Memories of fun times on Bounder with Jim and his crew in the Caribbean
While on night watch sailing across the Pacific bound for our home port in Northland NZ, I keep thinking about my time spent with Jim and crew on Bounder in the southern Caribbean in the summer of 1991.
Bill and I were based in English Harbour Antigua after crossing the Atlantic on a Swan 65, when Bounder arrived after bashing her way across in the ARC rally. Jim and his crew of Radar, Duffy and Sasha were getting ready to head south along the island chain to race in a few regattas, and kindly offered me a bunk to join them. Bill had picked up a chartering job for a month, so my other option was to sew up kaftans for the local crew agent Rena who told me “Darling, forget looking for a cooking job on a boat, you will end up smelling like onions and your boyfriend would leave you for a stewardess…” she really just wanted some new diaphanous kaftans made so she could wander around naked underneath… nice…
Anyway, thankfully Jim and his crew of Kiwis and Aussies saved me from this fate by recruiting myself and the gorgeous Emma in the Galley Bar to join them.
We day-hopped (and bar-hopped) along the island chain listening to Bob Dylan at full noise while we reached in 15-20 knots. We stopped in St Lucia, Martinique, Union Island in the Grenadines, Grenada and finally Trinidad with a couple of regattas along the way.
The racing was lots of fun, with consistent 15-20 knots of warm tropical wind, and all manner of local and international craft and crews to line up against. This was in the days before yacht racing was seen as a professional career, so was very relaxed compared to the regattas we have been to this season in St Barths and Virgin Gorda…
It was festival season in Jan-February and some islands had a parade with bands playing on the back of trucks while locals dressed up in masquerade, while the smaller communities had jump-up Friday nights when anyone with a musical instrument or ghetto-blaster went out on the street and played while locals danced.
The ultimate was Carnival in Trinidad which we went to from the yacht club after sailing in the local regatta. This festival was taken seriously by the locals, with a parade of floats with amazing costumes in between trucks with reggae bands and enormous speakers that made our hearts vibrate, rum bars everywhere and the entire town was dancing frenetically. I remember being aware of our 2 gorgeous blonde girls Sasha and Emma, and how fascinated the local boys were with them, so we kept them inside our crew dancing circle so they couldn’t be swept away and trafficked…
With slow heads and sore dancing muscles, we left Trinidad to cruise along the coast of Venezuela to Margarita Island. The national park along this coast reminded us of Great Barrier, but knowing it contained more wildlife than just kiwis and possums, (tigers, jaguars, snakes etc…) we didn’t go ashore until we made landfall in Porlamar on Margarita. The port was fairly rudimentary, (poor and dodgy) and after a wander around town and a fairly agricultural haircut, we found a local restaurant for supper. Everything on the menu was in Spanish so we all ordered fish soup, which arrived looking like bilge water with fish eye balls and gizzards floating in it, just as a mangy 3 legged dog wandered under the table. With that, we all lost our appetites and hoofed it for the boat.
The next morning, Jim laid out his plan to head back up-island which involved 3 days on the wind, so we all sobered up and got ready for some adventurous sailing. Bounder was still slightly fragile from the beating coming across the Atlantic, so we tried not to load her up too much on the wind, and with 3 sets of watches we happily left Margarita behind and headed north to St Lucia. Radar was my wonderful watch captain and as we had a fairly lumpy sea with 15-20 knots on the nose, it was a long 3 days and 2 nights.
On the 2nd night, we were on watch with no moon and spotted what looked like a small frigate approaching us fast, so we woke Jim up for a look. He called them on the radio, and they replied saying they were US coastguard and wanted to board and search our vessel. Sure enough the huge patrol boat drew close to windward of Bounder and dropped a large RIB in the turbulent water, which sped over to our bouncing, lurching hove-to yacht. By this time, all hands were awake and feeling fairly squiffy, so by the time we had 6 US marines on board in full fatigues, some of our crew were leaning over the rail, (pretty sure I was one of them…)
The marines were determined to search the boat for drugs, even though Jim had given them our log book and agenda for the past 2 weeks. It seemed that drug smuggling was the largest export trade out of Margarita, (they definitely couldn’t export their cuisine or their dog breeds… ) so our course had piqued the coast guard’s interest, , and after a fruitless search, they left Bounder with a few chunks of crew dinner on their RIB as souvenirs. We gathered our wits, got back on the wind and carried on to St Lucia, where the local bar made our memories and wits fade with lashings of Margaritas.
I jumped ship onto Bill’s boat from there back to Antigua, with great memories of a fun time with awesome crew, thanks so much Jim for bringing us all together!
Paula is a great sailor, cook, and graphic artist, she always has a super positive outlook on life, and helps anytime, she is also a great friend. Paula also designed and organised all our crew shirts for Antigua race week. Her brother Mick Cookson is also a great mate of mine. Paula and Bill are currently sailing their sailing cat around the Pacific…..Super Good.
