vignettes  from cowabunga

Stranger in the Night

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 13:48:14 -0800

I heard a thud. I’m always the first one to hear a noise, or feel the change in the sway of the boat at anchor. I’m not good at sensing from what direction the wind is coming, but I do know when something is amiss. And the “thud” woke me up.

We were in Fortaleza, Brazil, a poor desolate place. The northeastern part of Brazil in 1984 was in the midst of a several years-long drought at that point, and the land was dry, a desert dune-like landscape. It wasn’t uncommon to see children, obviously hunger-stricken with bloated stomachs, wandering naked in town. Nevertheless, the city of Fortaleza was trying to capitalize on a potentially flourishing tourist industry, with their unrelenting sun and big wide beaches. Some new flashy high rise apartments, condos, and hotels flanked the waterfront and the city sponsored a lively evening open air sidewalk market/bazaar, trying to lure visitors to the cafés with a festive atmosphere. Unfortunately, so much widespread poverty that was mingled with tourists was a perfect recipe for jealousy, vengeance, and robbery.

There weren’t many sailboats upon our arrival in the anchorage. We quickly got the lowdown from one family that another boat had an incident: they were boarded and robbed. One had to be vigilant here. We decided to never leave the boat alone, and never all go into town together. We weren’t going to stay long either. Just enough time to fill up on some provisions, rest up a day or two, and head on to French Guiana. Fortaleza would be our last stop in Brazil.

It took a few seconds for me to be wide awake and realize that I had heard a noise. Then something told me to hoist myself up through the hatch, just above my head in our rear cabin, and take a quick reassuring look that I really didn’t hear anything. But I came face-to-face with a mustachioed young man on our deck. I scared him; he scared me. I tried to scream and nothing came out. I absolutely froze. He swiftly jumped into his little wooden dinghy that he had tied up alongside our boat, cut the line, and drifted out into the darkness. Then with horror, I suddenly realized he had a knife. I saw an item of our navigation equipment lying on the deck with the wires cut. Oh my god, he wasn’t just arriving, he had already been down below, with the knife, and the kids...while we were sleeping!

Somehow I remembered to waken Michel in my panic (who was still asleep at this point!). While he groped for his glasses, I scrambled up front to the kids’ cabin to check on them—they were fine and asleep. I noticed Michel’s wallet on the chart table, and in a flash I remembered there had been a $100 in there from the exchange he had done earlier that day. I just assumed the money was gone. All the while I was shouting to Michel my quick assessment in rapid fire sequence of what was missing, reconstructing what must have happened: “The kids are OK, he has a knife, he cut the equipment connections, took the money, our foul weather gear is missing...”

Michel had also grabbed the rifle he had kept at the ready near our bed since our arrival in Fortaleza—once we learned how unsafe it was. I’m not proud that we had a gun on board, and although possessing or using guns was never a part of our lifestyle, we felt somewhat obligated to purchase one before leaving on our trip. Although probably not a likely possibility, encountering pirates could occur, and with the drug-running trade at the time, we did know of a few cases of hijacked sailboats showing up in Miami, minus the rightful owners.

I quickly joined Michel on deck and we could still barely see the intruder off in the distance. Michel shouted for him stop and fired two warning shots. He dove from his tiny boat into the water, letting his little dinghy go adrift.

We lowered our dinghy back down into the water (we had been putting it up on deck for the night), reattached the outboard motor, and then like a posse after our man, the two of us took off across the water, me handling the outboard, and Michel literally riding shotgun. We were determined to get our gear back. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but it was a gut reaction; we didn’t think it through.

There were a lot of fishing trawlers near where we saw the intruder jump into the water. We weaved in and out among the boats, looking for a swimmer. It was dark with only some intermittent light shining on the water from some of the onshore port lights, and we never found him. We returned to retrieve the dinghy that was drifting out to sea. Some of our clothes were still on it, even some of his, but the foul weather gear must have blown off. We took everything back and then let his boat go. He got the raw end of the deal, losing not only what he stole but his own boat as well. We were still upset about the $100. That was a lot of money for us then, and in Brazil, it went a long way.

We returned to Cowabunga and tried to regain our composure. Despite our efforts to keep our guard up—having taken steps to safeguard our dinghy, never leaving the boat alone—we still couldn’t believe that someone would be brazen enough to come on board in the middle of the night while we slept. All our navigation equipment was still there. The item on the deck was apparently his first attempt to take some of the equipment after having already loaded the clothes and foul weather items. Then, we noticed that the wallet was still full of $100! He either missed it or didn’t get the chance.

The next morning, Michel went to report our encounter to the police. Their attitude was pretty nonchalant, as they chided Michel for having “missed” his mark when he fired the warning shot! “Too bad you missed him,” they said. It would have been one less problem for them to deal with, they added.

After that, we were good and ready to leave Fortaleza as soon as possible. But events were to determine otherwise. That very same afternoon a visitor came motoring alongside, and before we knew it, we were engaged on a unique mission to sail to the moon—and back.

Stay Tuned for the next installment: We Sailed to the Moon—and Back

© 2012 Copyright Janis Couvreux, Couvreux Editing. All rights reserved.

Baseball Diplomacy

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:57:37 -0800

Not only do they speak Spanish in Cuba, but we quickly discovered that they also speak baseball.

Now, we are not baseball fans by any means, and my husband—being French—is totally befuddled by the sport! Nevertheless, we had just come from Florida, where we spent three years working and the boys attended school. As part of their full childhood immersion in the American experience, we felt that they should take part in varied activities as the occasion would arise. Consequently they participated in after-school Little League in Florida. Neither Sean nor Brendan became enamored with the sport, but at least they learned what it was and as it turned out, their brief baseball experience served them well as passports in breaking the ice and opening friendships with children in several Cuban villages.

We had finally left our “lobster paradise” at the Casa de Pesca in Ensenada El Cajon on the western tip of the island of Cuba, and now were sailing on the “underside” southern coast of the island to the small fishing village of Cortez. This was our first experience of going against the tide, so to speak, in that we battled the trade winds head on, and it wasn’t pleasant. This short distance sail took us longer than we expected due to choppy seas and a counter current. Cortez seemed to be an accidental town by virtue of its location on a convenient bay that was a natural spot for fisherman to launch their small vessels. There wasn’t much to the town other than a short dirt-trodden main street, a few very small simple primitive houses and stalls, and all relatively clean.

Michel, as was his custom, was the first to scope out the area, setting off to shore in the dinghy. This time he took Brendan with him, who was 6 years old at that time. They became quite the attraction when they landed on the beach. Every child in the village, it seemed, crowded around, plying them non-stop questions, and hovering around them as they tried to move up the beach and see the lay of the land. Michel kept this first visit brief, returned to the boat, and then headed back again later with both Sean and Brendan, as well as their baseball bat and ball. Any hesitancy by anyone at that point that may have existed on either side of the language barrier instantly melted away.

We had brought along a fluorescent orange, sparkly aluminum baseball bat with us on the boat when we left Florida. The Cuban children had never seen such a beauty and they were in awe. They peppered our boys with a million questions: Where do you come from, where did such a pretty bat come from, do you go to school and how, what do your t-shirts say...? It was a rare sight for them, we think, to encounter sailors, let alone a family with young children. They were genuinely friendly and took Sean and Brendan under their wing, quickly whisking them off to the village’s makeshift baseball diamond.

The next day, Brendan and Sean were anxious to return to shore, and the children were waiting on the beach. We all went on shore this time, and I felt like we were the Pied Piper. The whole little crowd followed us around constantly asking questions. They were very polite, keenly interested and curious, not at all indifferent to these new “intruders” among them.

This time around, Sean and Brendan now knew the routine, and they scampered off with the crowd of kids to the ball field. An older teenage boy took a particular shine to Brendan, giving him pointers on how to properly hold the bat, along with tips for swinging and aiming at the ball.

Since we could see they were in good hands, and there was no danger, Michel and I wandered off a bit to explore the main street. A man stopped at our encounter and proudly said in French, “bonjour,” introducing himself as Manuel. That was the extent of his French, he said, but he was eager to introduce us to his family. He had come from Havana for the weekend to visit his parents with his wife and daughter. We were graciously received in a tiny home, down a narrow dirt side path, and Manuel delighted in answering our many questions about Cuba and volunteering much information.

He was a foreman of a construction team building a hotel for which “Fidel had much confidence in me” and he proudly showed us an 8" x 10" glossy photograph of him and Fidel Castro on the construction site. Manuel and his family were very curious as to what we thought of Cuba and why our governments were so antagonistic to each other. As with other Cubans with whom we had such discussions, Manuel extolled the virtues of his country, their society, and Castro.

At this time in the late 1980s it was already quite obvious that Castro was embarking on an aggressive campaign to lure tourists and expand Cuba’s tourism economy. Quite a few Canadians and Russians were visiting the island at the time we were there, and several hotels and tourist resorts were already up and running with more in the planning stages. A few “Diplomercados,” or shopping centers or stores were open exclusively to foreign tourists where only purchases could be made with U.S. dollars. Manuel’s current job was further evidence of this new emerging trend.

After the baseball game, the day finished with us buying all the kids ice cream at the village’s ice cream shop (which was pretty amazing in itself that this shop existed!). We still had so many of our Cuban pesos thanks to our original black market exchange for $100 back in Havana, that Michel decided this would be a good use for some of them. In true Cuban fashion, you could only buy what was available—no choice. So it was decided, a vanilla ice cream cone for everyone, and it only cost a total of pennies!

Along with the wholesome outside activity of baseball, the children of Cortez also reminded us of an earlier time when toys were simpler, bringing much joy and fun to children without the modern marvels of Lego, Gameboy and the like. One of kids was playing with a classic old-fashioned homemade top, carved from wax—the kind with string wrapped around the top, that gets thrown to the ground, spinning around and around. I had certainly remembered those from my childhood, but Sean and Brendan had never seen one and they were pretty enthralled. They wanted to learn the spinning technique and the session finished with the top given to them as a gift. These kids didn’t have much to begin with, and they gave away one of their precious items. We still have that top today, part of our travel mementos, and a reminder of the kind heartedness of these children.

We certainly didn’t intend to stay long in Cortez, but we could clearly see the boys were enjoying themselves, and getting a lot out of the experience—not only for the activity, but for the cultural exchange as well, so we prolonged our stay for their benefit. Brendan’s normal reserve melted away while he was here. He was anxious to go on shore immediately, and on one occasion he did go without Sean, and thoroughly enjoyed himself.

Outside of the rules of baseball, we were intrigued as to how our boys communicated with the locals while playing. Aren’t there sometimes disputes as to whether or not you are out during a play, I questioned Sean and Brendan. “So how do you know what they decide if you can’t understand what they’re saying?” I asked. “Oh that’s easy. They just go like this,” and Brendan proceeded to make a sign of a hand slashing across his throat. “Then we know we’re out.”

Ah, indeed, you have to love the language of baseball diplomacy!

© 2012 Copyright Janis Couvreux, Couvreux Editing. All rights reserved.

A Boy Named 'Hola'

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:51:03 -0800

We soon discovered that once we were living and sailing full time on the boat, as opposed to our previous schizophrenic life of splitting daily routines between land-based occupations and weekend sailing outings, that our new life absolutely agreed with us. No, it wasn’t always pure bliss. In fact, it was a lot of work, but we were happy doing it.

We reveled in the fact that we didn’t have to rise to a morning alarm clock. Our routine was dictated by the kids, the wind, the weather, our night watches on a passage, equipment repairs, and the very long list of our ongoing and future ambitious projects to better the boat. Unexpected good and bad things would happen: We’d meet some very interesting people, visit an unplanned enchanting spot, have a mechanical breakdown, drag dangerously on our anchor in the middle of the night... Each of these could, and often did, translate into a change of plans. Someone would tell us about a place that was really worth a side trip, adding a day or a month to an itinerary, or a mechanical breakdown that would either force us to stay in one place longer than planned, or find us heading to an unplanned destination in quest of that particular replacement part or someone who could fabricate it for us.

Michel and I were together all day long, every day, and despite being in a very confined space (42 ft. long and a 10 ft. wide) for two adults—let alone for a 3 year-old and a five month-old—it worked. There is something to be said, however, for our being “young and in love” at the time, so the confined space didn’t really seem to be a problem. We relished having each other around. Yet it was important what with night watches, private reading time, and slipping in naps when we could in between parenting duties, we did manage to weave in some needed “alone” personal time.

Indeed, many such families or couples didn’t last against these odds. They weren’t able to make the good times overshadow the bad. We witnessed several abandoned boats, and others for sale, littering various ports-of-call along the way: dashed dreams and adventures, all stories of their own.

We had applied ourselves in the study of such situations and possible outcomes of a seafaring life well before we left. We had ample time and opportunities to learn about how others coped in such full-time, close-quarters living situations. During our two years of experimental on-board living prior to our departure, we had met other families and couples as either they passed through our home port of Le Verdon, or during our brief weekend and vacation jaunts up and down the French Atlantic coast. We visited their boats, saw how they did things, talked and exchanged ideas over cocktails and dinners. We read many books of families’ experiences, their tips, their “do’s and don’ts.” And then of course, some of the advice had to be taken with a grain of salt, or adequately adapted to our lifestyle, and our own natures and characters.

Thrilled to finally embark upon our new life and adventure, we arrived in La Coruña, Spain after four days at sea from leaving our dock in France and crossing the Bay of Biscay. We were exhausted. This shakedown crossing had been both calm and agitated, resulting in some urgent repairs right away upon our arrival. But mostly, it was a more emotionally wrenching experience than we had anticipated, and it took the four days to digest it and begin to look forward to what may lay ahead. We had crossed this Bay of Biscay several times in the past, and spent nights at sea on our coastal trips, but this time it was more permanent. We wouldn’t be going back to our dock, friends, or family anymore. We uprooted our comfort zone. Would we find a way somehow to recreate that along the way?

La Coruña proved to be a good transition point. Like on a freeway cloverleaf intersection, many sailboats were coming and going. Many were like us, leaving for the first time after years of preparation. Many had even built their own boats. Some were returning home after years of sailing around the world. We found out that we were part of the “class of ’82”—that year’s contribution to the annual migration of new adventurers heading south for the first time at the end of the European summer, following the weather and eventually the trade winds to those more exotic points south. There was a whole subculture of adepts and enthusiasts of the sea out there, and now we were part of the wave. We were to come across many of these boats and families of the “class of ’82” later in our travels, in different countries and different oceans. Our identity was also transformed here. Our last name, “Couvreux” literally faded away. People would now know us and recognize us from here on as the the “famille Cowabunga” or the “Cowabunga Family.” Everyone became one with the name of their boats and consequently identified as such—the most visible and immediate ID usually emblazoned in an obvious spot on the hull. It wasn’t odd for us to become very close friends with some families over the years that followed, and not even know their real last names.

As for Sean and Brendan, they each took this change in their own stride, although Brendan, at only five months old, seemed pretty oblivious to any change since the boat was his only home up to that point anyway. However, he did seem to take some new interest in the dancing flames of the kerosene lamps when we were at anchor. Sean was a bit more sensitive and edgy to the movement at times than he had been a year ago, or even several months earlier. When things would start out a bit rough upon first setting sail for a new passage, he would snuggle comfortably in his bed for a while, instinctively letting his body incorporate the new rhythm and settling in to the change. Then before too long, he was ready to tend to his newfound passions of fishing and tweaking ropes.

I found it interesting that neither Sean nor Brendan ever got seasick prior to learning how to walk. Once they were walking though, they both had rare, occasional bouts of seasickness. I could only attribute this to the fact that prior to walking, their sense of equilibrium must not have been well established, and thus seasickness didn’t affect them until their bodies had a real sense of gravity, up and down, and standing. And when they did experience being seasick, it never lasted more than a few hours, and on very intermittent occasions. I for some reason, in the 10 years we spent on the boat, have never experienced sickness, and still not to this day.

Once underway, and Sean was back into the swing of things, he was always busy. He would incessantly tie knots, lower and raise flags, tweak the line for his toy tugboat that trailed us in the water, survey his fishing line, observe our anchoring maneuvers, obsess over the dolphins, and build churches and lighthouses with his Lego. (Lego turned out to be the lifesaver of toys: After having started out with the most toys possible for the limited space in their cabin, we eventually whittled the toy choices down to only Lego—eliminating all other bulky items, especially those prone to rust. Lego proved ideal because not only could they be used to build huge things, they could then be quickly broken apart and easily stowed away when it was time to set sail. Later on , Michel was even able to configure storage space in the boys’ cabin to accommodate the different shapes and sizes of Lego inventory).

Our next port-of-call after La Coruña, was the Ria de Corcubion, in the Galicia area of Spain, where numerous “rias” or inlets, are somewhat like fiords. In Corcubion, we were able to tie up to a dock, instead of being at anchor. The days were warm and sunny and I could place Brendan on the deck in his little reclining “bouncy” chair. He really enjoyed the sites, and hustle and bustle of the harbor. Since we were pretty centrally located in the port, we were somewhat of an attraction with a baby and small boy on board, especially during the traditional evening Spanish “paseo” hour when families would leisurely walk around and relax after their day of work. Sean would implore passersby to pull his mousetrap-type combination of multi-knotted ropes on the winches, all somehow synched to hoist a laundry line of flags.

Up to this point, Sean and Brendan had been enveloped in a total bilingual cocoon of French and English in our family life. I only spoke English to them, and Michel, along with everyone else in their lives thus far, only spoke French. Being in Spain introduced a new wrinkle with the Spanish language. We tried to explain to Sean that these people spoke something different from Mama and Papa, and that to say “hello” in Spanish, it was “hola.” For the few days we were in Corcubion, there was a little boy, about 10 years old, who would come by daily during the evening paseo, and enjoy the company of Sean. It was our first experience watching how Sean could make friends with children in another country. We simply welcomed the little boy with “hola,” and by the next evening, Sean was anxious to see his friend again. “When is ‘Hola’ coming?” he asked.

© 2012 Copyright Janis Couvreux, Couvreux Editing. All rights reserved.

Leaving

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:48:39 -0800

There are certain times in life when one takes that big step—graduation, new job, quitting a job, getting married, having a baby—and there is no turning back. What’s done is done and things will never be the same. Such it was one warm summer afternoon, August 29, 1982, when we literally cast off the ties that bound us, slipped out to sea across the Bay of Biscay—the Golfe de Gascogne—in France, never to look back.

I had lived in France seven years up to that point. My life had already considerably changed from the Southern California, American middle-class suburban upbringing that I was born into. Now I was transitioning again into a whole different universe, but this time in the company of my husband and two young children.

Our dream and goal of living on a sailboat and leading a nomadic lifestyle from port-to-port, country-to-country, didn't happen overnight. It had been gestating for about four years. We didn’t really start out with that intention. It just sort of evolved. I was pregnant with our first child, Sean, when the opportunity to buy a boat presented itself to us. We had already thought about buying a boat rather than a house, and not staying settled in France. My husband, Michel, and I both had a passion and strong desire to travel. We were living in the Bordeaux area of France, and had only been married about four years.

We were pretty sure we wouldn’t always live in France, but we didn’t have any immediate plans on where we would go or how until one day, bam!—we discovered the magic of sailing across a wide body of water under one’s own steam, and awakening in another land. One summer a friend invited us to go on his sailboat on a small trip from the port of Arcachon, France, across the Bay of Biscay to San Sebastián, Spain. OH–MY–WORD—what an eye opener that turned out to be. It was the single most hallmark event that inspired us. It was a seismic, monumental experience! Even to this day, we can both turn to each other and practically note the time and date that we promised each other we would buy a sailboat and travel. It was the perfect solution, which we hadn't yet found up to that point, to taking a family with us. Now we could start to plan on children and know that if we decided to travel, we could take them with us too!

But deciding to buy a boat, and actually finding and affording one are two different things. Nevertheless, we embarked upon some long term planning: I became pregnant and Michel began boning up on his sailing skills, taking weekend sailing courses and weekend outings on the Gironde River near where we lived, through an accredited sailing organization. Aside from our summer week adventure at sea from France to Spain, both of us had only fairly minimal sailing experience dating back to our high school days: Michel’s was through some classes as part of his school's physical education program, and mine was from sailing occasionally with a friend and her father on weekends in Newport Beach, California.

It was during one of Michel's outings that he met a man with a 42 ft. ketch (two masts) for sale in Port Grimaud, near St. Tropez, France. The size and description seemed to fit what we would be looking for, and possibly the price. Seizing the opportunity for a road trip, we took a few days and drove to the Cote d'Azur (French Riviera) to check out this boat. Recognizing that we were novices about boats, and not real savvy on what constituted a viable boat, Michel had contacted a boat appraiser and expert to meet us at the dock, and render his professional opinion of the value, quality, and sturdiness of the vessel. The boat obviously needed a lot of tender loving care, and would have to undergo substantial interior renovation work in order to fit the lifestyle and use we envisioned. However, the hull and whole of the boat was deemed to be in solid, good shape by the expert, and well worth the asking price.

My husband, an architect, owned his own thriving architectural firm at the time. Several lucrative jobs were in the offing and consequently, we were able to purchase the boat. Getting the boat back to Bordeaux proved to be our first hurdle. There were really only two options: sailing it back via the Mediterranean, out past Gibraltar and up the southwest Atlantic coast to the port of Le Verdon at the mouth of the Gironde River, very near the Medoc wine region where we lived; or the more direct inland route, through the Canal du Midi by way of Toulouse and eventually Bordeaux itself. Since it was winter and we were short on time, we opted for the Canal route, which nevertheless was not as easy as it was projected to be. Our boat had a rather deep draft with a six foot keel, and in some places the Canal wasn't quite deep enough to accommodate this. Consequently, the boat took some scraping in narrow places. Michel cobbled together a sort of relay team of friends who helped us bring the boat back in stages—weekends, short vacations—since no one person or persons were available to bring the boat back in one single trip. I didn't participate in this first phase, being pregnant and not willing to face the rough living conditions on board that existed at that early stage.

Our now re-baptized “Cowabunga” settled in its new home near Bordeaux, in the port of Le Verdon by the winter of 1979, where it would be docked for the next three years as we diligently set about scraping, painting, hammering, and transforming.

The renovation project began immediately. First the boat was hauled out of the water with a crane so some major work could begin on the hull. It needed to be completely stripped down to the bare wood, refinished, and new bottom anti-fouling paint applied below the waterline. The two wooden masts were taken down as well, stripped of all the rigging for a new paint job. All the stanchions and every bit of any hardware on the deck was completely removed, thoroughly inspected, kept or discarded, new hardware bought, special ordered, or custom made in order to fit our new master plan. Michel gutted the inside, exposing the original structure and framing, rendering it a bare slate to reconfigure.

I wasn't really much help at this early stage, becoming more and more pregnant by the day. I assisted in scraping off as much of the old exterior paint as I could that was accessible from the least acrobatic standing position as possible. With somewhat of an initial "first stage" timetable targeted to get the exterior basically done in order to have the boat in the water by the summertime, wonderful friends came out of the woodwork to help us during these first busy months. Michel and company spent weekends, holidays, and an occasionally abbreviated workday, transformed into shipyard workers. The project overtook our budget, our birthday and Christmas lists, our dreams, our conversations. It was omnipresent in our day-to-day life.

Michou, our local fisherman friend, would often drop by and lend a hand with this or that once he docked his trawler after an all night fishing trip. He would also lend tools and supply us with buckets of fish and crabs for sustenance. Joel, a plumber who Michel often employed on his construction sites, became a fast friend as he often dropped by the wharf supplying plumbing materials, help, and strong-armed wrenching techniques. Then Philippe, who was to become a very close friend of Michel’s, also assisted when he could, but most importantly was perhaps the only other person besides me who understood Michel’s passion for this adventure. He gave us his treasured 19th Century antique barograph as a gift and it always held an honored perch inside Cowabunga for the 10 years it was our home. Today that same barograph continues to give us our daily weather fix in our current landlocked living room, 30 years after our departure, and also serves as a daily memorial to their friendship since Philippe’s passing several years ago.

Amidst all this, we managed to have our first baby, Sean, born in April of 1979. From day one he was surrounded by, and incorporated into, this project. I would visit the job site as often as possible with our newborn, yet his grandmother was only too thrilled to step in for nanny duty so I could pitch in for a full afternoon of work here and there, baby-free. We were avidly working to make the boat a viable navigable vessel with a comfortable living space to accommodate the three of us by that summer. The idea was to create some supplementary income by utilizing the boat for weekend day charter trips for tourists. Hopefully this would defray some of our costs by touting an introduction to a day at sea, and visiting the various coastal sites, which we did indeed manage to accomplish.

We continued devoting weekends, holidays, and vacation time to working on the boat and short sailing trips with the three of us throughout the following autumn, winter, and spring. By the second springtime, Sean was a year old, and we had more or less worked out the kinks of having a young child on board, having “baby proofed” where necessary (i.e. netting all around the deck between the stanchions, high sideboard for his bed, and a harness when and if necessary on deck).

With a second summer just around the corner, we decided to put our words into action, and try living on the boat full time. What better time to start than in the warm weather? So, by July of 1980, we moved onto the boat for the season, still docked in our home port of Le Verdon. On weekends we would sail while Michel tended to architecture at his office during the week. The summer living experiment went so well that we decided to take things to the next step: move onto the boat for the remainder of the year and see if we could make it through a winter.

At this point, however, I wasn’t quite willing to give up everything yet, i.e. the washing machine, running water, bath and showers in a heated bathroom, and so on—especially with a toddler. So we compromised for the winter and rented a very small one bedroom apartment nearby as a “land base” station for the laundry and showers. We gave up the house we were renting that was close to Michel’s office, about a half hour away.

Working our way through the seasons, we worked out the kinks: a kerosene heater for those cold winter nights; dealing with the condensation that would accumulate over our heads while sleeping in our very small aft cabin; grocery “schlepping” from the car to the dock, to the boat; showers and baths in the apartment at a convenient time between Sean’s naps and the dinner hour; Sean learning how to walk on board and on land; where to store the tools for ongoing work that could be out of Sean’s reach; where to store our belongings and food; enough time for Sean to run on land; and taking advantage of space and room at his grandparents’ place on occasion.

By the time our third summer of the boat came around, Sean was two years old, and we began thinking about baby number two, since we were even more determined than ever to see our voyage come to fruition as a family of four. We had a daily living routine worked out by then, and this next year would see us undertake the challenge of being pregnant on a board. The renovation, improvement, and maintenance work was always ongoing and had become a way of life. Throughout the next winter I grew, and grew until I literally couldn’t fit down the passageway anymore—at about 8 1/2 months. I was due the beginning of March 1982, so for the last two weeks of my pregnancy we stayed at my in-laws’ place, in nearby Montalivet, about a half hour from Le Verdon.

Brendan arrived true to his due date, and after a five-day stay at the hospital (as was the custom in France at the time) we brought Brendan directly home, to Cowabunga, the only home he was to know until we arrived in California eight years later. Only then did he live on land for the first time. Brendan has always been his own person—not easily influenced by anyone or anything. He has always been very pensive (and still is), and I can’t help but think that our particular lifestyle coming at this juncture in our life and coinciding with the beginning of his, reflects very much a part of his spirit and who he is today.

The Final Leap

The first entry of our ship’s log, begun by Michel at 3:00 p.m. August 29, 1982 opens: “...calm night, light breeze, not cold—perfect sendoff.” My journal says: “One dream, one sailboat, 3 1/2 years, two children later, we left today.”

It had been a wild ride from that spring day, shortly after Brendan’s birth when we decided that the moment had come to leave: August 29. Ready or not—and it was more “not” than ready—we would go. But we would never be completely ready. There would always be something more to do, something else to finish, always more money that could be put away. But at some point, one has to make that leap of faith, so we made the decision to jump. It would be the very next August.

As luck had it—and as we also had when we bought the boat—a good opportunity came along. A potentially very interested buyer of Michel’s business happened by at the right place at the right time. Negotiations were concluded, agreements made, and the countdown began. We would need every waking moment from that spring day until August to get ready to go. Some of the interior renovation projects finished up to that point proved not as workable as we would have thought, and Michel pulled out his tools once again for some last minute adjustments. There were sails and equipment to be bought. There was shopping to be done, and storage space to be wrung out of thin air. How much food and water would we need? Did I need all those baby bottles? Where could I store more diapers than usual? Which toys to keep...? Every time I thought of something, down on a list it would go. We would have to sell our cars, give up the apartment, dispose of the washing machine, pare down some clothes, buy some proper foul weather gear.

Eventually the months whittled down to weeks, then days. During the final week we did a final, major shopping trip. We literally had a palette of food goods delivered to my in-law’s house, and then we proceeded to drive carload after carload up to the boat. A new carload could only be delivered once the previous load had been properly stored on board. I only bought the final fresh fruit and vegetables at the last minute, the day before our departure.

Reactions from friends and family ran the gamut of emotions. Some never believed we would actually go, some were sad, some were proud. Michel’s father was perhaps the most bewildered by it all. His son had become an architect—a “someone.” He was proud of his son, and for the life of him could not understand why Michel was “throwing it all away.” His father was of the generation of WWII, and we were of the '60s—so much in between. His mother was profoundly sad. She was close to our boys, and we to her. She deeply apprehended the day we would leave, and although she knew it was imminent when the palette was delivered to their home, Michel thought it better we only tell her once we were gone and at sea, via the marine radio.

Time was running out on August 29. We had to sail with the high tide at 3 p.m. By 2 p.m. friends began to gather on the dock. Michou hovered around with his trawler, ready to escort us out of the harbor. Summer tourists milled around, as they would come and go from the nearby ferry. Sean knew we were getting ready to sail, but I don’t think he understood the magnitude of what we were about to undertake. By the deadline hour, we had a small crowd on the dock, there were hugs, kisses, good-byes and promises to meet again father south or on the other side of the Atlantic. Some of our friends boarded Michou’s boat. We dawdled as long as we dared, and then finally fired up the engine, threw off the lines, and angled the bow out the harbor. Michou and company followed us out as far as the lighthouse at Cordouan, a champagne bottle was thrust back and forth, the coast got smaller and smaller, and then it was just us.

© 2012 Copyright Janis Couvreux, Couvreux Editing. All rights reserved.

Cayenne the Jungle Book: Insects and Caimans and Sloths, Oh My!

Wed, 9 Nov 2011 21:06:59 -0800

Cayenne, French Guiana, sits just above the equator around the latitude of 4° north, on the northern coast of South America. We were undeniably in Amazonian territory in this French outpost, just the other side of the Brazilian border. An unlikely settlement on the fringes of the jungle, Cayenne seemed to barely keep the wilds of the jungle at bay, with the dense green and humid tropical forest gobbling up the main road leading out of town just a mile or two outside the city limits. Here Amazonian watershed rivers and tributaries nourished a very vibrant equatorial jungle ecosystem.

We arrived in Cayenne after a short sail of about a week from our previous anchorage in Fortaleza, Brazil. Even as we were at sea, sailing 100 miles off the coast, we were struck by the strength and influence of the Amazon River, because even at that distance offshore from the mouth and delta of the Amazon, the water was an opaque muddy hue. And it even tasted fresh—not salty seawater!

The Amazon's influence was pervasive, even in our anchorage in the Cayenne River estuary—also a thick muddy, milk chocolate colored waterway. From our tethered spot in the river, we were reminded daily of the jungle as its looming green canopy was the first thing we saw in the hot morning sunrise, and the last thing that engulfed the sinking evening sun. Everything grew bigger here. From our vantage point, super-sized two-inch long "palmetto" cockroaches occasionally flight-landed on our deck, as once did a fist-sized beetle that dive-bombed through the main hatch right into my galley sink! One time while walking on the harbor wharf, I almost blindly stepped on a prehistoric looking, dinosaur-sized insect, and during a family camping expedition deep in the jungle, giant oversized centipede-type creatures known as “scolopends” crawled amidst some of the overhead rafters. These creepy crawlers can grow up to 12 inches long and are actually quite poisonous.

On other occasions while on inland excursions, we would be hypnotized by flashes of deep luminescent blue as morpho butterflies flew past us with their 5-to-8 inch wing spans. And some intrepid souls indulged their fancy for evening caiman hunting, venturing out to some river tributaries, armed with flashlights as they targeted the reptile’s tell-tale red eyes poised on a river surface, steered by their sunken snouts gliding just below the waterline.

The reality of being in Amazon forest territory really hit us the day we were on a family sightseeing trip and we were forced to stop our loaner car in the middle of the road for quite a spell—the time it took for a sloth to cross the road— and for a really long time! It seemed like something out of a cartoon: every movement carefully articulated in slow motion.

We had come to Cayenne to find work, and a respite from the continual tourist visa paper chase. After two years of sailing up and down the Brazilian coast, having gone as far south as Buenos Aires, Argentina, our tourist visa options had run out for Brazil. Originally we had wanted to go up the Amazon River, as far as Manaus, but time constraints due to our final finished visa status, forced us to change our plans. Through our contacts amongst the cruising grapevine, reliable information had it that we could easily find work in Cayenne. Since French Guiana is a "departement"—a sort of permanent "state" territory of France, having evolved from its former days as a French colony—targeting work here seemed a good option for us since my husband is a French citizen, and I possessed full legal French immigrant status at the time. We hoped to be able to pad our savings a bit, thus extending our travel time a while longer.

In short order, Michel, an architect, found work in an architect's office, I found a part time job as a bilingual secretary with an American shrimping company, Sean started kindergarten, and Brendan accompanied me to work where I was able to leave him with a babysitter—one of the fishermen's wives. He spent the mornings with Desirée and her little girl Tasha in their simple cottage on the shrimping compound grounds, just a short walk from my office.

Our seven-month sojourn in this jungle way station was far from boring. The anchorage was filled with with about 50 boats, mostly French cruising families, all in temporary “civilian” modes: jobs, children in school, or some sort of respite or revaluation situation of their travels and sailing life thus far. “Rush hour” occurred every weekday at 8 a.m. when a wave of dinghies carrying families, couples, and the occasional solo sailor would be powered up by outboards, heading for the main dock and on to a landlubber’s 9 a.m.–5 p.m. “grind.” The dock was lively with activity and chatter as everyone landed and tied up to the dock, almost unrecognizable in “civilian” clothing—as opposed to our usual sun-bleached shorts, bathing suits, and T-shirts—before we all faded away walking, biking, or driving off to our destinations. It was one such morning that Brendan fell through the dock as we alighted on land, and I had the scare of my life when I saw him disappear into the opaque chocolate colored muck for what seemed like an eternity. He was saved and lives to hear the tale told again and again, as I have recounted in detail in a companion entry among this collection.

All four of us would pile into our dinghy and merge on the water with the tide of dinghies headed for the shore. Michel took Sean to school on his bike while I waited with Brendan for a ride from a colleague, who drove us just a short distance down the road to Sahlman Seafoods, my job, and Brendan’s nanny. By this time in his short life at 5 years old, Sean already had previously attended pre-school in France and Brazil. This would be his first real classroom experience in a regular class and a first in that he was in the minority as a white child—the only one in his class, I believe. The native Creole population of French Guiana is black, and there were very few white children in the school. Needless to say it was a curious turnaround for us, and on occasion we witnessed and experienced prejudice and racism towards the white population.

It was also a “first” for Brendan in that it was the first time he ever spent a few hours of the day away from us, in a “daycare” situation—also in the care of a Creole woman. Brendan was only 2 years old, so still very young, and not particularly outgoing nor friendly to new people at this stage in his life. So it was a bit wrenching for him at first when I left him for the mornings, punctuated by his frantic crying. Desirée assured me that it didn’t last long, and that eventually he warmed up to her and Tasha. It was hard to willfully put him through such a situation, but I knew I couldn’t always spare him certain sorrows; it was part of the lessons of life.

It wasn’t all work, however, during our stay in Cayenne. The anchorage became quite a community. Upon our return to the dock in the evenings, many of us would linger, socialize, do a bit of laundry, or set up impromptu dinner invitations. A shower had even been set up in the harbor, and it was a very welcomed convenience. One couple even indulged their entrepreneurial spirit and invested in a food truck where we would gather for a beer and some good cheer before heading back to our respective nests.

Amongst the many families in the anchorage, we counted about 30 children in the mix. We had made friends with many of these cruising families from various previous stops in Brazil, and it was really quite nice for all the kids now to have this time and opportunity to spend several months with each other. As it turned out, Christmas was just around the corner, and many of us adults decided it would be fun to really mark the occasion for the kids.

There was an old Brazilian “tapouille” boat in the anchorage—a large flat-bottomed barge-like sailing vessel used on the Amazon and surrounding rivers to ship goods from place to place. This one was in pretty decent shape, quite big with a nice interior space, and it sat idle in the anchorage. The owner agreed to let all us yachties use it for a Christmas party for the children. What started out as something humble, turned into a huge extravaganza as more and more people in the anchorage wished to participate. We collected money to buy a present for each child, and cornered a volunteer to play Santa. A talented seamstress among us was able to create a quite acceptable Santa costume out of a red king-size bed sheet that I donated to the cause. Each child approached Santa for a gift. It was the first time Brendan saw Santa, and he was rather hesitant. Sean couldn’t believe his good fortune: Santa in the flesh! In true French fashion, the potluck event became quite elaborate with some very gourmet items, and we all felt blessed with genuine Christmas cheer as over 50 people partied into the night.

The actual town of Cayenne was quite pleasant, with its 1800’s colorful Caribbean colonial architecture. The town nestled right up to the harbor and was easy to get around by walking or riding a bike. The population was a spicy eclectic cocktail mix of native Creoles, mainland French expats, Brazilians, Haitians, Surinamese, and British Guyanans of Indian descent, Hmong refugees from Laos (who mainly lived in Cacao, a settlement ensconced in the jungle), Lebanese, Chinese, and peppered with an occasional American and a survivor or two from the former Devil's Island penal colony. The additional influence of French culture and language intertwined with a Creole voodoo heritage rendered a truly unique flavor to Cayenne.

The daily open-air market was quite an experience. Aside from the many colorful exotic, tropical foods expansively displayed, it was nevertheless disconcerting to walk by the stalls that featured dead, hanging monkeys, caimans, and other unusual animals that made up some of the diet of the locals. I’ll never forget the time I passed a woman carrying two hefty iguanas, their legs rubber-banded together, under her arm along with her bulging bag of fruits and vegetables.

Not far down the road from Cayenne lies the city of Kourou, the European equivalent of our Cape Canaveral, and headquarters for the European Space Agency and the Ariane rockets that were being launched at that time. It seemed so incongruous to have such a high technology-oriented base planted in the middle of the jungle, yet French Guiana’s location near the equator made it an ideal spot for rocket launches into the proper orbits and consequently, the European Space Agency chose to build the launch facility here. Like Cayenne, the forest canopy literally laps at the boundaries of Kourou and the gates of the space center. There were a few launches during our tenure there, and on one occasion a group of us had an opportunity to watch a launch from an exceptional and original site—La Montagne des Singes, or Monkey Mountain.

It was an incredibly clear, still, and striking moonlit evening. Several of the yachties had cars, so quite a few of us were able to head out of town to this high hilltop vista spot. We all just sat down on our blankets and had a clear view across the top of the tall dense forest to the floodlit launch pad straight ahead, a short distance away. The ocean fanned out to our right and looked like one of those magazines photos, sparkling under the the high moon. As the countdown hit its final mark, the launch pad lit up like daylight, a huge flame pushing the candle-shaped rocket up into the night sky, then tracing an arc towards the moon. It really looked like a huge firecracker high over the ocean, and then suddenly the flame trail was out of sight, headed on its voyage. For a brief moment, I think I understood how incredulous some of the native inland Amazonian tribes must be when they see such a sight, as we ourselves witnessed such a modern phenomenon from a very ancient jungle.

The red chili, or Cayenne pepper, originates from Cayenne and is named after this city—and aptly so. It is a place well peppered with life, novelties, and experiences. The equatorial heat and diverse people added a touch of spice that never ceased to surprise us. Although it’s not a tropical paradise, it is indeed a tropical treasure.

© 2011 Copyright Janis Couvreux, Couvreux Editing. All rights reserved.

vignettes from cowabunga

Stranger in the Night

Baseball Diplomacy

A Boy Named 'Hola'

Leaving

Cayenne the Jungle Book: Insects and Caimans and Sloths, Oh My!

vignettes  from cowabunga