THE OCEAN, A BOAT AND A WOMAN

Story of a dream come true A memoir

Luis Coppelli M.D. THE OCEAN, A BOAT AND A WOMAN The meaning of life is to make our dreams come true Author Luis Coppelli M.D. email: [email protected] To my dear wife, who made possible the realization of my dream Design: Isabel Vásquez Andriola ISBN English edition: 978-1-7370643-0-5 Digital Edition Language: English and Spanish First Spanish language edition: September 20, 2020 Web page: www.scheherazade.cl Copyright: Luis Coppelli M.D. Visit our web page to access an interactive map and many more pictures and purchase the book INDEX

Acknowledgments ...... 13

Yacht Scheherazade’s schematic of the rigging ...... 17

Yacht Scheherazade specifications ...... 19

Prolog ...... XX

Chapter one: The dream...... 21

Chapter two: The boat...... 21

Chapter three: The woman...... 21

Chapter four: México...... 21

Chapter five: Catalina and dad...... 21

Chapter six: Two years in México...... 21

Chapter seven: The Pacific crossing...... 21

Chapter eight: Nuku Hiva and the Marquesas...... 21

Chapter nine: The Tuamotus...... 21

Chapter ten: Tahití...... 21

Chapter eleven: The other Societies...... 21

Chapter twelve: Bora Bora...... 21

7 Chapter thirteen: Rarotonga and Niue...... 21 Chapter twenty-eight: The Atlantic crossing; anatomy of a passage...... 21 Chapter fourteen: Fiji...... 21 Chapter twenty-nine: The Rio to Buenos Aires passage. Summer Chapter fifteen: Fiji to New Zealand passage...... 21 of 2008-2009...... 21 Chapter sixteen: New Zealand...... 21 Chapter thirty: Argentina, the dream becomes a nightmare...... 21 Chapter seventeen: The Tasman Sea...... 21 EPÍLGO...... 21 Chapter eighteen: Australia...... 21

Chapter nineteen: The top of Australia and the Torres Strait.....21

Chapter twenty: The Arafura Sea and Darwin...... 21

Chapter twenty-one: Darwin, change of plans...... 21

Chapter twenty-three: The Sea of Timor and Ashmore Reef.

The gate to the Indian Ocean...... 21

Chapter twenty-three: Scheherazade’s sojourn in mid-ocean. Christmas Island and Cocos Keeling...... 21

Chapter twenty-fou: On the high seas again, the way to Mauritius...... 21

Chapter twenty-five: South Africa...... 21

Chapter twenty-six: The bottom of Africa; the rounding of the Cape of Storms...... 21

Chapter twenty-seven: Preparations for the mighty Atlantic...... 21

8 9 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

his book is the result of an obsession with the ocean and boats that I have had since childhood. An obsession that grew over T the years, and fortunately, despite the many obstacles that life presents, thanks to the help from many people that I had the luck to meet, the dream, as I call it, became a reality.

First and foremost, I must thank my wife Ramona (Mona), to whom this book is dedicated. Her love and commitment made it all possible, always by my side, supporting me and my crazy ideas, with her uncanny common sense, especially in those weak moments, notwithstanding being seasick every single time that she stepped on the boat. She went along for over ten years, in the cramped accommodations of the ship, not only as my first mate but also as a companion, mother, and daughter’s teacher.

I owe Catalina (Cata or Catita), our daughter, my apologies for having taken her, for long years, away from her friends and the joys of being a regular kid and for having placed her in that cramped boat with adults with no space to run and play. I also want to thank my other kids. First of all, Francesca, our oldest daughter that I have no doubt, would have shared with us much more of our life at sea should she not have been involved with medical school, residency, and finally as a doctor (where she has excelled, and always has made me proud), and later with her own family. Rodrigo, my older son and sail mate, with whom we shared fabulous sailing moments thru some of the most isolated and treacherous waters in the world. And of course, Louis, who with his wit and lighthearted demeanor, made some of the long passages a breeze.

I cannot forget my best friend, partner, and master surgeon Alfonso Muñoz who took care of my patients and carried my surgical practice better than I could have, while I leisurely enjoyed sailing the oceans of the world. Without his help, it would have been much more difficult, if not impossible, to realize this dream. I also want to thank our employers

1 1 at the time, Banner Health, for allowing us to live our dream while at the same time maintaining our Jobs with full pay and insurances. A heartfelt thanks to Isabel Vasquez Andriola and Jose Miguel Olmos; they helped me with the book design, the maps, and the web page attached to the book.

Last but not least, I give thanks to the hundreds of people that helped us along the way and everywhere we stopped. One of this book’s conclusions is that the world is full of good people and that the misery and evil we hear and see in the daily news is not what we are as human beings.

Luis Coppelli

Visita el sitio web www.scheherazade.cl para interactuar con nuestros viajes y ver las fotos en colores. Mona and I at the beginning of our life together

12 1 3 SCHEHERAZADE’S LAYOUT AND SCHEMATIC OF ESPECIFICACIONES DE HANS CHRISTIAN 38 MARK II THE RIGGING

BUILDER HANS CHRISTIAN TACHTS, INC. DESIGNER HARDWOOD S. IVES CONSTRUCTION ENGINEER LEO LANDSTEINER LENCH OVERALL 46´ 0´´ LENCH ON DECK 37´ 9´ LENCH WATERLINE 33´ 0´ BEAM 12´ 6´´ CRAFT 6´ 0´´ DISPLACEMENT 27, 500 BALLAST 10, 300 CAST IRON ENCAPSULATED FREEBOARD: FWD 6´ 1´´ AMIDSHIPS 3´ 4 1/2´´ AFT 4´ 10´´ WATERLINE BEAM 11´ 2´´ BRIDGE CLEARANCE SAIL AREA: MAIN 346 STAYSAIL 158 288 LAPPER 633 I 52´ TO STEP J 22´ E 15´ 4 TANKCAGE: FUEL OIL 145 US CAL. WATER 170 HOLDING 25 SHEETS AND 1/2” YACHTBRAID, 7.500 TEST DESIGN DATA

/IN. INMERSION (NOMINAL) 1400 HULL SPEED (THEORETICAL) 7.69 KT SPEED/LENGTH RATIO (HULL SPEED) 1.34 PRISTATIC COEFFICIENT .531 LONGITUDINAL CENTER OF BUOTANCY 6.37 STATION CENTER OF LATERAL PLANE 7.15 STATION BLOCK COEFFICIENT ( INCL.) .184 DISPLACEMENT/LENGHT 342 BEAM/LENGTH .336 SAIL AREA/DISPLACEMENT 16.27 LEAD CE-CLP /100% TRI.) 25.45 I BALLAST/DISPLACEMENT 37.2 8.2% AREA PROPULSION 125-155 CU. IN. DIESEL, 3:1 REDUCTION DISPLACEMENT/HP 893-595 (CONTINUOUS) KEEL NACA FOIL (MODIFIED) RUDDER 10% BALANCED

Hans Christian Yaches International, Ltda. BUILDERS OF THE HANS CHRISTIAN 33, 38 T, 36 MO, 30 PH, 43 T2, 44PH, &48 6201 BAYSHORE WALK LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA 90803 TELEX: 691600 TCI LSA HCY

1 5 PROLOGUE

was in a daze; Mona had woken me up after an hour of deep sleep. It was 2 AM; I had gone down below two hours earlier, I leaving her in the cockpit to keep an eye on an ominous line of enormous cargo ships that were sailing not a mile off our port side. The vessels looked like a string of pearls, following the tight shipping lanes leading toward the busy Los Angeles Harbor. We were motor sailing on the way to Catalina Island out of San Diego, and it was our first overnight passage together. Louis, my seven-year-old son, was sound asleep in his bunk. There had been a steady swell from the northwest, which, thus far, had made the trip uncomfortable. There was no wind, and the moon - always that reassuring beacon during a night passage - had disappeared under the western horizon. I found out later that Mona had been seasick from the time we had rounded Point Loma after leaving behind San Diego Bay’s tranquil waters. She hadn’t said a word; she had helped me with the watch, had put Louis to sleep, had even pretended to enjoy the pasta dinner that I prepared partly to impress her with my culinary skills. I didn’t realize that she had gotten rid of that dinner by emptying her stomach several times over the lifelines.

As I climbed up the companionway, she pointed towards the vessels in the distance and said nervously, “I think we are getting too close to those ships; shouldn’t we turn away?” Indeed, we had been drifting westward for a while. We either had to change course to starboard, towards land, away from the shipping lane, or cross between the ships to the far side. We opted for the latter, waited for the right time to turn into that busy sea highway, and threading between those monster ships, we reached a stretch of ocean clear of traffic. Soon after, cuddling next to me, Mona fell asleep in the cozy cockpit. Just about an hour later, I spotted the flashing beacon of the lighthouse at the southern end of Catalina Island. Soon we were in its lee, and our ride became much more comfortable.

1 7 It was a beautiful late May morning; the wind had picked up, the sails were up, and our engine was off. Porpoises, so abundant in those waters, played all around the boat to culminate a lovely passage. As we entered the Two Harbors anchorage, at the northeast end of the Island, I wished for this to be the beginning of a long sailing life for both of us. Chapter 1 THE DREAM

began sailing as a teenager on Chile’s central coast, where I was born and raised. The country’s geography of ocean and mountains I (that leave in between fertile valleys that grow some of the best fruits and wines in the world today) makes it difficult not to think and dream about either. That was my case. While I grew up inland, in the capital city of Santiago, close to the beaches of Viña del Mar and the great seaport of Valparaiso, my sister and I vacationed and spent every holiday at an aunt’s home by the seaside. During those long summer days, I used to spend hours wandering alone around the commercial and navy wharves of the harbor or hanging out in nearby beaches swimming in the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean. The attraction of a life at sea began at an early age around that waterfront, watching the mean-looking navy ships, massive cargo vessels from distant lands, and the coming and going of dinghies and fishing boats. I dreamed that someday my life would be part of all that. At the end of the summer, when it was time to go back to school in Santiago, I vividly remember the sadness that I felt upon leaving the coast for the dread of the big city. During the train ride back home, I could not stop thinking how much I would like to live closer to the ocean instead of having to say farewell to what I loved. As the old train would begin to roll out of the station while looking at the receding waters of the harbor, I would promise to myself that someday I would be back and stay.

My father, a navy man, also contributed to my obsession with the sea by telling me stories of his life among ships and the waters he had sailed. I clearly remember him showing me old photos of beautiful armored cruisers and dreadnaughts * that fueled my imagination of a life at sea. However, his dismissal from the navy for refusing to go back with his family to the isolation of the southern Chilean channels in Patagonia - where he had spent a good part of his life - gave him certain resentment

18 1 9 to the uniform that percolated towards me and gave me no desire to On a whim, I approached him, and after talking for a few minutes, we pursue a career in the navy. My future as the oldest of three siblings, were out for a short sea trial. We agreed on a price and without thinking in a family of modest means, was the topic of many talks around the twice, I wrote a check for the total amount. Suddenly, I was a happy and dinner table; for Mom and Dad, the only careers worth pursuing - that proud boat owner of a yacht named Suzie Q. I am sure it was the fastest would assure a successful life - were medicine, law, or engineering. boat sale ever! That evening, having checked out of the fancy hotel where I was staying, cold but happy, I slept in my new boat. I felt it My mother’s nursing profession was most likely one of the deciding was an all-around good deal for me; the marina, where the ship was factors for pursuing a medical career. Talk of her close work with berthed, was located within walking distance of the airport. I had doctors in surgery made a deep impression on me in those young managed to include in the agreement the man’s old car, a Chevrolet years. As I became interested in medicine, I began reading books Chevelle that he kept in the parking lot for his use in town while in the about doctors, including some of Cronin’s novels and other nonfiction boat. It was a very convenient arrangement; I could fly from Arizona, books about great men of medicine, like Albert Schweitzer and walk off the plane, be at the boat in a matter of minutes, and I would Alexander Fleming - the discoverer of penicillin. I ended up going even have a car to get around while in San Diego. to medical school, where I did well while my mother and later the rest of the family left Chile for the US due to political strife and From that day on, I spent every weekend and holiday in that boat. Soon I better opportunities. I began dinghy and pilot class sailing during was sailing around San Diego Bay, happy as a clam. I enjoyed Sue - as I high school and university years in other people’s boats, always began calling Suzie Q. I started spending many hours going through looking and envying those navigating big ocean-going yachts. When I every inch of that boat. I liked its nimbleness and easy handling, but became a doctor, my thoughts were to become a ship’s physician in the more I knew about the boat, I realized that I needed a larger yacht, the merchant marine position that would allow me to combine my one that would allow me to do some cruising to the nearby Islands profession, which I loved, with an adventurous life at sea. All this of the California coast, in some comfort with my kids. After about a ended when I entered my internship and fell in love with surgery. I year of owning Sue, I traded up to a larger, stouter but older , an quickly decided to make that my specialty. The turmoil of the country, Islander 32 named Moon Dance. My new acquisition had nice lines, a due to the election of a socialist government and the subsequent coup nice although Spartan interior, and a comfortable cockpit that suited d’état, in the early seventies, made it easy for me to accept a residence us - the children and me - well. After about a year and have gotten position in surgery at a hospital in northern New Jersey where I quite proficiently single handling the boat, I realized that it needed moved. By that time, married and expecting a child, I entirely dedicated significant improvements to make it the true cruise yacht I wanted. over the next few years to master the specialty. After completing all Moon Dance had an old gasoline engine, an Atomic 4 that I wanted to those long years of training, we settled (by that time, I had two kids) replace for a safer diesel unit. The old winches were worn out and also in Arizona, where I spent most of my professional career in mountain needed new ones; it also required a complete set of new sails… towns far away from where my heart was; the ocean.In the mid- replacing all that was more money than the boat was worth! Putting eighties, it became an obsession to get back to the sea. I had a many more of those hard-earned dollars in that old yacht - that was very successful career, three beautiful kids, and two marriages that, nice, but as I knew more about sailing, cruising, and having already sadly, had ended in divorce. I was devouring sailing books and begun thinking about offshore passages - was not the boat to keep. At was subscribed to more boating magazines than I could read. I the time to trade, the resale value would not allow me to recuperate felt the need to go back to the ocean; boating in the Arizona lakes the investment. Again, I began to look around. was not it… Crazy in the Night was the name of the boat berthed next to me at the On a summer weekend while in San Diego, while jogging marina. It was a Cal 39 that had raced in the Gulf of Mexico around around Harbor island and envying all those people working in their Galveston. The owner was was hardly ever around and never took it boats, I saw a small yacht, a Catalina 27, with a man on board, who out for a sail. It also was a nice but neglected boat with a serious appeared to be the owner, putting up a for sale sign. e,20 2 1 potential that, with a little bit of elbow grease and some cash, could was and is, until today, that part of the allure of sailing is the beauty be made to look and, perhaps, perform as the offshore cruiser of the and the comfortable feel that one experiences upon stepping on a size and caliber that I wanted. While doing some work on Moon fine yacht. To me, during those long, sometimes stormy nights at Dance one weekend, I noted that Crazy in the Night was chained and sea, thecoziness of a boat’s cabin with its warm wood interior seems paddle-locked to the dock. As I found out later, the owner had not to wrap around the sailor, refreshing his or her spirit. Crazy in the paid its berthing fees for over six months, and soon after, the boat was Night had nothing of that. However, I was grateful for her forgiven put up for sale; I wanted that boat!... What I didn’t need was to be a demeanor at sea and sturdy construction that allowed me to learn the two-boat owner. I had no idea how long it would take for Moon tricks of larger boat handling in tight places, which has been, at least Dance to sell. The broker for C - I - N, as I begun calling Crazy in for me, always a source of stress. However, deep in my mind, my the Night and the marina manager who wanted his money, found a dream was for a different kind of boat; I continued looking around … buyer for my boat that would pay considerably less money than I had spent for her a year earlier. That was not going to be an issue since I One weekend, coming back to the marina, I saw a very “salty” looking would get Crazy in the Night for a reduced price. The deal went boat * a couple of docks away where C - I - N was berthed. Madam through in no time. was true, what I always thought would be a dream cruising yacht. I had seen the advertisement for these vessels in all those glossy magazines that I read for years. I always felt that they were out of my reach due to the high price they commanded as new. I also knew that they were somewhat hard to maneuver - due to their heavyweight and full keel. I had the feeling that I was not yet ready for a boat like that. I understood they were not boats made for an afternoon sail around the bay or even for an overnight trip up to Catalina Island; they were built for distant anchorages and the open oceans of the world. Madam, (a 38 foot ten- year-old Hans Christian) was a veteran of the South Pacific and Hawaii. She had just returned from Mexico, where she had spent several seasons and, according to the owner - with whom I had become acquainted in the marina’s bathrooms and coffee shop - was going to be put for sale. My mind started racing; was I out of my Our daughter Francesca and Louis in the cabin of C I N. mind even thinking that I needed a new boat, having gone through Rodrigo in the cockpit of Crazy in the Night three in a matter of five years? The price was double for what I could I sailed that boat weekend after weekend and every day off, going up get for C - I -N. If I could trade my boat for Madam plus the and down the Southern California coast and Mexico. C - I - N had many difference in payments, I thought it might be a doable thing, but Pete, good things; it was fast under sail, tracked well, and was easy to handle which was the name of the owner, wanted nothing but cash! He listed shorthanded. However, two issues bothered me: first, the original owner Madam with a brokerage firm, and so I did with Crazy in the Night. had acquired her from the factory unfinished and had done a poor job in certain critical areas that, even with my limited knowledge of yacht When in the company of Kevin, my broker and friend, went to look at building, could see. Second, he had installed a significantly underpowered Madam from a buyer’s perspective, I had no doubt; this was the engine with electrical wiring that was not up to even minimal offshore boat I always wanted. A medium-size cruising yacht with beautiful cruising standards. Furthermore, the interior was just as plain and classic lines, lots of wood, and an interior that was “rich in unattractive as it could be. The little wood used around cupboards and expertly joined and finished teak that gave it the charm of old,” as fiddles was poorly joined, and many of the drawers did not fit, leaving the advertisement in the sailing magazines most appropriately gaps that to me, being a semi-perfectionist, was unacceptable. My feeling described it. She had all the trimmings that make a yacht look like it

22 2 3 can take anything that the ocean can throw. It had a rig, a steering vane, autopilot, radar, high seas HF radio, a nice and cozy small cockpit, even old fashion and weathered baggy wrinkles. * I was in love! At that point, it was not going to matter how I did it; that boat had to be mine. I made an offer for slightly less than the asking price, an offer that Pete accepted. If I could not sell my boat within a month, I would be a happy but broke two boat owner – an undesirable situation (double maintenance and berthing fees just to start). I didn’t need to worry Pete, a nice but very indecisive man, right before the closing date, decided not to sell the boat. I was devastated. My thoughts during that month had been all related to the boat. How was I going to polish this and that, how was I going to treat the wood to make it look even nicer, what type of cloth to use to replace those cheap and tacky curtains in the saloon, and of course, how soon could I take some time off for a cruise? I had gotten an offer for my boat, which I had accepted, and soon I had cash in my hand, but I was left boat- less. When the failure of the purchase of Madam occurred, I said to Kevin, “I neeeeed a boat just like Madam; help me look for one!”

* Dreadnaught: a type of battleship introduced in the early 20th century, larger and faster than its predecessors and equipped entirely with large-caliber guns

* Salty boat: nautical slang characterizing a having a look of a serious, weathered ocean-going yacht.

* Baggywrinkle: soft covering (made of rope) for cables and stays to reduce sail chafe. There are many points in the rig of a sailing ship where the sails meet the standing rigging; unprotected sails would soon develop chaffing and holes at the points of contact, baggywrinkles provide a softer wearing surface for the sail.

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