In 1988 Bob Bitchin, a 6-foot, 4-inch, 330 pound tattooed biker from Hermosa Beach, sold his motorcycles, and his interests in Biker and Tattoo magazines, and bought a sailboat.
“Been going to too many friends’ funerals,” he said at the time, by way of explaining his conversion from a biker to a yachty. Bitchin did his best to maintain his outlaw image.
He named his boat Lost Soul. His burgee was a skull and cross bone. And he made no effort to hide the tattoos that cover 90 percent of his body. Oh, and “FTW” was blazoned on his mainsail.
Nevertheless, Bitchin found himself fitting in among the Blue Blazer set more comfortably than he was ready to admit. His newfound fraternity shared the same love of the open sea, of tall tales, of drinking, of breaking things just to prove you can fix them, and most significantly of all, of traveling from serenity to physical terror and back on a daily, if not hourly basis.
Bitchin used to travel 100,000 miles a year on his bikes. Over the past four years, moving at a slower, though no less exciting pace, he’s traveled an average of 10,000 miles a year over the ocean’s highways.
Last month Bitchin, and his crew, including fiance (now wife of 28 years!!) Jody Mason, returned to their home birth in the Portofino Marina in Redondo Beach, after a 20-month, 23,838 mike trek across two oceans and seven seas.
What follows are excepts from the Lost Soul’s journal as the crew made its way from the Panama Canal; up to San Andreas, Columbia; Honduras; Belize; the Dry Tortugas; Florida and the Bahamas.
Lost Soul Journal: Panama to the Bahamas.
After passing through the Panama Canal we waited for our friend Neill McNeil to join us in Colon, Panama. Colon is the worst place I’ve ever visited (with the possible exception of the Liberia, Costa Rica prison). You can’t go out after dark, and not in the daylight either, without riding in a taxi. Burned out cars and buildings are abundant and you are watched with hungry eyes if you even think about leaving the Panama Yacht Club, which is an armed encampment.
So it was with no great feeling of loss when we hauled anchor and headed out of the breakwater into the Caribbean. Our crew for this leg to Columbia was myself, Jody, Woody, and John and Sue Fisher.
As we headed north into the deep blue Caribbean we were greeted with 25 knots of head wind and seas running 10-12 feet. But it still felt clean and good to be out of Colon. For the next 30 hours we motor-sailed into the wind and seas. When we were about 15 miles out of San Andres Island, we were finally able to sail, and sail we did, doing about 8 knots!
All we’d hear about Columbia was that it is full of drug dealers and thieves. Well, it was as beautiful an Island as I’ve seen. It has brilliant blue and green waters over white sand and a protective reef surrounding the anchorage. I was a little surprised to see high-rise buildings and casino’s, but we soon learned that this Columbian outpost is a haven to drug cartels from all over the world. Our taxi driver Jimmy informed us that the large homes surrounding the harbor are owned by operators from Turkey, Greece, China, Spain and Hong Kong as well as Columbia.
The town was clean and well run, if not just a little on the expensive side. Guess it was OK if you made a few mill a day on illicit goodies, but us boaters were in a different boat. (Get it! Different boat! Oh, never mind.) In Panama a dish of chicken and rice was about $3. In San Andres you pay over $10.
Niel was awarded the “Plan Ahead” award while anchored in San Andres. It seems that while the rest of us were off snorkeling on a beautiful little motu near the anchorage, Niel decided to do a little swimming. He dove off the boat. Unfortunately, he forgot to lower the boarding ladder.
He swam around the boat four or five times before finally signaling a neighboring boat to launch their dingy and pick him up.
We made a rough two day crossing to a small reef just above the Nicaragua border called Media Luna Reef. We searched for a place to hide behind from the weather and get some sleep and all we could find was a small white sand island less then 200′ long and 50′ wide. We anchored in it’s lee for a good nights rest.
While we were anchored there, just as the sun set, a boat approached us. Now we had been warned that the Nicaraguans were notorious for robbing US boats near their borders, and we were just 4 miles from their border. They put a spotlight on us as they anchored, and for the next twelve hours we stood “anchor watch” with a loaded twelve gauge shotgun at the ready.
In the morning we found out that we were still alive and un-robbed so we hoisted anchor and headed out for Guanaja.
Guanaja is a small island just east of Roatan, and the settlement there is pretty damned unique. The town is located on a small Cay about one-half mile off Settlement Cay, and it is covered with homes and businesses. So many, in fact, many are built on stilts out over the water. As we landed to clear with the officials we were inundated with kids wanting to be our guides, so we picked one and he stuck to us like glue for the two days we stayed there, helping us get fruits and Vegetables, helping us with the Port Captain, and just generally being there.
Also while we were there we met Ivey and Betty, who have lived there for the last 23 years on a small islet off the small Cay that was the city. They had a dive resort that they’d set up when he retired. We stayed on a mooring he had for the next two days while diving near his resort. There were two wrecks at 60 feet and a sea wall that was unreal.
After diving and having a great dinner with them we had a good nights sleep and then headed out in the morning for Barbarette Island, about 13 miles away. It was just like Gilligan’s Island, but the castaways there consisted of two Hondurans who had been there for 16 days fishing and had very little luck. They were out of food and had a 35 mile row in their dugout canoes to get back to the mainland.
One man had cut his foot ten days earlier and it had infected pretty bad. They’d lived on coconuts and crabs and water they caught in shells. We doctored his foot and gave them some food, water, and cigarettes. They gave us some coconuts and sea shells. We feel we got the best of the deal because of how we felt inside. They were sure smiling as we lifted anchor to sail another five miles to a better anchorage for the night.
Well folks, it is time once again to delve in to the small world story.
Some 8 years ago (Okay, so now it’s about 30 years ago!) I was anchored in Lahaina, Hawaii when I spied a fellow boater from Redondo Beach. His name was Dan and he was there on his boat Provider. We had a few drinks and toasted Redondo Beach. Well, as we were sailing past Fantasy Island off the coast of Roatan, Honduras, here some eight years later we heard a call on the radio and we came on with some info the person wanted. It turned out to be Dan on a new boat called Rapid Transit that he was delivering to Cabo San Lucas.
We made plans to meet at the entrance to Fantasy Island. We had a great day doing the same thing we did the last time we met. Drinking at the local yacht club, this time the French Harbor Yacht Club at Fantasy Island.
After our hangovers became manageable the next day Dan left for the Panama Canal, and we headed down to the west end of Roatan to await nightfall. We anchored in one of the most beautiful beaches we’d seen, and at 10 p.m. raised anchor and headed west, to Glovers Reef in Belize.
Talk about paradise. It was the most beautiful places we’d ever seen (again).
A pristeen white coral island surrounded by a hundred or so shades of green and blue water.
We anchored in 12 feet of crystal clear aqua and were soon swimming to a virgin white sand beach. Later we went snorkeling on an isolated reef in the lagoon, and then it was back to the boat. Gotta rest sometimes, ya know?
The next day we sailed up to Northern Cay on Lighthouse Reef and did some more diving and had a few cocktails at the little dive resort there. We spent an easy night at anchor, and readied ourselves for the next day, when we’d sail for Mexico.
OK, has everybody got their “E” tickets in hand, because the next days trip was an “E”: ticket ride from the get-go. It started at dawn as we picked our way out of the shallow pass and into the deep blue. We hadn’t been motoring more then five minutes when we doused the engine and started our record sail.
For the next six hours we never did under 8 knots, at times reaching 10 knots. The 54 mile crossing from Lighthouse reef to Xcalak (we call it Ex-Lax and in a moment you’ll see why!) in Mexico took us all of five and a half hours.
But that’s not the fun part. It got fun as we approached the 75-foot wide pass into the reef at Ex-Lax. It seems that the 20-knot winds that pushed us there also built up some 10- 15-foot seas. They were breaking as we sailed for that little bitty hole in the reef. I felt like Dewey Weber on a 65-foot surfboard.
But that’s still not all the fun. Oh, no! The fun started as we were surfing trough this little hole in a 42 ton boat. Now that was exciting, specially as we watched the depth meter read 30-20-15-10, and, well, you get the picture. I don’t know if I was the biggest wreck, or my crew, who stood transfixed waiting for the crash.
It didn’t come, at least not yet.
We made the pass and turned north into the lagoon trying to find a place to anchor, but the depth sounder must have been wrong. It could really be just 8 feet in here, could it?
Well, actually no, it wasn’t. It was 6 feet, AND WE DRAW 8′!!!
You got it. We went up on the reef. Grounded out. For the first time in over 55,000 miles of sailing, I grounded.
Well, they say you ain’t been around until you been aground…. I guess now I can say I was cruising! For the next hour the six of us, and Bill from a Catalina 38 called Marauder, worked at getting the 42-ton Lost Soul off the bottom. We were jammed tighter then a Mae Wests corset. First we tried to back her off, then to go forward. Then we attached a line to the top of our halyard and tried to pull her over. Then we took our storm anchor and set it 300′ away, in deeper water, and tried to kedge off. Finally we tried all of the above, and also raised all of our sails and pushed with the two dingy’s. We did it! Damn, did we feel good as we set our hook (still with 300′ of line!) and invited Bill and his lady over for some chili, wine and talk about getting large boats off of shallow bottoms.
It really brought the crew together too. They worked so well together you’d think they had rehearsed. It’s times like that which make you feel alive.
But the next day was the real “E” ticket ride. It made the previous day look like child’s play. It started after we had checked into Mexico, as this was our first port on the Caribbean side of Mexico. Clearance was easy and we finished by 10 a.m. After a five minute walk through the dusty village, where we only saw about three people and two dogs, Jody and I headed back to the boat. The rest of the crew went ashore and after a five minute walk were ready to return to the boat, also. There was nothing in the town to look at. Not even a bar or restaurant. Besides that, the winds had picked up and the swells inside the reef were starting to bounce us on the bottom, so we decided to leave and head up to Chincharo Bank, a reef about 40 miles north.
We picked up our anchor and headed toward the place we entered the reef the day before. The winds were blowing at about 30-35 knots and the seas had kicked up to at least 10-15 feet.
Yeah, surf, like in “Hey Moondoggie, grab the board”. Full on 15 foot breaking waves were coming in the narrow pass.
Well, as you all know, I ain’t a whole lot bright, so I decided we should go for it. We lined up the hole in the reef with the lighthouse and headed out into the pass. As we hit it (or should I say it hit us?) a wave broke over the whole boat, filling our aft stateroom with sea water, as we had left the aft hatch open. Who expected waves this big?
I spun the wheel from port to starboard trying to hold her straight into the waves and plunged the throttle to full, pushing it up to 2000 RPM. Usually I would be doing about nine-and-a-half at that RPM. We were standing still.
Standing still! At full throttle? The Lost Soul lurched up into a wave and then had another break over her. The seas were high and close, and the boat seas-horsed up and down as the seas continued to break over us. The depth sounder read from a high of 28 feet to a low of 6 feet. Yeah, six feet. We managed to keep from bottoming out but I don’t know how. It seemed like hours, but actually it took about 10 minutes to get through the surf and out into the sea. That was the longest 10 minutes of my life! If we had broached and turned beam to the wind we would have been smashed in the surf.
Everyone was high as we broke out of the surf and into the sea. We raised the main sail to steady us and looked back over the breaking surf we’d just come through. Unbelievable is all we could say, but we did it. Or should I say the Lost Soul did it. We were all pretty proud of her as we set the headsail and made our 8 knots in to the beating sea to our next anchorage.
The seven hour sail to Chincharro reef finally brought us all down to reality. It was almost with a calm demeanor that we passed the reef and motored over the 8- 9-foot bottom and set our hook behind the reef. We felt we’d seen it all that day.
Of course reality made us take a second look a while later when we put on our snorkel gear and looked under the boat. It’s hard to imaging a 42 ton boat riding just 10-12 inches above the sea floor. That’s all there was under us for the night we anchored, but by now we just accepted it. We were getting jaded.
OK, enough is enough. I’ve had it with “E” tickets and never want another “E” ticket ride. It seems that the seas Gods were not through with us as yet, and in order to thoroughly trounce us, she decided to give us a full gale as we were anchored with our silly few inches under us. By morning we were bouncing on the bottom, again. Hell in three days my boat’s seen more bottom then a toilet seat!
We decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and raised our anchor. With a gale blowing we didn’t stand a chance in the shallow water we were in, so we decided to make the 102 miles crossing to Cozumel with the gale blowing off our butts. They say sailing downwind is fun, but in 50,000 miles I haven’t seen enough to know.
Anyway, we headed carefully out of the anchorage. The water went from 8-1/2-feet to 9, then to 10, and when it hit 11 we were feeling pretty good. We were doing about five knots with the wind pushing us along pretty well. No sails up, just the gale pushing us out under bare poles. We were almost out.
“Crash!” All of a sudden the boat stopped dead in her tracks. No warning, nothing. Just one second the depth sounder said 11 feet, then the next she was buzzing 6! Six feet! We draw 8′! We had hit a coral head and hit it hard. The boat came to a shuddering halt and people fell trying to hold themselves up. The 30-knot winds behind us was pushing us up on the coral and the boat heeled to a sickening degree. I slammed it into reverse and gave it full throttle. Slowly we made a gradual turn and when the wind was on our starboard it helped us pull off the coral head.
With my heart in my throat we finished finding our way out of the reef and once in deep water Woody jumped overboard. With the seas boiling and the gale blowing he dove down and assessed the damage. A chunk was knocked out of the bottom of the keel but other then that it looked like it was OK. The rudder was untouched.
He climbed aboard and we hoisted a reefed mainsail and turned toward our destination, some 100 miles off. It was 8 a.m.. Already we’d had a hell of a day, but it was to get even more exciting.
For the next 11-1/2 hours we set a new record for the Lost Soul. Over 100 miles. We averaged right at 9 knots for the crossing, and we were in sight of land before sunset.
As it got dark we headed for the lee of the island so we could get some rest. We were beat.
It almost seems mundane now to tell of our sail up to Isla Mujeres. The most excitement hit just as we passed Punta Cancun. The front we were racing beat us, and we were hit by one of the biggest fronts I’ve seen in awhile. All of a sudden we were trying to feel our way through a reef studded pass with 50 knots winds blowing first from the south, then the north, and rain coming down so hard you couldn’t see the front of the boat. Top all that off with the most hellatious lightening and thunder coming down around us, and you get a small idea of what hell must be like. I felt as if I were coming in by Braille. We made it through, found a place to anchor and settled in at Isla Mujeres.
It’s almost anticlimactic to tell you of the 25 knot winds that pushed us off anchor, but we finally got our anchor to stick, and John went in to the shrimpers Co-op and liberated 2 kilos of jumbo shrimp, which we served over cracked ice, and discussed the events of the past three days.
Just three days had seen the poor Ol’ Lost Soul hard on the ground, ramming coral heads, breaking records and surfing waves and surviving one of the biggest fronts she’s seen.
And to think, we could have been at home in Redondo, watching TV!
Unfortunately there came a dark side when we got anchored in Isla Mujeres. There was a message waiting at the Marina there for John and Sue. While we were at sea John’s mother had passed away. They had just one day to get back home for the funeral, and they hurriedly packed and caught the next plane out.
Jody, Woody, Niel and I sat out the next few days at anchor in Isla Mujeres waiting for the winds to die down and for our next crew to fly in.
Peter and Vilhelm showed up right on time from Manhattan Beach and after two days of drinking and thinking we hoisted anchor and headed out for another leg of our adventure. This time 290 miles, from the Yucatan Peninsula to Key West, Florida via the Dry Tortugas.
The first day went pretty much as we have come to expect. Winds on our nose and blowing strong. Then, right at sunset we got hit with the mammy of all fronts. This damn thing made the one we hit when we came into Cancun seem like a summers day. From nowhere we were hit with winds up to 50 knots, from both sides (?) and thunder, lightening and rain in buckets. This lasted for no less then two hours, when it slowed down to 35 knots on our nose (of course). This lasted through the evening.
The next day was pure heaven as we sailed with 15 knots of wind off our beam and the seas settled in as well. We thought we had it a little too good, and at sunset we found we were right. Another front just like the one the night before was there. We turned on our radar and tracked the squalls, and actually managed to steer around them through the night, and made it without a drop of rain, which was weird since we were literally surrounded by squalls.
At noon the following day we arrived at the Dry Tortugas. This was also kinda weird since I’d said as we left Mexico we arrive at 11:30, and a 30 minute margin for a three day crossing is pretty darned good, if I do say so myself. And I do, since no one else will!
The Dry Tortugas are made up of three small keys (They call ‘em Cays everywhere else, but us Americans have always been weird). On the larger of them is Fort Jefferson, a humongous brick fort built right down to the waters edge. It was built in the 1800s and is the most remote of the National Monuments. The anchorage was crowded with fishing boats at night, but during the day we had the place to ourselves, except for all the damned seaplanes that kept landing and taking off around us. I felt like we were anchored in the middle of the runway at LAX!
The next night we did an uneventful but very calm motorsail from the Dry Tortugas to Key West, Florida. It was an 80-mile cruise that was done in the best weather we’ve seen in a while. On our arrival we called customs to clear in, and were given a clearance number over the phone! Talk about easy clearance procedures!
Key West is a Jimmy Buffett, Ernest Hemingway park. Talk about culture shock! Everywhere we went had Jimmy Buffet music, and a photo of “Papa” Hemingway on the wall. We had a slip with electricity, running water and cable (which we never hooked up due to a lack of time to watch TV) and a bar at the end of the dock. Three days of decadence and relaxation at $100 per day for the slip!.
Well, not exactly relaxation, as we pulled our mainsail to have some repairs done, spent Biblical amounts of money at the local West Marine store, and generally cleaned up four months of cruising foreign ports and heavy seas.
At the end of the three days Hippy Pete and Vilhelm boarded a Greyhound for Miami to fly back to LA, and Woody’s Lady Holly flew in for the trip to Ft. Lauderdale.
OK, OK, stop the presses! I have the small world story of all small world stories.
Jody and I were walking down Duval Street in Key West the day before we were planning to leave, looking for a good place to get an anchovy and garlic pizza (they taste better then they smell!). All of a sudden we hear “Hey, Bob Bitchin” from the door of Sloppy Joe’s Bar. Out steps Roy Strawn, whom I lived with some 16 years ago in Hermosa Beach and who used to be the director of the American Motorcycle Drag Racing Association. He pulled us into Sloppy Joe’s, and for the next few hours we relived the past. Now he’s the director of Activities at Sloppy Joe’s, the most famous bar in Key West, and he has his own radio show at nights.
We were forced to drink large quantities of alcoholic beverages and were coerced into dancing, laughing and generally having fun, which we normally never do.
I don’t think I will ever be surprised again by when or where I run into someone!
We barely escaped Key west with our lives, but escape we did. Jody, Woody, Holly and I made the break and headed out with a beautiful sunset and motored through the night and passed the million lights of Miami Beach and into Ft. Lauderdale the next morning.
For the next leg of the sail we had my Friend Danny who’s the bartender at the Bull Pen in Riviera Village and his friend Mary fly in. We cast off our lines at sunset and headed out to cross the Gulf Stream. A short overnight sail found us going across the Great Bahamas Bank.
At midday we anchored off of Chub Cay to try and check in. It was here we learned how rude folks could be.
You see, they want you to pull into the marina to check in (and pay them $65 for the privilege of tying up in the marina).
Our problem was that we draw 8 feet, and there was only 7’6″ clearance going in.
This didn’t make a difference to the man doing clearance, who basically told us to go away. He couldn’t be bothered if we didn’t come into the marina. There was another boat with a Korean couple in it that couldn’t get in either, so we both sailed six miles down to a clean anchorage and spent the night
In the morning they sailed to Nassau to check in, and we opted to sail 17 miles to a small place called Morgan’s Bluff on Andro’s Island. Andros is a little visited island, but it is the largest in the Bahamas.
Morgan’s Bluff was named for Capt. Morgan (it seems like every place in the Caribbean or Atlantic has a Morgan,s something). It’s where he used to hang out when not plundering and raping.
As it turned out we were very happy we went to Morgan’s Bluff. The people were friendly, the water was deep and the customs agent was easy to get along with. He only hit us up for a $20 service fee, and he smiled when he got it.
In the next journal entry we find the crew of the Lost Soul ensconced in all sorts of debauchery drinking port in Puerto Rico, looking for Virgins in the Virgin Islands, and checking out the Antiques in Antigua.
But that’s another story.
