Copyright© 2018 by Richard Gerald
With great thanks to Randi Black and due modesty to be included with the other great stories here is the final part. The political message at the end is just me don't blame anyone else.
"Puerto Rico! This time of year, out of the question," I told Orian. It was September what we refer to as the rainy season, generally bad weather but is also the season for storms, tropical depressions, and hurricanes. Orian was proposing a cruise from one side of the Caribbean to the other, right through storm ally. Puerto Rico was over four hundred nautical miles as the seabird flies, but Annabelle was no bird.
To reach Puerto Rico, we would have to wend our way up the island chain through the Windwards and Leewards and into the Virgin Islands. We would be sailing against the prevailing North East winds. While this is a pleasant and enjoyable voyage in the right weather, the weather was the thing you could not depend on this time of year. Hurricane Irma was hammering Cuba as we spoke. As I have already said, Annabelle is a fair-weather sailor. She was built for the charter business. She has plenty of sleeping room and is a damn comfortable boat. The Morgan is built around a central cockpit giving her plenty of passenger room above and below deck, but she's slow and in my opinion, no match for a storm. So far, I had avoided testing Annabelle under stress preferring to be cautious with the weather.
Early in my ownership, I tried to sail her through some rough seas. The result had been grounding Annabelle. I was fortunate to hit a sandy bottom and to do only minor damage to my boat, but I learned my lesson. I was far more experienced now as a sailor generally and in particular, managing Annabelle, but once burned twice shy.
The captain of the boat that pulled me off that sandbar saw I was upset and blaming myself and said something to me; I have never forgotten. "The sea will test you when you least expect it and are least able to handle it. She's a mean goddess and out to try your metal, whatever you do don't second guess yourself. Whatever you do boy live with it and move forward. Do otherwise, and she'll kill you."
"No, I won't risk it with the best weather it will take five or six days that's plenty of time for a storm to catch us in the wrong position."
"But the client doesn't want speed. We could move from one safe harbor to the next. Anchoring overnight only putting out in good weather," Orian said.
"That could take weeks depending."
Orian shrugged, "The clients offering three thousand a day. If it takes longer, it takes longer."
The fee wasn't outrageous, but it was good, very good. We often got a thousand to fifteen hundred for a day's cruise at the height of the season, but this was the slow time of the year, and any boat captain would kill for a charter that could take ten days to two weeks at three thousand a day.
It had been three days since Leslie dove from Annabelle's side, but still, I was sure she was lurking about. The idea of getting away was attractive. "How many passengers?" I asked.
Orian smiled, "just the two," he said. I thought I knew what that meant; a long lovers cruise. No hurry as we take in all the best views of the islands while the passengers rarely leave their cabin.
"I was thinking we take Diane as the extra hand," Orian said.
Diane was the best freelance crew on the island. She had just three problems: she was a lesbian with an attraction to pretty straight women. Not necessarily a problem, but she was notoriously successful in seducing them right under their male companions' noses. Diane also came with Buster her eight-year-old Springer Spaniel. As dogs go, he was the friendless creature I had ever known and spent most of his time sleeping at Diane's feet, and if she was not available, somebody else's feet. Annabelle was big enough to accommodate buster easily. It was the last of Diane's liabilities that put me off.
"She's damned expensive," I said. What can you say? Diane's the best sailor I knew, and she was aware of her worth.
"She's met the clients and is willing to work for the standard rate," Orian said.
I raised an eyebrow and said, "Just how good looking is the lady?"
Orian put his finger beside his nose and said, "I ain't saying, Captain."
The following day Diane showed up at sunrise. Diane brought her kit, her dog, and a wane smile on her face. She is a big woman as big as most men about five eleven. She has a good physique from her work on the boats, but her body shows that tendency toward the over round figure that women on this island seem to acquire with age.
She would be called a black woman in the states, but her skin is very light reflecting the influence of her Scottish father. He was a skin diving instructor. Her mother was a maid at the resort where he worked. The couple met his first day on the job and spent the next thirty years together. He was fifteen years her senior and already married. His wife left him when an accident in the North Sea required him to give up his lucrative job on the oil platforms for the softer but poorer life in the Caribbean.
Diane learned to dive at her father's knee, but it was the boats that captured her true interest. By the time she was ten, Diane was already playing hooky from Catholic school to hang out at the marina. Her skill with the scuba gear made her attractive to the charter operators who taught her to sail. By her late teens, she was a jack of all sailing trades and a master of everyone.
"Morning Captain," she said as she came aboard. We were scheduled to pull out by ten as the tide crested. Orian, to his credit, busted his butt to lay in an impressive amount of provisions for the journey. All we were now waiting for were the passengers.
I had pulled the Annabelle as near to the dock as I dared and extended a gangplank across the gap. We would be fine, as long as we left before low tide. We had at best two hours to load any last provisions and the passengers before we needed to move Annabelle. With Orian and Diane helping, we had nearly everything on board when the boat from Anse Chastanet resort pulled up to the dock.
As the resort boat stopped, Orian grabbed one of my arms and Diane the other.
"Take it easy Cap if you know what's good for you," Diane said as the boat crew from the resort began unloading the baggage and helping Leslie and a little girl out of the water taxi. The child had the same coppery red hair that graced my head. It ran straight and true without a curl, courtesy of a Viking ancestor. There were the same oddly dark-blue eyes with a slant to them.
I was not falling for this, "She can't prove it's mine. Give her the money back," I growled, but Diane put her cheek almost touching mine and whispered in my ear,
"Now you listen Yankee. All she needs to do is drag you before the magistrate and produce that child, and her marriage license. The least that will happen is you will lose your boat. There is no waiting for DNA tests in these islands. Now the lady paid the boat broker for a cruise so notch up your belt and let's get out of here."
The boat broker took twenty-five percent, but there was no avoiding one of those leaches if you wanted to get your permit to sail. I doubt he would want to give back what would be his sizable commission, and Diane was right; the magistrates took a dim view of men who deserted their children. Moreover, in a bit of reverse discrimination, he came down harder on white men.
Leslie was now standing directly before me with the little girl. Oddly, she looked nervous. Perhaps she was wondering whether her despicable ploy would work, but the truth was; she had me. Diane was right if Leslie were to file a complaint for desertion, I would be in real trouble. The faster, we were out of here, the better.
Without another word, I shook off the restraining hands of my crew and stormed aboard the Annabelle. I didn't stop until I was safely ensconced in the cockpit. Twenty minutes later, Diane came to say that Orian was showing the passengers to their quarters, and we were ready to cast off.
"Who do I have to thank for not being in Bordelais prison right now?" I said to Diane.
"Oh, they wouldn't put you in prison. The magistrate's lockup maybe, but I persuaded the lady if she wanted to talk to you, the best way was to take a long cruise."
"So. Porto Rico was your idea."
"Nice trip up the islands, who knows you might even enjoy yourself. She sure is a looker," Diane said and then when she saw my reaction quickly left the cockpit.
I took the Annabel out of the bay and well beyond the reefs that are notoriously shallow here. St. Lucia is one of the Windward Isles, part of the Lesser Antilles, a set of Volcanic islands at the edge of the Caribbean plate. I motored out onto the plate to where the depth dropped to around thirty fathoms or about one hundred eighty feet, plenty of bottom for Annabelle to maneuver. I brought her into the dying breeze coming off the island. We raised the sails and then tacked across the prevailing wind from the northeast. It was going to be a long trip, and we needed to get started. I was headed for the west side of Martinique by way of the channel between it and St. Lucia.
Orian brought me coffee and said he was getting ready to start lunch. "You hungry?" he asked.
"No, I'll wait for dinner," I said.
"She wants to know if you are ready to talk?"
I knew it was only a matter of time, but I wasn't sure that I could hold my temper if she continued in the vein of our last meeting. "Ask her to give me a couple of hours to get Annabelle started on her way, and I'll meet her in the stern cabin.
The Morgan 41 has two large cabins one forward and one aft. The stern cabin is the larger and very comfortable. We had the ability to convert that stern cabin into a party room for the kind of group excursions we normally run but expecting a romantically inclined couple; I made sure that the big cabin was set up for that purpose, a full-size bed, a little breakfast table and two chairs, a small sofa-loveseat and small private refrigerator. The cabin came with its own head and shower facilities. Now I wondered how Orian had rearranged things to accommodate the child.
The crew quartered are at the center of the boat. There are two sleeping areas set against each side of the hull what are called pilot berths (small bunks) with adjacent settee berths (tables and chairs that convert into a bed). The starboard pilot berth is the larger and gave me a clear path topside in an emergency. It was where I always slept. Orian would, I knew, take the forward cabin since no one was using it. Diane would be left with the port side accommodations. We had the luxury of rather private sleeping arrangements on this trip.
To reach the stern cabin, I passed the galley kitchen. It was past noon, and I could hear Orian cooking and smell the spicy odors of his Cuban cuisine. However, there was another voice coming from the kitchen, a high child's voice giggling at Orian's antic in the galley. I took a peek. The child was sitting with the dog's head on her lap stroking the spaniel's floppy ears. Orian could be amusing when he had the mind to be entertaining, and apparently, he and Buster were keeping the child amused while the mother waited for me in the stern.
