Just Add Salt (2) (15 page)

“I’m mad at him.”

“
Het
-ta, call him. You know you want to. You call while I tie stuff down. Hurry up, Fabio’s probably gonna want to get going soon.”

Three tries later, I gave up and left a message with Jenks’s hotel, and on his cell: “I am in danger of being blown away by Russell, so you’d better call soon.”

Jan was giving me a ration over my stupid message to Jenks when Fabio and Chino finally emerged from the engine room, wiping grease from their hands and their grimy, grim faces.

“Stop!” I yelled, giving them a straight armed halt signal. “Don’t even think of coming in here until you clean up. We may live through this and I do not want grease on my rugs and furniture.” They dutifully set about wiping themselves down with the roll of paper towels I launched at them, but were giving me looks that said I was nuts and that a little grease was the least of my worries.

The men also made phone calls, Chino to his mother in La Paz, who was herself preparing for the storm in case it changed direction again, and Fabio to his wife. He spoke in rapid Spanish, but I gleaned that he was telling her not to worry, then his tone changed and I could tell he was talking to a child. When he hung up, I caught a glint of a tear before he put on a brave face.

“So, we are ready? Let us eat breakfast and I will explain what we must do. But first, one more look at the
tormenta
.”

Tormenta
, indeed. I brought up the NOAA site and nothing had changed, except Monika/Russell was closer. I decided to name the storm Mussell. I opened two large cans of clam chowder, heated garlic bread, made a salad. I know, it was still early, but it felt like we’d been up for hours. As we huddled around the dining table, I left the NOAA screen on, periodically hitting the refresh button, hoping for change. No such luck.

As he ate, Fabio, with input from Chino, told us what to expect during the next few hours. I was so intent on hearing above the caterwauling wind that I jumped when the phone rang.

“Hetta? Martinez. Where are you?”

“Still in Mag Bay.”

“Well, you need to get out of there.”

“No kidding. Too late. We’ve battened down the hatches and are headed for a safe place to ride ‘er out.”

A blast of wind heeled the boat and shook us like a dog with a bone. “Yikes,” I yelled.

“You okay?” Martinez asked.

“Fine. Honest. We’ll be tucked behind Isla Madgalena in no time. We’re just getting a lot of wind.” With a roar, we were suddenly engulfed in a wall of water. “Uh, and rain.”

“Hetta, I know this is a bad time, but I have a couple of pieces of news you need to know about. What they mean, I don’t know yet. Are you alone?”

“Nooo.”

“Then listen carefully and put on your poker face. First off, your Volkswagen has been involved in some kind of incident. It’s totaled and there’s a body involved. Not Pamela’s. She’s okay.”

“What! What happened?”

“Don’t know. Pamela called Wontrobski and he called me. He said he’d e-mail the details to you. But that’s not the big news.”

“Maybe to you. I loved that car. Dammit. What in the hell would you consider big news?”

“Fabio used to work for Tanu—”

The phone went dead, as did my computer screen. “Hello? Hello? Shit.” I glared at Jan, daring her to bill me. She didn’t seem to notice. If she heard that “shit,” the shock of hearing my end of the conversation must have short circuited her piggy bank penchant.

“What about your car? What happened?”

“An accident. Totaled. No details.”

“How about Pam?”

“She, unfortunately, is okay. Just kidding.”

“Oh, Hetta, I’m sorry. You’re white as a sheet.” She ran to get me a drink of water while Fabio patted my shoulder. I took a couple of gulps, trying to come to grips with the fact that my beloved VW was history, when Fabio reminded me that we had more immediate problems. He started the engines, told everyone to brace themselves. Normally, I’d drive the boat while Fabio raised anchor, but today Chino got deck duty.

After a harrowing few minutes getting the anchor up, then hanging on for dear life while Fabio first surfed the boat into the bay, then turned and bashed into steep waves, we finally found sanctuary behind Margarita Island on the south side of the entrance. Safely anchored in the lee of the island, all we could do was wait.

When the hurricane would hit, we now had no way of knowing, for our sat system crashed. Fabio went outside and reported the dome was intact, as were the wires leading inside. “Why did the
teléfono
and
computadora
stop?” he wanted to know.

“Clouds,” Chino said, trying to sound nonchalant, but failing.

“They have blocked out the satellite signal. I’m afraid we will be incommunicado for the next few hours.”

Fabio frowned, then grinned. “But not to worry, we have the
Bay-Ache-Ayefay
.”

"The what?”

Chino explained. “The VHF radio. You know, the
Bay-Ache-Ayefay
.”

“What good does that do us? Who we gonna call, storm busters?”

“Well,” Jan said from the stairs leading to the aft deck, “for one thing we can talk to that huge boat coming into the bay.”

We all headed up for a look. Stepping outside, even under the cover of the roof and side doors, was like trying to breathe underwater. The hammering assault of wind whipped the seawater and rain into a fine mist and swirled it into our eyes, noses and mouths. I peeked from between my fingers and sure enough, slowly surfing into the bay on huge rollers, was a gi-normous yacht. Trailing behind them was a boat the size of
Raymond Johnson
. Their dinghy, no doubt.

Rushing back inside, Jan got to the VHF mike first. “Big boat, big boat entering Magdelena Bay, come back to
Raymond Johnson
.”

Nothing.

“Big boat, big boat?”

Static. Then, just as Jan was putting down the mike, “
Raymond Johnson
, this is
Golden Odyssey
on sixteen,” a veddy British voice answered.

“Thank goodness,” Jan gushed. “I thought we were all alone out here.”

“How may we help you,
Raymond Johnson
?”

“Oh, you can call me Jan.”

Even above the wind and static I could hear background laughter when the man keyed his mike. In a soft voice, he replied, “How may we help you, Jan?”

Jan suddenly became flustered and swung around to face me. I don’t know what she expected of the
Golden Odyssey
, but I could see she was scared. “Well, uh, I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“May I assume that you are on the vessel anchored near the entrance?”

Suddenly shy, Jan thrust the mike into my hands.

“What?” I asked her.

“Just talk to them. Maybe they have a plan?”

“
We
have a plan. Oh, never mind.
Golden Odyssey
, this is Hetta Coffey. And yes, we are the boat near the entrance.”

“Do you have room for another?”

“You’re gonna bring that big bastard in here?” I blurted. Jan looked appalled, but Chino, Fabio and whoever was on the radio shared a good laugh.

“No, Miss Coffey. I thought we might send our fishing boat over your way. If there is room? It looks a little tight.”

“I’ll put on our captain.”

After a brief chat,
Golden Odyssey’s
Captain Abdulla who, judging from his accent, had attended Oxford, Cambridge or some other British bastion of proper English, agreed that it was safer for his fifty-foot sports fisher,
Odyssey’s Child
, to make a fast run into the mangroves at the north end of the bay. At twenty-five knots, he’d be there in a flash.

Golden Odyssey
, however, at two hundred and fifty feet and with her very deep draft, would just have to get as far to the south as possible, turn nose to the wind, drop the anchor and ride it out.

They, too, had lost satellite communications. We were all in the same boat, so to speak, but theirs looked better.

The port captain in San Carlos talked with all three boats, as well as a local shrimper, wished us all luck, and then shut down his office to move to safety. Chino told us that San Carlos was barely above sea level. The army had posted men in what tall buildings there were in town and the one navy vessel in port, just to the southeast of us, had decided to go out to sea, which I thought was a really bad idea.

“No, actually, it is good if one has a large, seaworthy vessel. Much safer,” Fabio told us. All vestiges of Ricky Ricardo were long gone. I meant to ask him about that later and about what Martinez almost told me before the phone went dead. If Fabio had indeed worked for Tanuki, which is the only thing I could figure Martinez was going to tell me when he got cut off at “tanu,” what did that mean? Hell, Fabio didn’t even know that I worked for Tanuki. Although Jan and I had decided to share all our information with the crew, we still hadn’t had time. Now, what with what Martinez said, maybe that was a good thing. We’d wait a while to have that little truth or dare session.

While I was mulling, Jan asked Fabio, “If it’s safer at sea, why doesn’t
Golden
Odyssey
go to sea? Lord knows she’s big enough.”

“I have wondered about this, as well. Perhaps the owner is on board and wished to be in the bay.”

That caught my attention. “The owner? Aha, now I know why those other delivery captains charge more if the owner is on board. Why didn’t you charge me more?”

He smiled. “I did.”

I smiled back. “You chort-changed yourself.”

“Would you two just stop it? What are we going to do now?” Jan squeaked above the roar of the storm.

“I suggest,
señorita
, that you put on your life jacket. The wind now comes from the southeast, but then the eye of the storm, it will pass over. All will be still. Maybe for thirty
minutos
. During that time, we must lift the anchor and move,
rapido
, to another anchorage with protection from the north, but not where we were today. It will not be a pleasant trip, I fear, for we will still have large waves coming in the entrance to the bay. We will surf on the waves and even after we anchor, the waves will continue to beat on us. Then, BA-BOOM! The wind will come from the north and flatten the seas behind us.”

“BA-BOOM? I don’t like the sound of that.” Neither did Jan and Chino, who bobbed their heads in unison.

“You will see. Now, I—” The radio crackled to life. “
Raymond Johnson
,
Golden Odyssey
on sixteen.” Fabio answered.

“Captain, could I please speak with the owner of your vessel?” an even more British accent asked.

Fabio unceremoniously tossed the mike at me, obviously miffed.

“This is Hetta Coffey.”

“Miss Coffey, I am Prince Faoud.” He pronounced it Faah-ooohd. “It would seem we are to share a storm. Is there anything at all we can do for you?”

“You could make the hurricane go away.”

He laughed softly. “I wish. No, not even I can do that, but if you need anything or if you become endangered, please rest assured that we will do everything in our power to assist. I have a full medical staff on board, as well as a small helicopter.”

“Could you fly over some Valium?”

A slight hesitation. “When this ordeal we face is over, I look forward to meeting you. It is not often I meet someone who can joke in the face of danger.”

“I wasn’t joking.”

He chuckled softly, obviously delighted with my keen wit. “We will be in radio contact if you do require assistance.”

“Uh, Prince Faoud, there is one thing.”

“Yes?”

“Could you keep an eye on my whale?”

“Of course,” he said carefully.

He was probably reassessing my sense of humor and beginning to question my sanity. I thought I’d best explain.

“I—”

Crack! The radio antenna hit the deck, bounced, and narrowly missing the front window before sailing away.

Chapter 20

After losing our VHF radio antenna, Fabio used our handheld, which has its own antenna, but a short range, to contact
Golden Odyssey
. They set up an hourly schedule. To the world outside of Magdalena Bay, though, we were incommunicado.

Or were we? I opened up a cabinet next to my office desk and stared at Jenks’s nifty little ham radio. With this thing, as he’d demonstrated on occasion, you could talk to the entire world. There was only one little problem: I had no earthly idea how to use the damned thing. I could almost hear Jenks chiding, “Hetta, how many times have I tried to show you how to tune up so if you have an emergency, you can get help?” I hate it when other people are so right.

I found the POWER button and pushed it in. Yippee! Lights, static and what sounded like oriental music. Thai? Chinese? One of those twangy things that sets round-eyes’ nerves on edge. I delved into the foggy memory bank where I stored subject matters that didn’t interest me. I could remember what color dress Jan wore to my twentieth birthday party, a turquoise silk number, but not what Jenks tried so hard to teach me about the damned radio.

When was the last time Jenks used the radio? Was he just farting around, talking to whomever, or was he on one of the nets he liked to listen to on a regular basis? The LED display read 7294.00, so I left it there, having no idea how to change frequencies, or even if I should.

I was rummaging around for an instruction manual of some kind when a voice boomed, scaring the crap out of me. “Is this frequency in use?”

There was a moment of silence. Then a woman, an angel in my book, said, “Here is November-Tango-Seven-Echo, Tucson. My name is Stephanie, and I will be your net control today. Before we get into the organizational session of the Chubasco Net, are there any emergencies out there?”

I grabbed the mike and barked, “Yes!”

I guess this was not the response she was expecting, for there was a long silence, then: “Uh, station with an emergency, please come back to Seven Echo.”

“Uh, this is
Raymond Johnson
.”

“Raymond, are you a licensed ham?”

Damn, Jenks had been pestering me to get that license for months.

“Uh, not exactly. My name is Hetta, the boat is
Raymond Johnson
.”

“Hetta, what is the nature of your emergency?”

“Well, I guess I really don’t have one. Yet. It’s just that we’re in Mag Bay, in Mexico, and a hurricane is gonna cream us in about an hour. I just wanted someone to know where we were.”

A couple of voices piped up, saying things like Papa and Kilo and Hotel. Stephanie told them to standby and came back to me. “Well, Hetta, that’s sure an emergency in my book.”

Another voice boomed in: “Oscar Alpha Hotel.”

“Go ahead, Brent,” Stephanie said.

“Thanks, Stef.
Raymond Johnson
, how copy Oscar Alpha Hotel?”

“I hear you, Oscar,” I answered. By now, Chino, Jan and Fabio were gathered around the table. All looked hopeful. We were not, after all, incommunicado to the outside world.

The rest of the conversation went like this: “
Raymond Johnson
, Oscar Alpha Hotel. My name is Brent. I am in Snowflake Arizona. Since you are not in an immediate life-threatening situation, why don’t you just stay on the radio, we’ll proceed with the net, and then we’ll leave this frequency open for the rest of the day, until we hear you are safe. O-ver?”

“Oh, yes. Thank you so much. Uh, over.”

“No problem. Tell you what, we have a station that will give a weather update in a few minutes, but I’ll get on the NOAA site and give you the latest on Russell.”

“Believe me, I’ll be here. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“That’s what we’re here for. Seven-Echo, back to you. Go ahead and open the net and I’ll be back in a few.”

“Roger.
Raymond Johnson
, how copy Seven-Echo?”

“Very loud. And clear.”

“How are your batteries?”

I looked at Fabio and he gave me a thumbs-up. “Good. Our batteries are fine.”

“Okay, then I’ll open the net and while I do, please get the following information ready for me. Your full name and that of all others on board, ages, your coordinates, the size and description of your vessel, identification numbers, registry. Okay?”

“You want my real age?”

She laughed, said, “Within reason,” and then went ahead with what was probably a regular routine. People checked in as “relays” and had call signs with XE2 or XE1 in front of them. I soon figured out that these people were in Mexico and were as worried about the hurricane as we were. Others checked in as “two-ways” with the capability to make phone patches, actually make it possible for those in Mexico without Internet or cell service to talk with someone back home. No wonder Jenks had pushed me to get my license.

As we listened to the net, the wind picked up again. I looked out into what I can only describe as a whiteout. The only other time I’d seen anything like this was when I was on a project in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. We could no longer see
Golden Odyssey
or, for that matter, the bow of
Raymond Johnson
.

Rain, which had been falling in roof-rattling sheets, now became hail. I looked at the boat’s broad expanse of windows and worried. I’d seen hail in Texas that could easily bust out windows. I’d wanted to leave the canvas covers on, but Fabio said they would just blow away. I knew now that he was right, but boy, what I would give for some plywood, anything, between us and that storm. Fabio followed my gaze, gave me the Mexican shrug. What will be, will be.

The Cubasco Net was abuzz with weather questions, as all Mexican stations were worried. When Oscar Hotel came back on with the latest, it was ugly.

Russell would pass directly over us in an hour or so. “I guess the only good news for you, Hetta, is he’s moving so fast that within a few hours he’ll be long gone. For the rest of you in XE-land, there’s more bad news. Russell is projected to cross the Baja at right about Puerto Escondido and head for Guaymas. He’ll probably loose a little clout by the time he passes over the peninsula and hits Puerto Escondido, but he could still be packing eighty or ninety miles an hour. Then, when he hits the Sea of Cortez and all that nice warm water, he’ll probably pick up to full strength again and slam into Guaymas. Sooo, everyone in the central sea will be affected, and those of you at the marinas in San Carlos, Sonora, as well as Mag Bay, had best get ready for the worst blow in fifty years. Any questions?”

About twenty voices vied for airtime, talking over each other, causing a pileup of unintelligible call signs. Stephanie called a time out and took control of the melee and slowly, finally, one by one, all were heard, acknowledged, and their questions answered. I waited my turn, then asked Fabio’s question for Brent: "How big is the eye?

“Huge,” Brent told us. “One of the largest in the history of Baja storms. The weather channel was in direct contact with a navy plane flying into the eye and reporting a forty mile diameter.”

“Uh, thanks, I think.”

“Wish we had better news.”

“Hey, we’re just glad to get any news at all.”

As we listened with one ear, Fabio told us what we needed to do next.

“I am going to start one engine. There will be much sand and mud in the water. The seawater intake screens will begin to, uh,
obstruir
.”

“Clog,” Chino said.

“
Sí
, clog. They will quickly clog, so Chino and I will stay in the engine room. When you observe the
temperatura
on the engine rise, you will call me. Start the other engine, shut down the one that is running, and we will clean the filter. When the second engine begins to heat, do the same again. You understand?”

Once again, although he used a lot of Spanish words, all vestiges of the stereotypical Ricky Ricardo as Latino were gone. Fabio in charge was Fabio with much better English. Interesting. “I do not think we will have a
problema
with the fuel filters, but we must watch them also.
Señoritas
, you must be certain the boat, she is in place. One will watch the depth sounder, the other will be ready to work the engine to hold position. Before Chino and I go below, I will show you how to give the engine just enough throttle to keep
tensión
from our anchor chain without running over the anchor.”

“Yes, but how do you keep the
tensión
off me?” I grumbled.

Fabio chuckled. “You must drive the boat, keep it in place. You will have no time for worry.”

I was already worried. “Kinda like holding a standard transmission car on a hill, using the clutch?”

“Yes. It is a fine art, but one you can do, I am chur,
Señorita
Café.”

“Since we’re going to die together, shouldn’t you be calling me Hetta?”

“We are not going to die, Hetta.” He pronounced it “Aye-duh.” I thought it sounded
muy romantico
.

I used the handheld VHF to call
Golden Odyssey
with the bad news about Russell and was gratified to hear their boat captain as unruffled as Fabio. He thanked me for the update and wished us luck.

“I wish we were on that big sucker,” Jan said wistfully.

“Join the rest of the harem?”

“Stereotyping again, Hetta? You don’t know anything at all about this prince. He sounded very…charming.”

“Yeah, so was Jack the Ripper. Myself, I’ve never cared much for Arabs.”

“None of them?”

“Well, what’s his name, that cute king of Jordan, he seems okay.”

“I’m sure he’d be glad to know you approve. I think—”

I never found out what she thought. The boat suddenly swung wildly to the end of our anchor arc, got broadsided by what sounded and felt like a freight train, and snapped back. There was a sharp POW! like a whip crack, but much louder.

Thrown off balance, all four of us ended up draped over furniture and on the floor.

I pulled myself onto all fours. “What in the holy hell was that, Fabio?”

“Our anchor bridle broke, I think. That means only the
beenchi
brake is holding us.”

I didn’t even know we had a
beenchi
brake. “Beenchi brake?”

Chino broke in. “Yes, the
beenchi
brake. The brake on the windlass, the winch.”

Silly me. The
ween-chay
, of course. And that was really bad news. If the brake stripped, three hundred feet of anchor chain could play out, maybe ripping loose when it hit the end. The boat would first be blown out into treacherous waters, then, without an anchor to stop us, who knows where. Even if the anchor held, the rough water where we’d end up would quickly chafe through our gear and we’d be on the move. Probably up onto some rocks, or even right into
Golden Odyssey
.

“You want me to go out and get the other anchor ready, Fabio?”

“No, no one is to go outside. The other anchor, without the chain, would not hold in this wind. We must take the pressure from the chain, now.” He started one engine, then showed me how he played the throttle and gear controls to hold the boat, ease strain on the anchor chain. Then he handed me a walkie-talkie, looked somberly into my eyes, said, “This is it, Ay-tah,” and disappeared.

It had turned cold, but I was sweating bullets. I had to jockey the boat, hold it in place, try to second guess the wind gusts. Panic, while not the ideal venue for one’s learning processes, at least speeds them up. I kept on just enough forward motion to compensate for the wind’s force pushing us backward. Oh, once in awhile a blast would mess me up, but Jan tried her best to help out by watching our increasingly useless instruments. We got an intermittent GPS readout, but the storm was also messing with Uncle Sam’s satellites on high, so the alarm system on our GPS was not reliable. And the depth sounder was useless, as the muddy water all looked like bottom.

“
Raymond Johnson
, are you still with us?” Saint Stephanie’s voice, like that of a distant angel, asked. We had the ham radio at full volume, but even so we barely heard her over the hammering wind and waves. The eerie, hysterical shrieking of the gale never let up now, it just rose an octave or two now and then. The keening sound was nerve-wracking enough, but add in the pounding water, which was now seeping through every possible seam in the boat, and hail. It was like being inside a careening steel drum, under attack by a thousand pissed off cats with baseball bats.

We had long since given up trying to keep things in place. Everything that could move, did. At one point the refrigerator door flew open and Jan rushed to shut and lock the door, but let the mess lie. In another terrifying moment, the heavy teak dining table, which we thought was secured to the floor, came scudding toward me. I jumped out of its path just in time to prevent a hip fracture. I made a mental note to add Depends to our safety gear.