Kate's First Ocean Crossing
by Kate and Hamish Laird

My first overnight passage was 28 days long! I agreed to join the boat through a fax to Curacao. The owners, Staff and Anne King, were friends of friends, and there were three children on board, aged 11, 13, and 15, and a dog. I had never set eyes on them before.

Our route was from Manta, Ecuador to Papeete, Tahiti. We were to stop in the Galapagos en route, and I felt that was my safety valve. If I couldn't stand it, I could always get off in the Galapagos...

I was to be the tutor, but also the third adult hand. Their previous tutor hadn't liked being on a boat, and I had the job in part thanks to a Harvard diploma and in part to a 100-ton captain's license. The ink wasn't yet dry on either document.

The first obstacle proved to be the yacht insurers, who wanted the third hand to be male. Welcome to the world of yachting. I had been working summers on whale-watching boats as mate and default engineer, and hadn't had to deal with any sexism - not even when I covered up the Snap-On Tools girls in the engine room with Kevin Costner and Mel Gibson (I had been forbidden to take the girls down) - so I was quite shocked.

A bit of waving of the license made the insurers back down, so that was all right. But no waving of anything was going to get us into the Galapagos: Olivia had arrived in Ecuador without a zarpe (clearance papers) from Panama...so the boat was under a sort of port arrest, forbidden to visit any other Ecuadorian ports. That's when I started to worry.

4,200 miles with five strangers and no chance of getting off. At least I wasn't prone to seasickness! I had worked on whale-watching trips where 135 of 149 passengers were violently ill, slogging in a beam sea, and I had cleaned it all up without a quiver. I clearly had a cast iron stomach.

My nerves settled a bit watching Staff King bring the 72-foot boat into the dinghy dock to collect diesel. He anchored and brought her in stern to, weaving through dinghies and moored fishing boats. He was a very good boat handler.

We headed out to sea on an oily calm day, motor chugging. I was on the helm, steering a compass course. That, at least, was familiar. And at least I never get seasick.

Oh dear. I don't really feel so great. Perhaps the cervici and Coke at the yacht club wasn't such a good idea. "Could someone please take the wheel, NOW!"

All of the whale watchers whom I'd annoyed by eating pizza while the boat wallowed in eight-foot seas would have been vindicated watching me puke my guts out into the relatively flat water.

I changed my T-shirt (obviously not an experienced sailor – experienced sailors miss their clothing) and came back to the helm. Hopefully my return reassured Staff and Anne King...and the three "children," who were now looking vastly more experienced than I was. My boyfriend was in Kansas, and for a long moment, I wondered why on earth I'd turned down Kansas in favor of the romance of going to sea.

Anne made dinner – black beans and rice (and it was a long time before I could eat black beans again...), and we all sat in the cockpit while the autopilot grunted along. James, Morgan, and Brittany were all used to this – they'd been living on board for two years, cruising the Caribbean. We were sailing now. I don't remember putting up the sails; I hope I helped.

We sat in the cockpit and watched hopefully for the green flash. We helmed all day and night, but let the autopilot take her for two hours from five to seven PM, to even out the watch schedule and make dinner family time. After dinner, I went down to try to sleep before my watch, which was to be one to three AM.

I lay in my bunk and listened to James's matchbox cars roll about his bunk above me. We were sharing a cabin, but he opted to sleep in the saloon where there was less motion. I secured a few cars, but then the marbles started in, rolling side to side; my memory of the motion tells me we were lolling downwind, but I didn't know much about it at the time.

The rigging groaned, and moaning noises transferred down to the mast, which came through the deck right outside my cabin. Water whistled past by my head. It was clearly building into a terrible gale. I knew Olivia had already sailed around the world, but had she ever been through anything like this? I still felt grim, but wasn't actually getting sick, so that was encouraging - but how was I to manage on watch?

When my alarm beeped, I staggered out of my bunk and up to the pilot house. Staff was on deck, sitting at the helm chair, casually steering with one hand. For the first time I could truly identify the Southern Cross, and the Milky Way spilled across the sky, looking for the first time as it does in books, rather than stifled by urban loom. The sea was rushing by, the swells relatively calm. About 12 knots of apparent wind.

Bungee, the little brown mutt who acted as guard dog in port, was harnessed next to the helm. "I had to tie her," said Staff, by way of handing over the helm. "There have been lots of dolphins around. Wake me if you need anything – just bang on the mast with a winch handle."

The mizzen mast passed through into Staff and Anne's cabin. Perfect intercom! But for the moment, watching the stars and the compass, feeling rather than seeing the dolphins surfing alongside...I didn't need anything. Bungee barked at the dolphins. I could hear them exhaling.

Then someone punched me. Hard. I couldn't believe that James had managed to sneak past me from the saloon. He was 11 and liked to wrestle and box. Fortunately, I'd just come off four years of water polo, so I was used to it. But this was dangerous, sneaking around at night.

Bungee barked at the end of her tether; she couldn't get around to the other side of the helm seat. I looked down and saw the real culprit – a flapping flying fish, not James at all.

The rest of the passage is a blur of moments – learning all the New Kids on the Block lyrics from Brittany, reading the Babysitters Club with Morgan, baking with James, trying to keep in shape by dancing with the girls in the saloon (James usually wasn't welcomed; he was a mosher ahead of his time). Many, many nights alone with the sky and the dolphins. Rusty tomato sauce water from the taps. Capturing the last Matchbox car from under James's mattress. Feeling as though I had never ever been anywhere else but at sea.

Tahiti loomed ahead on the radar. We could see lights, and smell hot, earthy fried food and sweet ripe flowers. We winced at the yellow halogen headlights and anchored in the dark.