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Preparations
Fitz and I set to work with a
passion, tearing things apart, cleaning, painting, and repairing, as
required. We pulled Dart out of the water, using the government crain at
the "carenage," and set her on the dock for a week while we
worked over the hull. I was astounded to discover that the brass fittings
that secured the rudder assembly were so badly corroded that they could be
broken with my bare hands. After much searching through the local stores I
was able to secure the necessary replacements in bronze, and Dart started
to come together once again. With a final coat of $60 a quart anti-fouling
hull paint, Dart was finally ready to be lowered back into the sea.
The hundred year old government
crane was a well rusted monument to times long gone by. It had a huge
retrofitted electric motor to drive the winch drum, but the movement of
the boom was strictly manual. I had to hire locals off the dock to man the
big hand cranks to raise the boom, and then to swing the boom out over the
water after dart had been lifted off the dock. Everything was very casual,
and I was sweating blood while Dart hung 25 feet above the water next to
the dock. The big motor wined and Dart started her long descent to the
water. Every foot of descent lessened my tension until Dart finally
touched the water and settled gently onto it, as a duck might alight on
the glassy surface of a lake. Dart was back in her element.
Dart was once again safely at
anchor in Gibb's Bay when the Captain of the Naval Facility asked me if I
would sail his yacht down to the carenage to lift her out onto the dock
and do a repeat operation of what we had just done to Dart. Since he was
offering $250 to do the weeks work, it was too much to refuse. The problem
was that his boat was very poorly equipped. It had no engine, and its
anchors were strictly for light duty. I decided that I would do the job,
but would strip Dart of her engine and various other important equipment
for the trip down and the return voyage. I was concerned that a sudden
storm could cause me to be caught unprepared with the boat, so risked
removing the equipment from Dart. I left Dart riding to her substantial
CQR plow anchor, and sailed south for Bridgetown with Fitz to overhaul the
little yacht.
We had an easy trip down and
spent the night in Carlyle Bay before our appointment with the ancient
crane. Fitz and I decided to live on the boat for the full week in order
to prevent it from being stripped by local thieves at night. All went well
until the third day. It was a very hot and sultry day. We had spent most
of it under the hull scraping and getting everything ready for
anti-fouling paint. The day was finally over and Fitz and I were just
starting to relax after dinner when there was a knocking on the hull.
Earlier that day several
strange events had occurred. About 2:00 pm the big inter island freight
transporting sloops along the dock had suddenly been pushed backward at
the dock quite violently. The shove was strong enough to shatter several
of the huge telephone pole sized bow sprits when they were rammed by the
stern of the ship in front. The force necessary to shatter a two to three
foot thick spar would have to be considerable. A couple hours later
another similar push occurred, but without the damage that happened
earlier. The boats were now all securely tied up. I walked out to the
opening of the carenage and looked at the sea for sometime, but no visible
action was apparent. The sea looked flat and calm. Something told me that
all was not well however.
Fitz and I were just settling
in for an evening of relaxed drinking and talking when the knocking on the
hull occurred. I climbed out of the cabin to look over the side, and there
stood an old friend, Macky, who owned a beautiful 36 foot yacht named
"Silver Sprinter." I saw that the Sprinter was tied up along
side the dock below. Macky quickly told me that Sea Dart was in a very
desperate situation. He thought it might already be too late to save her,
but he was willing to try to help me.
He had been anchored in Gibb's
Bay earlier in the day when a very large ground swell started rolling in
from the west. In a very short time it had grown in size until it was
bigger than anything he had ever seen in his 30 years on the island. He
said that Dart was almost in the giant surf, and would completely vanish
behind the huge waves as they crested to break.
I suggested that it would be
quickest for me to get a taxi up the island and swim out through the surf
to Dart. He assured me that if I did I would almost certainly be killed in
the huge surf. He said that the only way was to go after Dart from the
sea. He was willing to sail back up the 20 miles to Gibb's Bay with me to
attempt a rescue right then. After a few moments discussion with Fitz, we
locked up the Captain's boat, and all three of us climbed aboard Sprinter
to head out into the darkness of the tropical night for a very strange
trip up the coast to save Dart. Thus began one of the most remarkable
nights I have ever experienced.
As we sailed up the coast the
moon rose full in the east, lighting up the sea almost like day. I was
appalled at what I saw. The waves that we were riding over were so huge,
and the period was so great, that it seemed that the entire sea would tilt
as the enormous mass of water rose beneath us. The period of the swell had
to be half a mile or more. I had lived next to the sea almost all my life
and had never seen anything like it. As the swells approached shore they
mounted in height until they were towering mountains before crashing down
on the suffering shoreline.
There were several other things
that caught my attention too. The sea was full of bubbles coming up from
far down in the depths. It was actually hissing, much as if it were
carbonated, due to the constant popping of hundreds of thousands of tiny
bubbles. Also, there was a very low pitched, but very powerful, thundering
from the surf a mile or so shoreward. My heart dropped as I observed the
conditions around me. Everything was charged with energy, and it was
frightening to be upon it, even if we were completely safe for the moment.
After several hours we started
to approach Gibbs Bay. I had lived on the shore of the small bay for two
years, but the conditions were so strange that I hardly recognized the
place. In the bright moonlight, Dart could be seen hanging on to life just
yards from where the huge waves broke in a thunderous roar. Dart would
rise until she was sitting sky high in the air and then would drop like a
rock out of sight in the trough of the wave, only to rise again as the
next mountain approached. My heart was beating like a trip hammer as I
watched the drama unfold inshore.
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Copyright © 2001
- 2003
by Donald R. Swartz
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