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PIRATES

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The First Trip.......Disaster

My crew was hand picked by Vito. I was told that they all knew all about sailing and would be of great help. The two girls were twin sisters. Neither of them had ever benn out in a sailboat any longer than a day. And, even then, they were just "deck onaments". The guy was a likeable chap who seemed to know a few things about sailing, but I knew I was in trouble before we ever left the dock. We left Ft. Myers Beach with the tide and two hours out,(I'll call him "Irish") Irish got seasick and was down for the count.
Let me explain a little about prevailing wind and currents here. The prevailing winds in the caribbean generalally blow east to west. The current between Cuba and the Yucatan , Mexico is a strong south to north current. The current in the northern caribbean is east to west. So, the logical route for this trip would be to sail between Haiti and Cuba (Winward passage) to Jamaica and then on to the Yucatan.
Of course, Vito had other plans. He had me sail to Cozemel in the Yucatan and wait there till I heard from him that all was ready in Jamaica . Then we were to "sail" against the prevailing winds and currents to Jamaica. Well, if you know anything about sail boats, you can't sail directly towards the wind. You must zig zag (tack) in the general direction of your desired course. Using the engine to help us, we motorsailed towards Jamiaca. the seas were rough and we were getting beat pretty hard. Running low on fuel, I decided to stop in the Cayman Islands for needed rest and fuel. During the two days we were in Grand Cayman, hurricane Kate formed to our south east. There is no safe harbor in Grand Cayman, so I decided to head out to sea and try to race under "kate" where the winds are generally less intense. The seas kept building along with the wind as we closed in on the hurricane. At one point, the boat lurched violently and threw one of the girls into a railing in the cabin below breaking two of her ribs. During the night, I passed a freightor and talked to them on the radio. They said that the weather equipment was reading winds in excess of 80 knots and the seas were up to 25 feet.  After thirty-six hours of getting slammed, the winds and seas calmed and Jamaica was in sight.  Unfortunately, the mast had a crack in it and the sails were in shreds. We were exhausted and beat up. When we met up with our contacts in Jamaica, we decided to scrub the mission, get the boat repaired good enough to get back to Florida, fix the boat and try again. Needless to say. I didn't make any money and almost lost my life in the storm.

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