Molokai Reef

by Dennis K. Biby

  No one noticed the approaching car.

  Kara locked the brakes and slid the ’vair into a parking slot then jumped into the dinghy as the ‘goose motored close to the pier. The four were back aboard Makani before the first fire truck arrived.

  “Nice driving, Kara.” Flyn suggested.

  “Thanks. Above 40 mph, that car shimmies like a lap dancer in a Honolulu strip club. Without the wobble, I wouldn’t have left the one-ten split.”

  From the cockpit of Makani they watched two patrol cars, blue lights flashing, block traffic on the causeway. A male officer from one car joined the female officer from the other car. They walked around the fire truck and surveyed the debris field. The woman looked up at the rope hanging from the lamppost. Like any good Bruce Willis movie, the drugsters had disappeared with their wounded. The Harley was gone.

  “Doesn’t look like you’ll get the spare.” Gybe motioned to the police cars.

  The officers recognized the mopeds. The female officer spoke into her shoulder mic. Ten minutes later, a county dump truck rolled up to the carnage. It was towing a yellow front-end loader atop a trailer.

  “I’m starved. Got anything for lunch?” Flyn asked.

  Before the ‘goose could answer, Kara asserted. “I don’t want to eat here.”

  The friction between Kara and the ‘goose grew more palpable with each passing day. Mongoose had wanted to leave her on the pier, but Gybe had convinced him to pick her up.

  “Let’s go to the Hotel Moloka‘i.” Gybe suggested.

  “Since Kara’s buying, fine with me.” Mongoose moved towards the dink. “I have found some interesting stuff in Ray’s computer files and I finally had time to look at the hard drive you swiped from Jean’s computer.”

  59

  Gybe found a moped fender buried in the thatched roof of the ’vair, but otherwise the 60’s vintage Detroit steel was unscathed. Kara dropped the stick into low and released the clutch. Two car lengths later she stopped and the men got out.

  Mongoose’s signal to back up was met by a cross-eyed grimace from Kara. The men pushed the car backwards, then reached down to retrieve something that might once have been a skateboard with handlebars and one tire. Gybe tossed the debris in the harbor Dumpster.

  Except for a scorch mark on the pavement and the rope hanging from the lamppost, there was no evidence of the encounter with Makaha. “Wonder when the boy will walk again.” Flyn mused.

  Kara parked the ’vair in the hotel parking lot. As usual, the valet had flagged them past and pointed to the far lot. The four sleuths walked to the Lanai Bar and settled around an outside table, shaded by a large umbrella. Keali‘i was their server. She unloaded a basket of chips and a bowl of salsa before dealing the menus. Gybe introduced Flyn and re-identified the others for Keali‘i’s benefit

  “Drinks anyone?”

  Kara ordered a mai tai, Flyn ordered a sparkling water and the two men requested Lavaman Red Ale.

  When she returned with the drinks, Gybe asked, “I thought you ran out of these chips.”

  “Got a new batch. Yesterday.”

  “The color’s a bit different. They seem to be an even darker green.”

  “Are you all ready to order?” She looked to the two women.

  Keali‘i jotted down their food orders and walked towards the kitchen.

  “What did you find on Ray’s computer?” Gybe turned to Mongoose.

  “The usual junk that accumulates on someone’s computer. People should be more careful. I mean, think about it. When you die, someone is going to go through your boat, looking in every drawer, under every bunk. They’ll find your sex toys and porn DVDs. It’s the same with your computer. They’ll see who you’ve sent e-mail to, which adult sites you have surfed, what letters you have written, etc.” He paused, then looked at each one of his companions before staring at Gybe. “Would you want me looking at YOUR computer today?”

  “Yeah, OK. First thing when I get back to Ferrity, I’ll dump the erotica DVDs and erase the Internet cookies. Now, what did you find on THEIR computers?”

  Flyn chuckled, Kara stared at Gybe.

  “First, Ray was a regular visitor to at least seven chat rooms where the topic was sex and I don’t mean the on-top, in the dark, done in a minute, missionary method. Some of the sites were pretty hinky – even by your norms, Gybe.”

  Gybe glared at the ‘goose.

  He took the hint and continued. “I found a trail of e-mails between Ray and another woman – or at least she represented herself as a woman in the e-mails. Couldn’t find evidence of a face-to-face meeting, so I assume they met on-line.”

  “How serious was it?” Gybe asked. “After all, I suspect Dear Gabby spends most of her time responding to letters from spouses distraught over their husbands web-amours.”

  “Abby, not Gabby. And besides, I think she’s dead.” Kara corrected.

  “Whatever. How many women are you courting on-line ‘goose?”

  Mongoose assumed it was a rhetorical question. “Anyway, Ray and this woman were getting pretty serious. They had planned to meet in Cabo San Lucas in the spring.”

  “Was it Jean?”

  Mongoose shook his head sideways. “Ray had a separate folder of correspondence with Jean.”

  Gybe wondered if Ray’s widow, the one who put the house up for sale and left town so abruptly, could have found out about his Internet hobby. But if the on-line affair wasn’t with Jean, then how did Jean end up sharing the underwater death condo with Ray?

  “What else?”

  Mongoose waited while another party of diners walked past their table. He explained that the common link between Jean and Ray was a project called ‘caramel corn.’ Beyond the e-mails, he could find no reference to the caramel corn project in other documents on their computers.

  “As you recall, I’m getting a daily copy of Les’s files. There is no reference to the caramel corn project in his files.”

  “Do you think that Ray and Jean were working on the project outside of their work at SynCorn and GeNesRus?” Flyn surmised.

  “Looks that way. I’ve arranged a return to GeNesRus’s computers later today. If I don’t find anything about caramel corn and there is nothing at SynCorn, then what else could it be?”

  Keali‘i returned with their lunches. The four ate in silence as each one processed the new information.

  Gybe spoke first. “Did you find out anything about the project? What was it about?”

  “There were a lot of technical notes. I’ve sent them to a friend on the mainland – I think I told you about him the other day.”

  Gybe nodded.

  “My friend on the mainland did a quick scan of the notes. He promised a layman’s translation by tomorrow.”

  After lunch at the hotel, they returned to the harbor. Each sailor headed for his or her boat. Kara landed aboard Ferrity with Gybe.

  She sat on the bow and read while Gybe worked at his laptop under the awning in the cockpit. The awning, a sheet of fabric spanning from the mast to the stern and from port to starboard, shaded the cockpit and cooled the saloon. The persistent ocean breeze provided air conditioning. He was searching the Internet when he espied a boat entering the harbor. The middle-aged couple anchored their sloop mauka of the existing boats. Her draft must be shallow, Gybe thought.

  Gybe had entered five hundred words against his daily goal of at least one thousand when he glimpsed a dinghy depart the new vessel and head towards Makani. When a new vessel enters an anchorage, it is common for the newcomers to visit the other vessels. Courtesy dictated that you only approach a vessel when people were visible on deck.

  Less than two minutes later, the dinghy motored away from Makani and set a course for Ferrity. Gybe glanced forward and noted that Kara was topless. It wasn’t his job to warn her of the incoming guests.

  In the dinghy, the man cut the engine, allowing the small boat to glide towards Ferrity.

  “Hello,” said the woman.

  “Aho
y.” Gybe responded. “Toss me your painter.”

  Gybe snubbed the line around a cleat, but didn’t invite them aboard. From experience, he had learned to evaluate callers before welcoming them into his home.

  Hearing the exchange, Kara donned a T-shirt and joined Gybe at the stern where he made introductions.

  Discussing the name of one’s boat was always an icebreaker when meeting new cruisers. The terrestrial ‘where do you work?’ or ‘what do you do?’ had little meaning in a remote anchorage.

  Mikanele was the name of the sloop that brought the couple. They said it meant ‘missionary.’ They were from Utah and had purchased the boat three weeks ago on O‘ahu where the boat had been moored at La Mariana Sailing Club near the top of Ke‘ehi Lagoon. Crossing Kaiwi Channel between O‘ahu and Moloka‘i had been their first sail in open water. “Took us three tries,” said the man. “We turned back the first two times because it was too rough.”

  “Where are you off to next?” Kara asked.

  “We plan to sail to the Big Island for a few days. We’ll check in with the church in Kailua.” The woman answered.

  “From there,” the man continued, “we want to sail to Christmas Island. In one of our storage lockers, we have more than three hundred bibles that we need to distribute.”

  “So, you plan to convert the heathens?” Gybe tried to balance the sarcasm with the politeness but failed miserably.

  “Well, I wouldn’t put it that way. But, we are bound to spread the word of the Gospel.” The man said as the woman nodded.

  “Hate to run, but I have a deadline to meet.” Gybe picked up the laptop. “Maybe we’ll see you around town.” His eyes signaled Kara to release the painter.

  Once the couple was out of earshot, Kara spoke first. “That wasn’t very polite, Gybe.”

  “Hah, polite, those people and people like them are worse than PCB’s, nuclear waste, and greenhouse gases combined.”

  “You seem a bit ambivalent?”

  “Religious nut is redundant. How can anyone support a corporation whose logo is some dead guy stapled to a tree?” Gybe was on a rant. “Do you know that these islands may very well have been paradise before the arrival of the pious con-men? Picture this. Native Hawaiians raised their own food and they needed no imports. According to the journals of Captain Cook and other early explorers, the women freely gave sex. It was their culture. But, the good church wants you to have sex in the dark and not too often. The women must cover their breasts. Hogwash! Today’s Hawaiians and South Pacific cultures now think western religion is part of THEIR culture. They, the missionaries, have done more damage around the world than all the wars combined.”

  He paused before adding, “Remember when Bush the Bumbler identified the axis of evil? He listed Korea, Iraq, and some other countries. Well, in my opinion, the axis of evil runs through Mecca, Jerusalem, the Vatican, and Salt Lake City.”

  Kara handed Gybe a cold beer, watched him perform a high-speed download, and then offered him the second bottle. “Feel better?”

  60

  The skipper of a boat at anchor sleeps lightly. Gybe awoke with Kara nestled into his left shoulder. Something was different. The boat’s motion was wrong. The tickle of waves against the hull had changed. He slid his arm from beneath Kara and shimmied from the berth.

  A ten-knot breeze chilled his bare skin as he stepped into the cockpit. A few days before the new moon, a crescent sliver hung in the eastern sky. Bright stars peppered the remainder of the celestial sphere. Aries dropped through the western sky. Triangulating from the pier and a light in the canoe hale ashore, Gybe determined that Ferrity was drifting.

  He hurried forward to check the anchor chain. The chain was slack. When the wind pushed Ferrity against her anchor, the chain should tighten. If the anchor were dragging Gybe should be able to feel a vibration in the chain. He felt nothing but the slack chain. The reef was approaching and the boat was too close to explore the anchor problem.

  Gybe jogged back to the cockpit, grazing a toe on a chainplate, and started the engine. Kara had awakened to his loud footsteps on the foredeck and the cursing about his toe. She stood in the companionway, her hair stuck straight out on the left side of her head. “What’s wrong?”

  Ignoring her, Gybe shifted the transmission into forward. The rattling sound beneath the boat startled him. He shifted the transmission back into neutral. The reef was less than twenty yards away and approaching fast. The dinghy trailed several feet astern at the end of her painter.

  In one fluid motion, he jerked the painter to bring the dinghy toward the stern and leapt over the lifelines. Balanced against the inflatable tubes, he grabbed the starter rope and pulled the outboard motor to life. He slammed the shift lever into reverse and twisted the throttle. Only the painter held the dinghy to the stern of Ferrity. Gradually, Ferrity slowed her forward motion and started backing as the nearly ten horsepower outboard struggled against the twelve-ton Ferrity.

  Gybe knew that this was not the way to tow Ferrity, but his home was too close to the reef to rig a proper tow.

  Confident that he had the immediate problem under control and with Ferrity well back from the reef, he told Kara to go forward and release the other anchor. She ran to the foredeck and studied how to release the anchor. Gybe was too far away and the noise from the outboard precluded any questions.

  She pulled the stowing pin from the bow roller and pushed the anchor over. Holding onto the chain, she fed out forty feet of chain before coming to the chain/rope splice. From then on, the anchor rode was three quarter inch nylon rope. Ferrity continued to move backwards.

  Gybe signaled her to stop so Kara wrapped the rode around a cleat and walked to the stern.

  He moved the dink forward and tied it securely to the starboard quarter – starboard side near the stern. This was the preferred maneuvering position. The outboard idled as Gybe watched Ferrity swing around and face the wind. When he was satisfied that the second anchor was holding, he killed the engine and climbed aboard. He walked forward and checked Kara’s work.

  “Good job,” he hugged Kara, “thanks.”

  As the adrenaline ebbed and the sweat dried, their unclothed bodies cooled. Kara and Gybe dropped back into the cabin. Gybe offered her one of his sweatshirts before slipping into another one. In the galley, he sat a pot of water on the stove and lit the burner.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Kara asked.

  Gybe explained the best that he could, but until he recovered the first anchor chain, he wouldn’t know what had happened. In the cockpit, they sat quietly, drank the hot coffee, and watched the incoming light of dawn wash across the harbor.

  Using the electric windlass, Gybe retrieved the errant anchor. Or, at least he tried. The chain ground around the gypsy head and fell into the chain locker. He heard the chain bang against the hull just before he heard the windlass strain under load. Immediately, he raised his foot from the windlass’s UP button.

  Peering over the side, he saw the chain lead back under the boat, tight against the hull. Nothing made any sense. Angry, he pulled off the sweatshirt and dove over the side.

  Amidships, he surfaced for air, then disappeared again. The splash had brought Kara on deck. She studied the water as Gybe surfaced for air then dove back beneath the boat.

  Near the stern, a sputter of water was followed by a curse involving the sexual union of men and swine. Kara watched as a mumbling Gybe returned to the cockpit.

  Kara tried to say something, but the fixation of anger on his face quieted her comments. He pulled scuba gear from the starboard cockpit locker and returned to the water.

  Mongoose cut the outboard and Flyn shipped the oars several yards away from Ferrity. They knew Gybe was in the water with his scuba gear. Kara invited them aboard.

  “We heard something about pigs?” Mongoose puzzled. “And Flyn says you guys were making a lot of noise before sunup. Did your diaphragm fall over the side?”

  Kara glared.

&nbs
p; “Are the lovers having a spat?”

  “Screw you ‘goose. One more word and I’ll pull my diaphragm over your ears.”

  A wad of half-inch rope splashed on deck announcing Gybe’s return to Ferrity. Flyn helped him out of the scuba pack. Kara returned with another pot of fresh coffee.

  “You bring no lobsters for breakfast? What were you doing down there, lose your contacts?” The ‘goose asked the sour-faced Gybe.

  Gybe shrugged out of his wetsuit and rolled the neoprene to his waist before sitting down. He took the steaming mug from Kara.

  Their mouths gaped as Gybe described what happened. “Someone, who values his life little, removed the shackle that attaches the anchor to the chain. A five hundred dollar anchor. But that wasn’t enough. The bastard then took a fifty-foot chunk of rope and tied one end to the anchor chain. The other end he ran aft and tied around the prop.”

  Gybe paused for more coffee while the others absorbed his statements.

  “I woke up with a sense that something was wrong with the boat. The wavelets had stopped slapping the bow, yet I could still hear the wind. That’s when I got up and looked outside.”

  When he discovered Ferrity adrift and closing on the reef, his first reaction was to start the engine and motor back. But when he shifted into reverse, the rope wound up around the prop and pulled the dangling anchor chain against the hull.

  “ Ferrity was drifting towards the reef and the engine was useless If the winds had been any stronger or if the asshole had disabled the dink, Ferrity would be on the reef right now.”

  61

  It was Saturday morning, so the group walked the causeway towards town. The farmer’s market was in full swing when they arrived. Vendors offered tomatoes, green onions, Maui onions, garlic, cucumbers, mangoes, avocados, apple bananas, papayas, and other produce. In addition to the garden products, local artists displayed their craft wares. Some artists had ferried over from Maui to take advantage of the holiday season.