Chapter 34

Tuesday, January 22 - Sunday, January 27, 2002

Needless to say, they were a while longer getting around, and there were five serious hangovers on the Felicity Ann when Scooter finally got them under way. Feeling some of the pain herself, Scooter kept the boat in the lee of Eleuthera, keeping the speed down. By noon some appetites were starting to come back, so Mary threw together some sandwiches, which they ate on deck. "Let's anchor out tonight," Scooter suggested as they ate. "There's a little anchorage up around the corner that we stopped at last time we were here, and it was pretty good. Except maybe for Alien, I don't think anyone is really up for bar hopping tonight, but I guess we can stand to eat on board."

"I think I'm a little beyond bar hopping," Randy sighed. "I think last night ought to hold me for tonight."

"Yeah, well, tomorrow is another day," Scooter said. "I'm thinking maybe tomorrow we can hop over to Cat Island. Alien and I have never been there, so with any kind of luck, our Canyon Tours reputation won't have got there yet."

"You mean Alien's reputation," Jim snorted. "I think the rest of us were just along for the ride. You have to figure there'll be some kind of a bar there, though."

"Most likely," Scooter agreed. "Anyway, since we're headed that way, I think we could maybe go on down to San Salvador or Rum Cay or something, then on to the Exumas. After we get done there, we can head over to Andros and just fart around there until it's time to head back."

"Sounds like a plan," Jim agreed. "When you get right down to it, I don't care. It's all new to me."

It was the middle of the afternoon before they dropped anchor in the quiet little cove that Scooter had been talking about. "Good place for snorkeling," Michelle said. "We should have a ball."

"Enjoy yourself," Scooter said. "I think I'm going to get the Bimini top up and take a nap in the shade."

"Anybody want to go with me?" Michelle said. "Randy?"

"Yeah, what the hell," he smiled. "I guess I'm feeling a little better now."

"Great, I'll run down and get our stuff."

"God," Randy said as he watched her head down the hatch. "I was right. Alien. She's ready to rumble."

Like the rest of the women, Michelle had been topless since getting away from the shore earlier in the morning, but when she came up from the cabin she was bottomless, too. "Going all the way, huh, Alien?" Randy smiled.

"Well, it's one of those suits that turns transparent when it gets wet, so there's no point in screwing up the fabric, is there?" she snickered. "You can do it too. After all, we were nude in your hot tub."

"Oh, hell," Randy said, rolling his eyes. "Anybody else mind?"

"No, in fact it sounds kind of fun," Mary said. "I better braid my hair back up first."

"Snorkeling nude with two nude women," Randy laughed. "Yep, that's skin diving all right, and I have to admit, some mighty pretty skin."

"Just remember what we agreed with Nicole and Duane," she smirked. "Look, but don't touch. Well, don't touch too much. Us aliens keep our word."

The next ten days or so went pretty much like that, day after day, to the point of repetition. There were brisk sails almost every day. Often they anchored for the night in some quiet little cove, did some snorkeling, told some stories, had a few beers and relaxed. They took the Zodiac with its outboard to do some exploring at several places too tiny to take the Felicity Ann, or they lay on the beach taking in the sun – just hanging out. As often as not, Michelle and Randy got their guitars out in the evening and messed around with them, mostly singing novelty songs but working up some of the pieces they'd gotten from Jennifer and Blake, too.

About every second or third night they stopped at some small town, had a restaurant meal and hit a bar or two. Nobody got quite as blasted as they had the first night out but there were often some big heads the next morning, except for Michelle, of course.

One of those nights was in Cockburn Town on San Salvador, and as luck would have it, the next day they'd planned to head for Georgetown on Great Exuma. The wind was strong out of the southwest that day, blowing a ton with some fairly big seas, and the course they were on meant they were hard on the wind, sailing as close to it as they could go. It was a wild ride, with the wind howling through the cockpit and the seas splashing up against the bow every few seconds sending sheets of spray back over them; the Felicity Ann's ride was anything but gentle. Randy thought it would have made a ride in a cement mixer seem calm. Between the wild ride and the hangover from the night before, he spent a good part of the trip hanging over the lee rail, and he wasn't the only one. He was glad to see Georgetown pull into view as sunset approached. Of course, to recover – or to celebrate – they found another bar, and the next day was not pretty.

They spent the next day recovering on Great Exuma, just doing shoreside stuff and getting away from the boat, but their second night in Georgetown seemed dull. They only had a couple drinks in another waterside tavern from the one they'd been in the night before, when Scooter made a proposition. "I'm thinking we need to hop over to Andros from here," she said. "But it's a long haul, we can't do it in one day, and there's no good place to stop for the night. What I'm thinking is we get up in the morning, take our time getting around, and get out of here, then head southwest until we're a ways away from these islands, then turn northwest and sail all night. By morning we still ought to have plenty of sea room and should be able to find Andros without too much difficulty."

"That'd be cool," Michelle said. "I've never sailed all night like that before."

"I have, and it'd be no big deal," Scooter told them. "Except it would be a new experience for most of you."

"How would we do it? Stand watches?" Jim asked.

"Yeah, just like you did in the Navy," Scooter replied. "I'm thinking we split up with an experienced hand and a new hand. I'd guess maybe me and Mary, you and Dave, and Alien with Randy. We could set it up to have them up in the middle of the night where there wouldn't be much for them to run into."

"That ought to work," Jim nodded. "Just guessing about the speed, if we got moving along in the morning we ought to be pulling into Andros Town by the middle of the next afternoon."

"Right, that's about how I figure it," Scooter said. "Anybody object to the idea?"

"No, it sounds like fun," Mary smiled, and Dave nodded with her.

"Good, we'll do it," Scooter said. "Let's not get too drunk tonight so we don't have as much of that puking over the rail stuff as we had yesterday."

"I can do without that again," Randy agreed.

Thus it was that they got under way about nine the next morning, sailing around the end of Great Exuma, then southwest to get well away from the land. This took them out over Tongue of the Ocean, a big deepwater area that divides the eastern Bahamas in that area from the Western ones. With the islands very low, they were soon out of sight of land, and this time it felt like they were on a real ocean voyage, rather than just island hopping.

They got the watch setup going from the beginning, and it seemed to work better than things had gone in the past, when people just switched around as they felt like it. They were still sailing along out of sight of land when the sun set in the west-southwest, now on a northwesterly course, and the night made the sailing seem a little eerie. The wind dropped a little, and the Felicity Ann loped along peacefully, not bouncing around very much.

The way it had worked out, Michelle and Randy were going to be on the helm from midnight to three AM, so both of them went to bed early. It seemed strange to have Scooter come to wake them up in the middle of the night, but they were soon on deck, dressed in long sleeved shirts and pants to ward off the cool night air. "You kids keep it cool," Scooter said before she departed to head below for some sack time for herself. "If you have any problems, don't feel afraid to call me."

"Sure, we will," Randy assured her. "You sleep tight."