Square Waves

I was reminded yesterday by my good friend and drinking buddy, Steve Heller to keep the audience in mind. For those who are just joining me on this journey, my journey began in Trinidad where I built a new bow sprit from a massive teak log. Under the pressure of a strict schedule to cross the Atlantic to Rhodes Greece where I am to pick up a charter for a very lucrative three week cruise along the Turkish coast I’ve picked a lousy crew who abandoned me in Horta, Azores after a rather difficult crossing leaving me alone with a sixty-five year old alcoholic woman who I have contemplated killing. You find me thirty miles outside the Straits of Gibraltar plowing into a force ten gale. My drunken crew member is locked in her cabin.


My CT 72 is motoring directly into a fifty mile an hour wind under a high sky and blinding sunshine. The coast of Spain lies to port and Morocco lies to starboard. The straits are crowded with container ships and massive super tankers rushing out of the Med no one seems to be going into the Med except me. Timing the tides after a long journey of three days is generally hit and miss. A couple of hours either way and you could be gliding effortlessly with a five to eight knot current or as I am doing bucking a five knot current. I entered a transition point between the Atlantic and its long smooth swells and the Med with its short choppy waves. The waves in the Med are square and generally there is a shorter distance between them. Each wave is shaped like a wall that rushes toward the boat slamming into the bow with great and disturbing force. The yacht rose and fell between the waves with such force and speed I felt weightless. Crashing down the bottom of the waves was enough to buckle my knees every nine to ten seconds. The rigging slackened and shook. The mast waved like a wet noodle at the sky. My sturdy bow sprit dug into the ocean and tossed hundred of gallons of water over the yacht. At times it appeared that my yacht was totally submerged. The scuppers full of racing sea water pouring over the cap rails. At the helm I stood in a constant foot of water. I had donned my snorkel mask so I could at least see. The pummeling wind, the sting of spray and the bite of salt on my skin kept me alert. It took eleven hours to travel twenty miles with the motor racing at top speed. And then around four o’clock in the afternoon someone turned off the wind and told the sea to quiet down all seemingly within minutes. I was officially in the Med.

I went into the customs office after docking wet, tired and very proud I had made it through. The custom’s officer asked for my papers. When he read I had come for the Azores, he dryly commented, “Congratulations you have just sailed through a force ten gale. Welcome to Gibraltar.”

Running head long into walls of square waves is to be avoided. Some fool once said adversity measures character, after this trip I preferred to measure my character by the shot glass. Thanks Steve.
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