Top Photo: A beach on Anegada
Bottom Photo: Tom Tallman on Jost Van Dyke
Apparently, sailing over 7,000 nautical miles in less than a year wasn’t enough for Bruce. To cap off an adventure-filled year, he invited our buddy, Tom Tallman, to join him for 10 days of sailing in the British Virgin Islands. Tom is the Captain of the Seattle Fireboat and loves sailing almost as much as Bruce. Since all those miles more than satisfied my tacking and jibing appetite, I flew home to get out of the way.

The guys spent 10 days sailing, swimming and diving, then topped it off with even more sailing. Tom, who’d never been to the tropics before, picked up quickly on the nuances of navigating through coral-strewn waters, where the depth sounder takes a back seat to navigating by the color of the water. Brown means bad; green means good to go; blue is best.

The first day they sailed north to Anegada, an absolutely flat island stuck in a time warp, lying 18 miles north of all the other Virgin Islands. It is the only all-coral atoll in the B.V.I., 13 miles long with only 200 full-time residents. As Bruce and Tom sailed toward it, they stopped two miles from shore, in only 35 feet of crystal-clear water, to dive in and explore what lay offshore of this infrequently visited island. Under them was a Technicolor show of coral, fish and assorted bizarre creatures. Bruce told Tom to periodically spin around and check what might be sneaking up on him in the water … you never know when a curious shark or barracuda might be looking for fast food.

Their days of sailing took them to Peter Island and Jost Van Dyke; Norman, Ginger and Salt Islands; and in and out of Tortola and Virgin Gorda. They even spent one day bashing out into the Caribbean Sea, just because it was there.

As if all that wasn’t enough, at the end of the guys’ “Great Adventure,” Bruce dropped Tom off at Beef Island for a flight home and headed to Jost Van Dyke for the 33rd annual Wooden Boat Regatta at Foxy’s and a few more days of ... sailing! Foxy Callwood, Tortola’s most famous entrepreneur, built and opened his Tamarind Bar right on the beach over three decades ago, where it still sits today, surrounded by his other business ventures that have sprouted up around it. His wife Tessa has a great shop of T-shirts, treasures and Foxy’s Firewater Rum. The Tamarind Bar now includes a popular restaurant, a bodacious beach barbeque and a first-world micro-brewery. Foxy’s hosts holiday celebrations throughout the year, including their Old Year’s Eve party, which is so well attended some call it the Times Square of the B.V.I.

Bruce dropped Woodwind’s hook in Great Harbor the day before the race and spent the afternoon scrubbing the bottom for that extra bit of speed. Racing Woody after the hellacious year she endured didn’t make much sense to me — the boat is down to her second string of sails, the staysail is missing entirely and the running rigging is stretched and worn. But Bruce, who breathed life into this boat one plank at a time, knew better.

When he went ashore to register for the two-day event, the racing committee placed our 34-foot boat in the 40- to 50-foot class because of the bow sprit and flying jib booms that protrude from Woodwind’s bow. Saturday morning the trade winds were whispering, so the committee announced two starts: the first for single-handed, wooden boats and the second for classic plastic, fiberglass boats at least 30 years old. The second class was added because, well, there just aren’t that many wooden boats around these days.

Bruce used the starting techniques he learned at the Antigua Classic Race, placing Woodwind on the line a bit early and luffing in place, waiting for the starting gun. Seven other boats were on the line, most carrying at least one “observer” for tactical advice and emergencies only. Bruce was all alone. The boats sailed a mellow course around Sandy Cay and Great Thatch Island, then back to Great Harbor for the finish. On shore the numbers were crunched for finishing times, handicaps, etc., placing Woodwind in the middle of the pack. Bruce then used the other Antigua “racing trick,” letting the other captains and crew drink all the rum during the post-race party, while he went back to the ship to play his steel pan and sleep.

The Sunday skippers’ meeting was at 8 a.m., a tad early for the revelers. Ten wooden boats would compete with one another, including Taurus , the original Virgin Islands Cowhorn Schooner; Hanora, a beautiful 38-foot Ingrid design; a Tancook Whaler; and an assortment of other gaffers and woodies. Bruce had a great start, put all sails up, tweaked them and the rig, then sat back, watching the GPS to see what steering adjustments would give Woodwind the best speed. At the first mark he was gaining on a 50-foot Marconi yawl and passed inside of it behind Sandy Cay. The entire race, the crew from Yacht Shots BVI was whipping around the course, snapping away at the action.

From sailing with Tom, Bruce knew the depths between Great Thatch and the west end of Tortola, allowing him to cut close to shore before the four-mile reach back to Foxy’s. Along the way he passed a 55-foot boat, finishing ahead of it by three lengths. After crossing the finish line, he blew the horn, dropped the sails and never put them up again. The anchor went down and Bruce went ashore. At the awards ceremony, Woodwind was officially announced as the class winner! Like the little engine that could, Woody sailed the best she’s ever sailed. Ever. People were asking, “How’d you get her to sail so well?” Bruce responded, “Six-thousand miles of working upwind taught me something.”

The booty Woodwind earned included a Mt. Gay Hat, $50 bar tab at Foxy’s, Leatherman’s Tool, $100 certificate for The Wood Shop and, best of all, Woodwind holds the perpetual winner’s trophy for the next year! Unfortunately, when Bruce snapped a photo of the scoreboard announcing the big win, the camera that accompanied us on all those wet miles recorded it but seconds later the screen turned into a psychedelic mess. It, too, was done for the year.

Knowing it just couldn’t get any better, Bruce motored the next day to Virgin Gorda, where Woodwind was lifted out of the water, transferred to a truck, then snuggled into her hurricane season spot. One year and one week after leaving our home port of Gig Harbor, Washington, Bruce walked toward the ferry, taking one last look at Woody until the fall. What a boat. What a year.

Jan

Photo: Mermaid of Carriacou
Even ocean sailors make lists! Detailed notes of repairs, projects, stuff to buy, places to go, people to see. We keep ours short. And this year’s list was pretty simple:

1. Move the boat safely and sanely from Gig Harbor, Washington, to the Sunny Caribee.
2. Transit the Panama Canal uneventfully.
3. Find John Smith in the Caribbean. (John is Bruce’s older, notorious, one-of-a-kind brother.)
4. Haul Woodwind out in the British Virgin Islands for some much needed rest and repair.

That was all we were out to accomplish, and by the time we got to Antigua … after a brush with Hurricane Sergio, surviving several other storms and rescuing several people at sea … we had the two hardest missions behind us and were down to the last two goals.

We thought John Smith might show up for the Antigua Classic Race, since his boat, Mermaid of Carriacou, is as classic as it gets. She’s a 44-foot, engineless sloop built on the island of Carriacou for the first regatta held there some 30 years ago. There were four other Carriacou boats racing in Antigua, so it made sense he would appear there.

Our eyes scanned the sea beyond the entrance of the harbor dozens of times each day, sure we’d spot his dark sails on the horizon, but to no avail. So we called the boatyard in Virgin Gorda, made a reservation, and headed in that direction.

A few weeks later we pulled into the rolly anchorage off Spanish Town, Virgin Gorda, to confirm our spot for the hurricane season and check out the yard’s amenities. Woodwind would get a double ride to her summer resting spot, first hauled out by a 60-ton travel lift, then transferred to a boat-moving truck that would sort of parallel park her a foot and a half away from dozens of other vessels. The theory is, if a hurricane should hit and attempt to knock the boats down, they will hold each other up simply by their close proximity. The whole thing makes me nervous and I have to remember that these are boats, not dominos lined up to break a world’s record.

After finishing our preliminary business with the boatyard, I wanted to walk up to the Little Dix Bay Hotel, one of the Caribbean’s oldest and finest establishments, to see if the murals Bruce had painted years before in the Children’s Pavilion were still there. Once there, we were about to give the guard at the gate a long and convoluted story so she’d let us in, but since it was sweat-dripping hot, she made an effort to lift her arm and waved us in. We meandered past a landscaper’s dream of antique tropical plants before finally reaching the Pavilion. No children there, but inside were two West Indian ladies, one of whom remembered Bruce and the two weeks it took to paint three large walls featuring an underwater scene (complete with a protruding barracuda) a West Indian kitchen and a tiny piece of Spanish Town. All of the work was there, but half was on one side of a newly constructed wall and the other half was in an office.

Satisfied, we headed “back to the ship.” Just as we stepped onto the beach that held our dinghy, I looked up to see a lone boat, slowly tacking into our line of sight. “Bruce, it’s your brother!” It was as if we were in a movie and the director had told the boat to sail in on cue. We dropped our belongings, leaned on a wooden spool and watched as John brought his boat slowly into the anchorage. These two brothers, who at one time worked together, had not seen each other in at least 12 years. Distance and circumstance had kept them apart. Irony and chance were about to bring them back together.

We threw our El Toro dinghy, Ruby, into the surf and rowed hard out to the anchorage. Alongside Mermaid, we held off for a few moments, savoring the moment, the scene, the magic of two long-separated siblings reuniting. “Womb mates” Bruce calls them. The hugging and laughing segued into one story after another into the wee hours of the night. We all had a few to share.

Jan