In early May 2007 I sailed from San Juan, Puerto Rico, bound for Florida USA. The weather forecast was good and my course would take me up through the Bahamas. My steel Gaff Cutter had been my sole home for 9 years, just wandering in the Mediterranean, the Canaries and then across the Atlantic in December 2006 to the Leeward Islands.
I got caught by a Tropical Depression they called Andrea. Although Andrea developed off the Florida coast the effects were felt far to the South in the Bahamas. I ran before mountainous seas for 30 hours under storm rig, but being singlehanded eventually exhaustion caught me and I tried to get out of a reefed area into the open Atlantic where I could heave-to and sleep.
In total darkness and enormous seas I got it wrong and struck some isolated unlit rocks South of Ragged Island which lies North of Cuba.
Everything I owned except the jeans, boots, knife and T shirt I was wearing was lost. I had a grab bag with wallet, bank card and the usual abandon ship things like flares etc: stowed in it but things like family photos, my old service records, qualification certificates and literally everything from my past right back to my school days, went down with her. I spent 40 minutes in the surf getting battered before I got onto a tiny area of reef and the brilliant US Coast Guard picked me off the rocks at 02.00 hrs with one of their big helicopters out of San Juan.
Third party insurance only ( Full insurance is not obtainable for singlehanded ocean sailing) So when I arrived back in Uk with a plastic carrier bag with my wordly goods in, it was goodbye to the kids inheritance and start again....
2005 in happier times wintering in the Greek Islands..
..and new (secondhand) home since Miss Andrea..
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