by Trish Doller
It’s a simple question, but my home is right here, right now. “Florida, I guess.”
She laughs. “You guess?”
“I’m kind of a nomad at the moment, but I started this trip in Fort Lauderdale.”
“Goodness, you’re so young.” Joyce sounds like a concerned mom and it’s very touching. “Did you come all this way by yourself?”
“I’ve done some of it alone, but I had company for most of the trip.”
“We came up from Grenada,” she says. “We took a couple of years to sail through the Caribbean, but we like the Grenadines and Grenada the best, so we’ve been going back and forth between the two for the past six months. What about you?”
“South to Trinidad, but I may keep going. Not right away because I need to save up some money, but—” I take a sip of punch, surprised at myself. Sailing to the Panama Canal would be incredibly difficult by myself, and I don’t know that I want to cross the entire Pacific Ocean, but nothing is off the table. “Yeah. I can go anywhere.”
I eat dinner with Joyce and her husband, Mike, who dinghies out from shore with a bucket of lobsters. The orange-shelled monsters send a pang of longing for Keane through me. I snap a photo and text it to him: What the poor folks are eating right now. I miss your face and the rest of you too. The three of us compare notes about islands we have in common, and I laugh at myself as the crazy screaming white woman of Wallilabou Bay.
“It’s hard to choose a favorite,” Joyce says. “But I think mine is Mayreau, just down the chain from here. Gorgeous beach, fun bars, and the national park at Tobago Cays is spectacular. Turtles everywhere. You can even swim with them.”
I’m glad I’ve had enough rum to disguise the flush in my cheeks when I tell her Martinique is my favorite. It’s not completely a lie when I tell her it’s because of the slave memorial and the beach at Les Anses d’Arlet.
Before I go, Joyce takes my picture for her sailing blog and suggests we have lunch tomorrow. A warm buzz sits in my head, in my body, as I motor Queenie ashore for a quick bit of doggie business. I fall asleep with the hatch open to let in the stars, and dream about sea turtles.
* * *
Alexander from Daffodil’s place shows up at dawn, bearing a bag of clean laundry and a replacement shackle for my halyard. I’m still trying to fully awaken when he scrambles up the mast and pulls the errant halyard back down to the deck. Within minutes the new shackle is installed. Alexander takes away my trash. I listen to the weather to make sure I have a window.
Joyce comes out on deck wearing her droopy bathing suit and holding a huge travel mug of coffee as I’m pulling up the anchor.
“You’re leaving?”
“I need to swim with those turtles.”
Her laugh drifts over to me. “Have fun. Be safe.”
“You too. And thank you for dinner.”
Before I’m out of range of the island’s cell service, I check my phone to see if Keane texted back while I was sleeping, but there are no new messages.
The mainsail at full capacity, the boat powers through the water. I sail past Canouan and into the passage above Mayreau. I consider sailing to Salt Whistle Bay to see why Joyce loves it, but I want to swim with the turtles more. The ocean winds strengthen, so I put a reef in the mainsail until I get into the lee of the Tobago Cays. I lower the sails early and motor carefully, watching for the navigational markers that guide me through the reefs. There are about a dozen boats of all sizes and power sources moored off the beach of a tiny uninhabited island, and I’m tying the boat to a mooring ball when a park ranger comes to collect the fee.
When I slip into the clear, shallow water and see my first sea turtle—almost close enough to touch, hanging in the water like a bird mid-flight—everything I did to get here was worth the effort. The turtle stares at me, and swims away. Underwater, time loses meaning as I follow my new friend, watching it dip toward the bottom and swoop to the surface, poking its head out into the dry world. I swim until my limbs are noodles and my stomach is ready to be filled.
Queenie brings me the ball to throw while I drink soup and eat a sandwich on the foredeck. I secure her in the V-berth for the night and fall asleep in the hammock, stretched under stars flung across the sky like confetti.
In my dreams, I am back in Fort Lauderdale, in my old apartment, with Ben’s face hovering over me, his hips moving slowly against mine. His hair is soft between my fingers and I can feel him inside me. I’m startled out of the dream by my own voice, a moan, and I lie with my heartbeat racing. My body pulsing from a sleep orgasm. Tears of disappointment and guilt, happiness and confusion, fill my eyes. Especially when I realize that the way his body moved against mine was not Ben at all. It was Keane.
I give up trying to sleep when the first light appears on the horizon. It isn’t bright enough to even call it sunrise when I raise the anchor and head south. I stop briefly at Union Island to clear out of the Grenadines and take Queenie for a walk. While she snuffles in a scrubby palm, looking for lizards, I text Keane: I hate that every part of me misses every part of you. As soon as I hit send, I regret it. Texting him isn’t helping me move forward.
An hour later I am back under sail, aiming for Grenada, the last stop before Trinidad.
Dolphins accompany me for the first couple of hours, and with the autopilot engaged, I stand on the foredeck and watch them race the boat. These are common dolphins—a species I’ve never seen before—darker gray on their backs than the bottlenose variety, with light-colored sides. When they’ve had their fun, they disappear, and I’m left to fill the hours myself. I think a lot about my dream and second-guess whether I put Ben away too soon, fell too fast for Keane.
In Victorian times, rules of society dictated that widows wear black for a year and a day, then transition to half mourning, when they were allowed to lighten up their colors. Even if the widows’ actual feelings were muddled, the rules were pretty clear. But my year and a day is coming up fast and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, let alone how I’m supposed to feel. There’s no wrong way to grieve, but I’ve taken a step backward. I’m angry that Keane left, and angry Ben came back.
I put on dance music and push them both away. Sing at the top of my lungs. Pause to marvel that five miles away an active underwater volcano called Kick ’em Jenny is building an island. Thousands of years from now, a different woman might sail past alone; another people might settle there and make it a home. And, once more, Mother Nature puts my small life into perspective.
Sunset is imminent when I roll up the jib and lower the main to motor into the shelter harbor of Hog Island. Grenada resembles the other islands—green hills and golden beaches—and I’m nearing the mouth of the harbor when the engine alarm shrills. Queenie begins to howl, and I don’t know what to do except turn off the motor. Down in the cabin, I pull up the companionway stairs and open the engine box. Heat blasts out at me, smelling like burnt paint. There’s no fire, no smoke, but the engine definitely overheated.
“Shit.”
This problem is more difficult than the halyard. I’m not capable of sailing into a harbor filled with boats, coming to a stop, and anchoring without a motor. And, unlike St. Vincent, where I’d have my pick of boat boys, there are none in Grenada. I consider calling for help on the radio, but pride pulls me back. Not knowing what has gone wrong on my own boat is embarrassing. On top of everything, it’s starting to get dark.
“If I could take the dinghy ashore—oh my God! I know what to do! I know what to do!”
I fling open one of the cockpit lockers and grab a rope. Run up to the foredeck and tie the line to one of the cleats. Keeping hold of the line, I lower myself into the dinghy … and tow my boat into the harbor.
stranded in paradise (30)
I spend most of the next morning on the internet, troubleshooting what’s wrong with the engine. I’m not sure I can afford a professional mechanic. I can only hope the fix is easy enough to do myself. Or maybe I can ask someone from a neighbo
ring sailboat to help me. All signs point to the water pump bearing having seized up, so I take a local bus—a large van with about fifteen people squished inside—to the nearest marine repair shop in search of a new pump.
“We’re waiting on a delivery boat from Trinidad,” the mechanic tells me. “It’ll be here Tuesday or Wednesday.”
“Would anyone else have it, you think?”
He shrugs. “I can call around, but it’s pretty unlikely.”
“How much?”
“About three hundred US,” he says. “Plus labor if you want us to install it for you. That will run about four hundred and fifty dollars with the service call.”
I think back to Provo, when Keane and I decided not to spend extra money waiting for a weather window. Hindsight and a dislocated shoulder made it a bad call at the time, but now I have money for a water pump.
“Let me know when you get the part,” I say. “I’ll decide on the labor later.”
Since there’s nothing I can do until the water pump arrives, I decide to enjoy Grenada. I stop at the IGA in Grand Anse to restock the galley, then play with Queenie on deck while I cook up a pot of chicken, rice, and beans. Later, when music drifts across the water from the bar on Hog Island and a lively conversation from a nearby boat make the night too loud for sleeping, I swing in the hammock with Queenie.
Your tool bag misses you too, I text Keane.
I do it without thinking, and he doesn’t answer, just like he hasn’t answered my other texts. Maybe in the middle of the ocean my words get lost in space. Maybe a bag of tools is a small price to pay for Keane’s escape. Doubt has a way of creeping into the smallest places and putting down roots, even though I don’t believe Keane would ever leave that way. Even so, I need to stop doing this. I need to let go.
I email my mom and Carla to let them know I’ve reached Grenada. Celebrate crossing the 1,600-mile mark. Share my victories over the broken halyard and the failed engine. Attach the picture Joyce took of me in Bequia. I haven’t devoted many words to describing the places I’ve been and the people I’ve met, but I’m saving them all for one big story.
Carla emails back almost immediately.
A—You look so different. And not just because you’re smiling. You look like the Anna I remember. I miss you, but I love seeing how far you’ve come, both geographically and emotionally. At the bar, we’ve been keeping your progress on a map, but I know we’ve missed some places in between. I can’t wait to hear all the details, especially the ones about Keane Sullivan, because I’ve missed some details of that story too. Sail safe. xoxo—C
Saturday, I take a bus to the market in St. George’s, where I wander a street lined with tent-covered stalls, heaping with vegetables and fruits, spices and souvenirs. I buy some fruits I’ve never seen before—soursops, mangosteens, and sugar apples—while vendors call out offers for T-shirts, tote bags, bottles of hot sauce, and spice necklaces. Chicken-scented smoke swirls around me as I drink the water from a coconut with a straw and buy small sacks of spices for my mom—whole nutmegs, star anise, cinnamon sticks, and tiny black seeds called nigella. I find a blue batik sundress and a little steel pan drum for Maisie. And I let myself be talked into buying three spice necklaces—strung with red mace, cinnamon, ginger, clove, nutmeg, and turmeric—for ten EC by a lady whose brown arms are draped with them.
“You hang it in the kitchen or the bathroom,” she says. “It lasts for three years and every six months or so, soak it in water to freshen up the scent.”
My last stop is at a meat vendor, where I buy some oxtail segments that I later cook with rice and beans and steamed cabbage. After dinner I try one of the sugar apples, separating the knobby skin into pieces. The white flesh is soft and sweet like custard, and each piece contains a seed. It’s a lot of work for such a little fruit, but it’s worth it. I wrap some of the seeds in a damp paper towel and stash them in a plastic baggie. Maybe I’ll gather some dirt and start growing my own tree.
On Sunday afternoon a group of cruisers from all over the world load coolers of beer into their dinghies and raft them together off the beach in front of Roger’s Barefoot Beach Bar, where a reggae band plays. I’m watching from the cockpit when a grandmotherly-looking white lady wearing a wide straw hat, corks dangling from the brim, motors past and shouts, “Come to the dinghy concert!”
I grab Queenie, a couple of bottles of Carib, and a bag of plantain chips, and join the party. I lash my dinghy to one belonging to a bald white guy in his late thirties. His dog, a shaggy reddish-black mutt, scrambles over the boats to meet Queenie before I’ve finished tying the knot.
“Sorry about that,” he says. “Gus is a friendly guy.”
“No problem. Queenie’s glad for the company.”
“I’m Dave.” He reaches across to shake my hand.
“Anna.”
“Where you from?”
“Technically Florida,” I say. “But I belong to that boat there.”
He laughs. “I like how you put it that way. So true. And get this … I belong to that boat over there.”
I follow the line of his finger to a smaller, battle-scarred version of my boat with the name Four Gulls painted on the transom.
“Yours is the only other Alberg I’ve seen since I left Florida.”
Dave explains that he spends most of his year in the Caribbean but works as a bartender back home in Cleveland every summer to feed his sailing habit. I tell him I ran away from home, and he laughs. After the dinghy concert, we give each other Alberg tours.
“Damn,” he says. “Yours is so much cleaner than mine.”
“Maybe. But I bet yours runs.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Pretty sure it’s the water pump,” I say. “The marine supply says they should be back in stock Tuesday or Wednesday.”
“There are worse fates than being stranded in paradise,” he says. “If you need a hand installing it, I’d be happy to help.”
Dave admires my pirate doodle and when he sees the Polaroid from the patchwork house, he asks if Keane is my old man. I pretend to shake and turn over a Magic 8-Ball. “Cannot predict now.”
He laughs. “Long distance can be a killer.”
We go from my boat to his, cutting a slalom course through the anchorage and doing doughnut circles in the empty spaces between boats. We’re laughing like little kids when an old guy comes out of his cabin to yell at us.
Four Gulls is crammed with stuff—power tools, extra sails, clothes everywhere, a broken fan clipped to the handrail—like a storage closet exploded. I have no idea how Dave fits himself and a dog in such a crowded space.
“I’d blame it on a rogue wave,” he says. “But yeah. It’s kind of a mess.”
Taped to his bulkhead is a picture of him with a pretty blonde.
“Long distance?” I ask.
“Yup.” He lifts a fist to bump and I tap my knuckles against his. “She’ll be down in a couple of weeks. I’m going to have to start cleaning soon.”
“You should probably throw everything overboard and start fresh.”
He laughs. “Or set fire to the whole boat and use the insurance money to buy a new one.”
Dave breaks out some Bud Light he brought from Ohio. We drink and play dominoes until sunset. He delivers me to my boat as anchor lights are going on all over the harbor. “Just like curfew,” he says. “Give me a holler when you get your water pump.”
I consider texting Keane as I crawl into my bed, but there doesn’t seem to be much point. Even if the fault lies with the satellites, I’ve stopped hoping for a reply.
Monday, Queenie and I take a minibus to Grand Etang National Park, where we go for a long hike in the rain forest. Tuesday, I jump off a ledge into the pool at the bottom of the Annandale waterfall. Wednesday, the service manager from the marine repair shop calls to let me know my pump has arrived.
* * *
Dave comes over the following morning and talks me through each step of removing the broken pump
and installing the new one. It doesn’t take long at all.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve assembled IKEA furniture more complicated than this,” I say.
“Exactly,” he says. “Which is why it’s ridiculous to pay for labor.”
He double-checks to make sure all the bolts are as tight as they should be and gives me a thumbs-up. “You done good, kid.”
With the engine repaired, the boat is ready for Trinidad.
I spend the rest of the day preparing meals for the crossing, so I won’t have to cook if the weather gets rough. I clean the cabin. Stow my gear. Rig up a makeshift kennel for Queenie in case she needs to be confined at sea. Dave comes by at dinnertime and takes me to his boat for a farewell burger. He grills them rare and dripping with cheese.
“Oh my God.” I talk with my mouth full. “I can’t remember the last time I had a cheeseburger.”
“Right? I love seafood as much as the next guy,” he says. “But I’ll take an artery-clogging burger over fish any day of the week.”
We tune into the weather report as we eat, and celebrate the prediction of calm seas with glasses of strong rum punch. Dave runs me back to my boat at dusk and gives me a farewell hug.
“We could exchange emails,” he says. “But I don’t really check my email that much.”
“That’s okay. I’m starting to understand that some people come into your life when you need them, and go when it’s time,” I say. “And, you know, if I ever have to replace the water pump again, I’ll think of you.”
He laughs and hugs me once more. “Have a safe trip.”
I thank him. And it’s time to go.
a million shimmering pieces (31)
Every so often the universe doles out rewards. Maybe for something as small as flossing every day or choosing paper over plastic. Or perhaps loving someone so much that it helps them stay alive a little while longer than they might have. For whatever reason the universe chose for me, I am rewarded with the most perfect night. A sky so clear that every star must surely be visible, and the moonlight is bright as it hits the water, shattering into a million shimmering pieces. It was daunting to cross the Gulf Stream two months ago, but tonight I’m not afraid of the sea. Not afraid of my future. Even if the wind kicks up and the waves build, I’m here for it.