Sometimes surrender is your best option

Mark on the foredeck of the Islander 44 KATHI II taking aim

by Christine Kling

The little marina where we docked in Hilo, Hawaii was in a corner of the big commercial port and right alongside the US Coast Guard base. Most of the guys stationed there spent their time serving watches manning the 95-foot cutter tied up at the end of the line of yachts.

Jim and Mark already had visas for French Polynesia that they had acquired in Honolulu, but I set about inquiring how to get a visa in Hilo. I needed a new smallpox vaccination and a raft of additional paperwork.

While we were waiting for word on my visa, we discovered that in their off time, the Coasties had set up a volleyball court outside their shoreside barracks. Those were simpler times when our armed forces didn’t have the kind of security around their compounds like they do today, so we soon joined their afternoon games. The problem was that these guys played volleyball all the time and they were really good. Inevitably, whatever team we were on lost. After a couple of days of getting razzed about this, Mark and Jim decided to get revenge.

In the stores on board, Jim had lots of rubber tubing to repair a Hawaiian sling and swatches of leather for chafe gear. Out came the sailmaker’s ditty bag and with needle and palm, and by morning, we had a water balloon slingshot that we strung between the forestay and the shrouds. We established a firing routine where I was the ammunition loader at the galley sink, Jim was the runner, and Mark manned the “gun.” We waited until one particular nemesis was on deck watch, then fire one!

We lobbed our first shot over the two boats docked between us and the cutter and since it was the first shot, it missed him by about 15 feet and exploded against the deck house making a very satisfactory noise.

You should have seen those guys scramble. At first they didn’t know what it was. They pointed at the side of the deck house and scratched their heads. Lest we cause some sort of international incident, Jim hollered, “Fire two!” And this time, the balloon landed at the feet of the investigating party and splashed their ankles. They turned around. They pointed at our boat. Fire three! 

For the rest of the afternoon, we attempted to nail anyone who appeared on deck. Our biggest problem was aiming. To travel that distance we had to lob our balloons way up into the air, and they started spotting the balloons dropping from the sky and side stepping them.

At the volleyball game that evening, we were so smug. For some reason, though, those guys weren’t giving us our due. In fact they were acting like they knew something we didn’t. We figured they were just bluffing.

The next afternoon, we decided to try something different. The bow on the Kathi II was very narrow, so we tried putting Mark in his safety harness rigged like a hiking harness, so he could lean farther out and stretch the slingshot back. With his feet on the toe rail he was suspended outboard, and he was able to increase the velocity and land a few direct hits. We were so proud of ourselves until . . . BAM!

The first return shot sounded like somebody had lit off a cherry bomb. It seems while some of the crew was keeping us busy playing volleyball, the other guys had been out shopping for tubing and water balloons and making up their own slingshot. While our boat had about 8 feet of beam on the foredeck, those guys had 20 feet of beam. BAM!

Jim and I both raced for cover down below leaving Mark dangling over the side and unable to pull himself back inboard. The other problem was that while we were enthusiastic amateur gunners, those Coasties were pros. By the third shot, they not only had a far more efficient loading line going, but they were awesome at recalibrating their aim. The next one hit right at Mark’s feet and it was remarkable how with the right motivation, he was quite able to pull himself back aboard, get out of the harness and scramble below.

Over the next 24 hours, we discovered another drawback to our situation. On the cutter, there were guys standing watches around the clock. Those night watch guys didn’t see why the day watch should have all the fun. Try sleeping when you have water balloons whistling in and exploding against your hull around the clock. The next day they kept us pinned down inside the boat for most of the day. Sometimes surrender is your best option. Eventually, we tied a white T-shirt to the boat hook and raised the white flag out the forepeak hatch.

Of course, the Coasties wouldn’t let us live it down, so soon our captain decided that perhaps I wouldn’t need a visa to enter French Polynesia. We made our last trip to the grocery store and headed out.

As it turned out, my mom needn’t have worried about me being the one girl with two guys. Around day seven, Jim’s homemade self-steering gear broke. The stresses on that servo-pendulum type gear when beating to weather in 25 knot seas were just too much. That Islander 44 had a tiller and for the next 10 days we were hand steering on watch. We were only doing 2 on 2 off because of the strength required. I usually steered with my feet because my arms didn’t have the strength. Several times Jim, when the weather was particularly bad and I was exhausted, Jim offered to stand my watch for me. I wasn’t about to give in and show weakness. As the days went by, I grew stronger. I even got good enough at multitasking that I could steer with my feet, read a book and eat at the same time.

On that passage, Jim taught me to do the calculations to work a sight, and I started practicing taking sun shots. We used these old editions of H.O. 214 with a different volumes for each 10 degrees of latitude. For our time, we had a chronometer in a wooden box and an all-band receiver which we tuned in to “Greenwich Mean Time” to calibrate the chronometer whenever we could get the signal. Between the cooking, the navigation, the steering and the sleeping, the days passed fairly quickly. Because I didn’t have real foul weather gear — only a rain suit I’d bought at a drug store — I spent most of those 17 days soaked to the skin.

So on day 17 it was with great joy that we sighted the island of Nuku Hiva. Little did I know that only a few days later I would be hauled into the Gendarme’s office and accused of gun smuggling.

Fair winds!

Christine

Share on Facebook