Letting The Days Go By At Mayaguana

Even in paradise, big life lessons can suck. 

Beguiled by Abraham’s Bay

This is a story about anxiety.

After a long, hard day at sea we arrived at Mayaguana, the most south east of the Bahamas, and anchored in the first available anchorage on the island’s western shore. Betsy Bay is what’s called an open roadstead. With only the smallest indentation in the straight coast, the “bay” offers shelter from the east wind and that’s it. We like to anchor in sand, if at all possible, and there is none on Mayaguana’s west coast, just rock and coral.

I’d felt outside my comfort zone in big waves the day before, and now found I was just as uncomfortable anchored outside a coral reef. I didn’t like going to shore for very long, because if the anchor didn’t hold, Domino could drift 40 miles on the wind, to Acklin’s Island, which was – you guessed it – ringed by coral reef. But the chart showed that, a mere 10 miles away, Abraham’s Bay lay enclosed within a reef. I supposed that meant protection.*

The trip around the western end of the island and through the 5 mile long bay took 3 hours. My fear spiked as we neared the point, where we’d encountered rough water the day we arrived. Inside the bay, I kept my emotions under control as I stood on the bow, helping Tom steer around coral heads.

We nosed our way into the coziest corner of the bay, finding a 6 foot “deep” spot. Just enough for Domino’s 4 foot keel. Waves came at us from the opening in the reef, setting up a difficult motion. Even walking from galley to table required holding on. Getting the outboard from the rolling boat, onto the bouncing dinghy to go to shore looked really hard. So we set a swell bridle first, turning Domino’s nose out of the wind and into the swell.

That helped with the rocking, but it put the wind directly on her beam, giving my anxiety something else to feed upon. Would the anchor hold with the force of the wind against the broad side of the boat instead of the pointy end?* I struggled to sleep, then spent the day hyper-vigilant.

The next day, the wind quieted a bit and Tom got the motor on the dinghy. I headed to shore to check out the town. How shallow was the water close to shore? I had to carefully follow a line of sticks stuck in the sand to find 18 inches for the outboard.

Approaching the sea wall, I greeted a group of boys sitting on the stairs, and then one of them jumped into the water in front of the dinghy. I shoved the motor into neutral quick and swerved to avoid hitting him. He clambered up over the stern and into the boat with me, chatting the whole time. I told them I wanted to go to the store. They gave me directions and promised to keep an eye on my boat.

The landing at Mayaguana is a cheery park with palapas, bright, thatched sheds, and palm trees painted tropical colors. The store, once I found it, was so empty I decided not to buy much. A can of corned beef, a couple potatoes, evaporated milk for coffee, a packet of sugar, and Cokes for my dinghy guards. The owner said the mailboat was coming in a few days, so I’d be able to get more then.

A Hurricane Wrecked Sailboat Looms On Shore

Unfortunately, this new anchorage did not cure my fears. For the first time in my life, anxiety became a real problem for me while we sat at Mayaguana waiting for a weather window to cross to the Turks and Caicos. It wasn’t the kind of debilitating attack some people suffer, just a steady, low-grade constriction in my belly, a tingle in my chest. I felt like my eyes were always wide open in shock. There were many factors, but I couldn’t identify a cause.

Each morning the weather forecast insisted, “less wind tomorrow,“ but it was never true. A forecast for 17 knots of wind with gusts of 22 knots would instead become a day of steady 25 knots of wind with short lulls of 17. Meanwhile, the swells kept coming at us.

My anxiety mirrored the wind, a constant vigilance, accompanied by gusts of reaction to every stimulus. I worried about hurricanes, dragging anchor, the relentless wind, high waves pinning us in port, squalls, running out of water, running out of food, not being able to sleep.

Could it be this was exacerbated by the specter of a sailboat left high on the rocky shore by the last hurricane? Regardless, I dealt with it daily. It began to create friction amongst the crew.

Where previously I’d managed fear by taking physical action to make the situation better – like during our crossing to Nassau – now there was nothing I could do. I had to work on the anxiety itself. I tried many things to keep it under control. Listening to audiobooks, working on another chapter of my latest book, doing chores, willpower, ignoring it, talking about it, silence, yoga, deep breathing, drinking. I wrote endlessly in my journal/ships log which usually devolved into pages of grousing about the weather, and about Tom watching You Tube videos of people actually doing things.

I looked up sailor psychology, psychologists who work with sailors, the psychology of sailing. All focused on winning races. No wonder superstition became the guide for those who found themselves in the seafaring life.  

The self you’re seeking to transform is the same one that’s doing the transforming – so you’re like Baron Munchausen, trying to pull himself out of the swamp by yanking on his own hair.

Oliver Burkeman

Exploring Town and Meeting People

Getting off the boat helped.

In town, we met most of the population of the island. The proprietors of the shops, the police officers who stopped us to ask if we needed to check in, and a young fellow who explained how he catches land crabs.

One day we were walking through town when a squall hit. We ducked into the gazebo in the town square, where we met Kevin and Kenny, two cousins who were also waiting out the storm. We talked long after the rain stopped. They told us a little about life on a remote tropical island. They mentioned crime – which amounted to a fight over a woman that resulted in one guy having to go to the hospital.

Their other topic was politics. In the Bahamas there are two parties, and when one party is in power, the members get all the jobs. The other party is fired and cannot work except at side gigs. Kenny was a member of the out of power party. Kevin was a member of the in power party. A tense silence descended for a moment, until a fellow pulled up on a scooter. Kenny greeted him, then turned to us. “You need to meet Scully.” And so we did. Scully is the cruisers liaison on Mayaguana, he provides fuel, tours, and transportation to those visiting by boat. He helped us with water and fuel.

Over the next week we settled in to enjoy the undeniable beauty of Abraham’s Bay. We took Wonderbaby for a jaunt along the northern shore, looking for a reef to dive and found mostly flat rocks on the bottom. The reef was out there, frothing in the howling wind, and roaring surf.

Finally there came a day with a little less wind, so we ventured out to the bay side of the reef. I was afraid of snorkeling the reef in the big waves. There was no sandy place to anchor the dinghy, so I stayed aboard and let Tom go in. For some reason, maybe just my heightened overall tension, I worried about sharks here more than I ever had before. I hated feeling that way and had serious FOMO. It all made me angry at myself.

While the Baron Munchausen image is apt for anyone engaged in self-help, there’s another Oliver Burkeman analogy that perfectly describes my situation:

We’re like sailors on a ship that long ago left port and now urgently needs repair. We’d love to return to dock and get it kitted out perfectly – setting up our lives so they’re just as we’d like them – then start the journey again. Instead we have to patch things up mid-voyage as best we can, adapting incrementally towards the people we’d like to be.

Oliver Burkeman

Yeah, I was trying to fix myself, while also maintaining the boat life that was partly responsible for my anxiety. Boat life is already hard, but I always seem to make things twice as hard as they need to be. Perhaps I’ll add that to Bartlett’s Familiar Laws of Boating.

We’d been in Mayaguana for nine days when a flock of flamingos flew over, lifting my eyes from my own innards and finally bringing me some relief. I wrote myself a lecture about acceptance. 

This is the way life is right now. Accept what is. Live with what is.

I was floating in the most beautiful water on earth, aboard a very comfortable and lovely sailboat with a well set anchor. I could swim any time I wanted. Interesting Bahamian people entered my life every day. Yes, the mast wiring harness clanked with each roll. Yes, I had to adjust my footing, balance and handholds often. But that is life aboard a boat. This was a known thing, a part of my life for several years. Getting better at sailing, and wind and waves is what I sought. There would always be challenges and I would meet them.

I felt much better.

Then our money ran out.

No Money – Nothing to Buy – Getting Skinny

Since the plan had been a couple of days here at Mayaguana, then crossing to the Turks and Caicos, a British territory that didn’t accept Bahamian dollars, we’d been using up our supply. Now, two weeks stuck in port, our cash was gone, our food stores were dwindling, our shorts were falling off, and still we couldn’t leave. If this weather continued, we’d be stuck with no food, no fuel.

I began asking around. Was there a bank on the island? No. Was there a cash machine? No.

I was stumped, and totally tech dependent. I called Scully. He suggested the hotel at the north end of the island might be able to let us get cash with our debit card. I called. No.

Mayaguana is a cash only community and we had no cash. Not that there was anything to buy, the mailboat was also delayed by the weather.

After fretting for days, I remembered a sign I saw in the Bahamas Telecom office where we’d used the last of our cash adding data to our Internet plan. Western Union. I flew to town to check it out.

I could have one of the kids wire money! It was Friday afternoon. They closed at 2:30. Could I get this done in time? Our daughter agreed to drop everything and try to get a wire sent before the office closed. Time pressure – just what I needed. I hovered near the BTC office watching my phone, watching the clock.

Long story short, it all worked out. We got our Bahamian cash just in time, and I felt human again. We bought fuel. There was still few groceries to buy, but if the mailboat arrived this week, that would change.

Letting The Days Go By vs Seize the Day and Beat it Into Submission

The third week in Mayaguana began with a fierce need to get off the boat, move our legs, and stop sniping at one another. I continued to be antsy and want to do stuff to take my mind off my myriad worries. Tom wanted to take it easy, do nothing. When he told me he was good at letting time go by I mentally flipped out. I would not just let my life go by without participating. The idea that sitting still and just being was actually part of life grated on me.

We both flexed a little – going out and doing some things, relaxing and doing nothing sometimes. I lie – I never did nothing without stressing. But I tried to look like I was letting the days go by.

Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again, after the money’s gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was

The Talking Heads

Hiking the Southern Beach

One day we dinghied to shore, tied up to the seawall, and set off on foot to find the cove the flamingos had flown to. A road meandered along the shore, but so did thick mangroves and brush. When we found a break in the hedge, we waded in the water for a while, watching a lone flamingo standing in the shallows. A man stood in a similar position, collecting conch.

We both, but Tom especially, suffer from a disability – we are unable to reach the place we set out for, enjoy that spot, then turn around and go back. The rutted road continued. We had to follow. Did we have anything pressing to go back for? We did not.

A mile or so on, we came up and over a rocky berm and found ourselves on the southern shore of Mayaguana. Walking beaches is high on our bliss list, and so we walked this one. This beach was made of coral. The whole berm that stretched for miles was a heap of coral. And it was littered with the most interesting beach trash we’d ever encountered. All of it had come far – From countries across the Atlantic Ocean, or even from the Pacific, on ships.

• Fishing floats made out of half a flip flop with a hole punched through.
• A giant steel ball, a fishing float? Too heavy to lift. So how did it float up on the beach?
• Hard hats, so many hard hats
• A duck decoy
• Bamboo poles
• Strings of unusual fishing floats
• Oil jugs with Spanish, Japanese, French, Arabic labels
• So many plastic crates – All the plastic crates. (A lot of things are falling off a lot of ships.) Ships shed.
• Long empty pods.
• The big black seeds from the pods.

Crisis

On another walk through town we ran into Kenny and Kevin again. Tom talked spearfishing with Kenny, who described a good spot near the wrecked sailboat.

“But there’s a hammerhead been hanging around,“ Kenny said.

Oh. That calmed my anxiety. Maybe he made that up after realizing he’d inadvertently shared his favorite fishing hole. Back at the boat I went to work on relaxing, reading, fiddling around, trying not to stare down into the water searching for a hammerhead shark. Tom was antsy now, he wanted to do something. He wanted to go locate the spot Kenny mentioned. I decided not to go. He was fine with that. The constant closeness of cruising means everybody likes some time alone.

Late in the day, maybe 4 o’clock, he set off with fins, but no spear. So I assumed he would putt around and locate the spot so that we could go back and fish tomorrow. About half an hour later, a squall hit. I rushed around closing everything. It blew 40 knots and dropped a white curtain of rain. I couldn’t see shore for 20 minutes to half an hour. After it passed, about 5 PM, I got out the binoculars, and checked along the shore to see how Tom was doing, but could see no dinghy at anchor. Another squall was coming.

Finally, I spotted Tom walking along the rock beach, bent over, looking for something. Where was the dinghy? I scanned the whole rocky shore. Tom walked the other way. Then he walked back again. What was going on? He disappeared over the berm. An hour later I put down my book and called him. The phone rang in the cabin. He had no phone. It was at least 6 PM. The sun goes down early in the tropics. I began to worry. We’d lost the dinghy at sundown in Clarence Town. Not again. Had the squall carried Wonderbaby away? If so, he would have to walk miles to town. Except – there were his flip-flops. I scanned the shore to the west but couldn’t see in the dazzle of the setting sun. No sign of the dinghy. No sign of Tom.

Then I saw a spherical shape the size of a head, in the water, about half way between the shore and our boat. The blood left my body.

Was he trying to swim? It was at least half a mile into wind, current, and breaking waves.

I freaked.

Our son in law, a special forces veteran, once explained the OODA Loop. I think about it often when something goes sideways. I put it into practice. Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. In a crisis, observing and orienting are easy. Deciding is freaking hard.

If Tom was trying to swim, there was no one to help him but me. Just like at Clarence Town, I wrestled with timing. How late could I wait trying to make sure of what I was seeing? It was getting dark. Squalls kept coming. If he was in the water, I had to try to help. He was being swept west, away from Domino.

Scenarios ran through my mind. (As a fiction writer, I’m good at scenarios. The wilder the better.)

Tom was drowning. I would have to call Scully and arrange a search party. I would be alone and devastated. I would have to either get the body back to the US, or declare him lost at sea. I would now be single handing, either back to the US, or on to the Turks and Caicos.

No way.

I launched both kayaks, packed a backpack with radios, binoculars, flip flops, a blanket, first aid kit, granola bars, and water. I might find him hurt, bleeding, or half drowned. Hyperventilating, I started paddling toward where I’d seen him. And then I lost him. I couldn’t see his head anymore. I started screaming his name, though the fierce wind blew the sound away.

I got to shore without finding him in the water, pulled the kayaks up high on the rocks. Still shouting, I picked up the backpack, turned to begin walking west, and saw an 80 foot motor yacht pulling into the anchorage.

Oh My God!

There had been no boat in two weeks and just when I needed help, one materialized out of the setting sun.

I hailed them, told them my story and they launched their tender to help. The captain set off westward along the shore, looking for a swimmer in the water. I walked the rocks, so afraid and so thankful, and wondering what to make of this coincidence.

The search had been underway about 10 minutes or so, it was pretty much dark, when the silhouette of a small boat appeared, far down the shore. The tender radioed to ask if that was him. I couldn’t tell, but I hoped so. The driver went to meet the boat. Sure enough, it was Tom, heading out to Domino.

The captain flagged him down and told him his wife was worried about him. She pointed to me, on the rocks with the kayaks, and he came to meet me.

He was okay!
I wept.
I’d been terrified, sure I’d lost him. Meanwhile, he’d found a little inlet behind some mangroves to tie the dinghy and had happily explored the flora and fauna of the rocky shore.
I tied the kayaks behind the dinghy, thanked the skipper for her help, and we headed home. I told Tom my story, he told me his. We were both very glad my story was all imaginary.

The yacht left the next morning into conditions that they could handle, but we couldn’t. We continued our vigil. Now though, I was different. My anxiety hadn’t disappeared, but having faced what I thought was the worst, and taken action against it, fear had less hold over me. Nothing was resolved, but I felt better.

The Platonic Ideal of Buddy Boating

Two mornings later, I turned on the instruments to check AIS and saw a boat anchored in Betsy Bay. At lunch time we saw two sets of sails coming toward us. Two sailboats about our size. They’d been out in these conditions? They were better sailors.

And so we met Matt, Kusuru, and Ina.

Matt, a professional captain aboard a 45 foot catamaran, left the following morning. Ina and Kusuru, modest sailors like us on a 40 foot ketch named Papillon that we’d seen anchored in Georgetown, joined us in our wait for proper weather. They’d been battered by their last voyage and needed a break.

We bonded over typical cruiser things:

• Stories of places we’d been.
• Weather obsession – we got together for drinks and checked all our weather apps, discussing options and routes.
• Laundry – Ina and I hauled our buckets of dirty clothes to the park and took turns at the tap, filling them with water, stomping the clothes to agitate, wringing and filling again to rinse.
• Working on boats – Kusuru messed with Papillon’s engine, borrowing tools from time to time.
• Snorkeling – Tom, Ina, and I found a beautiful little reef inside the bay. We also found a lobster hide out and marked it for a return trip on the day lobster season opened.
• Sundowners – It was a treat to have new friends to share drinks and meager rations with.

A Weather Window Opens

A few days later that window appeared and we started prepping to leave. Scully brought fuel for Papillon, then took us on an island tour. He’s proud of his home and showed us the government dock, where the mailboat arrives, the US built radar installation, and the airport where he works.

From high up at the radar site, the interior of Mayaguana is vast and flat. When Scully mentioned that the island was once under cultivation, most recently growing pigeon peas for the US Military, I asked why the land is no longer farmed. He said the farmers got old. Farming is hard. And the younger generation found drugs to be more lucrative for less effort. Silence fell. I wished I hadn’t asked.

Then we headed to the north end of the island for a tour of the resort. At the community of Pirate’s Well we ate sugar plums fresh off the bush, saw flamingos wading on the flats, and looked down into The Pirates Well, no one really knows who dug it, it’s just always been there. So – pirates. Finally we had beers with the locals at Scully’s cousin’s bar.

Lobster Dinner to Celebrate

The next morning Tom took off in the dinghy to get lobster – the season had opened just in time. Meanwhile, I stowed everything loose, checked the weather update, and made lunch for the trip to South East Point. That farthest south east place on the farthest south east Bahama island was where we would take off from the next morning for Turks and Caicos.

Lobsters attained, we raised anchor, crept out through the opening in the reef that had been the bane of our existence for 20 days, and set sail.

That evening, Ina – chef for an inn in Hawaii – made us a spectacular lobster dinner that put the perfect cap on a fabulous, and challenging few weeks at a beautiful island. That set the bar pretty high for anyone who might end up buddy boating with us in the future. Then we settled down to try to sleep for a few hours, rocked on the swell.

Cruising Toward Reality

While I don’t know exactly what caused anxiety to take hold of me, going through it was valuable. I learned a few things.

Since then, facing other storms, other ocean crossings, other episodes of waiting, I’ve felt butterflies, stage fright, naked fear. But I have not experienced this kind of anxiety again. Anxiety comes and goes. It’s part of life. When it hits, use all the coping techniques necessary.

Waiting for weather is waiting for weather and it must happen. Stories abound of sailors who grew tired of waiting, went out too soon and suffered for it. Being forced to wait means you can reset your expectations and take the opportunity to look deeper at your immediate surroundings.

Unable to do what I most wanted to do, I had to go through the exercise of learning to let time go by a little more fluidly. There are different levels of activity. There’s always something to do, even if it’s just reading a good book. In the great scheme of things, a few idle days, or weeks, does not equal missing out on life.

The OODA loop is a helpful, but incomplete, tool for life and death emergencies. How to apply it in real time? That’s still a mystery. I am very glad I did not face the ultimate test this time, and hope I never do. But I will try, always, to be ready to act.

Before dawn the next morning, when we pulled up our anchor and headed south to The Turks and Caicos, I felt my customary pre-voyage butterflies, and I went through my checklist to make sure everything was ready. But I did not feel the debilitating anxiety that had plagued me for the last month. It had built, crested, and crashed over me like a breaking wave.

I came back up. I breathed.

*It turns out, protection is not a word one can associate with Mayaguana. 
**We tested the holding. For 20 days. It’s excellent.