I’d tossed and turned a bit thinking about what we were planning to do over the next forty-eight hours or so until finally falling asleep around one in the morning. My internal alarm clock had me awake and ready to get underway shortly before six. From the looks of things, most everyone in Marsh harbor was still sleeping off the excesses of the final awards dinner the night before. I set the coffee pot to brew on the stove and went up on deck to shorten up the anchor rode for departure. With that accomplished, I started Vamp’s twin 150 horsepower outboards to warm up while I fetched my morning cup of coffee. Birgit was still sound asleep so I decided to let her have a bit of a lie in until she woke on her own. After hoisting the anchor with the aid of the electric windlass, I motored us out of the harbor, raised the sails, and cut the engines. Like many sailors, I regard motors as a necessary evil, to used only when absolutely required. In the steady tradewinds of the Caribbean, months might pass without our ever starting the engines except to charge the batteries and keep the icebox chilled.
The breeze was blowing in the same direction as it had been all week long, and it looked like we’d be beating to windward for much of the day, with several tacks thrown in before we could lay a course to Little Stirrup Cay. We were not scheduled to rendezvous with the Cuban’s boat for another thirty-six hours, but I wanted to arrive far in advance of that. I figured that we could spend the time relaxing on the beach at Little Stirrup, and I had a plan I wanted in place long before I ever laid eyes on Felipe’s delivery crew. I did not want Birgit anywhere around when they showed up. My plan was to have her stationed on shore somewhere at least a hundred yards from where Vamp would be anchored with my scoped 222 rifle in her hands. At that point in time, Little Stirrup was a deserted island, just a sandy spit of a place with some vegetation, occasionally used by yachts as a place to drop anchor for the night if weather conditions were favorable. There had been rumors that one of the big cruise lines was close to signing a lease on the island, and were planning to use it for shore excursions together with a beach barbeque for passengers. As far as I knew, so far it was only a rumor.
Birgit finally made an appearance on deck at around ten. I asked, “Hey girl. Did you have a good sleep? You looked so peaceful that I didn’t want to wake you.”
She replied, “Yes, I did. I was really tired after the dinner last night. Thanks for letting me sleep in. I loved the look on Clark’s face when he got the runner up award for the regatta in the J=24 class. I know that was your doing more than his,”
“Well, it gave a big boost to his self confidence in his sailing abilities and didn’t cost me a thing. I love seeing new people get hooked on sailing. He and AJ have a lot to learn, but we’re helping them get a good start. If you want to take her for a while, I’m ready for a nap.” I gave the helm to Birgit and asked her to put us the other tack in a half hour with a new course to steer.
Down below decks in the aft cabin, I opened the Lexan hatch over our double bunk to let in some fresh air, and settled back to read a bit more of the Clive Cussler novel I’d been meaning to finish for days. One of the joys of owning a big multihull like Vamp is the stability and speed afforded by that type of vessel. Unlike monohulls, large catamarans and tris seldom heel much more than about fifteen degrees. They almost never capsize either. A multihull depends on the breadth of it’s beam to remain stable, while conventional sailboats rely on the hundreds of pounds of lead in their keels to keep them sailing safely. The very few instances of big multis pitch-poling, or flipping upside down, were the result of too much speed in marginal weather. In the very unlikely event Vamp ever capsized, there were two man sized escape hatches bolted into the underside of the center hull. If we flipped the boat, we’d unbolt the hatches, activate the EPIRB, and wait for rescue in relative safety. Just last year, a big catamaran had pitch-poled in heavy seas off South Africa. It’s crew were rescued in less than twenty-four hours by a passing tanker. The cat was later salvaged and returned to sailing again.
I fell asleep for a while with the book lying abandoned next to me on the bunk. When I awoke, I took two steaks out of the freezer and laid them in the bottom of the stainless steel sink to thaw out. I relieved Birgit at the wheel after she offered to fix us a light lunch of ham and cheese sandwiches, potato chips, and beer from our dwindling supply of food in the fridge. By late afternoon, we’d set our anchor in about twenty feet of water just off the beach at Little Stirrup Cay in the Berry Islands.
I stripped down to my shorts and dove over the side into the warm water. When I broke the surface again, I called out to Birgit as I was treading water alongside the boat. “Hon, I’m going to swim ashore for just a bit. I’ll be back in a half hour or so. ok? If you want to get the cooker going, there’s a couple of steaks thawed in the sink. Why don’t you see what we have left in the way of vegetables and salad stuff?”
“No problem.”, came the reply. “I’ll also open one uf those bottles of red wine we have stashed in the dry locker. It will be waiting for you when you get back.”
Onshore, I could see that one of the cruise lines had indeed been busy since I’d last been here. Where there had once been only a deserted strip of beach, there was now a medium sized palapa hut, a bunch of trestle tables, and two big barbeque pits with the remnants of recent fires lining their bottoms. Up near the tree line were situated two primitive shacks for bathroom facilities. I found what I was looking for about fifteen feet into the brush. Kneeling next to a tall palm offered me a unobstructed view of Vamp lying to her anchor, The distance was only about seventy five yards Using a piece of driftwood I found on the beach, I scooped out a shallow depression in the sandy soil next to the tree, and then filled it with the leaves and dried out old palm fronds lying around.
Back down on the beach again, I could smell the steaks cooking on the grill hanging off Vamp’s stern pulpit, and see the table she’d set up in the cockpit. It was a short swim back to the boat. I rinsed off the salt in the shower below, and changed into cutoff jeans shorts and a clean Lacoste polo shirt. “So, what were you doing ashore?”, Birgit asked, handing me a glass of Neibaum Coppolla Vineyards cabernet.
“I was making a few plans for tomorrow night.”, I said. “Let’s sit down, and I’ll tell you while we eat dinner. It smells delicious.” After diving into our steaks and new potatoes sprinkled with fresh parsley, I took a deep breath and began. “Sweetie, I don’t want you anywhere near Vamp when these people show up tomorrow night. It won’t be comfortable but I’d like you ashore up past the treeline with a handheld VHF and my 222 long before they get here. If Felipe happened to mention you, I’m going to tell them you flew back to Miami from Marsh Harbor. I really don’t know what to expect, and I certainly do not have any reason to trust these guys. If everything goes smoothly, I’ll call you on the radio when they’ve left. If it looks like it’s going bad, shoot them if you can, or just sit tight and try to contact someone with the VHF in the morning.”
“You’re scaring me a little, Jimmy, but if it ‘goes South’ I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot to protect you, and I won’t miss at this distance. Daddy took me boar hunting in Germany for the first time when I was only ten. I can handle this.”
I did not want to alarm her any further, so I did not remind her that South Florida and the Bahamas were being overrun by vicious “cocaine cowboys” from Columbia. Not a week went by in Miami without a story in the Miami Herald about this. I was pretty sure that Felipe and his brother were just two Cuban officers taking advantage of their rank to move some confiscated pot, but I could not be positive about this. Instead, I said “I love you, sweetie” and led her by the hand below to our bunk and we made love slowly with the gentle Bahamian breeze cooling our naked bodies. When I was sure she was fast asleep, I got up and warmed up the single sideband radio to place a call to Sullivan’s boatyard in Miami. I got Hector, the night watchman on the phone and let him know I wanted to use the wide berth next to the construction crane beginning the next evening for twenty-four hours. He agreed to meet me at the Pelican, a dive bar across the street from the boatyard around ten to let me have a copy of the front gate key. Sully’s was a boatyard up the river in a seedy area where people could work on their own boats. I’d used them many times in the past. It was safe and secure, located behind a chain link fence topped with razor wire and patrolled at night by Hector a Florida redneck and his German Shepherd.
We were awakened late the following morning by hundreds of tourists being ferried ashore in motor launches from a gleaming white cruise ship anchored offshore in deeper water. By noon, the anchorage was buzzing with Jet Skis, the shoreline dotted with folks playing volleyball, and the warm shallows populated by snorkelers. By three they’d all their had barbeque and drinks, and by four o’clock they and their floating vacation ship had departed for the overnight trip back to Miami or Fort Lauderdale. W e had the place all to ourselves again.
By eleven I’d seen Birgit safely hidden on shore next to the big palm tree and was sitting in Vamp’s cockpit just waiting. At 12:40, almost so silently that I did not hear it, a black outboard skiff about twenty-five feet long with no running lights showing ghosted alongside and shut down it’s engine. A slim man dressed in a black tee and black jeans hopped agilely onto the starboard hull and crossed the aft strut to the cockpit. In excellent English he said, “Good evening. I assume you’re expecting us. I’m Felipe’s brother, Diego. He told me to be sure to say hello to your lovely wife. Where is she?”
I replied, “Hello Diego. I’m sorry but she is not here. She had to take a flight back to Miami from Marsh Harbor. I’m singlehanding back to Miami. Perhaps you’ll meet her another time. How many bales do you have for me? I’m going to want them stowed in the outboard hulls.
“There are fourteen in all at the weight you and my brother discussed. If you don’t mind, my men will see to the unloading. Why don’t you and I enjoy the evening with a drink right here?”
Amazed, I watched as his crew made short work of stowing seven burlap and shrink wrapped bales in each hull while he and I had a short rum and Coke. With our business concluded, he handed me an envelope, saying “Here’s a number to contact us when you are ready to have the load picked up. We’d prefer to do so under the cover of darkness as I’m sure you understand. Safe passage, skipper.” With that, he and his boat vanished into the night as silently as they’d appeared.
I waited twenty minutes until I was sure that they were gone and contacted Birgit on shore with the radio set to low power. I raised the anchor and nosed our bows into the shallows to pick her up a few minutes later. Shallow draft is another reason I loved multihulls. I probably could have nosed right up on the beach if I’d had to.
Birgit was sweaty and scratching at insect bites when she climbed back on board, saying “How did it go? I had him in the scope the whole time he was on board.”
“No problems, hon.”, I replied. “I’m still glad we took precautions, though. It’s a real quiet night. I think we’ll motor out onto the banks for an half hour, and drop an anchor out in the open for the rest of it. I want to put a few miles between us and this cay before we go to sleep. The Grand Bahama Bank extends for miles and miles with an average depth of under two fathoms. By 1:45 in the morning we were anchored in a flat calm, and showing no lights in just ten feet of water. There was nothing around us but open water. We both dropped off to sleep in minutes, exhausted from all the tension we’d felt all day. It would return when we faced the crossing to Miami, but for this night we were safe.
