Tales of Luna C

By steve casteel

This is the humorous tale of the sailing vessel "Luna C" on her 4 year voyage through the Caribbean Sea. It captures the lifestyle of a cruising couple, living on a small boat, as they cope with the struggles of speaking foreign languages and the mishaps of clogged plumbing.

The story is told through the eyes of the author. Possibly with only one eye open. You can be the judge.

Sail along as this couple weaves their way from Arkansas to South America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: steve casteel
• Release date: Jun 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476073040

steve casteel

Tales of "Luna C" was written for my wife and family and friends. Their encouragement pushed me to the end. I cannot thank them enough.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Well, what do you think? I ask my wife, Beverly, after she finished reading. I had moments before given her a copy of Latitudes and Attitudes, a magazine about people living on their small boats and sailing around the oceans of the world living the high-life. I said to her, Read this. I want to go do this.

Believing she would snap me out of my dream phase and back into the real world, she startled me by actually saying, Let’s do it.

That was the first step toward this semi-true story. The seeds had been sown to begin an adventure that would take us from our comfortable home in Arkansas, to a life that many people say is 90% boredom and 10% sheer terror. A life sailing from island to island in the Caribbean where dodging sleeping whales, escaping from drug runners, meeting characters along the way that could have stepped off the pages of a Carl Hiaasen novel, murder, blowing up the toilet when your wife is sitting in the floor actually trying to fix the damn thing, and little sleep is meant to be the high-life.

That last part about having little sleep may be a direct correlation to blowing up the toilet all over my wife. However, we were on our way to an adventure of a life time sailing the seven seas. The only problem was we did not know how to sail and I was not even sure if there actually were seven seas.

Chapter 2

I believe that life is a book. What happens along the way fills the chapters. Whenever one chapter of your life ends the next chapter begins. My helicopter crash in 1988 closed one chapter of my life. The same can be said for the end of high school or college graduation. I had joined the army to see the world. The army, in its’ infinite wisdom, sent me to Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. There had to be a better way. Buying a boat and sailing around this great big ball seemed like a good idea. This started a new chapter for us.

After telling family and friends what we planned to do, most would smile and say, Good luck. Then they would whisper to each other, That poor, poor woman, she has married an idiot. How could he think that selling all their worldly possessions and taking off to who knows where could possibly be a good idea! Doesn’t he know that there are hurricanes and pirates and sharks just waiting to kill them? The man has finally snapped! She needs to dump his ass and let him go off to play Long John Silver if he wants, but she needs to stay on dry ground. Oh my dear friends, lovely people.

Others were extremely happy for us. They would tell us how great it would be to sit and watch the sun go down while sipping one of those drinks with a little umbrella in it. Those were the people that I migrated toward. That was how I saw it too. Little did I know that finding those little umbrellas was very difficult in the Caribbean.

Saying good-bye to all our friends did pull on the heart strings, but, most were truly excited for us. We knew that this chapter in our life would not last forever, that one day we would come home, but for now it was a part of life we needed to live. Each one of our friends would travel with us in their own way, maybe not physically but certainly in our hearts and minds. There would be many places along the way where we would reflect and comment on how we wished so-and-so could see this, or, gosh I wish they had a chance to be here.

You always take a little piece of living with you as each phase of your life evolves into the next. Our life was turning the page and entering a chapter where even the language would be strange to us.

Chapter 3

Are you ready? I asked Beverly as we started down the road toward Florida. I actually could not see her. We had liquidated everything we could when we sold the house and what little was left, things we thought we would need once we bought a boat, were packed tightly in our Ford Expedition. The boxes with our clothes and a few pots and pans were so tightly packed that they did not even rattle all the way to Florida. The problem was, however, I could not see out my rear view mirror nor could I look across at the passenger’s seat and even see my wife. We looked pretty much like the Clampets heading down the highway.

Every mile or two I would yell over the boxes and ask, Are you still in the truck? After my first few times of self amusement all I’d get was a grunt.

The first mistake I made on our new journey was in routing. For years we had traveled to Florida via US highway 65 through Arkansas. This time I was going to be cleaver and chose Interstate 40 to Memphis to put Arkansas behind us. As you know Interstate driving can be long and laborious. At some point we ran into construction and the highway department routed us through a small town in Alabama. As we meandered through the many turns that took us right downtown of a small burg we began to notice that there were a lot of vehicles with rebel flags plastered on the rear window of their trucks and usually a rifle or shotgun of some sorts displayed in the window.

Do we have enough gas? Beverly asked from the other side of the boxes.

Yeah, I have close to a half a tank. Why?

Just wanted to make sure we do not need to stop! She said.

Chapter 4

Before we started out on our little adventure people would ask us, Where in Florida are you going to go to find yourselves a boat? Normally my reply would be: Fort Lauderdale, because that is where all the boats are, Duh.

My plan was solid, but, what actually happened was much different. At a going-away party that our friends gave for us, a lady came up and said she and her husband were going to be in Sarasota, Florida, and we should come over there if we did not have any plans. She said they would introduce us to some friends of theirs and in that way we would know some people. I felt this was a good idea because one never knows when he might need to know someone to call to come and bail him out of jail or at least bring him a pie with a file in it. I’m not saying, I’m just saying.

Once we hit the Florida line I ask Bev if she thought we should go on to Fort Lauderdale or maybe head to Sarasota to meet our would be accomplices. Her reply was calculated and simple.

Which is closer? She asked.

Well, Sarasota is closer. I said.

Sarasota it is. My butt can’t take too much more of this riding.

If nothing else my wife is surely honest. To tell you the truth I was glad she chose Sarasota. My butt was going through the seat, too.

As luck would have it, as we made it to the gulf side of Florida and Sarasota. We began to notice boats over there, also. I guess Fort Lauderdale isn’t where all the boats are. Duh, me.

Chapter 5

Sarasota, Florida, is a great place. However, I would call first before I would go, if I were you.

We checked into a hotel and after stowing our bags we walked across the street to an outdoor bar to meet our friends for dinner and drinks. After dinner and a nice visit we decided that all that long driving had wiped us out. We said our good-byes to our friends and headed back to the hotel and straight to bed.

The next morning I got up and went to the bathroom. Seems rich seafood and my tummy were doing battle and the fish were definitely winning. Having had my seat for awhile there appeared to be a problem when I went to flush the toilet.

Nothing happened.

I, being the well educated man I am, tried to flush it again.

Still, nothing happened.

Well, try again.

Nothing!

I was still looking at last night’s dinner and it certainly didn’t look as appealing as it had the night before.

Try again.

Nothing!

They say that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Again, Nothing!

At this point I figured if I did not stop trying to flush the toilet great big men in white pajamas would come barging through the door, place me in a straight jacket, and carry me away.

I walked back into the room where my wife was just waking from a good night’s sleep and I heard her say, Coffee!

She stumbled out of bed and headed toward the bathroom.

I said, Um baby, I wouldn’t go in there.

Why not? She asked with sleepy eyes.

Well, someone during the night stole our toilet!

Right!

Really, I think someone must have. But baby, you really don’t want to see what they left us.

Steven, what is going on?

There are only two people in this world that call me Steven, my mother and my wife, and they both only do it when I’m in trouble. I explained to her that the water must be off and that I could not get the toilet to flush.

She said, Well, you can’t flush the toilet without any water.

I said, Exactly!

She said, Call someone! Where is my coffee?

I said, Ummmm. Okey-dokey.

I called down to the front desk first and sure enough the whole building did not have water. It seems that road construction was being done outside and the workers had hit the main. There was plenty of water in the street but none was coming into the building.

I asked the girl that answered the phone, How long have they said it will take to restore the water?

She told me she didn’t know but it appeared to her that it would take some time.

I said, Do you think they have water in St. Petersburg?

She said, Russia or Florida?

She was a smart one, that girl.

Beverly said we couldn’t stay there so I told her I’d start making some calls and try to find us a new hotel. I grabbed the phone book and found the number for the Holiday Inn on St. Pete Beach. The phone conversation went like this:

St. Pete Beach Holiday Inn may I help you?

Yes, hi. Um Miss? Do you have water?

Yes sir, we have several rooms that over look the water.

No, no you don’t understand. Do you have water?

Long pause

Uhhh Sir, do you mean running water?

Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Do you have running water?

Well, yes sir.

And is the running water inside the building?

Longer pause

Uh, yes sir.

Great, I’ll take a room.

I had to explain to the kind lady once we got to the hotel about the water thing. She just smiled, handed us a key, then watched us very closely as we went to our room. I was thinking that it might be a good time to have a pie with a file baked in it.

To this day I do not think the lady at the front desk believed me. Maybe it was our Clampet truck we had parked outside.

Chapter 6

For seven days we hung around the hotel lying on the beach, soaking up the warm Florida sun, and just being lazy, getting use to our new surroundings. Occasionally we would venture out looking at boats. We had decided that we would take our time looking and try to find the perfect boat. We did not know that the perfect boat has yet to be created.

During this period of time we moved into an apartment/condo for a few months. It was August in Florida and the heat was on. Also, this was a prime time for hurricanes. We experienced our very first baby hurricane while living in the condo. At first it was pretty cool staring out the big glass siding door, three stories up, and watching the wind and rain do their thing. After a couple hours of this it got every boring. 12 hours later I felt like those kids in The Cat–in-the-Hat stories. 24 hours later we could finally get outside to see what all had gone on. Like I said it was only a baby hurricane, a category 1, but palm tree limbs were everywhere. Florida is also a very flat state so the rainwater had no place to go. Water filled the streets and hung around for a couple of days before finally running into the sea.

We called our family to tell them we were fine, that the hurricane had only been a small one, and they should not be worried. They said, Oh? What hurricane? Your dad and I are fine. Oh, guess what! We have a new cat.

I thought that it might be better to not say anything in the future but one day the news was inundated about a guy that had jumped off his dock and was attacked by a shark. Immediately our phone started ringing.

You people are not taking this seriously enough! Don’t you know that those sharks are just waiting to eat you?

I said, Yeah, but that hurricane didn’t get us. How’s the cat?

My historical lesson was not appreciated. It took several hours of Bev explaining to them that we were still living on land and that we had not even been swimming before she finally got them to settle down.

These people live in tornado alley where one minute a clear blue sky can turn to gray and winds swirling near 200 miles per hour can wipe out all you own. Never living near a coast, a hurricane was no big deal. Now a shark on the other hand, well those guys were just out to kill all mankind! These people never