“WHO CAME UP WITH the stupid idea that these islands are some kind of paradise?” Artie yelled as he shook the water from his hair after another frantic plunge into the harbor. Incessant attacks from the tiny biting sand fleas that plagued their beach worksite in the otherwise calm early morning were driving him insane. They swarmed around his eyes, ears, scalp, and every exposed part of his body, biting with infuriating persistence that could only be relieved by diving underwater to wash them away, which was essentially futile, as it seemed a million more were ready to take their place as soon as he resurfaced.
Larry laughed at his brother’s antics. “You get used to them after awhile. Just learn to ignore them.”
“How am I supposed to ignore them when they are all over me? Damn! This is worse than being out there on the boat, throwing up day and night.” The passing of several days had pushed the memory of his miserable mal de mer far enough back in his mind that it now seemed like a minor inconvenience.
“Not’ing to be done ’bout de no-see-um,” Scully said. “Dem always on de beach when de air be still. Dat’s why a mon needs dreadlocks. Shake de dreads ’round an’ de sand flea, he got nowhere to stop. Keep de herb pipe handy too. Dem can’t fly in de smoke, mon.”
“And if they did, you wouldn’t feel the bite, right, Scully?” Larry grinned.
“Dats for true. A mon need de ganja smoke here in de island.”
Despite all the talk about Scully’s ganja smoking, Artie had only seen him light his pipe in the evening around the campfire they built on the beach near the boat shed. During the day, he was a tireless worker, which came as a surprise after all Larry had said about the Rastafarian philosophy, religion, or whatever it was. He was still confused about the unlikely friendship between his brother and this islander, but they certainly both knew boats, and their progress on putting Larry’s big catamaran together was astounding.
Most of the work consisted of installing hardware and fittings that Larry had previously purchased and had been planning to install after all the final painting and other cosmetic work was completed. With no time to worry about aesthetics or even the proper drilling and marine bedding techniques for long-term protection against rot in the wooden structures, these installations went fast. Scully drilled the holes with a manual brace and bit Larry had bought at a flea market years ago, and assorted hand chisels were used where mortises were needed to install flush fittings. Larry said the hardest part of building a boat from scratch was all the detail work that went into the final sanding, fairing, and painting to get a perfect finish, and since they were skipping all that, it only took a day to finish these installations. Then they were ready to assemble the major components—two hulls, bridge decks, crossbeams, and the mast—that as a whole made up the catamaran.
The second morning of work was consumed by this assembly. They used jacks and timber skids to move the hulls inch by inch out of their supporting cradles and slide the keels apart, and then aligned them fore and aft at the correct spacing so that the four massive connecting beams could be fitted. With the beams in place, Artie could see that Alegria was a much bigger vessel than at first it had seemed. The deck space was enormous. The central cockpit area between the two hull cabins was fitted with seats with storage lockers under them, while other deck areas fore and aft were made up of slatted wood planking or fabric trampoline material to allow breaking waves to quickly drain off. The cockpit area where the helm station was located was shaded by a curved, rigid Bimini cover, which Larry said he had molded from foam-cored fiberglass. The cabins inside the hulls were narrow and tunnel-like, but deep enough to allow standing inside without the need to duck. The forward area of each cabin featured a four-foot-wide, wall-to-wall double berth, with lots of locker space under for storing provisions. An additional single berth was fitted into a separate section of the port hull, forward of the main cabin area. The port hull also contained the galley, with a countertop, sink, and alcohol stove making up the area aft of the bunk. This same space in the starboard hull was taken up by the navigation station, which included a chart table, electrical circuit panels, and now-useless electronics such as the VHF and SSB radios, XM radio and MP3 player, and laptop with navigation software.
The bulk of the internal wiring was left undone, as they couldn’t use most of the electrical equipment anyway. Larry said it was just as well, as he had expected to take at least a week to do a proper job of the wiring. Like most sailors, he had amassed quite a collection of flashlights, LED lanterns, and other gear such as portable navigation lights that could run off of disposable batteries. He made it a point to always keep a fairly large stock of these batteries stored for his voyages. This way, he said, at least they would have lights when they really needed them.
The main propulsion system for the Tiki 36 was an aerodynamic mainsail that fit over the round aluminum mast by means of a sewn-in sleeve. Larry said the sleeve was like that of a windsurfer sail, providing a clean air flow and functioning like the much more expensive rotating wingmasts found on million-dollar racing catamarans. Headsails of various sizes could be fitted on the forestay, which, like all the standing rigging, was made of a high-tech synthetic rope, rather than heavier stainless-steel wire, which Larry said was now passé in the performance sailing world. Auxiliary propulsion for maneuvering in harbors and through calms was supposed to be provided by two Yamaha 20-horsepower four-stroke outboards, fitted in motor wells under the cockpit decks port and starboard. Larry said that since theYamahas were brand new and over-reliant on technology, with electric starters and alternators, and electronic fuel injection, they would be leaving them behind. In their place, he mounted in the starboard motor well a single Evinrude 25-horsepower two-stroke that dated back to the late 1970s. “It’ll be enough to get us out of a tight spot if we need it,” he said, “and it’ll usually crank after a few pulls. But you’ll see, this boat will sail so well I doubt we’ll ever bother. Losing the weight of those two Yamahas will help too.”
When the time came to launch, on the third day after they’d arrived in Culebra’s harbor aboard Celebration, they dismantled the temporary tarp shed on the beach and cleared away the workbenches and ladders from the hulls. They stepped the mast by hoisting it up with a temporary gin pole lashed to its base and hooked to a block and tackle system. Then Larry rowed out into the harbor with the main anchor and set it at the limit of his longest rode, which was three hundred feet. It was Artie’s job to climb up into the cockpit and man the big manual winch that doubled as an anchor windlass “…since you did such a great job hoisting Celebration’s anchor,” Larry said, while Larry and Scully worked at each keel, maneuvering the jacks and shifting skids from the sterns to the bows as the big cat slowly inched down the beach to the water. When they were within a foot of the wet sand above the tide line, Larry said they needed to stop to officially christen the boat before she went in. He disappeared into the starboard hull and came back down to the beach a minute later with a bottle of golden 10 Cane rum. “Trinidad’s best! I’ve been saving it for this moment. Here’s to the Casey Nicole,” he said, as he splashed most of the bottle on the dull gray primer coating the twin bows and then offered the bottle to his brother. “Drink up, for a safe and successful voyage!”
Artie was surprised at what he heard. “I thought you were naming her Alegria.”
“That was then, this is now. My niece is the reason I’m launching today. Otherwise, I probably would have dragged on another year, piddling with this and that, trying to get everything perfect. Now I’m going to sail her today, and when we get Casey on board, everything will be perfect. Until then, I don’t think there’s going to be much alegria aboard anyway, especially not for you, Doc, and I totally understand.”
They took turns sipping from the bottle, Artie offering it to Scully only to learn that he wouldn’t touch alcohol. “A Rastaman don’t to drink, mon. Dat’s not I-tal. Only smoke de herb of wisdom. De rum is poison to de brain an’ not put on de Earth by Jah like he put de the ganja plant for a mon to use.”
“You’re full of shit, Scully, you know that?” Larry said as he took another pull from the bottle.
Once again, Artie was baffled by the strange ways of this character, Scully, and his confusing version of the English language. What kind of religion advocated smoking dope while prohibiting alcohol? He was learning something new about his brother’s friend every day. Despite that, he knew Casey would be thrilled to learn that her uncle had named his pride and joy after her. He couldn’t wait to see her face when she found out, and he asked Larry if they were going to paint the name on the sides.
“Absolutely! Normally I wouldn’t launch a boat without doing that first, but since we’re kinda in a hurry, I’ll paint it on temporarily from the dinghy tonight when we’re anchored. This gray primer will get covered up later with topside paint, and then I’ll do it right.”
“So, we’re not going far today, you said?”
“No, I want to shake her down, make sure everything’s sorted out enough for the voyage. There will still be work to do all along the way, but as long as we have good weather, I can do most of that at sea. Today we’re going to get the rig tuned and work the stretch out of the stays and halyards, then tighten up the beam lashings and everything else before we head offshore tomorrow. There’s a pretty little island you’re gonna love just a few miles off the east coast of Puerto Rico. We can be there by late afternoon, drop the hook and make our adjustments, and still get a good night’s sleep before we head out.”
Back on deck, Artie cranked on the windlass handle while Larry and Scully maneuvered the jacks and skids. The newly christened Casey Nicole slid across the wet sand, sliced into the gentle chop of the harbor, and floated free, sitting nicely on her lines, with just a couple of inches of bottom paint showing all around. Larry and Scully high-fived it and jumped up and down cheering. Artie couldn’t contain his grin as the big platform beneath him glided away from shore, hovering like a giant magic carpet over the sandy bottom that seemed close enough to touch through the crystalline water. He had to admit he was pretty impressed with his younger brother’s handiwork. It was simply amazing to him that anyone could build such a vessel from scratch under a makeshift tent on the beach.
They spent the remainder of the morning loading the rest of Larry’s tools and spare parts on board. This included just about everything needed to maintain and repair any component of the boat, and even to fabricate broken parts. Larry said that all Wharram catamarans were designed to be built and kept shipshape with simple tools and easy-to-find materials, and that even in normal times many had been built without the benefit of power tools.
“It’s really the perfect design for sailing in the post-apocalyptic world,” he joked.
But seeing all the stuff he was putting on board, Artie wasn’t so sure he was joking after all. It was amazing to him what a relatively small cruising boat could carry, as he had first noticed during the trip on Ibis. A seaworthy offshore sailing vessel really was a self-contained world of its own, capable of traveling great distances for extended periods of time without the need to visit land or take on any of the goods to be found there. His brother was obviously well versed in the art of provisioning and equipping such boats, having made a career of passage making. Artie saw that his checklists were extensive and often doubly redundant, as well as impeccably organized so that nothing could be overlooked or forgotten. Much of the equipment on these lists was already on board in the individual hulls before they were assembled. The only thing lacking was a fresh supply of food items, but the stores aboard already contained plenty of non-perishable goods, and when they had moved all the groceries off of Celebration that they had taken from Ibis before leaving her in St. Thomas, Larry figured they had enough to last the three of them for at least a month, especially if they could supplement the stores with fish caught along the way—and much of the gear on board was dedicated to that purpose.
This included conventional tackle such as rods and reels for trolling astern and casting, as well as drop lines, collapsible bait and crab traps, and the underwater spear-fishing gear that most cruisers in tropical waters carried as standard equipment. In addition, Larry said the big tandem-cockpit sea kayak Scully had been paddling the day Artie had met him would be invaluable for fishing and other forms of seafood gathering if it came to that. The 20-foot wide overall beam of the catamaran made it a simple matter to lash it across the decks forward of the mast. Larry said he’d bought this 19-foot kayak specifically for the purpose of serving as a dinghy on the catamaran, as it was faster and easier to paddle long distances than any conventional rowing dinghy.
“It’s more seaworthy, too,” he said. “Heck, with two strong paddlers, this thing can go out in about any conditions the big boat can handle.”
“But there’s only room for two,” Artie said.
“Yeah, well, considering how things are now, I doubt we’ll all want to leave the boat at the same time. Someone needs to stay with it to keep an eye on things anyway. Speaking of which, I’ve got a special place for this.” Larry unzipped a nylon carrying case that was among the last items yet to be stowed and pulled out a stainless-steel Mossberg 12-gauge pump shotgun.
“I sure hope we don’t need that!” Artie said.
“I’ve always kept a shotgun on board whenever I could,” Larry said. “Never had to use one, but things could be different now—a lot different. I just wanted to let you know where I’m keeping it. There’s a hidden compartment right under the shelf that’s over your bunk in the nav station. I’m sleeping in the galley hull myself—where the food and coffee is.”
“What about Scully?”
“He’s got the forward single bunk cabin in the port hull when we’re at sea, but he prefers to sleep on deck in all but the roughest weather.”
Before they left the harbor, Pete and Maryanne rowed over from Celebration to where the Casey Nicole was anchored to share a cup of coffee and wish them luck on the voyage. By the time they left, the afternoon trade winds had kicked in, and Larry said it was time to go see what the new boat could do. Getting underway was much easier than it had been on the larger Celebration. As soon as Artie had the anchor on deck, Larry and Scully working together had the main and jib set and Larry steered off the wind to let them fill. Artie was totally unprepared for what happened next. Instead of heeling over and slowly gathering way like the schooner Ibis and the big cutter-rigged Tayana had, the catamaran simply accelerated, converting wind power to forward motion with a suddenness that almost caused him to fall. The twin bows sliced through the chop of the harbor with spray flying on both sides and made for the opening to the sea. Larry and Scully whooped with delight and Artie joined in. It felt like they were practically flying over the clear water, and he thought that if they could just keep this up, he would be reunited with Casey in no time.
Once they put Culebra astern, Larry aimed the bows toward the big mountain on Puerto Rico and soon they were in the heaving swells of the open ocean, the boat pitching fore and aft but not rolling from side to side as had the only other sailboats Artie had experienced. The distant island grew more distinct by the minute as they closed on it at 17 knots, changing from a hazy blue outline to a landscape of mountains that rose sharply behind slivers of sandy beach interspersed with condos, houses, and hotels. Larry was clearly pleased with his new boat and was grinning from ear to ear as he pointed out various design elements that contributed to her seaworthiness and speed. When they were about six miles from the main island, he steered for a tiny outlying islet that rose like a mirage from the coral-studded waters not far from a larger cay to the north. The islet was the postcard-perfect image of a deserted tropical isle—a rounded, sandy hump of beach, shaded by a grove of tall coconut palms and little other vegetation. It was the kind of place a cartoonist might draw to depict a scene in which a castaway is washed ashore in paradise.
Larry and Scully doused the spinnaker and brought the cat around to sail up to within 20 feet of the shore, where the water was only waist deep. Scully leapt in and carried the bow anchor up on the beach, while Larry hauled in on the rode of a stern anchor he’d deployed as they approached. When the lines were adjusted, the Casey Nicole floated almost motionless over transparent waters alive with multicolored fish.
“Welcome to Isleta Palominito,” Larry said. “This is one of the coolest little islands in this part of the Caribbean.”
“It is beautiful,” Artie admitted. “I didn’t know there were still uninhabited islands like this, especially so close to a crowded island like Puerto Rico.”
“Oh yeah, there are a lot more than you’d think. This one is one of the best, though. I’ve brought more than one of my Puertorriqueña girlfriends over here for a night or two of playing ‘castaway.’”
“I’ll bet you have.”
“It gets crowded with weekend boaters from the main island, but even in normal times it’s usually deserted during the week. And now—I wouldn’t expect anyone to bother coming over here. It’ll be safer than anchoring near Fajardo, and there’s nothing we need from a city like that anyway. So enjoy your evening, Doc. It’ll be your last chance to go ashore for a few days.”
Larry and Scully worked on tightening the rigging and making other adjustments necessary after the first sail, with Artie helping as much as he could, following their instructions, but not really knowing what to do or how to tie the fancy nautical knots they both made look effortless. Then Larry was in the water with his mask, snorkel, and speargun, while Scully climbed two of the tall coconut palms ashore and cut down more than two dozen green drinking nuts, bringing them back aboard to store for the voyage. At sunset, Artie walked around the sandy perimeter of the tiny island, which only took a few minutes, as it was less than an acre of total land area.
That evening they cooked the grouper Larry had speared over a small fire on the beach, the smoke and the steady sea breeze keeping away the no-see-ums that had tortured Artie on the beach at Culebra. Artie realized that in other circumstances, if he had not been so desperate to find out if Casey was okay, nothing could have persuaded him to hurry away from such an idyllic setting, and he began to understand his younger brother’s obsession with boats and the island lifestyle. He wished Casey could be here experiencing this with him, and that this nightmare was really just a bad dream they would wake from to find themselves all together on a vacation in paradise.
When he crawled into his bunk later that night, with the smoked acrylic hatch over his head open wide to give him a view of the uncountable stars arcing overhead in the Milky Way, he felt a sense of peace and assurance that Casey was okay and that he would soon be with her, whisked across the sea on his brother’s wonderful boat. Sleep came easily, and the noise and confusion that shattered his dreams after midnight didn’t seem real, until finally he was wide awake and realized they were.
Voices of strange men, yelling orders in a language he recognized as Spanish…. Scully yelling back in his West Indian accent…. A scuffling and stomping of feet on deck…. Something banging against the side of the hull…. A ringing clang of steel hitting steel…. A muffled scream of pain and then a big splash….
Artie sprang to the main hatch leading to the deck and looked out. Scully was crouched on the forward slatted deck, wielding the machete he had used earlier to open coconuts like a sword, as he parried the blows of a smaller man slashing at him with a similar weapon. When Larry yelled as he started out of the port hull where he’d been sleeping, a second stranger in the cockpit, also armed with a machete, turned in his direction and attacked him with a murderous downward blow. Artie saw his brother raise his right arm in an attempt to defend himself just as the blade came down, causing him to fall back into the companionway opening and out of sight. At that moment, he remembered the shotgun Larry had placed near his bunk and ducked back below to grab it. He hadn’t handled a 12-gauge pump since the last time he and Larry had hunted pheasants with their father when he was still in high school, but neuromuscular memory took over when it was in his hands, and he racked the slide to chamber a round and pointed the muzzle toward the opening to the deck just in time to see the assailant who had stricken Larry looming over his own hatch. He’d seen enough in the brief seconds he’d looked on deck to know that he had no choice but to pull the trigger. He winced at the blast of the 12-gauge buckshot shell, so loud inside the tiny confines of the cabin that he heard nothing but ringing that felt like a vise tightening on his brain from the outside in. The muzzle flash in the dark blinded him temporarily, and when his eyes readjusted, the man trying to get at him from the deck was gone. Artie racked the slide to chamber a fresh round and climbed up the steps to help Scully. He expected to see the man he’d shot sprawled across the cockpit floor, but there was no body there. The white paint of the cockpit floor shone brightly in the moonlight, unmarred by blood or any other sign of the intruder whom he was certain he’d hit point blank.
Looking to the forward deck, he saw that the wild-haired Rastaman didn’t need any help and that he was the only person still standing on the boat. The smaller man that had engaged him in a deadly machete duel was now draped lifelessly over the forward crossbeam. Scully pushed the body the rest of the way overboard with one foot before he noticed Artie had come on deck.
“Scully! Are you all right?”
“I an’ I okay, but you miss dat udda mon. Quick, don’t let him go. Shoot ’im in de boat, ’cause he be comin’ bok wid he friends if he get away!”
Artie turned in the direction Scully was pointing. He could make out a small boat in the darkness—a rowboat manned solely by the last of the assailants, who was pulling desperately at a pair of oars to get away from the scene of the foiled attack.
“I can’t just shoot him. He’s running away,” Artie said. He still couldn’t believe that his shot from down in the hull had not blown the man’s head off. Apparently he had seen the muzzle of the 12-gauge pointing at his face just in time to move out of the line of fire and had decided to abandon the attack.
“How many were there, Scully? Just those two?”
“No, t’ree, mon. I kill de first one before you an’ de Copt’n wake up. Den dis last one keep tryin’ to cut me up, so I killing him too. You missed dat one an’ now he escapin’ to come bok again.”
All Artie needed to know was that the attack was over and he could focus on his brother. He passed the shotgun to Scully and rushed to the port companionway, terrified of what he might find after witnessing Larry receive such a vicious blow with such a big blade. Quickly descending the steps into the hull, he heard two more blasts from the shotgun as Scully fired at the man in the rowboat, but he couldn’t be concerned with that now. He held his breath as he dropped to his knees on the cabin sole, where Larry was curled up in a fetal position, clutching his right forearm with his other hand in an attempt to stanch the flow of blood that was welling out from beneath his fingers, soaking his shirt and pooling on the floorboards around him. He reached for the battery-powered lantern Larry had mounted over the galley stove and turned it on. He saw that his brother was also bleeding profusely from a long cut across his forehead that extended from his hairline to his right eyebrow. His attempt to parry the machete blow that would have split his skull succeeded in absorbing most of the force, but at the expense of a wicked cut to the blocking arm.
“It’s all right, Larry. I’m here now. You’ve just got a couple of little cuts.”
“Scully?”
“He’s fine. Not even hurt. He took out two of those guys single-handedly. The other one’s gone, or maybe he got him too.”
Larry grunted approval, but didn’t reply. He was clearly racked with pain. The blood from his scalp wound ran over his face and eyes unchecked until Artie reached for a roll of paper towels near the sink and wadded up a bunch of them to form a temporary compress.
“Scully! I need your help down here!”
When Scully reached his side, Artie instructed him to keep pressure on Larry’s head wound while he went to work on the far more serious slash to his brother’s arm. Holding pressure above the cut to control the blood flow, he pulled Larry’s left hand away so he could see the extent of the damage.
“It’s bad, huh, Doc?”
“Yeah, but at least you still have your arm.” Artie could see that the machete had cloven nearly halfway through his brother’s arm. Probably the only reason it didn’t sever it completely was that his arm gave with the force of the blow, like a shock absorber, allowing some of the energy to reach his forehead.
“Can you fix it?”
“I don’t think you’ll lose it, if that’s what you mean, but we need to get you to an ER, and ASAP.”
“You know we can’t do that, Doc.”
Artie had momentarily forgotten the larger situation in his haste to take care of this immediate crisis with his brother. His trained response was to rely on hospitals and the rest of the infrastructure supporting them, but he knew Larry was right, that was not even an option now. “Larry, I haven’t dealt with trauma patients since my internship. But I do know that you can’t fool around with a wound like this. You could lose your arm or even die if this gets infected.”
“I’ve got everything you need to take care of it in the ship’s first aid kit, over in the nav hull. Look under the chart table. Go! Scully and I will hold pressure on this ’til you get back.”
Artie returned with a big yellow Pelican case with a plain red sticker on it in the shape of an emergency cross. His brother was shivering despite the warm tropical night, so he grabbed a blanket off the bunk to cover his bare legs and feet. There was barely room in the slender catamaran hull for him and Scully to crouch, with Larry taking up most of the narrow cabin sole. Artie didn’t want to move him to the bunk until he knew the bleeding was under control.
His assessment of the damage led him to the conclusion that the ulna, the outward of the two forearm bones, which had been facing upward and outward in his blocking motion, was almost cut in two by the chopping blow of the sharp blade. It was no wonder that his brother was in severe pain and borderline shock. The damage to the bone would heal, much like a clean break, but Larry was facing a long recovery from the inevitable nerve and tissue damage. But the more immediate concern was stopping the flow of blood from the severed ulnar artery and numerous smaller vessels that had been cut.
“This is good,” Artie said, as he opened the case and examined the contents in surprise.
“It’s not your regular Boy Scout first aid kit,” Larry agreed, grimacing in pain as he spoke. “When you’re delivering boats across oceans, you’ve got to have what you need.”
“Got some good medicine in dat box,” Scully said. “De Copt’n, he know where to buy de good stuff.”
“I’ll say. Having the tools and supplies that I need will certainly make this easier.”
Artie ripped open a QuikClot sponge compress and pressed it into the deep slice in Larry’s arm.
“There’s a tourniquet in there too, Doc, if you think I need it.”
“No way, not if you want to keep your arm. We can keep the blood in check with pressure. The worst bleeding is from the ulnar artery, which is one of the main arteries in your arm. You’re lucky it’s a clean cut. The artery will seal itself off on its own if we keep up the pressure. Then we’ll clean this wound out and make sure it’s disinfected, and bandage it so it can’t open up again.”
“You gonna sew ’im up, Doctor?” Scully was still holding the makeshift compress on Larry’s head gash. Artie opened another sterile compress from the kit and gave it to Scully to replace the blood-saturated wad of paper towels.
“Not his arm, Scully. This cut is so deep, and into the bone, there’s too much chance of infection if we seal it completely, especially out here on a boat. I’m going to close it up with those butterfly sutures in the kit, and hold everything in place with some heavy tape over that. That way we can check it every day for signs of infection, in case it is still contaminated. We’ll keep the bandages changed and keep an eye on it. Do you have any duct tape on board, Larry?”
“You bet. Enough to put the whole boat back together if need be.”
“Good. Now that cut on your forehead, that’s another story. I think we can stitch that up with the suture kit in here so it won’t scar too badly.”
“De Copt’n gonna look like de pirate fo’ true now, mon. Scar on de face, big scar on de arm. De girls, dey like dat, dem.” He grinned at Larry, who didn’t look quite so amused at the prospect of a new, more rugged look.
“You oughta at least wait for daylight to sew it up,” Larry grunted. “You might be able to do a better job if you can see what you’re doing, Doc.”
“It’ll be less painful if we do it all in one go, little brother. We have enough of these battery-powered lanterns so I can see all I need to. Let’s get this arm bandaged up and make sure the bleeding has stopped, then we’ll get you up in your bunk. You can have a couple of shots of rum to ease the pain, and I’ll make it as quick as possible. It’s all gonna hurt right now, but if we get this over with now you can focus on healing after that.”
When Artie was finished, Larry was tucked into his sleeping bag in his bunk, his arm no longer bleeding and a row of fresh stitches closing the gash across his forehead and face. Dawn was breaking and the wind was calm, making the stuffy confines of the cabin stifling with all three of them down below. Artie told Larry they were going back up on deck, and that he would be checking on him every few minutes. He had been so focused on tending to his brother’s wounds that he temporarily forgot about the last of the attackers, the one fleeing in the rowboat that Scully had fired at with the shotgun. Looking around from the cockpit, Artie saw that the sea was calm and empty, with no trace of the rowboat or any other vessel. He looked at Scully and asked him what had happened after he fired.
“I t’ink I wounded ’im, mon, but he still pullin’ de oars and don’ fall out de boat. T’ink by de time I shot he too far away from de buckshot in dat Mossberg. Too bad I got no AK, or I kill him dead.”
“I don’t think he’ll be back, then, whether you wounded him or not. With two of his friends dead and no weapon but a machete, he would be stupid to try something else. I just can’t believe this happened though. Those guys were trying to kill us.”
“Want de boat, mon. Dem got not’ing to eat, no way to go someplace bettah. T’ree million people livin’ on dat Puerto Rico, dem got no hope wid no ship an’ no plane comin’. Dat be a dangerous place to be, mon. Lot a people from dat island happy to steal a boat like de Casey Nicole, loaded as she is wid food an’ watah an’ havin’ sails to go wid de wind.”
“Larry thought we’d be safe anchored off this little outlying island, but I guess he was wrong. I just wish we could get him to a doctor. He needs several days to recover from those wounds, and in a clean environment. He’s gonna need physical therapy too, and still may not get full use of his arm back. That machete cut a major nerve.”
“De Copt’n gonna be okay, mon. Rest on de boat while she sail. De Copt’n, he strong from livin’ on de sea an’ workin’ de boats. Not to worry, mon. We let him sleep an’ we do de work.”
“So you think we can continue on without his help?You know I don’t know what I’m doing. I have no idea how to navigate, or set the sails, or anything.”
“Navigation no problem, Doc. I an’ I sailin’ dis route wid de Copt’n many times. Deliver boats to Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach…. Lots of time we sailin’ dis route. De islands, dem like steppin’ stones across de sea, mon. Hop to one, den cross to de next, all de way to Bobbylon. First Puerto Rico, den Dominican Republic, den Caicos, Exumas, Bimini…dem islands reachin’ all de way to Florida.”
“But Larry said we wouldn’t be stopping until we got to Florida. I thought we were going directly there instead of all those islands in the chain. And besides, we might get attacked again if we stop somewhere.”
“Not stoppin’, mon. Just pass ’em by. Dat way we be knowin’ de way. Wid de GPS dead we gotta sail de old way. Larry, he can use de sextant an’ get he position wid de stars, but I an’ I cannot cipher dat black magic. But wid de compass, de sun in de day and de North Star in de night, and passin’ close by some of de islands along de way, findin’ de way to Florida, no problem.”
“I guess he can help us if we do have a problem. He’ll probably feel like coming up on deck when the initial shock wears off and we know there’s no chance of the bleeding starting again. So which way do we go when we leave here? We’re obviously not going to stop in Puerto Rico,” Artie said, looking at the mountainous island to the west.
“No, we be sailin’ past de island on de north side. Got to stay maybe 10 mile off de coast, safe from the reef and safe from any mon in small boat tryin’ to cut us off an’ intercept. Puerto Rico ’bout a hundred mile long. Den we hop across de Mona Passage another hundred mile, den follow de coast of Dominican Republic same way. Dem got big mountains on dat island, and can see it maybe twenty mile from de ocean. No mon there he gonna catch de Casey Nicole, if de wind she hold and we stayin’ out dat far. An’ den we turnin’ north an’ pass through de Caicos an’ de Bahamas. Lot of little island in dem chain wid no mon livin’ on dem. Find good fishin’ an’ good divin’ for de lobstah if we stop for de break.”
“I don’t care about taking a break, Scully. I just want to get to New Orleans as fast as possible and make sure Casey’s okay.”
“Dat I understand, mon. Fo’ dat, we gonna need de Copt’n. I an’ I not knowin’ dat city or de way ’round anywhere in Bobbylon but dat east coast of Florida.”
“Well, I know enough to know that we’ve got to somehow sail around Florida to get to the Gulf of Mexico, I guess around the Florida Keys. And then we either follow the coast or cut straight across the Gulf to New Orleans. Larry will know which is best. After that, I don’t know how close we can get with the boat. I know people sail in Lake Pontchartrain, and there are marinas on the lakeshore, but I’ve never paid much attention to the water there. I’m always either driving or flying when I visit Casey.”
“De boat is de best way, mon. Jah nevah intend no mon to fly in de air like a fockin’ bird, and de car, dem always crashin’ on de road an’ killin’ de driver an’ de passenger too—an’ sometime killin’ some child walkin’ in de street. I an’ I t’ink dis de will of Jah to put a stop to dis madness an’ t’ink it’s why he send a mighty flash from heaven to put out de lights.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, Scully, but I do know that this has put a lot of people in a bind, and in real danger. Look what has happened already. I never dreamed I would sail through the wreckage of a plane crash, or that we would be attacked in the night by pirates with machetes. I certainly never dreamed I would be shooting at someone in the middle of the night when I went to bed, or that you would have to kill two men right here on the deck of this boat. And look at Larry…. I sure hate to think about what could happen next, and I’m worried to death about my daughter.”
“Jah he protect de righteous mon, Doc. Dem evildoers comin’ to justice now or later, and dem two pirate not de first I kill,” Scully said. “Lots of bad mon in de streets of Kingston when I growin’ up. A young mon got to fight to survive in dat place, but I leavin’ to find a bettah life in peace on de sea. Now I t’ink mehbe de peace it hard to find. I t’ink anyplace we goin’, an’ especially dat New Orleans, gonna be a dangerous place, mon.”
“All I want to do is get Casey out of there, and as soon as possible. I don’t know what we’ll do after that, but this won’t last forever, Scully. Whatever caused the lights to go out is probably over, and the grid will be rebuilt. Cars and planes and everything else will be fixed, but I know it might take some time—maybe even a lot of time—but it will be fixed, Jah or no Jah.”
An hour after dawn the tropical sun was already beating down on the decks and Artie was anxious to get underway. The trade wind had died down significantly overnight, but there was still a five-knot breeze out of the southeast, and Scully said that was all they would need to leave Isleta Palominito and sail for the open Atlantic north of Puerto Rico. Using a bucket to dip up seawater, Scully rinsed the forward decks where the blood of one of the slain assailants had stained the teak slats. Before he began his task of hauling in the anchor, Artie went below to make sure Larry was reasonably comfortable. He was relieved that his brother’s bleeding had stopped, and thankful that he was trained in what to do and that Larry’s medical kit contained what he needed to do it. A wound like his was certainly life-threatening. Things could have turned out much worse. A cloud of dark thoughts swept over him as he thought of all the people who would not be getting proper medical attention for all manner of ailments and accidents in the aftermath of this shutdown. Hospitals like the one where he worked would be flooded with people trying to get help, if they could even get to one, and then most, if not all, of them would be turned away. Some hospitals might have functioning generators that could provide basics such as lighting, but with so much dependence on electronic equipment for diagnostics, treatment, and life support, their ability to respond to the situation would be overwhelmed. If only he knew Casey was okay, he knew he wouldn’t hesitate to jump right in and do his part as he had sworn to do, and he was sure there would be opportunities later, but for now, sailing to New Orleans had to be the only goal.
Artie knew he had a lot to learn about sailing and navigating, and now it was no longer merely a recreational pursuit. He was determined to absorb everything he could from Scully. Seeing how quickly last night’s attack had rendered his brother incapacitated and could as well have left him dead, Artie realized he had to take responsibility for finding their way and operating the boat on his own, as something could certainly happen to Scully too. From that morning on, he resolved to master the skills of seamanship, and when he came back on deck, he became an eager apprentice, giving Scully his full attention and following his directions just as he would defer to a senior physician explaining a complicated new surgical procedure.
“Dis boat she don’ point so high in de wind and she don’t tack like dem racin’ yacht, but she gonna fly off de wind, mon. Get out on de Atlantic side away from de island few miles, an’ de wind gonna pick up. I t’ink we makin’ 200, mehbe 220 miles a day like dat.”
Once he helped Scully get the sails trimmed to his satisfaction and all the loose ends of the sheets and halyards coiled neatly, Artie ducked into the navigation station in the starboard hull and brought out his brother’s chartbooks for the Greater Antilles and Bahamas. He wanted to study the route while the winds were light, the sun was shining and the Casey Nicole was skimming along the surface of nearly smooth seas almost as steadily as she had rested at anchor. Feeling her sails harness the wind like a great winged bird gliding in the breeze; Artie again marveled at the tremendous amount of work and ingenuity that went into building her. He knew then, if he hadn’t known before, that Larry could have done anything in life he set his mind to, and the skills he had learned in this sea vagabond’s life were as complex and intricate as those required for his own career path. And one thing was certain: such skills and knowledge would be invaluable in the days ahead.
Isleta Palominito faded in their wake as they sailed past the northwestern point of Puerto Rico and the condos and hotels of Fajardo that crowded the beaches and reflected the morning sun from their glass and white stucco facades. Scully was careful to keep their course well offshore here, far enough that they could see no details on the coastline and, presumably, would only be seen as a distant white sail from eyes ashore looking seaward. Scully pointed out on the chart where the reefs and other hazards to mariners were indicated, and explained how to triangulate their approximate position from landmarks ashore by using Larry’s binoculars with the built-in compass to take bearings. While it wasn’t quite as easy as looking at the moving blip that had indicated Ibis’s position on the electronic chartplotter before the pulse, Artie found that triangulation worked well and would make it possible to measure their progress as long as they were in sight of land. For the hops between islands, they would depend on the dead reckoning method Larry had explained to him during the last leg of their trip into St. Thomas without instruments. Keeping an accurate log was the main thing—that and keeping up with the time and knowing how to judge the boat’s speed through the water—something that Scully assured Artie he was very good at.
That speed increased just as Scully had said it would after ten a.m., when the trade winds freshened to the steady force five that Larry had said could be counted on in these latitudes at this time of year from late morning until well after dark. By now they had rounded the northeast corner of the island and were running before the wind to the west, staying well north of the coastline. Artie was alarmed to hear disconcerting creaks and groans from the mast foot and the connection points of the beams and the hulls as the rig was stressed and the boat surged forward, doubling her cruising speed to more than 12 knots.
“No problem, Doc! Dis boat she happy to get de wind, and not’ing gonna break in dese conditions. She can take a blow lot stronger widout to worry.”
“I just wondered if maybe we should reduce sail a bit, that’s all.”
“You want to go to Bobbylon or sit out on de watah an’ watch de fish? Not to worry ’bout de sail. She runnin’ off de wind, an’ de seas dem not too big. If de Copt’n be on deck right now he put up de spinnaker too!”
“He always was a daredevil. Yeah, I want to get there as fast as possible, but let’s not break something trying.”
“Everyt’ing on dis boat built strong, mon. I an’ I see to dat myself. You brotha, he pick a good design to build, an’ she goin’ take us to New Orlean an’ den anywhere we want to go. Not to worry ’bout de boat no more, Doc. Jus’ enjoy de sailin’ and de freedom to ride de wind across de sea.”
Artie did feel the sense of freedom that held so much attraction for Larry and Scully, but more importantly, at the speed they were now making, he felt a sense of progress. That progress was easily measured without the need to take bearings, by simply watching as the city of San Juan and the rest of the rugged north coast of Puerto Rico slipped past them to the south over the course of the day as the wind bore them west. By late afternoon, the entire island was astern, and well before sunset it had dropped below the horizon in their wake. For the first time since he’d arrived in St. Thomas with Larry, Artie was once again at sea beyond the sight of land. Full darkness fell and the visible horizon closed in to the limits of what could be discerned by starlight. No lights from anything man-made could be seen, though that didn’t mean there were no other vessels sailing in the vicinity. Though they had Larry’s backup LED navigation lights to use if necessary, Scully said it would be best to save the batteries and instead keep a sharp watch, on rotating shifts. With any ship or other vessel they might encounter likely to be unlit as well, sounds would be as important as visual cues to alert them to dangers close enough to worry about.
Larry remained in his bunk through that entire first day and night, in a lot of pain but still wanting regular progress updates whenever Artie or Scully went below to check on him or get something out of the galley. During Scully’s watch, from eight p.m. to midnight, Artie changed the bandage on Larry’s forearm and sat with him, discussing routes and options for the trip.
“We still have no way of knowing how bad it is up there, or even knowing for sure if the grid is down on the mainland. If it is, we don’t know how much else may have changed. I’m worried about even being able to enter U.S. waters.”
“I thought it wouldn’t be an issue since we’re sailing directly from U.S. territorial waters in Puerto Rico to the mainland. As long as we don’t clear in to the Bahamas or anywhere else, we shouldn’t have a problem, right?”
“In normal times, no, but how will they know where we’re coming in from? If there are Navy ships patrolling or blockading the coastlines, they may have orders to intercept any vessel sailing in from international waters.”
“But why would they do that? If this surge or pulse or whatever it was came from the sun, they couldn’t blame some other country for an EMP attack, like Pete was speculating about.”
“No, but you know it’s still going to be an urgent matter of national security up there. You’ve been living there since 9-11; I haven’t. You know how things got right after that, and then again after every minor incident. I know this is going to cause all kinds of security issues, but I have no idea how this may or may not have affected the military’s capabilities. I know that in normal times, it had gotten to where nothing could get in from the islands undetected, even from way back in the ’80s when Reagan cracked down on the cocaine and grass smugglers running goods over from Bimini.”
“But so much of their surveillance relies on high-tech electronics. I don’t see how they can seal off the coast like they did after 9-11. And even if they do, we’re both American citizens. They would have to let us in, wouldn’t they?”
“One would think so, but Scully doesn’t have a U.S. passport. He’s from Jamaica, but now his official citizenship is in Grenada. That could be a problem, but as you can see, we need him more than ever now. I’m gonna be pretty useless for a while with this bum arm.”
“All I know is that I’m getting in, one way or the other. I’m going to find Casey in New Orleans and get her out of there, but I don’t know what we can do after that.”
“I don’t know either, Doc. I’m just glad we’ve got the boat. I think we ought to sail somewhere pretty remote and lay low for a while after we leave there. Anywhere near New Orleans is not gonna be the place to be, Florida either, or just about anywhere in the Gulf, except maybe a few stretches of the Mexican coast on the north side of the Yucatán. Wherever we go, it needs to be some place with good, protected anchorage for the boat, a fresh water supply, and good fishing and foraging. I’ve got a feeling we’re gonna have to be self-sufficient for a while. I just can’t even contemplate what a mess it’s going to be up there in the bigger cities if this goes on for a few months.”
“But don’t you think everyone is going to have the same idea about getting out of the cities? It looks like there would be a mass exodus from just about all of them. I mean, everybody knows that food comes from the country, even city people. Won’t they head out any way they can and try to get to farms hoping to find something to eat? I guess that’s what I would do, if I were in that situation with no other choice.”
“Nah, some will, but you gotta remember, most people are conditioned to expect a government handout when some disaster strikes, like a hurricane, for instance. I think most of them will hang around hoping help is on the way until they finally realize it ain’t coming. Besides, from what I’ve seen my last few times in the States, most people these days aren’t in shape to walk out of their neighborhoods, much less far enough to get to the rural areas. And even though some could do something like that, far fewer have access to good, seaworthy boats that could reach the kinds of places I’ve got in mind. No, Doc, we don’t have to worry about that. As long as some other freak of nature doesn’t come along and shut down the wind, the world is our oyster here aboard the Casey Nicole.”
“I just hope we get there before Casey decides to leave,” Artie said, suddenly worried about this new possibility. “If she were to evacuate or something before we get there, I don’t know how I would ever find her.”
“We’re gonna find her, Doc. Just try not to worry too much about all the what-ifs. Just help Scully sail this boat and when we get there we’ll figure it out one step at a time.”