Some stories don’t really have a point.
With the boat made ready to sail, I take a break, the “ten minute hold”, when I sit sipping coffee in the cockpit mentally reviewing the check list as I gaze across the water in the early morning light.
This is a favorite anchorage, away from the crowds, a place where anchored yachts can, and usually do, give each other hundred meter intervals, where cockpit conversation is private and you can go naked if you like.
Our nearest neighbor, directly in my view, is at such a distance. One of the crew is already up, we’d noticed each other earlier and waved. She’s a tanned brunette wearing a dress-length t-shirt, presumably over a pleasing figure. I could get out the binoculars and check, except for two things. Binoculars in a roomy anchorage change the ambiance to that of a crowded anchorage. Plus, there is no reason to spoil this illusion (if illusion it be) that one of the most beautiful creatures on Earth is a part of my view on this lovely tropical morning.
Sometimes I get out the harmonica when things are so nice, and do a few bars of the “Oh what a beautiful morning” song. It doesn’t occur to me to play it now, which might tempt a mermaid over for morning coffee… or so one might imagine. But the list is reviewed, Ambia is ready, another sip, then it’s time to make sail. We are, for the first time in a long time, on a schedule. So much for fantasies.
She is on the side deck, putting on her bathing suit, slipping it up under her shirt, as I take another sip of coffee. She looks up, sees that I’m looking. I stand on, so to speak. This is strictly in accordance with the Rules of the Road, as I understand them. If I don’t gawk or get out the binoculars, I’m entitled to the view. And our crossing distance is sufficiently discreet in any event. She hesitates, then turns around anyway to take off her shirt and pull up the top. She has a nicely tanned back, and the back of her black, one piece bathing suit is of an interesting design.
There is no wind, only a light eddy now and then. We are on blue water, the rippled sand bottom clearly visible a few meters under the glassy surface. I raise the mainsail and sheet it flat, then pull up and secure the ground tackle, all in a leisurely manner. A sea urchin was clinging to the anchor when it surfaced, a pretty critter. I carefully shook it back into the water. That is a first in twenty years aboard, call it a good omen.
She sits becalmed as I raise the jib. When I unsheet the main and push out the boom, she feels a movement in the air that I don’t. Her bow begins to swing away from the land. Then comes a movement of air that I can feel, in which I back the jib and ease the main, and she slowly turns for open water.
She points at the horizon halfway between the mentioned yacht and a bareboat anchored at a similar distance, the crew of which are already up and about. We exchange waves. Then I notice a snorkeler in the water, halfway between us and the first boat. There is a fishing camp above the beach and they are usually out early in small rowing boats or in the water. He surfaces and looks my way. I wave, he waves back. A look at the bottom shows us barely drifting. There is a ray lying across the bottom. Ghosting over clear, shallow water is a bit like snorkeling.
The snorkeler is approaching as we await the next eddy. But, lo! It is not a fisherman! It is a mermaid! Mind, a mermaid in a mask is as pretty of face as a manatee. As she swims alongside, however, I recognize the back of her suit. And she seems as pretty as I could have hoped. Any bets whether the wind we are waiting for blows us away right now?
We exchange a couple of pleasantries, she ignores my invitation to come up for coffee. When I joke that we need a push, she playfully swims to the stern, where she notices a bight of line dragging in the water. That should be an embarrassment to a sailor, but feeds me my next line.
“Oh, Last Chance – I need to deploy him.” I quickly demonstrate how I used the hand loop in the end when I used to tow with a dolphin, and cast the fifty foot, yellow, floating line (thick enough to get a grip on) into the water. (Last Chance trails any time self steering is used, unless we’re towing a dinghy on a long painter.) She tests the grip and asks, “Bottlenose?” it was. Then she tells of her own dolphin encounter at sea.
“Got time for coffee?” I offer again.
“What time is it?”
0642 according to the GPS, which is on and tracking as we sit waiting under full sail – we’ve been underway nearly twenty minutes. I indicate where I come aboard, over the side at the aft end of the cockpit, where the freeboard and combing height are lowest. Not everyone is willing to try this boarding method, but she’s game and gets her upper body over the rail on the first try. I resist reaching out to pull her aboard and suggest she try again, but she’s figured her next move and scrambles aboard.
And she’s as pretty as you or I might have imagined, a fine looking woman with the skin of youth, glistening wet with sea water. Not that I’ve got any “ideas”, mind you, not yet, but she’s very pleasant to behold.
Ideas, you may already realize, can be interesting things. When she had paused while putting on her suit, for instance, and saw I was looking her way, might she have thought (especially given the distance) “Sure, give the guy a thrill,” then thought, knowing some of us, “No, wrong message.” Or had she thought (though I fancy not) “That son of a bitch,” and turned her back on me? Could she have thought, “Oh, this is better anyway,” then turned around? Which, of course, it was – I mean, choosing from what was on offer. Or maybe she’d just said, “Oops,” and made an automatic move dictated by upbringing or habit.
My ideas as we sit talking in the cockpit include not looking at her beauty as much as I would like to. Beauty, they say, is only skin deep – though, in reality, it lies largely on the muscles. A woman in good shape generally looks good to me. This woman is in good shape, has demonstrated agility and awareness while coming aboard over the side, is dripping wet, and has the advantage of youth – she’s young enough to be my daughter.
The air stirs a little. I ease the mainsail.
“Oh, they’re up,” she notices someone aboard her boat.
She slips over the side and swims off in her direction as Ambia and I sail slowly away in our direction.
Caribbean Compass July 2005.
© Copyright 2005