Tropical Dream Nautical Nightmare

By Justin Maxwell

A group of friends escaping the cold Michigan winter for a vacation charter a boat for a warm weather cruise to the Florida Keys, a week of friendship and nautical fun. The three couples enjoy Mother Nature’s abundance and one another’s company until they cross paths with a couple of the sunshine state’s more shady characters and their tropical dream turns into a nautical nightmare.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AbsolutelyAmazingEbooks.com
• Release date: Jun 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310325311

Book preview

Chapter 1

Sunrise Shores Marina - Lake Huron

"Hey Brian, bring some more sweet vermouth if you have any," Russ yelled as Brian walked towards his boat. Brian half-heartedly raised his left hand waving in agreement without looking back.

"I don’t think Manhattan Mania was a good party theme for this group," Lynda said to nobody in particular, as she watched some of the men and women of the Bluewater Yacht Club, BYC, also known as Boozers Yacht Club, gathered around the dock storage box by Russ’s boat.

A plastic tablecloth covering the dock box flapping in the lake breeze held down by several bottles of whisky, sweet vermouth, small bottles of bitters and grenadine, jars of cherries, a stack of red Solo cups, two bottles of dry vermouth and a cooler of ice cubes.

The two bottles of dry vermouth bought by Lynda, the non-drinker of the bunch, would be consumed later in the night, the group decided, as Whisky Martinis.

Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, Bush Mills, Southern Comfort, and numerous other bottles, their caramel colored liquid at varying levels in proportion to the fondness of those consuming, sat on the dock box.

Why do we start these drinking parties at noon? Lynda wondered to herself. People are loaded by 2:00 and most the guys are passed out by 4:00. But on a good note the parties tend to end early, she thought to herself.

Hey, you started without us! Ken’s deep baritone voice bellowed from a hundred yards away.

Heads turned, glasses were raised in a mock toast towards the perpetually late Ken and Amanda.

Sarah, the youngest of the Club, yelled, Whoo Hoo! a glass held high as she wiggled seductively, her shoulder length raven black hair and her ample bosom swaying side to side, barely contained in her purple halter top. Some of the guys were noticeably more interested in watching Sarah than looking down the dock towards Ken and Amanda.

Ken, a retired Detroit policeman, wore a red ball cap imprinted with a cartoon worm dangling from an oversized fishing hook with the words, Bite Me!, and an equally tacky tee shirt, covering only a portion of his large midriff, with a multi colored cartoon fish and lettering that boldly states, Fish Fear Me!

Ken and Amanda walked up to the party on C Dock, although with Amanda it was less of a walk and more of a waddle, a combination of carrying many more pounds than her body was designed for and a knee in need of replacement.

Ken, always the loudest at any event, yelled, My two best friends are here; Jim and Jack! as he picked up and hugged two bottles from the makeshift bar.

Last month you said your best friend was José, someone said over the laughter.

A female voice yelled out, You’re fickle!

No, Pete added. He’s pickled! Laughter ensued.

Lynda thought back to last month’s BYC Tequila Sunrise party. It’s a wonder these people still have functioning livers, you would think they would learn, but the entertainment committee keeps coming up with events like the BYC Beer Bash, and the notorious BYC Gin Jamboree.

Lynda, the resident teetotaler of the bunch and a keen observer of the club, watched the participants of this week’s excuse to consume large amounts of alcohol, Manhattan Mania. She noticed the volume and friendly insults increased directly proportionate to the decrease of the levels in the whisky bottles. The jokes became more risqué and the cursing increased both in volume and intensity, F-bombs frequently exploding in conversations.

As the day’s heat turned to cool lake breezes, tee shirts and halter-tops gave way to sweatshirts and jackets. Some of the more sober of the bunch, at Lynda’s suggestion, decided driving to the Sandbar Bar and Grill for dinner was not a wise move. The group was far too Happy to drive to dinner, and delivery from Bert’s Pizzeria was ordered.

I missed the sunset, Amanda whined as she walked back to the dock party from the marina bathrooms; her waddle combined with a bit of a stagger, from more than her share of Manhattans, became more of a staggle, as Ken referred to it.

The tiki lights hanging around the "Daily Grind, Larry Daily’s 28-foot Chris Craft shimmered off the quiet water of the marina as Manhattan Mania" wound down.

Some of the local BYC members were leaving for their homes and some others to their boats to sleep off the effects multiple Manhattans can have on one’s body. But the party die-hards slumped in canvas bag chairs on the dock sipping their Whisky Martinis from red plastic cups, the ladies covered in blankets fighting off the night’s chill. When the sun goes down and the breeze blows in from Lake Huron, it gets cool on the docks.

Brian walked down the dock from his boat with jackets for he and Dani; matching blue windbreakers embroidered with a likeness of their Grand Banks 36 and the boat’s name, "Bahama Breeze" in script below.

The boat was named after the memory of the romantic night they spent on a nearly deserted Bahamian beach making love under a beach towel as an ocean breeze gently blew. They were much younger and much more adventurous then.

The party had slowed to the same few couples that always seemed to end up together. They called themselves "The Group."

"The Group sat on C" Dock in hooded sweatshirts, jackets, and wrapped in blankets, the evening temperature dropping to an unseasonable 61 degrees. The conversation amongst them dwelled on how cool the summer had been.

Chapter 2

A secluded beach near La Teja, Cuba

When he was just seven years old, Gilbert Jean-Baptiste and his family, natives of Haiti, risked their lives sailing in a small leaky boat from Haiti to Cuba looking for a better life. Finding that opportunities in Cuba were not much better, Gilbert longed to go to the United States. He heard people talk about friends and relatives who had gone to America, how life was so much easier. It seemed everyone knew someone who had gone to the States and was living in the lap of luxury, a good paying job, owning a house, driving new cars, eating at restaurants; all things not readily available in Cuba.

Since he had been convicted of several crimes and served time in a youth jail, Gilbert was not eligible for one of the few visas the United States grants to Cuban Nationals. He would have to take a less than legal path to the prosperity lying less than one hundred miles across the Florida Straits.

It took several years, but he earned and stole enough money to pay for transportation for himself to the land of plenty… to the United States of America.

One moonless evening, twenty-year-old Gilbert and over thirty others met a boat on a desolate beach east of Havana near La Teja, Cuba. They waded through waist deep water to a 36-foot offshore speedboat with a dark blue hull. The reflective silver letters on the sides reading Scarab and the Florida registration number had been covered with black spray paint.

Several five-gallon red plastic gas cans were being hoisted aboard and poured into the boat’s 400-gallon tank. The conditions on the Straits of Florida that night were rough and the captain knew the trip would require additional fuel.

Gilbert followed the line of refugees wading through the warm water to the boat, a black garbage bag containing all his worldly belongings held on top of his head and an envelope clenched between his teeth.

He climbed up the stern ladder next to the three Mercury outboard engines, 300 horsepower each. A young American man took the envelope from his teeth, opened it, counted the money it held and motioned with a sideward jerk of his head for Gilbert to go forward.

The procession of people and fuel continued for nearly a half hour. Only muted voices broke the night’s silence.

Once all passengers were aboard, men, women and children, and the refueling was completed, the Captain quietly called for everyone’s attention, the young crewman repeating the captain in Spanish.

When we get close to the American side… the captain paused for translation, you must be very quiet. He paused. The Coast Guard has equipment; they can hear people talking miles away. Pause. We will get as close to shore as we can, then I will tell you when to jump. The crewman translated. You need to get to dry land as fast as you can. If you are caught in the water they send you back!

The captain referred to the Cuban Adjustment act that allowed those who fled Cuba and were able to reach American soil would be allowed to temporarily remain and be able to seek permanent residence a year later. However, if a Cuban National was caught in the waters between the two nations, even in a couple of inches at the beach they would be sent back; it has become known as the Wet Foot/ Dry Foot policy.

The gas cans were emptied, thrown off the boat and bobbed on the surface as the three powerful engines one at a time came to life.

The open center counsel boat, with a crew of two and 34 passengers, far exceeded the capacity of the boat, but that was the least of the captain’s worries; the boat had been stolen from an ocean side canal on Key Largo, he was smuggling 34 illegal immigrants into the United States, and he was a convicted felon carrying a loaded pistol, he didn’t worry about exceeding the passenger limitation of the boat or the fact that there were not enough lifejackets for each passenger.

The boat, at idle speed cleared the shallow waters of the small remote cove, a check of the radar showed no Cuban gunboats in the vicinity, the captain lowered the throttle and the boat’s bow rose up like an unbridled stallion. The passengers, including men, women and children, were not prepared for the boat’s sudden lunge skyward as it accelerated and several of the passengers rolled and tumbled astern. A small girl with long black hair, perhaps seven or eight years old, sitting on the floor between her father’s knees slid aft along with her father’s dirty yellow canvas bag.

Gilbert watched as the man frantically reached for his bag getting a secure grip on it then he reached for his daughter and pulled them both back to him. Gilbert, sitting on a cushioned seat, clenching his black plastic garbage bag with one hand and a white-knuckle grip on the railing with the other, wondered what was in the dirty yellow bag that the man retrieved first, what was it that he thought more valuable than his daughter?

The Scarab was going close to fifty miles per hour when they hit the open water of the Straits of Florida; a little less than 100 miles of water separated the poverty and squalor of Cuba and the million dollar homes lining the beaches of the Florida Keys.

The captain preferred to cross the Straits near the upper Keys, his theory being there was more smuggling towards Key West and thus more of an Immigration Customs Enforcement Service and Coast Guard presence, and that Fat Albert blimp thing with all of its electronic surveillance equipment. So he chose the more northern crossing. He reasoned it was further but safer.

The stolen Scarab repeatedly climbed the waves, flew over the crest and slammed back to the surface, cool salt spray drenching everyone onboard except the captain and crewman who were protected behind the small windshield and the Bimini canvas top of the center council boat.

Screams and crying could be heard as the passengers were lifted from their seats or the deck and slammed back down with the motion of the boat cresting the waves. Among the screams could be heard the retching of those losing the contents of their stomachs. Traveling at nearly 50 miles per hour did little to eliminate the odor of vomit. People lost their grip and fell to the deck, some tumbled the length of the boat in the mixture of seawater and puke, only stopping when they collided with other passengers or the transom.

Gilbert watched the man sitting across from him. The man’s daughter sat on the deck between his legs, a tight grip on her jacket hood and his other hand with a death grip on the dirty yellow canvas bag.

The Scarab raced across the Straits of Florida in total darkness except the faint lights of the navigational instruments. The most important at the moment was the radar on which the captain kept watch for any vessels in the area that would require avoidance. They were approaching the territorial waters of the United States and stealth was of the utmost importance.

No vessels were sighted on the radar and the captain kept the boat pounding across the sea in the moonless dark of night. Passengers cried, vomited, screamed, clutched crucifixes, prayed, and fingered rosary beads as ocean spray drenched them.

There’s Alligator! the crewman yelled to the captain over the roar of the engines and cries of the passengers as he located Alligator Reef Light off their starboard bow, still some 19 miles off.

The light, established in 1873, was named after the U.S. Navy schooner Alligator that went aground on the reef. The ship was part of the Navy’s anti-Piracy squadron located in Key West.

The iron pile skeleton light structure is located four nautical miles off the Matecumbe Keys near Indian Key. The light with a distinctive flash characteristic of white and red rises 136 feet above the water and has survived over a century of storms and hurricanes, and seen ship traffic from pirates to wreckers, to fishing and sponge boats to shrimpers, to cargo ships and huge cruise ships.

The engines were throttled back, the next ten miles provided a less rough ride for the passengers, yet they were dripping wet and many shivered uncontrollably in the night’s cool air.

The captain watched as the lights of the million dollar houses of Sunset Drive came into view. He throttled back again until the boat was barely moving. Looking through night vision binoculars he searched for the heat signature of authorities who sometimes patrolled the beaches waiting for a boat to make a delivery. Only seeing a man and woman on the beach walking what looked to be a cat on a leash, he kept the boat heading forward. The next four to six miles would be at a dead crawl.

No talking! the young crewman speaking in Spanish said in a hushed tone.

The passengers watched as the boat slowly approached the beach, their hopes and dreams about to be realized, the throttles were pulled back and engines slammed into neutral. Jump! the captain told the passengers in a hurried but hushed voice. This is as close as we can get. Jump!

The passengers quickly rose on wobbly legs, excited to start their new life in America and began jumping over the sides of the Scarab. The first to jump found the water deeper than anticipated, some began swimming towards shore, others sunk below the surface, came to the surface thrashing, sputtering and choking on the saltwater seeping into their lungs.

The immigrants remaining on the boat watched frozen in horror as fellow passengers in the mad dash to the land of plenty drowned before their eyes, many refused to jump. The captain pulled the pistol from his waistband and the crewman began swinging a club at those not jumping.

Gilbert watched the man tightly grip his dirty yellow bag and jump in. Once he surfaced he called for his daughter to jump.

Gilbert threw his garbage bag over the side and leaped in after it.

The young girl jumped into the black water and surfaced shaking her head side to side, wiping her black hair from her eyes and spitting out a mouthful of water.

Looking around the girl located her father and began swimming towards him. His head slipped below the surface but came back up struggling to take a breath and stay at the surface, he again slipped below the water.

Gilbert surfaced, found his bag and began swimming to shore.

The young raven-haired Cuban girl was treading water, her head swinging side-to-side searching for her father and crying out Padre, Padre! Her father never surfaced again.

Another man, seeing the girl’s distress, grabbed her jacket and against her protests began pulling her toward shore.

The man and the hysterically screaming girl walked out of the water onto the beach near the highway, onto the dry land that brought with it a new life.

Ocean side flood lights of the million dollar homes lining the beach began to come on, 911 received several calls and residents, some armed with automatic weapons took up defensive positions on their decks.

The Scarab had brought 34 souls to America, yet only 28 lived to reach the shore. The boat would later be found washed up on a beach stripped of its electronics and anything else of value.

As blue and red flashing lights of the Border Patrol, Monroe County Sheriff’s Department and the searchlight of a Coast Guard boat from Station Islamorada lit up the scene and dead bodies were pulled from the surf, Gilbert was hiding in a large group of bushes quietly opening a dirty yellow canvas bag.

Chapter 3

Sunrise Shores Marina, Lake Huron

Another summer weekend found the members of the BYC fishing, sailing, skiing, cruising, tubing, diving on area shipwrecks and many just enjoying their boat at the dock.

The lake provided a breeze to offset the day’s unusually warm temperature. Some ladies of the group sat in the C dock canvas chairs relaxing while their husbands, sailed, dove, fished, washed their boats or sat around talking boat talk usually with a beer in their hand.

I think we need to come up with some BYC events that aren’t centered on alcohol, Lynda said. Remember Spam-o-Rama of a couple years ago? That was fun; everyone seemed to have a good time.

The challenge for the BYC Spam-O-Rama event was for each member to bring a dish made with Spam. The day started with Bloody Mary’s, Mimosas, Spam breakfast enchiladas, a Spam breakfast casserole, fried Spam, and three egg Spam omelets cooked to order on a dock box.

Lunch consisted of Spam burger sliders, Lynda’s famous baked beans with the addition of chunks of Spam, Spam taco’s and Russ’s deep fried bacon wrapped Spam chunks speared with toothpicks which became known as Cholesterol on a Stick.

For dinner, appetizers consisted of grilled Spam bites and bite sized Spam meat balls followed by entrees including a Spam and Cheese Calzone, a three inch thick Spam meat loaf, Cantonese Sweet and Sour Spam served over brown rice, and a Broccoli and Spam Soufflé.

The ladies, sipping assorted drinks, agreed that Spam-O-Rama was a good time and agreed to look into more fun and less drinking events for the club. Not that there wouldn’t be drinks at the events.

As Saturday slipped towards the afternoon boats returned to the marina and the setting sun gave way to a full moon, people gravitated to the Club’s canvas chairs lining C Dock.

Plates of snacks; assorted cheeses, slices of meat, dill and sweet pickles, bags of Sweet BBQ, Cheddar, Sour Cream and plain potato chips, a bowl of green olives, and a bag of pistachio nuts sat on a dock box.

Brian and Pete walked down the dock to join Sarah, Molly, Dani, Lynda and others who were discussing the idea of having a full moon party next season when out of the blue and completely un-related to the topic, Pete said, I wanna go to the Caribbean.

Conversation stopped, heads turned towards Pete.

What? Brian asked.

I wanna go to the Caribbean, Pete repeated. "I was reading an article today in Power & Sail Boating magazine about chartering a boat and exploring the islands in the Caribbean. And I wanna do it."

I have a friend who a few years back chartered a boat in the islands, Larry said. In fact I think a bunch of them from their club rented a few boats and went together.

Brian found the blue soft-sided cooler at his feet full of empty brown bottles, bottle caps and residue of ice. Pete noticed Brian’s dilemma, handed him a beer, not a word exchanged, the conversation not interrupted. Friends take care of friends.

We should do that! Dani said. That would be fun!

Sure, the original Bahama Mamma would love it, Lynda, the only sober one on the dock, probably in the entire marina, playfully said. But aren’t there boat hi-jackers down there or pirates or something like that? Lynda continued. I heard that these guys in fast boats prey on chartered boats rob everyone and… and… Lynda hesitated, … rape the women.

Naw, that shit happens over by Africa, not in the Caribbean, Pete said.

Yeah, Ken said grabbing another fistful of pistachios. It’s the drug smugglers ya gotta worry about in the Caribbean. They won’t strip your boat or rape ya, they’ll just take the boat and throw ya to the sharks.

Russ smiled at his wife and said, Maybe if you’re lucky the bad guys will rape you first before they toss ya overboard.

Russ! Lynda scolded her husband in disgust. Don’t be so crude.

Hey, if ya gotta go, ya might as well go with a smile on your face, Pete said, winking at Lynda.

Good night everyone, Dani said slowly rising a bit unsteadily and pouring the rest of her gin and cranberry juice down her throat, something she knew she would regret in the morning. "Bloody Mary’s on Bahama Breeze in the morning," she announced.

But not before 10:00 am!