‘I have to make a decison now. Hurricane season is coming’

It was always Garry Crothers’ dream to sail around the world on a yacht.

Of course, it helps if you have salt water in your veins.

Garry was a radio operator in the merchant navy and spent 13 years travelling the world on various ships. He eventually ended up working in computer systems in diving support vessels.

Life on the ocean wave is second nature to him.

Not for one second, however, did he ever imagine that a close call with death would set in motion a chain of events that now sees him realising his dream of sailing around the world.

However, that dream has turned into a bit of nightmare in recent weeks as a result of the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe.

This week, the intrepid sailor - stranded on the other side of the world as a result of the Covid-19 crisis - is finalising plans for a 3,600-mile non-stop solo sail across the Atlantic - back to his home at Culmore Point in Derry.

The 64-year-old’s 43ft aluminium boat, ‘Kind of Blue’, is currently anchored off Sint Maarten in the Caribbean and, with neighbouring countries and islands that might afford protection shut, Garry believes his only safe option is a solo sail home.

But he has to get moving before the hurricane season.

Another added problem is that Garry only has one arm.

In a dreadful road traffic collision in 2009, Garry broke all his ribs, both collar bones, his left arm, punctured a lung, de-gloved his scalp, broke C5-C7 vertebrae in his neck and tore his pulmonary artery. He was very lucky to survive.

Wracked with horrendous ‘phantom’ limb pain, he had to take huge amounts of opiates to control the spasms. Life was, he says, a misery both for him and his family. In 2014, in a bid to reduce the constant pain, he had a spinal operation called a DRZ which involved removing sections of his vertebrae to allow his spinal cord to be extracted, opened up and the nerve roots cauterised.

“It was worth the gamble,” he says. “I was able to significantly reduce my usage of the opiates. I am still in constant pain, but nothing compared to the spasms I had previously.”

In 2017, he decided to have his arm amputated.

“It was never going to get better and it’s a heavy piece of kit to be carrying around.”

Fast forward to Garry’s current predicament.

“The coronavirus crisis has changed everything,” he says. “I’ve made the decision to return home. I cannot see any way that the cruising lifestyle that I’ve been enjoying can return to normal. I think the new normal will require 14 days quarantine when you arrive at a new country. If a country has endured the pain of restrictions to be free of the virus, they will not want to risk reinfection.

“I hope I’m wrong. But I need to make my decision about future travel now. I can hang on here hoping that the borders re-open in a country outside the hurricane belt, e.g Grenada or Trinidad. But, then what? There are far more boats stranded in the Caribbean than normal. So, mooring space, or yard space, will be difficult to find. This is a good time of year to do the transatlantic passage - if I leave it until later, hoping for a change in restrictions and they do not appear, then the passage becomes much harder.

“It will take me approximately a month to return, depending on the weather and if I stop in the Azores. I’m hoping to leave before June but, again, it will depend on the forecast.”