WILLIAM E. LOPEZ

Approx. 2,849 words

"My First Time…"

W. E. Lopez

It is not quite pitch black as I sit on the cabin roof. The hull of Viajera slowly rises and falls beneath me, swaying to the rhythm of wind and tide. There is no moon this morning but the starlight is bright enough to cast my shadow upon the white deck surrounding me.

Twenty-eight days and 2,800 miles behind me lay the coast of Baja California in Mexico. Somewhere in front of me lay the Marquesas Islands, if my navigation has been correct. This is my first time crossing an ocean and I am betting that I have learned my lessons from the many books that I have studied.

Rioh is asleep below. It is a system we have worked out during the weeks we sailed down the coast of Baja and then out into the open ocean. She keeps watch during the day to make sure that passing ships do not run us down. I keep watch during the night because I need to take star sights at dawn and dusk.

She is one of three ladies who answered an advertisement I placed in a Long Beach paper. Before we left California she had been a real estate agent. Thirty-four and recently divorced, she is looking for some excitement and adventure in her life. She is a pleasant armful and an intelligent companion to talk with during the many weeks we have been together.

Last night, at dusk, I finished my star sights and computed our position for the day. Seventy-two miles from the island of Nuku Hiva, I told her. We should drop anchor at about 9:30 in the morning. But I am not quite as confident as I let on to her. This is my first time making a long ocean crossing. My sextant is made of plastic and cost $59 from Davis Instruments. As a backup, in case the first one breaks, I have a less expensive model that cost only $12.

Celestial navigation cannot be too difficult I have told myself. Sailors have been crossing oceans for centuries with instruments less accurate than mine. Polynesian mariners have had no instruments at all, not even a compass. They rely solely on the stars and instinct. Besides, I know where I am going. I have the latest charts and tables, which is a hell of a lot more than Columbus, Magellan, and Drake had.

Yet there remains a tiny sliver of doubt. What if I have made a small error somewhere; one that is so tiny as to be easily overlooked? An error of only one-degree will put me off course by forty-eight miles at the end of a 2,800-mile passage. From the deck of my tiny vessel the distance to my horizon is only about eight miles. I could easily sail past the Marquesas Islands and on into the vastness of the Pacific. My next landfall could be in New Guinea or even Australia.

This trip has been made entirely on confidence. A certainty that in the past three years of reading about ocean voyages I have learned enough to be competent at the task I have set myself. When I got out of the Army, I used my severance pay to buy and outfit a 27-foot sloop. In Spanish, viaje is the word for a journey, and Viajero is a man on a journey. Since ships and boats are always referred to in the feminine form, I have named my boat Viajera.

Until now the voyage has been a huge vacation. Rioh and I left San Pedro in November and stopped first at Dana Point where I took her into the harbor in my nine foot dinghy and taught her how to recover from the calamity of a capsize. There is an old saying among sailors, "A fellow who ain't never capsized hasn't done much sailing." I want Rioh to understand how to react should the unthinkable occur.

From Dana Point we dropped anchor in Ensenada where we waited six weeks to receive her passport from the U.S. State Department. We spent most of the time camped on an island nine miles off the coast of Ensenada. Our daily routine consisted of lots of swimming, snorkeling, reading, and practicing navigation. About once a week we would sail back to Ensenada for groceries and to check the mail. When we finally received her passport we began the 700-mile voyage south to Bahia Magdalena where we would take our departure from Mexico.

In Ensenada we had met Rex and Cathy, another young couple aboard a 26-foot sloop. Since this would be the first ocean crossing for both of us, we decided to sail in tandem, always within sight of one another in case of emergency.

Our first stop was Isla San Quintin, only a mile off the coast. Rex and I spent the day spear fishing and collected quite a catch for our evening meal. Rioh and Kathy spent the time beach combing, and their contribution was magnificent! Rex and I prepared saviche, a tasty dish made of raw fish, onions, tomatoes, and chilies, then marinated in lemon and limejuice. We also made a fish stew called ciopinno. Rioh and Cathy added two rock crabs, which we devilled with cheese and spread on crackers. They had also gathered twenty-one abalone; which were cleaned and sautéed with butter and garlic and other seasonings. In addition to all this, Rex and I had traded two packs of American cigarettes to some passing fishermen in exchange for six medium sized lobsters. That evening we rafted the two boats together while we shared this veritable feast. Later, we estimated the cost of our meal to be around $6, and that was chiefly for the bottle of Gran Marnier we shared after the meal.

Our final stop on the coast of Mexico was Bahia Magdalena where we topped off our water tanks and cleared customs with the port captain. He seemed uncomprehending when we told him we were going to the Marquesas Islands, as if he had never heard of them. Spotting a globe in his office, I went over and pointed them out to him. His eyes widened in astonishment as he thought of the long voyage. "What? No Acapulco, no Santa Cruz, no Mazatlan?" he inquired. It seemed as though he had never had crazy gringos in his office that wished to bypass these more popular destinations in favor of sailing off into the sunset and, in his estimation, certain death.

"No," we adamantly told him. "Isla de las Marquesas!" In the end he stamped our ship's manifests with the official seal of the Mexican government and we returned to our boats for a night of rest and an early start in the morning.

I had chosen to leave Mexico during the month of January because historical records showed that we could expect fair winds forward of the starboard quarter for most of our crossing. What I hadn't counted on was that historical records only show the average of reported weather conditions over the past two or three hundred years. We left at six on a clear morning when the sea was beautiful with winds of 12 to 15 knots. Nothing could be much better for a long ocean trip.

By noon the sky was gray and overcast and the winds were blowing at full gale force of sixty knots! Rioh was drastically seasick and was laying in the steadiest part of the boat, namely on the floor of the main cabin. Since I was the captain and the captain is entirely responsible for every thing that happens aboard his vessel, I must somehow be to blame for her awful condition!

I had added an efficient English self-steering vane to Viajera soon after I bought her and seldom sailed without it. It is sort of a 'cruise control' to keep the boat on course when I couldn't spend time at the tiller. Since I had never used it in these fierce conditions, I chose to stay awake and man the tiller as we pressed on under a triple reefed mainsail and a tiny storm jib. After 72 hours I was having great difficulty staying awake and I had lost all contact with Rex and Cathy amid the crashing waves and blowing rain, so I decided that I would have to get a few hours sleep. I backed the main to windward and lashed the jib leeward. Then I lashed the tiller hard a lee and went below for some much-needed rest. Rioh was still groaning on the cabin floor. She had had nothing to eat for three days and very little to drink. She was miserable. I crawled into the V-berth forward and went to sleep.

After four hours I awakened and went topside to get us underway again. This time I adjusted the self-steering and watched it closely to make sure it would keep us out of trouble. For the next seven days, as we sailed through that storm tossed sea, I never again had to touch the tiller and I began to gain a new confidence with the wind-vane I had named Brujita, which means 'little witch.'

After ten days the sun came out, clouds vanished into Never-Never Land, and all was right with the world. Rioh had climbed off the cabin floor and rejoined the human race but for some reason our relationship would never again be the same. I could once again prepare meals using the one burner gimbaled stove and she soon regained her health.

When we left Mexico I had estimated a thirty-day voyage for the crossing, and we had room to stow away 50 gallons of fresh water for drinking and cooking. To provide a reserve in case of emergency, I had decreed that we were each entitled to one-half gallon per day, which would leave 20 gallons in reserve. After ten days of nausea and vomiting, Rioh wanted nothing so much as a bath, but naturally we could not spare any fresh water for bathing. I accommodated her by tossing a bucket over the side and hauling aboard some nice clean seawater. She could wash off with this, and then use a sparing amount of her fresh water to sponge off the salt residue. The only thing she would have to forego would be the luxury of a shampoo. The next day I surprised her.

I knew that we could expect squalls at sea, so I had adapted a large funnel to be attached to the gooseneck where the boom met the mast. A fifteen-foot hose was clamped to the funnel so that rain water could be led to the cockpit where I could fill five gallon water jugs after waiting until the sails had been first rinsed of salt with rain water. I was afraid to lead the hose directly to the main tanks in case a sudden wave should splash water over the sails and then contaminate the main tanks. We found that we could depend on about 30 minutes of fresh rain each day, and this was enough to collect ten or fifteen gallons of rain water. Rioh would have plenty of water to wash her hair and even do laundry. In fact, by the time we eventually arrived in the Marquesas, not only were our main tanks full, we still had 25 gallons of fresh water we had put aboard in Mexico that was still untouched.

After the storm, I noticed that a batten pocket at the top of the sail was separating from the sail. We hove to again and I lowered the main and got out my sail mending kit. Sitting cross-legged on top of the cabin, I stitched the batten pocket back to the sail to forestall a later emergency.

At this time we were about 1,300 miles from the nearest land and you can imagine my fright when something suddenly grabbed my hair. A passing tern, no doubt looking for a place to light and rest his weary wings, had decided that my furry mop would be just right for him. After a good laugh I finished repairing the sail and once again hoisted it to it's full height and we were on our way after a pause of no more than half an hour.

A few nights later I was again sitting in my favorite spot atop the cabin when something off to starboard struck fear into me. Knifing straight through the water and not far off, a torpedo was headed straight for my tiny vessel! It had the appearance of every torpedo I had seen in the movies as it left a silvery trail of bubbles just below the surface!

It seemed certain that in moments my treasured Viajera would be blown into a thousand pieces, Rioh and myself along with her! My first thought was to leap over board, but where would I go with no land closer than 1,000 miles? My next impulse was to go below and waken Rioh, but why? I decided to sit tight and wait for the worst.

You can imagine my relief when the 'torpedo' approached my boat and dived below Viajera. Seconds later it emerged again and began cavorting in the wake curling back from Viajera's bow. My 'torpedo' had turned out to be a playful dolphin!

Those happy memories were going through my mind as I anxiously awaited the first signs that my navigation had been correct and proper and that I would soon have the sight of land to greet me with the rising sun. At 0430 I imagined that I could see a smudge of darkness directly ahead amid the blackness of sea and sky. Something seemed just a little darker, an empty space where there were no stars. Could this be it? At a speed of less than five knots, my approach to landfall was agonizingly slow!

I grabbed my binoculars hoping their 10 by 50 lenses would gather enough starlight for better viewing. In another half-hour I could distinctly make out the form of an island amid the grayness of the dawn. I wanted to run below, wake Rioh and give her a warm hug and tell her that we would soon be stepping ashore! Then I remembered that the Marquesas consist of eleven islands, the southern six of which are off limits and used by the French for nuclear testing. Was this one of the forbidden six? Or was it one of the northern five, two of which are uninhabited? I had no way of knowing.

I was further perplexed when the sun broke the horizon behind me and I could distinctly see more than one island now. My perspective seemed like that of a flea on a pancake griddle, with pancakes to my right, front, and left. I could see at least five islands, which one should I aim for?

Deciding to trust my navigation we continued straight ahead. By 0730 we were passing just off shore, with the lovely valley where Herman Melville wrote Typee about two miles off the starboard beam. We were nearing the entrance to the reef where we could sail into Tioae Bay where we must drop anchor and report in to the French customs and immigration authorities. When we had left Mexico I had taken my ten horsepower outboard motor and stowed it below in one of Viajera's spacious lockers. My confidence in my sailing ability was such that now I decided we would not use it, choosing instead to sail into the bay using wind-power alone.

We negotiated the entrance to the reef by aligning two markers on shore and closed to within fifty yards of the beach where we dropped anchor, precisely at 9:30 in the morning. My 9-foot dinghy had been lost in the storm many miles back, so Rioh and I pulled out our inflatable life raft and put it in the water to row the final few yards. As the bottom began to scrape the sand I leaped over the side and pulled Rioh and the dinghy ashore. I helped her out and we took our first few steps on the warm sand of the beach.

And darn near fell flat on our faces! We had been at sea so long our bodies had become very accustomed to the rolling motion of Viajera's small deck. Now, once again firmly on the land, our bodies were anticipating and reacting to a rolling that never came. Sailors’ call this feeling 'land sick' and the feeling will pass quickly, but it is indeed a strange sensation when first encountered.

So ends the story of my first time crossing an ocean. It was a voyage filled with excitement, pleasure, and fond memories. It was also a voyage in which I proved to myself that I could challenge the mighty forces of the sea and, at least on this occasion, take every thing she could toss at me. It was a learning experience that I am glad I had, at least once in my life.