Float Plan - Trish Doller Page 0,75
proud. Keane too. But most important, I am proud of myself.
* * *
The first St. Vincent boat boy, Norman, is lurking offshore in a little pink skiff as I lower the sail and motor toward Wallilabou Bay. He hails me on the radio, offering his assistance with mooring, and I radio back that I will take care of it myself. Undeterred, Norman runs up alongside the Alberg, insisting he can help.
“Throw me a line,” he shouts. “I will take you to a mooring ball for just twenty EC.”
“No, thank you.” I try to keep my tone pleasant yet firm. Twenty Eastern Caribbean dollars is about $7.50. It’s not an unreasonable amount, but I don’t need help. Except Norman won’t go away.
Another hail comes over the VHF, another boat boy, Justice, offering a guided tour of Wallilabou and the sites where some of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies were filmed. “After I help you moor, I can take you there.”
“I am not interested, thank you,” I respond, but he also comes out to meet me. They remind me of remora fish that swim with sharks, waiting for the flotsam that falls from the sharks’ mouths, but I don’t feel like the fearless predator in this scenario. Especially when Norman and Justice begin arguing with each other, their accents incomprehensibly thick and their boats drifting too close to mine.
A third skiff approaches, and a fourth, and they all clamor over one another to get my business, asking me to throw out a line, asking me to buy things, and peeking into my boat in a way that makes me incredibly uncomfortable. Norman grabs my lifeline, staking his claim over the others.
“Please take your hands off my boat.” My voice gets lost amid their arguing. I reach into the cockpit locker and take out the flare gun. Load it. Climb up on the cabin top and scream, “I don’t want a fucking mooring ball!”
The men go silent, their eyes round.
“I don’t want a tour. I don’t want a necklace.” My voice is as big as I can make it, and I point the flare gun at the bilge of Norman’s skiff. I would never fire it, but as long as he thinks I will, I have the upper hand. “I want you to take your hands off my boat and go away.”
He pulls his arms up in a sign of surrender and makes an I wasn’t doing anything wrong face at the others. These men are only trying to support themselves and their families, but their aggression is too much.
“All of you. Get the fuck away from me.”
They mutter to one another as they leave. Look back over their shoulders as if they expect me to beg their return. Call me a crazy white bitch. My hands shake as I climb back down into the cockpit, turn the boat around, and motor away from Wallilabou Bay.
My eyelids are heavy with exhaustion—so tired, I could cry—but it’s only four or five more hours to Bequia, the next island in the Grenadines chain. A hysterical laugh escapes me when I realize five more hours at sea no longer fazes me. I hug the coast of St. Vincent until I am calm enough to raise my jury-rigged sail and kill the engine.
* * *
The water in Admiralty Bay is so green and clear that I can see my anchor buried in the sand at the bottom. I dive in from the stern rail and Queenie splashes down beside me, dog-paddling in circles around me as I float on my back under the sun. My belly is filled with pancakes, and in the cool water, St. Vincent washes off me like sweat. We take a long nap in the hammock, go ashore to check in at customs, and stroll the Belmont Walkway, a narrow strip of pavement that runs along the seawall. We eat lionfish pizza at a little blue hut. And stop at Daffodil Marine Services to drop off my dirty laundry and hire someone to fix my halyard. Daffodil—a self-made businesswoman who raised her boat boy game to a marine service empire—guarantees both will be done by tomorrow morning.
Back on the boat, I doodle a sketch of me and my dog as pirate queens—Queenie with an eye patch, and me with crossed cutlasses behind my head—and write State of Grace O’Malley beneath. Long stretches of time pass without me saying a word. I sit with myself and am satisfied in my soul. Even missing