“He’s right about that,” Larry said. “I’ve done it both ways many times. It’s an easy run from here to Fort Lauderdale. If you don’t stop along the way, you can get there in a week or so, depending on the boat.”
“And your daughter is in New Orleans,” Pete said. “At least that’s a port city and you can sail there. You’re lucky she’s not at Kansas State or something. It might take another week or two to get around the Keys and across the Gulf, depending on the weather, but it could be a lot worse if she were inland. My guess is that a lot of people will be walking if they got the same effects up there that we got here.”
Artie was overwhelmed. He had never considered the possibility of having to sail all the way to New Orleans in order to get back to Casey. Despite what Larry and Pete said, a lot could happen in a matter of two weeks or longer. How could he live that long not knowing if she was okay? What would she do in the meantime? If her car wouldn’t start, she probably couldn’t leave, but what dangers would she face in a blacked-out New Orleans? Artie couldn’t believe the circumstances that could put him so out of touch with the person he loved most on this Earth. He knew Larry couldn’t fully understand, even if he thought he did, because he had never had children. Casey was the light of Artie’s life. He had to do whatever it took to get to her and protect her, even if it meant another voyage much longer than the one he’d just endured in miserable seasickness.
“If it’s going to take that long, then we need to leave immediately,” Artie said to Larry, his entire attitude about ocean voyaging completely changed now that he accepted the reality that it was the only way home and the only way back to his daughter.
“It’s not quite that simple, Doc. For one thing, we can’t take off on Ibis and leave the owner hanging, even if he is still in Tampa and has no way to get here. First, I have to make sure he’s not already here.”
“If he’s not here, then it won’t do him any good. Couldn’t you drop the boat off in Tampa later, after we go to New Orleans?”
“It’s a few hundred miles back to Tampa from New Orleans. I’ve done that crossing before. But no, I don’t want to risk his boat like that considering the conditions, and my contract was to deliver her here. I’ve met my obligation as far as that goes, but if he is here, I need to find out. Besides, my boat is better suited to the voyage.”
“But it’s not even finished, you said. Aren’t you still building it?”
“She’s built and could be launched as she is. The main thing I have left to do is step the mast and set up all the running rigging. She’s not painted yet, but that doesn’t matter, I’ve got a solid coat of gray primer on everything and we can slap a coat of bottom paint on right before we splash her.”
“You’ve built your own boat?” Maryanne asked. “What kind of boat is it?”
“A catamaran—a Wharram Tiki 36, to be exact.”
“I’ve heard of Wharrams,” Pete said. “We saw an old dilapidated one in Key Largo. They sure are funky-looking boats. Aren’t they homemade out of plywood?”
“A lot of them are homebuilt, and yeah, its plywood, but it’s a composite construction with everything laminated with epoxy resin and fiberglassed over. Some of them are built rough by people who don’t know what they’re doing, but I’ve taken my time with mine. All the materials are to Lloyd’s specs and I’ve cut no corners. She’ll look like a million-dollar yacht when she’s all painted up and fitted out.”
“Can a boat like that make it all the way to New Orleans?” Artie asked.
“Of course she can! You well know how long I’ve been sailing, Doc. I’ve sailed just about every kind of boat you can think of in my deliveries. Would I spend my hard-earned cash and most of my spare time building something that wasn’t seaworthy? Alegria will be at least as capable as Ibis there. These cats have crossed every ocean in the world. There’s no boat I would trust more when it gets really nasty out there. The big difference, though, is that she can go where almost no other sailboat can. She only draws two feet.”
“Two feet! Wow!” Pete said. “That’s like a dinghy.”
“Yep, I’ll be able to put her right on the beach if I need to. That’s the other thing—she’s light. No lead keel, and construction from the finest okoume marine plywood brought her in at less than four thousand pounds, ready to cruise.” Larry turned to Artie: “You see, Ibis is relatively shallow too, and she would get us there in a fine style, but we don’t know what we might encounter in all this mess with everything shut down. My boat will have a lot of advantages if we need to go up a river or get to other places regular boats can’t reach. And—she’s much faster than a monohull. And—you’re gonna love this, Doc—the motion of a catamaran is a lot different and a lot easier. None of that deep rolling that had you puking your guts out on the way here. You’re gonna like multihull sailing a lot better.”
“Where is your boat?” Pete asked. “I’d like to take a look; she sure sounds interesting. Is she close to the harbor?”
“Unfortunately no,” Larry said. “I did the building under a tarp shed on the beach at Culebra. I’m sure you’re familiar with it; it’s one of the islands between here and Puerto Rico.”
“Oh yes, there’s a lovely anchorage there,” Maryanne said. “We stayed there a couple of nights on the way here.”
“I like it,” Larry said. “It’s much more laid-back than St. Thomas. I can actually leave tools lying around without having to worry about them walking off when I turn my back.”
“How far is it from here?” Artie wanted to know.
“Not far at all, really,” Pete said, “about 20 nautical miles west. You can see the island once you get out of this harbor and past Water Island.”
“Still, if Culebra’s an island, even 20 miles is a long way. If we have to leave Ibis here, how are we supposed to get there so we can even get started?” Artie asked, unable to conceal his anxiety about each new obstacle that seemed to come between him and Casey.
“I’m thinking,” Larry said. “But first, I need to go ashore and ask around to make sure my client is not here.”
After inviting them to come back that afternoon for drinks, Pete took Artie and Larry back over to Ibis so Larry could offload the schooner’s dinghy for the trip to shore. Pete promised to keep an eye on Ibis while they were gone, so Larry could relax a bit about leaving her. Artie had question after question for his brother about their proposed voyage to New Orleans, and Larry did his best to answer each one as they lowered the sleek wooden dinghy into the water and Larry got the ship’s paperwork and their passports in order. Normally, clearing back into St. Thomas as American citizens meant a brief visit to the U.S. Customs and Immigration offices at the western end of the harbor, but considering the circumstances, Larry wasn’t sure anyone would be there. Still, they had to try, and they had to go ashore anyway.
Larry did the rowing as Artie sat in the bow of the dinghy. Each time they passed another occupied vessel in the anchorage they were hit with the same barrage of questions about where they had come from, what they had seen, and what they might know of what was happening in the world beyond the harbor. When they reached the ferry dock near the government offices, Artie lost no time clambering up the ladder as Larry tied them off.
“Land!” Artie said. “At one point a couple of days ago, I swore I’d kiss it if I ever set foot on it again.”
“So go for it!” Larry said. “I’ve been waiting to see this.”
“What’s the point? At that time I thought I’d never have to get on a boat again if I ever got here. Now, this is just a temporary stop. I guess I shouldn’t get too excited about it or get too used to it.”
“Probably not, I don’t want to waste any time here; this place is gonna turn to shit in another day or two. It’s bad enough in normal times with all the cruise ship tourons and gangs of punk-assed dreads.”
As Larry suspected, they found the customs and immigration offices closed. Artie followed as Larry led the way back east along the w
aterfront to the Yacht Haven Marina and Hotel complex to see if the owner of Ibis had arrived before the pulse hit. If he had, he would be stranded among the thousands of other tourists stuck there in miserable conditions in hotels without lights or air conditioning. If not, it was certain that he wouldn’t be coming to the island until after power and communications were restored, and who knew how long that would be?
They found the hotel lobby full of frustrated guests unsure of what to do next, many of them killing time while they waited by drinking warm beer or the local Cruzan rum. The clerk behind the desk could not look for the name Larry gave him because all guest information from before the power outage was in their computer registry system. They went to the marina office and no one there remembered anyone asking about a yacht named Ibis. Larry said that most likely the owner was not on the island. There was nothing else to do but leave the yacht on the mooring as he had contracted to do, and hope that eventually her owner would be able to get to St. Thomas to claim her—if someone didn’t steal her first. But they had to get to Culebra, as there was a lot of work to do to get Larry’s boat and make it ready for the passage to New Orleans.
“I guess we’ll have to sail over there on Ibis and then sail both boats back here so we can leave her once we get Alegria shipshape,” Larry said, when Artie asked how they were going to get to Culebra.
“That’s going to take a lot of extra time, isn’t it—coming all the way back over here?”
“We’ll lose most of a day doing it, but it won’t make much difference in the end. What else can we do? Besides, my cat is a lot faster than Ibis. We’ll have the trade winds in our favor once we leave here for good, and we’ll make a fast passage to Florida. You’ll see.”
They left the exclusive Yacht Haven complex and Artie followed his brother to a seedier part of the waterfront, where they found his favorite bar still open for business, despite the lack of power. Larry was well acquainted with the owner from his many stops in the harbor taking yachts up and down the island chain.
“We’re open until we run out,” the man said. “At the rate people have been drinking since yesterday, that won’t be much longer. What are you two having?”
“Nothing,” Larry said. “It’s way too early for me. We’re getting out of here real soon, I hope. I just had to make a quick check and be sure my client wasn’t here.”
“Brought another boat in, huh?”
“Yeah, a pretty sweet little wooden schooner—new custom build and all that. Too bad the owner probably won’t get to see her any time soon.”
“If he wasn’t on the island before five minutes after ten yesterday, he won’t. Man, this is one bizarre scene. Nobody knows the extent of it. There’s just no way to get any news. We don’t know if anybody’s coming to help us get things back up and running or not.”
“We intend to find out, one way or the other,” Larry said. “We’re gonna sail to the mainland and try to get some answers. I hope you’re not staying around here yourself.”
“Liz and I have already talked about it. Our boat is pretty well stocked up all the time. We won’t stay in Charlotte Amalie more than another day or two. There’s already been some looting and a couple of house fires. It won’t be long before the gangs are running the streets with machetes, taking whatever they want. We’ve seen it before. We’re thinking of sailing over to the BVI and maybe hanging out at one of the out islands, maybe Peter Island.”
“Probably a good idea,” Larry said. “Good luck to you, man. We’ve gotta scoot. We’ve got a lot of work to do on my boat before we can leave.”
Outside the yacht club, Artie and Larry stood for a minute taking in the scene on the city streets leading up the slopes from the harbor. Throngs of pedestrians, locals and stranded tourists alike, were moving among the stalled cars that filled the roadways. Everything was in a state of chaos as people walked around looking for friends and family they couldn’t call on the phone, or for water or food they could no longer drive to get. The enormity of the disruption overwhelmed Artie as the reality before his eyes sunk in. It still didn’t seem possible that all the advanced communications and much of the machinery of modern civilization could just be turned off like flipping a switch. He watched for a few moments, and felt truly sorry for the thousands of vacationers who were caught on the island in this mess and had no idea how they would get home. At that moment, he began to realize that despite the fact that he too was a stranded tourist, he was lucky to have a brother like Larry and the prospect of a sure, even if somewhat slow, ride home.
It was shortly after noon when they left the ferry dock at St. Thomas and rowed back out to Ibis. Pete was in the cockpit of Celebration and saw them coming. He waved them over to talk for a few minutes. They sat bobbing in the dinghy while he held the bow painter to keep them from drifting away. Pete had the best news that Artie had heard since they made their decision to sail Larry’s boat back to the States. He said that while they were ashore, he and Maryanne had talked it over and decided that they didn’t really feel good about staying in Charlotte Amalie. They decided that Culebra would be a better place to hunker down for the time being, as the population was much smaller there, and they had liked it when they stopped there before. Since they were going back anyway, Pete wanted to offer Artie and Larry a ride with them on Celebration. That way, Larry could leave Ibis on her mooring as he was obliged to, and they could get going on Larry’s boat as soon as possible. Besides, Pete said he and Maryanne would have a hard time moving the big Tayana alone without the aid of her electric windlass, depth sounder, GPS, and all the other amenities they were so dependent upon to handle her.
Artie was delighted with this, as it meant they wouldn’t have to backtrack to St. Thomas later. Larry agreed that Pete and Maryanne would be safer in Culebra, and said he would introduce them to some of his friends there. It was already too late in the day to get underway, get there, and settle into the anchorage before dark, though, so Larry said they would have to wait until morning to sail. It wouldn’t be safe to enter Culebra’s reef-guarded harbor at night with all aids to navigation unlit—especially with Celebration’s seven-foot draft. But they could get their personal belongings and the remaining supplies off Ibis and move aboard the bigger yacht that afternoon.
“We’ll have dinner around five thirty,” Maryanne said. “It will be steaks on the grill tonight, if that’s all right with you guys. We’ve got to use up what’s in the freezer. It won’t stay cold much longer in this heat.”
Artie helped Larry finish the job of sorting out Ibis and stowing all her gear in preparation for leaving her. They carefully furled the mainsail and foresail, secured them to their booms with sail ties made of nylon webbing, and then buttoned on the canvas covers to shield the sails from the sun’s damaging UV light. They removed the big genoa from the forestay and bagged it to be stored below, and furled the smaller staysail, secured it in its fitted cover, and hoisted it just clear of the deck by its halyard. They folded up the cockpit Bimini and lashed it to the grab rails on the coach roof. They put all loose gear away in the cockpit lockers, and then Artie scooped up seawater in a canvas bucket attached to a line to rinse the decks as Larry scrubbed them with a long-handled brush. When they were done, Ibis was as neat and clean as any yacht Larry had ever left with her owner, even though he knew that she would likely remain unattended and unused for a long time to come.
They packed their clothes in their bags down below, and Larry cleaned out the ice boxes and lockers, bagging up all of the remaining food on board. He figured it was more than enough for the two of them to make the passage to the mainland if they took it all.
“There should be enough stuff for a couple of weeks already on board Alegria; I hope Scully thought to pick up what he could when the lights went out.”
“So he’ll be there when we get to your boat?”
“Oh yeah. He’s living aboard while he’s working for me, at least some of the time. Scully doesn’t hurt himself working too hard.
He wouldn’t do it at all if he didn’t like me and want to see that boat completed.”
“So what will he do when we launch it and leave for New Orleans?” Artie asked.
“Go with us, of course,” Larry said as if that should have been obvious to Artie.
“Is there enough room for all three of us?”
“Of course, and we need Scully. He’s a good sailor and navigator, and even better, a great fisherman. Everything about the trip will be easier with him along.”
“How do you know he’ll want to go?”
“Because he doesn’t have anything else to do. You already know he’s a Rastafarian. His favorite thing in the world is simply observing what’s going on, watching other people, and prophesying doom to the modern world and our way of life. He’s been expecting something like this very event for years. There’s probably nothing he’d rather do about now than sail to Babylon itself and see what has happened.”
“You mean he’ll be happy about all this? I don’t know if I’m going to get along with this guy or not.”
“Not happy—just indifferent. It’s like what I told you about living on ‘island time.’ Scully doesn’t need any of our modern technology. His life would be about the same with or without it. But you’ll like him okay, and we do need him and his skills at a time like this.”
When they were done packing, Artie handed down the bags of food and gear to Larry in the dinghy, and Larry made a couple of trips to shuttle it all over to Celebration. Once everything was transferred, Artie helped him haul the dinghy aboard the schooner and lash it upside down in its fitted chocks between the masts; then Pete came to pick them up in his inflatable.
They had dinner and rum drinks in the cockpit. Inevitably, the conversation centered around the profound changes that had taken place within not much longer than the past day. But Artie and Larry were both tired from their inconsistent sleep on the passage from Martinique, and asked to be excused early so they could catch up before the short sail to Culebra the coming morning.
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