“ All right take her around,” Ramsingh said, stepping back into the cockpit.
Broxton spun the wheel to the right and kept the boat in the turn till the wind was at their back and Ramsingh shut off the engine. They sailed like that for a few minutes, the main powering the boat at three knots over a calm sea toward the glow on the horizon where the sun had been.
“ The end of the line,” the Rasta driver said as he pulled up in front of Drake Road.
“ Take us all the way in. Right up to the dinghy dock,” Dani said.
“ Your wish is my command,” he said, turning left onto the dirt track that led into the shipyard.
“ You’re not from here, are you?” Earl said.
“ Dallas, born and bred.”
“ Why here, driving a taxi bus?” Earl asked.
“ They’re not so up tight here. Live and let live. Try that back in the States.” The driver stopped the van in front of the dock.
“ I still don’t get it,” Earl said as he stepped out of the van.
“ Jah is love. It’s all I need,” the Rasta driver said, then he put the van in gear and sped off.
“ Holy shit, that’s some boat,” Earl said, as they were approaching Sea King.
“ Two million dollars of sixty-five foot steel boat. She really is the King of the Sea. Wait till you see the state room.”
“ It would be gorgeous if it wasn’t for those two giant hook things hanging off the ass end.”
“ Those are the dinghy davits and yes they do kind of ruin the lines, but my father wanted them as an extra safety feature, because he doesn’t believe in life rafts.”
“ Say that again.”
“ He doesn’t believe in life rafts. They have no motor or sails, you have no way to steer them. All you do is float around in the ocean and hope someone finds you. Those poles on each side, by the oars, connect to form a mast. Under the forward seat is a mast step that my father had build into the dinghy. The sail is under the rear seat. Those giant hooks, as you call them, are designed to raise the dinghy with an electric motor. In an emergency we can grab our get-a-way bags, lower the dinghy and be in it in seconds. So although the dinghy davits ruin the lines of the boat, I’ve learned to like them. Besides, it makes raising the dinghy oh so easy.”
The sun was down and stars were dotting the sky as Ramsingh unfurled the jib and they sailed downwind past the Five Island group. Then he turned so that the wind was crossing the starboard side at twenty knots. Gypsy Dancer responded by heeling over and her speed increased to seven knots.
“ This is pretty much our top speed,” Ramsingh said. “Once we get out there it’ll be choppy and we’ll be fighting a cross current. We’ll have bigger wind, spray in the face and maybe a little rain.”
“ Swell,” Broxton said.
“ You might want to take your shoes off.”
“ Sure.” Broxton kicked them off.
“ Okay, why don’t you take the wheel while I go below and get the life jackets and tethers.” A few minutes later Ramsingh was back. “All right, slip this on,” he said, handing Broxton a blue inflatable life vest. Broxton put it on. “If you wind up in the water, pull on the chord and the vest will inflate, but it won’t make any difference, you’ll die anyway, because I won’t be able to find you in the dark, so don’t fall off.”
“ You’re just full of glad tidings,” Broxton said.
“ And to aid you in staying on board we have these,” Ramsingh said, and he clipped a line to the front of his vest. Broxton watched as he clipped the other end to the binnacle. “Now you’re secured to the boat.”
“ You went around the world tied to the boat?”
“ Only when we were on deck after dark or in bad weather. Tonight we’re going to get both.”
Earl looked at the darkening sky as they motored toward Boca del Monos, Monkey’s Mouth, the westernmost and smallest of the four openings between Trinidad and Venezuela that separated the Gulf of Paria from the Caribbean Sea. This was his first time on a sailboat, but he’d raced plenty of speedboats across Lake Dallas, so he wasn’t worried about the crossing to Grenada. Nothing bad could happen on a boat that topped out at ten to twelve knots.
He settled himself back in the cockpit. Soon, he thought, they’d be through the opening and into the sea. Then they could put the boat on automatic pilot, go below and screw till sunup. Life was good and it was getting better.
“ You want to take the wheel while I let out the sails?”
“ Sure,” he said, getting up.
“ Just keep it pointed to the slot between the land on the right and the small island on the left.”
“ Gotcha,” he said.
She pushed a button and he heard the whirring of a powerful electric motor. He watched, fascinated, as the mainsail pulled out from inside the mast. The boat picked up speed as the sail came out and she kept her finger on the button until it was out all the way. The boat heeled over a little and Earl felt the apparent wind as it soothed across his face. He glanced at the knot meter. Seven knots. It seemed faster.
“ Now the jib,” she said and he watched her as she took the lines off the large starboard winch and let it lay slack. Then she moved over to the port side and pushed another button and the port winch started turning.
“ Are all the winches electric?” he asked as the sail came out.
“ No, just the two big ones. They have the jib sheets on them.”
“ What?”
“ The lines that control the big head sail. It’s too big to handle by hand.”
The jib filled as it unfurled, and she kept her finger on the button until it was all the way out. Sea King heeled over more and for a second Earl thought he was going to fall off, but he held onto the steering wheel and grabbed another look at the knot meter. Nine knots. He turned his attention back to her, long hair flying around her face as she pulled the jib sheet tight into the jaws of the self-tailing winch. He looked at the wind instrument. Twenty knots. Twenty knots of wind and they were doing nine knots over the water. He tightened his hands on the wheel. He felt the adrenaline zip through him, lighting up the hair on his arms, sparking across his skin, tingling at the back of his neck. His palms were sweaty on the wheel and the wind was whipping across his face.
“ You okay, Earl?” she said.
“ I had no idea nine knots could be so fast.”
“ We’ll do eleven or twelve once we pass through the Bocas.”
“ Shit,” he said.
It seemed like they were flying. And they were still in the gulf. And then it was calm as they entered the narrow channel between Trinidad proper and Monos Island. Sea King moved flat across the water, powered by the motor, the wind useless as it blew over Trinidad’s high mountains, ignoring the sailboat below.
Earl used the calm moments to catch his breath.
“ You want a drink?” Dani asked.
“ Shot of tequila and a beer if you can,” Earl said.
“ Okay, just keep her pointed through the center of the channel,” she said, before going below, leaving him alone with the boat, the sea and the night.
“ What the-” Earl said, ducking as something flew by his face. Bird, he thought and he raised his head as another one whipped by and he knew it wasn’t a bird. “Bats!” he yelled as another one, then another flew by. He felt his skin crawl, he wanted to swat at them, but he was afraid to take his hands from the wheel. Another zipped by, inches from his face, and he followed it with his eyes. “Jose y Maria,” he said, staring wide-eyed at the bats swarming around the boat. There were hundreds, thousands of them, silently flapping above the water, over the deck, and back to skimming the sea again. It was a miracle they didn’t get caught in the sails.
Then as quickly as they’d come, they were gone, flocking toward a small bay off to the right and again Earl was alone in the dark.
“ You say something, Earl?” Dani said as she popped up from below, holding onto the boat with her right hand, balancing a shot glass and a beer in her left.
“ No, nothing,” he said, staring at the salvation in her hand.
