Voyages of the Strolla: Part II

I am spending another Winter in the Caribbean Sailing Strolla. This time, instead of Pete Hinman, I'll have three other friends aboard. I'm continuing to write about our adventures so please join us at our new blog site: http://voyagesofthestrolla.blogspot.com/

The End

Once it became apparent that the U.S. Virgin Islands were out of our reach Pete and I needed a revised plan. Keenly feeling the bite of homesickness by this point, the thought of living on the boat for the summer was not appealing. Pete wanted to be back in NH for the Summer and I was committed to a seasonal job river guiding in Jackson Hole. We needed a place to leave the boat. Enter our friend Laila. She had an empty dock at her house and generously agreed to let us park Strolla there for the Summer.

After a joyful reunion with her and our first night's rest on land in many weeks, we awoke the next morning ready prepare Strolla for a season of disuse. Over the next several days, anything that could mildew in Florida's muggy summer air was stripped out and stowed away in the dry heat of Laila's attic. The boat was emptied, the water tank bleached, the engine oil changed. Then, we cleaned. We scrubbed Strolla's ample interior from bow to stern. Ant poison was laid and cockroach traps set and, when there was nothing more we could do for her, we said goodbye to Strolla and Laila and boarded a plane for New Hampshire.

Our flight had a layover in Baltimore. The first leg of the trip from Florida was out over the ocean and I slept most of the way. The final hop home from Maryland, however, took us through clear Spring skies and right up along the coast.

Having spent so many hours studying our coastal charts on the passage South, I found I could readily identify the landmarks slipping by beneath me as I headed back North. I could even make out the individual harbors where we had spent the night, breakwaters we had groped by in the dark, lighthouse we had scanned for on the horizon. Like turning back the clock, I could count backwards through the days of our trip as we covered in minutes the distances that had taken days to travel in the other direction. A reminder of all we had done, all the places we'd been, all the things we had seen.


A very special thank you to everyone from Cape Cod to Cuba that helped us and housed us and advised us and fed us along the way. Without you this trip would certainly not have been possible.

Day 112 Last Day on the Water

Pete and I woke up at a very reasonable hour, weighed anchor, and motored out of Biscayne Bay and back to sea for our last day on the water.

The conditions were perfect for a speedy run up to Ft. Lauderdale. The Gulfstream was pushing us at maximum power and, with the waves and the wind, helped us achieve our fastest speeds of the entire trip, topping out at just under 12 knots!

We arrived at the inlet to Ft. Lauderdale happily and uneventfully, motored up the New River and were tied up at our friend Laila's house in time for dinner. It was a spectacular final day underway.

Day 110-111

Sometime in the night we began to veer north, sticking to the outside edge of the shipping lanes and riding the Gulfstream back to Florida. The more we turned north, the more we turned our starboard quarter to the steadily freshening breeze and the faster we went. Like horses to the barn, we could smell that the end was near. We pushed harder and harder. There was no question of stopping. We spent our fourth consecutive night underway.



The next day, the wind was blowing harder still and, with the waves and the current pushing from behind, we very nearly flew North. A fantastic day of sailing! Strolla charged forward, seesawing in the following seas, white froth from her wake dissipating in a long line astern.



We arrived back in Biscayne Bay and Miami late on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. The weekend boaters were out in force. While looking for an acceptable anchorage for the night, we stumbled upon a huge floating armada of party boats, anchored, music blaring. Everywhere we looked, boats, babes, and booze. For eyes that had seen no one but each other for nearly a week, this was nirvana. It sure was good to be back in south Florida.

We enjoyed the sights and sounds of the afternoon crowd. As they slowly drifted away with the coming of night, we drifted down to our bunks for our last night aboard Strolla. We would be with Laila in Ft. Lauderdale the next day.

Day 109

Our second night at sea passed much the same as the first, an exhaustingly rapid rotation of shifts, three hours on, three off, throughout the night.

The weather this far south is nice and warm, the conditions calm, but still we continue the three hour shifts at the helm. Why? Because with no autohelm, trial and error has taught us that three hours is the maximum amount of time we can sit in the dark staring at a dimly lit, lazily bobbing compass dial.

The shifts continue well into the next morning, until lunch actually, as we each try to catch up from the broken night before. Finally the heat of the noon sun beating down on the boat turns below decks into a sauna and sleep is no longer possible. The crew is reunited in the cockpit to douse the floorboards and slather on the sunscreen.

This morning was oppressively hot and still. The ocean, hazy and glass-like to the horizon. We motored, slicing through the placid waters like a lake. The mainsail was set and luffed against the mast in our self-generated headwind. I was fixing myself some lunch when Pete gave a shout from the cockpit. Dolphins! I climbed up on deck somewhat unenthusiastically. We'd been seeing dolphins since the carolinas. What I saw left me giddy with excitement, my lunch forgotten in the galley.



Strolla was chugging her way straight through the middle of a huge pod. There were at least thirty dolphins on all sides of us, cavorting through our wake and lapping the boat, playing and racing and launching themselves to amazing heights out of the water. We shouted and cheered and called out scores to the acrobatic competitors. Then, as suddenly as we'd entered, we passed out of the pod and were once again alone on the wide, wide sea.


Mid afternoon, a spur on the northern coast of Cuba shimmered into view off our port bow. It was a series of islands and peninsulas among which we were hoping to find an anchorage for the night. As we drew closer, a large pink building became visible. A hotel, I speculated. Closer still and we could see the dark specks of people milling around it. We continued straight towards until, about two hundred yards out, we were able to make out the olive drab uniformity of the their clothes and the unmistakable silhouettes of their guns. On one of the outbuildings painted in white letters over the pink facade was scrawled, "Vive Fidel!" Despite the unusual color scheme, this was a military base. No anchorage here.


Just as we'd changed course to leave the post behind us, we got a bite on the lure we'd been trolling. Fish on! Pete reeled it in. It was another Cero, a member of the Mackerel family like the one before. This second one was fully half again as big as the first and would prove to be just as delicious.








The breeze freshened and we picked up speed. Some men patrolling the beach waved to us as we glided by. Our chosen anchorage having been too close to the unmapped military post, we traveled on, scanning the charts and the coast for another likely place to spend the night. The sun dropped and dusk descended. We settled in for another night underway.