When I married him, Ian was a long time diabetic but you’d never know it. Standing over six feet tall, his wispy gray hair was bleached blond and his ruddy skin bronzed from his years outdoors under the glare of the sun. By the day of our wedding, he had rappelled mountains, commercially fished for salmon 20 years in Alaska and had been an avid downhill and backcountry skier. Ian pushed everything he did, including himself, right to the edge and somehow, as if born under a lucky star, walked away unscathed. He liked to joke that he was a Greek God, such was his confidence in himself and his perceived immortality. Arms stretched wide to adventure, he had the wingspan of a condor.
I had also seen my share of daring adventures, spending a few years living in a remote Sierra cabin where I had to ski in and out during winter, driving from California to Canada, a fifteen year old son along for the ride with no plan and $1000 in my wallet and time in Alaska where I was a back seat passenger in small two person air planes that made exhilarating landings on beaches, frozen lakes and glacier beds. I was always in search of “different,” ready to change my life in a day. When I fell in love with Ian, I jumped on his sailboat, left Alaska behind and cruised with him down the Pacific coastline to San Francisco.
Ian was 66 when we married. I was 60.
We had ten years into our love affair, all but one of those years spent living on his sailboat and I believed I was committed to this big, daring, brave man. But all that changed three years into the marriage.
~
It all began on an overnight sail north to Grenada from Trinidad. My doubts about Ian, about sailing and about a life at sea.
Our boat, a Newport 41 classic ocean racer, took on water in the bilge.
A bilge runs along the middle line of a boat and under the floorboards of the cabin. The bilge is the lowest point in the hull and any water coming in settles there. Inspection hatches run along the floorboards, in place to check for water that seeps in. There is also an electric bilge pump in place, put low in the hull, to automatically pump water back out. It is common for a boat to have some water in its bilge but from my view, on that overnight sail, something was going wrong.
While the pump did keep the water at bay and we reached Grenada in 18 hours, I was exhausted, even tested, by the overnight crossing and worries over the amount of water we took in.
On our first afternoon in Grenada, after much needed sleep, we went to work searching for possible leaks in the hull or on deck.
Ian dove into the sea and swam along the sides and even the bottom of the boat. He tapped the hull and spent extra time inspecting the through holes, keel and rudder only to come back on board dripping and confused.
“Nothing,” he said. “It’s all fine.”
Back on deck, I handed him a towel. My job, after ten years at sea with him, was as support and it was a role I usually embraced. I was happy to take a back seat to Ian. He was the true Captain of his ship.
“Do you think it was rainwater,” I asked, “from the storm last night?”
Ian rubbed the towel over his head, sunlight sparking on his fine hair.
“Could be,” he said. “But no worries. We’ll be fine.”
He tossed the towel back at me with a grin. He busied himself checking the anchor to make sure it held, but I didn’t feel reassured.
After 10 years of exploring the chain of islands dividing the Caribbean and Atlantic, Ian was now determined to cross the Pacific and start a South Seas adventure from the Galapagos to the Marquesas. We’d have to cross the southern Caribbean and go through the Panama Canal to the Pacific side. It was a big journey, trying under the best conditions and here we were, barely started and taking on water from a mysterious source.
My stomach had a knot in it but I said nothing.
~
I awoke early the next morning and true to my first mate status made a breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast. We left Grenada for Bonaire as I cleaned the galley, made sandwiches and snacks, and stowed anything we had unpacked the night before - toothbrushes, water bottles and coffee cups. I made sure all the bungees, holding our belongings in place, were fastened. I even checked the bilge and was relieved to see it had remained dry all night.
As we left the shelter of the harbor, the sails caught wind and heeled us to 40 degrees. It threw me into the cabinet and I caught myself on the edge of the day berth.
Up top, Ian laughed with that big sound of his, unafraid in the face of natures’ force.
An hour later though, below deck, I lifted one bilge inspection hatch and then another. Water sloshed just below the floorboards. Too much water.
I climbed up the ladder to the cockpit where Ian steered the boat, his hands on the wheel at ten and two o’clock, his bronzed face to the sun, eyes squinted. He was a marvel to watch sail but that day, I didn’t admire my husband.
“We need to turn back,” I said.
“What?” he said.
“The bilges are full again, Ian, something is wrong.”
“Oh you’re such a worry wart,” he said, waving me off. “Can you grab me a soda?”
He set his feet wide, the sea rough and choppy under the boat. I held fast to the rail and set my own feet wide. I had learned not to question Ian but this decision felt reckless and wrong.
“No,” I said. “I mean it. We have to turn around, Ian. This could turn bad.”
Ian looked at me again, eyes narrowed. Without another word, Ian turned the boat back towards Grenada. This changed the sail entirely. The wind was now on our nose, trying to push us backward. The bow pitched into each wave splashing salty spray all the way back into the cockpit. It would be a long, wet sail back to the island of Grenada that was getting smaller and smaller in the distance.
I returned below deck to check the bilge again. More water. On the third hatch, I felt the boat make another full turn.
My breath caught. Had he changed course? Were we back on our way to Bonaire after all?
Water filled the bilge each time I pumped it. I closed the hatch with a slam.
I clambered up the steps again and indeed, he had made a 180 degree turn.
“What are you doing?”
The boat heeled to the side and I stood in the companionway, holding on with both hands, my hair whipping into my face.
“I changed my mind,” Ian called out above the wind. “We can make it. The leak is not that bad.”
Around us were the rising and falling swells of ocean, water everywhere, water that found its way into our boat and could sink us.
“It is bad,” I insisted. “Listen to me. I am not comfortable with this. We need to turn back.”
He glanced over at me, slightly amused, a twitch of his blond mustache—a massive walrus type, that folded down each side of his face. His eyes sparkled, as if excited by this new challenge.
“We’ll be fine,” he rationalized. “We have a great bilge pump, plus a 50 gallon a minute Whale Gusher hand pump. We’re fine. Boats are always sinking.”
“Sure, and every airplane landing is a controlled crash,” I sputtered.
Ian only laughed.
Furious, I stomped below and lifted the bilge hatch, just to be sure he was wrong. The bilge was full of water. Yes, it pumped out quickly but filled back up.
I exploded up the companionway into the cockpit.
“I don’t want to do this,” I shrieked into his face. “I don’t want to go on without finding the damn leak.”
For a moment, just a moment, Ian relented. He backed down to me, looking like a wounded child, he even changed course, circling the boat but then he continued to Bonaire anyway. We screamed at each other. We were this ridiculous sight, a little boat in the middle of the ocean, going around and around. The only witness an occasional seagull and a party of dolphins. I was shaking with anger and wanted to get away from him but there was nowhere to go.
Finally Ian turned his back to the wind and squinted his eyes over the horizon. His jaw was set. We were going to Bonaire. Period.
“Ian, we have four days ahead of us, with no plans to stop,” I said.
My voice was carried away by the wind. I cleared my throat and spoke firmly, from a deep place in my gut.
“I don’t want to go on until we find where the water is coming from,” I demanded.
Ian did not look at me, didn’t even register I was there.
“What if the leak gets worse?” I asked. “Or the electric system fails and the pump quits? We’re talking four days, Ian. I want to go back.”
His weathered face and mustache were damp with sea spray and he gripped the wheel with determination. If I was there, Ian did not register my presence.
“Really?” I screamed at his unrelenting profile. “I have no voice in this? Really?"
Ian didn’t even blink. He was like Zeus, impervious to the mere mortal. Me. His wife. Just as a doctor is in charge of a surgery, the captain was in charge of his boat and in that moment, Ian had taken his stand.
~
That night between my two hours on watch and two hours off to sleep, the rain and sea came from behind pushing the waves. The sails luffed and popped. The mast and boom shook. The boat shuddered. The wind gusted at 30 to 40 knots. We kept the engine running so we could hold our point of sail with the wind directly behind us.
All of my life, I had avoided what I called mainstream America. I shunned the security of a house and a lifestyle that was so common in the American dream, those constant images flashed in front of our eyes on TV, in glossy magazines and even political ads. I resented domestication, spending five years living on dirt roads in the Sierra’s, thirteen years in bush Alaska and thirteen more with Ian, at sea. I had lived more than thirty years of my life on the fringe. I liked my alternative lifestyle. I liked not knowing what’s ahead and the necessary respect for nature and unforeseen obstacles that requires but that night, as rain and sea spray dripped onto my face from the hatch above the day berth, it felt like something within myself was trying to shake me awake. I would turn 63 in a few months, I had maybe twenty or so good years left on this planet, was I living my dreams or his? Did I really want to die out here, on the ocean, with this man who constantly pushed his and my own luck? What if, on this trip, his luck finally ran out and this was it?
A huge wave broke over the cabin and the boat pitched, forcing more seawater onto my face. My clothes were soaked against my skin.
I relived these last 13 years with Ian, how he thrived on pushing the edges while I bit my nails the whole time. He liked to put up bigger sail in a strong wind just for the thrill of it, stressing the boat and sails. Once, surrounded by lightening storms with sheets of rain, we had fuel and engine problems, forcing us to go against the wind to get into a safe port which took all night, lightening hits on three sides of the boat. With his diabetes, he did not take care of himself and made reckless decisions about his health just as he made reckless decisions like letting water build up in the bilge, not being respectful of the boats limits and not being more attentive to engine malfunctions.
The possibility of mishap had finally overwhelmed me, snapped me in a way, like a sail that had been stressed one too many times.
~
Throughout the next four days, Ian and I continued on, as if nothing happened.
The bilge continued to fill with water but the pumps did their job.
The fuel filters clogged at one point causing the engine to quit. To change filters is daunting on a pitching boat where you are forced to dismantle and stow the settee and table from the middle of the main salon to get to the engine. Ian methodically wrenched the three filters and I sopped up diesel with Pamper diapers, standard gear on a cruising sailboat, and rolls of paper towels. That job seemingly took hours and since we were both needed to change the filters, no one could be at the wheel and the boat bobbed around, at the mercy of the restless sea.
Still we did not speak.
In the dark hours of the fourth day at sea, Bonaire finally loomed in the distance and the tension within me eased. I felt the comfort of our destination. We were safe.
As daylight lifted, the landmarks on the island showed the way to our harbor but 200 yards from the rocky coast, the engine sputtered and ran out of fuel.
Ian, undaunted, poured five gallons of diesel into the tank, started the engine and took us the rest of the way in.
I couldn’t wait to set foot on dry land.
~
We spent a month floating around on the turquoise, pristine waters of Bonaire with turtles and tropical fish as friends but I couldn’t go on. I left the boat when we reached Curacao, an island thirty nautical miles west of Bonaire.
I told Ian I needed a break.
He didn’t try to stop me and more, with land under foot, he couldn’t. Finally, I was my own captain. I was in charge of my own life. I stepped off the boat and walked away.