I been accompanied by many fears on this sailing adventure, but throughout the Atlantic passage I wasn’t afraid at all. Every non-sailor told me that being out on the Atlantic would be the scariest part of the trip. But for me, it wasn’t. I was sick the first day and a half, and probably missed the worst weather. I can’t figure out why I wasn’t afraid with no land in sight, hundreds of miles from shore and thousands of feet of water below our keel. I think, in the end, I trusted Sirius and my crew, Jeff and Steve, to get me to the Caribbean. I can’t add anything more than that.
Still I have been challenged. After we arrived in Tortola, we offered our friends Paul and Monica, a dinner as thanks for Paul changing our engine impeller in Portsmouth. We asked them to pick the restaurant. You can see by the photos under Anatomy of a Sunset, that they chose Bananakeet Restaurant on the side of a cliff. In the taxi to the restaurant, I couldn’t look at how we were going straight up, with switchbacks and impossible angles. Finally, we arrived, and I quickly got out of the car. There was no guardrail to the parking lot, and I feared our driver was too overconfident and would plunge us all to our deaths. The restaurant was very beautiful and the sunset was incredible. Still, when it was time to leave, I relied on the liquor I had consumed during dinner to dull my dread of returning to the boat.
In St. Martin, we took a ferry over to Saba. Saba is an exquisite place. It rises steeply from the ocean and can be seen from many islands. A dormant volcano, Mount Scenery rises up almost 3,000 feet. The entire island is on five square miles of land with a population of about 2,000. We took a taxi at the port and immediately we were on the “road that couldn’t be built”. Many engineers told the Sabans that they could never have a road there. It was too steep. But a Saban, Lambee, took a correspondence course in civil engineering and then the Sabans went to build the road. Because there was no heavy equipment on Saba, it was all built by hand. I worried about our taxi which was quite old and its driver, who was older still, wondering if the brakes would fail or our driver would have a heart attack. If either of those things happened, we’d be toast. As I said, the road was extremely steep. There’s usually a cloud forest near the top, called Elfin Forest Reserve, because of its mossy appearance, but there were no clouds the day we traveled there. Our driver took us everywhere (see the photos of Saba under the gallery tab). We went to all of the four towns and even saw the world’s smallest commercial airport. People have told us that it’s like landing on an aircraft carrier. I was happy to depart the taxi and look through shops in town. There I bought an example of Saba lace, handmade by Saba lace ladies. After lunch, our taxi driver returned us to port. I was again, safe and sound. Between Tortola and Saba, I thought I’d had enough of heights. But more was to come.
I wanted to give Jeff a birthday present that he would value. We agreed that I would do ziplining with him. So, in Antigua, we signed up to do the Rainforest Ziplining Adventure, and because I was feeling generous, we signed up for the whole kit and caboodle. Little did I know at the time that this would be all the ziplines (12 or more) and then an obstacle course of epic proportions! Look at this man trying to navigate ropes and wires looking down several hundred feet!
I instantly regretted my decision to give this experience to Jeff. All the zips were above the rain forest canopy, and of course, it rained heavily the whole time. I navigated the zips pretty well, figuring that if I died, it would be quick. By the end, I had the whole process figured out. Next came the obstacle course.
One comfort I had in thinking about the obstacle course was that during the zipline part, 20 or more cruise ship passengers were ahead us. Many were overweight and not in good shape. If they could do it, I reasoned, so could I. But they all bailed out after the ziplining. Now it was just a few of us who had to finish the obstacle course. Of course, the rain added to the challenge by making the wires, the ropes and the boards wet and slippery. Jeff and I were the last ones on the course, with Jeff behind me. After the third obstacle, I started crying. I couldn’t do this. Jeff encouraged me and we went on. Finally, our guide returned, probably because he saw that we weren’t with the others. He climbed up the tree, positioned himself behind me, grabbed onto the top of my shorts to steady me and we did the rest of the obstacles together. I was so happy that he helped me out. In the lodge, soaking wet, we got our zipline photos and we each got a T-shirt: Jeff’s shirt said, “Me Tarzan”; mine said, “Me Jane”. I’ve never been so happy to return to Sirius.
The very next day, can you believe it, Jeff wanted to do a hike on Antigua. I thought I would be okay with it. We started the hike at Fort Benedict at the entrance to English Harbor. Some of the trail had disintegrated, making it narrower, with a sheer drop off on one side. Wicked waves licked the rocks below waiting for my arrival. Yikes! Still I persevered. Later in the hike, I saw a rope that went to a lone tree at the apex of the mountain. I would have to use the rope to scale the cliff. I was swearing at myself and at Jeff about this hike. I DO NOT LIKE HEIGHTS! Why was I doing this? Needless to say, I made it through the entire hike. We passed many billy goats along the way. They know how to scale steep trails. I do not. However, midway through the hike, we saw a goat kid with his momma not in sight. He wasn’t afraid of me, but I thought better than to pet him, in case his momma came charging out of the brush. See the video I got of the kid under the video tab. Jeff rewarded me with a beach front lunch. I had a rum punch while the band played. Delightful!
In Puerto Rico, we spent some time away from the boat while it was being painted. We visited Rincon (an old hippie hangout for surfers), Ponce and then we went to an ecolodge in the El Yunque Rainforest. On the way there, the road went straight up. I’m not kidding. Jeff was driving slowly in our rental car, but I cringed every time he went close the edge to avoid a pothole. Dusk was upon on us and I didn’t want to be on this road in the dark. At last we got to the ecolodge. Jeff pulled into the gravel parking lot, but before he got too far in, I said I wanted out of the car. There was no guardrail at the end of the parking space and I wanted to stand away while he pulled forward to get off the road. I guess it was self-preservation—but what about Jeff? Would I so easily see him die? I think that speaks to my total anxiety about heights. I thought he would be fine, but me being in the car with him would not be fine.
The ecolodge was near the top of El Yunque, the peak of the Caribbean National Rainforest. They had warned us on the phone that the restaurant near there was no longer open. If we wanted to have dinner, we would have to travel back down the road about a half hour and then travel back up again to the ecolodge. The only time I wanted to travel down the road was when we would be leaving. But our hosts, a mother and her middle-aged son, were very courteous and offered to give us a tuna sandwich for dinner (for which they charged us $10 apiece). They then showed us to our room. I wouldn’t say that this was an eco (as in ecology or back to nature) lodge. It felt more like an economy lodge. The rooms were very spartan, with old plastic furniture from a yard sale. The pictures on the website showed amazing views from our room. However, we couldn’t even get the sliding door that looked out on the rainforest open all the way. The views from the balcony were amazing, but I was too anxious to stand on the balcony.
The sliding door had no screens either and I am a magnet for mosquitoes. Our host told us they have no mosquitos because the small frogs called coquis eat them all.
I asked our hosts if bats come in through the open door. He responded that if bats do come in, they’re not harmful; they’re not like Dracula or anything. That made me feel better (stated with high sarcasm).
Our room looked out on a waterfall, and we explored it and the foliage along the way (see photos under Puerto Rico). Afterwards we had our dinner.
Finally, it was time to sleep. I forgot about the fact that we were cantilevered on the side of a cliff and tried to focus on the sounds of the waterfall, the coquis and the rain that fell that night (it was a rainforest, after all). So, I left the door open to the forest because I figure bats would not fly in the rain. We went to sleep. The best thing about the ecolodge (besides the waterfall, the coquis and the amazing large foliage) was the incredible breakfast we had the next morning. They served us fresh fruits, oatmeal and they made each of us very large breakfast burritos served up with fresh, hot coffee. I was happy to be leaving and endured the road downhill reasonably well, repeating the mantra that with every mile, I was closer to sea level.
Hemingway said to risk death was to be alive. I don’t agree with his philosophy. After all of these adventures, I didn’t feel more alive. I will admit that the ziplining (the actual ziplining part, not the obstacle course that followed) was fun and I’m happy I did it. But I wish the other parts were lower, much lower.