15000 CREDITS 4 DA BEST SHORT STORY...

[neilinov]

On thing that is certain about living in the Bahamas is that you need to be somewhat self sufficient. It is completely another to be out on the water and be self sufficient. While there is a certain degree of protection provided on land you are on your own on the water.



One day a few years back we were out on my families boat. At this time it was an 18' Mckee Craft. Sort of like a boston whaler boat, center console with a modified flat bottom. We had been out all day and had wandered from the cove in Gregorytown, around current cut, through Spanish wells, past the Devil's Backbone, out into the Atlantic for some fishing, and a stop by Harbour Island for a sunset cocktail. Well the daylight had fallen out and we decided to run the boat over to bottom harbor and anchor it up for the night. We got to bottom harbor and secured the boat on a mooring that was there and threw out a secondary anchor to make sure that the boat would not go anywhere during the evening in case the winds picked up. We left the boat there and walked out to Queens Highway where we hitched a ride home.

My wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, and I were planning on leaving the island the next day so we needed to get the boat out and brought back to the house in the morning. We got up early and drove the truck down to bottom harbor only to discover that the tide had dropped wayyyyy out and there was no way we were going to be able to load the boat up there. We decided to hop on the boat and run it back around the tip of Eleuthera and load it in Gregorytown. There the ramp would probably have enough water to get the boat on the trailer. My wife would take the truck and trailer back to Gregorytown and my brother and I would run the boat back around. My wife wanted us to swing by Harbour Island and pick her up a straw hat at the straw market before we rounded out and headed through the Devil's backbone.

So my Brother and I jumped into our trusty old McKee Craft and headed out towards Harbour Island, while Ash took the truck back to town. As we motored toward Harbour Island Nate and I were laughing about how one year we had been caught in a storm and beached in Bogue to wait it out. We spent a couple of hours in a bar there, but that is another story. We pulled up to the little sand beach in Dunmore town and ran up to the market. I knew which hat to grab for Ash, because she had tried it on about 10 times the day before. I quickly paid for the hat and decided to run the boat up to the fuel dock to put some gas in the main tank. The run around the island to Gregorytown is about 30 miles and I didn’t want to run out of fuel. While we were fueling one of the local boys from Gregorytown had shown up and asked if he could tag along for the ride. No problem we said hop aboard!

We left the Harbour Island fuel dock and zipped through the Devil’s backbone, rounded past Spanish Wells and set a course for Current Cut. It was one of those spectacular days where there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and not a breath of wind. We were skimming along in the warm winter air at full throttle. We came around the corner and entered Current Cut. Without any wind this was the only place where we encountered any turbulent water. I was wondering to myself, why in the world were we going to leave on such an incredibly beautiful day.

We cleared the cut and passed the fishing trawler that was anchored outside the cut and set a course for Gregorytown. Other than the tide being screwed up first thing this morning we hadn’t encountered any significant problems. Well being that this is the Bahamas and things don’t always go as planed out luck ran out! We were about 5 miles South of Current Cut and the motor just plain quit. NOOOOOOO! What in the world could possibly be wrong???

I hit the key a few times to see if she would kick over and all I got was a cranking engine. Well I had power. So that left only a fuel problem. I pulled the cowling off the engine and looked at all the connections. Fuel hose seemed to be connected right, filters didn’t seem dirty, check the connection to the tank and everything seems to be in order. WTF!!!! We can’t be out of gas. I know that I had gotten plenty to get us from HI to Gregorytown. Check the Fuel gauge and it is reading half a tank. I pull the leaning post cover off the fuel tank to get a visual. Sure enough there is a half a tank of gas.

In the meantime while I am checking over the engine systems my brother is trying to put a call out on the VHF to our Home base. We wanted to let them know we were stuck out in the middle between Current and Gregorytown. We were drifting slightly to the NW. As my brother kept hailing, Kevin’s World, it became apparent that no one was listening to the Home base VHF. He continued for a little while trying to hail anyone that might be monitoring CH 16. We had been drifting now for a little over an hour and our Bahamian Guest was beginning to get a little unnerved. He asked if he could try and call someone on the VHF. We didn’t see any harm in it and gladly handed over the mic.



When he keyed it up and spoke the words I almost couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He spoke calmly and said “Stumpy this is Lolo I have just found a kilo of cocaine and am drifting out to sea with it. Can you please come and get me.” He looked at me and could see the bewilderment in my eyes and said “Der Mon, If anywan been listening de sure be interested in our situation now!” I just cracked up laughing.

Well I guess we are either going to be picked up by dope smugglers looking for their lost package or the police will send someone out to “confiscate the square grouper” Well my daydreaming and delusions of a beautiful Bahama morning were quickly starting to turn into a day from hell! Here we were broken down in the middle of the Exuma Sound drifting toward current. The wind was starting to pick up and I was hoping that it would push us close enough to the Current Shore that we could swim the boat toward beach and anchor it off. We were drifting to the NW but not very fast, maybe 1-2 knots. I kept looking at the cut and was trying to determine whether or not we would hit the beach to the east, get sucked into the current and spit out into the Atlantic, or drift up next to current island. If we kept our basic course it looked as though we would hit the beach. I didn’t want to get too close to the Cut and get sucked through. If we did then we could possibly drift out into the Atlantic and never be seen again.



A few hours had passed and back on land everyone was starting to panic. We had been gone way longer than it should have taken to get from Bottom Harbor to Gregorytown. Ash was getting real nervous and my parents were trying to calm her down. She knew I had made this trip hundreds of times and that I knew the route like the back of my hand. She also knew how things could go completely wrong at a moments notice. We had of course gotten four flat tires in the same day just a couple of weeks ago. That was on land. She knew that there were way more things that could go wrong out in the water than on land. They began to look out over the sea to try and spot us, but that was like looking for a needle in a haystack. We were on an 18’ open boat that could be anywhere in a 50 mile radius at any point along the route. Fear quickly turned to panic and they began to make calls out on the VHF. We could hear them hailing us. We picked up the mic and keyed it up calling Kevin’s world. It was obvious that the mic on our VHF was not working. We could hear the transmissions, but nobody was hearing us.

While we were sitting thee trying to determine what we could do to fix the VHF I decided to tackle the motor problem a little more aggressively. We had nothing but time on our hands. As we were lazily drifting toward Current I began tracing the fuel line from the carbs back to the tank inspecting each and every connection along the way. Each connection that I pulled off and looked at had no gas in them. The engine was definitely starving for fuel. I got back to the connection from the engine to the primer ball and pulled that off. A few quick pumps and I was sure that there was a clog in that line from the primer ball to the main fuel tank. We always had a spare fuel tank on board that we carried just in case we ran out of fuel. I went up and grabbed it. It was of course it was empty, and was missing the fuel line. (Nice Preparation!)



I checked around the tool box on board and found a spare connector that goes from the fuel tank to the hose. Now all I needed was some hose and the primer ball and we would be in business. I began to cut out some of the fuel line from the main tank and made a short length of fuel line to the primer ball. I cut the ball off of the main line and put it together to form a new line. I now had a fuel line that ran from the tank to the engine. Now all I needed to do was get some fuel out of the main tank and put it into the spare and we would be back in business. I cut off some more fuel line and fed it down through the fuel fill and began to suck the fuel out to siphon off some gas. Now let me tell you this ANYONE who siphons gas is an idiot. Number one it was damn near impossible to do with the short amount of hose that I had and the amount of fumes that I inhaled will haunt me to this day. I can still taste the fuel that came all at once gushing out into my mouth. It was as if someone had dropped an ice cold ball of fire into my mouth and burnt everything from my tongue to my stomach with scaulding cold liquid. Horrible I tell you!

Now we were in business. I had my new found breath mint and a full tank of fuel. Nate pumped up the primer and I hit the key. The old 2 stroke roared to life in a smokey ball of noise. RNNNNnnnnnn… We were finally back moving at a good clip. I smiled to myself, proud of my accomplishment and began to drift back into the delusion that everything was going to be OK. We were on a direct course for Gregorytown and it looked like I was still going to be able to make the afternoon flight on USAir out of Governors. Just when we settled down from our atta boyz, the engine ground to a halt again. Holy Chit man WTF is going on! We go back over our newly McGuyverized fuel supply system and discovered that in our expert repair we had punched a small pin sized hole in the fuel line. We could pump the primer ball up and get the engine running, but after a few it would suck the ball dry and we would stall. The engine would run as long as someone would pump the ball. If we continued on our course we would have to pump the ball constantly and hope nothing else broke. So I pointed the boat toward Current beach and told Nate to keep on pumping till we hit the shore. In a few short minutes we were pulling up by the long launch ramp on the south side of Current. We quickly anchored the boat in the shallow water there and gathered up our things. I think our guest was greatful to be back on land and not stuck out in the Sea with two crazy white boys as he quickly scurried off into the town.

We walked up the beach and to the road. Our breakdown at sea was now over, but we now were faced with the reality that we were going to have to hoof it back home. As we kicked off our hike down that desolate Current road the very sun that I was so happy to be basking in a few hours earlier began to beat down on us with no mercy. With no wind the heat became oppressive. Not to mention the fact that I was constantly burping up gasoline. I never felt worse in my life. We walk for like an hour and the Current road didn’t seem to end. I was thirsty, sunburned and had the worst case of heartburn you could imagine from the gasoline. I told my brother we had to sit down for a while. We walked up to a single palm tree on the Seaside and sat down.



I was dying of thirst not only to cool me down, but to get the gasoline taste out of my mouth. So I climbed the palm and twisted off a couple of coconuts and dropped them down to Nate. We cracked them open and drank the coconut water and sucked on the Jelly. Just as we were finishing up our break and starting down the road again I could see a car coming from Bogue. At first I couldn’t tell, but it looked like our Jeep. I can’t tell you how happy I was to see that beat up old silver Cherokee rolling towards us. As it came to a stop beside us I could see the fear and tears in Ashley’s eyes as she jumped out of the car. What happened???

You don’t even want to know!

They already had our bags packed in the jeep and if we hurried we could make our flight. As Ashley gave me a kiss she shouted “EWWWW you taste like gas!” I just laughed and asked for a cold Kalik. We made our way to Governors airport and just barely made our flight out. The next few hours I spent agonizing with the sickening taste and smell of gasoline coursing through my body while crammed on a couple of commercial flights back to the frigid north. I have that taste and these memories burned into my brain!



As I sit here I am reminded of all the time spent on Eleuthera, I can’t think of one experience there that has caused any regrets. It’s funny how most of the time you are there you spend it either trying to fix something, or acquire something to get it fixed. It is these adventures that make life great!

[KEY-LIME-PIE]

OK...Thats not a short story...Its a novel.


Capt Tom

[KnotGolfin']

Yeah good start! And thank god you finally got rid of that creepy avitar!

[HOLWACHAGOT]

DARNIT! I am down to 502 words. All so carefully chosen too! I will be back before Jan 14th you can bet your ballyhoo. What will I do with all those credits?
Holwachagot

[Robja]

DARNIT! I am down to 502 words. All so carefully chosen too! I will be back before Jan 14th you can bet your ballyhoo. What will I do with all those credits?
Holwachagot

You could get a bigger boat