The Triangle and The Mountain: A Bermuda Triangle Adventure (2 page)

“This is the open ocean. It moves out here. Always, the way
it is supposed to. Have you brought your seasick pills or patches?”

“I forgot to bring some. I’ve never needed it before.”

“That is something you won’t do again,” he said.  “Let me
see if we still have any below.”

He rummaged in the yacht’s medicine cabinet and found some Dramamine
tablets, remembering that the last time it was in demand was shortly after
their departure from Cape Town. Then he opened the cabin door where he thought
she had quartered in. In fact, he found her things in three cabins. The first
one she seemed to have designated as storage for the large suitcases, the
second appeared to be a walk-in wardrobe with clothes draped all over and the
third appeared to be her sleeping cabin because that was where her personal
things were. In effect the two of them occupied every single living space
inside the yacht.  On the smallest suitcase he found a name. Madeleine. He
nodded. Yes, that could be it. On the other hand, perhaps it was a borrowed
suitcase? Anyway - it was worth a try.

When he came on deck the girl was still hanging over the
side.

“You must look up, Madeleine,” he said. “Keep your eyes on
the horizon.”

She did not protest to the name, but showed no sign that she
had heard him either. He went back into the galley, poured water into a
porcelain mug and put it and the pills next to the prostate figure. Then he
continued to enjoy the sensation of his pride and joy slicing through roller
after roller with the occasional spray coming on deck as she hit small
whitecaps. With all sails billowing, including the spinnaker, which was puffing
up spectacularly, they were touching nine knots. It was in his view just the
right speed for the perfect sailing conditions and actually very good
considering the boat was due for anti-fouling. He had forgotten what it was
like. It was a true pleasure being out on the open ocean again.

After a while Madeleine found enough strength to swallow the
pills. She leaned back and turned a colourless face toward him. He wondered
where she was going to ask him to drop her off.

“I don’t feel any better,” she said.

“It takes a while,” he said. “Give it a chance. You will know
it is working when you start feeling drowsy.”

“I still feel like throwing up.”

“Then go there to the middle of the boat. That is where it
moves the least. No, to the left. It’s better to be on the lee side so you have
less to clean up afterwards. As I said, try to sit up and look far away, to a
point on the horizon. Yes, clip yourself onto the jack-line there. No, don’t be
scared - the boat won’t tip over. Ah, something else.” He ducked down through
the companionway and returned a minute later. “We’ve used these wristbands
before. They have a magnetic charge and they’ve really helped us.” He strapped
the wristband on to the arm that she presented and felt he had done what he
could. Personally he believed the wristband was nothing but a placebo but some
of his previous crew had a firm belief in it.

When midday arrived he realised that he was hungry. “Would
you like something to eat?” he asked.

He got a shake of the head as an answer. He stepped down into
the galley and made himself two ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches. On this trip
they were going to have fresh food all the way. He filled a mug from the boat’s
coffeemaker and grabbed a can of Coke from the fridge.

“I brought you a Coke,” he said to Madeleine, once he
emerged. “It is said to help as well.” He scrambled over the slanting deck to
get it to her and then tucked into his sandwich. The afternoon dragged on and
he relaxed. Sailing is sometimes all about relaxing. You needed to do it well
when the opportunity presented itself. There were still no ships anywhere
close, apart from a set of sails to port that passed them in the opposite
direction. No need here to take evasive action. He felt tired. All the effort
of the day before, being up in the early hours and the climbing he had done
earlier had exhausted him. With the autopilot taking care of the steering
duties, he nodded off.

When he woke up, half an hour had passed. He was perfectly
ok with that. Clearly he was going to be up all night and for now he had a
lookout - of sorts. She was still sitting straight up, looking out over the
port side and had not asked him to change course to deposit her on one of the
islands that were still showing within her line of sight.

Just after four he refilled his coffee mug with the gourmet
mix that was specially made up for him and grabbed another sandwich for good
measure. Madeleine did not want anything but disappeared inside. “See you tomorrow,”
Grant said under his breath. The sun was touching the horizon when, however,
she reappeared.

“Why are there golden taps in the bathroom?”

“This yacht is top of the range. It’s supposed to have
everything that opens and shuts.” At last she noticed something positive.

“Is it all yours?”

“Yes.”

“The letters on that big sail in the front, are they your
initials?”

“On the spinnaker? Yes.”

“What does the ‘A’ stand for?”

“Anderson.”

“So it’s Grant Anderson?”

“That’s me.”

 “I saw you sleep this afternoon. Why,” she asked with a
voice that was still raw from throwing up, “do you have golden taps but no crew?”

“I told you I could not find any crew,” he said, irritated
that she asked the one question that he would rather avoid. “I had a crew from
Cape Town to St Martin. We arrived in May and I stayed on for the hurricane
season. I cannot expect people to wait six months in one spot. Most of the guys
were headed for the United States, so they flew on. Does it make sense?”

“I suppose. I’m just beginning to think it is strange that
you could not find anybody else.”

“Well, that’s just the way it was. Maybe they were scared
that the hurricane season is not over yet. It’s supposed to run to the end of
this month.”

“We don’t usually get hurricanes in November,” she said.

“That’s why we are underway,” he said. “And now I have to
take that spinnaker down. Don’t worry, I’ll manage.”

He was glad for the distraction, just in case she had more
questions along the same line. What he had told Madeleine was not entirely
true.

He had left Cape Town with five crew members, three of them
paid, including the skipper. He recruited John the skipper from the
Mediterranean where he had plied his trade for five years. In addition to the
Mediterranean he had done several trans-Atlantic trips and knew the Caribbean
quite well. He was qualified and experienced. Jimmy, who liked to refer to
himself as an able seaman, was close to the point where he could take on the
skipper role himself. Terence was another experienced crew who had served on an
Atlantic crossing before. He offered more than the industry average and all
three signed a year contract.

He flew John down to have a look at the boat while it was in
its final stages of construction. He spent an hour looking it over and had a long
discussions with the builder, who was also the designer.

“It’s amazing,” he said. “The last time I saw a glass yacht
with such a thick hull it was one from the nineteen sixties. Why glass?”

“Because I like the luxurious way in which it finishes. In
my opinion the most beautiful boats are all fibreglass.”

“Fine. It’s anyway probably as strong as you can build it. You’ve
gone for the traditional design with a full keel and I tend to agree. It won’t
be the easiest to move in a light wind but it will be a lot more stable in
rough weather. It is a cruiser and not a racer. I see you are going for a quite
a beamy design. It won’t really affect the speed and it means more space and
stability. I don’t see a problem there either.”

“As you will see,” said Grant,” ”this is my floating office.
I need a bit of room. As far as the weight is concerned, we double-rig her so
we can push it if we have to. The main mast will be high and the mainsail a
good size, almost nine hundred square feet. This is the strongest and safest boat
this yard had ever produced. It will also be the most expensive but I have no
problems with that, as long as I get what I want.”

“I hear what you say,” said John, “but just remember the sea
is a hard mistress to please. Could I see what you have for non-return valves
in the through-hulls? A little thing like that can be the end of you.”

John came back for the trials. Even he with all his
experience was a little taken aback by the ostentatiousness of the final
product, which showed in the plush finishes everywhere, the deep carpets that
almost deadened the sound of the sea, the artfully recessed lights, the gourmet
galley in stainless steel, the golden taps. The list went on and on. But he was
pleased that Grant had not spared a dime in the electronics department either.
They had the best and the latest in navigation equipment, integrated autopilot,
radar, echo sounder, VHF and SSB radio, a permanent satellite communications
uplink for the computers in Grant’s office as well as a separate satellite phone
that sat on his desk. The office was a cross between a grand stateroom with a
maritime feel, decorated in old-time luxury, with mahogany veneers on the walls
and a solid cherry wood desk, rounded off with seascapes on the bulkheads – and
ultra-modern functionality. The owner obviously did not want it to be topped by
anything that could be found in the office blocks that towered over the yacht
basin from the Cape Town foreshore.  

During the trials John experimented with different combinations
of sail. “I think she close-hauls rather nicely,” he said as they tacked back
and forth against a stiff South-Easter. “Let’s see how she runs before the wind.”
They entered into the channel between Robben Island and the mainland and put up
the large spinnaker for the first time. The yacht logged ten to eleven knots
after just a few minutes. Before long they had tried all the sail combinations
for heavy weather, light airs and every conceivable situation in between. Their
highest speed over the ground was a full twelve knots one day when the South
Easter was gusting almost gale force.

“It’s actually very good for such a heavy cruiser,” was the
skipper’s opinion, “and she shows she’s got balance. Didn’t ship much more than
a cupful.”

After every trip John manually inspected the water collected
in the bilges for which he kept the pumps disconnected. “It may look stupid to
do this on a new boat,” he said, “but it is the most important test. It does
not matter how grand the boat is. It’s got to keep the water out.” He
eventually declared her ready for the Atlantic. 

Grant hung on grimly through all of John’s shakedowns in
Table Bay, being seasick on more occasions than he cared for. “Do you have to
go so hard?” he asked more than once.

“Yes,” John said every time, “for your peace of mind and
mine.” Grant worked as hard as everybody else as a common deckhand. He was
working on his skipper’s license and he needed the exposure. It all changed
once they had set out on their cross-Atlantic trip. The two unpaid hands, Greg
and Darren, covered all the gaps that existed in the skipper’s roster. With all
the state-of-the-art equipment that Grant had had installed on deck, nobody was
overworked anyway. The crew settled down to the understanding that John was the
skipper but that there was also a boss and that their job was to keep his
mobile office afloat and generally headed toward Brazil and eventually to the
Caribbean. When the boss felt like fun and took a watch or helped work the
sails on occasion it was fully accepted and contributed to the relaxed
atmosphere on board. They all got on well with each other and the jokes flowed
freely, including the occasional practical ones.

Once they had arrived at St Martin the two unpaid deckhands
packed their bags and flew on to the United States. The paid ones stayed and
amused themselves with whatever both the Dutch and French halves of the island
offered.

Then they resigned. First John the skipper, who took a plane
back to Marseilles the very next day. A few days later Jimmy the Able Seaman
and Terence the Atlantic Veteran informed him that they were leaving as well.

“Are you going to the Mediterranean too?” he asked, suddenly
suspicious.

“No,” they said, “We found positions on another yacht here
on the island.”

“Which one?” He was rather annoyed, be honest.

“We’d rather not say.”

Buggers. How was that for neighbourliness? There were yacht
owners on this island who were shooting the breeze with him and slapped his
back at the barbeques but all the time they were using the opportunity to look
over his experienced crew.  

The story took a different course, however, several months
later. He was sitting in a restaurant for lunch slash breakfast with the lovely
of the day. The smartly dressed and perfectly groomed waiter who attended to
them turned out to be none other than Terence the Atlantic Specialist.

“Hi Grant,” he greeted rather formally.

“Hey Terence,” said Grant, once he had recovered from the
double-take. “What are you doing here? I thought you were full-time on another
deep-water cruiser.”

“It did not quite work out that way,” said Terence, still
with the waiter’s formality. “Can I get you guys some drinks so long?”

When he returned with the drinks Grant was ready for him. “If
you are here,” he said, “What happened to Jimmy?”

“Oh he’s here as well. He works the evening shift today.”

“I’m totally surprised,” said Grant. “For how long?”

“Jimmy is talking to somebody for both of us. We’ll get a
boat in a month.”

“Well, why don’t you come back to me? I don’t have
replacements yet.”

 “No thank you, Grant. Are you ready to order yet?”

It was after the main course that Terence spoke to him.
“Ahem, Grant, I am in two minds here, please understand me well, but there is
something that I think I should tell you.” He looked over at the girl, who got
the hint.