A Barefoot Adventure: March 2011

Myself, Ian, and Derrick are all huddled together on the deck of the boat. Wedged in nicely with barely enough room for our sleeping pads we make a sad attempt at sleep as the wind whistles back and forth across the old fishing boat. It's pitch black, sometime past midnight, Geno calmly comes from his cabin and looks at the compass. He goes back. Then about 5 minutes later he comes out again and looks at the compass. We stand up to get out of his way but are still basically in his way. The three of us standing there with our bedding next to Keith who has strung the hammock across the deck attempting to sleep swaying in the wind. Not realizing the seriousness of the situation we stand there groggy and confused for a moment staring at Geno. "Guys we need to move!" Geno finally bellows out. For myself at least as a novice boatman, this was the first time I realized we might be in a treacherous situation.
The next 15-20 minutes are difficult to describe, but just imagine chaos on an old fishing boat in the middle of the night, with circling gusts of wind, drifting anchor-less in the Carribean sea, as our anchor has been bent backwards and is useless at this point. Amid the chaos we get the engine going and are able to find some mangrove to drop our emergency anchor next to and a near catastrophe is averted. We lost no people, but did lose a hand line, an air mattress and a couple pillows. The air mattress taunting us as it floats just out of reach . . . twice. With nothing left to do we huddle back onto the floor and attempt to sleep away the remaining 3 or so hours of darkness.
Thus went the first night of a simple boating trip with Geno, his wife Olga, his son Paul with his friend called "Palace", although it sounds more like "Paulus", and then myself, Ian, Derrick, and Keith. The day was fantastic, catching 50 pounds or so of fish, snorkeling, and just sitting back and enjoying the rhythm of the ocean, as we slowly barrel our way through the surf in the aged 20 foot fishing boat.
The next day we enjoy a delicious breakfast of sausage, eggs, beans, and fry jacks while reflecting on the tumultuous events of the previous night. We chat with Geno and Olga about there life before and after learning the truth. Both have the goal of soon being baptized. Geno's family owns about half the peninsula, at least at one time, and was known as a hard nosed businessman for years. In the words of his brother, "He was a wicked, wicked man." But knowing Geno now, I'd never be able to guess he was anything but what he is today. Good-hearted, always ready to laugh, share a meal or share a story of old days, and always eager to talk about Jehovah. People in the ministry when seeing Geno, or "Babe" as he's known in the village, are shocked to say the least. Some take pictures of him, one lady even coming up and touching him with her finger to see if it's really him walking around with a tie and a Bible. With this formerly rough figure, we now sit on the open water, fishing, eating, and talking about how much better life is for him and his wife these days, than the ones former.
That afternoon the weather turns rough again. Too turbulent to return to the mainland as was originally planned. It's been about 30 hours on the small boat, and I think we're all dreading another night on it. Fortunately Geno knows everybody on and around the peninsula. And some of the Cays (small islands, pronounced keys) scattered across the ocean are large enough for people to live. We drop anchor at Crawl Cay, which is about half sand, half mangrove, with two guesthouses and one caretaker living on the island. Yes one man lives on this near abandoned island. An old fisherman who speaks thick Creole and is appropriately named Coral, Geno knows him of course. Hospitably he says we can stay the night in one of the guesthouses. We play around with a deflated soccer ball for a couple hours, cook up some Ramen, and go to bed early for one of the best nights of sleep I've had. Oh it was so glorious.
We leave about 5:30 the next morning and finally make it back home about 8:00 o'clock or so. I once read that there is two kind of adventurers: those who go truly trying to find adventure and those who go secretly hoping they won't. I still have yet to sort out on which side I stand, but I do know that this adventure was a whole mess of fun.