West of the Quator

by Cheryl Bartlam DuBois

  It took some real effort, steering downwind for one to master the feel for the subtle course corrections needed to keep a large cat traveling in a straight line. A new helmsman’s first response was to over-correct the yaw.5***** Diverting one from their desired course, as many inexperienced navigators of life might do. This was already becoming a habit with Rob – drastically overcorrecting his course when he felt as if he needed to make a change. What he hadn’t yet learned was that sometimes one must adapt to the nature of things and give one’s vessel a chance to correct itself.

  I witnessed it many times as a captain of my own ship in my last life, as many a sailor overcompensated for a course correction at sea, as well as in life. This is not to say that I was an expert at this myself, since there were many a time that I mistakenly steered the wrong course. Like leaving the love of my life and the mother of my child behind, and making the decision much too late to return for them.

  Every so often Alex’s arm would brush against Rob’s as she would offer a small correction of the helm to Rob – keeping him from collapsing the spinnaker as he passed nervously between Grouper rocks and left Ile de Fourche6* on his starboard quarter. Rob found himself intentionally under-correcting his steering every now and then in order to elicit Alex’s assistance, welcoming the feel of her warm soft skin against his forearm, or his chest if he managed to turn just right as she leaned over to take the wheel in order to fill the spinnaker.

  Alex felt it too, that electric charge that she had noticed between them before – something more than static electricity since there were far too many negative ions in the air to create static in this humid climate. Every now and then, strands of Alex’s long blond hair escaped her French braid and brushed across Rob’s face, teasing him with a taste of what it would be like to feel her on top of him with her hair brushing across his cheek and her firm tanned stomach pressed against his.

  Suddenly, Sydney’s voice broke the spell as she awoke demanding a Perrier with lime and bitters. Raymond threw in a few Saltines as a precaution to ward off any threat of queasiness that might threaten to hamper her pleasant afternoon respite, but by now, Sydney was becoming quite the connoisseur of downwind sailing. As with everything that Sydney found pleasant – it’s prerequisite being that it required little or no effort on her part. Caught off guard by his straying fantasies of Alex, Rob quickly deferred the helm to her once again shifting immediately back into employer/employee mode as he joined Sydney on the foredeck and barked out an order to Raymond to bring them boat drinks.7**

  Rob saw why the rock wall which stood as a fortress at the entrance to Philipsburg Harbor had been named Point Blance (White Point), since the afternoon sun glowed off the white rock face creating a foreboding great white wall. As they cleared the point and picked up sight of the Fort atop the Little Bay hill, Alex released the spinnaker halyard as Raymond gathered the beautiful multicolored sail onto the bow of the boat and forward net,8*** being careful not allow the sail of delicate, light-weight fabric fall into the water since it could easily be sucked under the hull of the boat. Raymond adeptly bagged the enormous pile of cloth into a sail bag, on island time of course, since Raymond moved no faster than was ever necessary due to his long-term stay in the West Indies. Once he had it in the bag, he unclipped the sheet lines from the clews and clipped them onto the life lines – then removed the halyard which he also clipped onto the lifeline9* – tightening it to avoid their clanging against the mast.

  As they rounded the commercial docks in Philipsburg Harbor, they were welcomed to the ‘Friendly Island’ of St. Maarten by the joyous sounds of Carnival which drifted across the water to greet them, followed by that wonderful breeze – ode de Saltpond Landfill. Whatever its short comings were, it seemed that Paradise was a wonderful place where people could dance through the streets laughing and singing and just simply forget about life for a while. Even the immigration officials who finally arrived at the boat around midnight to clear them in had obviously taken the time to enjoy a libation or two, not to mention that infamous Carnival rum punch. They had by that point however, exceeded the ‘singing and dancing in the street stage’ and slipped into the ‘looking for trouble stretch,’ and Rob, it seemed, just happened to be tonight’s sacrificial lamb. This of course was due to the unfortunate fact that the Island Fever’s reputation as a party boat had far preceded itself via the aforementioned Coconut Telegraph.

  Once on board the Island Fever, those liberally intoxicated immigration officials were unfortunately determined to find anything that seemed to be a questionable, controlled substance when one of the officers spied a jar in the galley of what, he pointed out to the other officials, looked suspiciously like marijuana. Why it even smelled like weed when they smoked it, but they were so high by that point from the rum it was difficult to say for sure if the herbaceous substance had indeed had any effect on them. But no matter. What was important was that it seemed they had hit the jackpot, or ‘jar of pot’ as it were. What was really unfortunate was that their confiscated contraband was in fact innocently enough, only one of Raymond’s special new blends of sage tea, which is infamously known to look and smell like marijuana. But the duteous officials were unconvinced by Rob and Raymond’s pleas for reason and proceeded with an official ‘Friendly Island’ welcome for the happy troop to the island slammer.

  All the way to the town jail Sydney managed to voice her opinion, even over the double 90 hp Mercs on the immigration boat. “Rob! Do something! I can’t believe this is happening! What’s the matter with you! Don’t just sit there and let these animals carry us off to jail like some kind of criminals!

  My God what if they get wind of this in Chicago, I’ll be humiliated! I’ll be thrown out of the Ladies Garden Society! Tell them! Tell them who I am and that my father will have their jobs, their heads, and their first born child for this! I’m warning you! You just wait and see! You’ll be sorry! Rob! Rob, say something! Dooooo sooommmething!”

  “Sydney,” Rob said as calmly as he possibly could but still be heard over the high pitched whining of Sydney’s voice and the engines. “What exactly would you like me to do wearing these dear,” Rob asked displaying his manacled hands as evidence of his lack of control over the situation. Although Rob was nothing short of pissed off by their dubious reception to the island, he managed to keep an outward appearance of cool, calm, and only slightly flustered if not collected in an attempt to quell the worries of his crew and passenger, Sydney – realizing of course the absurdity of the situation and its certain resolution come morning. They would just have to suffer through one very uncomfortable night in this austere, disgusting island Bastille. But what Alex knew far better than Rob was that no mistake was ever rectified that simply and easily in the islands, since no West Indian was readily willing to admit to their err. So, when word came the next morning that the jar of contraband had been sent off to be tested on the island of Curacao, the island’s governmental seat some thousand miles away, and that due to Carnival all of the island’s judges were on vacation and would be unable to hear their case for at least ten days, Alex was not surprised. Rob was to say the least, left in a state of shock, and Sydney, well Sydney nearly ruptured a lung, not to mention their eardrums, screaming at the unfortunate police officer who had been elected to present them with the bad news – then at Rob for getting them into this mess in the first place. Hurricane Sydney it seemed, had just reached force four winds and there was no stopping her.

  Just another small setback Rob. What’s a week or so in the island jail? After all, it was a jail in Paradise. Rob just sat there in disbelief pondering his current predicament trying to figure out how best to weather the storm until he could find a way to expel his supposed guilt to the uncooperative island officials.

  “What the hell am I doing here? I’m not a criminal,” thought Rob. “I’m not guilty of anything. We’ve done nothing wrong. Then why the hell do I feeling so guilty? Between Sydney and the police I’ve turned from a law abiding, faithf
ul schmuck into a cheating criminal. I’ve been found guilty by a jury of my peers without even having the justice of a trial. I’m in Kafka hell. Now I know how K felt in ‘The Trial.’ At least, unlike K, I know why I was arrested,” Rob reasoned. “A bunch of bumbling idiots put me in jail for possession of a condiment, and I don’t even cook.”

  Even though Rob knew he had not committed any crime (at least none that he remembered), he was feeling guilty nontheless – at least about Sydney’s suffering. After all he was the transgressor of Sydney’s expectations and Sydney had already tried and sentenced him with no appeals, and no time off for good behavior.

  Besides the guilt that Sydney was so generously imposing on Rob, Rob was sufficiently supplementing his own dose – on that count Rob had the market cornered. In fact, since the time he had been a small child, Rob had invested heavily in this commodity whenever his parents fought on some subject concerning their differences of opinion in raising their only son, being that they never saw eye-to-eye on much of anything. Especially regarding his mother, Helen’s, encouragement of his interest in the more refined things in life, and Rob’s aversion to man’s work, like driving heavy equipment and animal husbandry. Afterall, Rob had no intention of spending his life married to either the cows or the chickens in his father’s barnyard. It was his mother who had taken him to the local cinema every weekend and to any other cultural event which proffered creativity, worldliness, or anything unrelated to farming.

  As a child Rob had always thought there would be no reason for them to fight, or for that matter work so hard if it weren’t for him being part of the equation. What Rob didn’t understand was that he was simply just the tool they used to annoy and torment one another in their incredibly bored and meaningless lives. In fact, it was only Rob that gave meaning to their existence at all and gave them reason to love, or to be together for that matter. What Rob never realized, was that he was the sum total of all that they were, together. Love was something his father had never known how to express – not just to him but especially to his mother, who longed for and craved physical and emotional contact. In secret she had a dream of a clandestine lover who might one day sweep her away from her trivial existence. Rob knew that she had spent her days mostly writing in her diaries which she locked away each night in a chest that had been her hope chest when she had left home, moved next door, and married Rob’s father. Unlike her brave mother, Lilly, she had not traversed an ocean, with her chest, to settle on some foreign shore in search of love. It was instead, a place where her hopes and dreams were destined to live under lock and key. She had known from the start that she would never be brave enough to free her dreams from their prison in that chest at the foot of her bed and truly live her life the way she dreamed it could be.

  Secretly, Helen felt that somehow she might vicariously experience the thrill of adventure through her son’s weekly reports of his travels in Paradise even though her husband, Thomas, stubbornly disapproved of Rob’s stupid and impulsive move. When Rob had called to break the news of his questionable decision to stay in the islands long enough to make his investment pay off, Helen had been thrilled.

  “That damned fool,” Thomas had said to his wife, returning from a long day of planting, when she told him of their son’s news. “What was he thinking, giving up a good paying job and blowing everything he’s saved on some stupid toy, on what godforsaken island?!”

  Thomas ranted on disapproving, as he usually did, of his son’s choices. When Rob had gone to work at the Stock Exchange nearly five years before, his father had thought it the dumbest thing that Rob had ever done, aside from going to college. But this new decision was down right incomprehensible for him – he didn’t even know where Antigua was, let alone what the hell a godfoundit catamaran was. On the contrary, Helen was elated that her son – her own flesh and blood, had found the opportunity to escape the domesticity of this human existence and pursue his dreams. Something that Helen would never do in this lifetime. She could never be as brave as her mother had been when she stepped on that ship alone to come to the new world – something Helen had never understood – giving up that rich old-world culture to come and live in some barren cornfield. Little did she know what Lilly knew deep in her heart. That to some, a simple cornfield, could be Paradise.

  1*SPINNAKER — (Also called chute or kite) Generally a large symmetrical headsail designed for sailing downwind, although more and more boats today carry asymmetrical spinnakers which do not require a spinnaker pole. Unlike a jib or genoa, the spinnaker is attached to the boat at only three points instead of all the way down the forestay.2** The head is attached at the top of the mast by a halyard3*** just like other headsails, and the two clews, which run via sheets through turning blocks4**** to the aft deck, are attached to a winch in the cockpit. A spinnaker pole is attached to the mast on one end and the windward tack of the spinnaker to keep the chute full and under control.

  2**FORESTAY — Not to be mistaken with foreplay – the wire which runs from the top of the mast to the bow of the boat, or in the case of a catamaran, onto the front cross-bar in the center of the boat between the hulls.

  3***HALYARD — The lines which are used to hoist sails up the mast – assisted by a halyard winch on the mast.

  4****TURNING BLOCKS — Pulleys or sheaves mounted on deck, for rope to run through.

  5*****YAW — The side to side movement of a ship in heavy seas as opposed to pitch, which is the rise and pounding of the bow of a boat.

  6*ILE DE FOURCHE OR FOURCHE — A privately owned horseshoe shaped isle comprised of steep hills and craggy peaks. The atoll is uninhabited by anything but goats who have devoured everything but the rocks and prickly pear cactus.

  7**BOAT DRINKS — Buffett’s version of a long, tall, rum infused, colorful drink

  8***NET — A netting made of lines or straps which are laced between the hulls on a catamaran forward of the bridge-deck in order to cut down the windage under the boat and the possibility of the boat being buried in a wave and capsizing.

  9*LIFE LINE — The wire lines along the sides of a boat that keep passengers and crew from falling overboard – held in place by upright posts called stanchions.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Innocence

  “Know thyself”

  Gateway of the Temple at Delphi

  There are only two small differences between being incarcerated in the United States and being imprisoned in the West Indies – the fact that one is definitely ‘guilty until proven innocent,’ and ‘one phone call’ – their logic being that the phones probably won’t work anyway.

  So, needless to say, no one even knew that they were there under lock and key, outside of the hungover immigration officials and the policemen in charge of the prisoners. Rob was even unable to notify Fritz, who expected him to pick up passengers four days hence. The worst of it was the fact that poor Alex had to share a cell with Sydney who bitched continuously over the state of her nails, the nauseating bill of fare, and her disgust over the facilities or lack thereof, since the toilet was nothing more than a latrine and the closest thing to running water was a child seen running down the street carrying a bottle of water under his arm. Not to mention a total lack of privacy from the rest of the prisoners which included four locals sleeping off several days of rum punches. Indeed, enough rum punch had already been consumed over the last few days by St. Maartens to float a navy.

  Sydney was, to say the least, a novice and an unlikely candidate when it came to tolerating inconveniences – let alone discomfort. She was having a difficult time coping with the sentence that fate had dealt her, and unlike Alex’s gracious acceptance of their temporary fate, Sydney was ready to crack given the conditions and terms of their seemingly irreversible sentence. Especially, since her pharmaceutical arsenal of mood elevating drugs were back on board the Island Fever, and a pal metto bug (a two inch island cock roach known in the islands as a Bombay Runner) had just run across her foot.

  “I can’t beli
eve I listened to you and your harebrained ideas!” Sydney scowled at Rob, “I should have insisted you come home the minute you told me of your stupid decision to buy that… damned penis extension sitting out there in the bay! What was I thinking when I came down here to give you support and a chance to show me how wonderful it was going to be to sail around this pest ridden part of the God-damned Third World, where restless natives still hunt white people for sport!” Sydney screamed over the din of the Carnival steel drum band which just happened to be passing by their open window.

  “Hell, we’re probably on the dinner menu for all we know! Look at my hair! Look at my face,” Sydney sobbed as she grabbed the Alex’s sunglasses which still hung around her neck, nearly giving her whiplash, in order to look at her distorted reflection.

  “I need to use the toilet!” cried Sydney screaming at the officer who was asleep in his chair as she gripped the bars with her fists as if to shake them loose. “For Christ’s sake, my bladder’s going to burst!” Sydney sobbed.

  Taking pity on her, Alex stood and removed the tatty mattress, she’d been sitting on, from her bunk and held it in front of the hole in the floor designed to serve as a toilet for incarcerated criminals.

  “Here I’ll hold this while you go,” offered Alex sympathetically realizing that this woman was just not cut out for this type of ‘roughing it.’ Of course, Alex had spent most of her life on boats where modesty was not sacred and was used to using anything from a hole in the deck to a bucket as a venue for relieving oneself.