Maverick
Trip Reports


Crew of Maverick Invades Grenada (15-Jan-2003-09-45):
9:45 AM local time, Tuesday, January 15 (1345 Jan. 15 UTC) 12 27 N 061 29 W. Temp. 83, Humidity 73%, Cloud Cover 50%. On the hard at Tyrrel Bay Yacht Haulout, Carriacou Island, Grenada.

Warm greetings from the crew of Maverick.

I arose early today and was greeted by a torrent of rain from a passing squall just before dawn. It lent Tyrrel Bay a romantic ambiance as the anchor lights of the boats twinkled through the twilight mist, and gently swayed in the swell. The crew of Maverick has removed itself from the boat to get out of the way of the work being done and to avoid the clouds of fiberglass dust in the cabin, and has sealed up the lockers in the hope of keeping the dust confined to an area that can be cleaned. We have taken lodgings in a cottage on the hill above the boatyard at about $5 US a day. At that price it’s utilitarian and boasts neither hot water nor screens to keep out the mosquitoes, but has a veranda with a beautiful view of the anchorage, and what’s more, cable with HBO. On the Captain’s various vacations from the boat with Theresa, we have at times stayed in hotels with cable, but for the first time since March of 2001, I’m able to watch programming that is 100% American. I saw the 49ers get thumped in the playoffs instead of the non-stop soccer the rest of the world calls football, and watched Tom Brokaw giving the news rather than CNN. And although I’m way behind because of all the episodes I’ve missed, I’m starting to catch up on the Teletubbies.

Ship’s Jet-Setter Terry Shrode has flown home to visit Caroline, whose planned Christmas rendezvous with him in Carriacou was aborted when she was not able to get a flight out of San Francisco. It’s the third time since we’ve left that he’s been to America and been able to see the changes that have taken place in our absence, and of course return with boat parts. I have made a personal vow to stay with Maverick until she is able to return, although this policy is subject to review pending the outcome of the present repairs. There are times when world history hangs in the balance, and this is one of them. What if the boat can’t be made seaworthy, but we are convinced it is, and then we sink, and die, and as a result I fail to discover the secret to cheap fusion power? It’s ultimately my decision whether we are ready for sea or not, not that of the experts repairing the boat who won’t be aboard if we have a problem, and this is where the Captain feels the full burden of command. It’s tough to have the entire future of the human race on one’s rather small shoulders, but that’s why they pay me the big bucks.

Speaking of bucks, I haven’t seen any deer here but the yard of our cottage, and at times the cottage itself, daily hosts our neighbor’s goats and chickens as they forage through the area, trying to score drugs. I don’t think pot would be difficult to find here on Carriacou, but they’re out of luck if they’re looking for Sudafed. It’s a charming but small island and serious shoppers have to take the rough ferry ride to the main island of Grenada, which is called Grenada, where the US invasion under Reagan took place in 1983. Oh, the humanity.

It’s not easy for goats and chickens to buy tickets on the ferry, but Theresa and I did when she came to visit around New Year’s. We had a really nice time over there. Grenada is a first-rate tropical beauty with an interesting history even before 1983. Oddly, our guide, Peter, when giving us a rundown, left out the slavery bit. Is it politically correct to omit the story of the main population of the islands, when you’re one of them? Would it be impolite to bring it up? Is political correctness a subspecies of politeness, or should politeness be thought of as a subspecies of political correctness? Miss Manners, where are you when we need you.

Grenada is a New World spice island. Like the original Spice Islands of Indonesia colonized by the Dutch and British, Grenada is a volcanic island on the boundary of a tectonic plate and the spices, imported from Indonesia, appreciate the similar climate and soil. It’s therefore no puzzle for a student of imperialism to discover the reason that Spain and Britain and France found Grenada attractive. (Grenada was named after Granada in Spain, a place two great sailors, your Captain and Columbus, have visited, but the change in its rulers over time kluged the spelling and pronunciation. In Spain, Gra-NAH-dah; in the Lesser Antilles, Gre-NAY-dah.) Peter stopped the car at one point and with a machete hacked off a slice of the bark of a tree. Cinnamon right out of the forest. We saw nutmeg and coffee trees and a shed for drying cocoa. We stopped at a bar that sold bottles of rum spiced with local produce, and sampling it had a remarkable effect on Theresa that the Captain found infinitely appealing, though a lesser man may have been alarmed. He bought a bottle, but is not sure he can persuade Theresa to try it again.

And now to the main story. Maverick has a big hole in its hull where the local glass man, George, has cut out the affected area in preparation for repairs. These unfortunately await the return of Uwe, another German, whose specialty is engineering. Uwe was committed to another large job which couldn’t be dropped simply because the legendary Maverick showed up with a big boo-boo. The damage has been assessed by George, Uwe, Roy (who manages the yard), and a surveyor named Alan Hooper. All of these men inspire confidence and all maintain that the hull can be made seaworthy, which is the reassuring news. The not-so-reassuring news is that no one has any certainty about why it happened, and this includes the boat’s designer, Bruce King, who was reluctant to venture an opinion on the phone. All claim to have never seen anything like it except on boats at the highest end of competitive racing, e.g., America’s Cup. There are two possible explanations of its rarity, and one is that in fact it never has happened. The other is more likely but a little more sinister, and that is that, although it has happened before, the boats it happened to never made it to a yard where the damage could be scrutinized.

In all sailboats, of course, the mast is trying to go through the bottom of the boat and the weight of the keel is pushing in the same direction, while the two ends of the boat are buoyant, and the stays are trying to pull them up towards the masthead. So theoretically, all sailboats could break in half just where Maverick did. But they don’t, and Maverick did, and beyond that bare fact lies speculation.

Right now, as the Captain channel-surfs in search of glimpses of Britney at the American Music Awards, he is biting his nails hoping the repairs can be done in time to get to Panama in time to get through the Canal in time to get to San Diego in time to miss the hurricane season off the Mexican coast. The rest of our planned cruise through the lovely islands of this area of the world is distressingly out the window in a manner similar to a substantial chunk of the Captain’s savings, notwithstanding any help that comes from insurance. Assuming the repairs are done in time, the next worry is whether they will hold through the big following seas of the western Caribbean, and the thousands of miles of head seas on the way to home.

ADDENDUM:

Only two of our readers had enough coffee before reading the missive on our near-disaster to comment on the spelling of “Huston.” Of all the Houstons out there, the city, the NASA installation, the 19th-century imperialist after whom they are both named, the famous diva, or her less famous but more talented mother, which could be persuaded to come to Maverick’s aid? So let’s call another Huston, the late director of “Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” “Chinatown,” and “The African Queen,” who would be just as likely to help, and a lot more fun.

The ARC didn’t have such bad weather after all. The wind at the start was strong but not adverse as was predicted. Our information was coming from the radio reports of a non-ARC boat that left at the same time and who, unbeknownst to us, was a bit of a whiner. The ARC boats had a bumpy but fast ride with strong winds.

PS to you know who you are:

The further you cruise, the more help you seem to get, probably because it becomes more and more obvious to all that you are helpless and vulnerable fools. There’s no need to go to the expense and inconvenience of cruising, though, to be reminded how generous your average human is. There is a theory, seemingly held by a majority of people, that the human race is a sorry bunch of selfish and greedy hogs, but actual experience only rarely provides concrete personal evidence for this, even for the people who espouse the theory. It is the unusual day out here that someone doesn’t help us out. E.g., the native Tahitian in Bora Bora that saw me struggling to row the dinghy against twenty knots after the outboard failed, towed me two miles back to Maverick, then gave ME a beer. Or Stathis back in Salamis, Greece, who generously drove me around and acted as advisor and interpreter in a place where no one spoke English. I could easily come up with another fifty examples.

Nevertheless, we have been pretty overwhelmed by the offers of all kinds of help from old and new friends on this list, when they heard the news about Maverick’s problems. There have been offers of loans, of unlimited and free technical advice from highly regarded professionals, of a benefit to be held on the boat of the publisher of a popular sailing magazine, and of contacts in the Caribbean for additional succor. We hope we aren’t put in the position of actually having to make use of any of these, but we can’t express how we appreciate the offers. Then there have been the seemingly numberless heartfelt letters of moral support from our readers. So far even the insurance company and its appointed surveyor have been prompt and helpful, although we won’t have the final word on this until the process is finished.

In normal life, absent accidents and serious downturns in one’s health, daily existence can continue without a great deal of dependence on the generosity of others, so it is one of the many benefits of cruising that it helps one recall just how wonderful a world it is.

Thanks for everything you’ve said and done. We’ll try to keep up our end of the bargain and get back to sea; but are sorry to report that we sincerely hope to provide considerably less drama for the rest of the voyage.




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