1500 Miles Forward To Antigua

And years backwards on the fight to preserve a livable planet.

Laughing Gull departed Hampton Oct 31, and arrived in Antigua one week ago, on Nov. 12. We sailed (and motored) 1523 miles, and were transported by winds, seas and politics from one reality to a completely different reality. In this new reality the trade winds blow, the sea is warm, the madding crowd is far away, and any US leadership on efforts to mitigate climate impacts, slow biodiversity loss, and understand the planet as a fragile and complex system that needs nurturing, will soon disappear.

We were in Bermuda the night of the election (waiting out weather). I had a bad feeling, knowing how deeply liberal elites and liberal political leadership have failed both the working class and the planet. I wasn’t interested in an incremental drip of news. Instead, I went to sleep, woke up, checked my phone, saw the result, and readied Laughing Gull to go to sea again. It was a beautiful, sunny day, with a moderate, favorable wind. Helpful for dulling the depression and angst about what the future will hold for my children and future generations, and for the planet itself. At sea, you mostly focus on the boat and the weather, and keeping your crew safe, though there is plenty of time to stare at the horizon and the stars and process whatever is churning within.

Laughing Gull has long been my refuge from the reality that humanity is failing to meet the moment. So eleven days at sea was not a bad place to be, and we had about as good a passage as one can hope for. The run to Bermuda, to get east while the getting was good, was a fast reach across a relatively accommodating Gulf Stream, followed by a light patch with motoring, followed by another fast reach. We were into St. George’s beautiful anchorage fewer than four days later, after 672 miles at an average speed of 7.5 knots. That’s the kind of passage a well-designed 50-footer gets you in good conditions.

Two days later we set sail again, and covered another 972 miles to English Harbour, Antigua, at 6.6 knots (almost two days of slower motoring, and seemingly lots of counter-currents). It wasn’t a doddle. There were confused seas, lots of wind when there was wind, and squalls to dodge. But it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, either. And the boat and crew handled it all with aplomb. People here keep asking if LG had a tough passage. I keep saying…not really.

That was partly due to the boat, which was designed, and designed well, to sail miles like this, and can take most of what the ocean can throw at her. But it also due to a great crew. Both for insurance reasons, and because I like to sleep on occasion, finding crew for longer offshore passages seems sensible. For this voyage I had Olivier and Ivar, both good sailors, and Henry, a very experienced racing navigator and delivery skipper. Everyone had a great attitude, despite my unending parade of stewy, vegan dinners. We didn’t obsess too much about politics, and found plenty to enjoy, especially some amazing sunrises and sunsets. Books got read. Music got played. Crosswords and puzzles were solved. With so many aboard we played with watch schedules, which sometimes meant up to 9 hours off during the day. That is a luxury and I don’t think anyone was sleep deprived.

With a beautiful dawn, there is always hope. (Photo: Ivar Andersen)

For me, it felt a bit different to be responsible for the lives and safety of others. But we wore our PFDs and harnesses, and no one fell off the boat or got a body part caught in a winch.

We did have one slightly stressful night in confused following seas and winds blowing a steady 30 knots, with gusts to 35. Laughing Gull was being thrown around, and the autopilot started to register its dissatisfaction with this state of affairs by sounding an alarm and turning itself off. Laughing Gull would start to round up, as whoever was closest raced for the helm. No bueno. My workhorse setup in windy conditions, of double-reefed main plus staysail, was no longer the ticket.

The solution, however, was simple, and I should have called for it earlier: reduce the size of the mainsail by rolling it in to the third reef (the first time I have gone to the 3rd reef). With good crew work we got a nice roll, which isn’t always easy in a seaway, and LG settled right down. And, as usual, LG barely slowed down. A triple-reefed main and staysail turned out to be a pretty good, and flexible, setup. Anytime we wanted more power we could roll some genoa out, or go full genoa. I liked it so much we carried it well into the following day. When you sail the boat you learn the boat.

Contrasting clothing philosophies (Norwegian vs French), plus the dinghy parking lot in St. George's.

The only minor annoyance was the inevitable leaks. Thanks to some pre-departure prep work, hatch leaks were down to a minimum (though I still need to replace the gaskets). But there is a mystery leak aboard LG, in which the locker under the navigator’s bench down below starts to fill when heeled hard over on port tack (which was the tack we were on for most of our passage). This leak has presented itself before, but throughout the mostly mild sailing of this past summer, it went away, and so I kind of forgot about it. Now it was back with a vengeance, and I had to empty the locker and sponge it out every three or four hours as penance for forgetting to do something about it while LG was in the yard. Dumb.

Figuring out where the trickle of water is coming from involves more guesswork than certainty, but I suspect the hull windows (which only dip into the water in a strong breeze) may be starting to leak. So next step will be to try and remove and re-seal them. If that doesn’t solve the problem, I will be completely stumped. But that’s the way it is with boats: there is always something (or, more than likely, quite a few somethings).

Antigua Arrival

Ivar, Olivier and Henry have all returned to their normal lives, and I am anchored off Pigeon Beach in Falmouth Harbour, settling back into my liveaboard routine. First order of business was to do lots of laundry. Second was to blow up my SUP. Third was to go swimming. The water here is shockingly warm, 87 degrees.

I’ll stick around Antigua for a while, and then probably head south to Guadeloupe for a bit. I don’t have the energy or patience to follow closely the clown show up in Washington. I’d rather focus on mitigation in all its forms, and the possibilities for radical change which can emerge from chaos.

H.L. Mencken once wrote that “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” Well, America is about to get it good and hard. Unfortunately, the rest of the planet will too.

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