SARGASSO SAILS

CHAPTER 1




*Getting sloppy with the log.
*Forgot to write down departure time.
*Little things always come back to haunt me.
*Feel a little perked up after a bit of a crash.
*Jewel stowed in her cabin...a little miffed...I guess I stayed a bit too long at the Tiki-Key Bar tonight.
*No traffic in the channel.
*NOAH forcasts a fine evening with the chance or possibility of, or a maybe percentage of might be or something, blah, blah, blah. They are usually right on the money but they always add a 'perhaps' at the end of their predictions.
*A few swells now. This is where the Atlantic meets the Gulf of Mexico. The water is confused. There is no boundary. It's as if these two bodies of water struggle for territory, assisted and desisted by the tides.
*Past the break. Running on genoa alone. Flashing red, white and greens as far as the eye can see. Heading out past the reef. Gotta get some momentum from the Stream.
*The Stream...more powerful than the Mississippi and Amazon combined. It was first charted by none other than Benjamin Franklin. The stories we've been told from the horrible to the sublime. I'm hoping that it's my magic carpet ride.
*The lights of Key West behind me...the sweet baritone sound of water rushing past my hull...dodger and bimini down...pure tropical breeze...constellations twinkling like Chinese cymbals...sibilant.
*Passed the reef...sigh of relief. The ocean swells clean and message the hull. I let out more jenny and ease towards the Stream. The compass is pointing east. No ships in sight. My mind wanders back to the Tiki-Key.
     I really have come to love those characters. They all seem to have had such unusual lives. Well, at least it seems that way to one born and raised in the Great White North. Reefer had brought a couple of freshly caught lobster tails over to Sargasso a few nights ago. This was a regular occurrence. The closest thing to this that I've ever caught up north was a crawfish. And that Kaya was forever giving us channel cats and gaffers. She wouldn't even use them for bait, but we frittered them in hot pepper sauce and wow! I could still picture the two of them sipping on their fruity cocktails back at the Tiki-Key...like two pirates in a soda shoppe.
     And then there was Mulligan who disdained of fruit altogether. "Just composts the innards that much faster". We had shared many a bottle with mysterious worn labels that he had brought back from his questionable quests. He lived in his hangar-boathouse with his baby, 'Molly Bloom', an aircraft of dubious distinction. A harp festooned one wing while a shamrock decorated the other. Nothing radical in that except the wings were different sizes. "She's a little apt to starboard" he would laugh. The formidable quantitiles of duct tape applied to the plane would build a good size fence across the Mexican border.
     But this Larry...oh boy did he take the cake. Nothing like a redneck Canuck to dispell all the notions of the pre-conceived stereotype. Who would name their boat 'The Meandering Moose'? And was it manniquins or blow-up dolls that he had used for fenders? It was quite the story Evelyn told us about how they had pulled into the marina at Paradise Key:
   -So there's Larry standing up on the bow with the boat hook like a sword and yelling, "over the side wenches", and he starts pushing these naked dummies over the gunwales and the mayor's wife is like having a garden party at the marina and is horrified by all of this so her hubby arrives with some heavy dudes in uniform and they make Larry take down all the female fenders and tells us to leave first thing in the morning. So now Larry's mad and he takes a bunch of the blow-ups ashore and plants them in the mayor's wife's garden and we take off at dawn and he leaves a couple of their heads bobbing in the harbour and...
   Whew, where did the stars go? It's getting foggy out here...can barely see the mast light...no wind at all now. The jib flapping sounds like wet feet on a dock but strangely metronomical.
*Furl in a little...flapping faster but I still don't feel any breeze. I can't see the mast light at all now.
*The dreaded sound...surf! There is no land for twenty miles according to the chart.
*All hell breaks loose...I'm in a whirlpool. This only happens in cartoons. There is no visibility and we're being pushed or pulled at a good ten knots.
*Then the wind comes...I'm thinking white squall. What did Jeff Bridges do? I can't remember so I try to keep her into the wind. It comes from every direction. Five rotation wheel...doesn't respond.
*Furl, unfurl...check the compass. West! This can't be. Did the Stream reverse itself? No stars. Total darkness. I can't be in the Bermuda Triangle yet. Is this the Cuban isosceles?
*Do not panic. Of couse I do. I miss my little cabin up north that stayed in one spot...no drifting or dragging anchors.
*Now the lights...not mine. Towers flashing and crackling out warnings: Keep off! Back up! Turn and stay out of Neptunes watery domains.
*All kinds of lights...strobular, occulating, layered. Red right returning...but to where?
*Spray over the bow...illuminated waves. Too late to get the dodger up. I'm hanging on to this useless wheel. The damn compass won't budge off due west.
*Magnetic north...somewhere in Nunavik. Diabolical Eskimoes want a compass tax. I'm convinced that they are constantly moving the bloody pole.
*Hissing, spitting, sparkling. Sounds coming from all directions.
*ELECTIC WATERWORLD!
*Waves four to six feet. Hope the dinghy is okay...why didn't I stow it? Bang my fist on the compass. Shady Nunaviks!
*Breathless now. Shocked. Paralyzed.
*Lights overhead now. Perhaps its the Coast Guard coming to rescue me. How would they know? My radio's dead. No battery power at all except for my solar keyboard...my own little innovation that is not hooked up to the boat's batteries.
*Now the cockpit is alive with dancing colours. Colours like a painting by Juan Miro...little abstract shapes that bounce off each other and arpeggiate up the mast. A return to the Sixties...psychedelic.
*The mast glows like Excalibur.
*Surreal.
*Then the huge glow in front of the bow...nuclear...rising out of the ocean. Higher. Higher. It's an eye...a gigantic glowing, fiery eye. It dwarfs all other lights. It is master of all. It rises to the top of the mast and then looks down on me, the trespasser.
  Then there was nothing; nothing but the stars and a calm sea in front of me. The mast light was all that remained of the eye, and it soon fades as well. Still no electronics. Compass still pointing west. So where were we? I check the charts. There is nothing on the charts showing a gigantic eye sticking out of the water. The visibility is perfect now, except off the stern as the mist dissipates. Even the clock has stopped in the front cabin. I grabbed the flashlight. Eureka...it works! I check all the lines and the jib. All is fine.
  I refuse to leave the security of the cockpit to check on the dinghy. My nerves are frayed. My ashtray is overflowing. I consume pot after pot of coffee. I try to relax and wait for daybreak.
  The jib won't respond. I'm being pushed or pulled along on this invisible current while the sea is a virtual mirror reflecting the constellations. I peruse the sky. There is the Dreadlock Galaxy...looks like Manana. And there's the Mulligan galaxy ...who could mistake the ballcap? And there is the twin grouping of Kaya Mann and Reefer. Am I on another planet?
  Suddenly there is light! It was if I had crossed a boundary from night to day...no dawn and no sunrise with which to gauge my bearings. Everything is fresh and beautiful. I'm gaining control of the boat again. I might as well go forward. There are no obstructions in sight. I hoist the main and unfurl the jib and let the wind take me forward. Then I gingerly leave the safety of the cockpit and venture back towards the stern.
   I let loose a diatribe of unprintable obscenities. The dinghy is gone. Tied to the painter was a beat up, birchbark simile; an elongated aluminum beer can. There was Larry's canoe, Scarface!
    I didn't have time to dwell on this development as my attention was diverted to the forward deck.
   'Wham'...oh God, I had hit something.

ON TO CHAPTER 2 "SUMMERLANDS"
GET ME OUTTA HERE...I'M GETTING SEASICK