Off the Coast of Nicaragua: Part Two

Here come the Coast Guard. Off the coast of Nicaragua. 

We left Roatan when we did solely because of the weather. The easterly trade winds were going to be quiet for three more days, giving us enough time to round the point and start heading south. After that, the wind would get back to its normal routine of blowing 15 to 25 knots due east. Our plan worked quite well. We rounded the point, turned off the engine and sailed with a decent amount of wind most of the way to Providencia. With that wind, however, we also got to experience some big ocean swells, and the worst night was on Saturday with waves of about eight to ten feet. One of those waves literally knocked me out of bed while I was sleeping. I hit the cabin floor directly on my left elbow and had two thoughts simultaneously. One was: Wow, I hope I didn’t break my elbow. And the other was: I’m really stupid for not putting that lee cloth up like I said I would after practicing my gecko sleeping technique across the entire the Gulf of Mexico.

My third thought was: Who breaks their elbow falling out of bed? That’s just ridiculous. And yet that wasn’t as strange as what happened to us a few hours later. We were boarded by the U.S. Coast Guard in international waters off the coast of Nicaragua. For a safety inspection. 

Vlad and I have talked extensively about how much we like the Coast Guard, especially after we saw them get into a water cannon fight with the sunset cruise ships in Key West (the coasties won, obviously). What other group of government officials is concerned about your individual safety and wellbeing, will do everything they can to rescue you, risking their own lives in the process, and will have a water cannon fight with tourists? You don’t see the guys from Customs doing that. 

But we were surprised to see a massive military ship cruising by us at 5:30 on Sunday morning, and then, as per Vlad’s prediction at 6:00 a.m., we got a radio call from the vessel saying that they wanted to board us. At that point, we didn’t know it was the Coast Guard, and what with the ginormous navy boat circling us we were not sure what to expect. We’d heard horror stories about Homeland Security people tossing boats, taking everything out of lockers and basically trashing the place, which sounded like a special kind of hell after six days on the ocean and in six to eight-foot swells. 

So we were pleasantly surprised when we realized it was the Coast Guard. About six officers came up on a small motor boat, somewhat like a souped up dinghy, and two of them came aboard despite the waves. They did a routine safety inspection (we passed!!), and we got to hang out and chat with them for a while. Evidently, they are assigned to a British Navy boat and had been out for two months patrolling these waters for drug runners. We were the third boat they had seen the entire two months, which must get kind of boring after a while. It also might explain why they were having a mustache growing competition. 

Aren't they adorable?

I can’t tell you how surreal it is to be in the middle of nowhere, more than a thousand miles from the U.S., and have the Coast Guard board your boat. The best way I can describe it is comforting. Sure, it slowed us down (yes, it’s shocking that we could go any slower), but it’s kind of a relief to know that the Coast Guard has your back even when you’re long way from home. They told us if we ever ran into any trouble - pirates of the Caribbean, etc. - all we had to do was get on channel 16 and they or the Navy would come find us. 

And if any of you Coast Guard officers who boarded us are reading this, happy Fourth of July! Come have a green chili cheese burger with us because I promise we will be better company than the Brits on this particular American holiday. No offense to the British, of course.

Also, in case anyone is concerned, my elbow is not broken. It swelled up, and I didn't have full range of motion. However, it has almost completely healed in the past three days. According to Vlad, I just bruised the bursa, the synovial fluid sack that encapsulates the joint. Whatever the case, I’m putting up a lee cloth before we leave Providencia. 

Off the Coast of Nicaragua: Part One

Providencia = unbelievable

Halfway through our trip to Isla Providencia, I was forming a blog post in my head that said, well, nothing much happened. We motored sailed east to the tip of Honduras and then turned right at Cabo Gracias A Dios. The seas were moderate. We had some favorable wind, making a close haul possible with an assist from the motor. We tacked a lot, and I got seasick. Pretty typical of our sailing experience to date. 

But then we turned the corner and found ourselves in the Nicaraguan Banks, a shallow area that extends 50 miles into the Caribbean filled with reefs, small cays and a surprising amount of stuff to hit for offshore sailing. It’s strange to be sailing that far away from land and have your depth finder read 70 feet. That’s still plenty deep but is also a distinct reminder that somewhere nearby it might read seven. The following is the  first installment of our Nicaraguan adventures. 

Watch Out For Squid Thieves and Too Many Fish

We have been diligently tossing over a line or two when sailing, but so far the closest thing to a fish we’ve been able to catch was a clump of seaweed. Something - we’re not sure what - bit through a stainless steel leader once, but we’re pretty certain that whatever that was we had no interest in catching it. Enter the Nicaraguan Banks, one of the most primo fishing grounds in the world that, as far as we could tell, was completely devoid of fishermen. 

Vlad put out a Cuban yo-yo with one of our precious rubber squids. It was promptly stolen (squid thieves!!). He then put out another, slightly larger squid, and he baited another Cuban yo-yo with this eight-inch long flying fish that kamikazied our deck when we got into Roatan. It had been double bagged and marinating in our fridge for about a week, making it perhaps one of the foulest smelling things I’ve ever encountered. 

Vlad heard the squid yo-yo jerk once. Then, it jerked a second time, and he pulled in the line only to see a fish head dangling from it. Evidently, something else - a shark perhaps - thought it deserved our fish more than we did. We had heard about pirates in these waters, but they never tell you about the fish thieves. At this point, we’ve had three fish encounters, if you count the shark, in an afternoon. Not too shabby for two people who haven’t had more than a nibble in three months. 

But that’s when things got really interesting. I was trying to take a nap after my watch when Vlad started sounding all kinds of excitable out in the cockpit. He had snagged a three-foot long tuna on the stinky flying fish line (fish have a different idea of what tastes good), and it was none too pleased about it. Have you ever tried to get a fairly big fish with a mouth full of spiky teeth and a bad attitude onto a boat? Yeah, we hadn’t either. He was shockingly strong with the most incredible coloring I’ve ever seen on a fish -  blue, purple and gun metal grey psychedelic swirls down the length of his body. I was feeling bad about eating him until Vlad reminded me that the fish would have no such reservations. 

After about 10 minutes of ineffectual flailing on our part, we finally hauled him over the side and into the cockpit, and then we were like “holy crap, what do we do now?” I grabbed the book on fishing, which we had both read, and started haphazardly flipping through pages searching for the part on what to do with the fish after you catch it. Finally I find it, and we start following directions. First, stun the fish. Done and done. Second, kill the fish using an icepick to the back of the head. Uh, we don’t have an icepick. We improvise. 

But you see, there was one small detail that we had forgotten. The second yo-yo. While Vlad was trying to figure out exactly how to dispatch our tuna into the brave beyond, the fish starts getting jerked out of the boat. The tuna had crossed the yo-yo lines when we were pulling him and now, in what we can only assume was a daring rescue attempt, there was a second tuna snagged on the second yo-yo pulling the first tuna back into the water. 

At this point, Vlad looks at me with this harried expression that says, “but I don’t even like fish ...” Yet there it was, another tuna. Thankfully, this one was smaller and much more manageable. We hauled it in, and for a few moments we had two tuna fish in the cockpit. Before this, we had only had mild chaos, but now the chaos was near total. Every single line was tangled with all the rest. The fish had tangled the yo-yo lines, and I’m not sure how the jib sheets got involved but involved they were. And keep in mind that we are heeled over 20 degrees, going five and a half to six knots in a slippery, fish filled cockpit. It was executive decision time. We threw the second tuna overboard. 

We're pretty sure this is a tuna.

The other fish was not so lucky, and I had a delicious tuna fillet for dinner. Broiled with salt and pepper.