We made it back to Salinas riding slight seas but caught enough breeze east of Coffin island to let Cpt. Morgan sail the final three hours to the cut between the mangroves where Jackie took the helm for the final mile. It all looked very familiar, and packed with lots of boats we remembered from when we were last here, two years ago. We went ashore and ran into English Steve, Texas Mike, and Fred at the snack bar, and checked in with the Homeland security folk.

A week later we’ve sailed to Ponce, about twenty miles west of Salinas, for my appointment with Dr O’Neil who’s a clinical audiologist, on a recommendation from Pat, a friend of Steves in Salinas. It was time for a proper diagnosis.

The sound of silence has accompanied our adventures of the last twelve months, but not the Paul Simon song. I’m referring to the loss of my hearing which has dogged our adventures and cast a shadow over what have been exhilarating and life changing times.

I’ve never really mentioned it in the various blog posts that have been written but throughout all the adventures and traumas we’ve been through it has been a constant companion, and not a welcome one.

My hearing started to fluctuate on a day to day basis before we left Luperon back in March 2015, but it had been going that way for quite a few months, maybe even years. Whilst in Luperon, DR, I would have good days and bad days, then sometimes a few good days together, then a string of days when the sound of silence, punctuated intermittently by tinnitus, became my world.

And of course not only my world but it was Jackie’s too, as day to day, she would never know how loud she needed to speak to get through to me. Some days my hearing would flip back to normal, other days, completely deaf, and all the shades in between. We both had to come to terms with what was happening but it wasn’t easy, and had we not had such a strong bond between us it could have torn us apart. Misunderstandings became commonplace, leading to fractious exchanges that would never have occurred if my hearing had been normal. I became sour, and blamed the world for doing this to me, and took out my anger on my best friend. You always hurt the one you love, as the song goes.
It took a long time to accept that I was going deaf and I would have to find a way to deal with it, and smile again, Jackie prefers me when I smile.

The internet led us to conclude that I had developed a condition known as Menieres disease, which maybe could be cured or alleviated with pills, potions, supplements, or voodoo, so we tried them all, but nothing really made any difference.

Our light hearted banter disappeared to be replaced by a sort of need to know conversations, which took its toll, wearing us both down. We reluctantly began to realise that perhaps this was not a temporary condition but one we would both have to learn to cope with, especially trying to sail Picaroon where good communication was vital.

We considered trying to find an ear nose and throat doctor whilst in Luperon, but the nearest would have been in Santiago, and so we never made that connection. I suppose with the good days and bad days, we just assumed it would right itself eventually, well you do don’t you.

Being a musician, and a singer I was going to supplement our expenses by picking up a few paid gigs along the way. I had all my equipment on board, PA system, a couple of guitars, a ukulele or two, a bodhran, and all the gizmos and effects. Over the last few years I had taught Jackie how to play ukulele and we used to have fun sessions in the evenings aboard Picaroon learning a new tune, or running through our sea shanty set that we planned to perform together; the pimped up pirates we thought we might call ourselves.
Losing my hearing put paid to those fun sessions and any plans for doing gigs.

One good thing though about having all this music kit on board was that when I was having a bad day I would get out the case that my mini audio mixer was in, plug in my tasty AKG 414 microphone, that I used to use in the studio for recording vocals, and pop on a set of headphones. I would lay the mic on the cushion between us and tweak up the volume so that I had myself a hearing aid which worked great. At last Jackie didn’t have to yell at me and we could have a normal conversation. Of course this only worked when we were sat having a meal, G&Ts, playing backgammon, or scrabble, or watching a film on the computer. The kit was too big to move about with and anyway it needed to be plugged in to a mains supply, it wasn’t what you might call mobile, but it became an essential part of our down time when we were anchored or in port somewhere.

Whilst we were on the move though, voyaging, we couldn’t chance having all that stuff out on deck as the cockpit was a prime target for spray or a big wave washing down the decks, we just had to rely on a lot of hand waving or Jackie having to project to the point of making herself hoarse. Wrestling with an emergency would often become fraught, and frustrating for both of us, as discussing the subtleties of sail plans for an impending squall was almost impossible. Over time we began to work on intuition I suppose, and an array of hand signals. We still got cross with each other and ourselves, and the sea, and the wind, and the boat, but somehow we started to get strategies that worked.

We had set off on this adventure without any medical insurance, so any fix for my hearing if there was one was probably going to be expensive, except perhaps in Cuba. But after Jackie had a bit of an encounter with the main hospital in Santiago we decided that maybe Cuba wasn’t the place to seek a fix for my ears. Jamaica didn’t seem an easy place to find specialists, and of course Haiti was never on the cards. We would wait until we were back in the Dominican Republic, where the costs would be reasonable and the medical services we’d encountered were pretty good.

When we were in Salinas, in the Dominican Republic, we took a two hour bus ride to see an audiologist and an ENT consultant. We got the tests done which showed about 60% loss of my hearing, but never managed to touch base with the ENT consultant, so we decided to leave it until we made it back to Puerto Rico, which is where we’re at now with the whole saga. Sitting in Ponce harbour waiting until next Thursday when we’ll get the results from a very thorough Dr O’Neil.

The one thing that is certain, even without the results, is that I’m going to need hearing aids which are not going to be cheap, the least expensive being over a thousand dollars each. There’s no way we can afford this as we’re almost out of funds as it is. We have just about enough ready cash to see us through the next couple of months, if we’re lucky.

Reluctantly we’ve put the boat on the market, to try and raise the funds we’re going to need. So Picaroon is for sale with BVI yacht sales, and Brian, the manager there reckons we’ll have more chance of selling her if she’s in the BVI rather than here in Puerto Rico, so that’s our next and perhaps final destination.

We’ve heard that it may be possible to find work in St Martin, as it’s part of the European Union and being EU citizens we can work there legitimately, and that’s not far from the BVI, so that’s an option to keep us afloat, so to speak, whilst we wait for Picaroon to find a buyer.

So that about rounds it up for the sound of silence, an unfortunate way for a musician to end up, but then Beethoven had a similar condition, so I’m in hallowed company. He even managed to compose a few tunes when he’d gone deaf, and I’ve managed to write a few new songs on the infrequent days when I’ve had ears.

Maybe if I can get some super-duper hearing aids I’ll get around to recording them, as they complement the blog being inspired by people and places we’ve encountered along the way.

There’s a book to write, with my watercolours, and an enclosed CD that could bring in a few bob, one of those coffee table hardbacks perhaps, or a download for the tech savvy, but that may take a little while to put together.

In the meantime we may have a go at crowd funding, or getting a crowd of people to buy my albums that are still available on a couple of websites. You can find them by visiting our Picaroon website. www.adventuresofpicaroon.com and just follow the links, all donations gratefully received.

We’ve got ourselves in a right pickle, you might say, or to be more hip, between a rock and a hard place, between the devil and the deep blue sea. Something will turn up though, as Dickens Mr Micawber would say, or as Doris Day once sang, ‘whatever will be will be, Que Sera Sera’.