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ambling family. A Cuna Indian woman wearing a heavy gold nose ring and bright red scarf snatched my arm, pulling me into her thatched long house. Surrounded by chattering women that I could not understand, they forced me to squat. To my surprise the tiny thickset women dragged a heavy mola, an elaborately decorated appliqué shirt, over my head. Then amid much gaiety one of the group drew a thick blue line from my forehead to the tip of my nose, just like their own! Then I was released, dressed like an Indian to go find my amused family.
"Have we hit a reef, Dad?"
It was not always plain sailing at sea. One squally night off Hispanola Shellback suffered a severe knockdown. Scores of books were flung in disarray to the floor. Water poured through the skylight and mast step. Were we about to sink? I crawled through the debris to the main hatch and stuck my head out. Our port running light lashed to the rigging seemed to be dancing in the foaming water. "Have we hit a reef, Dad," I called out over the screaming wind? "No, Goddamit! It's a knockdown. Now get below!" I was sheltered from panic though, by my deep trust in my parents.
It was nearly Christmas 1954, when we passed over the Puerto Rico Trench. Tim and I tossed can lids left over from cutting out tree decorations into the water. We tried to calculate the time it would take the lids to travel in great arcs all the way down through over 4,600 fathoms of water into the abysmal ocean depths, coming to the conclusion after furious calculations and debate, that it would be hours!
Golden rings and jeweled pins.
On our return trip to the Virgin Islands in 1958, at Fortune Island in the Bahamas, where treasure was thought to have been buried by pirates, Tim and I wandered amid the ruined and ransacked houses of a coaling station abandoned early last century. Half buried in the cookhouse behind the old Harbor Master's home we came across a massive iron strongbox, locked shut. After getting permission from the local island governor, who was hosting my parents to tea, with straining muscles and flying sweat we rolled the ungainly chest down a long-overgrown road to the beach. With a mighty heave we somehow lifted it into our dinghy, nearly swamping the boat. It was so heavy that we had to hoist it aboard Shellback using tackle and the anchor winch. When we finally pried it open we discovered a wonderful horde of old land deeds written out in copperplate affixed with faded Victorian stamps. But imagine our unmitigated excitement as we drew out the little plush purple box and opened it. A dazzling collection of real gold jewelry sparkled: diamond and ruby stick pins, wedding bands, a topaz ring as well as an odd assortment of old silver coins!
Danes, slaves, and buccaneers.
In the cornucopia that is the Caribbean Sea, the lush tropical islands surrounded by shimmering azure waters were heaven to my eyes, so different from the sometimes-oppressive stretches of mainland Central America with its murky inshore waters. Puerto Bello, the San Blas Islands, Cartagena, Port Royal, Hispanola, and Puerto Rico were our first ports of call. I was bewitched by the color, the beauty. We, as a cruising family were welcomed as a novelty everywhere, by natives but sometimes by ex-pats too in places like Port Royal, Nassau or St. Lucia. Occasionally we were mentioned in newspapers and once we appeared on Puerto Rican TV. Up and down the islands we cruised, all the way to Miami and then to Grenada, to almost all the accessible ports in between. Only in Panama did I meet another seagoing kid: Marli Schenk, daughter of Earl who cruised the Pacific for many, many years.
But in those carefree days of the 50's there was no place more perfect than St. Thomas's Charlotte Amalie. Green mountains swept down to the bowl of the landlocked harbor. Along its shores winked the red foursquare roofs of the old Dutch/Danish town that still bore traces of its buccaneer past. On the eastern side of the bay, were moored a handful of yachts, with a dozen more flying flags of many different nationalities, sheltered at anchor. From the shore-side bar at night wafted the strange dulcet tones of West Indian steel band music. The descendents of the Normandy French, the Danes, the slaves and the buccaneers too, soon became my friends. Another cruising family arrived from Europe aboard Electra with the Chryster's children, Lynne and Steve. Their comic books were in French. The family, Americans, had survived the war incarcerated by the Japanese in the Philippines. Then the Phoenix arrived, all the way from Japan. The Reynold family, also American, had sailed several times into the huge restricted no-go zone in the Pacific protesting the continued Atom Bomb testing, their action resulting in the father's arrest and jailing. Young Jessica Reynolds and her brother could speak some Japanese and was writing a book! All of us, with our small gang of locals, had the time of our lives. Mom and Dad decided to stay and become part of the fledgling charter fleet.
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