Brenda and the F Word

Our captain reeked of rum as he casually flung box after box beneath two wooden benches in the salon. A rather grandiose term, I thought, for the living room mid-ship. Where were my illusions of everything being ship-shape and tidy? Slinking past him, I edged my way towards our forward cabin which was next to the head. This is another nautical term I’ve never quite understood. I mean, how does a john end up a head? And what does either have to do with a toilet? The manual pumping system had a sort of medieval charm to it, I suppose.  As for the berths? They were short and shaped like two thin wedges of pizza pie. I decided to unpack my wardrobe. At this point, I have to confess. I am a raving hypochondriac. Years of incessant travel have done nothing to cure or improve my condition. I’ve suffered everything from a mild coronary infarction walking the moors of Scotland to advanced symptoms of leprosy and elephantiastis in Tahiti. My husband once cursed me through a 24 hour case of trachoma. I developed the disease at home while watching a victim go blind during a documentary about Ellis Island. But this trip would be different. With two doctors aboard, it was a hypochondriac’s dream come true. After dumping duffel bags of clothes and drugs on my berth,  I headed back to the deck.

The men were scurrying around in skimpy French bathing suits and squeaky new Topsiders, all pretending they knew exactly what they were doing.  Delayed by our ripped mainsail, we were finally making for Deshaies, a port four hours up the coast. After a good night’s sleep, we planned to cross the ocean passage between Guadeloupe and Antigua, arriving just in time for cocktails in English Harbor. There might even be time for a picnic on the island of Montserrat.

The first inkling of trouble came with the decision to cut the engine and hoist the sails. There’s nothing less romantic than the drone of a diesel .  Real sailors sneer at the slow, polluted progress of stinkpots. Forget the rain, the fickle off-shore winds. Forget the fact no one knew a fucking fo’scle from a frigate. Finally, forget the unbelievable fact our skipper spoke only Creole. The man’s grasp of nautical French was limited to exactly two words: tirer, or pull and foc, or jib. Foc. Foc. Foc. Presumably, there was more to sailing than pulling on the jib. But that first ecstatic moment when the wind billows through your sails and the boat plows into the sea at a 30 degree angle is indeed unforgettable. The men were howling with glee, gripped by the thrill I associate with riding the Cyclone at Coney. My husband was at the helm. Oh Christ! Surely not. The last time my husband was even near a helm was on vacation in North Carolina. Within minutes of blithely pushing off from shore, he’d overturned a Catamoran and was seen drifting, quickly, towards Bermuda. My sister and I called the Coast Guard. We then waited and watched while he shrunk to a speck in the distance. His only reaction when the Coast Guard towed him in four hours later was a sheepish grin and boastful pointing to sea soaked blisters.

This time, we were in shark infested waters. One wrong move and we’d end up instant human sushi. And where the foc was our skipper? No amount of beseeching or screaming from above seem to rouse him from below. Sticking my head down through the hole (sorry, hatch) in the deck, I saw him splicing wires. When he finally emerged, it was to the ear splitting sounds of Jamaican ram jam,  some sort of reggae rap music. He’d been repairing the sound system.  Clad in a short yellow rain slicker with a tight silver belt (I kid you not! A silver belt), he swayed on to the deafening beat as we danced towards a watery doom. The speakers were rolling all over the deck. Cleverly camouflaged in white plastic milk jugs, he’d hitched them to the hatch with invisible filaments of fishing wire.What if someone tripped? I moaned and swore quietly under my breath.

Eventually, the port snuck into sight.  Deshaies is sublimely beautiful, a cove ringed with royal palms and twinkling white lights.  As we glided smoothly in, I put my visions of the Poseidon Adventure behind me and waved oh so  nonchalantly to fellow sailors moored for the night. I just might grow to like this, I thought. Stepping down the ladder to change into dry clothes, I promptly slid flat on my ass across the galley. A bottle of green Fairy dishwashing liquid had spilled when we hoisted the sails. The floor was covered with a greasy, film of soap suds. Our skipper was right behind me.  As I rose shakily to my feet and began sifting through buried stores, he morosely gulped his way through another bottle of rum. We’d squelched his plans, more like a pre hatched plot, to drive sixty kilometers back for a party…