Chapter 29

14:25 Saturday, October 5th, 1991

Guadalcanal Jetty, Coronado NAB

San Diego, CA

Everywhere Lenore looked was asphalt. For variety, there was painted asphalt, but every square inch of ground had either asphalt or a building with a concrete foundation slab. The sun was bright, still high in the sky, and the air was a balmy 75 degrees. She'd heard that it pretty much stayed like this year-round in San Diego. Inland, the mountains looked much the same as they had up in the San Francisco Bay area, though there seemed to be more tallish mountains closer to the water here than the hills near San Francisco were.

The buildings were either large warehouse type buildings, squarish and corrugated steel sheet on steel-frame types, or they were WW-II-era wood frame construction. There were a surprising amount of cars and pickup trucks, and many boats on trailers. Some of the boats on trailers were haphazardly parked near buildings. Lenore saw that the boat trailers were somehow military-looking in appearance. That might have something to do with the tan paint on the trailers and stenciled numbers on them, taken with the gray paint on the boats, she told herself. Though the dock itself was largely empty, from the deck of the Joy Redux she could see that they were going to tie up near a fairly large city-like area.

Lenore dropped the fenders over the side, and then watched for nails and protrusions that would harm the Joy Redux while the Chief backed the boat in – a simpler task here, since the Joy Redux was the only boat on the wharf – and now moved to set stern and bow lines. She was studying the bollards on the wharf for how to best tie breast lines – there didn't seem to be anything portside to tie the Joy Redux to, either, when Kostowe shut the boat down.

Lenore pointed this out to the Chief, and his response was simple. "We probably aren't going to stay right here, Collins. We're going to have to talk to someone..." Across the jetty, a tan pickup truck had started driving toward them. "And, unless I very much miss my guess, we'll be getting a ride from that gentleman." Lenore replied to his nod toward the pickup with one of her Gunny-snorts, causing Kostowe to give her an odd glance, though he said nothing.

Waiting for the Chief while he spoke with the dockmaster, Lenore stepped back outside to study the mooring setup down the jetty. She decided they'd probably get assigned a piling moorage and have to sink an anchor or hook up to a permanent anchor. They'd have to use a smaller boat to get out the Joy Redux, but the Chief's boat would be safe even under weather in such a setup. She'd been curious to know what to expect if she'd sailed up to the Navy's jetty, but the office was small. The PO3 in the office gave Kostowe a telephone, so she gave up and stepped outside.

It felt as if the asphalt were rocking with the rhythm of the ocean under her feet. Giving it long and considered thought, she decided this was a fair trade for having spent the last thirty hours on the ocean nearly out of sight of land.

Her best understanding was that they'd only be down on weekends to sail the Joy Redux in some sort of training role, but with whom and for what purpose, she couldn't say. "Your boat is the kind of thing groups like mine need to get places," Dillon had said, or close enough. "It's best if we don't speculate," he'd said, also, and Lenore tried, successfully, to stifle her curiosity. Besides, maybe the Chief doesn't really know for sure, either.

Lenore amused herself by studying the wharves along the jetty, and trying to discern what purpose each boat and small ship she could see could serve. Nearly thirty minutes had passed when the Chief finally left the small office and rejoined her.