Day 1
Janet stepped onto the liveaboard dive boat with mild trepidation; this was to be her home for the next week. The dive company sales literature and several phone calls to them assured her limited diving experience was no obstacle to her enjoyment of the trip, but still lingering doubts plagued her. At 40 she was a newbie to diving having only her certification dives and two boat dives near her home in her logbook. Jill, her friend from work, had cancelled two weeks before the trip due to a family emergency. Jill and Janet had taken the dive course and the boat dives together and eventually talked each other into a "dive vacation" offered by the local dive shop to Tahiti, but now Janet was on her own, determined to expand her life experiences.
Her marriage, to a man who considered TV sports to be adventure enough, had ended a few years before. It had never been a particularly bad, nor a particularly good, marriage but had gradually spiraled down to tepid union lacking excitement, spontaneity, warmth, and, least of all, sex. Based on her experience, sex was not an exceptionally exciting activity though early in the relationship it had brought her the warmth she liked and generally felt good. Her husbands interest had gradually diminished and while her sexless life seemed better than other girls at work whose husbands satisfied themselves then rolled over, she longed for the physical pleasures extolled by other girls whose partners still thrilled them. Two short relationships followed her divorce and both reinforced her conviction that sex, while not uncomfortable, was not the orgasmic activity it could be.
A few months after her second relationship ended she discovered the physical relaxation offered by an orgasm as her fingers gently stroked her pussy, parting the lips and sliding in before rubbing lazy circles around her clit. A friends "naughty lady" party had produced a soft rubber vibrator and her pleasures increased as one hand would slide it in and out of herself while the fingers of her other hand would caress her clitoris. The orgasms produced would be strikingly powerful, often leaving her shaking for several minutes afterward. Her active imagination soon began providing fantasies that increased her self-pleasure...a much younger man that she would teach to fulfill her, an older man who knew how and would spend hours teasing her before allowing her release, and one fantasy that surprised even her, another woman who would caress and lick her to ecstasy. Her frequent thoughts of oral sex, both giving and receiving, surprised her. Her husband had requested it but was unwilling to return the favor and the acts were dismissed from further discussion or action. She had stated upfront to the men in her following relationships that she wouldn't perform the act and neither had pursued it with her. She thought it unlikely that it was a commonly performed act despite what her erotic reading material suggested.
Beyond sex, her life had become much more exciting, white water rafting trips, a backpacking trip, cycling, camping, she had experienced much in the few years of her divorce, especially when compared with her previous life. The scuba diving was on her list and while talking with Jill at lunch one day they discovered it was a common wish between them. Janet researched the dive shops in the area for classes and two months later they had their certification and one dive boat trip behind them.
In addition to diving the Tahiti dive boat was a sailboat, another thing on Janet's list of things to try. The nervousness she was experiencing was mostly due to Jill's absence, Jill had been her only dive partner so far and Janet worried she would embarrass herself with a more experienced diver.
Her dive gear was stowed by the crew in the wet room so Janet only carried her clothes and such to her cabin. There were eight double cabins and two "suites" for the passengers, which turned out to be a double cabin with an attached single cabin. The tiny single cabin had it's own toilet room, or "head" to use the proper nautical term and it's own exit to the passageway as well as a door to the main double cabin of the suite, much like adjoining rooms in a hotel. Jill's departure from the trip had left Janet in one of the single cabins and she quickly organized her clothes in the eight-foot by six-foot space then hurried back on deck to watch the boats departure.
On the way down the narrow passageway she bumped into the couple occupying the adjacent cabin as they exited their cabin. An unexpected movement of the boat caused the bump to be a literal one and Janet and the redheaded woman exiting the cabin tumbled to the deck in a heap. The man, still in the cabin doorway, helped the two women extricate themselves. The woman was trim, around Janet's age, with a pleasant smile, green eyes and fair skin immediately introduced herself as Dinah and noted it was quite possible they'd be bumping into each other again in the narrow confines of the passageway. The man, blue eyes, brown haired and somewhat more tan than his companion introduced himself as Mark and assured them they would soon get their sea legs.
The made their way up to the second deck level where they could watch the crew cast-off the dock lines as the boat motored out into the harbor.
"I thought this was a sailboat," Janet remarked to Mark and Dinah as the large catamaran made its way through the moored boats of the crowded harbor.
"They'll probably raise the sails once we're outside the reef, it's too crowded here in the harbor and the winds are unpredictable this close to the island."
The boat motored out of the harbor and through the passage in the reef into the open ocean. A crewmember circulated through the passengers who had gathered on deck to see if anyone wanted to help raise the sails and work the boat. Janet, Dinah, and Mark immediately took them up on the offer and were soon cranking the winch that raised the huge mainsail.
"What rope is this?" Dinah asked
"This is the main halyard," Mark said to Dinah, "It raises the main sail."
Dinah turned to Janet and said, "We have a sail boat and have been on several charters but I never remember the names of all the ropes. And they're "lines," not "ropes," before Mark the sailorman corrects me."
Mark grinned at her, "Nicely done, what line is this one we're going to pull the jib out with.?"
Before Dinah could answer Janet cut in, "Whats a ... jib?
Dinah answered, "It's the sail in front of the mast and we'll use the jib sheet to pull it out," she answered proudly.
With the sails set the crewman introduced himself Pierre, the first mate, and the skipper was Sam, currently at the helm. Pierre said once the boat was away from the reefs whoever wanted could take a turn at the helm, if conditions remained light. As they sailed into the late afternoon Pierre led tours through the boat to show them through the boat in small groups.
"The bow looks nice," Dinah said of the trampoline area between the two hulls of the catamaran. Janet thought she caught a knowing look exchanged between Mark and Dinah.
"On our charter in La Paz we were on a 38' cat and Dinah spent all of the sailing time stretched out on the tramp." Mark explained.
Pierre had said the boat was 90' long so 38' seemed tiny. "We only had four people on it," Dinah explained. "It seemed huge at the time."
"I think I'm going to relax a bit, maybe take a nap in my cabin." Janet said, the traveling having taken its toll.
"Me, too," Mark said, looking knowingly at Dinah.
"That's all he thinks about," Dinah laughed to Janet. "Maybe later," she said to him, patting his hand, "I need a nap now, too."
Later, Janet heard a knock on the door adjoining the two cabins. "We're heading to dinner, would you like to join us?" Dinah's voice called.
"Sure," Janet answered, opening the door. She had been just ready to leave when Dinah had called.
