Float Plan - Trish Doller Page 0,79

“It lasts for three years and every six months or so, soak it in water to freshen up the scent.”

My last stop is at a meat vendor, where I buy some oxtail segments that I later cook with rice and beans and steamed cabbage. After dinner I try one of the sugar apples, separating the knobby skin into pieces. The white flesh is soft and sweet like custard, and each piece contains a seed. It’s a lot of work for such a little fruit, but it’s worth it. I wrap some of the seeds in a damp paper towel and stash them in a plastic baggie. Maybe I’ll gather some dirt and start growing my own tree.

On Sunday afternoon a group of cruisers from all over the world load coolers of beer into their dinghies and raft them together off the beach in front of Roger’s Barefoot Beach Bar, where a reggae band plays. I’m watching from the cockpit when a grandmotherly-looking white lady wearing a wide straw hat, corks dangling from the brim, motors past and shouts, “Come to the dinghy concert!”

I grab Queenie, a couple of bottles of Carib, and a bag of plantain chips, and join the party. I lash my dinghy to one belonging to a bald white guy in his late thirties. His dog, a shaggy reddish-black mutt, scrambles over the boats to meet Queenie before I’ve finished tying the knot.

“Sorry about that,” he says. “Gus is a friendly guy.”

“No problem. Queenie’s glad for the company.”

“I’m Dave.” He reaches across to shake my hand.

“Anna.”

“Where you from?”

“Technically Florida,” I say. “But I belong to that boat there.”

He laughs. “I like how you put it that way. So true. And get this … I belong to that boat over there.”

I follow the line of his finger to a smaller, battle-scarred version of my boat with the name Four Gulls painted on the transom.

“Yours is the only other Alberg I’ve seen since I left Florida.”

Dave explains that he spends most of his year in the Caribbean but works as a bartender back home in Cleveland every summer to feed his sailing habit. I tell him I ran away from home, and he laughs. After the dinghy concert, we give each other Alberg tours.

“Damn,” he says. “Yours is so much cleaner than mine.”

“Maybe. But I bet yours runs.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Pretty sure it’s the water pump,” I say. “The marine supply says they should be back in stock Tuesday or Wednesday.”

“There are worse fates than being stranded in paradise,” he says. “If you need a hand installing it, I’d be happy to help.”

Dave admires my pirate doodle and when he sees the Polaroid from the patchwork house, he asks if Keane is my old man. I pretend to shake and turn over a Magic 8-Ball. “Cannot predict now.”

He laughs. “Long distance can be a killer.”

We go from my boat to his, cutting a slalom course through the anchorage and doing doughnut circles in the empty spaces between boats. We’re laughing like little kids when an old guy comes out of his cabin to yell at us.

Four Gulls is crammed with stuff—power tools, extra sails, clothes everywhere, a broken fan clipped to the handrail—like a storage closet exploded. I have no idea how Dave fits himself and a dog in such a crowded space.

“I’d blame it on a rogue wave,” he says. “But yeah. It’s kind of a mess.”

Taped to his bulkhead is a picture of him with a pretty blonde.

“Long distance?” I ask.

“Yup.” He lifts a fist to bump and I tap my knuckles against his. “She’ll be down in a couple of weeks. I’m going to have to start cleaning soon.”

“You should probably throw everything overboard and start fresh.”

He laughs. “Or set fire to the whole boat and use the insurance money to buy a new one.”

Dave breaks out some Bud Light he brought from Ohio. We drink and play dominoes until sunset. He delivers me to my boat as anchor lights are going on all over the harbor. “Just like curfew,” he says. “Give me a holler when you get your water pump.”

I consider texting Keane as I crawl into my bed, but there doesn’t seem to be much point. Even if the fault lies with the satellites, I’ve stopped hoping for a reply.

Monday, Queenie and I take a minibus to Grand Etang National Park, where we go for a long hike in the rain forest. Tuesday, I jump off a ledge into the pool at the bottom of