Lucky: Or How to Board the Wrong Boat in the BVI With Confidence

I used to collect shells and interesting rocks from every beach we visited. This seemed a charming pursuit until we realized, after 5 months of sailing from country to country, beach to beach, we were slowly recreating a Caribbean coastline inside the boat. At some point, while stepping on a conch fragment, I decided to switch to collecting something more portable - stories. They weigh nothing, don’t require sweeping, and can’t stab you in the foot at 2 a.m.

Here is my latest one…

Lucky

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The British Virgin Islands are a charter cruiser’s paradise. You arrive, pick up your floating apartment, usually a catamaran, gather a group of friends who may or may not still like each other by the end of the week, and set off on a rum-soaked tour of turquoise perfection. The fleets are enormous: Entire armadas of identical catamarans drift from island to island like a synchronized, slightly drunk swim team that has lost its coach, its formation and possibly its mind. It’s an opportunity for grown adults to leave their day jobs, mundane worries and possibly their annoying children behind and live a carefree life on the ocean allbeit for only a week to 10 days and always with the safety of land in sight.

The only way to tell these luxury slabs of Lego apart is by the names painted on the hull; Feelin Nauti, Sea Men, Ship Faced, Dirty Oar….it’s a floating dad joke convention. Laundry also helps identify one from the other: A strategically hung pair of shorts can be the difference between returning home and accidentally joining another family’s vacation. One friend secretly hung an upside down pineapple flag on another friend’s boat, and that certainly helped identify his boat….and kept the majority of visitors away.

Because all the boats look the same, so do the dinghies. Dinghies are an integral part of living life on a boat, because occasionally you might want to leave, or at least give the impression that you could. And apart from swimming, a dinghy is usually your only option. It’s basically a cruiser’s car, but with less chance of being stopped for a DUI and a much higher chance of forgetting where you parked it. After an afternoon at a beach bar, where the cocktails are strong and the sun is stronger, it is not uncommon to return to the dinghy dock and discover yours has been borrowed by someone equally confident it was theirs.

One particularly enthusiastic gentleman, unable to locate his own dinghy, selected one that “felt right” and promptly took it back home to his boat. To his credit, he later posted in a local cruiser chat group explaining what he had done and where the rightful owners could retrieve it. This was generous, but it did raise the obvious logistical issue of how the dinghyless were meant to get there. Presumably by taking another dinghy, at which point the system begins to resemble a real life game of musical chairs where no one really cares to wait until the music stops.

We, on the other hand, did actually have a kayak stolen. Not misplaced, not accidentally rehomed by a sozzled cruiser, but properly and astonishingly stolen. This felt both shocking and, in a strange way, professional. It had been tied up at both ends with, what Ken can describe in military detail, a bowline and two half hitches. So basically the nautical equivalent of locking your car...

Sometime in the night, while we and our highly trained K9 security team slept soundly through everything, someone quietly untied our beloved kayak and slipped away. I like to imagine they admired the knots before undoing them, the way one might appreciate a good piece of craftsmanship. How they got to our boat, which was anchored in the middle of a bay, will always be a mystery. Did they swim up Navy Seal style with an extra paddle? Did they have an accomplice in another kayak drop them off? Did they row up quietly, and then simply tow our kayak away to its next owner? These questions will forever remain unanswered.

But that was enough for us. So we installed high tech cameras and spotlights on the stern, aimed directly at the dinghy, like a small, slightly paranoid film set. Losing a kayak is irritating, but losing a dinghy would be catastrophic for us. It is our bridge to land, and more importantly, currently the only way we can get our dog to go potty. (If you have been following us for a while, you will know we have been trying unsuccessfully to get Gypsy The Sea Dog to potty on a nice piece of boat astroturf for a whole 5 months now). Without our dinghy, things could escalate quickly with a dog who is very vocal when she needs to be taken to a nice piece of acceptable REAL grass.…She has trained us well.

The security system we installed is a very advanced gizmo with AI built in. What truly doesn’t have AI built in these days? When it detects movement, it doesn’t just record. It speaks in a firm, slightly unsettling voice that sounds uncannily like a mightily pissed off Ken, and it addresses the intruder directly. “Hey you, standing on the deck with a dog, if you are not invited, you should leave.” The first time it spoke, I felt like I had been caught doing something I should not have (like shopping for more cushions), and nearly apologized to it. At first, until we discovered there was a sensitivity setting, “Security Ken” was way too enthusiastic. One night at around 2am while we were sleeping, it loudly announce, “Hey you -brown fish swimming next to the dinghy, if you are not invited you should leave”.

I was telling another cruiser about this while walking along the dock at Scrub Island when we passed a very nice looking catamaran. A tall man with a ruddy complexion was standing on the back deck, wearing a green T-shirt with a shamrock and the word LUCKY across his chest. This felt less like a statement and more like a hopeful suggestion, since he also had a large bandage on his leg.

He overheard us and volunteered a story: The prior evening, he had fallen and cut himself at the marina bar. Judging by his ruddy complexion and bloodshot eyes, I astutely deduced there was probably alcohol involved. Bleeding, he had limped back to his boat, went into the bathroom, found the medical kit, and began patching himself up. Mid-bandage, he noticed the towels. They were unfamiliar. He looked around. Everything was unfamiliar. It suddenly dawned on him that he not on his own boat. At that exact moment, a woman appeared above him holding a fishing spear. “Don’t shoot!” he screamed. “I thought this was my boat.” Which, in fairness, is exactly what someone on the wrong boat would say, and most likely a thief would not make a bee line for bandages. Anyway, he wasn’t skewered and in fact she helped him finish his bandaging, and then sent him on his way, but it got me thinking…

This, I feel, is where our new technology could really shine. If everyone had one of these ”Security Kens”, they could gently redirect the lost and sozzled before things escalated to fishing weaponry. A calm voice could firmly (because its Ken)  say, “Hello. This is not your boat. Your boat is two slips down. I have notified your Security Ken. Please be ready to pass a sobriety test when you get home.” Of course we might have to work on its vernacular otherwise no-one would go home, but you get the idea. 

It seems like it could help happy cruisers read about a good vacation story rather than becoming one. If we ever get a catamaran instead of our instantly recognizable trawler, I will be calling it “Knot Your Boat” and hanging bright pink knickers on the stern. 

End of story…for now

Where are we now?

We are currently on the Dutch side of Saint Martin (Sint Maarten to the Dutch) in the Caribbean.  The island of Saint Martin is made up of two countries; French and Dutch. It is extraordinary that you can get in your dinghy and be in another country in less time than it takes to say “escargots and fries si vous plait?”. And the French side is REALLY French, every restaurant serves snails and frogs legs and everyone seems to smoke as if it’s a national sport. (Note to readers: Never ask for fries with your escargots).

 The Dutch side is not like Holland at all. There are small mountains, zero windmills and tulips, and I’ve not seen a pair of clogs since we got here. However there is an excellent Dutch pub where you can sample various blood sausage and some great chandleries, which is not a pairing I would have predicted. If you don’t know what a chandlery is you are clearly not married to a sailor. For the rest of us, chandleries are emporiums, not stuffed with chandeliers as one would think, but contain absolutely every boat part known to man. Ken can spend hours in there staring at strange objects that are apparently essential to keep the boat working, occasionally picking one up and staring at it in a way that suggests deep and meaningful understanding. I remain unconvinced all of this stuff is necessary. I mean how hard can it be to keep a floating boat…..floating?

For me, St Martin has been a great opportunity to stock up the freezer with amazing French morsels and they even have a mega Ace Hardware store where I spent a few blissful hours drifting around in a large home goods section selecting more cushions and baskets, which I believe are the true backbone to maritime survival. Clearly I am the one who understands the essential elements in boat living.

We will soon be leaving for St Barts, which we can actually see from here, so it will only take us a few hours to get to, assuming we head in the right direction and are on the correct boat. 

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