Chapter 14: Water Dance

Outside the entrance to San Juan, Tiger, Fred, and Enrique boarded Appeal to Heaven, using the rescue boat. We shortened up so much the tow was almost bumping our stern. Not quite. Normally, to break tow, we would pull the tow’s bridle up on our stern, and unshackle the tow wire from it. Too much sea swell to risk getting close enough to do that. Instead, the men on Appeal to Heaven knocked the shackle pins out where the bridles legs were shackled to the lift boat. Dropped the entire bridle in the water, and we pulled it up on deck.

Tiger picked the legs up and brought the barge into harbor. Fred was there to coach him if needed, how to push and maneuver a barge. Tiger knows his lift boat and Fred is the expert river tow pushboat captain. They preceded us in and went straight to the bunkers dock to top up Appeal to Heaven with a full load of fuel, and loaded a 55 gal drum of lube oil.

Speedy stayed outside until the fueling of Appeal to Heaven was almost complete. When we arrived at the bunkering dock, Appeal to Heaven had completed bunkering and was shifted down the dock out of our way. Our twenty four hours begins when the first of Speedy’s lines lands on the dock. The time the barge and liftboat were in port ahead of us, doesn’t count. We are trying to give ourselves all the time we can for the needed ram and seal kits to be delivered to us.

If it had been a foreign port we were entering to take on fuel, we would have left the barge outside, tended by the push tug or the lift boat, to avoid paying duty on the barge’s cargo. Puerto Rico is US territory. US custom’s duties were paid in Houston before we sailed.

Loaded all the fuel we can carry, three drums of oil, thirty cases of filters, bushels of fresh fruit and veggies, a crate of eggs, ten cases of long life milk, one ram, and a small box with half a dozen ram seal kits inside.

When all of that was safely stowed away, I allowed the crew to escape, and go ashore for six hours. Personal shopping, chug a few beers, just walk around and feel land under their feet again, what ever they wanted to do. Warned them not to get staggering drunk.

We are leaving when they return aboard. Don’t be late, the pilot is ordered for six hours from now. I stayed aboard. Chance to catch up on paper work I need to mail to the office and I’m writing a letter to mail to my daughter. A letter is better than a phone call some times. You can edit and rewrite the letter if you screw it up. And the recipient can reread it many times in the future. Also, a letter is a monologue, no one interrupts your train of thought.

I lied about the pilot. I haven’t ordered one yet. If the crew returns reasonably sober, I will order the pilot then and we will use the time before the pilot arrives, to hook the bridles back up to Appeal to Heaven. If they’re falling down drunk, I’ll let them sleep it off before we reconnect the tow wire and call for a pilot. We are not in such a great rush we need to kill people because they are too drunk to be safe!

My premonition was correct, they’re now sleeping it off. We will leave in the morning. Daylight’s better for getting underway anyway.

From San Juan, we will steer between the British Virgins and the US Virgin Islands east of Puerto Rico, heading roughly for St Kits. We will follow the island chain south through the Caribbean staying on the western or lee side of the islands. Less stress on the equipment.

More comfortable, too. We are heading for St Lucia. We won’t stop there or at any of the islands we pass. Like Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, doesn’t matter how attractive they may be. This isn’t a pleasure cruise. From St. Lucia, we steer south east to Barbados. Not stopping there either but it will be our last landfall before seeing Cape Palmas, Africa. We continue steering south east from Barbados until we arrive in the vicinity of seven degrees north latitude. There we begin searching, continuing south east as we anxiously search.

What are we seeking? A certain quality to the water surface. We expect to find dancing water, and that kind of describes what it looks like! The surface of the water jiggles up and down with tiny pointed wavelets, and it isn’t due to the wind.