Chapter 30

Steve

When I relieved Sue, she pointed at the ten mile radar, then at the GPS. We were within five miles of the GPS location Chuck had set. Speaking of the devil, Chuck came to the helm and said, "I figured we would be close. We're early. I originally didn't figure on us getting here until tomorrow morning. We've really made good time."

Dewey could see we were looking at something and discussing it, so he came over to check out the radar and GPS. He said, "Wow, we are close. How close in are we going to get before you start the engines?"

I looked at Chuck and he thought about it and said, "We'll drop the sails when we're a mile offshore. That way we can move up to the dock and maybe back in. We have to remember that the Bell may come out here to berth too. Hope the house is big enough."

Julie, one of Chuck's hip growths said, "It's big enough. We used to have as many as thirty people visit at the same time. You know, I didn't think I would miss this place so much. I have been away less than a couple of months, and it seems like forever. Maybe I'm just excited that I'm coming back here with a new family."

Chuck and his other hip growth, Lisa, gave Julie a hug as we neared the island. I suggested to Chuck, "You should call Mark to tell him we are about to get there. He can probably have a couple of people help us tie up."

Chuck made the call and laughed with whoever was on the phone. When he hung up he said, "I forgot, we could have used our cell phones this close. Mark said he'll have a couple of your construction guys that are working down here come out to give us a hand. He will organize a bunch of guys with truck type carts to come for luggage and have the big bus come for us".

Chuck began starting the engines and made the comment, "We might want to run the boat into the yacht club so we can flush the tanks and fill up with any water or fuel we may need."

I agreed, "Being out for almost three weeks probably has filled our waste tanks. They will need a good flush."

When the dock area was getting close, I backed away to let Chuck begin dropping sail to bring his boat into his island. It seemed fitting for him to do the honors.

As soon as the engines started, the salon filled up with people who then moved out on deck to see as much as possible on the way in. We could see two docks, with a nice sized motor launch tied up to the shorter dock.

Chuck did a couple of maneuvers to position the boat to slide up near the dock with the stern as he backed in. There had to be a couple of dozen people on the dock waiting for us. With fenders out along the whole side of the boat, lines were thrown to men on the dock who did a loop around a cleat. Chuck had changed direction on the props to swing the bow to the dock where the forward line was thrown and tied down. The bow, stern, and the two mid-boat lines had a little slack for tides but the springer lines between the key line points were fairly tight. Since it seemed our deck was fairly high for the dock, I assumed the island was experiencing close to high tide.

I put the gangplank that had the stairs out, along with the straight flat ramp gangway with rails. As soon as I did, Julie was off the boat hugging a dark skinned guy she called Miguel. Julie released the man and hugged a lady she called Mina. You could tell the three of them were close.

Mark came over and said to me, "You coming down, or do I need to come up? I think I'll come up since I've not seen this boat." Mark and Carolyn came up the stepped gangway and were greeted by the kids. They knew the couple well and spent a few seconds introducing them to the Irish and Italian kids.

When Mark entered the salon, he was amazed at how big it was and was also amazed at all of the music equipment at one end of the salon area. I took a few minutes to tell him a little about Chuck's concert debut, followed by introducing him to the band. Mark's Carolyn had been caught by Sue, Mercy, Juanita, and Kathy, and was being shown around the boat.

Chuck finally went out on deck and down the gangway ladder to be hugged by the dark Mina. The lady kept telling Chuck, "You are so good to us, you are our patron. All of the island is happy you are here."

As most of the people on board made their way to the dock, they walked funny until they became used to dry land again, I noticed a pretty good sized boat coming into the other side of the dock where the motor launch was docked. A couple of women jumped from the boat and were thrown lines that were immediately tied to cleats. The women were very experienced, and made short work of tying up their boat. It was then that nine women came running from the dock to crowd around Chuck and Lisa. Gina and the Asian sisters weren't excluded, but the nine newcomers obviously didn't know them yet.

One of the young ladies who had just arrived was showing off a ring exclaiming about the soon to be wedding. This was Thursday and the wedding was scheduled for Saturday. There was to be some kind of party tomorrow night for the bride and groom to make their deals with the parents. I didn't understand the ritual, but it did sound like a good time.

The ladies decided that they would come back later for clothes and luggage after they saw the house and the available space.

We all rode in an old school bus up a tree-lined road. On the hillside was a wind turbine farm with a dozen large wind turbines whose blades were slowly turning. The whole time we were riding up the hill, Mark was telling me about all of the improvements Chuck had been doing. We continued up until we came out into a large meadow area that had fenced-in animals grazing in one direction, a group of houses in another, and a huge house on the top of the hill, surrounded by what looked like black walnut trees. That wasn't very likely here, but it could be. Considering how most islands are so low, this could almost be considered a mountain. The closer we got to the house, the more it looked like a small hotel. There were three floors, but a big attraction was a deep porch that surrounded the house.

There were more people for Chuck to greet up near the house. It became apparent that Chuck was held in high regard by the island dwellers. Dewey came up to me and said, "This place is nice, really nice. You saw that turbine farm and just look at the livestock. I'll bet they have a huge garden where they grow their own vegetables.

Julie was leading a tour through the house and stopped in a large room that reminded me of Ben's famous den back in Tampa only larger. There was a snooker table and on the other side of the room was a bar. All of the walls were lined with books letting you know what the entertainment on an island was. It was then that I saw a large screen TV on the wall behind the bar. It was big enough to be seen from anywhere in the room. Julie told Dewey and me, "My husband stocked some very special scotch beneath the bar. Have a little while I show the ladies around."

Dewey and I were joined by Chuck as he looked like he was trying to escape all of the attention. Chuck went behind the bar, looked around in the lower cabinets and stood up, holding a bottle with the simple word 'Scotch' and below it, the words 'Distilled and aged in Scotland.' Chuck held the bottle up and said, "If this is the good stuff, we're in for a treat as there must be thirty or forty bottles under there. There must be every kind of booze and liqueur made stored in these cabinets."

Almost as soon as Chuck pulled three glasses from a shelf, the lady called Mina, came in with a chrome bucket of ice. She said, "Mr. Chuck, if you stay here, Miguel will turn the icemaker on for you. This should do you for a little while." The lady went to what looked like more cabinet doors, and opened what must have been a double door refrigerator under the back bar. The built in unit appeared to be full of beer. I could see some Bud in there, along with Australian, English, and Irish beers.

I asked Dewey, "Do you think the beer is still good? No one has probably had any of the beer in years. I would think beer, even in bottles that are kept chilled would go bad after a while."

Dewey said, "I think it can but what you usually hear about is draft beer going bad. I'll sample some in a little while and give you an opinion."

Mina must have been eavesdropping, as she came in and told Chuck, "Mr. Chuck, all of the beverages in the refrigerator are new. Mr. Mark told us to throw out all of the old beverages and order new. The yacht club sent a big selection just for you and your visitors."

I said, "Well, that takes care of that important question."

Mark came in and said, "I have a big passenger cart outside. Come see some of the improvements we've made since you were here last."

We rode down a rather steep hill and stopped about halfway down. He pointed at a building that had obviously been recently expanded. "That's the new generator building. We feed all of the power from the wind farm to here for distribution. There is another of these buildings going up near the new operations building."

Farther down, another building was pointed out to be the expanded desalination plant. Mark said, "If we find fresh water down deep, we may not need this. We'll probably keep it as a pumping station regardless."

Chuck asked Mark, "Why would you think you would find good water? I know you've found natural gas and that is probably deep, but water?"

Mark said, "While we were drilling, we ran through the high aquifer where the brackish water is, but down another two hundred feet was a large body of water that could be good. The well drilling company has brought their equipment back out here and will begin drilling next Monday. We will know by the end of the week. Even if that aquifer is not very big, it might help with livestock water.

Almost at water's edge of the island was a cleared area with a lot of sophisticated equipment. Mark said, "This is the site of the first gas well. As you can see, we're developing a distribution pipe to carry gas to all of the buildings in this area. We have another well in the new neighborhood we are building."

Mark showed us the docks, then drove back up to the top of the hill, across a meadow road, and stopped at a clear spot to look down on a long expanse of island below. Mark pointed out the new runway and the progress being made to pave it. He said, "I know it may be overkill, but I'm using the same specs Tampa, Clearwater, and Orlando use for their runways so we should be able to accommodate very heavy aircraft. I doubt we will ever need it, but the runway will end up right at 15,000 feet. Even on the hottest days, we'll have enough runway for a big aircraft to take off. The overrun areas are not big, but the water down on the far end is shallow enough that if a plane did set down or over run, passengers wouldn't drown."

We rode down the hill, passing some large tanks that Mark explained were for aircraft and vehicle fuel. The aircraft fuel would be gravity fed and the regular vehicle fuel is like a self-service island. He explained that fuel was pumped up to the tanks from the dock at this end of the runway.

At the bottom of the hill, with the end of the runway and the dock in sight, we came around a group of trees to find two huge hangars. You had to look hard to see them as they were painted with a camouflage design. Mark said, "These two are the same size as your hangars in Tampa. Come on let me show you what we have."

Inside the hangar was more than one aircraft. There was the six passenger conventional high wing aircraft with pontoons. Next to it was one of the high wing LSAs we built back in Tampa, and on the other side of the hangar was a King Air turboprop. Mark said, "Gene flew the King Air in a couple of days ago. He had the Citation come pick him up and he felt you might want the King Air in case you needed to fly back to the states and not want to wait for someone to come for you."

We walked over to the LSA where Mark caressed the bird. "This is one that was built from Wes' and Gene's new high-wing design with one of my special engines in it. It's perfect for me to check out the island from the air and it has plenty of range for shopping trips to Limon. And," Mark paused for effect, I "want you to know that I commissioned and paid for this myself. It is not an S&S bird."

Chuck laughed and said, "You could have had me pay for it. Sounds like a good idea to have a small aircraft for utility trips. I think it's perfect for just what you have it for."

Mark showed us the new pontoon aircraft. It reminded you of a Cessna 185 with six seats and a large cargo area. Mark said, "Gene said that you have someone already qualified to fly this."

We all looked at each other, until Mark said, "Sue has the endorsement from when she received her reinstatement of her license back up in Alaska. Her instructor signed her off on pontoons and skis."

I said, "Oh yeah, she did do several landings and takeoffs up there. That's how she had enough hours to get her ticket back."

Chuck said, "Too bad she's not an instructor..." He stopped in mid-sentence and said, "She is an instructor pilot. She's been giving basic and instrument lessons for several years. Gene wouldn't even have to come down."

Mark said, "He has to bring the avionics installation guys down. We're making this place a real live airport, complete with the modern landing equipment necessary to bring someone in during heavy fog. We don't get it often, but when we do, it is thick."

After hearing that, I had to ask, "If you are going to be an airport, why the camouflage paint on the hangars?"

Mark said, "When you look at our runway from the air, you'll see. Or rather you won't see as it is being laid with the same colors as the sand, a pure camouflage. The operations building will be invisible as well, so if you are looking from the air or using a satellite, we aren't here. We've left as many trees as possible and we are planting more. The hangars and ops building should blend in. It's a perfect way to be left alone. Gene says that way we won't be getting moochers stopping by for a freebie when they say they ran low on fuel. The ILS avionics won't turn on without the proper radio signal. Once it's lit up, there will be nothing invisible about it. We have ALSF-3 lighting just like the big guys. Actually, that 737 you guys have should be able to land here without a problem. Heck, you could invite John Travolta to visit in his 707. You might have to get some kind of stairway for him, though. I don't think that aircraft comes with its own stairway."

We closed the hangar and rode in the passenger cart around the hill and began climbing on what looked like a new road. We came to another large meadow with FEMA trailers on one side, and what looked to be a dozen or more houses in some stage of being built on the far side. Mark said, "This is our village for S&S people. If you notice, we didn't crowd the FEMA trailers together, giving them some room in between. They look pretty nice among all those trees."

We drove over to the houses and found that they were all townhouse duplexes. Mark said, "If we build fifteen of these that will house thirty families. If the single guys stay in the trailers, we'll have enough housing for workers for a long time without upsetting the balance you have around the main house. I'm trying to keep everything hidden. But like I told you, Chuck, we are in need of some form of sewage disposal. I'll show you one of my ideas that may work and won't stink up the place."

We drove around a road that continued from the housing meadow to another ten to fifteen acre meadow that looked to be freshly tilled and planted. Mark told us, "This is the new produce area. We're going to have rotating crops out of here the entire year, the same as the original garden. This should be enough to feed all of the additional people here, including more workers and some for the island residents to use for barter in Limon. The main garden is keeping up so far, but it's a stretch. We probably need more livestock too, but more land will have to be cleared. The one thing we have is good grasslands for stock. I'm having to learn agriculture as I go. I've never paid that much attention to the needs of a farmer."

Mark pointed to a row of concrete bases along the lower edge of the meadow and said, "This will be another wind farm to supply power to this side of the island. I doubt if we will have a backup generator at all."

From this point, we rode on around the hill until we reached the road that looked down on the bay where the boats were. The big Irish Bell was turning to dock on the other side of the big dock or pier where the Lucky Lady was tied up. Steve said, "Let's run down and help them with the lines. I didn't know they were coming out today."

As we rode down to the docks, the bus came up behind us, along with some of the truck type carts. When we reached the dock, some of our women got out of the bus and headed for the Lucky Lady. Sue told me in passing that they were here to get clothes to stay at the house.

Chuck, Dewey, and I helped tie up the big motor yacht. As soon as they shut down, crewmen were setting up the boarding ladder. This was classic to have all of these people from so many different cultures mixed together. There was English Julie; the Irish family; the Italian sisters and kids; the Asian sisters; the local island people; the girls from Limon; Juanita, our Cuban; and of course a whole bunch of us USA types.

We didn't have room to carry much luggage, but we could take a couple of bags. We rode back up to the big house and went inside to enjoy some afternoon iced tea. Mina told us that most of the others had already eaten lunch, but she had plenty to serve us if we would like to go out to the porch near the kitchen door.

We had some excellent vegetable soup and some kind of chicken salad sandwich on home-made bread. A guy could get used to this, but I had to admit, I was always treated like a king back home at the park.

Mark began talking about the coming project, and Chuck said, "Let me talk to Ben to make sure everything is set before we make any more plans. He's still here, right, Mark?"

Mark rolled his eyes and said, "He's here, probably still upstairs with his housekeeper. That man is not young enough to keep up with that one."

At that very instant, Ben, Beth, and Carlotta came out of the house. Ben had a shit eating grin on his face, and I swear Beth was swinging her backside a lot more than usual. The sexy Carlotta slithered up to Chuck and kissed him full on the lips, "Are you going to help Mr. Ben and Miss Beth take care of me this trip? Am I going to have to compete with your little girl housekeepers?"

Beth laughed and said, "Down, Girl, we just did you every which way we could and you still want more?"

Carlotta purred, "You know I always want more. I never get enough. Who is this handsome man? You look like you could help a needy girl. Would you want to see my room?"

It was my turn to blush and laugh, "No Ma'am, I already have a bunch of women to take care of. Perhaps the Captain of the Irish Bell could loan you a few crewmen if Ben and Beth would allow it."

Beth really surprised me, when she said in a husky whisper not intended to be heard by many, "If we get to watch and join in, that could be fun."

My mother-in-law and my father-in-law were really kinky people when they were away from home.

Rosalita came to Chuck, and asked him to accompany the boat girls down to boat so they could talk. Mark told Chuck, "There are no keys to our vehicles, just flip the switch and push up to start. Bring it back up here when you're done."

Chuck

So far the day had been a good one. Mark's guided tour of the island and improvements were impressive. Now I was taking the four boat girls back to their boat. Lisa jumped into the cart to ride down to the boat with us.

At the boat, we went into the small, but very nice salon they had. All of the girls were in front of me, including Lisa. It was Rosalita who stepped forward and took my hands in hers. She kissed me softly on the lips and said, "Saturday, I will be another's. I will marry and be a good wife and mother for the rest of our lives together. Before that happens and before you barter for me, I want one last time in your arms. I want to feel your love one more time. Please, Mr. Chuck, ah, Chuck, give me your love one more time."

With Lisa in front of me with the other girls, I almost panicked. I shouldn't have worried about it, since Lisa was grinning as broadly as the other girls. Rosalita pulled me toward the stairway or ladder to the master cabin. There, the dark beauty undressed me carefully, kissing each newly exposed area. I kept thinking that I should be doing the undressing and savoring her beauty. When I was stripped, she stood smiling at me, so I began to do to her as she had done to me. That was very exciting.