HOLE- IN - THE- WALL

1,588 WORDS

On October 31, 1986 at 5:30 pm we sailed past the Varazzano Bridge heading down the JerseyCoast. I figured we should hit Atlantic City by early morning the following day and enter the Intercostals Waterway at Norfolk later the next day.

Darkness just started to win its struggle against the light. The wind had pick up it was over twenty knots. I decided to wait until sunrise and set anchors fore and aft. We will always remember that night. As the wind howled, the rigging rattled and the boat pitched up and down. We sat inside and feasted on wine, chicken cutlets and salad, listening to a talking book of Herman Melville's Moby Dick.

After about a month we reached West End, Grand Bahama Island. Leisurely we
made our way through Abaco's northern cays, stopping at Mangrove, Great
Sail, Hawksbill, Allen-Pensacola, Powell, Green Turtle, Man-Of- War and
Marsh Harbor to name a few.

We had to meet Deb's family at Nassau on Christmas day. Our last stop in the
northern cays would be a beautiful place called Little Harbor. On December 23, the on shore winds were twenty to twenty-five knots but they were to diminish to ten to fifteen by nightfall. The waters between Little Harbor and Hole In The Wall were dangerous. The depth goes from five thousand feet to a hundred, to fifty, to twenty, to the shore in less then two miles. 

Once we were about two miles off the coast dark clouds started to fill the sky. The winds picked up to thirty knots, gusting to forty, forty-five. We motor sailed for hours, as the conditions got worse. When the blackness engulfed us, huge waves came as if from nowhere and slammed into our portside. Then the rain came in windswept sheets. I knew this was going to be a long night. For the first time I thought of the sea as an adversary instead of a companion.

Then the engine just stopped and I could not get it started. The wind was now a steady sixty knots. The black waves in their white caps grew to sizes that dwarfed our small boat. Out of the black came waves as big as houses that ripped across our bow and then another would smash us broadside. The lighting danced across the black sky. The wind lashed at our rigging, giving the nightmare a musical background. Our boat would rise to the peaks of the huge waves; only to disappear into their darken valleys.

I looked through the hatch at Deb below. I could see her fear. I yelled to her that everything was going to be all right.I could see my reassurance was not helping. When the rain let up, I told her to come on deck. I tied a line between Deb and me.

Out of the darkness a wave the size of an apartment building was about to rip right through us. "Deb hold on, I yelled". I tried to hold on to the wheel but the wave just ripped it from my grasp, sending me crashing head first into the cockpit. I looked over to where Deb was sitting just seconds before. She was gone.

My mind was flipping out but I remembered the rope. I thought the rope  snapped; as I yanked nothing but slack. Then I felt resistance, and I yanked with all my might. She was caught on something under the boat. I yanked again. This time she popped to the surface. I reached over the side and grabbed her by the shoulders. The waves and wind joined forces to try to rip me from the deck. I kept pulling on Deb in an effort to get her into the boat. "You have to help" I yelled, she whispered back "I can't, I can't" Looking into Deb's face, she seemed so calm. It was almost as if she was cloaked in an acceptance, of the unavoidable.

The waves kept crashing over us. Without anybody on the wheel, we were surfing toward shore. If I was washed overboard, we would be just two more mysteriously swallowed and lost forever within the Devil's Triangle. When Deb got her foot on the rail, I grabbed it with one hand and her arm with the other. I pulled with all my strength; finally dragging her into the cockpit. We wrapped our arms around each other, and though it was foolhardy, being together we felt safe.

I saw land for the very first time since sunset, and we were dangerously close. I headed for the wheel. Before I could get there, the world started to fall apart all around us; I was thrown back into the cockpit on top of Deb. We smashed into something. The beach was about two hundred yards off in the darkness. The waves smashed us repeatedly across the rocks. I stayed on top of Deb hoping the mast and rigging would not come crashing down.

Then a black wall, bigger then anything I had seen all night rolled from the darkness tossed our boat like a toy. We ended up about forty yards from the beach. The boat was still twisting and turning in the waves that just would not stop. It was time to abandon ship. We held on to each other as we jumped from the frying pan into the fire. The struggl against the waves and undertow, exhausted us. It was as if the Devil would not accept our victory within its own Triangle.

Once on the beach we just stood there and watched the waves that seemed almost giddy in the way they ripped our boat and belongings apart. When Deb asked what are we are going to do now; I told her we would go home get jobs and have babies.

When the sun came up, I saw what we hit the night before. A small reef; even with the high tide some of its jagged rocks protruded above the surface. The beach was only about one hundred yards long; on each side were cliffs fifty feet high coming straight out of the water. If I had not gotten Deb on board when I did, a few seconds later she would have been crushed between the reef and the boat. In addition, if we had washed up against the cliffs instead of this little patch of beach, the waves would have smashed the boat to pieces and slowly bashed us to death.

I thought the lighthouse at Hole in the Wall had to be  two or three miles; it was a ten-mile march through hell. I can understand why the only people living within a twenty mile radius of this little piece of paradise was the lighthouse keeper. I used the beach when I could but the cliffs that were covered with cactus and waist high brush, kept appearing one after another.

While climbing over a rocky out crop, I fell through a hole hidden by the brush. I landed about ten feet down in a foot of water. I was in a small cave that opened to the sea. Ever since I was a little kid, I thought crabs were creepy. Now I was
sitting at the bottom of a pit that walls were covered with hundreds upon hundreds of crabs. In unison they all raised their claws high, as if thanking the Crab God for their feast. I screamed like a woman as I rushed out that hole.

A total of six hours later I was telling my story to the two men that operated the Hole in the Wall light. One of the men was too old so I started back with the other. By the time the tide went out and came back in again Deb had come to grip with the fact that I must have fallen off a cliff and died. It was twilight by the time I saw the boat. I had walked about twenty miles, the cactus punctured my feet, I was scrapped banged, bloodied and I haven't slept in almost fifty hours. The trip back to the lighthouse in the dark was painfully slow.

The next morning we got a ride to Mash Harbor the only thing we had was the clothes on our backs and our American Express card. It was Christmas day
and we were supposed to meet Deb's parents in Nassau at the Britannia hotel
at 1:30. Its ten o'clock and we have about one hundred miles of water between us and Nassau. There was a small airport right outside of town. I met a bush pilot and told him our story with a make believe medical emergency added for effect.

He told us he was flying to Nassau, and we could come along. I looked out at the right engine and saw smoke and oil spurting out of the side. I told the pilot and all he said was, "Dam she's leaking again". I looked back at Deb we were both thinking the same thing; survived a shipwreck so we could die in a plane crash.

We landed at Nassau at twelve thirty. We took a van to the Holiday Inn. Got a room, went to the gift shop and bought shorts, tee shirts and flip-flops. Went back to the room and showered. Got a van to the Britannia walked into the lobby and one-minute later in walks Deb's family. I was always good at making my deadlines