American Paradise (Part 13 of 17)
(This entire 17-part story can be found in the “travel” category.)
I had an hour to hitchhike across the island to the Megans Bay beach, but I was there in 45 minutes. I was tired from not sleeping and a bit woozy from all that alcohol, so I plopped down in the sand. I looked across the bay and saw what I imagined was their anchored sailboat. Soon, Tony appeared, jumped into a tiny lifeboat, and rowed to the beach.
“Let me pump some more air into this before we head back,” he said. “It’s not holding air very well.” That done, I threw my possessions into the life raft, climbed in, and we were soon back to his sailboat. I met Lisa, and soon the three of us were heading north toward Puerto Rico. I had never sailed before, but this seemed like fun. It wouldn’t last.
About six hours into the trip, the combination of over-imbibing the night before and being a landlubber caught up to me. The rocking back and forth of the boat was too much. “I’ll never drink again,” I said as everything in my stomach came up and found its way into the Atlantic Ocean.
I continued to heave over the side when I noticed a US Coast Guard cutter bearing down on us. They must have thought we were drug runners because the next thing I knew they launched a motorized raft and four of the soldiers were carrying machine guns. Over a loudspeaker, one yelled, “Prepare to be boarded”. Through it all I was laying prone on the deck, cursing everything my stomach was rejecting.
After coming aboard with guns drawn, one yelled at me, “Don’t move!” “Please shoot me,” I answered. I think I would have preferred it to being that sick. After they tore the boat apart in search of drugs, the Coast Guard guys mellowed out and we chatted for awhile. Naturally, each one had done his training in Cape May, New Jersey where I lived, so we had a lot in common. Oh yeah, they got a real kick out of me being so sick.
The need for three crew on the sailboat was due to each person needing to take the helm for three hours, then you’d have six hours to rest. That would have to be maintained around the clock. Tony had me follow him in the batting order, that way he could brief me - the rookie - on anything special I needed to know when I took over.
For the next week, the trip was rather uneventful. We anchored in a small bay in Culebra that night, then the next day stopped in San Juan to stock up for the voyage. My seasickness lasted just that first day, and the beautiful sunrises and moonrises and sunsets and moonsets brought an inner peace that defies description.
Besides my seasickness, something else lasted just that first day - our electricity. For some reason the boat’s batteries wouldn’t recharge. That meant we had no running lights at night when those big ships that were 20 times larger than us could squash us like a bug hitting a windshield. We would have to be extra alert on our night shifts.
It also meant we couldn’t use our global positioning satellite (GPS) instrument whenever we wanted. The ship’s batteries, if we didn’t use them for anything else, had just enough juice for us to use the GPS tool once a day for five minutes. We could only positively fix our position once a day.
Hmmm. No lights, GPS only once a day, and a life raft that wouldn’t hold air. What had I gotten myself into?
- Mountain Man