For several days, Lenny had been churning away hundreds of miles away from the Windward Islands.  Because of the distance, and the insistence of the NOAA that it was heading north, nobody gave it much thought.  The weather had been sunny with little or no wind, and certainly no indication of the monster that was brewing to the west.  That was all about to change.

At approximately 5:00 AM local time, while most of us were still in a deep sleep, the first indication of the hurricane reached the islands in the form of storm surge.  A little at first, and then by 7:00 AM, cruisers anchored off the normally protected leeward anchorages knew something was definitely wrong.  Breaking waves appeared in anchorages where breaking waves should not be.

Seventy miles to the south of us, cruisers anchored in Admiralty Bay Bequia were awakened by the swell.  By daybreak, the on-board depth sounders were oscillating between 10 and 20 feet in what was 15 feet of water the previous night.  Do the math.   Things deteriorated quite quickly there, and in no time, a number of local residents had to perform brave acts in order to bring some of the cruisers to safety.  I shuddered when I read Edwin and Wendy Cutler’s account of this several months later in Caribbean Compass.  Having been in Bequia three days earlier, I wondered what our fate might have been had our timing been slightly different.

Suspects Unaware

The Usual Suspects was tied comfortably to a finger dock inside the lagoon at Rodney Bay, sheltered from waves and all possible air circulation.  I was up at 6:30 in preparation for our passage to Martinique. 

While the others performed their morning rituals, I walked over to the Marina Office to check the weather forecast.  It was a beautiful sunny morning, and the forecast called for light overcast and very light winds out of the south.  I remember grumbling about having to use the diesel for most of the trip, as it would interfere with the CD-player output.  There was a Hurricane Advisory on the notice board, so I had a look.  I was a little surprised to see an advisory about a Hurricane Lenny, but was relieved that it appeared to be heading northeast towards the Virgin Islands and out to sea.  That was that.

Meanwhile, less than half a mile away on Reduit Beach, the storm surge was beginning to take its toll on the hotels and restaurants.  Surf was now 8 – 10 feet and beginning to erode the footings that supported these structures.  They were built right on the beach because they are normally protected from wind and waves, being on the leeward side of the island.  These waves were not supposed to be there, but they were.   News of this deteriorating situation had not reached the marina.  We simply did not know.

Once we were ready to leave, I fired up the diesel, backed off the dock, and took a quick swing through the inner Lagoon for a quick tour before heading out.  It was only as we left the Lagoon that we knew “something” was not right.  We were just not sure what that “something” was.

Tour of inner Lagoon.  In ten minutes, we would meet Lenny for the first time.

At the mouth of the narrow channel from the Lagoon to Rodney Bay, we were faced with a wall of breaking surf that was easily 8 feet in height.   We had a brief discussion about the dangers of navigating that surf.  I was concerned that the waves might cause me to lose steerage and that we might end up on the rocks, as the channel was uncomfortably narrow.  That discussion ended when I pushed the throttle forward until the RPMs reached 3500.  “That’s it, we’re going in”, I shouted.  If I was going to learn to skipper a boat, I reasoned, I would have to accept challenges.

Somehow we timed our exit so that we reached the mouth of the channel between two very large and steep waves.  The exit was actually quite smooth.  I would like to take credit for this, but I cannot because my brain was not yet switched on.  When I told people of this experience later, they reminded me that the depth here is only 9 feet and that I could have just as easily bottomed out.  I guess if you don’t know about it, then it can’t happen.

We continued out of Rodney Bay, dodging breaking waves for several hundred yards.  We did not think to look towards the beach, and consequently missed the carnage that was going on 100 yards to our left.  Only on our return trip a week later would we see just exactly what went on there.

The steep waves diminished as we headed further out, and by the time we were off Pigeon Island, they were pretty well forgotten about.  We were now in open water, and the storm surge appeared to us just like the normal 10 feet swells that we experience during inter-island passages.  I reached for a cold beer.  I was on vacation, remember?

At about this time, Lenny had been upgraded to a Category 4 hurricane (Advisory 16B) as winds had reached 115 knots.  “Extremely Dangerous Hurricane Lenny”, as the NOAA called it, was 120 miles southeast of Puerto Rico heading slightly northeast, just 275 miles from our location.  All we knew was that our weather forecast called for light overcast and light winds out of the south, and that Lenny was on another planet.  We unfurled the sails and enjoyed a reasonable beam reach from easterly winds of 10 – 15 knots.  We could see Martinique off in the distance.

Meanwhile, in the Blue Lagoon in St. Vincent, Seth from Barefoot Yacht Charters was reporting 10-foot breakers and large swells pushing into the Lagoon (See his updated reports on the Caribbean Hurricane Network website).  Damage reports were coming in from all over.  The Bequia ferry was unable to dock at either terminal and was forced to hover in the middle of the channel.  Things were not normal.

Sailing Through a Rainband

By 10:00 AM, we began to observe darkening of the skies to the west.  We knew what this was.  We finally “connected the dots” and concluded that we were in the path of a hurricane.  That darkness was a rainband approaching from the west and we were about to be put through the rinse cycle.

We considered returning to Rodney Bay, but I was not in favor of going back through all those big waves.  We were lucky once.   The dark skies appeared to be moving slowly to the south of us, and for a while, it looked like we might be able to make Martinique before they arrived.  We were wrong.

The skies got darker and darker.  By 11:00 AM, it was certain that we were going to be hit.  In preparation, I started the diesel and called for the genoa to be put away.  Just as Tiny furled the last 3 feet, the easterly wind completely shut down, and we were hit by a blast of extremely cold air from above.  I decided that we needed to furl the main, immediately if not sooner.  Before it was halfway furled, the wind changed direction 180 degrees and instantly switched on at 25 knots.  The main tacked over and we were tossed around a bit in the waves until we had the main put away.  I had absolutely no idea if this was all the wind we would see, or if it was the beginning of something that would just continue to get worse and worse.  This was my first hurricane.

In another two minutes, the rain started to come down, and hard.  We could see the bow of our boat and no further.  Fortunately the rain flattened the waves, and the wind stayed steady at 20 knots, so it really was not that bad.  The rain was cold, and we quickly became soaked, despite the futile attempts by the bimini to protect us.

Navigation became our most immediate problem.  Zero visibility ended the original line-of-sight navigation plan. I did not like this because we did not plan for it.   I had not entered any navigational waypoints into the GPS.   I handed the helm over to Round Man and went down below.  Skippering does have its privileges sometimes.  I instructed Round Man to hold a course of 20 degrees, wherever the hell that was.  He could barely see the compass three feet in front of him.

We were really unprepared.  The only chart I had that included Martinique was a chart of the Western Hemisphere, as seen from outer space.  There was Martinique, right in the middle of the chart, about the size of a fingernail.  I longed for my National Geographic map of the Caribbean I had tacked up on the wall of my office at home.  I did have a paper placemat from a restaurant that clearly showed the outline of Martinique.  For a few minutes, that was the best I had.

I fired up the handheld GPS and keyed in the coordinates of Ste. Anne (on the approach to Le Marin), taken from my now-soaked copy of the Doyle Guide.  I pressed “Go To”, and the display showed a nifty little arrow that told me where we had to steer to be on the rumb line.  I stuck my hand out the companionway (not too far, it was raining, remember?) and pointed left.  Round Man steered the boat in that direction until the cursors on the GPS lined up, meaning that we were on course.  When the boat drifted off course, I stuck my hand outside and pointed.  We did this for about 20 minutes.

I was feeling a little better by now, but really did NOT know what we were going to do when we arrived in Martinique.  How would we navigate close to shore if we could not see?  The entrance to the Cul-de-Sac at Le Marin was like a Formula 1 racecourse, and the many obstacles required pinpoint navigation.  It suddenly occurred to me that we were in a rainband – yes, a BAND of rain.  I reasoned that in order for it to be called a band, it would have to end, or at least diminish.  I hoped that the weatherman who named it such did not have a perverse sense of humor.  If this theory were correct, the rain would let up before we reached Martinique, and we could eyeball the last bit of navigation.  On the other hand, things might have gotten worse for several days.  I had no real idea which was true.  We simply pressed on.

It later occurred to me that Ste. Anne was actually tucked in behind a point of land.  The Doyle Guide did not have a detailed chart of the Le Marin approach, so I resorted to the paper placemat.  Yes, indeed, I had us on a direct course to Ste. Anne.  Had we stuck with this plan, we would have reached our destination only after sailing through treacherous shoals and over the 800-foot mountain that stood between us.   The shoals extended some 2 miles offshore.  With 100 feet of visibility, we would run aground long before we saw shore.  This was not good.  I needed a new waypoint.

Just then, the GPS started to beep.  I had no idea why.  The instructions were carefully hidden in the bottom of the last drawer I checked.  As it turned out, the batteries were low.  Great.  Here we were in the middle of a rainband belonging to “Extremely Dangerous Hurricane Lenny” with NO visibility, a paper placemat with a map of Martinique for navigation, and a GPS with no power.  You’ll have to excuse me if I am not feeling real good about my vacation at this point.  Fortunately, my electric razor is battery-powered and the 6-month old cells that I extracted from it had a little more juice than the ones in the GPS.  We were back in business, but for how long?  Getting that great shave was no longer high on my priority list.

Page 53 of the Doyle Guide is one I’ll never forget.  Clearly marked on the map of Martinique was a waypoint crosshatch, just to the southwest of the Le Marin approach, with the numbers 14.25N, 60.55W.  I believed we could make this waypoint without running afoul of the shoals, and most likely be able to navigate line-of-sight if the rain let up.  It was all we had.  I entered the new number into the GPS and hand-signaled the new direction to the Round Man for execution.

After about an hour of this, the rain began to let up a little.  The wind had fortunately never increased past 20 knots, and we were feeling better as the rain continued to taper off and the visibility began to improve.  At about this time, a dozen porpoises joined us and put on a great display as they criss-crossed our bow in perfect formation.  Things were looking up.

Ahead of us, the waves were taking their toll on the leeward shores of Martinique.  Again, we were oblivious to the carnage, and I only learned of it a few days later.  I was shocked at the reports I read several months after the fact on the Caribbean Hurricane Network website.

Martinique finally came into view, and by the time we reached our waypoint, we were able to easily identify the red and green channel markers that stood at the harbor approach to Le Marin.  We made it!

Safe Haven

We reached the channel markers just before 3:00 PM.  Off to the right, I was able to make out the shores of Ste. Anne with the binoculars.  There were several boats still at anchor here, but it was obvious that they were having a very rough time.  We were unable to observe any damage on shore.

As we passed Club Med on the Le Marin approach, Lenny was south of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands (Advisory 17B) and had reached its peak intensity of 130 knots (155 mph).  This was 5 knots shy of a Category 5 hurricane, what the NOAA refers to as a “Catastrophic Hurricane”.  We were only 250 miles away from this beast.

I had always dreamed of dropping anchor just off Club Med and swimming in for a beverage.  The black wall of cloud rapidly approaching from the west was another rainband, and my swim would have to wait for another day.

We had to really hurry in and were just in the process of dropping the hook when the rainband hit.  I called for everybody down below, where I ordered Tiny to pour  three of the most humungous rummers ever made on this planet.  Then, just to be sure he got it right; I made him do it again.  Being skipper does have its privileges.

We felt relieved to be at anchor, and the rummers were beginning to have the desired effect.  The rain quickly stopped and we were sheltered from the wind by the surrounding mountains, still unaware what had happened all around us.  At this point, all we knew was that we sailed through a rainband, were at anchor in Martinique with a rummer in hand, and it had really not been all that bad.

We were relieved to be at anchor in a safe harbor, and that night, we went out for a great dinner at Auberge du Marin, where we asked to try the locally produced rum, La Mauny.  The proprietor just shook his head in disgust, dusted off several boxes of pineapple juice, then left the whole rum bottle on the table.  I was puzzled by his reaction until I took one gulp and watched the walls melt around me.   I calculated that a full glass of this stuff would render everybody embalmed.  Esso Extra Unleaded with orange juice has a better finish than this stuff.   I passed on it to avoid passing out.