by Ed Bethune
We made a few repairs to Salute, and the next day we left Cat Cay, heading farther into the Bahamas. After a couple of windy nights on the anchor, we eased our way into Nassau harbor after dark. The harbor is large, heavily populated with big cruise boats and a plethora of smaller boats at anchor and on moorings. The variety of lights and reflections on a dark night in a busy harbor make it hard to see, but we eventually found an open spot and dropped our anchor, only to discover the next morning when we tried to move to a marina that our anchor had fouled around the propeller shaft of a sunken boat. We could do nothing but laugh at ourselves. It was a mistake to come in after dark. The harbor at Nassau, which seems so inviting, is full of such hazards, but we had no way to know that. We had to dive to free the anchor, but eventually got it loose and safely tied up at a marina near the bridge to Paradise Island. Finally, after gaining this latest bit of sailing experience, we could relax and enjoy the Bahamas.
We spent a good part of each day in the old city of Nassau in quest of a new and different kind of conch chowder but our favorite thing was to buy freshly baked warm bread, fill it with butter, and devour it as we strolled through town.
Several big cruise boats arrived during our week in Nassau and thousands of passengers got off for their short walk around town. They stood out like a sore thumb. Well-dressed, well fed and pampered, they headed straight to the straw-markets then wandered around in search of something to take home as a souvenir. The cruising sailors, in contrast, were easy to spot. Well-tanned and slightly sloppy, we shied away from the souvenir shops; heading instead to an endless supply of mom-and-pop stands to bargain for fresh fish, avocados, tomatoes, and other good things to eat. Fresh vegetables are worth their weight in gold to cruising sailors, particularly in the tropics.
One day we walked across the bridge that leads to Paradise Island, a popular destination for tourists. We entered a big hotel just to look around, and as we were about to leave we decided to check out a casino connected to one end of the hotel lobby. We were almost past the blackjack tables when Lana cried out, “Bud, what in the world are you doing here?” I looked around and there sat Lana’s uncle, Bud Collier from Hope, Arkansas. It is truly a small world. We caught up on family news and invited Bud to lunch, but he could not join us because his cruise boat was leaving in an hour to return to the United States. I think Bud must have told someone that he saw us, because we learned later that our connection with Bud triggered another “Bethune Sighting” report in the Arkansas papers.
After a week of easy living at the Nassau marina, we sailed to the Exuma Islands, a chain of small islands, most of which are uninhabited. Nassau was fun, but we were eager to get to the Exumas, the finest cruising grounds known to man.
Our first stop was Allen Cay, a wee island at the northern end of the island chain. There is a narrow channel where we, and most of the other sailboats, anchored. The water is so clear that in daylight you can easily see the bottom. There are no people living on Allen Cay, but there are inhabitants. We rowed our dinghy ashore and a small herd of iguanas greeted us. Iguanas, rare and scary critters, look like a cross between a gila monster and a small alligator. I cannot say the ones that met us were friendly because iguanas just naturally look mean. The iguanas on Allen Cay are borderline-domesticated because visiting sailors feed them lettuce, which they love. We fed them too, just to be on the safe side.
Just two years before we sailed into Norman Cay, our next anchorage in the Exumas, the island had been home to a Columbian drug lord who used it as a base for shipping cocaine into the United States. The history of the place reads like a movie script, and some say it was the inspiration for Hollywood to make the movie, Blow, starring Johnny Depp. We had heard a number of stories from other sailors about the hazards of inadvertently running into drug criminals. There were boardings, shootings, and murders of sailors who got too close to the action. It was something we had to watch out for, and we could not count on the authorities to protect us. There were plenty of stories about how the drug dealers had bought off the authorities and key political people. Extreme caution was the best policy for us to follow.
There was a submerged two-engine plane in the harbor of Norman Cay. Some say the drug lord had used the plane in his drug trafficking, that it crashed in the water, sank to the bottom and that he abandoned it there. We rowed over to it and what we saw made us wonder why no one tried to raise the aircraft. It was still in one piece, mostly.
The next day, Lana saw a low-flying airplane drop a sizeable square package about a mile offshore from Warderick Wells Cay, our first stop after Norman Cay. She said she bet it was drugs, and she was probably right. She said we should call the authorities on our VHF radio to let them know of the drop. My instincts as a former FBI agent kicked in and I said, “Are you kidding? The drug dealers can hear our radio transmissions as well as the authorities can, and they will not think of us as public-minded tourists, they will think of us as witnesses!” We maintained radio silence and it was a good thing that we did. Shortly after the package hit the water, a big, fast cigarette boat was on its way to the site. It scooped up the package and headed off in the direction of Nassau.
In the Bahamas there are many hazardous reefs, and sailors learn to avoid them by studying the shade of the water when the sun is high. One mistake and a reef can rip a hole in your boat, and it will be lying on the bottom in a matter of minutes. There were a few drawings depicting the location of some of the most dangerous reefs, but for the most part, sailors in the days before GPS were on their own to see and avoid the reefs.
A week after our brush with the drug dealers, we were at Little Farmers Cay, ready for a nice night. We anchored by two other sailboats in a well-protected cove. It was almost dark when we saw a good-sized sailboat heading in from the sea. Without sunlight, the newcomer would not see the unmarked reef that separated the main channel from the anchorage. If he knew about the reef, he might miss it, or he might anchor in another part of Little Farmers Cay. When the boat turned toward us, it was immediately apparent that the captain was going to go up on the reef. Even before he hit it, we—the captains of the boats at anchor—were lowering our dinghies and heading in his direction. It was my turn to help a sailor in distress. It was payback for the time sailors had helped us at Cat Cay when our anchor chain broke. It took the best part of an hour to get the large boat off the reef, and it was dark by the time we got back to our boats, but the distressed sailor was safe, anchored alongside us in our little cove. The incident scarred his boat and hurt his pride, but he had survived a serious grounding that could have ended his adventure. He rowed over to Salute and gave us a bottle of good red wine. Sailors take care of each other.
Georgetown, the capital of the Exumas, is a small place. With only a few hundred permanent residents, the little town is a beehive of activity in the winter months when sailors and tourists arriving by plane dominate the community. We sailed into Elizabeth Harbor in early February and anchored in a protected area, just across from the town’s main dock. The Exuma Island chain consists of some three hundred cays and is about 120 miles long. Georgetown, situated on Great Exuma Island, is at the bottom of the chain and has been an important seaport since the seventeenth century when pirates, including the notorious Captain Kidd, made good use of its deep-water harbor. It was also a refitting base for British vessels in Revolutionary War days, and the U. S. Navy used the port in World War II. Like most sailors, we had worked our way south from cay to cay, and Georgetown was as far as we would go.
Our first few days in Georgetown were spent hauling jugs of fresh water from the town fountain to Salute. Good, clean, fresh water is scarce and expensive, and so are fresh vegetables. The mail boat arrives twice a week laden with crates of fresh vegetables, and sailors scurry to the main dock to get what they can before it is all gone. We just missed the mail boat when we first arrived, so we spent several days eating canned vegetables. Soon, though, we discovered the rhythm of Georgetown and spent most days snork
eling, swimming, and adventuring to nearby cays. We had been in Georgetown nearly three weeks when one night, on a whim, we decided to anchor near the town’s oldest hotel, a pink-painted building on the north end of town. The building, like most architecture in the islands, was nothing special but it was functional. As the sun was setting, we heard on our radio that the prime minister of the Bahamas was attending a reception at the old hotel. When he and his entourage arrived, we were in the cockpit of our boat, roughly fifty yards from the veranda, the site of the reception. Our view of the scene, the folderol, and the colorful music brought back a flood of memories from our time in political office. It gave us a chance to contrast our best memories—trips to the White House, gala events, and exciting elections—with the simple life we were living as sailors. Soon we realized that we had not thought about or talked about politics for nearly a month, and that was a satisfying feeling. We had achieved the main purpose of our sabbatical: We had washed away the influences and persistent thoughts that consume people in public life. Our minds were clear and fresh. We were now ready to start thinking and talking about what we would do with the rest of our life together.
The sights and sounds of Georgetown are captivating, but we will always remember it as the place where we declared victory over the mind warping influences of politics. We stayed almost a month, but left in early March before the extra-heavy influx of people and boats that arrive each year for the annual Georgetown Sailing Regatta.
We stopped again in Little Farmer’s Cay on the way back and dropped our anchor next to a beautiful schooner from the Virgin Islands. Just as we settled down the schooner sailors, two men and two women, all in their early eighties, jumped over the side to cool off and clean up. It amazed us that these senior citizens had sailed such a long distance. They were thoroughly enjoying life to the fullest. They were bobbing around and splashing each other like teenagers as they laughed and jabbered. It was a great lesson for us, particularly since we were sorting out what we wanted to do in the years to come. I was forty-nine and Lana was forty-seven. We felt very young as we watched the kids from the Virgin Islands.
At our next stop I decided to snorkel around in water about fifteen feet deep while Lana stayed aboard the dinghy. The sights below the surface—plant life, fish, and other critters—are stunning. The water throughout the Bahamas is crystal-clear. I dove down to look at a school of fish and as I marveled at the view, something told me to look back to my right. I could not believe what I saw. I was face to face with a big shark who was watching me watch the fish. It was my first up-close encounter with a shark, and, contrary to the local lore that I should keep my cool, I shot to the surface and in one motion hauled myself aboard the inflatable dinghy which was directly above. Gasping for air, I blubbered to Lana, “Shark! Let’s get out of here!” I probably scared the shark, but I shudder to think what might have happened if Lana and the dinghy had not been right above me.
We stopped at Samson Cay, our last stop before returning to Nassau. Our daughter Paige, twenty-two at the time, joined us for the rest of our adventure. The amenities at Samson Cay are surprisingly upscale. It is one of the few inhabited places in the Exumas, and the three of us enjoyed a sit-down dinner on a patio overlooking the circular harbor where Salute was at anchor. We were living high on the hog for the first time since we had left Nassau.
Our trip back home was slow by design. We had mixed feelings. We hated to leave the islands, but we were eager to get back to the United States.
I had a new challenge to face. We were broke and needed to start thinking about how to make a living and how to secure our senior years. In keeping with the Vermilye maxim, I had refused to take the congressional pension because it would have produced a larcenous windfall for me, and I had railed against it in my campaigns. My benefit would have been sizeable because I had six years in Congress, three years in the Marine Corps, and four years in the FBI; a total of thirteen years federal service. I was not going to be a hypocrite; besides, my upbringing taught me that I did not need or want anything from “them.”
The good news was that we had many options. We had worn ourselves out debating the career choices that were available to me, and to Lana, now that I was a former congressman. I had offers to be part of the Reagan administration, and I had offers from Washington, D. C. law firms and lobby shops. There were corporations looking for people like me, but in the end, we decided we wanted to go home to Arkansas. I wanted to go back to the practice of law. I had been a good trial lawyer before Congress, and I wanted to pick up where I had left off. I had an offer to join the Hilburn Law Firm in North Little Rock that was appealing to me. I had dated Sam Hilburn’s sister, a Walnut Ridge girl, when I was in high school in Pocahontas, and his older brother and I were friends during my first hitch at the University of Arkansas in 1953. The lawyers at the firm were smart, solid, ethical practitioners. It was a natural fit.
Our voyage from Nassau took us back through Miami, down through the Florida Keys, up the west coast of Florida to Naples and eventually to Fort Myers. We left Salute at a marina in Fort Myers and headed to Arkansas.
Our excellent adventure, a six-month journey from Savannah, Georgia to the Exumas and back to Florida was a success. It cleared our heads allowing us to make a good choice about our future.
Meanwhile, I was on another journey, one that was not over. After our move to Potomac Chapel, I reoriented my thinking about religious matters. I was a new Christian because I had learned, intellectually at least, that I needed to put God in the center of my life in order to make sense out of the Bible. Our years at Potomac taught me that I needed to suppress the urge to self-centeredness but learning and doing are two different things, particularly for someone so steeped in the Vermilye worldview. It also occurred to me, as an academic proposition, that the media and entertainment industry, as well as other secular forces, were making it increasingly difficult to change from secular, self-centered thinking to Biblical, God-centered thinking. I spent too much time thinking about that, probably because I loved to shuck the blame for my own shortcomings. I read and studied, as much as time would allow, in an effort to master the intellectual aspects of the challenge I faced. But I was missing something and I could not put my finger on it. My sailing trip had been successful, but my Christian voyage still had a long way to go.
42
HOME AGAIN, LAWYER AGAIN
Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so
humble, there’s no place like home.
Robert Louis Stevenson
My return to Little Rock and the practice of law with the Hilburn Firm gave me a chance to be a “tall building lawyer,” the moniker lawyers outside of Little Rock used to describe any highfalutin lawyer with an office in a big building, in a big city. Lawyers in little towns, at least when I started practicing, were a special breed. Much of the work we did in Searcy that involved an opposing lawyer we did on a handshake. We knew a lot about every lawyer in our town and all the little towns around us. We knew more than his name and favorite areas of practice. We knew his family, his secretary, how much money he made, his style of argument, his educational background, his personal preferences, his peccadilloes. We knew it all, and we worked and played together. Because of that, we knew whom to trust.
Almost everyone followed the creed that a lawyer’s word is his bond, and we knew the few who did not. It was a wonderful way to practice law. We did a good job for our clients without a lot of redundant paperwork and unnecessary court hearings. We did what we needed to do, of course, but there was no fear that we were not dotting every i and crossing every t. We served our clients, made a good living, but kept our fees at a fair level. That era of trust and efficiency in the legal system began to fade away in the 1970s, and it started with the tall building lawyers in the big cities. Not knowing their colleagues as we did in Searcy led to an high level of distrust, hence more paperwork—more concern to cover one’s ass, and bigger bills for the clients to pay. The col
lapse of tradition, which goes beyond the legal profession, is an old story. The city breeds a sense of anonymity that in turn breeds a lack of trust and care about colleagues and neighbors. Eventually, the lack of trust amongst lawyers in the big cities spread to the lawyers in the small towns.
I discovered upon my return to the practice of law that it is like riding a bicycle; you never forget how to do it. I had to brush up on some of the changes but almost immediately, I was back in the courtroom doing the things I had done before going to Congress. I had a successful two years at the firm.
Everything was going well, but we lost Lana’s dad, George Douthit, on May 25, 1985. He was a character, self-taught and self-made. He was born in Texas, but ran away from home in his teens and started work as a copyboy for a newspaper in Texarkana.
Journalism would be his life. Like so many others his age, George went away to World War II in 1941. He served in Patton’s Third Army, and as an officer in the Transportation Corps, he dealt with the great fuel shortage that threatened Patton’s advance across Europe. When he returned from the war, George married Lana’s mother and adopted Lana when she was nine years old. He worked his way up to be a reporter for the Arkansas Democrat and usually got the scoop when it concerned Governor Orval Faubus. George did not agree with Faubus on everything, but Faubus trusted him to be fair.