Can't resist a brief excerpt from my latest book, "Introduction to Sailing." The sail to Bermuda is never to be forgotten. "And suddenly you're there."
"Our departure was into the green water of the eastern coast. It was summer, but that still meant foul weather gear at night, four hours on and four off, and in between gray skies, pounding waves and the pervading dampness of the open sea. A pod of dolphins at the bow can reveal the clarity of the offshore Atlantic, but it can otherwise look gray, and even foreboding-- the stratus clouds above familiar from land, and the breeze cool on the face. No nonsense. The North Atlantic is the ocean of convoys and submarines and Gloucester schooners laden with cod. It’s an ocean with a mood, and which imparts a mood--glorious or somber, and always, sun shining or rain lashing, the real thing.
"It’s green because it’s the ocean of the continental shelf, which for more than 100 miles off New York keeps the water less than 300 feet deep. It is the water of northeastern beaches, with their scent of salt and marine life. It’s the water of memory for those who live there.
"The first days of any voyage are days of adjustment to motion, and watch-keeping, and the duties of handling a boat. They were what we expected—familiar clouds, water sparkling green by day and a cold gray at night.
"And then, a day or two out bound for Bermuda, about 150 miles from land, on the horizon appears something new. And astonishing. It is a line of tropical clouds—cumulus, thunderhead-like, rising as if from uncharted land.
“That must be the Gulf Stream,” somebody says.
"It is the boundary line of a new world—marked by a four-knot current of warm water rising from the Caribbean, with its own weather attached. The boat enters it and the air temperature rises notably. In the sea, Sargasso weed appears--and flying fish. The Gulf Stream is only about 40 miles wide, maybe less, this oceanic river, but to enter is to slam closed the old door behind.
"Sometimes there are rain squalls and boisterous wind. At other times, the sea is placid but changed. I’ve crossed it five times, each a revelation. Once, when the wind blew hard in opposition to the current, we found ourselves in a gale with 25-foot seas so steep-sided that seaweed hung in them like pictures on a wall. It is opposing wind and current that makes them so impossibly steep, like standing waves in a river mouth. That was my first crossing, more than 50 years ago. I was seasick from both ends, and lay on the wet cabin floor in misery and embarrassment.
"But as dawn rose, that day long ago, I came on deck to a flat calm. The sails hung limp. The boat sparkled in new crystals of salt.
“Welcome to the other side,“ someone said.
"On the other side of the Gulf Stream lies the Bermuda High.
"The Timeless crew crossed in rough weather, bashing through seas that meant there was no need for Paul the cook to do any cooking for anybody. Woodward began drawing buckets of water from over the side, thermometer in hand. The first bucket was 68 degrees Fahrenheit. An hour later it was 85 degrees Fahrenheit, and we knew we were in the stream. And almost before we knew it we had crossed and were in light air, and cloudless skies, and the sun shone hot as if to bake the batter the Gulf Stream had made.
"The Bermuda high is a predictable area of high pressure that typically surrounds the island of Bermuda. Once in it, with the sea around us calm, we learned over the side to stare down into brilliant transparent blue for hundreds of feet.
"It’s just not something you get over, that sudden change in the world, not if you have entered it working the sails of a sailboat, hand over hand, watch after watch, in a transition that is personal for all.
"And which only a crew can share.
"The low, semi-tropical island is surrounded by pretty but treacherous shoals, shallows in which coral heads arise like sharp brown boulders to a foot below the surface. Its entrance is at St. George’s, through Town Cut, a jagged passage through towering rock.
"And suddenly we were there."
