Between Havana and The Deep Blue Sea

By Darrel Bird

A sailor sails to Cuba to rescue his missionary brother from a Cuban Prison, and he will stop at nothing to get it done, a storm at sea threatens the mission as he battles the elements and cruel men to return his God fearing brother back to his wife and home in St. Petersburg.

**Please review this book**

• Language: English
• Publisher: Darrel Bird
• Release date: May 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458016409

Darrel Bird

Darrel Bird has written and published 47 short stories. He attended Bakersfield college, and is an avid motorcyclist.

Book preview

Between Havana and the Deep Blue Sea

By

Darrel Bird

Copyright 2010 by Darrel Bird

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords License Statement

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Between Havana

And

The deep blue sea

Jim Grady walked hurriedly back and forth, hauling supplies from his old pickup to the dock on the Intracoastal Waterway, which snakes around St. Petersburg, Florida. He methodically loaded the supplies onto the deck of his 36-foot Morgan sailboat, Dancer. Most of it was water in gallon and liter jugs. When he made the last trip, he climbed on board the fiberglass boat and started stowing the supplies away. He had purchased enough supplies for a month. He had not had time to plan all that well, and he knew what he was preparing to do was about as insane as one can get, yet he knew he had to try.

After stowing the supplies, he made himself some hot tea and sat at the dinette, which served as a chart table. There was a fold-down chart table by the radio equipment, but it was not big enough to be comfortable. Jim sat, sipping his tea, and thought about the events that led up to this.

His older brother, Randy, was a missionary, and it looked to Jim like he would die a missionary. If Randy thought it was God leading him, he would walk through the gates of hell with a smile on his face. Jim was afraid he had done just that. Randy had felt the call to go to Cuba when half of Cuba was trying to get to Florida anyway they could.

They come in on inner tubes tied together, for Pete’s sake, Jim thought as he pondered his brother’s predicament. And in boats that take two to sail and six to pump the bilge, for crying out loud! with women layin’ in the holds, puking their guts out. And Randy just had to pick Cuba! Jim grumbled into his tea. "He could have gone to the pigmies in darkest Africa and been safer than Fidel Castro’s Cuba."

Randy had left his wife, Linda, at their home in Clearwater and sailed on a freighter from Tampa to Havana. Jim was off on a diving trip when Randy left, or he would have tried to talk him out of going. The trouble was that Randy saw everybody as innocent, and he had a heart for all people. Jim was different. His friends said he was hard as nails and mean as an alligator if he was riled.

Jim had heard through the Cuban grapevine in Tampa that Randy had been stuck in a prison near the northwest coast of Cuba. So he went down to Little Havana and found someone who could explain just where Randy was and what his chances were of getting out. According to the local Cubans, his chances were zero. They said the Cubans imprisoned him for subverting