Thur March 10 A day at Port Morgan, moving ashore

Cleaning up the boat, moving all of our stuff ashore, moving the remaining cold food items into the fridge at Jackson’s place.

Met Jean Lorique and Geneiux, a French couple from Martinique on their catamaran for a nice chat.

Lunch at Port Morgan hotel and first email access. 

Row out and introduce myself to Gill, a crusty single handed world cruising circumnavigator wh has been living on his Downeast 32 since 1995. He invites me aboard for a rum and mango jusice then we both row ashore and enjoy a beer together at one of the little seaside locals homes. 

I go ashore find Wag & we organize the library, move stuff around, put the bed in one corner, Ken’s stuff and his cot in the other corner, put up a mosquito net, and generally try to make it homey.

Back to boat, pasta & veggies dinner, talk & organize stuff, pump & fittings for the cistern for pressure water for toilet & for shower & sink. Thank you for your generosity.

It is pouring sheets and buckets the whole time, a true tropical deluge. When we get ashore Ken & I hop out and head for the library through pitch dark sheets of water, almost like swimming in the dark. 

When we arrive at the library we notice a faint light seeping through the gap at the top of the door, Ken asks me if I left a light on, and I say no, there are no lights there to leave on, so it is curious. We go to the door and pull on it, it is locked but soon it opens, and Wagner welcomes us. He was sitting in the library, our new home, reading, keeping watch over all of the expensive and valuable things inside, and waiting patiently for us to return. We thank him profusely, he goes home, we strip off our soaking clothes, hang them up, towel off, and gratefully settle in to listen to the rain drumming on the tin roof, louder than the voodoo drums of any film or fantasy, and drift off into sleep on our first night as the only white people in the little seaside island fishing village of Kakok, Haiti.

Wed March 9 Sister Flora (Soeur Fleur) Orphanage and Dr. Lambert’s Mountainship dining

9 am big breakfast of turkey bacon, home fried potatoes and scrambled eggs shared with Federique, then the Sister Flora’s orphanage boat arrives to pick up the supplies we have for them so we head for the library/storehouse, we tell the eager helping hands to take all of the wheelchairs and walkers and crutches out to the boat, along 40 or so of the woven mats, plus 4 of the 5 gallon dry soup mix buckets (each one makes 100 meals) and a dozen or so boxes labeled for Sister Flora, plus many bags of clothes, linens, children’s toys etc. Then Arlen and I sort through the sewing machines separating them into hand cranked and electric only ones, sending the six electric ones to the orphanage where they have electric power.

We all load into the boat along with all of the wheelchairs, walkers porta potties, mats, boxes and sewing machines etc. and head out for the 5 mile trip to Madame Bernard, the capital town of the island where the orphanage is located. Arriving in Mme. Bernard, many eager hands are there to help us carry everything up the long steep, muddy and rocky path to the orphanage. I push one of the wheelchairs with a bag of linens on the seat along the flat and muddy road to the base of the hill, then Federique helped me pull it up the very steep rocky rutted and rough road up to the orphanage. 

Tuesday March 8 - Ile a Vache: Christmas in March

By around 1 pm we can see Ile a Vache in the distance around the point, by 2:30 we are at anchor less that 100 yards from the beach at Kakock village.

The whole village turns out to watch and help carry all of the cargo in 6 or 8 boat loads from the boat to shore, then from shore to the library, where it is now all securely stowed for distribution. By 6 pm we are done, the library/storehouse is full, we head back to the boat to clean up the mess. Samuel, Karma & Federique come with us, help clean the decks, carry a few last minute items ashore, then we set about drinking the beer that we have so carefully guarded and stored and chilled for this occasion. 

Blue Moon, Yinling Black & Tan, Newcastle Brown Ale plus a few Red Stripes and Coors are mixed in with the full case of Haitian Prestige that Samuel brings us. We stick with beer and don’t venture into the Rum Zone, leaving that for another night to celebrate more fully. As the fridge has been reduced to cold water that isn’t draining because one of the more than a dozen bags of ice we packed into it in Rum Cay has luckily plugged the drain hole (I consider this lucky because otherwise all of the very cold water would have drained out leaving us no way to cool the beer.)

Ken helps me cut up almost all of our remaining fresh vegetables and I make a huge pan of veggie curry, along with a big pot of brown rice and feed all seven of us. Samuel runs the little store and restaurant that was started with a micro loan. Every one enjoys the curry and I get compliments on my very Haitian style of cooking. I am sure we will be rewarded many fold with fresh fish, lobster, conch and other local dishes in the weeks to come.

Disco music from the village, invited to go with promises of Rum, music and girls, but we are way too tired to even think of it, Most of the music seems to be in Spanish, the DJ or music must be from the Dominican Republic. There is this curious loud slapping sound every few minutes. We are told that is a form of dominoes or a board game played with loud slapping down of the tiles. 

3/8 Stowaway

Around Sunset in the middle of the Windward Passage, a large bird began circling the boat. It looks like a Tern to my inexperienced eye, and she looks like she is looking for a place to land. Bruce says this happens often, one of them will circle around sunset looking for a place to rest for the night. Sure enough, after three laps around the boat getting closer and closer, she comes in for a landing on the forward port side of the pilothouse roof (called a dodger earlier, but more like half a pilot house really). There she sits all night long, as we motor over 75 miles around the southwest tip of Haiti and along the southern shore, our stowaway sits in the same spot, rocking and balancing as the boat rock and rolls along at 5-6 knots,  all night long. Around 3 am, as we round Point Tiburon, the western most tip of Haiti, Arlen and Bruce are up on the bow with powerful flashlights watching for lobster trap floats in the water, as our course takes us within one mile of shore, and over the shallow near shore shelf where the depth ranges between 30 and 80 feet, prime lobster trapping territory. In the morning our stowaway is still there so Arlen and I get some photos of her. She is not shy at all, letting us within 4 feet or so to get nice close ups. Then shortly after dawn she takes flight again, off for another day of fishing and flying after a good nights rest and a free ride to new fishing gounds. All she leaves behind is a big mess on the pilothouse roof and deck underneath where she deposited the processed remains of yesterdays catch.

Monday March 7 - Becalmed in the “Windless Passage”

The 50 mile wide by 100 mile long gap between the eastern end of Cuba and the western tips of Haiti has been known as the Windward Passage for a few hundred years. To the North and East lies the North Atlantic Ocean, the “windward” part of the Caribbean. To the south lies the Caribbean Sea. The Windward Passage connects the Atlantic to the Caribbean and is one of the most famous and infamous shipping lanes of maritime lore.

Today however the Windward Passage could be called the Windless Passage, totally calm, no wind at all. We spend the day motoring along, reading resting, sunning and enjoying the gentle ride.

Sunday March 6 - Even Better than “as good as it gets”

Sunday dawned clear and blue and beautiful. As I came up on deck early, several miles behind off our port quarter I could just make out the castle turret-like lighthouse for which we assume Castle Cay is named. An absolutely incredible day sailing along, wind abeam and astern, resting, reading, enjoying the huge pile of sails on the aft deck like a big huge bean bag chair or king size bed. Life is good.