Dangerous Shores: Book Two; Hell or High Water

by Christine Conaway

  “How can I think anything; I don’t even know what it is. You’re holding up a piece of foil covered in tape…” Laughter following his words.

  However, Ellen wasn’t going to let his amusement stop her form trying it. It would probably be better than whatever he could have thought up. She thought he would have screwed something on from the outside creating more holes to patch later.

  “Not just tape. This is industrial grade all-weather duct tape.”

  “Shit Ellen, you think that’s going to keep out water? Didn’t you just tell me there was wax on the hull? That shit won’t stick either.”

  Ellen shook her head at him, “I’m not putting it on the inside; it goes on the hull. On the outside!”

  Frank laughed. And laughed and laughed. He doubled over with laughter. He flopped onto the settee over-come when his leg’s grew weak from lack of oxygen, because he was laughing too hard to breath properly.

  “Frank?” Ellen stared at him. She could see that he was out of control. His laughter was no longer funny and she grew concerned when he collapsed onto the settee. She was surprised when Alan pushed her roughly aside.

  Frank! Breath into this!” He shoved a paper bag over Franks open mouth. “Breath! That’s right in and out…take your time. Come on now Frank, just relax.” He took Frank’s hand and placed his fingers around the neck of the bag. “Keep breathing into it for a few minutes more.”

  When he saw that Frank was indeed holding the bag by himself he straightened up. Frank had draped his free arm over his eyes and Alan thought it was to cover his embarrassment.

  He turned to Where Ellen was standing, mouth hanging open in bewilderment. “He was hyper-ventilating. Much longer he would have passed out from lack of oxygen. You want to tell me what that was all about?”

  Frowning, Ellen shifted her eyes to Alan. “I don’t know. I was trying to explain my patch to him and he started laughing. The next thing I knew he was down there.” She waved her hand indicating where Frank was. “He started and I guess he couldn’t stop.”

  “Your patch? Patch for what?”

  She picked up the forgotten patch she’d made and held it up for Alan to see. “This. It’s to cover the hole in the hull.”

  Alan, eyes wide stared at her patch and sprayed her face with spittle when he tried to suppress his own laughter by clenching his lips together. He clamped his hand over his mouth to contain it and finally gave up and roared with laughter.

  Ellen didn’t see where the humor came from, but it was infectious and she finally gave in.

  From the settee, Frank added his own contained laughter. He had finally recovered enough to sit up. “Now you see where I got it from.”

  After several moments of exchanging bouts of laughter whenever their eyes met, they began to calm down.

  “Oh my God, that was better than a shot of good whiskey.” Frank said and began to fold the bag along the seams. “Okay, I think I can handle your explanation of how this is going to work now.”

  “I’m not sure I want to tell you now.”

  “Well someone needs to tell someone so someone can put it on and stop the water from coming in.” Alan said and turned to leave them. “Let me know if you guys need help.” He added from over his shoulder as he climbed.

  “I’m sorry,” Frank said. “I don’t usually react like that. In fact, I can’t remember ever acting like that…but damn did it ever feel good. I feel like a weight has been lifted.”

  “Well laughter is a good stress reliever. Maybe we all needed it.” She picked up her patch and squinted threateningly at Frank when his lips turned up in a smile. “Don’t even start that again!”

  “Nope, just explain how it works.”

  “As stupid as this sounds, I think it’ll work. I lent my dinghy out a couple of years ago and when I got it back they had somehow punched a hole in the bottom. I learned later their davit lines were too loose and the wind slammed it down on the end part putting a hole. Of course no one told me. I found out when my dinghy filled with water over half way to shore out at Pelican Bay. The only thing I had to repair the hole was duct tape. Once I turned it over and let it dry I put a couple of layers of tape on it and it stuck. With the inside dried out it stuck there too.”

  He was giving her a sideways look as if he was having a hard time believing her story. “For how long did it stick? I am assuming that is the dinghy you still have.”

  “When I had completed taking the pictures I needed of the harbor, I turned it over and forgot about the hole. It stayed dry inside for months. I was reminded when I pulled it up on to a sand beach. When I put it back in the water the hole leaked. I did the same repair and when I got back to the marina I had a permanent fix put on. The guy there laughed too, but then admitted it was a great temporary fix.”

  “Well okay then. How do we get this done?”

  Ellen looked around, eyes darting everywhere and finally answered him, “Put everything that has any weight at all on the port side. We need to heel the boat over enough to get the crack out of the water and keep it out until we can clean the area and get it stuck on. You can start in the aft cabin there are some heavy bins in there. I’ll move the water and fuels jugs.”

  “Nope you move the stuff here and I’ll move the jugs. They are heavy and it is the least I can do after the way I acted earlier.”

  “That’s true. You were an ass, but I understand how good it felt. Thanks. Oh, you might tell Alan to put it in neutral and lower the dinghy.”

  “Yes ma’am!”

  Ellen shook her head, and began moving the tubs from the aft cabin out to the port side settee. Stacking and leaning the containers to the outer wall. They didn’t need much list maybe as little as 15 degrees would do it.

  As soon as she had moved as much as she could, Ellen took her bucket with the sandpaper, rag, acetone and patch with her. She had thrown in the roll of tape just in case.

  The dinghy was tied off at the stern and Alan and Frank had moved the water and fuel jugs to port. The deck leaned to port; inclinometer said 10 degrees, but maybe it would be enough.

  Ellen and Frank climbed into the dinghy with Alan manning the bow and stern lines. He would pull them to them bow area, and tie the stern line to a station and hold them as close to the hull as he could, giving them enough room to work.

  “Hit the area around the crack with this.” Ellen said handing him a sheet of sandpaper.

  Putting light pressure, he roughed up the surface just enough to hopefully remove any wax build up and give the tape a surface to cling too. Ellen handed him the acetone soaked rag to wipe the surface down with.

  “I’m going to let you have the pleasure of putting that on,” he said as he sat back to allow her to move into position.

  She grinned at him. He thought he could almost read her thoughts and grinned back.

  Careful to not stretch out the tape, she peeled up the edge. Once she had enough up, she placed the sticky part on the hull, and tried to peel the foil away. It slipped and she realized someone would have to hold it in place until she could expose more of the glue.

  “I need your help after all Frank, can you hold the tape while I pull the foil off.” She tried to give him as much room as she could but they were still wrapped up in each other. Both arms wrapped around her he was able to place his thumbs on the corners and hold the tape in place.

  Ellen was beginning to think she’d made a mistake in her thinking that the tape wouldn’t stick well to the foil, when with gentle tugging it finally peeled off. Gently she rubbed the air bubbles to the edges and then out.

  “Okay Frank. You can move now.”

  “What if I don’t want too?” His face was buried at the nape of her neck; she could feel his hot breath through her hair. She relaxed back into him.

  “Hey, why don’t you get a room?” Alan looked down on them. His face was split in two with a grin.

  “Shut up and mind your manners.” Frank told him and moved away from Ellen.

 
; Ellen scrambled to the stern seat away from Frank. Crap, she thought, she was going to have to deal with more feelings than she cared to have for Frank. She had already made up her mind to ignore any attraction she felt for him. This wasn’t the time nor the place for romance.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Frank checked the patch every time he thought of it. There wasn’t so much as a trickle of water coming in through the patch. He couldn’t believe she had patched her boat with duct tape. She’d caught him looking over the side this morning and grinned. She hadn’t tried to rub her repair job in, but he would swear that in her mind she had to be gloating. They had not even thought of the bilge pump not working so it was just as well the repair held or someone would have to man the manual pump. However, Ellen had not been as sure of the patch as she let on; she had put the handle next to the socket for the manual bilge pump.

  “You never can tell,” she’d said. “Shit happens!”

  After they’d made the repair, Hannah and Ellen had done some rearranging of the aft cabin. This simple task had pleased Hannah. They’d not only found more flour, but powdered milk, powdered eggs, cornmeal and a soup concentrate complete with dehydrated meat.

  “If it’s okay, maybe I’d better go through all of the bins and see exactly what we do have. That is, if you don’t mind.” Hannah had taken over all of the cooking duties along with help from Olivia. They were going to remain on the diet plan that she had figured out for each of them, but at least now, they would have variety and wouldn’t be eating everything on tortillas.

  “Hannah, we put you in charge of our food intake. You have to remember that whatever is on this boat belongs to all of us. You can look through anything you want, if it is edible, then it falls right into your area of expertise.”

  “Sorry, I still feel like I am an intruder here. Like I am snooping where I don’t belong.”

  “Come on Hannah, don’t think like that. I don’t know what else I can say to make you feel like you are part of our family. But, I really have no idea what is in those containers. Whenever I had a few extra dollars I ordered another tub of food and stuffed it back there. Some of them I don’t think I even opened. So no telling what you’ll find.”

  Ellen started to get to her feet when Olivia filled the companionway opening. “Land Home! Uncle Frank says to tell you land home.”

  Ellen looked at Hannah who simply shrugged shoulders. They both looked at Olivia expecting her to explain. She was looking behind her and giggling, she repeated loudly, Land Ho!”

  Both girls scrambled to their feet. Ellen started up the ladder first but Hannah stopped her with words, “Ellen, what do you want to do with that?” She was pointing behind her. On the floor under the table was the rifle that they had hidden behind the bins of food.

  “Geez, I’d forgotten that was even in there. Guess maybe we should let Frank have a look. He might know what it is. Let’s put it back in the cabin out of reach of Olivia.”

  “She knows not to go in there, but I’ll remind her again.”

  “Now let’s go find out what the land home is.”

  Olivia was sitting on Alan’s lap helping him steer. “I’m steering the boat Aunty Ellen. Poppa Alan says soon I can steer it by myself, as soon as I get bigger.”

  “And what a fine job you’re doing too. How about steering right over there,” Frank said and pointed to shore. I figure we’ll drop anchor about a mile off-shore.”

  Frank dropped the anchor as soon as the boat came to a stop, letting the bit of wind they had set the anchor. As soon as he raised his closed fist in the air, Ellen and Hannah dropped the sails.

  Their spinnaker had seen about as much action as it was going to see. The seams had begun to part with extensive use. Originally, it had been designed with occasional light air use in mind and the constant pressure they had put on it as their jib had destroyed it. They finally had to resort to using light-duty duct tape to hold the seams together when the nylon shredded. Without a jib sail, they would have a hard time going anywhere with just their ill-fitting main sail.

  “It is what it is,” Ellen told herself on her way to the cockpit.

  Frank had the binoculars pressed to his eyes. “I can’t see any boat activity.”

  Ellen wasn’t sure who he was talking to, “Do you know where exactly we are?”

  He dropped the binocular’s and turned, “No, not exactly. The cloud cover has been playing havoc with my sightings, but I’m pretty sure that’s Panama dead ahead. The past week we’ve made pretty good time with the wind and all.”

  “Okay. So now what? Do we just arrive and hope everything is copasetic or go in prepared for trouble?”

  “I’d like to wait until dark to get any closer. We’ll hang around out here until dark and Alan and I will take the dinghy and go ashore…”

  “You and Alan? I don’t think so; you aren’t going without me!”

  “Ellen, one of us needs to stay with the girls.” He obviously meant either him or her had to be the one to stay.

  “But…What if something happens to you guys? What if you don’t come back?”

  “Then you start the motor and get the hell out of here. Do not…I repeat, do not come look for us. If we don’t come back, then something has happened to us because there is nothing that would keep us away.”

  He must not have liked the expression on Ellen’s face or the look she exchanged with Hannah. “I’m serious Ellen. Do not come ashore. You, Hannah and Olivia have to stay safe and the safest place to be is here on the boat.”

  “I was thinking that…”

  Frank cut her off, “No thinking. You know it could be dangerous on shore. Someone has to stay with the boat and keep the girls safe.”

  “Then why can’t Alan stay and I go with you?”

  “Alan speaks Spanish for one and who knows better than you how to sail this boat? Alan has learned a lot on this trip but he’s not you.”

  Ellen, thought about it for a minute, her eyes travelling from face to face. Hannah had to have known where her thoughts were headed. She was sitting behind Frank slowly shaking her head, no.

  Her shoulders sagged and she blew a sigh out as if his words had defeated her. She did understand what he was saying, but she still felt as if she could be of more help keeping him safe than Alan could. The main point that he had made, the deciding factor, was she didn’t speak fluent Spanish. Hell, not even passable Spanish, she reminded herself.

  “Okay,” she finally agreed, “but don’t expect me to like it. How long are we supposed to wait?”

  Hannah stood and interjected, “How about we have something to eat and we can talk after I get Olivia to bed?”

  They all silently agreed and nodded. She took Olivia by the hand, “Let’s go get these hungry sailors some dinner.”

  They sat in silence listening to Hannah and Olivia down below. Olivia’s laughter reminded them what was at stake. Failing to cross the canal could not be an option.

  Oliva curled up between Hannah and Alan as soon as their meal was eaten and minutes later fell fast asleep. Alan gently picked her up and went below.

  Usually Hannah did the caretaking of Olivia, but as if by un-spoken agreement, he put her to bed by himself. They had all grown attached to Olivia the past month but Olivia had made her own choices by what she had chosen to call them all. While she still cried herself to sleep some nights they were becoming fewer and farther between. Although they had not seen or talked to her mother, they had her father and they agreed they wouldn’t let her forget the sacrifice her parents had made to extricate themselves from Cuba, therefore giving Olivia a chance to live. They would keep the memory of her parent’s alive.

  They sat watching the shoreline for signs of life when Alan came back up to the cockpit. The occasional star peeked through the cloud cover, indicating a possible change in the weather.

  “Okay, how do you want to do this?” he sat beside Hannah pulling her close.

  For just an instant Ellen was jealous of
the intimate relationship the two had formed in spite of what was happening around them. Then she reminded herself she’d already decided to put her feeling for Frank aside until they reached their goal. Then, if he showed the least bit of interest for something other than a one-night-stand she would be all over him. Her mouth bent up in a smile and she hid it with her hand, not wanting anyone to ask what it was all about. There was no way she could blatantly lie to these people and pull it off. Better they not even ask.

  The sun had finally set, hiding them from any prying eyes on shore. However, the dark had shown them that there was indeed some light shining up and down the coastline. Nothing like the lights they would see off the coast of Florida and not even the light they had seen off Cuba, but light just the same.

  “What do we know about Panama except it’s a great sailing destination. It was in my plans for a future article, but I hadn’t made it yet.” She looked at Frank, “You’ve been here. What do you remember?”

  “It was a long time ago and I never left the ship. But, I did read the little brochure they made available to us.” He rubbed his hand over his face while digging through his memories. “Let’s see. They export some goods, like maybe bananas, coffee, sugar and maybe shrimp, but it’s been so long.”

  “I read somewhere they import more than they export, especially when it came to fresh vegetables, and meat.” Hannah interjected. “Oh, and they don’t have any oil fields so they import oil from all over.”