Troubled Sea Read online

  In addition to the landing field, fuel tanks, hotel, restaurant, small store, fresh water supply, and a seasonal Gringo citizenry, Caracol also afforded a decent winter anchorage. When fierce northers howled from October through March, vessels sought refuge here. And unlike most safe harbors along the Baja, Caracol offered amenities as well as a convenient jumping off point for crossing to San Carlos, seventy miles across the Sea on the Mexican mainland.

  Hetta race walked, stopping intermittently to chat with a local resident, pet a dog, or pick up a shell. As she sped by their friend Bud’s house, she saw signs of life; several windows were open and music flowed out through gauze curtains. She knew Bud wasn't around because his boat's red mooring ball was unoccupied. And, she thought, the music ain’t the Texas Playboys. Probably some friends of his. Or Pam’s. Pam, Bud’s girlfriend, talked him into buying the beach house, but Bud rarely stayed there. When he was at Caracol, he preferred living on his yacht. Who wouldn’t?

  Hetta shook her head, refusing to have her beautiful day tainted with worrisome thoughts of Bud’s blonde faux pas. She picked up the pace, arms pumping. A seagull yawped and settled on shore to watch her.

  “Pipe down, you rat with wings,” Hetta growled. The gull yammered and stared. “And wipe that grin off your beak. So what if I look like that battery bunny? I work hard to stay only twenty pounds overweight.”

  The gull, unimpressed, squawked, flew ahead, landed, waited, and then hopscotched ahead again.

  Hetta, on the alert for sea treasures offered up by the storm, spotted a particularly nice golden cockle, slowed to scoop it up, inspected it on the move and stowed it in her dive bag.

  “Like I need another shell,” she told the gull. After her walks, Hetta’s bag usually bulged with empty oil bottles, beer cans and plastic bags, as well as shells, sea fans, sun bleached starfish and sea urchin remains. Once she even found an entire dolphin skeleton, which now hung from a lakeside scrub oak in front of her father’s Texas Hill Country home. The skeletal remains never failed to provoke comment, and Hetta’s dad was not above leading Yankee tourists down the garden path about its origins.

  Hetta smiled, thinking of her daddy’s trophy tree and her own Texan roots. “I sure fooled that bunch of naysayers, bird.” For most of her life her family politely referred to Hetta as a bachelorette, a term far more diplomatic than “old maid.”

  Eschewing the Southern Belle tradition, she opted instead to follow her father’s steel toed bootsteps into the heavy construction industry. Hetta followed her own worldwide career while her cousins, sister and friends chalked up marriages, children, homes, and then divorces, child custody battles, and new spouses, ad nauseam. Hetta Coffey remained single, viewed as an eccentric by some, a spirited adventurer by others, and a bossy old maid by many. Hetta liked to think of herself as assertive and independent.

  Hetta had worked in several countries, traveled to even more, and due to several inauspicious love affairs had all but given up on meeting a suitable companion, much less a husband.

  Seven years before, when her dog died, she decided to simplify her life. No longer needing a yard for her beloved yellow lab, she sold her house and bought a boat. Had she had any idea how much more trouble a boat could be than a house, or how incredibly expensive it was to maintain, Hetta might not have made such a drastic move. But that boat changed her life. At thirty-seven—an age, she read in a women's magazine, when she was more likely to be assassinated by a terrorist than find a man—she met Robert “Jenks” Jenkins.

  Jenks was forty-five, divorced for twenty years. Following his Viking ancestors to sea at eighteen, he retired from the United States Navy, had a second career in the fire protection industry, and traveled and worked in several countries. After the failure of his marriage and then a long-term, long-distance affaire d’coeur that slowly dwindled, he had no intention of finding a permanent companion, suitable or not.

  Then, over a smoky Bay Area yacht club bar packed with Liar’s Dice players, Jenks’s blue eyes met Hetta’s brown ones. It was love at first sight.

  “Well, not quite,” Hetta told the seagull. “Old Jenks made a run for his life.”

  Much to the amusement and amazement of her family and friends, short plump Hetta went after the long lean Jenks with the dogged determination of a Redbone hound. When finally treed, Jenks surrendered his bachelorhood for domestic bliss. If one could call living on a boat all that domestic.

  Hetta and Jenks sold both their boats, pooled their resources and were married aboard their newly acquired forty-two foot powerboat, HiJenks. Hetta’s only regret was that her mother didn't live to see her transformed into a much belated honest woman.

  The growl of an outboard motor broke into Hetta’s woolgathering and she saw Jenkzy streaking flat out towards the lagoon a quarter mile ahead. Jenks loved to open the throttle on the fifteen-horsepower Evinrude, get up on a plane, and “blow the soot out.” He would doze on the warm sand near the lagoon until she arrived.

  Almost stumbling over a dead gull, Hetta turned her attention back to the beach. Her pesky companion was pecking haphazardly at a piece of glistening plastic at the water’s edge. “Dammit bird, why don’t people clean up after themselves,” Hetta groused. Being a dedicated self-appointed beach sweeper, she resented any human originated flotsam on her beach.

  The gull scolded the package as if in agreement, annoyed that something so inviting to the eye should prove inedible. Hetta made a beeline for the intrusive object, shooed the bird away, picked up the plastic bag, shook loose most of the damp sand, and looked inside.

  “Wow!” she whooped, startling her feathered escort airborne, “wait ‘til der Jenkster sees this.”

  “The water’s plenty warm,” Hetta later wheedled from HiJenks’s swim platform. When Jenks failed to respond she splashed him.

  Jenks, distracted, mumbled, “Yeah, okay,” and smeared a couple of salty drops on his glasses.

  “Hey, in this lifetime, Jenkins. Right now there’s no wind and the water’s warm. You know damned well that can change in a heartbeat.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” he said, still scrutinizing the Global Positioning Satellite receiver Hetta found on the beach earlier in the day. “This is the best thing you ever hauled back from beachcombing.” He hit a button and the little handheld GPS displayed their present longitude and latitude on its liquid crystal display screen. “Even the batteries are still good.” He wanted to play with it more, but Hetta intervened.

  “I’ll whine soon,” she warned. “Come on, let’s snorkel to the reef. It’s more fun if you come.”

  “Yeah, right. You just want some frontline shark fodder,” Jenks teased, then regretted his words. Hetta was afraid of the water and worked hard to overcome her fear. She had progressed to swimming and snorkeling near the boat, but only in shallow water where she could see bottom. And never without her body suit.

  Already sheathed from neck to foot in turquoise and black Lycra spandex, Hetta sat on the platform, swim fins dangling in the water, dive mask pushed up onto her head. She knew that a thin covering of shiny fabric afforded little protection from any sea creature hell bent on doing her harm, but it gave a modicum of confidence. At Jenks’s shark comment she jerked her fins from the water and shot him the finger. “Just for that you go first, fish bait,” she growled, then hummed the ominous two-note theme the whole world now associates with Jaws.

  “Aye, aye, Jackie Cousteau. You know, you look cute in that body suit.”

  “Yeah, right. I look like a Jimmy Dean sausage dressed for a Venetian harlequin ball. All I need is a jeweled mask with feathers and I’d qualify for a Fellini film.”

  “I think you look cute,” Jenks insisted, pulling on his own extra long suit worn more for warmth than protection. His lanky frame harbored not an ounce of extra insulation.

  They slid into the water and paddled fifty yards to a reef fronting the hotel. Hetta pried open a rock scallop with her dive knife and, within minutes, they wer
e surrounded by darting, jewel toned fish. Some shy types, like the blue and pink stareye parrotfish, hovered on the fringes, while the less glamorous triggers and bullseye puffers grew bold. Hetta made sure they all got a bite of scallop, and not of her.

  An hour later, Jenks was back on deck fiddling with the newly found GPS while Hetta made tuna salad sandwiches on their own homemade sourdough bread.

  “Someone must have dropped that GPS overboard during the norther,” Jenks speculated as they ate.

  Hetta nodded. “Probably. We’ll listen to the Happy Hour Net on ham radio tonight. Maybe someone will report it missing.”

  “Oh, yeah. If one of our fellow cruisers lost it they’ll be crying in their piña coladas. If no one whines, I guess we’ve got ourselves a spare.”

  “Amazing, Jenks. My old boat was loaded with stuff like GPS's, sat dishes and the like, but in our reduced circumstances, we're down to a handheld. Not that these new ones aren't pretty danged sophisticated.”

  “Thanks to the Gulf War. So many Global Positioning Satellite units were manufactured for the American military that the unit price plummeted.”

  “Your tax dollars at work,” Hetta quipped, throwing a bread crust overboard for the black and yellow sergeant majors that had taken up residence under the boat. She watched the feeding frenzy, then added, “I wonder who lost it? As far as I know, we’re the only cruisers this far north on this side of the Sea right now. Almost everyone’s either in La Paz getting ready to cross to Mazatlan or Puerto Vallarta for the winter, or holed up in Puerto Escondido.”

  “They can have the so-called Mexican Riviera. I like it here. In the Sea.”

  “Speaking of which,” Hetta said, “do you think we can get over to San Carlos, be hauled out, paint HiJenks’s bottom and be back over here on the Baja by Thanksgiving?”

  “Shouldn't be a problem. But first we gotta get to San Carlos. We should cross tomorrow night,” Jenks said, glancing at the diminished swells outside the placid anchorage. “Looks like we’ve got a weather window, so we'd better make tracks.”

  “I know. I’ll listen to the weather report on the Chubasco Net in the morning, make sure there’s nothing nasty coming our way. I just wish we had a big old moon.”

  “I know you don’t like night crossings without a full moon, but the water’s usually smoother after dark. I mean, we could give it a go tomorrow morning, but if we do, there's a good chance things'll get rough on the other side."

  “Jeez, get all logical on me, why don't you? But you’re right, it’ll most likely be smoother at night.”

  Chapter 4

  And pines with thirst amidst a sea of waves.

  —Homer, The Odyssey

  Dark red.

  That was all Pedro saw when he awoke. He felt the sun’s warmth on his skin, recognized it, knew he was awake, but he couldn’t open his eyes. As he’d slept, the unrelenting Baja sun baked him in a thick crust of salt that glued his eyes shut. Each eyelash and every hair on his head was white and stiff.

  He knew, from other times when he’d been sprayed and wind dried, that he looked like a photograph of an aboriginal tribesmen, their faces painted white, he’d seen in those yellow picture magazines that Gringos donated to the Mahatma Gandhi Library in Santa Rosalia.

  Squinching his eyelids tightly, then raising his eyebrows, he managed to open a small slit in one eye, but at a price; salt grit burned his eyeball like fire. With the help of those tears, he slowly and painfully concentrated on opening that eye.

  While he slept he'd dreamed of his mother's tortillas, and drinking icy cold aguas frescas, like the ones from a small store in Santa Rosalia. His favorite flavor was watermelon. Now awake, he cursed the fresh drinking water in the panga, only inches away from his head. His line, net and hook shroud allowed him to shift slightly, and he could, like a marionette on a string, manipulate one arm. But not far enough to reach that gallon of water he hoped was still in the aft cockpit. The bottle might as well have been in Mexico City.

  Scuffing, scraping noises overhead caught his attention. He gingerly cocked his head and, still struggling like a young kitten to open its eyes, felt his eyelashes finally release. He could see! A brown pelican sat on the motor shaft above his head, studying Pedro like the fish he occasionally stole from fishermen’s nets.

  The boy almost laughed, but a sob caught in his throat as he spotted, silhouetted by the afternoon sun, the Three Virgins. The trio of inactive volcanoes, the largest soaring to eighteen hundred meters, loomed like dark sentinels on the horizon, just as they did from his village. And at sunset, even on a hazy day, their outlines could be seen all the way from the mainland, serving as a maritime navigational tool for the middle gulf. The way home.

  Pedro wondered whether his mother, most likely standing at her cooking barrel while preparing the evening meal for his little brother, also watched the sun fall behind the Virgenes. Maybe saying a little prayer for her absent sons? The sons she thought safe in a fish camp. Weeping in frustration, his tears melted even more salt from his gummy eyelids, stinging his eyes more, which brought more tearing and water loss he could ill afford. If he could just reach his water bottle....

  The pelican grunted and flew as both he and Pedro heard a splash and saw the fleeting outline of a dark fin. The boy’s heart skipped a beat. Cold fear swept through him. Struggling against his barbed bindings he moaned as the hooks dug deeper, then forced himself to be still and listen. Another splash, then a bottlenose dolphin surfaced three feet away, chattering and squeaking as if asking Pedro how he had gotten into such a fix.

  The dolphin circled La Reina several times, took a few leaps, and then, with a flip of his powerful tail, disappeared. Pedro waited, hoping the bottlenose would return, but soon gave up hope, not only for the dolphin’s return, but for his own salvation. For the first time since he fell overboard, he despaired he would die in his own nets.

  Chapter 5

  Pray devoutly, but hammer stoutly.

  —W.G. Benham

  Pedro’s mother, Lourdes, mixed masa flour with water and kneaded the dough into a large ball. Plucking off small bits, she rolled and slapped the rounds flat between her tiny, callused palms with a bit more force than necessary. Only a slight puckering of the weathered furrows around her mouth, and the overzealous clapping of tortillas, betrayed her building unease. Her face otherwise rivaled the serene visage of the Madonna painted on a boulder above the village.

  She flopped the thin tortillas onto a griddle sizzling over a fifty-five gallon fire drum in her outdoor kitchen, then scrambled eggs with chiles and garlicky manta ray machaca for her five-year-old’s dinner, his favorite. As she sprinkled the dried, salted and shredded fish into the eggs, she longed to be cooking for two more: Pedro and Gabriel.

  She did not, of course, express her worries to her neighbors.

  They would think her foolish. After all, men from her village came and went like the schools of fish and squid they sought.

  “Hijo, come eat,” she called to the house. A small boy, still sleepy from his late afternoon siesta, pushed aside a blanket over the door and settled into a homemade chair. A skinny dog slunk up next to him and watched hopefully as Lourdes handed the boy a tortilla wrapped around the egg mixture.

  Lourdes smiled as she watched her son eat. How she loved his watery gray eyes. Silver, they were, like those of his silver-eyed, silver-tongued father who had temporarily sweet-talked his way back into her affections six years before. Of course the boys’ father was long since gone again, but at least she had this small package of joy to comfort her when Pedro and Gabriel were at the fish camp.

  And, milagro—a miracle—the fishing had suddenly gotten much better for her sons, although others in the village still groused of small catches. In the past year, Gabriel bought a new outboard for his panga, shoes for the whole family—not that she wore hers except to church—a rebuilt engine for his pickup, and a new dress for her made of real polyester. And a house. She smiled about the house.


  Last month a truck arrived, loaded with gray concrete blocks, bags of cement, and sheets of galvanized metal. The entire village, all twenty inhabitants, turned out to watch in amazement as two men from the truck, along with Gabriel and Pedro, began work on a structure right next to Lourdes’s home. For two days they mixed cement and sand, stacked blocks and then fixed the tin roof to the two room house. Then, wonder of wonders, topped the whole thing with a large black plastic water pila. The truck left and Gabriel organized a bucket brigade to fill the plastic cistern from the village well.

  “Now, Mama,” Gabriel then asked, “which room do you want?”

  Lourdes entered the chilly gray rooms, made a great fuss of looking out the windows and opening the tap Gabriel and Pedro piped down from the pila, then allowed the boys to move in her bed and chair. But that night the north wind picked up, rattling the corrugated metal roof and howling through the as yet unshuttered windows.

  The next morning Lourdes, who was awake all night, sleepily made tortillas with chorizo for her older sons. As soon as they left for their fishing camp, she moved back into her old telegraph pole and palm frond house, and asked a neighbor to remove the tin roof next door. That night she slept soundly as her palapa roof swished in the wind instead of rattling and banging like Gabriel’s old Chevy truck.