Chapter 1: Up the Creek

“It is still well before noon, folks.”

I console my disgruntled crew.

“There will be plenty of today left for celebration AFTER we get re-situated at our new moorings. Abidjian has many diversions to explore. When I talk to the office, I will demand they instruct the agent to issue us local CFA francs, drawn against the company as bonus, not our pay, just as we were promised. My understanding is the current rate of exchange is around one dollar equals five hundred francs, so each of you should be millionaires. There are luxury hotels and casinos at the local beach. Any one feeling lucky today?”

Sticking my neck out. Risking my crew losing faith in me. What if the office refuses to honor the commitment Mr Tynsall made about the bonuses? Or delays dispensing the bonus? They don’t dare. If we abandon the vessels and the cargo and immediately fly home using the petty cash I hold, everything we brought here will be pirated before our planes even touch down on American soil! Of that I have no doubts. I am confident I can convince the office not to doubt it.

Were I to actually do that, the Coast Guard might demand my license be suspended or revoked! That pissing contest I can win on appeal. Slavery is illegal. I’m not required to accept whatever or how little the company wants to pay me. That’s a wage slave. I’ll sue them!

Maybe win enough, I won’t need to work! Depends on how sympathetic an awards jury is. Typically, they don’t like big business shenanigans screwing employees.

At least we aren’t shackled and marched to the city dock. The police let us walk by ourselves. Never let us out of sight though!

First things first. Skeeter is unlashed and backs out of the notch, with Fred at the helm, then faces up to the stern of Never Again V barge. Puts up face wires. The lashings to Appeal to Heaven are tripped and dragged into neat piles on the barge deck, then Fred backs the barge down the pier away from the lift boat. Enrique is tending lines for Captain Fred.

Appeal to Heaven leaves the city dock with Captain Tiger and Angie. Speedy has been warming up during these concurrent mentioned maneuvers of the other boats, and a local commercial fisherman is already aboard to serve as our pilot. Backing Speedy from the dock, out of the slip, I turn her around and we start deeper into the harbor. Tiger follows me, and Fred is the train caboose.

You wouldn’t easily imagine where the agent arranged for us to park. Dock? What dock? We left a Louisianan swamp, voyaged across a quarter of the globe, and arrived in an African jungle! It’s a little shallow bay off a long coastal lagoon, surrounded by dense jungle, and miles from town. From any town! And someone else is already anchored here, and taking up most of the available space.

A Russian trawler with a forest of antennas swings at anchor. Typical Russian spy ship, I’ve seen many like it. One big difference now, the USSR is no more. Collapsed. Defunct. Out of business. An unemployed spy ship is our neighbor.

Wouldn’t choose to be in their shoes! Whose going to pay their bills? Buy fuel? Food? Forget salaries! How will they get home again? The Russian crew is in a tough spot.

A dugout log canoe comes paddling alongside and our pilot departs, disappears with it. We have been left alone to make do. We can.

We will NOT set up near that jungle. I don’t want to be eaten alive!

Afraid of tigers and lions? I’m more terrified of the local mosquitos. This is Africa. Malaria country. Looking around, I don’t see any buoys or channel markers of any kind. Large vessels apparently don’t come this way. Suits me. We will take our half out of the middle. Screw that nasty buggy shallow little bay the Russian occupies. We’re going to park in the dammed middle of the lagoon. Screw other traffic! They can go around us depending, if there is any traffic.

Tiger and Fred agree. We want to be out where we can catch a breeze, and far away from those insect infested trees and greenery.

“Choose the best looking spot, wherever you like, Captain Tiger, and once you are jacked up and stable, we will converge on you.”

I can imagine Tiger grinning, like a tiger. He’s a Prima Donna, you know? Loves being the center of attention. Now he is captain of his own vessel again, he is well pleased and anxious to assert himself. We get along just fine, don’t get me wrong. I know him, like him, know how to play him. Known many similar personalities most like him. I’ll use him but won’t abuse him. I am project supervisor still!

While Tiger is doing his leg penetration tests and getting jacked up, I maneuver alongside the barge Never Again V. It’s slick calm in the narrow lagoon, so no danger of banging the hulls together in slop.

Never Again has two spud wells on the starboard side, one aft, one forward. For the voyage, her spuds were extracted and laid on deck. Angle iron clips were welded to the deck in dozens of spots to keep them in place. Speedy is facing downwind tied up on the barges starboard side. The side with the spud wells. Fred is facing upwind. My propellers and rudders are at the opposite end from Fred’s props and rudders on Skeeter. We can twist the barge anyway we want, and even make the barge slide sideways to either side. That’s called walking.

Once the spuds are freed from their retaining clips, short work for Enrique wielding a sledge hammer to knock them loose, we pick one up with our stiff leg crane. And insert it in a spud well.

We remain away, a distance from Appeal to Heaven until Tiger invites us to approach. We never touch the lift boat, but when we are close enough to be reached by a boarding ramp, we spud down. Tiger has several boarding ramps aboard the lift boat including a really long one, and he has a crane to place them in position.

We set the second spud in it’s well then rotate the barge to the exact right distance for Tiger’s crane to grab the crewboat in its cradle in the stern, Tiger’s crane can lift the crew boat easily. Our crane aboard Speedy would be maxed out. When the crew boat is lifted in the air, we twist the barge again, this time away, to make room on the water to set down the crewboat. It’s soon afloat and also tied alongside the barge but on the opposite side from Speedy.

Walking the barge. Lifting a spud and twisting before spudding down, and then picking up the other spud and twisting before spudding in again, we wriggle the barge to spot it where we want it.

Tiger lowers the Appeal to Heaven closer to the water to an appropriate level for easy access back and forth from the barge. His hull is above water, so pumping isn’t necessary and the leaking cracks in the leg wells can be patched up. Reinforced, too! Boarding ramps are in place communicating to and connecting all our vessels. Home sweet home, our own homemade island...