“You have a microwave?” Captain Wang asked.
“Yes.” Zach pointed to two large solar panels on the roof of the main cabin. “We have both solar power and a diesel generator. As long as we don’t overdo it, we have a good supply of electricity.”
At lunch that day, they decided to drop the sails and cut the engine to enjoy a leisurely meal and conversation.
“I remember that Americans can be very cosmopolitan,” commented the submarine captain. “You have many kinds of restaurants in your country.”
“Did you get used to eating American food, or did you just eat rice?” asked Denise.
“When I was there, I ate mostly American cuisine and became quite fond of it.”
“Oh?” said Stacey. “What was your favorite American dish?”
“Tacos.”
Chapter 34
THE Chinese officer and the Americans burst out laughing at his remark, astonishing the other two submariners. When he was able to control his mirth, Wang told his speechless compatriots about the vast cultural diversity in the United States.
“Every country has its own specialized dishes,” he said after explaining that every country in the world is represented in the U.S. population, some so heavily they make up a majority in areas. “There are restaurants serving dishes from everywhere around the world,” he continued. “In some areas, Mexican restaurants outnumber all others. The taco is actually a Mexican dish but there are so many served, a stranger would assume they are a native U.S. dish.”
After the man who brought the food returned to the submarine and the “gangplank” was removed and stored, the Chinese ship moved away from the La Sirena. The sailboat’s crew worked around their “guests” as they hoisted the sails so they could resume their trip. As the Americans talked, the two Chinese who spoke English translated for their shipmate.
When lunch was served, the rice dishes were warmed up in the ship’s microwave. The Chinese were again surprised when Zach, Stacey, and George used chopsticks to eat their Cantonese Rice.
“Yes, the United States must have a very diverse society,” the second English-speaking submariner concluded, a hint of awe in his voice.
Just as surprising to the Americans, Captain Wang used a fork. “Easier to eat with,” he said, although he did resort to chopsticks to pick up smaller items.
After the first day, the submarine pulled up next to the sailboat every morning to drop off three of their crew, and again in the evening to allow them to return. There was always one English-speaking sailor among them. They listened to the Americans talk and asked questions about life in the United States. There was interest in family life, work, entertainment, and shopping but political issues were usually the main topic. The Chinese were amazed that there were different political parties and philosophies, but what seemed to baffle them most was that people openly questioned the actions of their leaders.
The submarine was always in sight, and some members of its crew were always on deck. They worked out, an exercise that looked like yoga to the Americans. When not doing that, they either studied, or fished, using poles at times, but mostly using nets. They caught enough to feed themselves regularly and had enough left over to give to the Americans. They also provided their hosts with a variety of foods from their storage area, which consisted of mostly rice and noodles or a variety of cut portions of meats and vegetables from their freezer. Because of the gifts of food, the Americans used barely half of their own stores during the more than three weeks they were at sea with the submarine.
The crew of the La Sirena got used to having the Chinese on board during the day and equally accepted having the submarine nearby at all times. Although they would not characterize their relationship with their “guests” as friendship, it became comfortable for most of them. George kept his distance.
Several of the Chinese were suspicious of the Americans, as well. They weren’t openly hostile but neither did they attempt to get close, their eyes constantly on guard. Ninety percent of the submariners, though, exhibited no hostility and used the opportunity to learn all they could. Like the majority of the Americans, they became comfortable with the arrangement.
Three weeks passed, and they didn’t see another boat as they approached the waters outside California. There was one plane, which was headed west. It was off in the distance and flying at more than thirty thousand feet altitude, so they had no way of knowing what kind of plane it was, where it came from or where it was going. It was unlikely anyone on the plane would have seen them. Two months earlier, on the trip west from California to the South Pacific, they had seen fifteen boats, and at least fifty planes passed by overhead. Things had changed drastically.
As Captain Wang and two members of his crew started to leave the sailboat one evening, they spotted a small clump of loose kelp floating nearby. The officer pointed it out to the sailing crew and called back to them, “We’re near a kelp forest. We should see land by morning.”
A member of the Chinese crew snagged the brownish sea plant with a gaff; a large hook attached to a long pole, and pulled it aboard the sub.
“Great for wrapping some of my cook’s rice dishes,” the captain yelled to the La Sirena crew as he watched his men take the kelp below. “He uses it in soups, too. Great food source.”
* * * * *
As dawn broke the next morning, Glen, whose shoulder had healed well enough that he could again stand his watch, saw the California coast ahead. “Hey, everyone,” he called to those below, “we’re home.”
Denise was the first to make her way to the cockpit, followed by Stacey and Zach. The other three soon joined them.
“In eighty plus years,” Millie stated exuberantly when she saw the hills of the Central California coast, “I’ve never been more pleased to see anything than I am to see dry land.”
“Believe me, Millie,” Stacey told her, “even us ‘old salts’ are just as happy to see it. We love the ocean, but walking on a surface that doesn’t move is going to be a joy.”
“I wonder how the submariners feel about it.” said Zach.
They all turned to see if the submarine crew was on deck to watch as they closed the distance to land.
They saw nothing but ocean where the submarine usually was. It had disappeared.
Chapter 35
ZACH turned on the radar. “That thing doesn’t pick up underwater objects, does it?” George asked.
“No. I’m just looking to see if there is a large ship around. If Captain Wang thought there was an American warship nearby, he’d take his submarine into hiding.”
“Or, now that we’ve given them safe passage, they’re going to do what they came for, which probably isn’t something they want us to see.”
“You have a suspicious mind, George, but I admit we can’t discount that possibility. We’ll just have to play it by ear.”
“See anything on the radar?” Ron asked.
“Nope,” Zach replied. “No boats, large or small, but that does not mean there aren’t some around. This radar has a limit of fifteen miles. His sonar is a lot more powerful, so he can see things we won’t know about for an hour or more. We’ll keep going.”
“Where are we?” Millie asked.
“Trusting that Ron’s navigation is right on,” Zach said, “Santa Barbara is dead ahead.”
“That’s definitely Santa Barbara,” Ron said. “What’s the plan when we get there?”
“Originally, we were going to dock the boat and find transportation to Santa Maria, where my parents live. After what we ran into in Hilo, though, it’s doubtful that we would have a boat when we got back. Stacey and I have talked about it, and if it’s all right with the rest of you, I’ll have her drop me and Denise off in Santa Barbara. Then you can bring the boat back out to sea and wait for us on the water. It’s a lot safer out here than in port.”
“It would be dangerous for the two of you going alone,” George said. “I’ll go with you.”
“I appreciate that,
George, but it is our family. There’s no need for you to risk your life for them.”
“My life has been at risk since the day this all started. We’re all in this together.”
“I should go, too,” Ron added. “If California has become anything like what happened to Hawaii, you’ll need every gun you can get.¨
“I’m overwhelmed,” Zach turned to look at his wife, “but Stacey and Glen could use help, too.”
“You keep forgetting about me,” complained Millie. “I’m a long way from being useless.”
George agreed. “I’d take her at her word if I were you. Millie can outwork people half her age and can hit a fly at fifty paces with her .357 magnum.”
“Millie and Glen are all I’ll need,” Stacey advised her husband.
Zach turned back to George and Ron. “Very well, then, I’ll take the two of you up on your offers. So, let’s lay out a plan.”
They gathered at the back of the cockpit to talk about it. None of them had ever sailed into Santa Barbara before, so they would have to depend solely on charts. There was no way of knowing where the party could safely go ashore until they were there. All they could do was check out the charts for logical spots. Without knowing the local landscape and possible hiding places, it would all be guesswork. Bad guys could be anywhere, and they wouldn’t know it until they were ambushed.
“We may have a bigger puzzle to solve than that one before we even get to the harbor,” Stacey told them as they were gathering up the charts. “A blip came up on the radar screen a little while ago. It’s southeast of us, and it looks like whoever it is plans on intercepting us.”
Denise went to the front of the boat with a pair of binoculars. She scanned the area to the southeast, then stopped and concentrated on one small area. “I see it,” she called back. “It looks pretty big, and Mom’s right. It’s hard to tell at this distance, but it sure looks like they’ll run right into us in an hour or so if they stay on the course they’re on.”
As they got closer to land, the wind changed. They were soon “running” with the wind behind them. Once the sails were set, they were able to sail directly toward the harbor entrance without tacking. From time to time, they “took in” or “let out” a sail, but otherwise it was a fairly leisurely sail.
Which gave them many opportunities to watch as the bigger ship got nearer. It was still the only one on the radar. Denise had been right; it was larger than the usual small craft seen close to shore.
“If I’m not mistaken,” Ron told the others, “that’s a U. S. Coast Guard cutter.”
“I hope you’re right,” Stacey replied. “We could stand to run into some good guys.”
As the ship neared, the configuration of its hull and superstructure became clearer and they could see markings on its hull. “It’s definitely Coast Guard,” Ron confirmed. “A buoy tender, I think.”
“They have big ships just to look after buoys?” Glen asked.
Ron laughed. “They actually do tend buoys, I think. But most of their time is probably spent on the lookout for bad guys – drug smugglers and any other kind of smugglers, including those bringing in illegal immigrants. They’d also be interested in a submarine from an enemy country, I suspect.”
“And well they should be,” George asserted.
“They won’t be interested in us, then,” Denise decided.
“Why not?” queried Glen.
“We’re obviously just a family out sailing,” his sister responded.
“Yeah, but how do they know we’re not someone smuggling gold, or guns, or something like that?”
“Denise could be right,” Zach reasoned. “But, if they don’t stop us, we’ll try to stop them. We need information, and they need to know about Captain Wang and the submarine.”
“Should we go below and get our weapons?” Millie wondered.
“We’d better keep them out of sight,” Zach determined. “We don’t want a friendly military crew thinking we’re itching for a fight. It would be better for us to welcome them with a few cheery hellos.”
As the one-hundred-seventy-five foot cutter approached, they all went to the rail to wave at whomever they saw. Denise even whistled. It was all for naught. Not a single person was visible aboard the cutter.
When the cutter was thirty yards away, a loudspeaker activated. “Heave to,” a loud voice commanded.
An instant later, over twenty members of the cutter’s crew appeared at strategic locations. All were armed. This was different from when the Chinese seamen held their weapons loosely at their sides under similar circumstances several weeks earlier. These people had their weapons trained directly on the sailboat’s crew.
Chapter 36
WHILE the crew dropped the sails, Zach started the engine and put it in reverse to stop the sailboat’s forward motion. The cutter’s engines were also now in reverse to stop the ship. It had a unique thruster system that allowed it to return quickly to where the sailboat was.
When the two vessels were side by side, pointing in opposite directions, an officer from the cutter went to the rail and called, “Who are you and what is your business here?”
“We’re a family trying to reach my parents,” Zach called back.
The officer talked briefly into a small device that looked like a cell phone, and then turned back to the sailboat. “We need to board you for an inspection. Please put a ladder over the side.”
Zach nodded to Denise, who once again got the ladder. Zach hung it over the side as the cutter’s crew put an eighteen-foot skiff in the water. The officer and six armed men got in the skiff and motored the twenty yards from their boat to the La Sirena. The Coast Guard crewmembers who remained on the cutter still had their weapons pointed at the people on the sailboat.
The officer stood when the skiff got to the sailboat. He saluted. “Permission to come aboard,” he said.
Zach knew they were going to board with or without permission. In truth, even with the guns pointed at them, he was happy they were here. He saluted back. “Permission granted.”
Two of the armed men boarded first. They took positions behind members of the crew. The officer then boarded followed by two more armed men. The two others remained on the skiff, watching carefully.
The officer scanned the group, his gaze finally stopping at Zach, who was standing in front of him. ¨You responded to me. Can I assume you are the owner of this boat?”
“It is my family’s boat,” said Zach. “I’m Zach Arthur, and this is my wife, Stacey, and children, Glen and Denise. Millie, George, and Ron are traveling with us. We were sailing in the South Pacific, and when we learned what happened, we came back to check on my parents.”
“My name is Commander Richard Beam, United States Coast Guard. Please excuse what might appear to be overkill, but we must search all vessels entering and leaving waters of the United States.”
“There’s still a United States?” asked Stacey.
The Coast Guard officer was deliberate in his answer. “Yes, there is still a United States. It is not what it was a month ago but it does exist. We believe it will once again be what it was before. In the meantime, those of us left who still have some authority will continue to act on our country’s behalf in whatever way we can. That is what we are doing now.”
“Tell your men to go ahead and search,” Zach told him, “but make sure they put everything back where it was. Our survival isn’t just based on having what we need; it’s also dependent on our knowing where it is if we need it in a hurry.”
“A sensible practice,” the commander agreed. He turned to the Coast Guardsman at his side. “Take two men and proceed with the search, and if you have to move anything, put it back the way it was.”
The man motioned to two of the men, and they went below. George followed.
“He’s a very careful man,” Millie explained to Commander Beam when he looked quizzically at George going down the ladder after his men. “He wants to be sure everything is done right.”
>
The commander smiled. “And, I presume, to make sure everything is still there when we leave.”
“That, too,” Millie admitted.
“A reasonable precaution. I’d probably do the same.” He turned to Zach. “Were you at sea very long?”
It appeared to be a way of making conversation, but Zach knew it was a more casual means of gaining information. “Let me tell you the whole story,” he said, “beginning with why we were in the South Pacific to start with.” He told the Coast Guard officer about their taking a long vacation and sailing to the Marshall Islands. He mentioned their stay on the little island and how communications had gone out while they were there. He was telling him about the trip to Hawaii, and was about at the part of the story where the aircraft carrier almost ran them down when the man in charge of the search came up the ladder from the salon.
He was carrying one of the AK-47s. “Look what we found, Commander,” he said. “There are five more like them down there, plus some small arms.”
“How do you explain those?” the commander asked Zach.
“That’s what I was just getting to,” Zach told him. He described how the aircraft carrier almost ran them down and how they caught up to it the next day. “They sent a boat out to blow up a pirate that was on our tail. Then, they came over to talk to us.”
“The automatic weapons?” the commander asked impatiently. “That’s what I need to know about.”
“I understand that, and that’s what happened when they came over to talk.” Zach’s tone was almost as impatient as the commander's. “The executive officer of the carrier, Commander Kotchel…”
“What did you say?” Beam exclaimed.
“I was explaining how we got supplies, including the weapons.”
“No, I mean the name you mentioned.”
“Commander Kotchel?”
“Yes, that’s what I thought you said. Joe Kotchel?”
“I’m pretty sure he called himself Joseph.”
“Excuse me for a minute.” The commander seemed excited. He took out his phone and punched in a number.
Seeking Safe Harbor: Suddenly Everything Changed (The Seeking Series) Page 13