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  Troubled Sea

  by

  Jinx Schwartz

  BOOKS BY JINX SCHWARTZ

  The Hetta Coffey Series

  Just Add Water (Book1) Winner/ EPPIE Award

  Just Add Salt (Book 2)

  Just Add Trouble (Book 3)

  Just Deserts (Book4)

  Just the Pits (Book 5)

  Other Books

  The Texicans

  Troubled Sea

  Land of Mountains

  Hetta and Jenks Jenkins have broken free from the corporate rat race and are enjoying a life others only daydream of: living aboard their boat in Mexico's hauntingly beautiful, but remote, Sea of Cortez.

  This sea, however, comes with serpents. After stumbling into a drug deal gone wrong, they are caught up in a gut-wrenching ocean of intrigue that threatens to sink more than their dreams.

  What people are saying about Troubled Sea

  This one was the absolute best in terms of "can't put it down". Her other are also fun, funny and full of adventure. I'd recommend them all highly. Jacquie, Bainbridge Island, WA.

  A friend recommended this book. He said it was a page-turner. What an understatement!!! You will be hooked after the first couple of pages. This book had me on the seat of my pants from beginning to end. Kudos Jinx. Richard K. Barber, Baja California Sur, Mexico.

  WOW! This is one of the best boating books I have ever read. Non-stop action, can't put the book down type of story. As a boater myself, I recognized many of the anchorages, locations and people that I had met in my cruising of the Sea of Cortez in a time before this book's setting. Very authentic as well and the author's experiences as a live aboard cruiser shows. In navy talk, Bravo Zulu, which means "well done". Allen MacDiarmid, Goodreads

  Troubled Sea

  Copyright © 2004

  e-book Published by Jinx Schwartz 2011

  All rights reserved.

  The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to persons, whether living or dead, is strictly coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning to a computer disk, or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without express permission in writing from the publisher.

  Acknowledgements

  While it is true that I penned Troubled Sea, the concept for the book was my husband, Robert’s. He helped outline the plot, then spent many hours critiquing—a perilous task—my manuscript. Troubled Sea was written aboard our boat, High Jinx, which was lost when Hurricane Marty decimated much of the fleet in the Sea of Cortez.

  A big gracias to Roger Pramhus, Bunnie Adams, John Reynolds, Geary Ritchie, and my enduring technical assistant and hubby, Robert "Mad Dog" Schwartz.

  In the Sea of Cortez, cruisers lose their identities to their boat names, so I wish to acknowledge the following boaters for helping me with the original edition of Troubled Sea: SV Backstreets, Dennis and Paula; SV Peach, Susan and Wain: SV Resande, Morrie and Lorrie; SV Inclination, Garth; SV Pyawacket, Gray and Dorothea; SV Telitha, John and Laura; SV Paloma Blanca, Rebecca and Lutz. I also owe a debt of gratitude to some landlubbers for that edition: Susan Daniels, Jennifer Redmond, Mary Schroyer, Sheran Vaughn, Monica Brooks, Pam Germain, Monika and Russ Madden, and David Gunkle of the Sierra Vista, Arizona, Library.

  Cover art by www.PhillipsCovers.com

  Dedication

  We’ll miss our friend, Roger Wales

  Now a loving memory

  A master of sales and sails

  A fine sailor, he.

  And we mourn our beloved High Jinx

  Lost in ‘03

  Consigned to the deep by Hurricane Marty

  A fine ship, she.

  And as always, to Mad Dog, my own bright star, who guides me through life’s storms into fair winds and following seas.

  TROUBLED SEA

  The Sea of Cortez, or the Gulf of California, is a long, narrow, highly dangerous body of water. It is subject to sudden and vicious storms of great intensity.—John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez.

  Chapter 1

  Spawned by fierce Santa Ana winds in Southern California, the gale gathered strength as it roared south across the Sonoran Desert, and then lashed the turquoise waters of the Sea of Cortez into a white frenzy.

  In an open fishing boat—a panga—a determined driver wrestled a seventy-five horsepower outboard for command of his craft as it caromed off one six-foot wave, and crashed into another. Bare head bent into blinding spindrift, he stood with his feet spread wide for balance, knees flexed to absorb the shock of the boat bottoming out in the troughs. Covered only by his weatherworn jeans, his legs were numb with cold and fatigue. Arm and shoulder muscles burned with the effort of maintaining his grip on the outboard motor’s extended steering handle. As forty-five knot winds shot salt bullets into his scalp and through rips in his ratty slicker, a less determined man would have turned around, put the wind to his back and ridden south with the seas.

  But Pedro Gomez was not a man.

  Using an electronic instrument he barely understood, thirteen-year-old Pedro had set out alone, leaving his sick brother, the intended driver, back at their fish camp. He managed to successfully navigate to the center of the Gulf, pick up the intended cargo, and head north before the brunt of the storm hit.

  Though weary and battered, Pedro was unafraid. The tears streaming from his eyes were whipped there by wind, not fear. If he feared anything, other than failure to complete his voyage, the hubris of youth and generations of seafaring genes eclipsed it. The boy’s iron blue eyes told of a Dutch sailor in his family’s past, but his dark skin and coarse hair were his grandmother’s, a coastal Indian girl whose heart and reputation were devastated by a transient European.

  Pedro had driven pangas like La Reina del Cortez since he was five. And La Reina, her patched hull and peeling paint belying her majestic moniker, was as durable as any of her sisters plying—no, ruling—the Sea of Cortez. Although she charged headlong into tall waves and lurched from gunwale to gunwale in the confused sea, this queen of Cortez shipped surprisingly little water.

  Airtight flotation chambers serving as seats divided La Reina into three sections. In the V-shaped forward compartment, a rusty propane tank ground against shards of glass from its broken lamp attachment and only water slop prevented sparks and explosion.

  A jumble of green nylon nets, cork floats and long heavy lines spiked with three-inch fishhooks slewed in a malodorous, greasy mixture of seawater, gasoline, rotting fish carcasses, and motor oil in the center hold. Under all this lay the precious cargo.

  Pedro’s chilled feet shared the aft cockpit with thirty liters of gasoline in a plastic mammilla, named for its resemblance in both color and form to an oversized baby bottle nipple. This panguero’s version of a gas tank had a rag stuffed into the top to replace its long-lost tapon, and with each impact rivulets of fuel trickled down its sides. A length of rotting surgical tubing, stuck through the center of the wadded up rag, served as a gas line. Next to the mammilla rode a gallon jug full of drinking water. Pedro had already jettisoned three empties; environmental science wasn’t a subject taught in his local elementary school.

  Although unaccustomed to a motor as large as the seventy-five horsepower Evinrude, Pedro skillfully battled the maelstrom, steering by a star and dead set on making his delivery and collecting five hundred dollars. A fortune.

  Pedro didn’t know that he and his cargo were expendable.

  Nor would he understand that his brother’s employers factored pangueros like himself and his brother into their “acceptable loss” column. The cost of doing business.

  Mentally spendin
g a portion of his future fortune, perhaps on an almost new pair of warm rubber boots and slicker, Pedro never saw the ten-foot comber. Tons of water slammed him to his knees and threatened his grip on the motor’s throttle handle. Pulling himself up, he threw the full force of his wiry frame against the rubber handgrip in an attempt to force the bow back into the prevailing wind. He miscalculated.

  Seventy-five horses drove the boat broadside between two waves which, as if applauding their own strength, slammed the panga with watery fists. La Reina rounded up, bucked violently, careened to the left, then snapped right, launching Pedro headlong into the center net compartment. As he struggled to free himself from the tangle of fishing gear, another breaker swept him overboard.

  Weighed down by his oilskin slicker and trailing nets, lines, and cork floats, Pedro plunged eight feet underwater before being violently jerked towards the surface. Staring up through turbulent green water he watched a brilliant whirlpool of yellowish green phosphorescence generated by the spinning propeller. As the sharp steel blades relentlessly gobbled the net and reeled his head ever closer, line bristling with three-inch fishhooks tightened around his body. Polypropylene cut into his soft flesh. Steel barbs embedded in his bones.

  Pedro—fading, praying, drowning—gaped into the greedy jaws of the prop until it finally took on more heavy line and net than it could chew and, choked to a stop. Joy, adrenaline, hope, and survival instinct activated the boy’s feet. He catapulted himself to the surface with a swift kick and managed one gasp of air before his water-filled slicker pulled him under. He kicked again.

  With each buck of the boat, the line trussing him like a Christmas turkey jerked him up and he was able to get one precious breath before honed blades chased him down. During these dizzying dunks Pedro worked to free one arm, the one skewered by only two hooks. Ignoring the pain he reached through a hole in the net and managed to trip the motor’s elevator lever. The shaft sprang skyward, yanking Pedro, like the catch of the day, a foot above the surface. There he dangled, sobbing and terrified, half in, half out of the water, as the wind began to die.

  At first light, a curious, ringbilled gull circled gracefully in the lulling gale, hovered, then glided down to perch on the outboard motor housing. Cocking his head, the bird fixed one yellow eye on the netted, unconscious, Pedro, and then his interest shifted to the shiny plastic packets washing back and forth in the panga’s center compartment. Hopping lightly onto a package, the bird used his wings for balance, surfing the gasoline-slicked package. Two swift blows of his powerful beak shredded the plastic wrap. Shaking bitter white powder from his bill, the gull squawked in disgust, launched himself skyward, and flew twenty feet before his heart stopped.

  Chapter 2

  It blows great guns indeed.

  —Dickens

  Hetta Jenkins sucked in her breath as stars slid dizzily past the screened hatch above her bed. The anchor chain bridle groaned as HiJenks reached the end of a sixty-degree swing, the boat shuddered under the attack of a gust, then swung back to rest. Small wind waves slapped the hull, rocking the boat gently as she rode easy again on her anchor. Hetta exhaled.

  Disentangling herself from her slumbering husband’s arms, she slid from the warm bed, shook off a hint of vertigo, pulled on sweats, and climbed three steps leading to the main saloon. During the next gust she braced herself, screwed security clamps on the teakettle before turning on the burner, and then pulled out her laptop. While her coffee water heated, she booted up the computer, pulled up the “Log of HiJenks” file and began tapping the keys.

  November 8, Punta Caracol, Sea of Cortez. Wind: 40 knots, gusting to 55!

  Sky: Clear

  Water Temp: 71 F. Barometer: 1030 (WAY up!)

  An E ticket at Disneyland had nothing on this ride. It feels like going over one of those hills, say, Jones Street, back in San Francisco and the bottom drops out of your stomach. Only sideways. Over and over. You’d think, after five winters here, I’d get used to it.

  Another howler hit, this time spraying the boat with a fine mist of salt water. Hetta rose to check a depth sounder on the steering console. Nothing had changed. They were securely anchored.

  “I knew that,” she clucked while mixing steamy water with instant Nescafé Clasico, sugar and coffee creamer. Taking a sip, she returned to her computer.

  It’s five in the morning and I’m on self-imposed anchor watch. Jenks says I should sleep, but with enough rattling, banging and creaking to wake the dead (but not, I notice, old twenty-years-in-the-navy Jenks), I might as well watch. Not that I can see a damned thing. I feel like a Jack London character trapped in his cabin, howling wind and wolves threatening the door. At least we don’t have wolves. Sharks maybe. I’m so tired I can hardly see this screen so I think I’ll heed my captain’s wise counsel and try to sleep. H.

  She stood, stretched, and was strapping her laptop into its workstation under the dining table when the wind suddenly dropped. She waited. Not a stir.

  Walking ten feet to the main cabin door, she slid it open and stuck her head into predawn chill. Gleaming in the blue-black moonless sky, the stars seemed touchable and, as she watched, a satellite streaked overhead.

  Bioluminescent sea creatures formed their own constellations in the dark bay water. A shimmering glow next to the boat drew her gaze downward to where a large squid undulated like a sea specter. Hetta shivered and closed the door.

  Chapter 3

  I wiped away the weeds and foam

  I fetched my sea-born treasures home...Emerson

  Nota Buena to Log of HiJenks

  Nov. 8, 8:00 a.m. Punta Caracol

  Wind: 0-zip-nada! Sky: Clear

  Barometer: 1018 down 12

  The barometer tells the story: This norther is history! H.

  Hetta put the computer away, clicked on a burner under the coffeepot and smiled at Jenks. He was stretched out on the settee, nose in a book. Something with exploding planes on the cover. You wouldn’t know he was reading an action book from his relaxed manner. Long and lanky, he melted in repose. On the other hand, when Jenks was underway—that’s the way Hetta thought of it—he resembled a cross between John Wayne and Gary Cooper when they had reached self-assured maturity: Wayne’s saunter and Cooper’s straight-shouldered authority. Not a "man in touch with his feelings" kind of guy. “I’m going outside to enjoy my coffee in wind-free comfort. Want a cup, 007?”

  Jenks shook his head, too engrossed in the last few pages of his novel to look up.

  Hetta filled a ceramic mug bearing a logo from the Bluebonnet Cafe in Marble Falls, Texas, left the cabin and padded aft over warm, freshly rinsed decks. Settling into a plastic chair, she propped her bare feet on another one, gave her toenail polish a critical look and promised another coat. The sun’s rays, already heating her skin, cut through the remaining storm sediment in the water to dapple the sandy bottom. Good, it’s clearing. In another couple of hours we can snorkel.

  “You gonna take a walk today?” Jenks asked, sauntering on deck. Evidently the novel’s author had successfully saved the world from death and destruction by way of explosives, thereby freeing Jenks to join Hetta. “We haven’t been off the boat for days.”

  “Yep. Cabin fever’s set in. I ran out of norther projects yesterday. The provisions are inventoried, I wrote all the letters home, and I’m sick of sweating to oldies with Richard Simmons. Life’s a beeech,” Hetta deadpanned. “And speaking of beaches, I think I’ll get my stuff right now and you can drop me off for an attitude adjustment stride.”

  “Okay. I’ve gotta buy cigarettes anyway.”

  Hetta frowned, but bit her lip. No use beeeching. He’d quit when he was ready.

  Bob Jenkins, Jenks to his friends, leaned over the transom, grabbed a line tied to the aft rail, climbed down a swim ladder and stepped into their dinghy. Days and nights of unrelenting spray had encrusted Jenkzy in a layer of salt. While waiting for Hetta, he wiped the seats clean, squeezed a bulb on the gas line to pump gas into the c
arburetor, and pulled the starter cord.

  Hetta heard the outboard cough, then rumble to life. She quickly smeared number thirty sunblock on her already tanned and freckled face, arms and legs, squinting into the mirror to check for new wrinkles as she did so. Noticing her hair could use a touch of red over some suspiciously graying spots, she wondered what her old hairdresser in San Francisco, René l’Exorbitant, who had once told her he thought she looked like a Rubenesque Shirley MacLaine, would say if he could see her “natural highlights” now. She grinned, grabbed her dive bag, shoes, and water bottle, said, “Who cares?” and left to join Jenks.

  Jenkzy, their heavy nine-foot fiberglass dinghy, had replaced two former rubber inflatables that went terminally flaccid under the fiery Baja sun. Built at a panga factory in La Paz, their pangita was a reduced copy of the ubiquitous Sea of Cortez fishing panga. Jenkzy’s gunwales, painted bright blue in imitation of her larger sister pangas, glittered with salt.

  Hetta wiped white grit with her finger. “Yuck. She needs a bath.”

  “I’ll wash her down at the boat ramp after I drop you off.”

  “Great. Why don’t you pick me up at the lagoon?”

  “Okay. Need anything from Gringo Grocers?” Jenks joked, referring to the tiny, basics-only store behind Hotel Punta Caracol.

  “If they’ve got any fresh veggies or fruit, grab ‘em. Can’t think of anything else we can’t live without until we get to San Carlos.”

  Hetta left Jenks to his boat washing and cigarette buying and strode along her usual route, following a curve of white sand trimming the turquoise bay. Beach dwellings—some basic, some grand, most unoccupied—clustered above the high water line. Behind graceful palm trees shading the houses, a dusty runway ran the length of the community, ending in a vacant airplane tie-down area. Squatting on the other side of the runway, the modest homes of hotel employees were surrounded by a clutter of clotheslines and rusted vehicles. A bougainvillea-emblazoned hotel slumbered on a bluff, awaiting an influx of guests to stir her rooms and restaurant to life. Here and there the faint hum of a generator could be heard, powering up a home. Punta Caracol had running water, but no electrical lines had made their way out this far. Even the wealthiest residents here relied, like Hetta and Jenks, on a combination of solar panels, propane, generators, and banks of batteries to keep creature comforts operational.