The Pulse

FIVE

“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 passe 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