“Brought another boat in, huh?”
“Yeah, a pretty sweet little wooden schooner—new custom build and all that. Too bad the owner probably won’t get to see her any time soon.”
“If he wasn’t on the island before five minutes after ten yesterday, he won’t. Man, this is one bizarre scene.
Nobody
knows the extent of it. There’s just no way to get any news. We don’t know if anybody’s coming to help us get things back up and running or not.”
“We intend to find out, one way or the other,” Larry said. “We’re gonna sail to the mainland and try to get some answers. I hope you’re not staying around here yourself.”
“Liz and I have already talked about it. Our boat is pretty well stocked up all the time. We won’t stay in Charlotte Amalie more than another day or two. There’s already been some looting and a couple of house fires. It won’t be long before the gangs are running the streets with machetes, taking whatever they want. We’ve seen it before. We’re thinking of sailing over to the BVI and maybe hanging out at one of the out islands, maybe Peter Island.”
“Probably a good idea,” Larry said. “Good luck to you, man. We’ve gotta scoot. We’ve got a lot of work to do on my boat before we can leave.”
Outside the yacht club, Artie and Larry stood for a minute taking in the scene on the city streets leading up the slopes from the harbor. Throngs of pedestrians, locals and stranded tourists alike, were moving among the stalled cars that filled the roadways. Everything was in a state of chaos as people walked around looking for friends and family they couldn’t call on the phone, or for water or food they could no longer drive to get. The enormity of the disruption overwhelmed Artie as the reality before his eyes sunk in. It still didn’t seem possible that all the advanced communications and much of the machinery of modern civilization could just be turned off like flipping a switch. He watched for a few moments, and felt truly sorry for the thousands of vacationers who were caught on the island in this mess and had no idea how they would get home. At that moment, he began to realize that despite the fact that he too was a stranded tourist, he was lucky to have a brother like Larry and the prospect of a sure, even if somewhat slow, ride home.
It was shortly after noon when they left the ferry dock at St. Thomas and rowed back out to
Ibis.
Pete was in the cockpit of
Celebration
and saw them coming. He waved them over to talk for a few minutes. They sat bobbing in the dinghy while he held the bow painter to keep them from drifting away. Pete had the best news that Artie had heard since they made their decision to sail Larry’s boat back to the States. He said that while they were ashore, he and Maryanne had talked it over and decided that they didn’t really feel good about staying in Charlotte Amalie. They decided that Culebra would be a better place to hunker down for the time being, as the population was much smaller there, and they had liked it when they stopped there before. Since they were going back anyway, Pete wanted to offer Artie and Larry a ride with them on
Celebration.
That way, Larry could leave
Ibis
on her mooring as he was obliged to, and they could get going on Larry’s boat as soon as possible. Besides, Pete said he and Maryanne would have a hard time moving the big Tayana alone without the aid of her electric windlass, depth sounder, GPS, and all the other amenities they were so dependent upon to handle her.
Artie was delighted with this, as it meant they wouldn’t have to backtrack to St. Thomas later. Larry agreed that Pete and Maryanne would be safer in Culebra, and said he would introduce them to some of his friends there. It was already too late in the day to get underway, get there, and settle into the anchorage before dark, though, so Larry said they would have to wait until morning to sail. It wouldn’t be safe to enter Culebra’s reef-guarded harbor at night with all aids to navigation unlit—especially with
Celebration
’s seven-foot draft. But they could get their personal belongings and the remaining supplies off
Ibis
and move aboard the bigger yacht that afternoon.
“We’ll have dinner around five thirty,” Maryanne said. “It will be steaks on the grill tonight, if that’s all right with you guys. We’ve got to use up what’s in the freezer. It won’t stay cold much longer in this heat.”
Artie helped Larry finish the job of sorting out
Ibis
and stowing all her gear in preparation for leaving her. They carefully furled the mainsail and foresail, secured them to their booms with sail ties made of nylon webbing, and then buttoned on the canvas covers to shield the sails from the sun’s damaging UV light. They removed the big genoa from the forestay and bagged it to be stored below, and furled the smaller staysail, secured it in its fitted cover, and hoisted it just clear of the deck by its halyard. They folded up the cockpit Bimini and lashed it to the grab rails on the coach roof. They put all loose gear away in the cockpit lockers, and then Artie scooped up seawater in a canvas bucket attached to a line to rinse the decks as Larry scrubbed them with a long-handled brush. When they were done,
Ibis
was as neat and clean as any yacht Larry had ever left with her owner, even though he knew that she would likely remain unattended and unused for a long time to come.
They packed their clothes in their bags down below, and Larry cleaned out the ice boxes and lockers, bagging up all of the remaining food on board. He figured it was more than enough for the two of them to make the passage to the mainland if they took it all.
“There should be enough stuff for a couple of weeks already on board
Alegria
; I hope Scully thought to pick up what he could when the lights went out.”
“So he’ll be there when we get to your boat?”
“Oh yeah. He’s living aboard while he’s working for me, at least some of the time. Scully doesn’t hurt himself working
too
hard. He wouldn’t do it at all if he didn’t like me and want to see that boat completed.”
“So what will he do when we launch it and leave for New Orleans?” Artie asked.
“Go with us, of course,” Larry said as if that should have been obvious to Artie.
“Is there enough room for all three of us?”
“Of course, and we need Scully. He’s a good sailor and navigator, and even better, a great fisherman. Everything about the trip will be easier with him along.”
“How do you know he’ll want to go?”
“Because he doesn’t have anything else to do. You already know he’s a Rastafarian. His favorite thing in the world is simply observing what’s going on, watching other people, and prophesying doom to the modern world and our way of life. He’s been expecting something like this very event for years. There’s probably nothing he’d rather do about now than sail to Babylon itself and see what has happened.”
“You mean he’ll be happy about all this? I don’t know if I’m going to get along with this guy or not.”
“Not happy—just indifferent. It’s like what I told you about living on ‘island time.’ Scully doesn’t
need
any of our modern technology. His life would be about the same with or without it. But you’ll like him okay, and we do need him and his skills at a time like this.”
When they were done packing, Artie handed down the bags of food and gear to Larry in the dinghy, and Larry made a couple of trips to shuttle it all over to
Celebration.
Once everything was transferred, Artie helped him haul the dinghy aboard the schooner and lash it upside down in its fitted chocks between the masts; then Pete came to pick them up in his inflatable.
They had dinner and rum drinks in the cockpit. Inevitably, the conversation centered around the profound changes that had taken place within not much longer than the past day. But Artie and Larry were both tired from their inconsistent sleep on the passage from Martinique, and asked to be excused early so they could catch up before the short sail to Culebra the coming morning.
Celebration
was only the second sailboat Artie had ever been aboard, and he soon found out why Larry preferred smaller vessels for his own use when they prepared to leave the harbor the next morning. With the complex electrical control systems throughout the vessel rendered useless by the pulse, there was no way to start the inboard diesel engine. It was not set up for manual cranking the way some smaller marine engines are. They would have to sail out of the crowded anchorage, maneuvering among dozens of other vessels while taking care not to run across their anchor rodes with the seven-foot-deep keel. Just getting underway was a task Artie was unprepared for. With Pete taking the helm and Larry having to manually hoist and trim the huge sails that would normally be controlled by electric winches, he had the grunt job of hauling in the heavy, all-chain anchor rode. That, too, would have normally been done with a push of a button to start an electric windlass, but today Artie had to manually crank the windlass with the emergency backup handle, hoisting over a hundred feet of three-eighths-inch chain inch by inch, heavy labor that had him soaked with sweat in the tropical humidity.
Larry expertly trimmed the main with a manual winch as Pete steered off the wind just at the moment the anchor broke free. Artie continued to crank at the windlass as he pulled in the remaining few feet of chain and then struggled to control the big plow-shaped anchor as it spun in the air and swung back and forth, threatening to slam against
Celebration’s
pristine bow. He somehow wrestled it aboard without smashing his fingers and pinned it in its chocks as Larry had instructed him before they started. He felt the boat suddenly heel to starboard as the mainsail filled, and then Pete brought her about on another tack to pick a clear line between all the boats in their path. Most everyone in the anchorage was awake and on deck to wave and call out to them as they sailed past. Word of their plans had spread fast, and the other boat owners wished them luck and offered last-minute tidbits of advice. Artie stood on the pulpit watching the bow cut through the clear aquamarine water, wondering if he would soon be in the miserable throes of seasickness once they reached the open water. But at least today’s trip was a short passage and would be over in a few hours. He hoped what Larry had said about the motion of catamarans was true. He had been so sick on the previous voyage, and he tried not to imagine being that sick for two weeks on their way to New Orleans. But above all, as he watched the buildings and green hills of St. Thomas slide by, he was grateful to at last be in motion and going in the right direction—the only direction that mattered to him—west to Culebra and one step closer to New Orleans and Casey.
Larry joined Artie at the bow, where he could see better into the shades of green and blue water to pick out the deepest channel and give hand signals to Pete at the helm to tell him which way to steer. He had been in and out of this harbor countless times, but was taking no chances, considering the circumstances and the vessel’s deep draft. He relaxed a bit once they passed Water Island, a smaller outlying cay that guarded the main entrance. Once it was abeam to port, Culebra was visible on the horizon ahead, hazy blue with distance, and obviously hilly, though not as large or steep as St. Thomas. Larry said it was made up of mainly brush and rock, more desert than anything else, but it was renowned for its pink sand beaches and clear waters. It was also much less accessible than St. Thomas, lacking an airport for commercial jets and reachable only by ferry or small plane in normal times. But there was a good harbor, safe from all but the strongest hurricanes, and big enough to accommodate many cruising boats.
“So it’s technically part of Puerto Rico?” Artie asked his brother.
“Yes, and so is Vieques,” he said, pointing to another outlying island farther south. “See that big mountain way past them in the distance? That’s El Yunque, the highest peak on the main island of Puerto Rico. There’s a rain forest preserve up there that’s pretty awesome. I
like
Puerto Rico. It’s about my favorite place in the Caribbean. The people are great—especially the women,” he grinned. “There’s more happening on the main island, but Culebra’s quieter and better suited for building a boat.”
“You’ve been at this project for a while, haven’t you?”
“A little over three years now; I keep getting pulled away on these delivery jobs, so working on my own boat is kind of hit or miss. I put in a month here, two weeks there, that sort of thing. But hey, it’s all good—I’m on island time the whole time—and the best thing about it is I pay for the boat as I build it. I’ll own her free and clear, unlike our friends here on this monstrosity.”
“What does a boat like this cost?” Artie asked.
“This one? I don’t know, roughly around six, seven hundred grand, I reckon. Maybe more, the way they’ve got her set up. Way outta my league, I’ll tell you that, but chump change for a doctor like you.”
“Yeah, right. She
does
seem to sail well, though.”
“Oh yeah, and I’m sure she’s fast too, in the right conditions, with her long waterline. Out in the blue water she would be quite comfortable compared to
Ibis
.”
The route to open water took them right past the airport, where they could see smoke still rising from the rubble of the terminal, and a few undamaged jetliners that had been far enough away on the runway to avoid the explosions and fires. There was no sign of activity there, as the airport now had little to offer to anyone on the island. A few miles beyond the waterfront runway, the westernmost point of St. Thomas slipped by to starboard and soon they were off soundings with nothing in the way and 20 knots of favorable trade winds to bear them swiftly to Culebra. With no need to keep a lookout off the bow for now, Artie and Larry made their way back to the cockpit to join Pete and Maryanne for snacks and conversation as they all took turns steering the yacht by hand. Artie was glad to be moving, but he also couldn’t help thinking that in the few hours that would elapse from they time they left the mooring until they were anchored at this first waypoint on their voyage, he could have flown all the way to New Orleans and driven his car to Casey’s apartment—if only there were an airplane that could fly, or a car that would start….