Still Floating: Book III - Alone on My Detour to Two on Lucky

By Sharon Lehnert

In this, the third book of the Idiot Afloat trilogy, a single handing woman sailor takes her boat from Marathon, Florida to the Bahamas, usually sailing alone, but sometimes with friends along.
To test her new motor, she sails to Cuba in the fall of 2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Wilma, which hit southern Florida hard. Then there is the scary trip across the Gulf Stream with a friend who has never steered a boat before, in ever-increasing winds, to get to Bimini.
From Nassau she sails through the Exumas to George Town. She anchors in isolated turquoise waters in spots to which tourists never get. She meets many of the people whose characters have been formed by a hard life on the water. She learns to handle problems that the boat, the weather and these people bring into her life.
The story bumps along, with all of the misery and pain and the times of joy mixed in together, and eventually brings the reader back to the safe harbour all sailors crave.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sharon Lehnert
• Release date: Nov 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9780987750990

Sharon Lehnert

Sharon Lehnert neé Sloan was born in 1943 and grew up on a Christmas tree farm just outside the small town of Bothwell, Ontario, Canada. She married at 19, and has a son Michael.Sharon graduated from the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, with a Master in Library Science degree in 1969. She worked as a secondary school teacher/librarian, a prison librarian and a public librarian, chiefly in Hamilton, before retiring.In her retirement, Sharon turned her old house in Hamilton into Inchbury Street Bed and Breakfast and it operated for nine years until she set off on her sailing adventures.When not sailing the high-seas, Sharon calls Bothwell, Ontario home, where she pursues her keen interests in Scrabble, oil painting landscapes and politics.

Book preview

Still Floating

BOOK III

Alone on My Detour to Two on Lucky

SHARON LEHNERT

First eBook Edition Copyright © 2016

Published by Sharon Lehnert

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in the case, of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.

Published by the Author at Smashwords

Edited by William Sloan, Jr.

Formatted by Christine Thomasson

Cover from a painting by Sharon Lehnert

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Lehnert, Sharon, author

Still floating : Alone on My Detour to Two on Lucky

/ Sharon Lehnert.

ISBN 978-0-9877509-9-0

Sailing.I. Title.

GV777.3.L46 2016 797.124092 C2015-906833-9

Table of Contents

Title Page

Verso of the Title Page

Dedication

Map I - Overview

Map II - Exuma Chain of Cays

Map III - Florida Keys

Foreword

Prologue

1: Waiting for Wilma

2: What Wilma Did

3. Marathon Interlude

4. Sailing to Cuba to Test the New Motor

5. Christmas Break

6. Rebecca’s Voyage

7. Pinned Down in the Ship Channel Anchorage

8. Nassau to Staniel Key Alone

9. George Town, Great Exuma

10. Lucky on Lucky

11. Back to Life in the (North) Southwest

12. The November Visit to My Detour

13. Two Skippers on My Detour

14. The Journey Away from Paradise

15. Back to Earth

16. Winter West of the Gulf Stream

17. Change of Heart

18. Cruising With Heart

Afterword

Acknowledgements

Also By Author

About the Author

Dedication

As you read through this book, you will notice that a daunting number of people keep dropping into the story. Perhaps they anchored beside me and invited me and whoever was sailing with me over for supper. Or they could be people I met at Happy hour on the beach, who struck a chord. Perhaps I helped them when they were in trouble, or they helped me. Or the person with whom I was sailing did. These people made me (or us) feel welcome in their world and we opened ours to them. These new friends might have disappeared forever or kept crossing paths with me all the years I have cruised.

More than the places to which I sailed, friends enriched the cruising life. These cruisers will continue to be friends long after we have all put our boats on the hard for keeps.

You are too many to name, but you know who you are, and I will keep you in my heart and remember you as long as I can still remember anything.

This book is dedicated to you.

Map I - Overview

Map II - Exuma Chain of Cays

Map III -Florida Keys

Foreword

In the two Idiot Afloat books before this one, I told the story of my travels and adventures as a single-handed cruiser.

The first book, Living and Cruising on Wishbone, Ultramarine Blue and My Detour covers the years 2000 to 2003. I stumbled along, making mistakes and learning by them. Despite a couple of found and then lost loves, and way more mechanical breakdowns than that, it was exhilarating to be away from a desk, out of the city and making my way through an unknown waterscape alone.

I wasn’t alone all of the time. People outside of my normal circle of library staff and political junkies became my friends. They showed me the mysteries of small motors, navigation, weather, tides and currents.

The scenery changed when the boat moved. The water made it always beautiful.

In the second book, Cuba, Bothwell and Boot Key Harbor: The Cruiser’s Divided Life, the story continued. The time spent in Cuba was other-worldly to me, a place of many faces, depending on the angle from which it was seen. The accounts of other cruisers emphasize this.

With the failure of My Detour’s old motor, the story widened to include living aboard - staying in one place and becoming part of a floating community.

My ever-growing family and my roots in Bothwell became part of the tale. With aging parents, I had to confront my own approaching old age and prepare for it. Hence the summers of work on the little $1 house.

The narrative resumes in this book in the late fall of 2005. I was reconnecting with many old friends, and making plans with the cruisers I had met. The new motor had been installed and it was time for the adventure to continue.

The journals, emails and ever-decreasing vestiges of memory are there to draw upon. Let’s see what happened next.

Prologue

I peered out into the black ocean. I was on the little sailboat, Lucky, pointed east to the Bahamas. My companion was on the wheel. I wondered if I had made the right decision when I shipped my boat north to sell and gave up my independence to live and sail with the man beside me.

He had been living and sailing alone for most of his life. He was used making decisions without consulting anyone else. It was his boat.

What made me think we could be partners?

Chapter One

Waiting for Wilma

The year of 2005 was winding to a close. Soon I would pack up my Ford Taurus and drive south. But first there was unfinished business.

I did not do all of the work on my house by myself in the summer of 2005. Virginia was often there helping me, and I borrowed trucks from Gerry, Bill or Dad whenever I needed them. Jeremy was always handy if I needed something heavy lifted

Especially of note are sister Vonny and brother-in-law Ray. They came to stay in my house when Virginia and I went off visiting, and cleaned up the bushes and trees growing wild around the yard. Ray also hung pictures, made and put up shelving, fixed the lawnmower and mowed the yard. He climbed up on the roof and patched it, and made a plan of it for replacement estimates. He installed new lights in the kitchen and bath, putting in the octagonal boxes which my contractor had forgotten. He built a shelf for the barbeque on a pillar at the back.

The front room had been built over an old cement porch which was the original entrance to the house. The current floor had not been fastened down in that spot and bobbed up and down. Ray took the floor apart and fixed it. He planted grass seed and got the lawnmower fixed. He did all this and much more, and all I had to do was feed him well, keep rum in the cupboard and let him sleep in the front room with all the windows open. In mid-October I looked around and could see nothing else that needed doing in that stage of renovation

Sister Sandy and her husband Gerry decided to hold a Jack and Jill party for her son Zeb and his fiancé Laura in the barn. This meant major cleaning and decorating. The whole family pitched in. It was a joyous party of friends and Demaiters, Sloans and Motherwells (Laura’s small family).

The party was October ninth. There were one hundred and forty people, including lots of little kids. The barn rocked, big piles of food disappeared, many games of chance were played, the beer and booze flowed and we all celebrated the pending nuptials. It was a great big party, not a Stag and Doe fundraiser.

I put two-year-old Julian, my grand-nephew, to sleep in Sandy and Gerry’s big bed. He lay on his back with his hands behind his head like a little old man. He chattered away, repeating all of the words he knew, perhaps a dozen, before he closed his eyes and fell asleep. I stayed inside and babysat him and his tiny sister Hannah. I would miss my grands - Julian, Hannah, and brother John’s granddaughter Georgia. I knew I would have to introduce myself to them again when I returned in the spring.

My eighty-four-year-old father was in a drug study where we believed he was getting the real drug, not the placebo. It seemed to be keeping his prostate cancer at bay. However, when I took him in for his usual scan in October, there were spots on his liver, and he was out of the study. It was a shock to both of us, and I could see that it had taken his hope away. He had less energy, but then, so did I. His greatest joys were watching his grandchildren play and holding the babies in his arms.

I finished a commission – a painting of our old country schoolhouse that was now a private home. Thanks to nephew Jeremy, my new digital camera became a comfortable tool. The paperwork got cleared away. I picked up all of the fallen apples again and stocked up on art supplies to take south. My Ford Taurus was outfitted with new tires.

But Hurricane Wilma was out there in the ocean, heading for the south-east coast of the U.S.. I delayed the drive to Florida a few days.

My email contacts had been getting updates about my misadventures for five years now. I offered them the chance to get me out of their inbox. If they wished, I would remove them from the update list. They could just check the website once in a while. Most friends wanted to stay on the mailing list.

James, the young psychologist who bought Dodger, my old Grampian 26, was racing Dodger. He raced the 100 mile single hand spinnaker division out of Port Credit, and flew the spinnaker twice, packing it himself while racing. He said it was very cool.

October 19, 2005 – from Kamo, the single-handed sailor on a twenty-foot Chrysler sailboat, on Hurricane watch again

The same day I have email You to tell about that I have receive the money, I had email to Katy and Gilbert to explain what I did with their anchorage .They have probably a computer problem, so most of the time they don’t receive my email.

This Wednesday morning Hurricane Wilma is 175 knots of strengt and most of the trajectorys tracks are predicting it to come for the Florida Key as a category 5 alongside highway 1. A few prediction is for it to go at Shark River after its suppose to turn Est after getting out of the Yucatan channel. that supposed to start to be rough around this Friday. I don't like that. I will do my things ashor to day and after I willmy boat and mayby place also some snuber line on Andorphin’s other anchor and help other if needed wedo for boat and self what we can and let’s hope that the Hurricane will miss us again and praying and meditating with visualising that it will miss us or to not be strong enough to not gave us to mutch problemes.

From Your friend Kamo I hope i will come through it with my boat nicely enought and can see You again.

There was nothing like a letter from Kamo to get me back into cruising mode, but this letter made me glad that I was dragging my feet a little.

Sandy, a friend who had sailed with me and helped me fix things on my boat, wrote about her turn away from cruising for a while. Her Handy Sandy business was booming and she was reluctant to leave it. It was less stressful in British Columbia, she said.

October 19, 2005 – from Bev Mallory, an old friend from hockey playing days

I am just a little worried about My Detour setting out before the hurricane season is over, so I am trusting that your common sense and nautical experience will protect you.As a reader, I am impatient to hear about this year's adventures, however. With a new motor, your craft must feel quite luxurious.

Brother-in-law Ray, making your one-dollar house livable, must be a miracle worker.

I know how it feels to be concerned about aged parents. This morning I am going to the nursing home to see my mother on her 90th birthday. In her dementia, she does not accept that she is 90.If I try to claim that she is 90 and yet I am so much younger, she is indignant, since I am her sister after all.I am now the only person she recognizes, even if she doesn't remember how we are connected.

I closed the cottage for the season last Sunday. That act for me is an annual heartbreak, but I console myself that spring will soon be here. This weekend, I am driving to Columbus, Ohio, to visit my five-month-old grandson whom I have not seen since July. My five-year-old van has a brand new set of tires, and newly serviced everything else, so I too feel quite luxurious.

I even have a new passport! I wonder what port you will be in when you read this.

Sandy and Bev were living single lives on land, figuring out how to do it as they went along. We women who stay or become single for large parts of our lives need each other as examples and inspirations. Elizabeth, whose letter follows, was another such woman. She couldn’t come last year because she got bit on the face by a dog at a Christmas party

Toronto friend Elizabeth wrote: In terms of sailing this winter, like you, I have a similar issue with parents. Both of my parents are in their mid-eighties and I have decided to spend all my Christmases with them until they go to the other side! So that means that late in December and until early January I will be in Fort Lauderdale where they live. Good luck with your sea trials and I hope to have coffee or a sail with you someday soon.

Wilma stalled over Cozumel. I kept waiting. I loaded up with American cash, cleaned the house, and revisited family. I really would miss Julian and Hannah.

Smitty, who had built his own boat and done carpentry work on mine in Fort Lauderdale in 2003 wrote to say he had only been sailing once in a couple of years. He had just turned fifty and was trying to build up his pension fund. He was hoping that we would cross paths soon.

I was still waiting for Wilma to blow over Florida. A man looking to buy a Nonsuch sailboat like mine wrote to ask about the differences between the Ultra and the Classic, and what to look out for when buying one. I was packed, so I took the time to respond to his questions.

October 23, 2005 – to Russ, the prospective boat-buyer

I'm finally leaving for the south tomorrow, after waiting a week for Wilma to make clear her intentions. So many questions you have!

In the Ultra, you lose a foot or so in the cockpit to get extra space below. But the double bunk is nice. I miss a chart table, where one could fasten one's computer down, with the navigation programme running.

The shower stall is not important. In the south, it is nicer to shower in the cockpit, with the sun shower. Most people use their showers for storage.

Yes, I'm a member of the Nonsuch Association. Boat #23.

When cruising, I really like to anchor out. More private, quieter, prettier, and cheaper. Much cheaper. Just make sure you have two good anchors, lots of 3/8 inch chain and good 3/4 inch rope rode. Check all of the connections, and mouse them.

Things to watch for or that I would do differently or have upgraded are as follows.

Definitely get a motor survey. It will cost hundreds of $, but save you thousands.

Check the little stay on the mast under the deck. Could be fraying. Have a rigger go up the mast and check all the rigging - eye pads that hold the wire that holds the boom could be cracked. If the fridge is original it will likely need replacing. Ditto for wiring, propane lines, water lines, scupper through-hulls. Check the wire part of topping lift - likely worn out, and it hurts when it breaks and the boom comes down. Make sure the deck isn't punky, watch out for the bow especially. An EPIRB that just needs batteries is worthless. Ditto a life raft that just needs repacking. Don't get an anemometer or try to fix one. They almost never work. Have a second halyard rigged. You can use it for a safety when going up the mast, back-up for the topping lift, backup if you sky the first one, hauling out your dinghy, etc.

Check the holding tank for leaks around the fittings. Check the grease cup on the rudder post. It tends to seize up and fall off, leaving a leak when underway.

There’s a lot more, but that's a start.

I never heard back from Russ. I hope I didn’t put him off boats completely.

October 23, 2005 – to Ruth, an old B&B friend, who had written about her current life

It's so nice to hear from you and know that Gid is still alive and kicking and playing music. I hope New Year's is a great success. Please give him a big hug for me.

Now that Wilma will be gone in a few days, I'm heading down the road tomorrow, to arrive after she leaves, see how my boat is and make it habitable.

Sunday I had breakfast with Vonny and Ray, who were visiting our parents and staying at my house. We went to Barbie’s in Florence and took Dad. (Mom and Virginia went to church.) I answered all of my emails and packed my summer clothes. Vonny and Ray would close the house.

I planned to return mid-December for Christmas. Last year, my boat motor quit on Christmas Eve. Jeanette, my visiting crew, and I spent that evening in a bar near where we were tied up in the channel in Key Largo. I made a call home Christmas Day to Sandy’s. Everyone was gathered there and Julian was discovering what Santa Claus and presents were all about. Okay, I cried a little. No more missing Christmas. Besides, Zeb and Laura’s wedding between Christmas and New Year’s was a must-not-miss event.

On Monday morning, October 26, I called Chuck the Pyrate, who lived near Marathon, in the Keys. (Yes, he preferred this obsolete spelling of the title he gave himself and used in his sideline, in which he and a group of his friends would charge onto a beach, dressed as pirates and delighting children at birthday parties.)

The first part of the hurricane has gone through, he said. You know, it isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. There isn’t even a surge yet.

With this good news, I loaded the car, said my good-byes and headed east to visit my son Mike, who would not come to Bothwell for Christmas or the wedding. I visited old Royal Hamilton Yacht Club friends Murray and Laurel in Burlington in the evening and we watched Hurricane Wilma on television while we ate supper. I stayed in their guest room.

Elizabeth Miller’s sister in Florida phoned her in Toronto about Wilma, and Elizabeth emailed this warning on Tuesday: Take your time getting down south. I spoke to my sister last night and she said that the debris was extensive in cities along the I95 and I75 and they still have no power after almost two days in Fort Lauderdale and it might take about a week to get all the power back. As well, the bridges to the Keys need to be checked for structural damage.

Good luck on your trip down and we will stay in touch. If I can make it I will. I hate the dark we go through all winter. The cold is bad but the dark is worse so I would love to sail in the sun for a while.

After this warning, I tried to call Chuck again, but his cell phone was not working, another little alarm bell. But I ignored it. All day the rain fell as I drove south, turning to snow in the mountains of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. When it got dark, I stopped at a cheap, clean little motel.

Chuck finally answered his phone. The news was not good.

Chapter Two

What Wilma Did

The other side of the hurricane had been much worse. A surge of more than two feet rose into Chuck’s apartment, one of those illegal rentals on the ground floor, and destroyed most of his family’s stuff. He had the forethought to put the stereo on the dining-room table. His truck, parked lower down in the yard, was drowned. He sounded a little weary and dazed, but he knew the drill.

I’ll be first in line for a new stove, fridge and cupboards when Home Depot opens, he said, and when you get here you can give me a ride to Key West to pick up the new truck I’ve ordered. He knew FEMA would come through with money eventually.

I got up to a cool morning and drove through the mountains of North Carolina, still gold with fall colours, sunlight and cloud shadows sweeping across them.

On October 26, Kamo sent this description from his vantage point in Boot Key Harbor.

Allo dear Sharon.

I'm all ok and my boat also, that Wilma was little more rough than all the other storm i did ride in Marathon. i dont know what was the strenght of the wind because all the weather chanel forcasting went out one after the other after the last observation of 80+kntsat Sombrero reefand today I saw on the Keys news Web site that the wind wasknts at Sombrero Reef. The strongest wind did come from the south but the waves was small because of the protection of the land but when the wind had turn to the west its was little bit less strong but the waves from the open sea was coming right into Boot Key it was prety bompy.

Befor the storm i did put 4 snuber to Endorphin but they have all broken. At least i,m shure that they have help in removing stress on the boat for a certain amount of time until they break everything else look ok for Andorphin and Steve from Loos Change did go ashor befor me and He told me on the Vhf befor I worry about it and I was supposed to go have a look myself.

A lots of boats did drague or breack loose, some sink or demasted at their anchors, some other boat piling scrunched on top of others in the mangrove or up high and dry. I guest that between 30 and 50% of the boats that did stay in Boot Key Harbor did drag or break loose or domaged in a certain way. Yesterday I was rescuing dingys and other stuff its was very sad to see all thos boats tortured or dead. I could not pull off eny of thos exept dingys because they was all completly on the dry even at high tide. Also on the Bay side it did had a storm surge flooding and people around Keys Fisherys was standing ontop of theyr building to be rescued because they was start to be in chest level of water and losing theyr docks. I was worry about Your boat.Today I can't stay ashore too long because I have to try to rescue more dingy and stuff in the mangrove.

I'm glad to had make it and hope to see You

I was still travelling south, and was happy to hear from Kamo that my boat was okay on its jack stands in the yard at Keys Boat Works.

I met up with Mark Packard on Serenity, whom I had met in Boot Key the year before. He was living on his boat Serenity at the Golden Isles Marina on St. Simon Island in Brunswick, Georgia. He took me to his nephew’s restaurant, The Fourth of May, and we were greeted by a large round table of Mark’s friends and relatives, whom I had met on a previous visit. I was glad to see Mark there, safe, comfortable and happy, but knew that in his heart of hearts, he’d rather be cruising. But he wanted to make his kitty a little larger and replace some equipment and add some too.

I arrived in Marathon after dark on October 27, and took a room at the Sea Dell Motel – cute, clean and not expensive. I talked to Kamo on VHF after the Cruisers’ Net, and Chuck stopped by to say hi. He and his wife were busy cleaning up the mud, applying for FEMA grants and buying replacement appliances. Most of the people in Marathon were doing the same thing.

Shirley Marshall was the friend with whom I stayed in May 2002, after I hit the Dania Beach Blvd. Bridge in Ultramarine Blue. On October 29, 2005, she was in London, England, waiting to board a large cruise boat heading east across the Atlantic, to tour Egypt, Athens and Rome, among other cities. That was when she learned about Wilma, and what the storm had done to her trailer home, back in Fort Lauderdale.

She wrote: I have news from Fort Lauderdale. I emailed everyone I could think of to try and find out how my place was. Most of the e-mails have come back as undeliverable. I phoned Mavis (with Tiffany the cat).She said the whole area was a disaster zone. There was no electricity, no water, no gas and no food. Roads were impassable. I asked her if she could possibly go over to my house and she said she would try and get through but had to hurry up and go while it was light. And also because a 7 pm to 7 am curfew had been imposed to prevent looting. I phoned her back an hour or so later and she said she had managed to get through. There are trees, power poles and debris all over the roads. She said my park had been devastated and many homes were totally gone. She made her way to my corner and saw Sue, my next door neighbour who has the cat Spooky. Sue said she had lost her roof and was moving out shortly. They had only just been allowed back into the park. The man across the street had lost his roof and was staying with friends. The woman the other side of me had refused to leave when the police came round as she has five cats. Half of her place has been smashed in and she has still refused to come out.

Mavis and Sue walked around my place. Carport is full of debris but still standing, as is my shed. Most of my shutters are gone. Power box was hanging off the wall so they took it down as there were cables everywhere and didn´t want me to have problems when they reconnect