Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter Five
The dinghy capsizes going ashore!
Wild truck ride.
Herman and I scale El Pico.
An adventurous night ashore.
Struggling to surface from a deep sleep, I was the first to hear them. I leaped out of my
bunk instinctively and peered out of the hatch. The sound of breakers was too loud and too
close, and the boat was yawing about on her anchor. The evening's calm had been replaced
by a boisterous wind, and the anchorage we now witnessed for the first time in daylight was
exposed to the Atlantic rollers marching in and breaking up on the shore a hundred yards
behind the yacht. I went swiftly forward and was relieved to find the anchor still secured to
the sea bed. I turned to the dinghy, undid the lashing, and was about to hoist it up with the
main topping lift when Herman appeared and offered to help. Looking around him, his hair
tousled from sleep, he observed, “We're the only ones here!”
“Well, I'm not surprised,” I replied. “Look at those breakers we have to go through to beach
the dinghy. We'll be lucky to land at all. We must make sure that our papers and things are
wrapped well in plastic.”
The dinghy was launched and I had readied a second anchor, thinking it a good idea to lay
out another one due to the exposed bay. I jumped into the dinghy and pulled it to the front
of the boat where Herman paid out the line and cautiously passed me the heavy Danforth
anchor. I rowed out forward and dropped it with a splash, a good angle away from the first
one. I rowed back and clambered aboard, securing the painter to the taffrail.
I stepped below, greeted Paula with a smile, and started collecting the boat's papers and
passports. I told her about the big breakers and advised her to wrap her things in a plastic
bag as they were bound to get soaked. I also suggested they wear swimming gear and take
dry clothes and a towel with them.
“This is such fun!” she said, peering out the porthole. “I can't wait to go ashore and explore;
it looks so beautiful and mysterious. Look at that horn on the mountain; that's where we saw
the lighthouse from, isn't it?”
“Yes, you can just make out the light structure on top,” I replied, massaging her shoulder ab-
sently. “Just look at those gnarled, windswept, old trees.” My other hand traced the outline
of her long graceful neck.
