Perhaps some trips start off without a hitch. When Jason and the Argonauts boarded the Argos in the port of Volos thousands of years ago and sailed into the Black Sea in search of the Golden Fleece, it is likely that their friends and family gathered on the shore and thought as they waved goodbye. : “Those Argonauts know how to drive a boat.” Or perhaps the Christians of Antioch, waving to Paul from the Selucian wharf as his ship left for Cyprus in AD 47. C., they noticed that the captain seemed sure and firm.
That was not the way it was for Janet and me at SailingActs.
On the morning of June 18, we woke up early. I observed, checking the barometer, as usual, first thing in the morning, that the hand had dropped considerably during the night and was still falling. The locals had been commenting on how unsettled the weather had been that spring, so this didn’t surprise us or discourage us from heading out that day as planned. Janet and I rushed to fuel up, checked our email in the internet cafe one last time, bought last-minute supplies, and said goodbye to our boating neighbors whom we had grown to know in our six weeks in Volos. .
Our goal was to leave at noon, but at 1:00 the insurance agent had still not brought the necessary documents to the ship as promised. And besides, we kept putting things away and chatting with friends. Janet was on the shore talking to Jenny, who came to see us off, when the agent arrived and handed me the insurance papers. Suddenly we were ready. It was exactly 1:35 in the afternoon.
With so many people watching our every move, I was a little nervous about withdrawing, even though it seemed like such an easy task. We had been living aboard the Aldebaran since May 7, during which time I started her engine, hoisted the sails, turned the rudder, and renamed her. But she had been tied firmly to the pier the whole time. We had no idea how she would handle herself.
We begin to untie the moorings. Somehow, it seemed, a growing and bewildered crowd began to gather out of nowhere, anticipating some kind of “Inept American” show. With Jenny looking on apprehensively from the dock, the Austrian ship’s neighbor on one side shouting encouragement in German, and the Dutch couple on the other side defending their immaculate ship from an assault they seemed to anticipate, I turned SailingActs on and sailed away smoothly. .
For a few meters everything was fine. Then suddenly a mooring line snagged and we almost brushed against the beautiful Dutch ship, a ship you don’t want to scratch, especially when the alarmed Dutch owners are standing on deck. This was a situation where the famous Dutch tolerance might not apply! To avoid disaster in the first 10 seconds of travel, I dove for the rear rail to free the line, then heroically plunged prone through the rear cockpit hatch and grabbed the wheel to get back on course. From this undignified position, prone, legs stretched out over the stern rail like a human weathercock, I steered Sailing Acts away from the dock. For some reason, the Dutch girl found this amusing. She could hear her thunderous laughter over the throb of the 42 horsepower diesel engine from 100 yards offshore. But who needs dignity if you have adrenaline? We looked back and everyone was waving and smiling, just like us. We were out!
We watched the shoreline disappear where we lived for six weeks. How small it seemed compared to the open sea before us! Goodbye Volos, internet cafe down the street, helpful shopkeepers, international boating neighbors, Captain Steve and Jenny.
We rounded the harbor entrance, engine throbbing. Janet and I were still congratulating each other when we noticed dark clouds coming in from the north. Thirty minutes later, the sky turned black. We looked uneasily, then with alarm, at the heavy sheets of rain falling to the north, then around us, and finally directly on us from above. We motored on as the wind picked up, whipping the water in whitecaps. I turned off the engine and just ran with the wind, making three knots with no sail. Janet steered the Acts of Sail while she pitched and pulled with the squall, while I went down to check our course and position on the chart. I have never been dizzy in my life, but on this day of many firsts, I was instantly dizzy. This was not good.
We needed to hoist some sails to stabilize the boat. I managed, in 45 minutes of nauseating struggle with the wind and waves battering the forward deck, to raise the storm jib, then the mizzen, and SailingActs leveled out as we accelerated. I put on the weather gear Janet had given me for Christmas the year before and pushed my way through torrents of rain and great gusts of wind, thunder, and lightning. I realized with gratitude that we had purchased an extremely seaworthy boat.
Then the squall passed, the sun rose, and for the final hour of that day, we followed the course we had charted over waters we had never crossed before, in a ship we had never sailed before. We were heading to the island of Palaio Trikeri, about 16 miles from Volos. The maps made sense, the descriptions were accurate, and we found the port, full of charter boats. Like in Volos, when we moved away from the pier, everyone in the port seemed to be watching us as we approached. Not wanting to show viewers that we had never dropped SailingAcs anchor before, we settled on a secluded anchorage just west of the harbour. Janet released the windlass brake and the anchor dropped but did not seem to hold.
“Let’s try there,” I suggested to Janet, pointing to a patch of sandy bottom that we could see through the crystal clear water. “I’ll push the button to run the windlass and raise the anchor. Then I’ll rock the boat and you’ll release it when we’re directly over that spot.”
I went back to the cockpit and hit the button for the anchor windlass. Nothing happened. I tried again with more force, shaking and then hitting the button. There was no movement or noise from the anchor windlass. Did Captain Steve forget to tell me something?
Although Palaio Trikeri is a very small island and quite remote, and although the anchorage we chose was even more remote, there were a couple of houses on the cliffs overlooking the small bay in which we were fighting. One of the few inhabitants of the island observed the entire nautical circus with binoculars from the porch of his house overlooking the small bay. Others joined him. I ended up lifting endless yards of chain with my hands, which I thought was pretty difficult at the time, but I had blisters before I was done with the job. Finally we raised the anchor, found another anchorage on our chart and headed for it in the hope that this one would not be onlookers. If it’s so hard to anchor smoothly, I thought, what’s it like trying to back up a crowded berth? Tomorrow we’re going to do some practice maneuvers, I promised.
We tried again at the isolated anchorage we saw. Watching the depth sounder closely, we slid to 12 feet and dropped the anchor, which settled firmly, then backed the boat back toward shore. As our cruise guide recommended and is often done in the Med for extra protection, I brought a line to shore with the boat and attached it to a tree at the water’s edge. Before boarding SailingAcs, I checked the depth under her keel. It was only about six inches, too risky. Thinking very tired, we decided to put the anchor a little further away. I’m still not sure what happened next when Janet tried to release the line tied to the shore while I hoisted the anchor with the winch by hand and then powered forward to drop the anchor into deeper water. Somehow the rope got tangled and as we moved forward the rope suddenly whipped across Janet’s bare hands and she screamed in pain and fear. It was horrible. She sat in the booth sobbing in pain and frustration.
We eventually managed to reset the anchor and moor the boat properly, but Janet was still in shock and pain. That night she was not as idyllic as we imagined she would be at our first anchorage. We had sailed only 16 miles that day, but we were physically and emotionally exhausted. And we still have several thousand miles and 14 months to go, I thought to myself.
Around 9:00 p.m. we made something to eat, then went up to our bunks. I stayed awake, thinking and praying. Please, God, help me to make wise and confident decisions on this journey. Help me stay calm, be helpful and encouraging. Bless Janet especially tonight and help make this journey a pleasant one for her.
Sailing the Mediterranean hadn’t changed much in 2,000 years, I realized that first night on the water. We had already experienced the reality of traveling by sea in the same sea that Paul sailed. We faced some of the same types of dangers that Paul experienced, and we were no more in control than he was. I thought about how my resolve to continue had faltered that night when we were overwhelmed and confused. Did Paul ever waver during his “sea trials” that he writes about? He was wondering. Perhaps, but he endured and triumphed. Us too, I thought as he fell asleep.
Reprinted from Acts of Navigation: Following an Ancient Voyage. (Published by Good Books; Oct 2006; $14.95 US; 1-56148-546-2) Copyright Good Books (http://www.goodbks.com). Used with permission. All rights reserved.
