Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience. Sun and Sea 07 A James Gang Story by Mike C Feedback is welcome - but please keep it constructive. Address: mikec (at) nspace.net = = = = = "Colin, we have to make sure you are aware of what's been happening at Turtle Cay." Brenda said, after Colin arrived for his early morning meeting and introductions were made. "Do you remember the loan agreement you signed six months ago?" "Yes, but..." He looked surprised, "Marsh assured me that it would not be made public!" "Yes, we know he was the guarantor as well. But this may surprise you --" She handed him a piece of paper, "Here's the Florida registry of the company, and it clearly states that he is the owner." "But how can that be? He guaranteed the loan... For himself?" "Basically, but it's done more to make you feel comfortable about taking the loan." "Yes... He told me that was how much faith he had in my business... So, it was all a scam?" "Basically - we know that you used your resort as collateral... did Marsh ask for anything?" "He just asked for a note for a third of the proceeds if I ever sold the resort, which I'll never do, so I didn't see any harm..." "That would explain what has been happening..." Brenda nodded, "First, the loan details WERE kept secret - until yesterday, when Marshall's company used it to register a lien against your property. I suspect it will be served today, while he is sure you are not available..." "Then why...?" "The property is registered under both your names, and your wife has full signing authority. It is most likely Marshall's guy will want to scare her into committing to something even less desirable." "I thought it a bit strange that he was suddenly so adamant I visit him! But he'd spent the last few months telling me about your people being here, and how it's my best chance to get some sort of deal from you! But I could not get away until now..." "And it looks like Marshall's timed this for as soon as you arrive. Maybe your decision to return today forced him to play his hand quicker than he'd like..." "Can I ask why you are helping me? I'm really not in the position to repay you!" "Besides the fact that Marshall used us to lure you in. We know how tough it can be for a small business when we ran our small marina, especially when finances and legal matters are involved. We ARE involved, and we want to help." "I'm worried about Anne, I should let her know..." "Yes," Brenda continued, "Contact her, and I'll get you back to Turtle Cay..." "I'm booked on the 2pm flight out from Lauderdale, but I have to take the commuter down there first." "No, I'll fly you back to the resort - it'll save you at least 4 hours." "Ahh, you have a plane?" "Yes, a seaplane, although it's technically Amanda's..." Brenda turned to us, "One of you can take us to the airport, and we have to move the boat elsewhere before Marshall realizes we've stolen his prize." "Take Jackie," Amanda said, "and you can park in James' spot at the university." "You SURE you trust me with Jackie?" "You haven't crashed the Gymbler yet, so, I guess you're reasonably trustworthy! Just make sure the snaps are done tight on the top!" "Amanda has the best toys..." Brenda smiled, then seriously, "I want you three to sign-off the 25. Do not waste your time fooling around!" "Fool around? Us?" Sherri look shocked. "Ahhh, how 'bout we meet up at the Cay? We'll need the sea room, plus I think Daytona may be a bit hot for a while!" "Colin? Can you put us up at your place, for the weekend?" Asked Brenda. "We need the whole week," Amanda amended. "Or we'll be adrift without a home!" "You are all quite welcome, provided I still have a home myself." Colin said. I took Brenda aside and gave her directions for the university. "Have a good trip, and I'll see you this evening." "I'm very sorry, babe," Brenda said, "I know we'd planned a relaxing weekend, but, let's settle this and we can STILL have our weekend! OK, sweetie?" She held and kissed me. They went off, Colin already on the phone with his wife. The rest of the morning was spent provisioning the boat for its extended sea voyage. Amanda and Sherri took the car to pick up food while I sailed the boat to the Ponce Lighthouse Marina for water and diesel. I was there, munching on my southern fried chicken when they drove up an hour later. "What IS all this junk? Are you two eloping?" I asked. They had more stuff in the BMW than when Sara and I did our Ikea shopping spree. "Stop talking and help us! We want to get there before it gets dark!" "I've programmed the most direct route, but we're looking at five hours." I told them as we loaded the boat, "Otherwise, it's perfect - a light south-westerly breeze and about 4-foot seas." "That's good, we'll be able to do the side-impact and tracking tests without wasting time looking for the right waves." Although the computers can simulate 99% of all conditions a boat may be exposed to, sea tests are still required to find any unique combination of sea, wind and human factors that may cause the boat to behave in unexpected and adverse ways. This long-distance trip would be the culmination of tests we had done in the more extreme weather over the winter months. The first 15 miles were slow going; the traffic was busy, and everyone had to stop and greet a pod of dolphins which had made the inlet their home. It was an hour before we were out of sight of the tall lighthouse and came up to a cluster of off-shore fishing charters. "There's a couple of sunken trawlers in 30ft of water, you can get some big fish here." I told Sherri. "And we can open up once we're past them." For once Amanda was not clamoring to stop and 'wet a few lines'. As predicted, the traffic quickly dropped off as we angled away from the regular shipping lanes, and we could maintain a cruising speed in the high 40's. Schools of fish and dolphins sometimes swam with us, but the speed of our boat soon dropped them behind. The direct route to the Bentel's place took us into the deeper sound and a different weather region, with the swirling wave pattern which is typical of interaction between the Gulf stream and surface winds. In winter and early spring, when the wind and current came in opposite directions, it was very choppy, if not hazardous sailing, and we never ventured far offshore. Amanda had been familiarizing Sherri with the readouts of the six sensors which were embedded in the hull of the boat. "The two alpha detectors are at the leading edge of the front trilobe, which tells us how we are performing, and the degree of stress on the high-impact areas of the hull. The betas measure secondary plane action on the rear 'lobes. And the gammas measure the flex and yaw of the entire boat. "You know the effects of the slip-panels are the most complex to quantify, since, as Bren tells it, it was YOUR idea to start with!" "Nah," Sherri replied, "I was simply asking her for ways to simulate slip-stream flow controls for airfoils in the water tanks. We started talking and then she got all distracted and started scribbling." "Well, it certainly got her going. Still, trying to adapt side-impact forces to enhance the laminar region is at best an arcane science. So we have to make sure it works as advertised and without any unexpected side issues." "Hey guys, take the helm, Oddball's acting weird..." I said. "You mean the 'razzi is stupid enough to try and follow us?" "No... it looks nothing like their reflection... in fact..." I suddenly laughed, "We had lots of false signals in the beginning with water and rain, and this looks just like that! Look! Over there - fifteen-degrees off our port bow." I pointed at the low clouds half over the horizon, with faint flashes of lightning through it, "Must be a squall system, and Oddball's freaking on that! Mandie, take us 5-degrees to starboard, just in case it's moving towards us!" I read out the coordinates, "Can you plot that, Sher?" "I make it over 7 miles away!" Sherri exclaimed, "So Oddball's been trying to shoot the raindrops?" "Probably, although at that distance, it would've missed it by a good quarter of an inch!" "It sure is handy for looking for weather systems, though!" Sherri said excitedly. We tracked it with Oddball and did some more calculations, "Oh good! Looks like it's travelling away from us..." "How did Oddball see so far? I thought it was only supposed to go a quarter mile!" "I'd just calibrated it to look for the reflection from a telephoto lens from that distance. The rainstorm has millions of these 'lenses' in a small area, so it was strong enough to trigger Oddball..." "Isn't this like the Lidar systems the NOAA uses for hurricanes?" "Yeah, and what the cops use to catch certain road-racers!" I amended, "Although theirs uses the dopplar effect to get exact distance and direction." "And probably cost many times more than Oddball!" "Yeah... the commercial possibilities will no doubt will please Jules tremendously!" Sherri commented. "But we should monitor Oddball - maybe we can refine his sensitivity for weather system. Can I hook up Oddball to the boat's data-recorder?" "I'm only using six of the eight channels - but the ADC's only 0.7MHz, so it'll be nominal for Oddball. I just never thought there'll be a need for anything faster!" Amanda apologized. "But I have a 2-Meg buffer for you if that helps." "So the signal-to-noise will need more work, but I'm more interested in the echo effects than absolute timing..." I mulled. "I'll need..." "Why don't you just dump the data into the T-Flash card, and analyse it later?" Sherri suggested, "You must have tons of space left over even after your firmware!" "Hey yeah! I can use the file-handler... which limits me to 4-Gig... 80-million..." I did some mulling, "Wow, I can get almost three hours of storage!" I hesitated, "As long as the T-flash can take that kind of throughput... Have to use 4-k buffers... Oh wait..." "Damn, he's gone into his fugue!" "James!" Amanda waved her hands in front of my eyes. "Huh? What?" "You're already getting Oddball to write out real-time data!" "Yeah, it's only dump data..." "So? Just write THAT out as a file with a time stamp! You have lots of time to refine them later!" "I could... but that would be crude and inelegant!" "So, you want to spend four hours programming refined elegance and miss all the data, or...?" "Yeah, OK, OK." I got the laptop out and started working on the new routine. "You know, the scratch data has ten times more information than I need, but if I do some pre-filtering, I can just save the information starting before the anomaly, which means it'll cut down the null data... which will bypass the 4-Gig limitation... loop the circular... underflow... mod-2... then change the trigger... step up the gain..." "...you back?" I blinked my eyes as Sherri peered at me, "You've been typing, and swearing for almost a half hour now!" She looked back at Amanda, "He looks almost human again!" "Holy shit!" I cried out, "What is this stuff you're not wearing?" All Sherri had on was a flimsy green thong and a matching translucent top, while Amanda had changed into a black bikini, probably purchased way before she got her current set of boobs. "He's definitely back!" Laughed Amanda. She flicked the autopilot and came and stood with her friend, "We thought your industriousness should not go unrewarded... Ta-da..." They posed for me and I almost batted the laptop to the deck. "Maybe after he installs the new programming, we can ask our hard-working friend to put some sunblock on us?" "Yeah, we want him hard and working, don't we?" "Definitely hard." "Can one of you plug the USB in for me, please?" I was suddenly afflicted with a condition which made standing and moving difficult, so I sat rock still as Sherri ran the USB extension into the socket built into Oddball. They nestled close to me as I uploaded the new programming to Oddball. "There!" I finally said, "All good!" I set the computer on the table and reached my arms around them. "I just have to reset it and watch it until the first file gets written." "How long..?" Amanda nuzzled my ear. "Five minutes...?" "We may have to start without you..." "Or less..." "Why don't you keep watching and we'll get you into something more comfortable!" Sherri suggested, and started loosening my shorts. Amanda slipped my shirt off and started rubbing SPF on me. "Are you watching your program?" She murmured. "Doing' my best... File's writing..." "Finished yet?" Amanda was hugging my shoulders from the back, and from the friction, she'd taken her top off. "Yeah... I think so... The screen's gotten very jumpy suddenly." I sighed. "Yeah, I feel it!" Sherri said, as she started stroking SPF on my jumpiness. "Yow!" I REALLY jumped, "What IS that stuff, it's... it's HOT!" "Oh silly me, it's not sun-block at all! It's called K-Y something..." "Arghhhh!" I grabbed Sherri, ripped aside her bikini and rammed her down on me, "Oh god, yes..." "Oh yes, indeed!" She moaned and started bouncing, "Yeah, wow!" She leaned her head on me, and rocked us until she gasped out an orgasm. "Damn, this is good!" She pulled Amanda over and kissed her, "You have to try it now." "Honey, enjoy... There's plenty to go around yet!" "Oh, thank you, thank you, baby sweetheart," Sherri resumed bouncing on me, and Amanda slipped around to help Sherri remove her top. The two continued their kiss as Amanda started caressing Sherri's breasts. "Ahhh, god..." I moaned, as Sherri's cunt squeezed me. She turned her kiss back to me and I started coming into her. We held each other and kissed until the shaking stopped. "The stuff's amazing!" She sighed. "You are so right baby!" "And it's also supposed to help you recover faster..." Damned if she wasn't right about that too! Ping! It was the autopilot telling us we were nearing our destination. Named by the Spanish for "Shallow Sea", the Bahamas sits on a plateau 1/4 of a mile straight up off the Atlantic Ocean floor. Thousands of islands are scattered throughout its five square mile area, the water depth seldom more than 10 feet, which made it a haven for sea-life, but treacherous for sailors. The girls rose from the aft-deck loungers, where we had been lolling for the last two hours, testing boat performance, checking on Oddball and working on our tans, with frequent interruptions for new ways to test out the K-Y Gel. "Shouldn't you two be getting some clothes on?" "Don't all pleasure crafts entering these waters have to have one or two naked bodies on display before they're allowed in?" Sherri asked, her eyes glowing. "They probably need to be in some sort of explicit pose too!" Amanda agreed. "Like this?" Sherri stood with a hand touching a breast and the other just over her mons, like she was trying to hide herself, or Venus caught in the middle of a really juicy session with herself. The look on her face, though, with the bit of tongue peeping out, left no question which action it was. "That's real good, honey," Amanda said, "but there's no way James can do that! So we'll have to settle with him parading on the bow naked when we pull in!" They held each other and laughed. "I hope the ePilot is good enough to get us through the 'p'red meurte'!" I said after watching their jiggling antics a bit. The perimeter of the Bahamian Islands is ringed with rows of submerged volcanic rocks which, combined with the stiff on-shore wind and the blindingly white sands beyond, have prompted the early sailors to call it the 'Wall of Death'. "Yes boss." While I packed away the laptop and cables, they helped each other into their swimsuits, with way more touching and giggling than needed, but they kept their eyes on the instruments and the ocean. I was watching Oddball, because, after tracking the squall over the horizon, it had remained silent, but now it was again flickering with multiple hits. "Oddball is warning of something five-degrees off our port side, one mile ahead. Seems natural but not rain - at least it doesn't seem to be moving. Move us shoreward as much as possible." We now had the extra job of threading 'Jester' through the rocks and whatever was setting Oddball off. Sherri had been watching the depth-sounder, "No bottom... No bottom..." which meant it was over 100 feet deep, the limit of our instrument. Suddenly she cried, "Fifty, forty, forty-five, Thirty..." Amanda had throttled back at the first warning and now we just maintained headway to keep us in thirty feet of water. "Radar shows some disturbances too, but nothing tangible." Sherri reported. "Can we make the Walker Straits?" From the North, the 'P'red' has four breaks deep enough for a small craft to enter the Bahamian sea. The first is Walker, which is full of small, rocky islands, some submerged during high tide. Numerous buoys mark the dangers, but it is never certain if any had been lost to age, or weather, and had not been replaced. "Not enough turning room. Have to head for Turtle." Amanda answered. Turtle Cay, our destination, is the second of the straits, and is the optimal choice under most conditions, and we seemed to have little choice but to head for it. "Coming up on Cat Cay. Depth thirty... Ahoy, port bow!" Sherri called out. "Dead slow!" We shouted together. To our left, about 500 yards in the ocean, was a waterspout - a small tornado that was sucking up water and spraying it out 300 feet in the air. Aside from making a loud whistling and rumbling noise, and the spray which was making a large shimmering rainbow halo in the sun, there was nothing which indicated it should be there. The grey-green skies and lightning storms which usually accompanied thunderheads were nowhere to be seen. "Getting my camera!" Sherri shouted at me, "Watch the gages!" She disappeared down below as we sailed slowly past a very definite anomaly. Sherri returned with her phone camera and was filming the spout. About 2 minutes later, as if someone had thrown a switch, it dissipated into the air and vanished. The salty rain and its rainbow stayed with us for another ten minutes and it too, disappeared. "Whoa," Amanda said in a hushed tone, "This is so Bermuda Triangle! Brenda would've loved this!" As we sailed on, the day remained sunny and clear, and, aside from Sherri's recording and a fine coating of salt on deck, there was nothing to suggest that we had sailed through anything unusual. We took turns using the shower, and got dressed in something more presentable for meeting the Bentels. "Depth twenty-five feet. North Turtle Strait coming up starboard, fifty feet." There was a large white channel marker showing the way. Someone had painted a turtle in white on the rocks, and underneath, "Welcome to the Bahamas - RELAX!" = = = = = (C) Copyright 2001-2008. MikeC. All Rights Reserved. All Reproduction for fee or profit forbidden. Copies of this and other stories can be downloaded from: <http://www.asstr.org/files/Authors/MikeC/JAMES/Sun&Sea/>