Poppet is my Captain, now.
Leslie stands on the very point of my bow squinting at the catamaran a mile away. “I bet they invited him aboard for coffee or something.” She says. The catamaran's dinghy is hauled up on davits and it is blocking the view of the cockpit. She scans around the hull to see if she can see a paddleboard tied up next to it. “I don't see a paddleboard, though, Sonrisa.”
Harumph. My Captain has abandoned his vessel on the mere promise of tea and crumpets? He better not.
"I’m sure he's fine, Sonrisa.”
Leslie descends below and returns to her work conference call. An hour and 25 minutes elapses. She grabs the binoculars and scans the anchorage again, voices detailing the week’s firm management details in her ear. No Andrew. Poppet wakes up from her nap on the bow and looks with wide, inquisitive eyes at Leslie. Leslie gives her some pats and says “it's okay, little Kitten. He's around here somewhere.”
She sits down behind her conference call computer again and tries to focus. She fiddles with the WhatsApp app on her phone, looking to see if there is any update there. In instances of Missing-Captain-Past, he has had fellow sailors send WhatsApp messages detailing his whereabouts. Finding nothing, she steps over to the navigation station to undertake a more sailorly method of communication. She examines the charts with the AIS readings and can see the catamaran ahead is named S/V Freedom.
Hailing Captain Andrew?
She hails on the VHF: “S/V Freedom, S/V Freedom, S/V Freedom, this is sailing vessel Sonrisa, Sonrisa, Sonrisa.”
No response.
She tries again.
She tries a third time as is proper VHF protocol.
She steps back to her conference call and waits another ten minutes. Then, she hails three times again.
No response.
Obviously, their VHF just isn’t on.
A person running traffic control at the tiny airport hails back and asks if she needs help.
“I think I'm okay, I have a missing paddleboarder I am trying to find.” The airport controller says to call him back in 10 minutes if she doesn't find said paddleboarder.
At this point, Andrew has been gone about an hour and 50 minutes. Leslie returns to her call and considers just carrying on with her day, doing nothing, and assuming that all is fine.
“Leslie! I am missing my Captain!” I remind her, “and he said he’d be back in 40 minutes! Why wouldn't he come back when he said he would? The only answer must be incapacitation. He wouldn't leave me like this for any reason except incapacitation.”
“Sonrisa,” Leslie says, “he’s aboard Freedom having a chat. I’m 95% certain.”
“And, what if he’s not?” I knew this question would get Leslie a-stewin’. We all know the longer a missing person is missing, the less likely they are to be found in the wild. Leslie imagines him floating to sea while riding his paddleboard like Rose clung to her titanic door. Leslie can’t help but think about her colleague who just unexpectedly passed away of heart problem. She thinks of the months of misery wondering where Katherine Hepburn went, not knowing if she is alive but alone and miserable. She thinks about how difficult it would be to sail to the next inhabited port alone. “He's probably fine, but if he is not how can you live with herself if you sit here and finish this conference call?” I ask.
Resignation and resolve come over Leslie's face. She clicks her mute button off and explains our plight. Her team agrees she should jump off and they bid her good luck.
Search & Rescue
Leslie scans the downwind shoreline to see if she can see a board or an unconscious body washed up ashore. Thankfully none is found. She considers trying to unfold Grin by herself and set him up to do an anchorage search or maybe raise my anchor and just motor the mile forward to talk to SV Freedom directly. She hails SV Freedom one last time.
In response: “Sonrisa, Sonrisa, Sonrisa. This is Antelope II. We hear you’ve been hailing with no response. Can we be of assistance?”
Leslie suggests they move to a working channel and they go to 68. “Antelope II this is Sonrisa. I have a paddleboarder who has been gone for two hours, now, and I expected him back at 40 minutes. I suspect he is aboard S/V Freedom for a visit, and so I've been trying to hail them. I’m just trying to figure out when I need to start a more focused search.”
“Are you alone on board?”
“Yes, the paddleboarder is the Captain. I'm capbable of handling the boat by myself, but with our six foot+ draft I’m hesitant to try to wander around the anchroage without a forward lookout. We are on a weather stop and our dinghy is all lashed down on deck. I might start unfolding it and getting it ready to go."
“Confirmed. We are enroute from Turks & Caicos to Georgetown. We would be happy to divert and come to help you.” Divert and come help? That’s a nice offer, but it will take hours yet and he’d better be back by then! Before Leslie voices this thought, Antelope II clarifies “We are a 100ft. motor yacht, so our draft is pretty deep, too. But, we have nine crew aboard and a fast motor skiff, so we can enter the reef that way and help look.”
Oh good hell.
“That’s such a nice offer, but...” Leslie’s voice trails off as she does mental math on how long it is reasonable to sit and do nothing before launching a full scale international maritime search and rescue mission.
Antelope II cuts in. “It’s on our way, anyway. See you in about twenty minutes. Let us know if you find him. Standing by on 1-6.”
“Oh for F%^k sake.” Leslie says. The kittens eyes are wide from the bow bedroom now. Leslie marches back up on deck and yells Andrew’s name as loudly as she can in the direction of the catamaran. But the wind is blowing from that direction and the sound of her voice carries only two feet in front of my bow before it blows backward in her face. “Grr....” She says. "Sonrisa, how can I get his attention?....Ah-hah!”
Leslie returns below to rummage through her clothes until she finds a bright red sarong - a gift from friends in Kalimantan tens of thousands of miles ago. She carries it up on deck and knots it around the flag halyard. She hoists it skyward, and it appears to be a large red flag flowing from my rafters. “That’ll get him.” Leslie says. Poppet joins Leslie on the bow while Leslie peers through the binoculars and waits.
...
...
...is that?
Voluntarily Abandoned For Tea & Crumpets
Indeed, now there is movement on the catamaran. A human steps out on the hull furthest away from Sonrisa and fiddles with something over the side. Then, we see it! It’s Andrew and he’s pulling the paddleboard around from the hidden side of the catamaran.
A tiny little paddleboarder begins moving in our direction.
In the meantime, a large white yacht comes flying past the anchorage with a roostertail of water flying behind its stern.
Oh good. freaking. hell!
“Leslie, go hail Antelope II. This is embarrassing.” I say.
Leslie goes below.
“Antelope II, Antelope II, Antelope II, this is Sonrisa, Sonrisa, Sonrisa. We have located the missing paddleboarder. You can resume your course. Thank you so much for your support.”
Antelope II responds “Glad to hear you found him.”
Leslie hails the airport controller and confirms the same.
Then, she returns on deck to scowl at Andrew, arms akimbo, while he makes the “Paddle of Shame” back home.
As he arrives near my deck, neither she nor I say anything, but we just point in the direction of the skyward arch of the motoryacht’s roostertail.
“Oh no, you didn’t.” Andrew says.
“They heard me hailing S/V Freedom and because no one answered, they offered to help. You probably owe that guy $6,000 in fuel for diverting his course. What were you doing over there?” Leslie asks.
Yes! Extract a confession.
“They invited me aboard for tea!”
I cannot believe this. You abandoned your ship for tea and crumpets!
“Just tea, no crumpets.”
For Pete’s sake.
“I had them email you!” He said.
“Where?! We looked at the WhatsApp!” Leslie replied
“On the Oddgodfrey email!” He says.
“The Oddgodfrey email! That is your own email address!” Leslie waves her hands at the ridiculous propsect that Andrew emailed himself about his own whereabouts. I disagree with the whole concept of email communication at sea. Flags. VHF. Single Sideband. Carrier Pidgeon with wax sealed scroll. Message in a bottle. These are the only acceptable modes of communication! I’m so mad I can barely talk to him. Abandoning his ship for tea and crumpets. Humph.
We gather the Captain back aboard and ground him from any further flights of unattended tea-and-crumpet-fancy for the foreseeable future. Leslie finishes her work for the week, and we ready ourselves for the onward path to Georgetown.
Under The ComMand of a disloyal Captain
This leg is scheduled to be another 36 hours at sea, with beam reach winds from my starboard (right) side. It’s not a clean path, we will need to weave our way through some smaller islands and shallow reefs. Can I trust these two clowns to take me safely through? Or will they busy with their tea and crumpets?
“Oh Sonrisa, you can’t hold it against him for too long. I was here with you. Are you saying I couldn’t see us through?” Leslie asks from behind the helm as we motor through the shallow anchorage, weaving our way through bommies.
I pout. “A ship enjoys her first mate’s company, but expects undying loyalty from her Captian. And, I haven’t gotten so much as an apology!” Andrew says nothing. He just smiles his little smile and blinks. “Ohhhhh! Now I know why that is so enraging to you.”
Leslie laughs. “Get used to it, Sonrisa.”
We cast off to sea that evening, just before sundown and set my sails for the consistent, steady wind.
We have a dry night; lit by a mostly full moon;
somewhat annoying waves;
a fully uncontrite Captain;
and a reasonably well-behaved Ship’s Cat.
Sailing the Long Island coastline by moonlight
On the afternoon of the next day, Andrew sat on my cockpit combing while gently trimming my sail. “She’s so easy to sail. It’s like she just knows how to do it. We set her sails and she goes.” He says to Leslie, who is flopping back and forth across my cockpit deck as the waves throw her bean bag side-to-side.
“That she does, Captain. That, she does.” Leslie replies. I could hold my grudge, but then he pays a compliment like that. Okay, okay. He’s forgiven, but he’d better not pull a stunt like this again anytime soon!
At first light the second day, we make our way into Eastern Cut to approach Stocking Island. We motor along the Magenta Line passing what the Georgetown Facebook Group reports to be 400 cruising boats - all of whom are probably serving tea and crumpets.
Maybe I’ll see Andrew next month.
