Last March, Avrum and Michelle and their newly acquired catamaran, the Write Now, found themselves driven to seek shelter from a windstorm in a remote cove on the Abaco archipelago. While trying to turn hard upwind as increasingly threatening winds pushed their bow toward shore, the steering failed, unresponsive. An effort to take the anchor to deeper water in the dinghy, then winch the boat to favorable anchorage, failed badly when a sudden swell rolled the heavy iron violently back onto Avrum’s lap causing a minor wound in the process.
After rolling himself and the anchor overboard to avoid having it puncture the inflatable, Avrum struggled to swim back to the boat, but the notion was soon rendered whimsical. A powerful current was now pushing it and Michelle quickly to deeper water and another, too powerful to overcome, was carrying Avrum in the opposite direction—toward open ocean.
Michelle had never been in a true emergency before and wasn’t sure she was in one now, thinking maybe these were just a challenging few moments and Avrum would return shortly. But the enormity of the moment registered as the powerful current swept him farther away.
The rushing current had carried him out the mouth of the harbor into open ocean and, unable to fight the current and exhausted…
She made a Mayday call and got a response from a fellow sailor that required her to go below and activate satellite internet. When she returned seconds later, Avrum could no longer be seen. He, on the other hand, could see that Michelle and the boat were no longer drifting, that the dragging anchor had finally taken purchase.
Having made a Mayday call, Michelle assumed a plane or chopper would appear at any moment. Instead, the Bahamian Air-Sea Rescue Association, an entirely volunteer group, came on-line to report they had no one in range and would do their best to get someone to help, but no guarantees.
Now the hours of anguish and uncertainty began to roll by. She hadn’t seen Avrum in nearly three hours and didn’t know where or even if he was still with them.
Channel 16 suddenly came to life with a call from the U. S. Coast Guard, and she learned that a plane enroute to Miami had heard of their predicament and just as its crew asked if she saw them, their big prop plane put in an appearance overhead.
After about half an hour circling to try to spot Avrum, Michelle saw him rise from far away waters and walk toward the distant shore. The rushing current had carried him out the mouth of the harbor into open ocean and, unable to fight the current and exhausted, he’d resigned himself to his situation and decided he could at least assume a more comfortable, a more vertical position and rest while the vest kept him afloat. To his surprise, his feet touched bottom.
He discovered he’d made it to 5 feet of water and could walk through and away from the current, and from the threat of being carried out farther, and for the first time since this ordeal began, he felt things were going to be OK. He walked and swam a little to shore just as the plane dropped—with remarkable accuracy—a parachute-rigged survival pack that included a VHF radio so he could communicate with them and with Michelle.
It was later discovered that the Bahamian rescue service had called off its efforts, having “heard on Facebook” that everything was OK. The Royal Bahamian Defense Force, however, dispatched a small open boat across 50 miles and through 30-knot winds, to their rescue, first retrieving Avrum and returning him to the boat, ending their eight-hour ordeal.
Then it was revealed that the crew had made the risky crossing without VHF and that their cell phones were and had been dead. They recharged them for a while before leaving, with a promise to return when weather permitted. They did, and 36 hours later, the couple were towed to Green Turtle Cay where they lived aboard their disabled boat, enjoying themselves and making friends until flying home on March 25. The boat is there undergoing repairs.
Phil Crossman lives on Vinalhaven. He may be contacted at PhilCrossman.vh@gmail.com.
What TO Read Next...
