Chapter 24

(“Чорне море,” is what she said, ) “The Black Sea!” is what she meant. Had she been a Greek born between 800 and 300 BC, she would have called the water the Euxine Sea, the “hospitable sea”. Eight thousand years BCE. she might have lived as much as 120 miles out on a great fertile plain surrounding a huge fresh water lake. Earthquakes and a rising Atlantic ocean inundated that fertile plain. It probably happened more slowly than the stories but faster than science believes. Surely within the span of two lives. Catastrophic events must be rapid enough for mankind to notice.

Now the water is salt ... but less saline than the Aegean or the Med. The Flint sat a little deeper in the water, fresh water is less buoyant than salt.

The mountains surrounding the sea and the differences in salinity east to west create a distinctive weather pattern. At the mouth of the Bosphorus we encountered 10 to 20 knot easterlies and a beam reach for two days when the wind shifted out of the south and a down hill run all the way to Odessa.

We fished. Trolling, we caught Black Sea bass, tuna, salmon and mackerel. There was one terrifying evening when a sturgeon cooperated on the hook. Krys (Khrystyna Kucherenko, our new hand.) was on watch turning her trick at the helm when the fifteen foot surf casting rod bent and the rod tip hit the water. The boat lost two knots of speed over ground and the jerk had the crew surging on deck wondering what we had hit.

“Fish on!” Krys shouted. “Someone get that, please. Or take the wheel.”

“What idiot put that rod on,” JW asked. And everyone turned to look at Billy.

Mr. McWilliams, Cyn’s husband, was inordinately attached to his monster shark rod, “I could take on a 1500 pounder with this rod,” he had bragged. Now that something was starting to tow the Flint by the stern, Billy didn’t want anything to do with the fish ... or the rod.

“Cassie, Doctor Jo, give Krys a hand. JW ... helm ... and start the blowers.” I looked at our paid crew.

“You lot! Strike the sails and put out some fenders, we must have caught a submarine.” I said, “They’ll be up eventually.”

The monster we hooked wasn’t a submarine. Acipenser sturio the European sea sturgeon, the salt water sturgeon, is part of the aquatic life of the area. The one we hooked was a doozy ... easily 20 or so feet long and maybe 2000 pounds. Both engines at full throttle barely made headway. The ease it took splintering the $2000 rod and breaking the 1000 pound leader let everybody know we’d had a FISH on.

“Too bad it got away,” Krys said, “ ... they are extremely expensive and highly sought after in the markets.”

The denizens of the deep are (were) ubiquitous to the sea. Water ballast in ships has carried some species around the globe.

The 35 different Goby is a case in point. They eat Zebra mussels. The Mussel was native to the Black Sea. That species was carried in the water ballast to the Great Lakes ... so to were the Goby. The pair have reached equilibrium. The Goby eat as many mussels as are bred.

Other than to scary fish ... fun on the Flint was climbing the mast, sliding down the backstay ... playing with JW and Zo’s nearly three year old girl, learning Kata, nude tanning on the tramps and spherical trig.

Doctor Jo was willing to teach physics to anyone.

Cassie was teaching Cassandran seduction to Krys.

Krys held classes in Russian and Ukrainian.

The paid crew taught knots, sailmaking and engine maintenance.

Daily plan of the day included learning the lines, helmsmanship, laundry and chasing salt stains.

During the rare windless day, man overboard drill featured heavily. If it wasn’t so serious it would have been fun.

The town of Sunny Beach, Bulgaria beckoned. No. Seriously ... the Bulgarian Coast Guard is the most active division of the Bulgarian Armed Forces and we had crossed a mythical line in the Sea. By request, we had to explain our presence to some damned Admiral ... who thought it was funny. Bulgaria’s military Navy is cast off Soviet ships and abandoned patrol boats. We were something different.

Romania got us next. The patrol boat commander readily confessed that Bulgaria had called ahead.

Each inspection gave us a port to provision and bunker ... If they weren’t so heavily armed it would have been fun.

Odessa knew we were coming. But not because someone peached on us. Consul General Kucherenko informed the respective grandparents and THEY met us at the dock.