Bluewater Adventure

Laughing Goat, Mason 43, newly purchased 1993

First Passage: Sailing to the Bahamas

After buying and refitting their Mason 43 Laughing Goat , Susan and John and daughter Kate face their first offshore, overnight run by Susan Cole

AS WE ANTICIPATED OUR FIRST OFF-

shore destination, our terror grew. To sail to the Bahamas, we would cross the Gulf Stream, a warm, fast-moving current flowing north in the Atlantic Ocean, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico through the Florida Straits and up the East Coast. When winds blew from the north opposing the current,huge waves formed that we had to consider and possibly endure.

John struggled to calculate how long it would take to cross the Gulf Stream. The current could cut the boat speed in half. Cruising books recommended leaving at midnight to ensure arriving in good light. If we arrived after dark, we would not see the coral at the

harbor entrance. We wavered between an early-morning departure and a night crossing.

Another big decision loomed: finding a “weather window.” Until this voyage, that phrase had little meaning but in the Miami marina some sailors hired private weather forecasters. Everyone wanted to leave at the beginning of two or three days of favorable winds. As the reality of departure set in, John contacted a professional meteorologist, too.

After a week of scaring ourselves with confusing weather reports and conflicting opinions from dockside “experts,” we had had enough. On a cloudy, breezy day, we listened to the latest weather report. John checked with the meteorologist who covered Caribbean weather for sailors. The next few days looked favorable. In a stupor of anxiety, we returned the rental car, withdrew cash at the ATM, and made final preparations.

We hemmed and hawed, and decided on a ten o’clock evening departure to Gun Cay. We would cross the dreaded Gulf Stream in the middle of the night.

A wiry Englishman from the boat across the dock tossed us the bow line as we pulled out of the slip. His wife stood alongside him, waving cheerfully. He asked where we were headed. “The Bahamas,” John said.

“I hope your trip over is smoother than ours was this afternoon,” he shouted as we rounded the dock.

John and I looked at each other. Although fair weather was predicted, clouds obscured the stars. While Kate happily chattered, ready for adventure, we both glanced warily at the channel leading out of the harbor and beyond into impenetrable darkness.

We focused on our usual boat tasks. As we headed out of the marina, John steered, and I coiled lines and tidied fenders. A lighted red buoy marked the turn where we would enter Government Cut, the channel that led into the ocean. Although I had viewed it neutrally in the past, tonight the blinking red light reminded me of the safety of the inner harbor.

We turned left and entered Government Cut. For a half-mile or so, red buoys lined the left side of the channel and green ones lined the right. There were no other boats in the normally teeming channel. Beyond the strings of lit buoys—utter blackness.

“What did he mean?” I asked, referring to the Englishman’s comment as we left.

“I don’t know,” John replied. “The weather guy said everything looked good.”

Kate’s bright chatter ceased. Sensing the tension, she slipped below deck with a book.

“Which marker is that?” John asked, pointing to a green buoy some distance away.

“I think it’s ‘11.’ I can’t read it.” I adjusted the binoculars. We headed closer to confirm the number. “Do you think he was talking about the Gulf Stream?” I was stuck on the Englishman’s words. My teeth chattered.

“Probably.” John’s blue eyes had shrunk to narrow slits.

“It’s ‘11.’” Only five more pairs of buoys to go, and the boat would disappear into the void ahead. Laughing Goat plunged on. John and I were silent.

The boat felt like she was running in slow motion. We passed another pair of buoys. I could not look at John. I wanted him to feel certain about embarking on this midnight venture. Was he unsure like I was?

I eventually looked over at him. We had never been big talkers. In that way, our relationship was similar to the one I had with my dad, who had always known what I was up to, without much talk about it. Now, although I quickly looked away, I knew John knew what I felt, too. “Shall we do this?” he asked.

Three pairs of buoys to go. I did not want to be the one to make the choice.

John said quietly, “Let’s go back.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, even though my body had already pleasantly slackened as I sank onto the cockpit cushion. John had poured so much of himself into this voyage. Turning back would unleash a torrent of self-doubt. He would dismiss all that he had done to get us this far.

He slowly turned the boat around. I became conscious of breathing in and out, of a soft breeze blowing across my body and the backdrop of neon-lit South Beach high-rises. I glanced at the outer edge of the channel. I could almost make out a ghost ship, carrying a younger version of us, hippies careening around Long Island Sound on an old wooden ferryboat. I did not understand how we would get to the Bahamas now, how we could feel any differently tomorrow about heading into the blackness.

John’s version of events, which he wrote after we crossed successfully:

The non-events of the preceding page, logging the successful crossing, fail to paint the true picture, a romance novel gloss-over of the real terror and shame that led to the Great Gulf Stream Crossing. Four or five days earlier, we had steeled ourselves, armed with days of listening to the offshore broadcast, a fresh read-out from our ace router Walt, nights of teaching myself vector diagrams. Tanks full, engine checked, and we actually left the dock

at about ten p.m. at night.

An oh-so-nice couple helped with the dock lines and tossed, with the lines, a casual comment that they hoped our trip was smoother than the one they had that afternoon. Within a nanosecond, all confidence—which must have been gossamer thin—vanished… We were staring out at the channel lights that looked like a neon path to the darkest hell I’ve ever dreamed…

The swells became larger. I—for a second— panicked. Let’s bag it. And we did.

Oh, the shame! How embarrassing! How the hell do I expect to sail around the world…

The next morning in the Miami marina, we sipped coffee in the cockpit.

“How can we cross oceans if we’re afraid of the dark?” John muttered.

Our British neighbor sprinted across the dock to ask what had happened.

“Engine trouble,” John said.

Later that morning, John called Cliff, the licensed captain who had helped him bring the boat from Connecticut to Annapolis. Cliff had crossed the Atlantic and sailed the Mediterranean and Caribbean Seas. Neither of us wanted to head out again into the blackness alone.

As we waited for Cliff to arrive, the failure to cross on our own grated. John chain-smoked and avoided people on the dock. Although John looked like a born sailor with a craggy face, L.L. Bean sweater, and worn topsiders, he didn’t like sailing at night or in bad weather much more than I did. A week later, we headed out of Miami again, bound for Nassau, an early morning departure. We decided to sail through the night in deep water north of the Berry Islands to arrive in Nassau the following day. It would be my first overnight sail.

A couple of hours later, Cliff was below in the nav station while John, Kate, and I were on deck, hoping to spot the Gulf Stream's western wall. The sun hid behind clouds. Deep cobalt blue water stretched to the horizon. Fresh, salty air filled our lungs.

“It looks like we’re in the Gulf Stream,” Cliff said, noting that our speed had slowed to four knots with the current pushing us north.

The change was barely noticeable, though, like crossing a highway into another state. The Gulf Stream, which had loomed so large during our preparations, was tame that day.

Later, I prepared my first dinner at sea, searing steaks in olive oil with garlic and rosemary. Although the seas were gentle, I practiced strapping myself to the stove with a wide white canvas strap meant to keep the cook from toppling over in rough weather.

The moon beamed a wide path on the water. Stars blanketed the sky. Great Stirrup Cay Lighthouse, the next mark, north of the Berry Islands, glowed faintly in the distance. Laughing Goat raced towards it at eight or nine knots, with the current now helping us. The boat swooshed through the darkness.

The light was shining more brightly when I passed out chocolate bars for dessert. I remembered my panic as we groped our way towards Stamford Harbor, unsure of where we were. But in this sparsely traveled part of the ocean, there was breathing room. The lighthouse’s beam pulsated into the darkness and pointed the way, a lone streetlamp in a corner of the sea. There were still miles to go in deep water. we discerned the shapes of fishing boats. Bathed in the reflected light, men hustled around the decks of the trawlers, hauling in lines and nets. A large yacht was closing in on us —fast— from the other direction. We steered to starboard to give it room as John ran forward yelling. It, too, veered to starboard, and then sped by on our port side, narrowly missing us.

We discovered that when we hastily attached our navigation lights after applying a final coat of varnish to the rails before we left, we reversed them. John quickly switched them around. So far, the most dangerous moment on the crossing was this one, and it was our fault.

I went to sleep for a few hours and when I awoke, the sky was brightening. Cliff smiled, pointing to a low gray mound way off in the distance—New Providence Island, where Nassau was located. I brought up coffee and sat on the forward deck, hugging my knees.

I grinned at Cliff, at Laughing Goat, at the mound on the horizon we were heading towards. We were in Northwest Providence Channel where the Atlantic Ocean fed into the water northwest of New Providence. The vast ocean stretched out in front of me.

Cruise ships streamed toward Nassau. John woke up, and we watched ships and fishing boats disappear into the harbor. As the entrance neared, John and Kate raised the courtesy flag, a small replica of the Bahamian flag. The U.S. flag flew from our stern. When we entered the harbor, tremors of patriotic fervor, which I rarely experienced while in the States, swept through my body.

the Nassau shore. John called Nassau Harbor Control on the radio.

"Nassau Harbor Control, this is Laughing Goat.” John's breath caught. I stood near him to witness a historic exchange. We had made it to another country, a dot in the ocean thirteen hundred miles from where the voyage began.

“This is Nassau Harbor Control.”

The clipped British accent thrilled me.

“Laughing Goat requests permission to enter the harbor.”

He asked John a few questions about where we were staying and then said, “Permission granted. Welcome to Nassau.” We had passed the first hurdle.

* Later, before Cliff caught a plane back to Connecticut, we went to lunch at a restaurant overlooking the harbor. Over conch fritters and key lime pie, we rehashed the crossing, our words tumbling over each other in our excitement.

After Cliff left, his role in the crossing faded in our retellings, as though we had cut out his image from a photograph. Many years after we returned from the voyage, Kate was surprised to learn that Cliff was a hired captain rather than a friend who occasionally accompanied us.

John Russell and Susan Cole bought Laughing Goat, a 1982 Mason 43, in 1993. In 1996, John, Susan and their seven-year-old daughter Kate sailed on Laughing Goat from their home in Connecticut down the Intracoastal Waterway to the Bahamas, Cuba, Mexico, Belize and Guatemala. They returned to the States in 1999 and settled in Florida, living aboard Laughing Goat in Fort Lauderdale and continuing to sail her in South Florida and the Florida Keys. They became landlubbers, sold Laughing Goat in 2003, and after Kate went off to college, purchased a Norseman 20 catamaran, Smooch, which they lived aboard for a number of years, sailing between Fort Lauderdale and the Bahamas.