The week flew by, with Sue and Mercy going to the boat almost every day, decorating it and getting it ready for the family to occupy for a long trip. Friday, Mercy came home from the boat with a huge smile on her face. She sat on my lap and showed me the pictures on the camera's display. She had a picture of the bow of the boat. In very large blue script was "Have Mercy."
"Was this your idea?" Mercy asked.
"I'm to blame. It is on the stern too?"
"Yes," Mercy said, with a little blush. "You made the letters too big. It takes up the whole front or bow on both sides and the entire stern. Thank you for thinking of me when you named it though."
"How are you guys doing on making the boat a home away from home?" I asked.
Sue said, "We took the kids over there today and let them play in the below deck lounge and in the lounge off the main deck. We have the place looking good. The galley is perfect now the way it is, with the counter and built-in stools. We have room for some new high chairs that we bought as well. We're going to pick up a few throw rugs for the below deck lounge. The smaller dining room now has a table and chairs, but there is room to walk around it. We probably won't use it often, but it will be nice if we do. It will easily seat eight. We had some cushions made for the lounge seats by the helm and we picked up some pads so we could lie out on the deck to sun. All in all, I think we're set."
Mercy asked, "So when can we go, soon, please?"
Sue was smiling at me like I needed to hurry up and make up my mind.
Putting Mercy down, I used my cell phone to call Ben. "When were you guys planning on going back down to Costa Rica?"
Ben said, "Actually, I'm ready but Beth has been busy out at your place everyday. She says she's teaching the kids to talk."
"She's doing a great job of it too," I said, then continued. "Would you like a sailboat ride down to Costa Rica? The girls are ready to go right now, so I guess we could get ready to take off for a while. We're going to go through the Panama Canal then go up the west coast. We'll stop in to see Mercy's folks, then go up to Seattle, or rather Friday Harbor, to see our friend Dewey up there. We'll drop you off in Costa Rica or you can stay with us for as long as you wish. Would you like to go along?"
Beth had been sitting with Sue, listening to my side of the conversation. She got up and took the phone from me and began talking, "We're going Ben, at least I'm going with them. We don't have to go all the way, but I'd like to at least go through the Canal with them. It should be a really special experience to do that."
Beth listened for a few minutes, said "Good," a couple of times, and handed the phone back to me.
Ben said, "I guess we're riding along with you until we get to San Diego or maybe even San Francisco. Sue said you guys have a satellite phone. I do have to stay in touch."
I answered him, "Ben, we have the phone and the internet on board. You should be able to relax, get a tan, and still stay in touch with your office."
"So when are we leaving?" Ben asked.
"I'm not sure yet," I answered. "The girls will have to make that decision. I can easily wrap up anything I need to do."
Sue mouthed to me, "Next Monday."
"Sue says maybe next Monday," I repeated what she had told me.
Ben said, "Well, that gives me a week anyway."
I covered the mouthpiece and asked, "Do you mean this coming Monday or a week from then?"
Mercy said, "This coming Monday dummy. I'm packing right now."
"Um, Ben, the girls mean this next coming Monday."
"Shit, I can't leave that quick. I have to make arrangements to be gone."
Beth took the phone back and said, "You can just meet us along the way then. We're leaving Monday morning. We were going to leave for Costa Rica late Monday or Tuesday anyway, so what's the difference."
Beth said, "Right, good, you better," then "good" one last time, and handed the phone back to me.
I said, "So?"
"Do we take a limo out to Dunedin or do we come out to your place?"
"Take a limo. We'll either do the same or have someone take us. There are five of us, plus all the kids stuff," I said.
As soon as I closed my phone, Mercy gave me a big kiss. "I'm so excited; this is going to be the best trip of my lifetime."
I said, "I'll go over to the boat tomorrow and make sure all the fluids are full and the holding tank is flushed."
Mercy said, "I had the fluids filled this week and the holding tank is clean. The water maker, the desalinization machine, is working and the ice maker is working too. Between the water tank, and the water maker, we will have all we need."
"So you're telling me the boat is ready for me to just step on and take off," I asked the smiling Mercy.
"Aye, aye, Captain. That it is."
Sue and Juanita came and took Mercy by the hand and pulled her up. "Come on, Mate, we have some serious packing to do."
They were going to do some serious damage to the closet space on the boat.
Beth said, "I guess I'd better go home and begin getting Ben and my stuff together. I'll need to pack all the way through to San Francisco, since I'd like to go see Merlin and Missy."
I did go over to the boat with the girls Saturday, on one of their trips to carry clothes. They did put a lot in the closet as they had some dress clothes for all four of us, along with some heavy clothes as it would be cold up the northern west coast. The girls had the place really looking good. It was a show piece now, instead of the cold, empty, boat that we had bought. The bathrooms all had lots of towels and toiletries in the closets. The galley was filled with various dried and canned foods, along with plenty of coffee, tea, and lots of powdered milk.
When I looked into the pantry area, there were at least six cases of beer there, with more up in the lounge. The liquor cabinet was jammed with every kind of booze you could think of, but it did have a couple of big bottles of Beefeaters, a couple of Dewar's, and four big bottles of Captain Morgan rum. The girls had definitely been busy.
I had a thought, and went below to check the bathrooms for spare toilet paper. With a bunch of women on board, we would need some extra. There were four rolls in each of the bathroom closets. When I asked Sue about it, she took me to the huge storeroom and showed me a big stack of multi-roll packs.
Sue said, "Women need toilet paper. Just like all those diapers in there. Babies need lots of diapers. We also have lots of plastic garbage bags for the dirty diapers. We'll make sure we dump garbage at every port we're in."
That afternoon, I went down to the gun store to ask the owner, "Do you have any vests. You know body armor. I'd like to have three for women and one for me."
"I have some military and some police issue. The military stuff is better but is more expensive," the owner said.
"Give me the military stuff. What I'd like to have is a grenade launcher, but I know those are not legal."
"I have the next best thing," he said, and pulled what looked like a shotgun from the rack. "This is a short, legal, 18 inch barrel Remington 1100 12 gauge pump, chambered for three and a half inch shells."
He went over to a cabinet and took out a box of shells and said, "These are explosive shot shells. They have a slug that explodes on contact. These are the maximum length three and a half inch and chamber in the Remington. I think they are probably every bit as good as a round from a grenade launcher. You have to aim, and the range is going to be only about fifty yards or less, but that's about what a grenade launcher range is."
He showed me that the gun would hold a total of six rounds, including one in the chamber. He jacked them back out and put the rounds back in the box.
I figured it would probably do what I wanted if I ever needed it, so I bought it, two boxes of shells and a cleaning kit. I also bought another two hundred each of 9mm and AR-15 rounds. The gun broke down short, so I bought another case to put it in.
Saturday night, we partied at home then took a motorcycle ride to visit with a few folks. The ride was good for all of us and would put us to sleep for the night. I forgot about the bike making the women horny. It took a while to take the edge off.
Sunday, the girls made a grocery store run to fill up the fridge and freezer on the boat with food. I went to the sporting goods store and bought about five hundred bucks worth of fishing gear and some fish cleaning tools. We now had rods and reels, along with a gaff and a couple of big nets. The boat had some lockers up on deck, outside the lounge, that were built for tackle and life jackets. The front locker had an emergency inflatable raft in it, along with some other safety equipment.
It looked like we were ready. I watched as Stevie played in the below deck lounge. He seemed to be content on the boat. Lizzy like crawling on the big rugs Sue had lain down. We would have to do this again when the kids were older, so they would have the memories of a trip like this. The patio crew held a Bon Voyage party for us Sunday evening. They all thought we were a little nuts to take a trip, this long and far, with little kids. Since we had Juanita, it wasn't going to be a problem at all. We were a tested crew.
Monday morning, I was up, showered, and dressed by five forty-five. I gently woke the three ladies so they could get ready before the kids woke up. When I turned the light on at six, Glenda was already waiting for me. She said she was going to miss us, but knew we were going to have a great trip.
I gave Glenda a hug then said, "Glenda, remember that you have a computer on the internet now and can e-mail any time you wish. In an emergency you can even call us on the satellite phone. We'll send you pictures of the trip as we go, and you can send us pictures of anything interesting here."
"It's still going to be lonely without my morning coffee buddy," Glenda said. "We all miss you guys when you're gone because you all mean so much to all of us."
Soon all of us, including the kids, were eating. Tiny was dressed, ready to take us to the boat. He was planning on taking a customer out on the cruiser today. He told me that all four of the charter fishing boats were committed today, and that he had been notified that the other four boats would be ready within the month. He had found some captains that were going to work the charters for us.
About seven thirty, we said goodbye to all of our friends and let Tiny drive us to Dunedin. The kids knew something was up as they were very excited. Tiny helped us carry the last of our stuff to the boat, including the five aluminum cases. The girls stored everything below deck, but left the cases in the main lounge.
Tiny said, "Good luck, Steve. Take care of yourself and your family. Meet lots of people and send us some business."
As soon as Tiny went to the big fishing boat, I went into the lounge and put together all of the rifles and the new shotgun. I loaded the shotgun and put fresh magazines in all of the Glocks and ARs. I took an AR and a Glock and put them in the cabinet next to the wheel. The rest of the arsenal was stored beneath the cushions in the main lounge just inside the door.
Sue, Juanita, and Mercy were all curious about the new shotgun. I explained that it was as close as I could get to a grenade launcher. I told them that it was loaded with explosive shells that could either cause a hell of lot of damage, or if nothing else, it would scare the shit out of anyone we shot at. The girls all laughed, saying they had dibs on it if something happened.
We took the covers off the sails and stored them in the sail lockers, then opened the generator vents and started it so we could disconnect shore power and the other connections. I opened the engine vents and turned on the fans. The girls spread sunblock on each other and me, then made sure we all had caps and sunglasses. I fired the engines, letting them warm up at idle while doing a final check of fluid levels.
At nine, Ben and Beth finally showed up. They were both surprised we were in a state of readiness to leave. As soon as they had their gear stowed below, the girls asked if I was ready. When I nodded, Mercy was off the boat and untying the stern line then the bow line and hopping back onto the boat. Ben and Beth watched as two of the girls coiled the lines while the third girl watched from the bow to make sure that we were clear of any small boats.
Tiny sounded the big air horn on the Hatteras at us as we moved toward the gulf. We were off.
Beth was sitting in the lounge with Mike, Lizzy and Steve, who were busy with toys. Ben was fascinated with Sue and the girls, watching the way they worked together to get the boat going.
When we were about a mile out, I began raising sails until we had a full complement of sail up. As the main sail on the front mast came up, I saw a giant S&S logo painted on it. I hollered, "Hey Sue, who painted my new sail?"
She came over and said, "We needed to have the company name somewhere on this thing."
I asked her, "What about Big Girls Clothes?"
She pointed to the front jib. I had her take the wheel and walked up to look. Sure enough it had 'BigGirlsClothes.com' in big letters, with the 'Quality' logo beneath.
"That's neat," I said, thinking that Tiny probably had a hand in the signs. "We can write off the entire trip as advertising."
Sue caught what I said and punched me. "We need to show off a little. Are we stopping between here and Panama?"
"Yep," I said with a smile. "We're stopping in Key West tonight, have dinner there and stay over in the yacht club, then we'll head south and possibly stop in Puerto Rico. We don't have to, as there is a dry island a little south of there we can stay at, if we want to anchor for the night."
About ten, Ben came to me at the wheel and said that he had just looked up front and there were naked women up there. I couldn't see over the lounge, but I could see through the lounge and saw that Juanita was inside with the kids, so the three butts I saw were Beth, Mercy, and Sue.
"Get used to it, Ben, the water makes women want to take their clothes off."
He seemed flustered, "But what if someone sees them?" "What are they going to see Ben? Three naked women sunbathing on the bow of a big sailboat. It might get some guy off, but they probably have their own naked ladies on board."
He was shaking his head. "You put up all the sail yourself and didn't need a crew to get it done. How do you do all of that?"
I showed him all of the controls at the helm. He was mystified by the instruments, but was fascinated by the radar. I had it set out to fifty miles. I told Ben, "The curvature of the earth takes away low floating boats out at about eight miles, but we can see tall boats and ships out to fifty miles. The collision avoidance system alerts us if the anticipated paths are going to cross so we can take evasive action."
"You have so much more equipment than I did on the boat we had. The captain I had said we had all the equipment we needed, but you seem to know what's really necessary."
Lunch time was sandwiches at the wheel, along with some coffee and water. I let Ben take the wheel for a while so I could play with the kids. After lunch they were put down for naps. I turned the CCTV monitor on with only the kid's room on the screen. I really didn't want to show Ben that we could see into every area of the boat. He might freak out a little over that.
The four girls came strolling out, naked again, heading to the bow. Ben was funny, as he had to turn away from them in order to hide his interest in all the bare flesh. When Stevie began tossing and turning, I called to the girls, telling them a critter was waking up. They all disappeared below deck and reappeared with the kids. Sue put a life jacket on Steve and let him walk around on deck. Mercy took Lizzy and Mike, in their chairs, out on deck to get some sun and fresh air. I erected the canvas sunshade over the wheel area and had the two little ones with me, with Mercy on the lounger.
With the great wind, we reached the yacht club on Key West about ten PM. Once we were tied up, we all went into the club to have supper. The ladies, except for Juanita, were going to stay on the boat while Ben, Juanita, and I went to a couple of the famous bars on the beach. We each had a drink at three different bars, then headed back to the club and bed.
We were sound asleep by midnight.
Morning came with me buried beneath my wonderful women. I slid from beneath them, showered quickly, and dressed. I made coffee and began making some biscuits. Once that was done, I got some bacon ready and woke my crew. They all wanted to cuddle instead of getting going. I told them I wanted to escape from civilization quickly.
Soon, everyone was awake and moving around. Juanita took over making breakfast, so I went topside to find my Coast Guard officer and a crewman walking on the dock. I hollered and he came over, marveling at the new boat. We chatted about the box that had been found. I asked if there were any alerts out, as we were going to Panama to traverse the canal. He said he had not heard of any problems, but for us to be watchful as bad guys were always around. I told him I thought we were prepared and he smiled.
Ben had come up and heard the conversation. "How are you prepared if we have trouble with someone on the high seas?"
"Easy, I taught the girls how to shoot," I said thinking that would be the end of it.
"But you can't defend yourself out here with just a pistol."
I looked at him then went over and unlocked the locker by the wheel showing him the AR with the scope. "Is that better, Ben?"
"But you're only one."
"Ben, I have three ladies on board that all have one of these and can all shoot one. They have one of these and a handgun and they all shoot pretty damn good. Trust me, Ben, we will be fine."
As I was telling him that all three had their own pieces, his eyes got bigger and bigger.
We went to the galley and ate with the kids and women. As soon as we were done, Beth and Juanita said they would clean up if we wanted to get going. I had the girls release the lines then motored over to the fuel dock where we topped off and had the holding tank flushed. Our water was full as the water maker was on and kept the tank full.
I had Mercy listen to the weather and turn the TV on so we could check weather going south. When I asked Ben and Beth if they wanted to stop in Puerto Rico, they both indicated it wasn't important, so as soon as I set sail, I headed straight toward the outer edge of Mexico, the Cancun area, on my way to Panama.
The second night out from Key West, we decided to stop over at a dry island to anchor and possibly get some fish. I left the radar on so we could see if there were any small boats wandering around the little islands in this group.
We did catch some fish that I cleaned down on the platform. We had a great supper and were lounging on the deck. I checked the radar at the helm and the display in the lounge often, but didn't see anything. I explained to Ben that we had perimeter radar that warned us if something approached the boat while we were asleep.
Just as we were getting ready to go below, I heard what sounded like a pretty good sized motor boat. The radar didn't show anything but whatever it was, it could have been on the other side of the island. We listened as the motor went almost to one end of the island then seemed to turn and went back to the other end while on other side of the island, away from us.
I shut down the electronics then set the perimeter alarm. This would be good for around a klick or a thousand meters.
We had just gone below when the rapid beep of the perimeter alarm began. I hit the off button and told the girls to get their equipment in the lounge. I would get mine from the bridge or helm or whatever you wanted to call it.
On the way up, I told Ben and Beth to stay below. Don't come up for any reason.
With the lights all off, we went through the lounge and I went to the helm and unlocked the locker for my AR with the scope. The girls split up staying low with one to the bow, one to the stern and one to the island side of the boat. I used my scope in the moonless night to look out over the water. The boat was easy to see. It was a twenty-five or thirty foot open boat that had several people on it. I caught the attention of Sue at the bow and pointed, then looked to see that Mercy at the stern had seen me motion.
I went back inside the lounge and picked up the shotgun and checked to see if there was a round in the chamber. I pulled a round into the chamber of the AR hoping the girls would remember to do that as well. I took out the battery powered bull horn from the locker by the helm and announced.
"Ahoy. Whoever you are, either leave right now or we will shoot."
The boat's motion stopped moving forward as if the people paddling stopped. The nose of the boat began turning. Then the boat straightened out and began coming our way with them starting a motor. Mercy didn't wait for me to fire first and began firing single shots from the stern. Sue began as well and started shooting from the bow.
Juanita called to me, "Can I come and shoot too?"
"Come on, Juanita, but be sure of where you shoot." There wasn't any answering fire from the boat but it kept getting closer. I looked at the boat through the low light scope and found them all down below the gunwales. There wasn't a good shot at any of them. The rounds from the girls were ricocheting off the metal hull of the boat.
As soon as the boat was about fifty yards from us, I picked up the shotgun and fired a round at the boat. I missed. The round fell short. Since the distance was closing, I fired again this time the round hit the boat right at the water line. When the shell exploded, every one of the men on board stood up. Bad move.
All three ladies began firing until they were all three heading to the lounge to get another clip.
I fired again, sending the shell amidst the men in the boat. The boat turned away from us then kept turning in a circle going around and around in a small circle. No one on board was moving or making a noise. I flipped on the big spotlight on top of the lounge cabin and lit up the boat. There were men laying in every direction. I couldn't tell how many there were but it looked like seven or eight. With the light on the boat, I used the shotgun one more time and put a shell right on the motor. When the shell exploded, the tanks in the boat exploded, starting a fire. The force of the explosion pushed the boat away from us toward a few rocks on the edge of the island where the boat stopped as it began to sink.
I kept the light on the boat but told the girls to watch on the island to make sure there wasn't anyone walking around out there that could swim out to us.
No one stirred on the boat and soon the fire went out from lack of anything to burn. I wonder where they got a steel-hulled boat that size. It was probably an old sailboat or military boat of some kind.
I called the Coast Guard to report the incident. I reported that about seven men in a steel-hulled boat had approached us and would not back down. We had neutralized the boat causing the boat's fuel to explode which probably caused the occupants' deaths. We gave our coordinates and said we were probably going to leave at first light. They said they would check out the boat in the morning, as the closest patrol was about four hours away.
Sue asked if Ben and Beth could come up now and I nodded. When Ben came up he saw where the light was shining. He went to the helm area and used the field glasses to look.
"Jesus, it looks like there are six or seven people in that thing. What did you do to it?"
"I used a shotgun with an exploding shell. It's kind of like a grenade launcher. It worked pretty well. I told them to back off. They stopped for a second, so they understood, but they kept coming. That's too bad. I need to get the dinghy and make sure none of them are alive. If they are we need to do what we can for them."
We untied the dinghy and let it down. I climbed down the ladder and put down the platform. Sue came with me with her Glock. We paddled over to the boat that was now partly sunk and looked inside with a flashlight. It was pretty gruesome. There were eight people in the boat. I didn't see but one gun, an old .38 revolver. There were several big knives and machetes. I did check for a pulse on each of them then left them for the Coast Guard to do what they were going to do.
We took the dinghy back to the boat. Once Sue was up the ladder, I connected the lines to hoist the dinghy back into its carrying position. Once it was tied down, I started the engines, then using the instruments and the light, slowly made our way out from the island and to open water, then using the GPS, made a heading south toward Panama.
I told Sue that we could all probably enjoy a stiff Bloody Mary this morning. She agreed and made up a bunch using some Mr. and Mrs. T's mix.
Once we were in open water, I raised the sail and we were again going toward our destination.
We enjoyed the sunrise out at sea. It is so different than on land. There is the first light, then the glow that becomes brighter and brighter, until the sun peaks over the horizon and nearly blinds you. That's when the kids began waking, which reminded all of us that we were hungry. Once past the Mexican peninsula we stopped at some small islands, marked on our charts as being dry, but with deep water around them. We anchored and spent the evening fishing for our supper.
We caught enough fish for us to have supper and some of the special breakfast we learned to make from Dewey's housekeeper. I turned the perimeter alarm on and we slept the whole night. We didn't wake until after seven. Mike and Lizzy wanted up. They were both standing in their beds jabbering at each other when we got out of bed.
We had a leisurely breakfast of cheesy fish omelet in biscuit mix and headed south again.
Sue and I questioned Ben and Beth whether they wanted us to take them to Costa Rica, or if they want to come with us. Ben answered for them. "We want to go with you guys. We feel perfectly safe, knowing the way you all handled yourselves."
Beth gave me a hug and said, "Sue said you were the protector of the trailer park. I can believe it now. But you've gotten smarter, because you've taught your harem to help you."
I was a little embarrassed about the harem thing, but I didn't want to let the cat out of the bag and tell Beth that her daughter was the one who gathered the females.
We finally reached Colon, Panama. There we had to check in and prepay to go through the canal. It would normally be only a day to go through but since we were a small boat, we had to wait to go through with several other small boats.
The fee for going through the canal is by how much the boat weighs. Our boat is right at a hundred and ten tons. The price was right at three dollars and fifty cents per ton to it was some pretty good money to go through. I did ask if there was a round trip fare but found they did not have something like that to offer.
We made the first half of the trip uneventfully, and we had to remain in the big lake near the far end overnight, as a big PanaMax boat was coming the other way and they took priority.
While we were in the locks and in the canals, a train engine pulled us along instead of us using our own power. They had several boats tied to each other to be pulled through at once. In the big lake, we fired our engines and went through the channel on our own power. It was then that we had to wait for the giant ship to pass by before we could proceed.
Beth had bought a video of the history of the canal. We watched it a couple of times then used it as a reference at each major location. The knowledge did make the trip more interesting.
When we finally exited the canal, we sailed straight out to the sea to get far enough out so we could head straight north, or as straight north as the wind would let us go. We sailed all night, taking turns at the wheel, with me sleeping on the lounge cushions there. We did this for two nights then began our entrance to the Catalina Island yacht club. Once we docked, I made arrangements for the holding tank to be flushed and our fuel to be topped off. We unloaded several big bags of garbage at two bucks a bag, then headed into the club for lunch.
It was funny watching little Stevie. He had gotten used to walking on the boat. On dry land he acted dizzy and staggered back and forth. Ben and Beth were staggering as well. We all enjoyed some beer and sandwiches with lots of peppers and pickles. We did the tourist stuff and looked around the island for the rest of the afternoon. Sue and Mercy bought up a bunch of T-shirts then shipped them all back to Florida by UPS. I called in using my cell phone to find everyone doing fine and that the Coast Guard had called to advise me of the people who died in a boat near Puerto Rico. I didn't tell them what happened but knew Ben would be telling all soon enough.
We all cleaned up then slept the sleep of the innocent. The girls were hardly innocent as they all three wanted more attention than I was able to give them. I did do all three to the best of my ability but the effort left me barely comatose. They finished without me.
In the morning, we discussed whether Ben and Beth wanted to go to San Francisco with us or did they wish to go to Los Angeles to fly home. Beth said San Francisco, so I didn't even wait to hear anything from Ben. Beth had made up his mind for him.
Two days later, we docked in our favorite yacht club, where Dewey had made arrangements for us. As soon as Mercy called home, Missy said she was sending the driver down to get us. Mercy told her to wait a little while, as we needed to clean up first then we could then go to the club for the early dinner, but we needed to find a babysitter for the kids.
Missy said, "Forget the club, just come home with the kids. We'll have a big dinner here. I won't try to cook it. I'll get one of the ladies to do it for me." About an hour later, we were on our way to hobnob in the rich part of town.
We stayed overnight with Merlin and Missy. Merlin couldn't figure out what part Juanita played in our lives, but he took an instant liking to her. Juanita is a tanned island beauty with dark hair and flashing eyes. For her age, she is built really well and acts years younger than she is.
Juanita referred to herself as the babysitter, but Mercy and Sue called her a big sister. When Merlin asked me about Juanita, I just said, "The girls are the controllers of our relationship. Juanita is just part of it."
That didn't help at all. I got a frown from Merlin, but a smirk from Missy.
We ended up staying in San Francisco three days. We were able to take Stevie to the playground at Golden Gate Park. They have all of these scary carved American Indian totem poles there that can be really scary to little ones. Stevie was more interested in the circular sliding board they had.
Ben and Beth decided to pack up and head home. They said they had enough adventure for a while. Ben said he longed for the solitude of the Bayshore house or the peace of Costa Rica.
On the way north, we stopped at the places where Dewey had stopped with us before. We did get to stay in the one place that had been occupied before. The fishing became better and better as we traveled north. Stevie loved the seals that were on the island where we anchored.
We sailed through the islands, then finally took down the sail to use the engines as we neared Dewey's place. We pulled the boat up near his, and put out our two anchors to keep our boat in place. As we were letting the dinghy down, Dewey hollered from the dock and said he would come get us in his power boat. He pulled up and I tied him to the platform. Dewey came aboard and looked at our modifications. He said he liked what we had done.
The girls had spent part of the time on the way from San Francisco spiffing up the boat, as they knew Dewey would be looking at it, comparing it to his fine boat.
That evening we told Dewey of our trip through the canal and the confrontation we had before. He said, "With all of you involved, I'm sure it became a non-incident."
He was right. It was a non-incident.
We ate at the restaurant in town and revived old acquaintances. The guys there were trying to figure out how I had three women, especially if I had someone as fabulous as Sue. But then they had to agree all three were class acts.
We visited with Dewey for four days then said we were ready for the return trip. If it had been summer, we might have gone up to Alaska, but it was cold so we wanted to head south to a warmer climate. It had rained almost everyday we were there.
Our return was pretty much a repeat, only we did spend a lot more nights sailing in order to make better time getting home. I let the girls take turns at night at the wheel using the autopilot to help keep us on course. We had a couple days of nasty wind and waves but nothing that required us to take down sail. The trip through the canal was neat to do again only the other direction. We stopped in Colon for a night then headed north for home.
We had no problem and the winds were perfect. We came into Dunedin almost exactly five weeks after we left. It was just after nine on Tuesday morning when we tied up. We decided we should clean up the boat before we shut it down.
The girls cleaned inside, while I scrubbed the decks. We all polished to get everything shiny again, then we packed up all our stuff about noon. The girls said they would come back to get all the perishables out of the fridge and pick up the rest of our clothes. We locked it up tight leaving most of our armament on board. There was good security at the yacht club so the boat would be safe.
Sue had called a limo service. They picked us up and drove us home. The driver thought it was funny that he picked us up at a multi-million dollar yacht then dropped us in a trailer park.
We had a crazy reception. Glenda about had a heart attack because we surprised her. Stevie went nuts to be with his buddies again. Hanna immediately called everyone telling them we were back.
The girls put our clothes away and unpacked the kids stuff. Glenda said that if we stayed out on the water much more we would all begin to look like island people. She couldn't believe how tanned we all were.
By five, the patio was filled with crew and many people from the two companies. We loaded up the viewer that let us display pictures on the big TV and began showing pictures of where we had been and where we had stayed. I quickly passed across some pictures of four naked women sunning on the bow of the boat. The canal pictures were all interesting, as were the pictures of the seals that were just off the boat. They all saw how dreary looking the San Juan Islands looked in the cold wet weather.
By nine, everyone was happy that we were back, but tired of hearing about it. We said goodnight then the three girls went to bed while I had a peaceful drink on the patio by myself.
A naked lady came to the door and asked when I was coming to bed. I smiled at how lovely Sue is and said, "I'll follow you back." How could I resist.
We all made love in our home bed before sleeping very soundly. I think we all missed the gentle rolling of the boat. It's funny how you can get used to a motion such as that.