by Captain Lee
“How’d you get the job?”
“Marty asked if I’d be interested in a week’s work.”
“Wait—how’d you know his name was Marty? Earlier, you said you just knew him as Alex.”
“What? I don’t know. I think the lieutenant on the cutter said his name was Marty.”
“Sure, sure.”
And over and over again.
“You going to be bringing Alex here to join us?” I asked. “I wouldn’t mind telling him what I think about using us like he did.”
“That dude is long gone. We knocked on his door right after we picked you guys up, but he’s out of here.” No sign of him remained. Nothing at his house, nothing at his business. He heard that someone was coming for him, and he and his wife disappeared. I couldn’t get any details from them, since they were paid to get information and not give it away. But I was curious if he just blew town or if he was able to get his business partners to buy him out. Not that I felt a lot of pity for him. Not only did he get me parked in a Miami interrogation room, but he did it for the world’s dumbest, most avoidable reasons. If he’d paid a few hundred bucks to his own surveyor, he wouldn’t have lost his boat, wouldn’t have had to abandon his house. So, it ended up saving him a few hundred bucks for a plane ticket but costing him a couple of million in what he had to leave behind.
Marty was clearly no genius for dealing, but the Coast Guard wasn’t going to be winning a Nobel Prize for crime fighting any time soon, either. They knew we were nothing, just a few sailors working a job. The guy they really wanted was Marty. So, why’d they board us on day one out of Provo? If they really had wanted to catch him, they would have waited until we returned to Turks and Caicos and then made their move. I guess they got the call from the surveyor and thought they’d bust a nut if they didn’t get a cutter dispatched ASAP, but they’d committed the cardinal sin of fishing by scaring off the big fish so they could grab a few minnows. All in a day’s work, I suppose.
After about ten hours of the same story told the same way, half a day that felt like fifteen years, we finally heard those magic words.
“You’re free to go,” our interrogator said.
It was a relief to be free—but now what? I didn’t live in Miami. I didn’t have a car in town. I’d come in on a boat that wasn’t going to be taking me back home anytime soon. Walking outside was like getting out of prison after a ten-year stretch. The Coast Guard had taken our transportation and moved us to a new city, and if it helped us at all, they’d be happy to call us a cab. Provided, of course, that we had cash for the fare.
Luckily, one of our crew, Richard, had an apartment and a roommate in Fort Lauderdale who was able to give us a lift. He took us to his place so we could decompress for a little while. There I was able to call my wife and tell her what had happened. Though we didn’t actually have a phone in Provo, so I didn’t call her directly. I called my friend Kenny, who was married to Nancy, the vet who had taken the grouper spine out of my leg. I gave him the short version of what had happened, told him to tell my wife I was fine and wouldn’t be going to federal prison for a decade and that I’d be back home on Monday. He made sure the info was relayed to her via the coconut telegraph. It was Saturday when we finally got out of holding, and I was able to attend a Miami Dolphins home game the next day. We had a few beers, shot the shit, then tried to move on.
Finally, on Monday, I got a flight back to the island. The whole episode was a real screw job. Not only did I get the Coast Guard detour, but I also had to buy a plane ticket from Miami to Provo. And because I wasn’t a native islander, I had to buy a round-trip ticket, paying double for a ticket I didn’t even want in the first place! At least I got paid. None of the other guys could say that. I’d been stiffed the previous two jobs I’d worked, and so I’d made sure this time that I got the money up front and in full. The other three guys all got burned.
When I finally got to see Mary Anne, she made it clear that the rumor mill had been working overtime. The entire island seemed to know about what had happened, or at least some version of it. Everyone knew that Alex/Marty was gone, but the details morphed with every telling of the story. Alex’s boat was seized by the Coast Guard carrying two tons of cocaine; Alex’s boat was full of one hundred bricks of marijuana and an arsenal of guns; Alex was killed in a standoff with the DEA; Alex was Pablo Escobar, he was D. B. Cooper; I was sentenced to twenty years for running drugs; I was shot dead by the FBI during a raid on my compound in Miami.
It starts out as life, but it always becomes a sailor’s story.
Chapter 5
A Good Sailor Never Learned Anything in Calm Seas or Tied to the Dock
You can drown in an inch of water.
It doesn’t have to be in the bowels of the USS Indianapolis or the bottom of the Marianas Trench. There’s no requirement that the water be deep in order for it to be life-or-death. You forget that, you can find yourself in a world of hurt.
I was sailing to the Dry Tortugas with my son Josh and my friends Rick and Little Bobby. We were on a little 40-foot sailboat called Rickshaw, a 1970 raised pilothouse ketch, planning to do some weekend fishing. We were headed to a spot 80 miles west of Key West, a place where the water only got to be about 20 feet deep, so the big boats wouldn’t want to go. For boats of that size, shallow water could be dangerous. Turns out, they could be dangerous for pretty much anyone.
Aside from the fishing, one of the main reasons that I wanted to make the trip was to visit Fort Jefferson. When you’re a sailor, you’re naturally attracted to a pirate-like lifestyle, and Fort Jefferson appealed to a piratical nature. The fort was created as a strategic asset to protect the shipping lanes to America’s southeast. It’s the largest brick masonry structure in the Americas. With Fort Jefferson there, Napoleon or any pirates of the Caribbean couldn’t get any ambitious ideas.
Later, the fort became a prison, primarily for Union deserters during the Civil War, where it was nicknamed Devil’s Island. Its most famous resident was Dr. Samuel Mudd, the doctor who set John Wilkes Boothe’s broken leg after he shot Lincoln. It was quite a sight, and I was hoping Josh would find it interesting. If Rick and Little Bobby found it interesting, then that was okay, too.
I’d known Rick from Turks and Caicos and had fished with him on his sport fish named Mombo when I’d parted ways with Crazy George. Both George and Turks and Caicos were now a melancholy memory. After running out of cash, we’d had to sell what we could and move in with my sister Vickie in Michigan.
Michigan wasn’t exactly the epicenter for a career in boats, but I didn’t have much choice. I needed to get back to the water, but before I could, I needed to build a bit of a bankroll first. Technically speaking, the Great Lakes counted as water. They would work in a pinch. It just wasn’t the place where I wanted to live the rest of my life. If you’re in a place where you don’t want to be, you have two choices: find a way to like what you don’t like or find a way to move. I was going to find a way back to where I wanted to be.
My wife, Mary Anne, picked up work as a waitress, and I got a job as a short-order cook. We saved what we could until we had enough money to move to Florida. After moving expenses were paid, all that was left over was about $50, and that would be enough to stave off starvation for about a week. That’s how long we had to find ourselves jobs. So that’s exactly what we did—Mary Anne took a job waitressing at Skipper’s Galley, and I found work at Matanzas Seafarer Company, waiting tables, tending bar, and eventually managing. It wasn’t ideal, but sometimes you just have to take what you can to pay the bills. Some people refuse to ever compromise, refuse to pay their dues before their dreams come true. It’s a lot like refusing to get in the starting blocks because all you want to do is break the tape at the finish line. Part of being able to cross that line is first hunkering down in the blocks. It would do until something better came along.
With a little time and hard work, something better came along.
I took whatever moonlighting w
ork I could find on boats. Work as a mate on sailboats, work as a first officer on casino boats, whatever I could to build up my hours and make a little money. Eventually, I was able to get my 25-ton license. But if you’re going to have a license, then you need to be the captain of something.
That’s when I struck up a deal with Rick.
“Feeling a little thirsty,” Rick said, his eyes on the horizon.
“What’re you in the mood for? Rum or beer?”
It was a guys’ weekend, just the four of us sailing and fishing and drinking and telling lies. And probably not always using the best judgment, but that was always something that, assuming things didn’t go completely wrong, could be fixed in the telling of the stories.
“Let’s start with beer and go from there,” Rick said. I reached into the cooler and tossed him a cold one.
I’d known Rick from the islands, but we reconnected in Florida. He had a big sport fish he’d use, but he also had Rickshaw, this little 40-footer that was just wasting away. I made him an offer: I’d get her into shape, put in the time and the money and the sweat and get her cleaned up, and in exchange, I’d be able to use Rickshaw. He’d still own the boat, and when I was done, he’d have all the benefits of my improvements: scraped-down hull, decks done, varnish work done, sails mended, new stove, new interior. So the boat was Rick’s, but it was also kind of mine.
It actually benefitted Rick in two ways. First, he got his boat cleaned up. But second, he got the boat used. Boats aren’t like baseball cards or comic books that increase in value by staying in mint condition. A boat is more like the human body, where it functions at a higher level if it is used more. Taking a boat into open water helps keep it from rotting away. Same way with cars. Some guys would buy a classic car and keep it in the garage all year round, only taking it out once in the summer for a car show. That’s a great way to keep mud off the fenders, but it’s also a great way to let sediment in the gas lines and transform a piece of fast-moving machinery into a giant, motionless block of metal. Some things work better when they’re put to use. Men at sea fall into that category, as well.
It was a good arrangement we had. I’d pay for repairs to get Rickshaw shipshape, and in exchange, I got to use it for day charters. I didn’t have a business degree or a ten-point plan or advanced metrics. All I had was a handmade sign that said “Day Sails,” then I’d sit on the beach. Interested folks would come up, hand me some cash, and I’d row them out in my dingy to Rickshaw, anchored a little ways offshore. Doing those day charters was a great way to build up my hours, but it was also an amazing way to get to know people.
The ocean has a great equalizing effect. When you’re on the water, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a ton of money. It doesn’t matter if you’re beautiful or ugly, it doesn’t matter what kind of car you drive or in what neighborhood you live or where you went to school. When you’re out there, all that matters is how well you can get the job done. It’s a true meritocracy. If you know the sea and you know your boat, you can have a good day. If you haven’t done the work and don’t know how it all goes together, you’re going to fail, and the ocean can be very unforgiving.
Part of being the captain is being able to read people. When you run a day charter, you have to know how to sail, but if you’re going to be able to deliver a good time, you also need to understand, very quickly, what your customers want and find a way to deliver that. Some people want to feel the wind in their hair and the spray on their faces, they want velocity and hard turns.
But that doesn’t go for everyone. Some people want the exact opposite. Some people want to just laze around in the sun a half mile offshore, to look back on the beach and think, “I’m getting away from it all . . . but not too far.” Those people want quiet, stability, and safety. You have to be able to identify those needs quickly. And you can’t just ask them.
It’s like the waiter at an Indian restaurant asking a guy how spicy he wants his food. Some guys would ask for the hottest food imaginable just to impress the rest of the table. Similarly, if you ask some guys what they want from a sail, they’ll say they want big waves and giant squid and pirates boarding the quarterdeck. But that might just be what they think their friends want to hear, or what they think they need. You have to read them, to interpret them, to find out what they really want.
I’d see who in a couple was in charge, identify who was the alpha and who was the beta, see who wanted to be pleased and notice who lived to please others. I’d watch how people got on the boat, which ones stepped confidently over the gunwale and which ones jumped in a panic onto the deck, terrified of the gap between the dock and the boat. I’d be aware of the guys who would wear some souvenir captain’s hat they bought in a tourist trap and under no circumstances wanted to encounter a situation hairy enough to knock it off their heads. I’d observe the women who’d removed their jewelry beforehand because they were desperate to let their hair down and the ones who didn’t want a single hair displaced. There’s a lot you can learn from a handshake. A firm grip might indicate that person is ready to lend a hand, and an uncalloused, dead-fish handshake wouldn’t possibly be interested in raising a sail or taking the tiller.
I was once with a group of people and could tell one guy might be trouble. He wasn’t sporting a scar down one side of his face and looking to get in a fight—the kind of trouble he might bring was a bad vibe. He had made a point of asking if he could bring his guitar on the boat. I had no reason to object, but it sure didn’t take much for him to whip out that guitar and start singing Jimmy Buffett songs, with his wife singing backup. And while I’m a fan of Jimmy Buffett, this guy wasn’t doing Jimmy any favors—just had a lousy voice, and the presumption that came with it was that we were all supposed to love his singing and throw our underwear and hotel keys at him.
There were some other folks on the boat, and I could tell from the downcast eyes and hunched shoulders that they were not having a good time. But the performer sure was. So, the problem was: how could I get him to cork it without making him feel embarrassed? I needed a distraction. Luckily, I saw some dolphins in the back bay and brought them to everyone’s attention, which was enough of an event to get him to put that guitar down. I just wanted to stay with those dolphins forever.
It was all something I had to file away in my memory bank for the next sail. I just had to know what worked and what didn’t. Some people liked the action, and I learned to give them what they wanted.
And sometimes the action just found you all on its own.
We had the sails up, making great time for the Dry Tortugas, a couple of lines out the back snagging the occasional mackerel. Everyone was having a good time. But when everything is going right, with smiles on every face and rum in your belly, that’s when you’ve got nowhere to go but down.
A good blow slammed into the sails, the impact making a snap on the canvas you could both hear and feel.
“It’s really flying!” Josh said.
“Yeah, let’s try to stay water-bound for now,” I said.
The weather started to go south. Just started getting really snotty. I put the reef in the mainsail, pulled the jib in, lowered the sail on the mizzen mast, fired up the engine, and put it on autopilot. It wasn’t a typhoon, and there was only maybe 20 feet of water below us, but anything deeper than about 6 feet and you could be treading water in it.
All of the sudden, the autopilot just went crazy, and the steering was all over the place. I went to the aft helm station to see if I could correct it, trying to figure out if it was the autopilot going on the fritz or if it was working fine but the steering was shot to hell. I took the wheel, the steering completely unresponsive.
“What’s going on?” Josh asked.
“I think the steering cable snapped.”
“Is that bad?”
“On a boat, you don’t want anything to snap. But we can handle it.”
I was lucky that Rickshaw actually had a redundant steering system. In addition to the main
helm station aft, there was a separate steering station in the pilothouse. I explained that to Josh.
“So, we can just steer from there until we get to the Dry Tortugas? And then back home?”
“We could. But then if something goes wrong with the steering along the way, and we haven’t made the repair already, then we’re really”—I took a moment to search for the right word with more than four letters—“screwed.”
“What’s the difference?” he asked.
It was mostly about stability. With the steering functional at the pilothouse, that meant that we could keep our heading and our speed, and I could try to see what kind of fix I could make as we went in a mostly straight line at a mostly constant speed. But if that auxiliary steering went to pieces, then that meant that I’d have to try to repair both steering stations while the boat would be bobbing like a cork in a washing machine. Fixing something in a storm was bad, but fixing something inside of a boat that swayed like a drunk was impossible. I explained as much to Josh.
Rick took the wheel in the pilothouse. We had a quick discussion to diagnose the problem, and we were on the same page: the steering cable had probably snapped, and someone would need to go to the engine room and make sure the cable didn’t get wrapped around something important, like the motor.
