Link to My Previous Post: Our Hope Survives
(In my previous post, as I will do here, I link to Brad Cavanagh's name so the reader can ascertain some of the background of our crew, which helps to understand the viewpoint of our captain as to safety).
Friday morning, March 4, 8:30 a.m., I heard the thud of footsteps overhead as the crew got busy preparing to get us underway. It was our fifth day of being on board Eclipse with the crew. We listened as the engine started and lines were dropped, then felt a slight shudder as the boat went into gear and gently pulled away from the dock. We were leaving San Diego - and, for a while, the United States.
Dean and I were still in bed - although we had coffee as Dean sweetly gets up and gets us coffee every morning - luxuriating in an emotion we would rarely get to enjoy on our journey; peace. The ‘problem’ was fixed and for the first time since we purchased Eclipse, the underlying anxiety of “we are in so far over our heads” was diminished - not gone, but at least diminished.
Although we were completely ignorant of her design when we purchased her, we have come to understand that Eclipse is a complicated engineering marvel and unlike almost any other boat in the world. Alloy built legendary yachts and before they closed operations, only thirty like Eclipse were made. Although Alloy Yachts was not a high production factory, their standards certainly were. None of the crew understood Eclipse, as none had ever before worked on an Alloy. Her complexity, design and engineering were a mystery to them all. This led to them constantly coming to improper conclusions about her systems and how they worked. The brilliant men who designed and built Eclipse made her almost “idiot” proof. Even if the humans operating her make mistakes, her systems are built in such a way as to protect her from those mistakes. After sitting in a shipyard or on a dock for nearly four years and rarely operated, many things that would have been maintained and understood on Eclipse had she had a full time crew, had been neglected and overlooked. Especially for a trip like ours, they should have been looked at. Some were on the survey, but having not been operated as she was built to be operated - as an open ocean, world traveling beast - there were many safety systems and redundancies to critical systems such as steering that had not been used or detected by the previous captain or our surveyor.
We trusted the people we hired to get all this. In the end, it all came down to specific experience. Because Brad and Lloyd were ‘experts’ on all things boat; but not Alloy boats; anything they did not understand was terrifying; possibly the thing that would cause our trip to become a nightmare. As Eclipse is one of very few Alloy yachts in the world, few people understand her design and engineering. Consequently, every time something unknown or unexpected came up which did not fit into their base of knowledge, Brad and Lloyd would, for lack of a better term, “freak out”. It became so that every single day, there was some new ‘problem’ that they would breathlessly, terrifyingly report to us as being the latest ‘thing’ that would be our undoing.
For six straight weeks, even while we were hooked up to power and safely ensconced between two dock pilings deep in the secure harbor of Newport Beach, every single day our two captains managed to ‘bring to our attention’ some unexpected ‘emergency’ or ‘issue’ requiring precious time and expenditures. And when I say “bring to our attention”, I don’t mean a simple, “hey, this may be an issue” type of attention. I mean more like an “OH MY GOD!!! If we don’t fix this, people are going to DIE!!!” kind of attention. This constant drumbeat of doom, gloom and stress earned them the moniker, (from me) of “the freak out boys”.
The last thing we needed, in addition to the pressure of taking care of my father and preparing to leave, was this. From the rigging to the air lines, the electronics to the navigational equipment, the gray tank and the battery banks - and even the refrigeration - based on the attitude of the crew, the atmosphere on board felt as if everything on Eclipse was in a state of barely functional or “just about to fail and get us all killed”. The tension was palpable. It affected everyone’s nerves and resulted in our inability to get any sleep. Night after night, back at my father’s, we were awake at three a.m., unable to sleep. The anxiety about the journey we were planning and our eroding belief in Eclipse’s ability to make it robbed us of any ability to relax or rest. As a result, we were totally exhausted. Morning after morning I would look at myself in the mirror and see an aged, tired, swollen hag with huge bags under her eyes staring back at me. It was awful. The constant ‘freak outs’ strung Dean and my nerves to the point of being as taut as violin strings. It is a wonder we were able to function at all.
Before we left Newport, the stress of dealing with an unbelievably complicated vessel that no one fully understood had already resulted in one morning ‘meeting’; called by the crew; where Lloyd in particular had whined and almost cried for an hour about how ‘overworked’ and stressed he was. Jason’s ‘freak out’ moment had been about the fear of not getting paid and absolute demand that we purchase his ‘legally required’ health insurance for him, (a requirement on commercial vessels, not private). Brad’s contribution was a “discussion” of weather windows, winds, the rigging, the certainty of very strong winds off the coast of Mexico and Central America, the sea conditions in the Western Caribbean in spring and how we could easily destroy our sails or lose the tender in rough seas. The meeting had not been pretty; and I, more than Dean, had found Lloyd’s diatribe particularly disturbing. I was immediately angered by his accusatory tone, but when I tried to rebut anything he said, Dean restrained me. Of course Dean was right - any rebuttal would have led to friction - but the more I thought about his situation; (living in the VIP room on a multi million dollar super yacht in Newport Harbor, perfect weather, carousing Newport bars at night, everything paid for, a car at his disposal and all while receiving very respectable compensation); the more angry I became. Lloyd also had two incredibly knowledgeable, capable and experienced people working with him, (Brad and Jason), plus the chef, Micah, planning all the provisioning and meals; seriously?? To me, that did not sound like such a bad gig. I was deeply insulted by his diatribe and the accusation that we were somehow the cause of his stress and fatigue. Worst of all was the non-existent acknowledgment of our stress or fatigue, as if this was all on him.
In retrospect, and in Lloyd’s defense, Eclipse had not been operated as an open ocean going vessel in four years. After the catastrophic jibe off Hawaii and all the unknown work done in the shipyard, there was no way to understand if her systems and condition were up to the task we were asking of her. Dean and I had paid for a thorough survey by an expert and experienced surveyor; a survey that had given the crew a fairly comprehensive description of her condition and a list of items that needed to be addressed before we left. I naively believed that the list alleviated much of the stress and guesswork of preparing for the trip. I had also reasoned that the survey offered a level of confidence in Eclipse that she was able to do what she had been built to do - travel the open sea. At no time during the months-long process of our purchase had any serious red flags been raised about her seaworthiness or ability to make the trip we planned to take. We had even surveyed the hull by ultrasound to ensure its integrity. However, the problem with the generator had been a big surprise; one that left a large, shadowy specter of fear about other ‘unknown’ issues that may have been missed or hidden from us. I am sure the day Lloyd was at the helm and lost all ability to control the boat had left its mark on his nerves…..but these men had been on sailboats and at sea most of their lives and especially in Brad’s case, had dealt with some serious ‘at sea’ emergencies. It was their experience we were paying for - experience that was supposed to give them confidence in the face of anything unexpected.
So I kept quiet. Credit to Dean, who held me in restraint and who understood better than I that when people get frightened and stressed, they sometimes need to vent.
Despite holding myself in check, I still didn’t appreciate the venting process; and especially not by the man we were hoping would become the full time captain of Eclipse. His tone and attitude were completely inappropriate. Putting aside Jason’s childish insecurities and Brad’s justifiable if not more than slightly overly cautious paranoia of Eclipse’s ability to handle thirty knot winds, Lloyd’s outburst that day was a precursor of his thinly veiled disrespect for us and an inability to regulate his emotions; an inability that led to some real issues in the not too distant future.
But, there’s more!! All that ‘under the surface’ tension related to the condition of Eclipse does not paint a complete picture without mention of another issue: friction between the crew. Apparently this is a common experience and the cause of sometimes serious contention aboard many a vessel. To our unhappiness, it is an issue about which we have learned a great deal in our near two year odyssey.
First, there was Brad and Lloyd; two very senior men in experience; each with a very different approach and temperament. Lloyd, who has a one hundred ton license, (can captain boats that have a gross tonnage not exceeding one hundred tons), is a hands-on can-do everything guy. Lloyd had run a charter boat in the Caribbean and is mindful of catering to guests, (in this case, us). He was always mindful of our needs and comfort. He is fastidious about the cleanliness and organization of the boat and himself. Every thing has its place, and should be exactly in it. Lloyd’s approach to repairs and maintenance borders on obsessive; a trait I in particular can relate to and appreciate. As opposed to most boat owners mentality; “if it ain’t broke, don’t worry about it”, Lloyd is constantly cleaning and maintaining every little thing, (“It’s always the corroded connection that I should have cleaned, or the pump I should have serviced that becomes an emergency”). For those who don’t know, “boat” stands for “Broken Or About To”. Lloyd grasps this truth with both hands. He is extremely methodical, researching thoroughly before jumping into repairs. Lloyd is also incredibly skilled at working on engines or generators: a good person to have on board as Eclipse is completely generator dependent by design.
Brad, on the other hand, is a professional delivery captain and salvage operator on up to five hundred ton vessels. He is a large man and cuts an imposing presence in any room. He rarely deals with the owners of the vessels he delivers and has little care for his appearance - in other words, he does not ‘dress to impress’. His table manners were…..interesting. He treated food like he treated everything else. What he lacked in panache, he truly made up for in expertise. Brad is a true professional when it comes to the operations of larger and more complicated ships in big seas, many of them commercial. His approach to problems is more like that of a bulldog with a bone. He sinks his teeth into the meat of an issue - and tenaciously but a bit ham-fistedly does not let go until he solves it. While his tenacity is admirable, (our generator issue would likely never have been solved by Lloyd), he tends to be a bit like a bull in a china shop, wanting to start tearing things up in order to figure them out as opposed to slowly and methodically approaching things the way Lloyd did. Also, from talking to many different delivery captains in our travels, it has become clear that most of them would have immediately left Eclipse had they been required to spend so much time preparing her for delivery. To Brad’s credit, not only did he not leave, he spent six weeks preparing Eclipse AND repaired our generator problem. We thank God for Brad; when it came to understanding how to properly configure the rigging, the perils of being on the open sea and what to prepare for to take a boat like Eclipse over five thousand nautical miles, Brad’s expertise is quite possibly unsurpassed. He was determined to make sure that Eclipse was up to the task we were asking of her. Of course this did have the added bonus of making sure the crew survived the trip.
In any case, as you can probably imagine, the difference between them made itself abundantly clear in a very short time. As time went by, the ‘delivery mentality’ allowed Brad to freely be a complete slob and to have no thought of our comfort or the condition of the vessel. His focus was on the result. The charter mentality, (Lloyd), is a slave to maintaining order at all times, above and below decks.
Let the games begin.
This divide was further exacerbated by Jason, the young thirties deckhand brought along by Brad. We understood why Brad selected him; that kid could do anything with a sheet and did the most beautiful line splicing I have ever seen. He was an expert at rigging and could scurry up a mast with no fear, plus he could make anything out of a piece of teak. He was the ‘spiderman’ who kept Eclipse from colliding with the Bay Club Resort Dock. But Jason was also a badly damaged individual who, from our experience, had the mental and emotional maturity of an eleven year old. Brad brought him along because Jason desperately needed work; ten minutes alone with him was a clear explanation why. But we are not sure he fully grasped that Jason had not only no interest in being part of a crew, he had no interest in other people. He was incredibly moody and petulant; often hiding in his cabin for an entire day. His presence in a room made it immediately uncomfortable. We all walked around on eggshells around him, never knowing what would set him off. In particular he drove Lloyd insane with his inability to have consideration for other people on the boat, leaving his personal belongings wherever he dropped them.
And not to be left out of the drama and also a key player in the crew dynamic, we had Micah.
Good looking and charming as well as a talented chef, Micah, late thirties, had created quite a niche for himself in the Southern California yacht catering scene. He is organized and efficient, and has a keen sense of the style of cooking and presentation that pleases the ‘elevated’ SoCal palate. Unfortunately, the clients to which he caters accompany regular access to the lifestyle of the wealthy yacht owner - one that normally includes high end liquor and wine as well as copious amounts of them. It seemed that over time, Micah had learned to enjoy that aspect of his job just a little too much. While aboard Eclipse, almost every night after he had completed his duties, Micah was off carousing the local bars. We never knew when he got back on board - we slept right through the doors opening above us - but the next morning it was no secret what he had been doing the night before. To his credit, he never complained and always did his job, albeit clearly while suffering what must have been epic hangovers. Dean and I liked Micah very much and actually felt bad for him. His reason for signing on to the crew was the promise of learning how to sail a boat like Eclipse, but we had the wind to our back all the way down the coast and did no sailing. Despite all that, Brad’s worst crew decision, in my opinion, was to make Micah the de-facto “galley slave”, forcing him to cook all the meals for everyone on board as opposed to cooking primarily for us while the crew rotated cooking meals for themselves. As the captain, he should have divided the galley duties among the rest of the crew as he had the watches, but he did not; in essence only Micah served ‘double’ duty. In any case, Micah’s sense of being taken advantage of and his well earned resentment completed the joyless atmosphere aboard Eclipse as we headed South.
This was the dynamic that created the events that followed as we headed out of San Diego harbor and towards our next stop: Ensenada.
Only about sixty five miles down the coast, we had reservations at Coral Hotel and Marina, a smallish resort hotel with an even smaller “world class” marina. The marina had three end ties that would accommodate Eclipse, but no power; so we would have to run the generator continually while there. The stop in Ensenada was mandatory for ‘checking into’ Mexico. We were required to have what is called a T.I.P., (temporary import permit), in order to operate in the waters of Mexico. This was our first foray into the bureaucratic nightmare that we came to know as “the joys of sailing in international waters”. Commercial boating and particularly a luxury yacht is big business for poor countries, and the process of getting in and out of them is nothing short of lawful extortion. From country to country, it was just a matter of how much extortion you will be required to pay.
After a pleasant and uneventful motor down the coast, we arrived in Ensenada the same day fairly early in the afternoon. I remember watching the coastline go by and the obvious change from the United States to Mexico. Houses became shanties; development became brown hills splotched with trash. After getting tied up, Brad and Lloyd accompanied Dean and I, along with the ‘boat bible’; a binder full of all the paperwork on Eclipse; to the marina check-in office to sort the paperwork.
My limited Spanish was helpful in trying to ascertain exactly what was required for the check in, but I was quite annoyed by the conversation between myself and the check in “authority” - a youngish Latina with little understanding of what the government needed or why, but with a LOT of understanding of the power she held over us. As I kept asking more pointed questions, trying to get to the meat of the requirements, (the list she gave us was as clear as mud), Lloyd became very agitated, at one point telling me to “stop arguing” with her and just do what she said. Although I am sure he meant well, he did not understand the Mexican bureaucratic mindset as deeply as I did. This was just another time I had to ignore Lloyd - and I think he resented it. I have been traveling in Mexico for over fifty years and I knew that if I did not get exactly what she asked for, we would not get our TIP - or the ability to continue our trip.
After about thirty minutes of going back and forth, it became clear that we could not check in at the marina office. We were told we would need to go back to Tijuana to get our TIP. We were tired and flustered - but in these matters, I am the bulldog. We were going to get our TIP - and no power happy Latina bureaucrat was going to stand in my way. We left Brad and Lloyd at the marina, hired a car, took our paperwork and gathered everything to go file in Tijuana.
The driver picked us up in a brand new Toyota Corolla. He was young, seemed sincere, and said he knew where we needed to go. About thirty minutes into our drive, I began to look around. I recognized nothing. My first thought? “Oh my God, we’re going to be ransomed for the drug cartels”. I immediately asked, “a donde vamos?” Our driver said he was taking us to the ‘office’ where we could get our TIP, but I looked around at where we were and for the first time in my life in Mexico, I was nervous. He had taken a route through the back roads and to me, unfamiliar areas of Tijuana. Of course had that happened, this would be an entirely different story, and here I am. Thankfully he drove us to a small government office just outside the city; it was old, dirty and had little to identify it as a workplace at all except for a small Mexican flag flying out front. The requisite stray dogs loitered around the trash cans, looking lean and desperate. The smell of burning trash somewhere in the distance filled our nostrils; the perfume of Mexico. I was grateful that we did not smell the rotting of an animal corpse which usually accompanies the smoke. We exited the car and entered the building where, as all good citizens do, we got in line.
As a reminder, this was March, 2021. While the rest of the world was moving on from COVID tyranny, much to our chagrin, the Mexican government; notoriously dead last to catch up on anything; was still fully engaged in COVID ‘safety’ protocols. Most countries had abandoned mandatory testing and masking - not so Mexico. We had never been mask wearers in Arizona and understood the scientific lunacy behind the stupid paper masks. We understood that as healthy adults with no co-morbidities, our chances of getting seriously ill from the virus were tiny. We were also lucky enough to live in a state that gave us a choice about masking. But once in Mexico, it was like reliving a nightmare.
Everyone in the small, shabby building was masked. We were given several dirty looks as our smiling faces, including teeth, were clear for all to see. I gave off an aura of “don’t you dare”. We finally got to the front of the line where I faced another surly, masked, short and pudgy twenty-ish Latina bureaucrat. I remember thinking, “where do they find these girls? Do they make them in a factory?". Dutifully stern and serious, masked and slathering her hands with hand sanitizer - and obviously well versed in her understanding of power dynamics - she demanded our paperwork. I handed her what I thought she wanted. She looked at them and asked for another paper. I quickly licked my fingers to leaf through the pile of papers……
THAT was a mistake.
The young lady behind the glass recoiled as if slapped. Her eyes got very big as she yelled “No! No!”. She refused to take our papers: and ran out of the room.
I looked at Dean helplessly. What could I do? Something so innocent yet we were living in insane times. After a few minutes, another cookie cutter Latina - this time taller and older looking- came out to ‘help’ us. She sternly looked through our paperwork; glancing up from time to time to glare at me; and announced we were missing a letter. It was on the list, but the letter she was asking for was a form giving the captain authorization to operate Eclipse….in our absence. I tried explaining we would be on board the entire time the boat was in Mexico. “I must have the letter”. I offered to write the letter, on the spot. “No.” she said. “It must be typed.”
Her impassive face revealed her complete disinterest in anything else I had to say.
There was no amount of logic that was going to change her position. Besides, I was the woman who tried to kill her colleague. We left the line and walked across the dirt street to see not one, not two, but three small businesses offering printing services.
How convenient.
But thank you God for technology. ‘Creativity on the fly in desperate situations’ is my superpower - I quickly composed a letter on my phone and asked if I could email it to one of the Mexicans standing in one of the tiny little storefronts so it could be printed. This ‘storefront’, exactly like the other two, was no bigger than a large broom closet. In this small ‘office’, I counted six middle aged men sitting around watching soccer and drinking beer while two street dogs - licking themselves and nipping at flies - all waited for the next victim who needed them as desperately as we did. I emailed the letter and they promptly printed it for a *reasonable* fee of $10.00.
We walked back across the street and again waited in line.
When our turn again came, I handed our paperwork to our taller even more power tripping Latina bureaucrat, (the girl who ran out screaming was nowhere to be seen - she was probably getting trauma care in the back). The letter stated that we, the owners, granted permission to Brad to operate Eclipse as our captain. She looked it over and said, “you need to sign it”. Dean dutifully grabbed it to affix his signature, but she then added, “No. Debe estar notariado”.
I knew what she said - “it must be notarized”. Dean and I looked at each other, speechless. My jaw dropped. As I started to argue, Dean grabbed my arm. He whispered “don’t bother honey. These people are too stupid to even understand what they are asking for. Besides, you really pissed them off”. He was right and an attempted murderer had no sway with these girls. With as much derision as I could muster, I looked at the young lady and asked tartly “donde es la Notario?”
She looked me right in the eyes and said “en los Estados Unidos”.
I can still feel the anger in the pit of my stomach at her obnoxious ‘victory’ over the rich, white Americans and the look in her eyes that said she knew it. Despite all of my best efforts, she had won. She held all the cards. We were powerless.
It was too late to drive back to San Diego that day. We went back to the boat, and hired another car to take us there at 8:00 a.m. the following morning, Saturday. As a salve to my wound, it turned out that going back would have been a necessity anyway as Brad had left our shore-power cable at Shelter Island.
So Saturday morning, in another hired car, (this was getting expensive), back to San Diego we went. We got the notary on the letter and a bill of sale for the tender, (another bit of stupidity for the Mexican government as we literally made one from MP Sailing to ourselves), picked up the power cable, and headed back to Tijuana. By Saturday afternoon, we had everything we needed. The TIP was granted and would not be needed again for ten years. The price for all the entry stamps, authorizations, car trips and TIP? Over six hundred dollars, not including the ‘tip’ to the dock master. So we would “operate” in Mexican waters.
I guess we should be grateful it wasn’t more.
My consolation? At least I had the memory of the screaming Latina bureaucrat, terrified that she would get COVID from the perfectly healthy rich white lady, to keep me warm at night.
We were finally legally in Mexico. Now we had to get Eclipse down the coast and on her way to Panama. It was March 5th, and the clock to the start of hurricane season, June 15th, was coming fast. After that, if we were in South or Central American waters, our insurance would cease to cover us. So on Monday morning, we would head down Baja Sur to our next stop; Cabo San Lucas.
The fun was just beginning.
To be Continued……