First to Fort Lauderdale

Having hired a Dodge Aspen from the airport in Miami we fixed Jethro into a car seat and headed twenty miles North to Fort Lauderdale. We found a motel with a room called an efficiency, which meant it had a neat little kitchen. They provided a portable bed for Jethro. There was a swimming pool on one side and the Atlantic ocean on the other. After a dawn walk along the beach dodging jellyfish, we went back to the motel for a swim and breakfast. Then we headed for East 17th Street where most of the yacht brokers were located.

In those first ten days we looked at dozens yachts for sale by eager salesmen. We saw a Morgan Out Island 41 bristling with electrical goodies, a 55 foot ketch which had been sailed from the Isle of Man, a 36 foot Cheoy Lee and a 1935 Scottish built canoe-stern ketch. There was a Hong Kong built Globe yacht designed by William Garden. The most frequent phrase we heard from these brokers was,

“If you don’t buy this I will buy it myself!”

All were very nice but not right for us. We had narrowed down our preferences to a maximum of 40 feet for ease of handling short-handed and less expensive for dockage. It should be big enough to have a separate cabin for Jethro and any prospective guests. Jon thought a ketch rig would be most suitable and flexible, and a sound diesel engine for when we could not make way under sail.

The impounded yacht for sale by DEA

One keen broker assured us he had just the thing:

“We got us a spoilt playboy’s yacht been impounded by the Drugs Enforcement Agency ! This can be snapped up for a song! “

We went aboard. An unpleasant smell came from the galley where food was spoiling in the defrosted fridge. There was a washing machine, a tumble dryer, a microwave oven, an ice maker, but not much in the way of navigation instruments or charts. Whilst we were looking at the rigging, a Lucille Ball lookalike came tottering down the dock in high heels carrying a mop and bucket.

“Get the hell out here!” She squeaked at us angrily. “My son is in jail and here you are like vultures before I even got a chance to clean up!”

By this time we were weary from the over exuberance of yacht brokers and the disappointing selection of boats we had been shown. We decided to go down to the Virgin Islands to see what we could find there.

Too much choice, nothing we liked

A few years previously Jon had been Best Man at the wedding of his Fastnet friends Nigel and Elizabeth Pattison. For their honeymoon they had set off to sail around the world. They kept in touch regularly. Arriving in the Virgin Islands they had established a day charter business taking out guests from the Rockefeller hotel called Little Dix in Virgin Gorda. They informed us in one of their blue folded airmail letters:

“Having found paradise there seems no point in going any further. We will not be going through the Panama Canal, but staying right here. This is the life!“

So to continue our ‘recce’ trip we should visit the British Virgin Islands.
Dropping off the Dodge at Miami airport we went to buy tickets to the B.V.I.

“No No, man. You can’t buy single tickets to Tortola if you do not have return tickets to England… that is their immigration rules,” we were informed.

Then to St Thomas, USVI

So with three month visitors visas stamped okay for the U.S.A. we bought tickets instead to St Thomas in the U.S.V.I. We spent a few days looking at unsuitable yachts for sale in Charlotte Amalie and Red Hook. Jethro was astonished to see a sea plane taking off near the ferry terminal. None of the boats for sale there appealed to Jon so we bought ferry tickets to the British Virgin Islands just a few miles away.

We sat outside on the top deck of the Bomber Charger ferry which took us across the one hour journey to West End on Tortola. We passed many small islets often having only one large house. The ferry motored on past the beautiful north shores of St John and many uninhabited islets. When we cleared in to the British Territory the customs man said nothing about return tickets to England as he stamped our passports. American visitors were allowed in just showing a driving license! It was St Patrick’s Day. In the taxi drive to Village Cay the driver gave Jethro a slice of pineapple. We noticed the startling difference between heavily built up St Thomas and this much less developed island. It felt wonderful.

And then Tortola, BVI

For the next two weeks we checked into a bunk bedded hotel room at Village Cay Marina/Hotel. This was built on recently reclaimed land at Wickhams Cay in the heart of Road Town. Jon slept in the top bunk, me on the bottom bunk and Jethro in a large drawer. We admired all the yachts in the marina, including White Squall II which I had read about, Athena and Mar II.

Jethro was bemused when I took him to the bathroom along the corridor that there was a Rastafarian asleep on one of the couches.

“Is he alright, Mummy?” Jethro piped up.

”Yes sweetheart, “ I reassured him. “He is just very tired.”

In the bathroom was a sign over the WC saying, “Here in the Islands of the Sun, We never Flush for number One”. Due to the scarcity of fresh water, I supposed.

In a hired a Jeep we drove to Nanny Cay Marina where a charming older couple called Warren and Bill Mackey ran a yacht brokerage with the help of their chunky beagle, Napoleon. They showed us a Morgan centre cockpit with no walk through. In the next slip was a veritable pirate ship which had been for sale for three years and was a bargain.

First visit to Nanny Cay

Beautifully built by American Marine Hong Kong in 1960, Camelot was a Mayflower 40. One of only twelve ever built. She looked dreadfully neglected but had lovely lines and phosphor bronze deck fittings and portholes. There were no winches but there were belaying pins. The hull was 2 inch thick teak planks on yackal frames. She had a gaff-rigged mainsail with a Bermudan mizzen sail. There was a magnificent aft state room and four wide berths in the cabins. Another pilot berth was located in the wheelhouse. With teak-laid decking and a splendid raised poop deck and a galleon stern, there were two steering positions. One was in the centre cockpit by the engine controls and a second high up on the poop deck at the stern. Opening windows in the transom and more ornate windows in the aft stern quarters made her bright and spacious. There was even a wood burning stove in the saloon.

Bill scratched his chin and said,

“ You all need to regard everything as useless! The decks leak, the engine is seized, all wiring needs replacing, water pump broken and the bowsprit rotten as a carrot. “

My eyebrows were knitted but Jon had a look of sheer ecstasy. Apparently we had found the dream boat he was looking for.