Contributing Source - Ron Reil

It comes to a Close

Things continued on in a very uncomfortable manner for another week until Hillary and Neil had cleared up their problems, as much as they could, and had sailed out of Bequia to look for better fortune elsewhere. I never saw them again. I have a very warm place in my heart for both of them, I owe them so very much.

Tristan and I settled into an uneasy truce for awhile, but eventually we started to communicate on a more friendly level until one day something new happened. I had agreed to take over the Banjo as her Captain for the new owners, a retired pharmacist and his new bride. They were flying down from New York in two weeks so I had lots of time to relax on Banjo while I waited. I should add that the final switching of boats had not been made yet. I was still sleeping on Dart and, Tristan on Banjo, when this happened.

One day the crew of a French yacht invited me to go over body surfing on the other side of the island. I loved the walk and the surfing so jumped at the chance. While I was gone Tristan came aboard Dart and went through all of my stuff looking for my ships log. He was very concerned about what I had recorded in it about the incident with Hillary and Neil. Since no one ever locked up their boat, but always left the companion way wide open it was a simple matter for him to enter Dart. It should be noted that I was still the owned since the boat had not been transferred to Tristan yet.

After searching through everything, I always had the log well hidden, he found and read it. He then wrote a note, and left it in the log, stating that if I ever published anything that was in my log about the boat deal he would sue me for everything I was worth! He was very concerned about his image to his readers since his income came from his books. That was quite a shock to me considering that everything in the log was a strict record of all events as they happened, with only occasional personal comments or observations.

Tristan and I had another go around over the trespass aboard Dart, and I almost cancelled the sale at that point, but decided that would hurt me more than him. We finally closed the deal and on the 1st of April 1973 Sea Dart became Tristan's. We rafted Dart up with Banjo and transferred our things. We stayed rafted up for several days while Tristan sorted through his mountain of possessions to reduce it to an amount that could fit on Dart.

At one point there was a big pile of stuff in Banjo's cock pit waiting to be tossed over the side. On the pile was an old world atlas. I picked it up and looked through it and was amazed to see that every page in it that had ocean on it had dozens of red and blue pencil lines drawn in. They were all the various routes Tristan had sailed over the years. It was a testament to a man's solitary life at sea, and to an enormous number of miles at sea. He had sailed just about every place that could be sailed between the Arctic and Antarctic oceans, and then some. I really regret throwing the book back on the pile, as it was a monument to a really amazing life, no matter what Tristan and I thought of each other.

I relaxed aboard Banjo, letting Tristan's crew go, and waited for the new owners to arrive from New York. I had two weeks to lay back and read, and do some work on Banjo to get her ready for the 5000 mile trip ahead of us to New York. I had set up an agreement to sail Banjo to New York for the new owners in exchange for food, booze, and a plane ticket back to Oregon when we reached our destination. I was in a hurry by that point so set it up for us to sail up to St. Barts to provision Banjo, and then to open ocean sail all the way to New York. I looked forward to the 50 day trip with little to do but read, navigate, and sail the boat. Little did I know about the hurricane that would crash us down, upside down, from the top of a giant wave at 2:30 am, and almost take Banjo down, and us with it. We were also going to have to face "pirates" off the Dominican Republic, and only the fact that I had a double barreled shot gun prevented almost certain loss of the boat and our lives. The adventure was only beginning. I will save those events for another narrative, however.

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