The Promise--episode one

My 40 foot ketch the kitiwake was rocking against the pier in Grand Bahama and woke me up. it was sunday morning and i could hear the rigging bouncing against the mast in the slight breeze. i got out of my bunk and walked aft, past edwardo and dark john in their bunk. i shook edwardo and said, we've got to go, let's go and he moaned and rolled over. whaat, he said, with, a foggy voice. nothing, i replied, and climbed up into the cockpit of the boat, nothing, never mind. i had a promise to keep and i was going to keep it, you two slackers can stay asleep i said out loud and climbed off the deck and onto the dock. Grand Bahama was still asleep, the little harbor filled with sailboats of all sizes, and i looked at the Kitiwake, a pale robin's egg blue against the dark green of the harbor water. she had limp torn sails on her masts, the turnbuckle on my bowsprint was shorn off, the reason we put in here on our way up the Florida coast, the topside a pile of gear and line tangled and messy, debris from the storm lay along side beer cans, and my diesel was a wheezing asthmatic of an engine, having failed to start when we needed it most, almost resulting in our being cleeved in half by a freighter as we lay becalmed at night in the Bermuda Triangle. we were lucky to have made it this far, having set out from St. Thomas in the fall at the height of hurricane season, headed for Barbadoes and being lost instead in a huge storm and blow into the Bahamas. lucky or delivered, either way i was going to make sure i kept my promise. i walked past the other yachts in the harbor and noticed they all looked in better shape than mine, and myself i must have looked a sight after two months at sea, long shoulder length windblown hair, skin dark, no shirt, ragged jeans, and sandals. a dead sea turtle lay on it's back in the cockpit of a power boat, and i shook my head at the sight of it and headed out of the harbor, past the hotel and the outdoor bar. it never failed to amaze me that there were people bellying up that early for a snort, but this was the islands and everyone drank and i knew as soon as they woke up from last nights revere, that's where edwardo and dark john would be, knocking back some beers and trying to pick up college girls. God what crew we were. i should say what a crew we weren't, hell we should'nt have even been out here, no way, not ever. well, we should have had a lot more sailing experience, still even then to be honest, i'm no sailor, i get ferociously seasick, and though i love being in the water, me being a great swimmer, was no qualifier for being at sea. i'd never sailed anywhere before and edwardo had never been on a boat until he showed up one day from Ohio, standing on the dock in front on the Kitiwake announcing his arrival. dark john was a Virgin Islander from Antigua with a stutter and a mean streak we picked up off a boat he was 86'd and pressed some money in his hand to teach us how to sail and he sort of did barking orders here and there, we stuttered our way through his lessons, and arrogance, and in due course after a couple of passes around the island, and then a small passage to Tortola on a moonlite night, we thought we were ready for our maiden voyage and ready to sail to NYC, up the Atlantic seaboard. Oh god, i guess if you're going to make a mistake, make a big one. dark john talked a great game , snorting and throwing his head back, showing his big white horse teeth, telling us how he'd sailed to columbia and back by himself and he had, only later we found out he'd sunk his owner's sloop on the way back, having to much sail on for high winds and i think someone told me this just as we were leaving Charlote Aamlie harbor, and i either didn't want to believe them or it was a case of well what do i do now and it already late in the season and me having quit my job with the native construction company and being stuck with edwardo and generally sick of the island, i must thought, i'ts time to go and dark john full of his bravado and swagger, stuttering, i'm a great captain and what not. it was fool hardy, and i had a bad feeling about it at the dock fueling up with diesel. we'd find out soon enough what we were in for. To be continued------