by Tom Lowe
Then I raised the sails. But there was a dead calm. No breeze. Not even the clouds seemed to move, and little Max was still. “Well, Max, what do you think? We were going to do some sailing down toward Fort Jefferson or over to Bimini. Thought I’d let the wind decide. Maybe it has. Maybe we ought to be back home, take Jupiter out and catch some fish if we can’t catch some wind.”
Suddenly, out of the west, a breeze started, picked up, and kicked with a strong gust. “Max, looks like we’re heading to Bimini!”
I made my way back to the cockpit. I stood behind the wheel, the wind steady, the sails expanding, leading the boat toward the east. I reset the GPS for Buccaneer Point on Bimini. In less than thirty seconds we were doing ten knots.
I reached down into the ice in the cooler and retrieved a Corona. I turned to Max. “All right, first mate, we’re heading across some blue water to an island I visited a few yeas ago. Enjoy!”
We had the sun to our backs, and the islands somewhere over the horizon. Max quickly became used to the movements of the boat. She made it all the way up to the bowsprit, adjusting her balance by spreading her front and hind legs a little farther apart. She watched the spray off the bow and sniffed the salty air.
I listened to the boat cut through the water, felt the wind on my face, sipped the beer, put a Jack Johnson CD in the player, sat down, and steered the wheel with my toes. It felt good to be sailing again. I’d forgotten how much I’d missed it.
Max started to walk back to the cockpit when something caught her eye. Two porpoises loped alongside the boat easily keeping up with us. Max barked and scurried around the boat keeping her eyes on the strange creatures. They swam less than twenty feet off the starboard side.
I remembered Sherri saying, “I love it when they join us. I believe it’s the same pair we saw yesterday.”
“How can you tell?”
“Their attitude. Maybe it’s those smiles. I don’t know. But they seem to want to travel with us.”
These two did travel with Max and me for another two miles and then left us. They left us with their attitude, their smiles, and their sense of adventure.
“Keep an eye out for pirates!” I yelled to Max. “That’s the mate’s job, growl at ‘em.”
She turned and looked at me, her face animated in a swashbuckling dachshund kind of way. I grinned, watching Max stand near the bowsprit, her ears flapping in the breeze, her wet nose sniffing the trade winds.
Maybe I didn’t need the GPS. I had my little watchdog to point the way.
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