There’s no fuel on Ile a Vache, and like almost everything it has to be shipped here from the mainland. Shipping anything to the island means a trip in an open boat across about seven miles of exposed bay. We’ve now done this trip about four times which Jackie has described in a previous blog.

Yesterday we made the trip with sixteen jerry cans, which was the only way to collect enough fuel for the next leg of our journey. We had eight of our own and the other eight were supplied by our “man” Mackenzie.

As we made our way out of our sheltered little cove into open water aboard our “water taxi” it was obvious that todays’ crossing was going to be a little rough. We sheltered beneath the long strip of polythene strung out along the windward side of the boat but it was never enough to save us from a soaking from the odd rogue wave or two.

We arrived a little wet at Les Cayes and were about to get a lot wetter as we went through the charade of disembarking. The method of decanting passengers from ship to shore has been practised over so many years that they now have it down to a “T”. Our “taxi” with its 40HP outboard can only get to within fifty yards of the quay, which is a crumbling mess of concrete, seaweed and litter.
I suppose at some time in the distant past this may have been a proper concrete or wooded wharf but perhaps it was hit by a hurricane and it has never been rebuilt. Anyway the Haitian sailors and shore-men have devised a clever method to get passengers ashore which involves a couple of transfers. On those days when the seas are relatively calm it seems to work, albeit a little hairy; today was not one of those days.

There are always a number of small boats bobbing at anchor, as well as a few water “Taxis” like ours, departing or arriving, all hustling for an extra passenger or two. The anchor gets thrown out as we arrive and we sort of come to a stop, but very close to another, so that the two boats will often bash into each other. It’s wise not to grasp the side of boat to steady yourself otherwise you’ll end up with crushed fingers.

This morning there’s a big swell, and into this chaos comes the transfer vessel, which is a slightly smaller version of our taxi but without the outboard motor. This has been replaced by a man with a long pole who will punt us all ashore, well almost ashore. There are perhaps three or four of these, shall we call them Gondoliers, all competing to see who can get to the taxi first, and as the swell and waves waft our boat this way and that, it’s a bit of a lottery as to who manages to make the contact, “bang”.
The Gondolier now hangs on to the side of our boat and beckons passengers to clamber from our boat into his. As today the swell is playing all kinds of tricks this is a very precarious operation which requires the skills of a SAS officer, or very nimble gymnast.

One by one the passengers of boat (a) get into boat (b) followed by sixteen jerry cans as we rock and roll in the swell and eventually are being steered towards the shore by the guy with the big pole who seems to be magnetically attached to a small rocking wooden platform on the rear of this oversized row boat as it pitches in the surf. Now comes transfer number two; the piggy back ride from the shuttle boat with the gondolier, onto the back of some young Haitian who has just been kicked sideways by a wave and barely missed being knocked unconscious by the prow of our shuttle craft.

With as much decorum as can be mustered at this point, I launch myself onto his back for the journey ashore, which is supposed to save me from wading ashore and getting soaked but today the swell defeats us and I’m soaked to my midriff. Jackie climbs aboard the next transfer shore-man but is a little unluckier than me as the poor lad stumbles in the swell that sends cascades of water into the air as it hits the quay and she arrives soaked from head to toe. I manage to grab her waist as she’s landed on the detritus that threatens to slide her back into the sea and we’re finally both ashore.
The sixteen jerry cans follow us and are stacked by a ramshackle shed with a minder posted on them as security.
They do this operation all day, every day, and no-one seems to think it’s unusual, or even that there may be an easier way of doing things. I suppose it provides work for the Gondoliers and the piggy back crew so why build a proper wharf and put all these people out of work. They’ve probably had various plans put forward to modernize, but each time have come to the conclusion that what they have is fine, it seems to work, and although people get a bit wet the sun soon dries them off so why change things.

As Jackie was “landed” her sandal seem to give way a little, and a few yards down the street, which is no more than a dirt road of pebbles and grit, she stumbles and the strap on one of the sandals gives up completely, time to buy some new ones, so it’s a quick motor bike taxi ride to a nearby store to be kitted out with new foot-ware for the day.

We had a word with Mackenzie about how it was going to be impracticable to do a repeat of the mornings landing procedure with 80 gallons of fuel and insisted that we leave via the concrete jetty about 100yds away. He agreed that this was perhaps a better plan and a couple of hours later we arrived there to find our sixteen assorted cans sat waiting for us.

Mackenzie meanwhile had gone off to the wharf to find a skipper that would take us back to Ile a Vache the easy way. The pier, although substantial, juts out into the sea and the waves crashing in on it made us wonder if loading ourselves or our cargo of fuel was going to be any easier. The distance from the top of the pier to any boat below was about ten feet, but with the swell it varied between one foot and twelve.
Mackenzie and the skipper arrived, bouncing and weaving towards us, with every possibility of careering into the very hard concrete quay. Lots of shouting and grabbing of ropes later they were ready to load.
A small team of enthusiastic helpers thrust these unwieldy sloshing jerry cans towards the skipper as the boat rose and fell dangerously close to the quay wall. The timing of each transfer had to be impeccable, sometimes it was not so and we almost lost one or two to the furious sea. Then it was our turn to do the same ridiculous transfer from dock to boat, which although looked impossible was accomplished without incident, and we both settled down for a white knuckle ride through the surf to open water.
Crash, bang, wallop!! The lame excuse for public transport headed out to sea, bound for Ile a Vache with ourselves, two other passengers and our precious fuel. The next forty odd minutes were, to say the least, quite unpleasant, like one of those fairground rides that you wish you hadn’t signed up for, but we were on it until the end, like it or lump it. Some of the times as we crashed down from a large wave, THRACK! would threaten to render the old boat in two. We huddled down beneath the sheet of polythene and gritted our teeth. Now and again I would raise my head and look back at the skipper lashed to the helm to see a broad grin, or was it a grimace, no I think it was a grin, he seemed perfectly at ease with the conditions and perhaps finding fun in our discomfort.
After about forty minutes we slipped into the calmer waters of Port Morgan, and were more than glad to be back aboard Picaroon where we transferred our jerry cans of fuel. Then we had a rather unpleasant disagreement about how much the fare was, the skipper refusing to leave unless we paid three times what we thought it should cost. In the end he left with the fare we had offered, maybe he thought that for all the excitement of the trip we should pay more for the entertainment value. We of course were basing our estimation of the cost on the ordeal, rather than the adventure, so our perception of things was a little out of kilter.

With a bit of luck we now have enough fuel for our onward journey. I hope so, as a repeat of todays’ fiasco is just too far out of my comfort zone for a repeat performance.

Ile a Vache is stunningly beautiful and the anchorage a very safe haven, but, and it’s a big but, the difficulties of provisioning just take the edge off one of the best places we’ve encountered on our voyages.

Maybe one day when I pull into the Shell garage in Ulverston I’ll have a wry smile on my face as I remember how they fill up in Haiti.