Not only had we lost the auto-pilot earlier in the evening, but in the course of this lovely night the running lights on the bow shorted out; the lazy jacks on the starboard side broke so the double-reefed main was billowing out and flapping noisily; the ties to the bimini extension over the cockpit chafed thru so that thing was also flapping and making a terrible racket till we were able to take it down; several new leaks revealed themselves; we lost all the telltales on the mainsail; the engine died (tho trusty engine mechanic was able to get it going quickly). And of course, whoever was on the helm was drenched with rain and saltwater, as we were taking some serious waves and spray. Even with our foul weather gear on, the helmsman was cold and wet, and the head was full of soggy clothes.

At about 4 a.m., after a particularly large and potent squall moved off, we'd had enough. There was no way we were going to make our destination, and even if we could, we didn't know what the conditions would be anchored near a little cay. And then there was the growing list of stuff that needed to be repaired. We decided we had no choice but to turn around and go back to Cienfuegos. We hated to give up those hard-won miles, but the radar screen was already showing a new whopper of a squall forming, and just as we were making this decision I saw in the direction we would have been going the first of the Zorro-like lightning bolts. That did it for me. We knew when we'd been licked so we turned around and headed back--now sailing downwind quite comfortably with the backup auto-pilot now working and at least until the wind died, pretty fast! We arrived back at the marina to the very welcoming and gracious dock master and officialdom at 1 p.m., 27 hours after we'd left. We were pooped. Sleep first. Lick wounds later.

For the next 2 days we tackled the list of things that needed to be fixed, watched the weather, and questioned our plans and sanity. Turns out the low pressure system hadn't moved after all, and we were caught in the middle of its indecision and mischief. The good news was that none of the boat problems was too bad. With a couple of emails to the guy in Trinidad who installed the auto-pilot, he and Jim were able to diagnose that problem. Fortunately (and I swear I'll never complain again when Jim wants to buy expensive extras!!!), when the auto-pilot was installed he bought a backup motor, so out with the old and in with the new and we were back in the self-steering business. I ran him up the mast where he re-riveted the lazy jacks; he found the short in the running lights; and we decided the leaks weren't something we could do anything about there so just let 'em go for now. The most comforting part about this ordeal was how well the boat handled. We were never fearful of going over or sinking even in those funky conditions. The thing that was scary was all the lightning. And it was just plain miserable out there.

The lingering Low finally did move off and the weather did improve. Over the next 2 days, in between repair tasks, we had endless discussions about what were going to do/where we were going to go (including, fleetingly, the possibility of Florida as long as we were that close). We finally decided to stick with Plan A: go to Cartagena. The other part of the decision was to forgo our visit to the cays. Too many clocks were ticking and running out of time. So when we checked out of Cienfuegos again on the morning of June 2, we cleared out internationally for Jamaica. We'd stop there only as long as necessary to re-fuel and then head to Cartagena.

When we left this time it was flat calm, and pretty much stayed that way. We weren't complaining! If you have to go to windward, flat calm was definitely better than what we'd done 3 nights ago. For the first couple of days, this trip was blissfully boring. No wind, no seas, no radio traffic; we didn't see another vessel except for one cruise ship; also no fish. As we motored along, we started questioning the wisdom of going to Cartagena after all. Although we'd heard virtually no news about anything since leaving Havana, people had sent us a few emails about the deteriorating situation in Colombia. Jim had always advocated returning to Bonaire after this flight-of-fancy to the north, but I contended that was nuts--to go that far back SE was craziness when our ultimate destination was west! But there were insurance issues for Colombia, among other things, so for a variety of reasons as we poked along, not making much headway because of a persistent adverse current (like walking the wrong way on those airport people-movers), we slowly talked ourselves into changing course once again and returning to Bonaire. We decided not to stop in Jamaica, therefore, but rather to push on and return to Ile a Vache, Haiti to re-fuel and rest.

The third night out the wind picked up. We dodged some squalls and got some rain, but nothing serious. Our big problem was the current against us and its impact on our speed: we weren't makin' very much, that's for sure. And as we watched the ETA calculations on the GPS, it became increasingly clear that we would not get to Ile a Vache before dark. The last thing we wanted to do tho, was spend another night out, "standing off" to wait for sunrise to enter the harbor. We were pooped, but more importantly, running low on fuel. Yes, yes, we're a sail boat, but we still didn't have much wind and what we had was agin' us. Thank goodness we were returning customers, as we e-mailed the marina in Ile a Vache to ask that if we couldn't get there before dark could they have one of the guys come meet us in the Boston Whaler at the harbor entrance and lead us in. Remember too, from up there on page 3, the waters around there were full of fish traps that were hard to see even in daylight! We sure as hell didn't want to go thru there in the dark!! No problem, says Didier. The boat will stand by. Call us on VHF when you get into range. Relieved that that problem was taken care of, we continued to putz along, increasingly concerned about our fuel level, to the point where Jim found an old can of kerosene for the heater and poured that into the tank! There was lightning again on the horizon, but fortunately it was more show than noise. We had our GPS waypoints from having been there in April, and as we got closer, Jim was on the bow with a big flashlight, scanning the ink-black water for fish traps--a couple of which we did have to dodge. At 11 pm when we reached the harbor entrance, there was Didier in his boat, with his trusty crew, Felix and Jimmy, aboard, and Francoise, who spoke better English than Didier, on a radio back at the hotel helping with communications! Was that a welcome sight and relief to be able to get in without running into something! They literally took us right to our mooring ball, ran our line thru it, and said goodnight. Once again, we slept like the dead. I am going to try very hard never to say anything bad about the French again, because Didier and Francoise have given them a very good name in our book!

This time we stayed 8 days in Ile a Vache. We were once again besieged by little urchins, vendors, and other hangers-on who visited the boat daily. Our work crew was back looking for work so we had them touch up all the stainless and re-wash the hull. We met a wonderful Belgian cruising couple who were patiently waiting for a serious burn on her foot and ankle to improve enough to set sail for Florida. Friends on a boat we had met in Bonaire in November also were there (but shall remain nameless for now because they're dealing with an insurance "issue"). We had plenty to do, still dealing with lingering boat "issues," retrieving and studying regular weather faxes to plot our final leg, fending off the daily hordes, visiting our burn-victim friend who wasn't allowed to leave the boat for infection reasons and was slowly going nuts after 2 weeks of confinement aboard. We also made a trip to the main island of Haiti, visiting the coastal town of Les Cayes. Oy. What a place. This is already too long, so I won't even try to describe it. Just think Third World bleak. The husband on the Belgian boat was a developmental economist who had worked in Haiti the last 2 years and just shook his head when we asked about the outlook for the country.

The weather faxes were indicating that Friday (6/14) might be the day to leave. The winds had been very strong the whole time we were there (the short ride to and from Les Cayes was a wet bash, indeed!), but the faxes said they were coming down. What we really needed for getting to Bonaire was NE winds. East would be ok, but not great. SE would be the worst. So when we started to see the little wind arrows turn E/NE in the forecasts, with diminishing speed (10-15 knots) and seas (3-4 ft), we took happy note. Yup. Friday was the day. We'd leave early that morning with "Nameless" on what we hoped would be a relatively easy 3 - 4 day trip to Bonaire. We knew we'd be somewhat on the wind, but the forecasts looked pretty good.

Boy-o-boy, were they wrong! We were up and out by 0600. It was a nice day, but even as we rounded the point out of the harbor I thought it was choppier than we'd expected. It'll get better after we clear the island, says we. We started with one reef in the main, largely because it was already there and we were too lazy to shake it out. Nameless put up their full main and I remember thinking at the time that maybe we shouldn't have been so conservative. Wrong. It wasn't long before they radioed that they'd just reefed and we were putting a second reef in ours. The conditions never smoothed out, and in fact the wind picked up (by 4 pm we had 25+ knots) and the seas got worse. And of course the wind was from the SE, right where we wanted to go. I wrote in the log on that afternoon, "It's gonna be a long trip." Little did we know how long.

Conditions deteriorated as the night approached, of course. The wind was up even more, seas too, and, just to make things complete, we had an adverse current. Between the "pinching" (sailing pretty much into the wind) we had to do to maintain course, the growing seas, and the current, we were sometimes barely making 4 knots over ground. The boat was crashing off waves, taking spray and drenchings that made it impossible to be in the cockpit. There were squalls. Nameless's radar didn't work, so we called them on the radio to alert them when we saw squalls approaching. But there wasn't much we could do to evade them, and after the squalls we'd been thru that night out of Cienfuegos, these were minor inconveniences at worst and provided welcome fresh-water rinses!

So that was it for 3 days: winds of 25 - 35+ knots of SE wind all the time; seas in the 10 - 12 ft range that sent the boat crashing and shuddering in ways you can't imagine; squalls every night. In order to maintain some degree of boat speed, we had to run the engine and keep a little bit of jib out, but even that handkerchief-size sail up there made the boat heel, so it was extremely uncomfortable below. It was hard to sleep with all the motion and noise. Moving about was a real chore, and with all the crashing, the poor girl was springing leaks and taking in water from places we'd never seen before. Imagine my jaw-dropping surprise and utter fury when a great gush of salt water came into the galley thru the supposedly impenetrable exhaust fan! Twice!! We were too tired and it was too much hassle to eat. I think both of us dropped 5 pounds, easy. The good news: nobody was seasick. By the second day out we realized that we were not likely to be able to make the course to Bonaire, and started to talk about Aruba. We had a brief moment of hope and optimism when, for a few hours, it looked like the wind was shifting around more to the East. But it was just a tease. No way were we gonna make Bonaire.

And then, just when you think it can't get any worse, it does. At about 5 on the morning of the 17th, our third day out, just as we had finished dealing with the engine conking out, we heard a very faint radio call from Nameless. By now we were about 13 miles apart, just barely in VHF range. They asked us to switch to the SSB radio. I'll never forget their words, as they're every sailor's nightmare: "We've hit something and we're taking on water." We got their position and made ready to change course to go to them. Jim also helped them with frequencies to reach the Coast Guard; so far they'd been unable to raise anybody, including us because we'd been too far away, since this had happened a few hours earlier. There was no question that we'd divert to go to them in case their pumps couldn't keep up with the water coming in and they had to abandon ship, but our course to get there was even more into the wind than we were already going, and it was gonna be a slow 13 miles at 3 knots! It was Bermuda Harbour Radio that finally answered their radio call (a "Pan-Pan," which is the distress call one notch below "Mayday"). Bermuda's main question was, "Are your pumps able to keep up with the ingress of water?" Ingress of water?? Trust the Brits. At that point they weren't sure, tho they had already found the crack in the hull, patched it from the inside and managed to hook up a spare water pump they had on board to help keep up with the, um, ingress.

They were making about 1 knot of headway, so we figured out an intercept course and headed in that direction, staying on the radio with Bermuda Harbour to let them know we were on the way and trying to relay between Nameless and the Curacao Coast Guard when they couldn't hear each other. The leak seemed to be under control and finally, several hours after we changed course, Nameless said they could see us. At that point that's all that really mattered: altho conditions were still pretty funky, if they had to abandon ship, we could have picked them up from their life raft.

After this, and with the winds still what they were, there was no way we were going to be able to make Bonaire, so we set our sights on Aruba. Nameless was doing ok, tho moving very slowly so not to stress the hull. We took the point and moved out a little bit to get to the Aruba anchorage we'd agreed on to be able to scope things out. Once again, we were going to be arriving after dark, but for this anchorage, that didn't look to be a problem. We arrived at the anchorage on the northwest coast of Aruba at about 8 pm. It took us 2 tries to get the hook set, but when it finally did grab, it almost threw me out of the cockpit! At least we wouldn't drag. We put a strobe light on the stern so that Nameless could see us as they poked their way in, and we talked them into the anchorage when they arrived a couple hours later. Even Rolaids couldn't spell the relief we all felt that night. Once again, we slept like the dead. And lest you think it's over, it ain't...

The next morning, secure and refreshed, tho salty as hell and with a new, long "wounds to lick" list, we leisurely prepared to haul up the anchor and clear into Aruba. "John" dove on his boat to check the damage to the hull and said he could see an arm's length crack. He said he wasn't sure at this point whether he hit something, as he'd originally assumed, or whether it was just the result of a mighty launch and crash landing off a wave. There were some where I truly thought poor ol' Asylum was going to break apart, the noise and landings so violent. Our plan was to get to the local marina, have another stiff drink, wait for a few days for weather, and head to Bonaire. They figured they'd have to go to Curacao to get the repair work done.

About 11 a.m. we were ready to haul up the anchor and head down the coast to check in. Not so fast. The anchor was seriously stuck. Wouldn't budge. We jockeyed around to free it, but none of the usual techniques worked. @#$*$%. Jim readied himself with snorkel gear to dive on it (which fortunately was only in about 13 ft) and rig a trip line. When he got down there, tho, he was able easily to move it from under the rock it was hooked on (so why wouldn't it come up?), and we were suddenly free. When we got it up, however, we discovered that our big, heavy, 66 lb anchor was bent! Oy. Never mind. Minor stuff at this point. Off we went, first making a couple of unsuccessful circles to retrieve Jim's hat that had blown overboard in a gust that morning. Oy. As we headed out, what else should we expect but that a squall with rain and 30+ knots of wind should come thru. But ya know what? We didn't care!

We got ourselves checked in and (not easily) reached the marina by radio to determine that they did have space for 2 beaten and bruised boats. Our lines at the check-in dock were easier to free by ourselves, so we helped Nameless release theirs and then pulled out behind them for the marina, just a few minutes away. Home free! The woman on the radio at the marina had given us instructions for taking a spot, but said there was no one there to help with dock lines. Sorry, says she. But as the wind was still blowing 25-30+, what she told us to do was virtually impossible without help at the dock, so Nameless slowed down and circled the small marina basin to scope things out. We came in behind them, and to stay out of their way while they got situated, circled in the opposite direction. Bad move. Turns out there's an uncharted, and to us, un-warned, ledge across the basin and our keel found it. We were suddenly hard aground. Someone had shouted at Nameless not to go that way, and they tried to tell us, but it was too late. We tried all the tricks we knew to get unstuck: going back the way we got there; plowing full-speed forward; wiggling the keel side to side; hauling out the jib to heel us over, but the wind was blowing 30 knots in the wrong direction. Finally the marina manager, Michael, returned (tho at the time we didn't know that's who it was) and came out in a dinghy to try to heel us over even farther by pulling on a halyard from the top of the mast. We both looked at the 8 hp motor on this dink and said no way, but, hey, help was help. As we suspected, that didn't work and then they tried simply to use the dink as a bow-thruster to push it around. No go. We were still stuck.

Michael yelled, "I'm going to get the big boat." We just assumed he meant a power boat, but next thing we know, a sailboat is backing out of a nearby slip with Michael, Mary and John from Nameless, and somebody else...? A sailboat?? Oy. They circled several times, getting lines organized to attach to our halyard--the plan still being to pull the mast over far enough that we'd pop off the ledge. Next thing we know, the new guy is flying into the water from the stern of that boat. Great. Keystone cops on the rescue vessel. They circled a couple of times and we finally were able to connect our halyard to their line, with John as the courier in the dinghy. Remember, it's blowing 30+ knots while all this is going on and it's a very small area with a couple of serious cement and rock breakwaters defining it. So with our halyard attached to lines from the other sailboat, they start hauling. Jim's on the helm, and I'm on the deck, port side, paying out the halyard. Michael accelerated and slowly, slowly we started to tilt. Surprisingly, the sailboat seemed to be pulling us over far enough. Suddenly we popped free, but kept going farther and farther over! The rescue boat was still pulling us even tho we were free. I watched with mounting dismay as the mast went more and more horizontal toward the water, and finally let out a high-pitched scream, "Stoppppppp!!!" that already has taken on legendary proportions here in Aruba. I can't begin to tell you how close we were to going all the way over!! The water was over the deck and just under the level of the open galley ports!

Meanwhile on the rescue boat, they were concentrating on avoiding the now-very-close breakwater and didn't realize we were free. The scream caught their attention, tho, and they released the line as quickly as they could, only to get their end of it caught in their prop! Suddenly they were engine-less, being blown into the breakwater (but we didn't know that at the time). Somebody had yelled at me to haul in the halyard, which I (stupidly and momentarily) thought was still attached to them, but I hauled that line in faster than I've ever done anything in my life. Whoever had yelled just didn't want that long, flailing line to get further tangled in either of our props. The new guy (who turned out to be a wonderful Italian cruiser by the name of Guiseppi) lept into the water to cut the line with what was later described as a "butter knife." Oy. They got their engine started again, we narrowly missed the opposite breakwater as we regained speed and control with the engine... only to see a @#%$# illegal snorkler in the water off the breakwater. Oy oy oy.

All's well that ends well, tho, and by 4 pm we were finally in a slip. And here we still are. Over beers and a debrief that afternoon we mentioned that we were trying to get to Curacao and Bonaire as soon as possible. Michael told us we were crazy and the record is now 5 for 5: all the locals telling us you simply can't get there from here at this time of year. And after 2+ weeks here we can see why. The wind blows every day at 25+ knots. We're heeled over in the slip on bare poles. We've befriended several of the fishermen on the dock and they say there's a 5 knot current out there, between here and Bonaire. We're only so stupid--or naïve, whatever it is--and we're not leaving until the wind dies down. They say that will be in September, but we'll be the judge of that.

So here we are and there you have it. The latest adventures of Asylum. Apologies for how long this is, but believe, me, I've only given you the highlights!! We're going to wait out the winds in the States for a few weeks. Haven't decided where we're going to go from here, but as you've probably figured out by now, that can change on an hourly basis so there's no use writing anything down now! We've questioned our sanity, but are ready to climb back on the proverbial horse. Just not sure where the horse is going next! Stay tuned...

As it turns out, I'm finishing this up on the 4th of July. We have cable TV here in the marina and there sure is a lot flag-waving going on up there!! Hope yours was happy, cool, and safe!!

Cheers!!
The (slightly beaten and bruised but still afloat) Inmates