thought we were slowly drifting, and that Barney’s boat, the other anchored boat, was bearing down on us.

Maurice and I watched the relative position intently for 15 minutes, and concluded that if we had been drifting, we were now secure.  Maurice went below.  Barney’s boat, “Ginger”, seemed to have stabilized.  We were within 50 feet of a moored boat and 60 feet of Barney’s boat.

I wakened the skipper, Maurice, and the first mate, Bob, about a ½ hour later; we had shipped to within 30 feet of the moored boat.  Maurice thought it was the relative movement of both boats about their securing lines in these rough seas, however, he started engines and we rested on idle.  Bob and I watched the situation until we were within 10 feet of their mooring line.  We shouted our alarm to Maurice, who ordered the anchors hauled; John and I secured both anchors, Maurice motored past Ginger out into Drake Channel.  We traced a loop, returned to the bay, positioned ourselves seaward to “Ginger” and attempted to find anchorage in a black rolling swell lashed with blasts of driving rain.  We circled and attempted anchorage three times.  We finally understood the inconsistent readings registering on the depth-finder.  We were at the anchorage outer limit.  About 60 yards seaward from the “Ginger” anchorage on a seabed shelf which dropped by 80 feet to 112 feet; we had to crowd the “Ginger” in order to find a berth on the shelf.  John and I swam down to the shelf to attempt to position the anchors; they wouldn’t hold in the rough sea.  On the third circle was we were attempting anchorage at the seaward edge of the shelf, great blasts of wind forced us down upon the “Ginger”.  Maurice called to haul anchors.  Bob, John and I hauled with every ounce of determination.  Maurice opened the throttle, one anchor was being secured when Bob called for help with the second; I got it up past the chain but couldn’t bring it home.  John and I strained against the unyielding chain as Maurice charged out to sea.  Maurice yelled, “we’re pulling the Ginger”.  Silence.  The engines cut.  Wind sounds.  Sea sounds.  we were locked in the blackness by a fouled line to a sister boat in a storming sea.  We secured a bow line to “Ginger”, then secured our stern to hers.  We were beside her, tied in a deadly dance, being blown toward the boats at mooring.  Maurice leapt onto “Ginger”, Barney cut her fouled line; “Ginger’s” engines roared to rescue.  We swung in an arc pulled by the labouring “Ginger” headed for the Channel.  Our broadside on the swing slammed into the prow of a moored boat.  As the arc and speed increased, we had twice deflected the threatening collision but on the third rebound she hit out gunwale with a force that knocked both John and me into the cockpit.  I dizzily gained my footing, climbed to the walkway to see us slide sidelong toward a second moored boat.  By now the remaining crew were on board, dazed by the crashing and the shouting, trying to make some sense of their nightmare.

The dingy had wedged between the two boats, which bounced from it, but on rebound threatened to crush it.  John and I pulled it in lurching yanks bouncing along the sides of both boats into open water past the stern.

We pushed at the gunwales of the moored boat and bounced against her as we swept on our bow and stern lines toward the open sea pulled crab-wise by the roaring straining “Ginger”.  She pulled us into the rolling swell of the channel.  While bouncing madly in the black John tethered two lines from our bow to her stern.  We circled in a great swinging arc through a pulsing sea in 20 knot wind and 10 foot swell tethered 40 foot behind “Ginger”; each of us shocked, exhausted, jumpy.  We circled ‘til the sun broke the inky sky through grey wind blown mushrooms at 6:30 Tuesday, November 17.

During the emergency, “Ginger’s” dingy had broken loose, its line mistakenly cut; as it lurched past our bow in the black, Bob jumped overboard, boarded the dingy and threw me its painter.  At daybreak we were being towed, towing two dingys.

Bob threw a line around the cut, tethered, fouled line so that we could follow its course under the water.  Bob and I hauled up the fouled line to reveal that it was “Ginger’s” anchor line locked to our anchor line, both of which were fouled round our propeller.

I recommended that Maurice all the Machineel Bay diving school and have them send a team of divers out to free the prop.  Maurice advised that he would fee the prop himself and had “Ginger” cut her engines.  Bob went over the stern; John and I jumped, one into each dingy which we manoeuvred to each side of the prop.  From the dingy John caught “Ginger’s” anchor line which Bob followed under our boat to survey the damage.  The sun was high enough to enable John and I to see Bob at all times.  In a pounding sea with a 20 ton boat bouncing 10 feet each way, Bob swam underwater following the severed anchor line to the prop; he then flipped so that his feet were planted against the hull of the boat while he held the prop with his right hand and worked at the line with his left.  With his lungs at bursting point he flipped back and pulled himself along the line to the relative safety of John’s wildly bouncing dingy.  The line was wound round the prop.  He thought he could unravel it.  He unwound it.  One wind at a dive.  Six dives.  Six times the rudder, the prop.  The hull could have smashed his head.  

Bob handed me the line; I pulled the enmeshed anchors into my dingy and disconnected the fouled anchors.  We pulled in our anchor and hauled the remnants of “Ginger’s” anchor line over the side.  Only Bob knows how he felt.  I couldn’t speak.  I was relieved, grateful, overjoyed, amazed, impressed.  I was exhausted.

Our engines started; we sat in neutral for 10 minutes listening for damage.  All that night both ships had had to keep tension on the towing lines; now we were faced with the delicate task of releasing lines with props engaged in heaving seas and gusting winds.

About 7:30, the sun well into its climb, the weather squally, the crew exhausted, shaking from shock and strain, we set out under motor back to base at Roadtown.  That night we fueled our song ‘til sunrise then carried John back to the hotel.