The Coast of Christmas Past
By Dave and Jaja

Jaja and I spent our first Christmas together at sea--onboard our 25-footer DIRECTION. That was back in 1988 B.C. (Before Children). We'd been planning to spend Christmas in the Canary Islands, but a ferocious ground swell had kicked up, turning our calm anchorage at Gomera Island into a rolly nightmare. Stronger winds and larger seas were predicted. Rather than deal with an uncomfortable (if not dangerous) harbor, we headed off on passage for the Cape Verde Islands, about 600 miles to the south.

On day three of that six-day passage to the Cape Verdes, winds over the Sahara Desert created dust storms that blew out to sea. Although we were 400 miles off the African coast, a fine, red dust choked the air, lowering visibility to less than a mile-and-a-half. Might as well have been sailing in psychedelic fog. DIRECTION's sails turned red, the rigging and mast became coated, and the cabin sole was a muddy mess. We thought the dust was very exotic. "How cool!" we said, "Why go to the beach, when the beach comes to you!"

The real issue was navigation. With a hazy sun, and no discernible horizon, our sextant became useless. We ran southward on dead reckoning alone. Blind. I wondered if we would find the island of Isla Sal after "navi-guessing" the final 350 miles. The north end of the island was only about 15 miles wide. Not a very big target. And the nearer to the island we sailed, the more unpredictable the currents were becoming.

Luckily, we had a Radio Direction Finder on board. Remember those things? You tune into the correct radio frequency of a shoreside radio beacon, rotate the antenna of the RDF (to find the relative bearing between the beacon and your boat), then add or subtract the boat's magnetic course to get a true bearing. On the chart you draw a line which represents the true bearing from the beacon. Hopefully, you are somewhere on that line. With two or more radio beacons you can triangulate. There used to be a book, back in the days of RDF's, that listed the positions of shoreline radio beacons (for surface navigation) and for airport radio beacons. These "aero" beacons were not meant for surface navigation, but despite the "not for surface navigation" disclaimer, they worked fine. For reasons which escape me now, we did not have that book of beacon positions.

By day five of our six-day passage I estimated that we were 100 miles away from the island of Isla Sal in the Cape Verdes. I turned on the RDF and heard the very faint 'pips' of a beacon. RDF stations transmitted in Morse code. Most beacons transmitted a 3-letter code. The faint signal we were getting was just two letters: "I--S". I reasoned that this was an aero beacon on Isla Sal. Why did we think it was an aero beacon and not a surface beacon? We figured the island was too poor to support a network of surface beacons. But being an island, it would definitely have an airport. Our chart showed no airport, but it did have contour lines. We studied the chart, and made an educated guess. We decided that the airport was located on a conspicuous flat strip of land near the main town. Close enough. I penciled in a dot representing the aero beacon.

Hearing the beacon was good news; it meant there was definitely land in front of us somewhere. But how far away? My last sextant reading was about 250 miles old. I assumed that current had altered our true distance sailed compared our logged distance. A modest 15 percent error in speed/current calculations over 250 miles equaled 40 miles. From our log, I guessed that we were a hundred miles from the island, so a 40-mile "error factor" meant we could be as close as 60 miles or as a far as 140. Taking these numbers a step farther, at 5 knots of boat speed there was a 16-hour spread when we had to be prepared to make landfall. (80 miles/5 knots = 16 hours). If we were 60 miles away that meant a landfall at dawn. If we were 140 miles away it would be dark by the time we reached the island on Christmas Day; we'd have to heave-to and await first light on the day after Christmas.

To make matters worse, since visibility was under a mile-and-a-half, there was another important factor to consider: at 5 knots, there would only be a 20-minute "window", from the moment we sighted land, to the moment DIRECTION could end up smashed on the beach.

If we were going to make landfall at dawn, as my "earliest case scenario" promised, it made sense to slow down so that we didn't hit the island in the dark--just in case we were a tad closer than my calculations predicted. However, if we were nearer the 140-mile mark, or the "farthest case scenario", it was best to sail as fast as possible to hopefully make landfall before dark on Christmas day. In the end, we kept our speed the same. Five knots. Slowing down seemed too cautious. I've always felt that hesitation is more risky than being bold.

So that was our first Christmas Eve together. We were juggling numbers while following the "pips" of a lone beacon, the position of which was uncertain, across a dusty seascape to an island that we didn't know the exact distance to. Christmas Eve passed uneventfully, and Christmas day dawned with no land in sight.

The beacon was getting louder, proof that we were getting closer. I had not thought we would be at sea on Christmas, and I did not have a present for Jaja. Jaja hadn't bought anything either, but she was resourceful and wrapped up her last clean T-shirt for me. Something else we had failed to do before leaving the Canary Islands was contact our families. We had phoned around Thanksgiving with a farewell that included "talk to you on Christmas".

(As we would later find out, making a phone call in the Cape Verdes was a 3rd world experience. The incomprehensible opening hours of the phone exchange, plus the illogical expense induced us to send postcards instead. Jaja's postcards eventually made it, but mine ended up lost. My family didn't know anything about Jaja's family. They didn't know who to call to ask about me. When I finally telephoned my parents in late January, to tell them Jaja and I had eloped in Barbados, they kept their cool, but mentioned that they hadn't heard from me since Thanksgiving. Neither time or e-mail has changed our ways. We still tend to "disappear" for weeks on end when cruising.)

It was late afternoon on Christmas day, and we still hadn't spotted land. Visibility in the dust was scant, but the radio beacon was modulating so clearly that the RDF's signal meter was pegged--proof that land was very close. We had sailed 125 miles. At 4 pm I was getting worried. The light was beginning to lose its midday brilliance. I figured we could go until 6 pm, but then we'd have to jibe and sail away to windward. What a night that would be. Twelve hours of "sand bagging" or "heaving-to", was one of the worst things I could imagine. I'd be stressed about hitting land in the dark if we stayed too close, but I'd be worried about sailing too far away if we didn't stay close. By dawn my eyes would be fried and my head would feel like a roasted marshmallow. At that point, even coffee wouldn't revive me.

At 4:30 pm Jaja and I were in the cabin pouring over the chart. What we did not know was that while we were talking we had sailed to within a mile of the surf line. After a whole day of staring into the red murk, our eyes had begun to burn. The shelter of the dim cabin was comforting. The fact that we were below simultaneously is proof that staring into the gloom for days had taken its toll.

Jaja climbed out of the companionway first. Looking astern, she noticed that we had hooked two large fish--one on each of our handlines.

"We have fish!"

I was trying to figure out what kind they were. "They look like dorados. But maybe they're tuna. What do you think?"

"I think...Land! " Jaja had turned to look forward.

I spun around. "Oh my god..." A thin strip of white sand beach accented a boiling surf line. We weren't in any danger of losing the boat, but in another 5 minutes we would have been. (We would actually come very close to losing the boat on New Years Eve, at Boa Vista Island, but that's another story. )

We trimmed DIRECTION's course to parallel the beach. The only way to find the harbor was to keep sight of land. I was not certain exactly where we were, but judging by our course, compared to the shape of the island, I guessed we were about 6 miles from the harbor.

An hour before sunset the breakwater materialized out of the murk. We fetched up in the lee, dropped the anchor and doused the sails. The fish were dorados. I filleted one and gave the other to a South African yacht anchored nearby. We had purchased some decent wine and port before leaving Portugal. The idea was to save it for our honeymoon, but a Christmas Day celebration suddenly seemed like a good use for the tasty grapes.

The hazy sun dropped below the horizon, turning the sky a welcoming black. We faded shortly after.

(Note: Anyone who longs for the "romantic" days of navigation, before the invention of GPS, needs to have their head examined).

Anyway, Merry Christmas 2003.

Dave, Jaja, Holly, Teiga, and Chris.