Dawson's Web (8 page)

Todd got on the boat first and helped Stephanie aboard. He offered his hand to John, as well, but being macho, John grabbed the rail instead and jumped down in the cockpit on his own. He didn’t need any help from somebody he wasn’t really sure was going to be his friend or sailing instructor for that matter. When he got into the cockpit, the first thing he noted was the boat had two wheels, each on opposite sides of the cockpit. “WFT,” he thought.

Todd was standing in the cockpit and started to point out the various parts of the boat as John got on. He didn’t catch John’s concern at first. He didn’t realize he was being interviewed for the sailing job he had signed on for with Mac, who told him just enough about the couple he would be teaching to make it attractive to him. He didn’t care. All he was there for was the money.

“Why are there two wheels?” John asked.

“It makes it easier to steer when the boat is under sail and when it heels or leans over to one side depending upon the wind direction.”

“Do you steer the boat like you do a car?” Stephanie chimed in.

“Well, sort of. But let’s take it off-line now and I’ll show you later. It’s too hard to explain here in the slip.”

Stephanie walked down into the cabin and saw the beautiful layout. The boat had teak and holly floors, which shined brilliantly. The intricate alternating planks of light and dark brown wood were laid in a pattern, which resembled that of a stretched out carpet of a zebra, which had been slain by a hunter on safari. The darker teak wood floorboards were two inches wide and were separated by half-inch lighter wood strips on each side. It gave the boat a warm richness, which was comforting.

It was pristine.

The floor set the stage. Your eyes were drawn to it and then to the stark white interior of the hull. The windows were covered in a similar zebra pattern as the floor. The top of the tables were black marble, trimmed in white. Everything was spotless, exactly as Stephanie liked.

She ran her finger along the upper part of one of the portals looking for dust. She found none. “You see, John, this is how you should keep your office in our house. It’s gorgeous.”

John scowled. “Here she goes again. She’s on the attack mode. I’d better bite my lip or I’m liable to throw her overboard in the harbor.”  He hated her when she was like this.

Todd continued and pointed to the Navigation table which had all of the electronics displayed above it.

“What’s this?” Stephanie asked pointing to the Multi-colored Ray Marine display, which Todd had turned on.

“It’s the navigation chart plotter. It’s what you use to set a course for the autopilot. It runs off GPS and has all the navigation maps in the world loaded into it memory. It’s very similar to a GPS unit in a car, except a GPS in a car doesn’t have the ocean charts in it. This thing does and it will keep you safe when you sail at night or under extreme weather conditions.”

“I’m not sailing anywhere at night. Not me. No way! The only sailing I’m going to be doing at night is slip-sailing.” Stephanie smiled, sidled over to Todd and grabbed his arm. He was cute in a rough sort of way. She wondered what it would be like to be with him.

“Seriously, though, with this unit,” Todd added, “you could sail around the world. It’s foolproof and simple to learn. I’ll get you up to speed on using it in no time.”

Todd adjusted the zoom on the chart plotter and instantly the detail of the coast came in. Punching the zoom a couple more times, it showed the actual outlines of the dock and Arachne’s position in the harbor.  A red X and a boat icon marked their location.

“You see,” he said pointing to the X. “This is us right here.”

“Let me try.”  Stephanie adjusted the zoom in and out and recognized the coast of California expanding and then contracting.  “Pretty cool.”

Todd continued. “Yes GPS has all but done away with celestial navigation.” The term was lost on Stephanie. Todd saw Stephanie roll her eyes. He was giving them far too much information for the first lesson, but he had already started down that path and had to continue.

“Well, back in the old days, before GPS. The sailors used to use a sextant to figure out their position on the sea by using the stars.”

John sat back and listened. He knew all about GPS and about stellar navigation. His dad, after all, was a pilot and had taught him about using a sextant when he was fifteen. John was curious if Todd’s explanation of navigating by the stars would be correct. He was still skeptical, but after Todd’s account had passed muster, John felt less concerned.

John spoke up. “Okay, we’ve got it. Let’s learn about the other electronics out on the ocean. We only have three more hours of daylight.”

“Not so fast, John. I want to see the inside of our stateroom again. We ordered that special silk top cover for the bed and the drapes. “Do you know if they put them in, Todd?” Stephanie asked walking to the aft and opening the master cabin door.

Before Todd could answer, Stephanie saw the queen size bed did have the special silk cover on it. It was aquamarine and had a pinstripe zigzag pattern. The throw pillows at the head of the bed were a soft crème color and accented the darker aquamarine blanket. The portals in the master cabin were covered with nine-inch drapes made of the same material as the throw pillows. There was a thin aquamarine stripe at the bottom of each drape, again matching the color combination of the bed. Stephanie had ordered the fabric and had the drapes custom made. On the side of the bed, there were two teak nightstands, which had Chinese porcelain and brass lamps bolted onto their tops so they wouldn’t move in rough seas. The light shades were crème-colored and had a similar aquamarine stripe as the curtains.

The stateroom screamed opulence!

Stephanie closed the door and peeked inside the adjoining guest cabin. Its double bed was covered by a rich burgundy velvet blanket, which matched the hull color. The throw pillows were crème color and the portals were covered in a fine rose-colored lace.

She closed the door and exclaimed. “This will work perfectly. I could see us spending a lot of time here. Even if I’m just bored and wanted to come down here during the week or on the weekends, this would be a great place to stay.”

Little did John know that she was looking at this boat from a completely different perspective than he was.

Todd chimed in. “The forward cabin is equally as nice, albeit a bit smaller than the aft cabins. You could easily sleep six people onboard. But if you had more than six, it might be a tad crowded.”

“We bought the boat because we wanted to get our marriage back on track. I doubt we will be using it to ferry people back and forth to Catalina, but it is good information to know, Todd. Thank you.” Stephanie said condescendingly.

John grimaced, and started to say something, but Stephanie interrupted. “Listen, John, you know that’s the reason we bought the boat.” Her tone was clipped.

It wasn’t his reason, but he let the comment pass. She could be such a bitch at times. (Bite your tongue, John. Bite your tongue.)

Todd started the engine and let it run while he untied the lines.  He did nothing with the sails, however.  This first lesson would be motor sailing only to let John and Stephanie get a feel for how the boat maneuvered.  Once the dock lines were free, Todd put the engine in gear and started to motor out towards the open ocean.

Stephanie and John were seated in the cockpit watching his every move trying to absorb as much as they could. After all, they were spending a couple of hundred bucks an hour for their lesson.

“Okay, what we’re going to do today is take the boat out under power with no sails to get you acquainted with how the boat turns. It’s similar to driving a car, but not exactly the same. There’s a delay time between when you turn the wheel to when the boat starts to respond. Watch.”

Todd turned the wheel hard to the left. Arachne kept on her course for two seconds, but when the rudder bit the ocean underneath, the bow started an easy turn to the left.

“Why does it do that?” Stephanie asked.

“It’s because……. (He paused. He didn’t want to get into a long discussion of how the boat worked. It would be lost on her anyway.) “I can’t explain it right now. Tust me, there’s a delay. You’ll get the hang of it once we’re out in the open ocean.”

Todd steered Arachne out along the breakwater in Redondo Beach and went past harbor entrance buoy, which is 50 yards from the end of the jetty. Two sea lions were laying on it, turned their heads and barked as they passed, and then continued their naps.

Todd turned back and pointed to the harbor entrance. “I’m not going to teach you navigation skills right now, but you see the red, white and the green buoys?”

Stephanie and John nodded.

“Just remember this saying,” Todd instructed. “Red. Right. Returning.”

“What the hell does that mean? John asked.

Todd repeated. “Red…Right…Returning!”

John answered. “Okay. Red…Right…Returning. But I still don’t understand.”

“It means when you are coming into the harbor, you want to have the red buoy on your right side. Think of it as lanes on a highway.  The white center buoy marks the center of the harbor. The red and green buoys are the lanes. When you are leaving the harbor, keep the white center buoy on your left and the green buoy on the right.  It keeps it simple and helps avoid collisions. It can get pretty crazy out here in the summer and it’s important to know the basics. It will save you a lot of grief.  And another thing, when we refer to directions on a boat, the right side of the boat is the starboard side. The left side of the boat is the port side. We use these terms because one of you may be standing on the deck facing to the rear of the boat and if you want your sailing partner to grab a line, you can’t just say grab the line on the right. It would get confusing, and that’s the last thing you want when you are sailing is to be confused about what to do. Sometimes, in rough seas, you have to move quickly to avoid trouble. So start thinking port and starboard from now on out. It will possibly save you trouble in the future.”

“Okay, we’ve got it.” John and Stephanie said in unison.

After passing the bell buoy, Todd turned the wheel to port and pointed the boat towards the end of Palos Verdes Peninsula. The seas were running calmly. There was only a slight two-foot wind swell.

John stared back at the seals sleeping on the buoy. Because of the calm seas, the bell on the buoy was chiming every four seconds. The several young seals lying on the buoy were sleeping, but others were trying to jump up and secure a spot out of the water to warm themselves in the sun. The sleeping seals, having the higher ground barked and tried to keep those in the water from getting up. Eventually, one large sea lion weighing nearly three hundred pounds jumped completely out of the water and pushed the smaller seals off. This was his buoy now. His bark almost said, “Outta my ways boys. It’s time for my nap.”

As they made their way a few hundred yards past the bell buoy, the waves increased and the Arachne began rocking back and forth. The bow was moving up and down and every now and again, a wave would actually go over the bow, washing down the deck.

“What’s happening, Todd?” Stephanie asked. She moved closer to him and grabbed a hold of his arm.

“This is the edge of Redondo Canyon. It’s a deep underwater valley that comes right up to the end of the breakwater. It’s hundreds of feet deep. The winds and the tide make this part of the harbor somewhat treacherous at times. It has to do with the way the waves come in. Sometimes this part of the harbor looks like a toilet bowl. The waves and swell converge and the water gets pushed around in several different directions at once. We have to plow right through it. Once we get past the rim of the underwater canyon, it will settle out.”

Seconds later it did.

Todd didn’t want to get into a lecture on oceanography associated with Redondo Harbor, but because he had been sailing in an out of it for over 40 years, he thought the short explanation would add to his credibility.

It did.

Once the waves settled down and Arachne was making way towards PV, he accelerated the engine. Arachne was now cruising at 7 knots and the afternoon sun finally burned off the marine layer. It was getting warm.

The day was idyllic.

Stephanie, who was previously dressed in a windbreaker, long pants, and sweater, took off her windbreaker and pulled off her sweater with it.

She was now in a hot pink bikini, which accentuated her ample cleavage and hourglass figure. Little was left to the imagination.

Todd, seeing this, couldn’t help but stare.

John noticed but ignored her. He was so done with her. He crafted a sly smile. He knew now Stephanie would be getting the attention she wanted and would leave him alone. It was his idea to have her put her bikini on under her clothes in case it warmed up. If she could only keep her mouth shut and not be such a bitch, he could almost see himself staying with her. “Nope. She was incapable of that. It wouldn’t happen, ever in a thousand years.” He reminded himself of all the times she had pointed out his flaws.

“Go ahead and stare, Todd. You have no idea what you are getting into. I do.”

Todd needed a drink.

“Here,” he said to Stephanie. “Grab the wheel. I’m going down into the cabin to use the head.”  While he was there in the bathroom, he pulled out the flask of vodka he had brought and had four healthy swigs.