After a brief stay in St. Augustine we left for Ft. Lauderdale. I really don’t remember why we left near midnight, tides I suppose, but I do remember the sea buoy missing our stern by about an inch!

Larry built the boat, Layla ("she’s got me on my knees"), in the seventies. She was a 30’, Ferro-cement Sampson ketch with a brand new rig and sails. Larry, Bill and a couple other guys dismasted her off Point Lookout in the early ‘80s. There was still some damage from that occasion so we worked on repairs in Lauderdale for a couple weeks as well as provisioning for the months ahead.

We were finally ready to go but we delayed another couple of weeks waiting for weather to cross to the Bahamas. Then things seemed to come together so we decided to cross that night. Somehow the hurricane slipped past our attention. I was busy stowing food, Kim was not a sailor, and the men decided the storm was small, far away, and going up the Gulf.

The first 12 hours weren’t too bad. It was rough but fun. Poor Kim was seasick from the start. Daylight brought some relief, the rain stopped a bit and we could see. Sometime that morning we were pooped big time. I was standing in the galley to the left of the companionway when I heard Bill yell over the storm. A 3’X3’ square of pale green water blasted through the companionway! It looked a lot like that scene in ‘The Blob’ where the monster squeezed out the projection booth window. The water filled the cabin about 5 ‘ deep! Thought we were dead right then. I got kind of angry though when I saw our new RDF float by accompanied by a half dozen oranges. I looked out the portlight into the cockpit to see if Bill was still there, he was, and pumping like a madman! We got her bailed out but the batteries were toast. I bolted a piece of mahogany 2X4 across the folding doors so they couldn’t swing open again. (Larry was pretty upset I’d sawed off a 4’ piece of his new toerail stock!) Larry got the engine hand started eventually and we were able to contact Jack Tar marina in the Bahamas. We were only about 5 miles out but just couldn’t get there. Larry asked for a tow but they said, "No Mon, too bad out dere!"

The padeye for the furler line tore off a 10’ section of the toerail, leaving a lethal splinter flailing around on the jib line. Larry and I fought to break it free, buried to our chests in the ocean. It was getting late in the afternoon, the storm was getting worse, and none of us had eaten or slept in over 30 hours. Kim was still puking into the galley sink, the radio barely worked, and we just couldn’t make any headway. The men were really exhausted, having had no relief since the pooping. I just didn’t have the experience to handle the helm in those conditions, so I kept myself busy putting together an abandon ship bag and stowing everything that could be stowed; if we flipped I did not want to be killed by a can of flying peas! The cat hid herself in the hanging locker forward and wouldn’t budge.

Larry came inside for a break finally at dark. For the next half-hour Bill yelled "Broach" every few minutes until we told him to "shut-up! We rather die surprised!" The sails were down, so Bill experimented with lashing the helm. He fiddled with it for an hour or so until he was satisfied and then came below. That was an eerie thing, the noise was unbelievable, the wind was blowing about 50 knots, seas 30’, and the boat was sailing herself! We’d done all we could so there was nothing left but to wait. We dropped onto sopping wet bunks in the saloon and tried to rest.

Larry was collapsed across the nav. station when he heard something on the radio. At first we thought it was the Coast Guard just checking up on us. Then we found out they were actually near us in a rescue helicopter! Apparently the people at Jack Tar called the Bahamian Coasties who called the USCG to let them know we were out there. The USCG checked the hurricane and our position and decided to come get us. The hurricane was blowing a steady 90 knots with gusts to 130, less than 2 hours from our position. That little white light coming out of the night was the best thing I’d ever seen! Option!

Then came the decision, leave or stay. I caught Bill giving me a strange, appraising look, I found out later he was trying to figure out a way to trick me into going if he stayed. I figured if Larry stayed, Bill would stay, if he stayed I’d stay etc. Bill just looked at Larry and said, "You can always replace a boat." We then prepared to abandon ship. I got passports, money and Ballast. I put her in our laundry bag, tied it closed, and put the loop over my shoulder on top of the life jacket. Then we went on deck. You wouldn’t believe how peaceful it had been down below compared to what met us on deck. Even the liferaft had disappeared.

The Coast Guard guys were wonderful. They dropped a monkey’s fist with a small line attached directly between Larry’s feet right on deck! They dropped the rescue basket into the water, to discharge the electric build-up, and we pulled it to the boat with the small line. Kim hopped right into the basket and up she went! I swear she didn’t even get wet! Then it was my, and the cat’s, turn. Another perfect toss and the basket was by the boat. I guess we got some cross-waves about then because the basket was pounding into the boat under the stern and I had a hard time getting into it. The cat in the sack didn’t help much. I was finally in and away. Suddenly, on the brink of rescue, I was deep underwater! I thought the cable had snapped and we were headed for the bottom. Then I got air and figured out it was just a huge wave. There were two more like the first before they hauled me up. I looked down at the scene, lit by the helicopter’s spotlight I could see the Gulf Stream indigo, the little red boat, the bright yellow sail cover on the jib, and the upturned white faces of Bill and Larry.

They poured me out of the basket onto the deck of the Sikorski, I crawled out of the way and started clawing at the laundry bag, to see if Ballast was dead or not. The basket guy was yelling at me to get in the back with "the other one" but eased up when he saw that cat head pop out of the bag! They got all excited about rescuing a cat. People and dogs they’d done before, but this was their first cat! I finally crawled to the back and watched while they brought up first Bill and then Larry.

The helicopter landed at Grand Bahamas, but there was no place left for them to secure the Sikorski from the storm, so they decided to return to West Palm Beach. We landed before dawn, still cold and wet. Bill and I were blessing the Line 7 foul weather jackets; we found dry smokes and matches in our pockets! So while the coasties checked in we hung around by a hanger, where were the soft warm blankets? The press? Do gooders with hot cocoa?

We got a lift with our rescuers to the local Hilton where the eight of us got rooms for the night. The desk clerk couldn’t quite figure out what it was all about. Once she did, she assigned a bellhop to help us. She suddenly noticed the cat and said there was a no pet policy. That took the wind out of the 4 people dressed in yellow. Then the 4 guys dressed in green ranged themselves around Ballast and said, "If the cat/dog leaves, we leave!" We all stayed. The bellhop was wonderful! He got me set up with a beer box and newspaper for the cat and then rounded up bathrobes, toothbrushes, combs, shavers, and even washed and dried our clothes. That hot bath was the best I’ve ever had in my life!

After some serious sleeping the four of us stumbled over to the West Palm Beach Mall to get clothes. We were a pretty ratty looking bunch. Bill was bare footed as his feet were torn up from the wet wool socks and sea boots. Of course security showed up and gave us a hard time until we told them the story. We walked in one end of that mall looking like castaways and out the other looking like models!

We drove up to Vero Beach to stay with Jack, another sailing buddy of ours, while we looked for the boat. Larry rented a small plane, and with the Coast Guard’s assistance, we searched likely areas for 2 weeks. We saw a container ship out there which was taking waves over the bows 10 days after we were rescued; it was still that rough. The day Larry and Kim were scheduled to fly back to California we got a call from the Coast Guard; they’d located the boat on the north side of Bimini! Leaving Ballast with Jack, the four of us flew to Bimini and there was Layla, lying on her side at the end of a long gouge across the shoals. We found a couple of local guys to take us out to Layla. She’d been salvaged, to put it politely, what was left was trashed by the storm and there was damage from another boat beating into the port side. The inside of the boat was a steamy stew of battered fruit, seawater, cat litter, and instant macaroni & cheese! The Rasta dudes felt sorry for us and passed around a Bahamian cocktail, which finally got us moving. They towed us off the shoals and we sailed around to the harbor entrance. With no charts left, we decided to anchor off for the night. We found some warm pink champagne and a bottle of rum the salvers missed so we had a pretty decent night. We sailed into the dock the next day, and spent the next 2 weeks getting the boat ready to go back to Vero Beach, using only 3 tools! Larry refused to buy " his" stuff back from the locals so we made do with: tool#1- the screwdriver from the toe rail had been in Larry’s pocket when we were air lifted. Tool#2- a 5lb. Lead maul he found in the bilge. Tool#3- the visegrips Larry broke down and bought when we found the engine was full of water and that 3 out of 4 of the engine mounts were loose.

We finally left Bimini when the seas were calm enough. We taped a Boy Scout compass to the binnacle and steered sort of NNE for the day. That night we discovered the compass was useless due to the metal in the flashlight. Bill and I had sailed out of Vero for a couple of years so we counted the glows in the sky to the east and headed above the northernmost one, figuring it was Boca. At first light we found ourselves just a few miles south of the Fort Pierce inlet!