April, 2006:

So it has been a fun-filled past couple of weeks sailing around Roatan, Utila and its cays, and Cayos Cochinos. Bergljott, Sjelle’s friend from Denmark, was due to get on her way back to Denmark via Panama City.

I had to bring Andiamo in to La Ceiba shipyard one more time to get the last of its metal work put on as well. I was under the assumption that it was done or close to being done the week after easter, which is a HUGE holiday break here in Central America. Nothing gets done during Semana Santa.

We brought Andiamo back into the yard, and tied up for what was to be a few days’ stopover. I’d come to like coming into La Ceiba. You can get anything you need there. There are fantastic supermarkets, and some decadent stateside comforts (there is a mall that compares to most malls in the states, as I’ve mentioned before). First-run US movies for two bucks, I can go on and on. It’s one of the few places in Central America where you can find competent work at very low rates. It’s an oasis in the desert for me. The city itself is by no means pretty, but there is incredible countryside and mountain terrain all around La Ceiba that’s easy to get to if you have the time.

During one of our first stops here, where we ended up getting stuck for weeks due to weather and breakdowns, I introduced Sjelle to Popeye’s spicy fried chicken. They have a couple of restaurants here along with KFC, Pizza Hut, and Burger King (no McD’s as of yet). I consider a visit to one of these joints a dose of guilty decadence these days. Sjelle is no fan of any of the fast-food chains, but she never tried Popeye’s spicy chicken until then.

Well, she’s been hooked ever since. No visit to La Ceiba is ever complete now with at least one obligatory stop to Popeye’s. This coming from someone who’s rather anal about food and food quality. You know the type, likes to make things from scratch. Abhors any kind of processed foods. Always looks for organically grown fruits and vegetables. That’s Sjelle. But mention Popeye’s spicy chicken, and all fortitude and willpower simply evaporates. I’m sure that the first thing she does when she goes back to Denmark is lobby hard for Popeye’s to open a store in Copenhagen. I’m not kidding.

After getting the rest of the metal work put on, which now makes Andiamo look whole again, we prepared to shove off yet again for Rio Dulce. We had to make a quick stop there to check on Sjelle’s boat, and see Luigi and Luisa one last time before they left for Italy. We bid farewell to Bergljott before leaving as well. She left the night before her flight to stay in a hotel close to the airport so she wouldn’t miss her 4:30 check-in time.

The next afternoon, we made it out of La Ceiba, and set sail for Rio Dulce. We were due to arrive for last Saturday’s high tide at 3:30 PM. The sail was quite nice, and fast in the beginning. We easily averaged over 8.5 knots most of the night. The winds eased up in the morning, but we managed to sail most of the trip until we got to the point.

We motored into Punta Manabique, and anchored there to kill some time before we had to head into Livingston during high tide. The weather was hazy and cloudy, and we could hear thunder coming from the mainland. Having grown up in Florida, the lightning capital of the world, I’m a bit nervous about lightning. Once you come to know lots of people who have been hit, injured and even killed by lightning, it brings your fears of it to the forefront.

Now, we were in a particular lurch yet again. We hadn’t checked out of Honduras in La Ceiba, because the port captain was not available, as often is the case these days. So we couldn’t properly check into Guatemala. We knew we were only going to be there for a couple of days, and get out of there as soon as possible. All we needed to do was go up the river relatively undetected by any officials, and leave undetected. Leaving undetected wouldn’t be a real problem because the high tide on our departure day was at something like 6 AM. It was just getting in that would be tricky if we were noticed.

Since it was a Saturday, we figured maybe they wouldn’t be so busy checking in any boats. It made sense, since many times on Saturdays, Livingston’s officials just took the day off when it was too slow. So we weren’t really too nervous about sneaking in. I know this sounds like it’s turning into a nasty habit, but trust me, I hate doing it.

So after getting over the bar, we blasted past Livingston up the river. Only to notice, that the officials were aboard a large catamaran that was anchored off the main dock! Sjelle noticed them only after we’d passed them. I was not happy at all about that. I slowed the boat down while we tried to mull over our options. We could turn around and check in, explaining to them that we were only there for a day or two to check on her boat. They would still charge us, and make us walk through our paperwork, which meant that we would not be able to make it up the river with the remaining daylight.

You don’t dare go up the Rio Dulce after sunset. There are simply too many cayucos without lights, fishing nets everywhere, and zero chance you will get through it without hitting one or both. So I was stuck to make the only real choice. Keep going. I figured that either they didn’t notice us, and if they did, they wouldn’t follow up on it until well after Monday, and we were planning on being gone by Tuesday. If we ran any later than that, then we’ll just go ahead and check-in with some kind of good story to back us up.

So up the river we went. The weather turned really ugly by the time we reached El Golfete. There was lightning and ground strikes everywhere. We could see this huge wall of rain chase us up the lake, but never quite reach us. We managed to get to Luigi’s before any bad weather could hit us.

I went in with the dinghy after anchoring just to let Luigi and Luisa know that we were there. They were busy getting ready to head back to Italy in a few days, so we didn’t want to get in their way too much. Sjelle’s boat looked fine, despite Luigi saying that they had just gone through two horrendous weeks of rainfall and thunderstorms. He was afraid that her boat may be flooded. Her boat looked like it was still sitting high on the water, so I didn’t think it could be too bad.

The next day, we went into her boat, and like I suspected, it wasn’t too bad. There was some leakage around the covering we put around her hull damage, but it all seemed to just go right down to the bilge. Her bilge pump was not working though, so there was quite a bit of water in her bilge, but not to any level where it was dangerous.

After some cleaning, and repair of the bilge pump’s float switch, it was operational again. I made some adjustments to the plastic sheeting covering the broken window and deck damage. We ended up adding another length to overlap the existing patch. That should do the trick. We spent the next day finishing up her boat, and picking up some groceries and stuff in town.

I also spent the afternoon securing a place for Andiamo during hurricane season. It may be Mario’s like last year, but I think I found a better option that’s cheaper and more private. I won’t know for a few days, when I do some emailing with the friend who pointed me to it. But if it works out, it’s going to be pretty sweet.

We managed to get everything done by Monday afternoon. So we said goodbye to Luigi and Luisa, and took Andiamo over to the other end of El Golfete. We didn’t have time to make it all the way to Livingston by sunset. So we opted to anchor over by an island in El Golfete called Cayo Grande, and spend the night there. It’s an incredibly beautiful, quiet and idyllic anchorage. We were out of the wind that was being generated by the mountains off the lake. An immaculate setting.

The next morning, we were up at 5 AM, so we can make the 6:30 AM high tide at Livingston. The sun was not quite yet up. The morning mist, the stillness of the water, and the egrets flying around made the scene serene and brilliant. The colors from the rising sun were setting in on the vegetation and the water, and the mist started burning off. Very, very picturesque.

So we did slap ourselves out of our trance created by being surrounded by all this natural beauty, and pulled up the anchor and headed out of there. We made it out of Livingston with no problems, and we were well on our way to being legal again in Honduras, woo-hoo!

Well, not quite yet. We decided we wanted to head up the Sapodilla Cays in Belize for the night before heading over to Puerto Escondido, which was on the mainland of Honduras just a bit after Puerto Cortes. This made for better timing for us, because we would not make it to Puerto Escondido before dark. Anchoring there for the night is no problem, we would just put up our Q-flag (“Q” stands for quarantine). This would basically tell officials that we were not planning on coming ashore, and we would check in if we did. So we set course for Lime Cay.

After some ok sailing up to there, we made it to Lime Cay with an hour or so to spare before sunset. The wind was now blowing from the northeast. So we anchored on the southwest side of the island, hoping the island would shelter us. It was not to be. The swells were rolling in from both the northeast and the west, so seas were a bit confused.

It was too late for us to go anywhere else, so we settled in for what would be a VERY rolly night. The boat pitched and rolled all night, and made for a very uncomfortable sleep. We did manage to get some sleep, and get the boat moving again in the morning. We had a nice motorsail over to Puerto Escondido about 40 or so miles away. Both Sjelle and I had been told by different people that this place was not to be missed. Once we got there, we understood why.

Puerto Escondido is on a small peninsula called Punta Sal. This whole area is a protected national park in Honduras and is preserved in its pristine state. There is wildlife everywhere. Howler monkeys can be heard from all ends of the place, as there were toucans, and other exotic birds. The beach in Puerto Escondido, as the entire peninsula, is completely uninhabited, which in these times of unbridled development everywhere you look, is really rare and refreshing. There was one other boat anchored there when we got there, and we set our anchor in the opposite corner of them. Seemed like a good place to be, and we were still a good distance from the other boat.

In an anchorage, the unwritten rule is that you anchor as far from any other boats as you safely can. This preserves privacy for everybody. Well so much for that when two other boats came in and decided to drop their anchors in between our boats for the night. I could have spit on the boat that was closest to us. Nevermind that they had a whole other end of the anchorage that they could have had all to themselves. I’m sure the other boat was as unhappy about this development as we were.

To add insult to injury, one of the other boats had this absolutely ridiculous two-color strobe light that BLINKED incessantly through the night. Thus ruining the peace and tranquility of the anchorage. I’m sure I saw the same light on the approach before the runway at LAX. Idiot. Lucky for us, they all left the next day. So we got at least one night of peace.

The next day, we decided to swim in and check out the shore. After breakfast and a swim, we put on our snorkel gear and headed in with a wetbag full of clothes, flip-flops, cameras and other necessities. We hiked along the beach for the first couple of hours. Sjelle went a little nuts with all the sand dollars she was finding, and I just took pics. There was one dory at one end of the beach with a couple of garifuna guys onboard, they were in the woods off one of the trails doing something.

At first, we thought they might have been trying to poach the howler monkeys. But after awhile, we figured out that they were just picking bananas and plantains off the trees in the park. Not sure if that’s legal or not, but it seems to be better than poaching monkeys. They left a couple of hours later with a boatload of fruit.

We continued our hike off the beach, up the trail that the guys on the boat were using. It was a cool walk through the peninsula and out to the other side onto a beach that bordered the Bahia de Tela. It was an absolutely long, winding beach with magnificent white sand. We hung out there for awhile, and swam before heading back to the boat for lunch.

We got back to where all our gear was and snorkeled back to the boat. The rest of the afternoon was spent lazily. We had the whole anchorage to ourselves, so we were enjoying the rare peace and tranquility. This is the kind of place you can just stay for days or weeks if you wanted to. We’ll be back before heading back to the Rio, that’s for sure.

So this morning, we pulled up the anchor and headed out for Utila. Lucky for us today, the wind was excellent, so sailing was going to be the order of the day. That and the fact that we caught a 20 lb. barracuda not even an hour out. The sail back was pretty brisk, but by evening, the winds really picked up. It was getting wet and exhausting as we had to tack a few times since the wind was right in our faces as we tried to keep course for Utila. By the time we turned the motor on for the last 8 or so miles, the winds were howling over 25 knots. I was glad to finally drop anchor in Utila harbor.

We should be hanging out here for a couple of days before heading on to Roatan for yet a few more port calls there. Then it’s back to La Ceiba sometime next week for one final piece of metalwork to be put on. Then we hope to get to Trujillo, another fine place on the mainland, and Guanaja before working our way back.

It’s nice to be checking out some NEW places for a change!

Summer – 1984

Our first cruise of the Mediterranean was coming to a close. The USS Saratoga had a generally uneventful tour of duty. Essentially, the ship and attached airwing had such little money to operate with. So little so, that the 6th Fleet basically sent us from one port to another, with very little sea time, and even less time to fly our aircraft. It was far cheaper for us to stay inport than to operate at sea.

Most of the lifers onboard dubbed the Saratoga’s med cruise of 1984, “The Love Boat Cruise”. Pretty appropriate as the deployment was hardly taxing or demanding on the ship’s personnel. We went from port to port so much that it really did seem like nothing more than a casual cruise. All that was missing was Isaac the bartender working the Lido Deck pool bar. Port visits became a blur. They were accented only by the girls you met and the beaches you went to during that particular visit. It was great.

The lifers were also pretty resentful that they didn’t get the sea time that they so craved. Not because they liked being at sea or anything nautically romantic like that. It was more because they were able to save their meager paychecks by staying out at sea, because it kept them from squandering it on over-priced, watered down booze, hookers, or both.

Miguel and I, of course, loved being inport. Everywhere the ship went, we made a point of getting as far away from it as possible, while still keeping a safe distance for a quick return if needed. We found most times that the farther away from the boat we got, the cheaper stuff got, people became nicer, and girls became much friendlier. So we always made sure to hop a train or bus and get out of dodge. We got so good at it, that we were able to remember train schedules, and make plans to hit towns that we didn’t get to hit the last time we were in a particular country or city.

We had quickly become friends once I had been assigned to the same division onboard the Saratoga in Mayport. I arrived there after 14 weeks of boot camp and “A” school. That’s where I went to Meridian, Mississippi to basically learn how to type and be an office lackey. They give you eight weeks to learn this stuff, I did it in four. Mainly because I hated being in Meridian. Geez, what a shithole. Miguel had already been onboard the Saratoga for about 4 months, but hadn’t really gotten into any of the cliques yet.

My rating, Aviation Maintenance Administration, or “AZ”, seemed like a good fit for me. It was pretty mindless, yet seemed interesting enough for me to not die of utter boredom from my job. That’s why I chose it rather than let myself be cajoled into the highly technical fields such as computer technician, or electronics technician, and so on. My test scores were high enough for me to go into anything but nuclear power (math is not my forte). But I resisted the recruiter’s tantalizing sales points to go for the tech jobs. I was simply not at all interested in getting any kind of technical training during my time in the navy. It seemed like too much work. Besides, how was I going to take any college classes and work towards my degree if my mind was cluttered with technical stuff? Exactly. Nevermind that I only took one lame business class during my whole time in the navy, that’s not the point. My intentions were good, my ambitions, maybe not so.

My rationale for going into the navy was pretty simple at the time I made the choice to sign up. I was basically booted out of my budding sub-C average college career at Daytona Beach Community College. This was mainly because, thanks to President Reagan’s sweeping financial reforms, I was no longer eligible for any kind of federal financial aid. In fact, they yanked my existing financial aid for my first year, and then hit me with a bill for what I owed back. Lovely.

I had just gotten fired from a job at a mexican restaurant that hadn’t even opened yet. Imagine that! And I was getting pretty depressed living in Daytona Beach. It was time for a drastic change, I thought. Call it desperation, or a limit of options, but the navy was the best route at the time, so I thought. So I bought the advertising tagline, “Join the navy and get money for college!” and went to the recruiter and signed up.

Miguel, on the other hand, was a Mexican immigrant whose family settled in Fresno, California. He had prepared half his life to get into the navy (I’m not kidding, he was in something like the Navy Junior ROTC when he was in high school, and he was good friends with his recruiter for years before he joined the navy!) He saw the navy as the way to a good career, with good benefits, and retirement by the time he was 40. He wasn’t lifer material, but he did see it as a means to an end, and a way to get ahead.

We were completely opposite kinds of navy people. I was barely able to stay out of trouble at any given time. Most of my department superiors were sure I was using drugs (I wasn’t), mainly because I was from Daytona Beach. I was constantly skirting the uniform rules, and was being told to get a haircut almost everyday. Miguel, on the other hand, was on the fast-track to making petty officer 2nd class after his first year in. Everybody loved Miguel. He was a model sailor. He was career material. I was trouble. I was considered the “bad seed”. But believe me, looking at who most of the people were who considered me “bad seed”, it was really quite a complement. One of the things I hated most about being in the navy was the fact that I was working for and with people who were mostly such that I would not let them in my own front door.

Somehow we had managed to get through the whole cruise without getting into any major trouble. Even though we managed to scam out of morning duty musters alot. We did this so we can spend the night off the ship. It was pretty easy to do in our division. We were always able to cover ourselves. Miguel, who was already a petty officer third class, had authorization to spend nights ashore. I, on the other hand, was only a lowly airman, and was required to be onboard every night. But I never let a stupid rule like that stop me from spending the night ashore, no fricking way.

I especially exploited the rules and my duty schedules to their fullest whenever the ship pulled into Naples, Italy. There was a simple reason for this. I had relatives (everyone on my mother’s side) who lived in Salerno, less than an hour away. One of my aunts, Rosa, would have a bed ready for me whenever the Saratoga was inport in Naples. She’d feed me til I exploded, do my laundry, and pamper me to no end. On top of that, I always had good fun hanging out with my cousins and visiting my other aunts and uncles. It was heaven. Miguel, as my partner in crime, quickly became a de-facto Vaccaro family member. So he loved going there whenever possible.

By the time we got to our fourth or fifth port visit into Naples, Miguel and I had a system down pat to keep each other out of trouble on the ship without either of us needing to check in for any day other than our duty days. It worked out great, because we were always able to get to Salerno and relax, eat, and have fun with my cousins.

During this particular time, the dollar was incredibly strong against the Italian Lira. So Miguel and I had a plan to go on a major shopping spree on our last visit to Salerno before heading back home to the states in September. So with shopping list in hand, we hit all the best stores in Salerno and updated our wardrobes with awesome italian clothes, sweaters, shoes, belts, the works. And the prices were truly insane, even for someone with our meager navy salaries.

Before leaving the ship for that last big shopping spree, both Miguel and I consulted the ship’s Plan of the Day (affectionately called the P.O.D) to see what time liberty expired on our last day in Naples. It clearly said midnight. “Perfect” I told Miguel. “We can shop all that day, spend the evening saying goodbye to all the relatives, and hop an evening train back to Naples with time to spare to make the cut-off.” It was a clean, foolproof plan, I thought.

So after our major shopping spree was over, we took our time saying our goodbyes. I had gotten quite close to my Aunt Rosa, and most of my cousins who were her kids. It had been a wonderful time to get reacquainted with my italian family. Especially considering that I had not been to Italy a good ten years before that summer, when I was quite young.

Many of our cousins accompanied us to the train station to see us off. At that point, the station announced that there was a problem on the tracks, and all trains were suspended until further notice. My cousins scrambled into action, and hired a cab for us to get us back to Naples. We offered to pay for the cab, but they would not hear of it. We left Salerno about 8 pm, and were due to get into Naples well before 9pm. “Plenty of time”, both Miguel and I thought to ourselves and each other.

The taxi got us to the port pretty quickly. In fact we were well ahead of our initially estimated arrival time. If you ever rode a taxi in Italy, you’d understand why. They are not known for being conservative on the road, to put it mildly.

We walked up the port to where the liberty boats were docking to ferry sailors back and forth to the Saratoga, which was anchored in the basin. Only to find… that the liberty launch dock was completely shut down! The Saratoga was still out there in the basin, but apparently we missed the last ferry out to it, and now we were stuck on the dock. Miguel and I both confirmed with each other that the expiration of liberty was midnight. And here it was barely 9pm, and we’re stuck on the dock.

We both started to get a little nervous. Missing ship’s movement, as they call this particular situation, is a HUGE no-no in the navy. And both Miguel and I were about to have it happen to us. We saw a couple of US Navy destroyers tied up at the dock not far from where our liberty launch used to be. We frantically ran over to them and asked them if they can help us get back to the Saratoga. Despite the fact that they had a couple of their own liberty boats in the water patrolling, the duty officer refused to help us. He told us to call Naples Shore Patrol, and they would come get us. We begged and pleaded for them to take us out to the ship, but to no avail. This was bad, and it was just about to get worse.

So while we sat at the dock for about another hour, trying to figure out what to do next. Miguel and I tried to come up with various scenarios that would maybe get us out of the incredible amount of trouble we were in. “What if,” I thought aloud, “we beat the crap out of each other, leave our wallets, money and other possessions with my relatives in Salerno, and call the police and say we were robbed and beat up? They’d buy that wouldn’t they?” How can they not? We would come across as major victims. No money, no way to contact the ship. Getting out of the mugging with barely our lives. Of course it would fly. It would just have to be done right, and our stories would have to be straight. I almost had Miguel sold on the plan. But then his steadfast navy demeanor took over, and he said, “Naw, let’s just call the shore patrol and tell them what happened. Maybe they’ll give us a break”.

For a minute, I thought about just going ahead on the proposed beating of Miguel. I figured once he had a fat lip and a couple of shiners, he’d commit to my idea. Then, he’d be pissed off enough to beat the crap out of me in retaliation, and then all the other parts of the plan would just fall into place. But before I can take my first swing, he was on the pay phone calling Naples shore patrol. Damn… too late.

A chief from the shore patrol unit showed up at the dock about a half hour later to pick us up. He seemed nice enough, but never let up on reminding us that we were both in deep shit. He actually laughed out loud about how much trouble we were in. Not very reassuring, or nice, I thought. At that point, I thought I should just beat the shit out of Miguel anyway. Just because. But then I figured that would just put me in more trouble. Logic set in, I guess, and I backed off.

Once we got to the shore patrol station, we were put in a small waiting area. It would be sometime in the morning before they’d know what to do with us. The chief said there were a couple of cots in an adjoining room we could use to sleep. There was nothing else to do but sleep and ponder our impending doom, so that’s what we did. My nightmares were particularly vivid that night.

The next morning, we were taken to the air terminal at the naval station. Apparently, there was a helo flight out to the Saratoga the next morning, and we were going to be on it. This was kind of exciting in a bittersweet way, as neither Miguel or I had ever been flown onto the ship (which if you haven’t surmised by now, was an aircraft carrier). So there we were at the airport waiting room, waiting to be called.I found myself scanning the rather crowded waiting area.

“Christ!” I wailed to Miguel. That was the second I saw our division senior chief walking around looking for a seat. He was on his way back to the states for a couple of weeks of leave. And lucky for us, he just happened to be sitting a couple of rows away. “He won’t notice us, it’s really crowded”, reasoned Miguel. “Fat chance”, I thought, “he’s going to notice us, then he’s going to go apeshit for us not being back on the boat.” I worked directly for the senior chief in the division office. He’s firm, but fair, but don’t, DO NOT piss him off. That’s when things get ugly with this gruff 6’5″ Alabama redneck that just happened to be our senior chief. Surely, our being there was going to piss him off.

About a half hour later, while we were trying to look inconspicuous and somehow blend into the wallpaper in the corner of the waiting area, a shadow came over us from behind. I could hear the cigarette-addled breathing that was the senior chief’s trademark as he loomed closer.

“So what I wanna know, is what the hell you two morawns are doing here instead of being aboard ship.”

We proceeded to explain to him in a non-self-incriminating way how things went down that forced us to miss the ship. Circumstances and forces beyond our control. We mainly focused on how we thought liberty expired at midnight as the P.O.D said the previous day, hoping that would help us somehow.

“Well, they changed it in the morning to expire at 1800,” he enlightened us.”Had you been at morning muster like you were supposed to, Santos, you would have heard the announcement.” My jaw kinda dropped after he said that.

While I’m sure he was pissed as hell, I think he was too preoccupied with getting home for a couple weeks with his family to give us too much more thought. After we told him that we were on a helo flight out to the Sara, he basically chilled out, and went back to where he was sitting, and didn’t give us too much thought again after that.

About an hour before we were supposed to fly out, Miguel turned to me, and said the smartest thing he’d ever said to me since I’d met him. “I don’t think I’m going to stay in the Navy after my four years run out,” he admitted, “it’s too damn easy to get in trouble.” About the same time, I found myself somewhat glad that I didn’t actually beat the living shit out of him earlier last evening.

We were coralled onto the helicopter, along with a half dozen other people. Most of them were new and transferring personnel, and a couple of officers being sent to the ship for temporary duty. There were, alas, no others who just happened to miss the ship the way we did. So we could take no comfort in us not being the only ones out of 5500+ other people who just happened to miss the boat that day.

Needless to say, when we got to the ship, we could feel the impending doom even more. “You’re dead” our shipmates told us. “You guys are going to burn for this, everybody upstairs is PISSED.” “Oh yay,” I thought.

It was about then that I started thinking that this whole missing the ship thing may really mess up my plans to go on leave after the ship got back to Mayport. I was going to take 2 weeks off so I can drive up to Atlanta and meet up with my then girlfriend, Kathy. She was attending college at Wesleyan, close to Macon. During our separation during the cruise, she came up with the idea that I come up and we go spend a good week in Atlanta after we got back. Maybe a nice romantic bed and breakfast in the suburbs, on a lake. I’d already applied for the leave, and by some miracle, it got approved. So we were both really excited about this time we were going to spend together. I figured that it would be a good way to keep her in the picture for a little while longer, as I thought that a breakup was inevitable at some point in the future.

After we got interrogated to death by both our other senior chief and our division officer, they wrote us up. We were going to be brought up to the commanding officer in this thing called “Captain’s Mast”. This is where the CO comes up with a punishment without the pleasantries of court martial or judicial action. The CO has the authority to bust you down in rank, dock your pay, and worst of all to me, restrict you to the ship for as long as 2 months. He can even send you down to the ship’s brig for up to 30 days if what you do really pisses him off.

Needless to say, we had our liberty privileges revoked for the rest of the cruise. There was only one more stop in Palma de Mallorca, which had become a big favorite for Miguel and me over the past summer. The place was always teeming with hot european girls, great little resort towns along the coast, and the partying was never-ending. Great beaches, great clubs, what more can a single guy ask for? And we were to be denied one last visit before heading back. It was a sign of things to come.

About a day or so after leaving Palma de Mallorca, we were sent to the CO. Our captain was a very humorless guy, totally by the book. I had never met him before that day, and I was really dreading meeting him now at this mast hearing. Miguel was first. He got busted down to Airman, docked half pay for 2 months, and sentenced to 60 days’ restriction. Then, it was my turn. The CO was especially not happy with the fact that I spent the night before we were supposed to leave Naples ashore. He busted me down from Airman to Airman Recruit (that’s like the bottom of the barrel), docked me 2 months’ pay, and of course, I got restriction for 60 days.

The worst part was that we were transiting back to the states, and we would be back in Mayport in about a week. This meant that we’d be stuck on the ship another 45 to 50 days after getting back from a cruise! This was pretty devastating. I sent my girlfriend a letter telling her what happened. I knew that it wasn’t going to go over well. Little did I know that she’d already started dating some frat guy and she was planning on breaking up with me anyway.

Our arrival back to Mayport was hardly a good one for us. My dad knew that I wouldn’t be able get off the boat, but he came over anyway from Daytona to see me. He was able to come aboard, and it was so nice to see him again. But it was really tough for me to not be able to get off with him and go have a beer somewhere.

The ship’s personnel was pretty much stood down, and we had a skeleton crew onboard those first few weeks back in Mayport. All the aircraft was gone, and the flight deck and hangar deck were totally empty and agape. There were many days where it seemed like Miguel and I were the only ones onboard. It sucked. We had to show up at our admin office every 6 hours until 11pm to sign in for our restriction. It was horrible and humiliating. To see everybody else coming and going as they pleased, going home to their wives or girlfriends, UGGH!

We decided that we would try to pass the time by playing games. We’d play cards, kick around a soccer ball in the hangar deck, and play frisbee. We particularly got addicted to playing frisbee for hours on end every day after work. It became a great, athletic way to pass the time. That was until I did a bad boomerang throw, and the frisbee ended up flying out of the hangar bay door, right into the water. No more frisbee.

After 45 or so painful and dreadfully monotonous days, we were finally free to leave the ship. Both Miguel and I managed to get leave lined up right after our restriction ran out so we can get out of dodge for awhile. Miguel was going to go to Fresno for his leave, and I was going to go to Daytona.

Since our department loved Miguel so much, they got him back his original rank of petty officer third class after the restriction ran out. I, on the other hand was left to rot at Airman Recruit. It would take me another 9 months or so to get back to my original rank of Airman, and another year after that to make my ultimate rank of petty officer third class.

Going through that whole ordeal ultimately inspired me to just find other ways to reap revenge on the navy, and my superiors in general. For the next three or so years, I made it my mission to find as many creative ways to get away with relative murder, right under my superior’s noses. And boy, did I ever. But those are other stories. Sure, there were a couple of times where I almost got caught, but I had gotten quite good. Really good. I was always a step or two ahead, and able to cover my tracks with plausible evidence or false paper trails. It became an art form for me. Looking back, all my shenanigans were probably the only thing that kept me sane for the next 3 or so years I was going to be onboard the Saratoga. I took a strange satisfaction in knowing how much smarter and slicker I was than most my superiors.

Miguel kept his nose clean, played the game, and remained the model sailor. But in the end, he stuck to the proclamation he made back in Naples. That he would not re-enlist when his time was up. He walked away from the navy after his first four years, never looking back.

I still think my “beat the shit out of each other” plan would have worked, though.

So it was a pretty productive week in La Ceiba. Andiamo’s hull has been restored to her original blue luster, her battle scars and gashes taken away. Ok, so all the blue spots where we spot painted don’t EXACTLY match up with the rest of the hull, so what? I’d rather look at some darker patches of blue than bright white or gray gashes, nicks and scratches.

Also finally got the ball rolling on some age-old damage to the bow pulpit (courtesy of BoatUS and the US Coast Guard back in Key West!). We’ll have to go back for a day or so to get everything put on after it comes back from the machine shop, in the coming week or so.

We also took advantage of the downtime to rip out the GHASTLY looking formica in the galley countertops, and replace it with gleaming, shiny white formica! Let’s see how long it stays shiny and white now. I’m also having a new bow chock and stanchion mount made for the bow pulpit to replace the ones that were er.. damaged… back in Key West. But that should be quick, and it will be sweet when it’s FINALLY done. Except for the time that Andiamo got somewhat HIT by a fishing boat that was being towed into the harbor, narrowly missing some newly finished paintwork on Andiamo’s stern (but did end up kinda “bending” the dinghy davits), there were no other real calamities to speak of.

So, after some massive provisioning at La Ceiba’s fantastic supermarkets, Andiamo was off again last Saturday. We had to sail over to Roatan to pick up Bergljott, a Danish friend of Sjelle’s who was coming in. We left for Roatan, about 30 miles north of La Ceiba in the morning.

It was a HEAVY DUTY sail over. Winds were howling over 25 knots and seas were easily over 8 feet. With a reefed main, we had Andiamo pointing pretty nicely over most of the course to Roatan. I would have rather gone into Coxens Hole, because it would have made it very easy to get to the airport from there to pick up Bergjlott. Instead, because of the way the currents were acting on the boat, we opted to head into the West End instead. This was a much nicer anchorage anyway,it just meant we’d have to grab a bus or cab to the airport, and that we’d be a little late getting Bergljott.

After a blast of a sail, we anchored in the West End anchorage. After securing the anchor, and squaring away the boat a little, we proceeded to get the dinghy in the water asap. We needed get ashore and over to the airport as soon as possible to grab Bergljott. We found a mini-bus heading into Coxen Hole as soon as we got on the beach, so we climbed aboard. From there, we grabbed a cab to the airport, only a few minutes away. Within about 10 minutes, we found Bergljott, who had been there a couple of hours by then. Minutes later, we were on our way back to West End.

Bergljott, who is actually from the Faeroe Islands, had never traveled out of Europe before, so this was a huge first for her. She was a bit jet lagged from her trip over, but not too bad since she spent the night in Houston on the way over. Sjelle and I, on the other hand, were really exhausted, considering we stayed up most of the previous night getting the boat ready for the trip the next morning. We had to clean Andiamo up after all the boatwork.

We talked about taking a bit of a nap in the early evening, and then head in to shore to meet up with Ann, the swedish dive instructor friend of mine who spent some time onboard Andiamo during the holidays. So we all proceeded to crash for a couple of hours, which actually turned to all night. I guess we were all more exhausted than we originally thought. I actually woke up at 4AM, shocked that I’d slept through like that. But apparently, it was much needed, because I was still pretty tired.

The next day was pretty relaxed, we gave Bergljott a chance to settle in so we didn’t scramble off on a big activity schedule. About the only thing to do in Roatan is dive. Sjelle’s certification is lost in space, and Bergljott wasn’t certified. So diving wasn’t high on the list, unfortunately for me. We did go into West End town, and hung out a bit. I also managed to talk to Ann, who wondered where the hell we were the night before, since we didn’t talk to her again after passing out. We made a deal to meet the next day at sunset at a place called “Sundowners”, in Halfmoon Bay. It was about this time that I realized, that it was ok to just relax on the boat after a very hectic week of working on it. So I didn’t seem to mind, although Sjelle tends to get a little restless when nothing’s going on.

That evening proved to be a quiet one as well. We stayed onboard, and watched a dvd and called it a night pretty early again. The weather was quite nice and breezy, and the nights were actually a bit cool. This was a nice change from the sweltering nights we’d been having in La Ceiba.

The next morning, we had a nice casual breakfast in the cockpit. It was promising to be hot, and there were people milling around on the beach, and the Luna Beach resort, which we were anchored right off of. Sometime around 9 or so that morning, we heard what I thought were fireworks. Sjelle, however, thought they sounded like gunshots. Gunshots?? Here on the West End? Seemed odd to me. Then again, they did sound like gunshots come to think of it. Probably some Spaniard shooting into the air, I thought, they tend to do that on certain occasions.

A few minutes later, we heard several more shots, and this time they sounded closer. Then, we noticed all the people on the Luna Beach dock scrambling off in a big hurry. Then, Sjelle saw at least 1 or 2 rounds bouncing off the water just off the boat anchored next to us! It was crazy. I proceeded to grab my binoculars to see if I can get a closer look at what was happening on the beach. There were several national police officers grouped around a beachfront reggae bar. They were all pointing in the same direction, towards a large church-like building. A couple of them were looking down at something. I later found out that it was the guy they shot, who was now dead at their feet.

The cops ran around for another hour or so. After that, everything went fairly back to normal on the beach. The taxis started driving by, and people were walking around again. A local guy who operates a tour boat stopped by to say hi. We asked him if knew anything about what had happened on the beach. He said he had just talked to a friend on his cel phone. His friend said that two local guys got into a mini-gunfight by the beachside reggae bar over a deal gone bad (I know, drugs were involved, shocking!).

Then, the cops showed up and one of the guys tried to run up the beach to get away. The cops shot him while he was running (In these parts, they don’t have the same, *ahem*, protocols that determine when a police can shoot or not shoot, as they pretend to have in places like LA or Miami). He was dead. They were apparently looking for the other guy that was involved in the gunfight, but he didn’t know if they’d found him or not.

At that point, I thought, a hell of a way to start the day. It could not get any more perilous after that little ordeal.

Things seemed peaceful again on the beach, so I went ashore to run some errands. We were planning on heading over to Utila either that day or the next. I needed to get some paperwork done online to prepare for filing taxes and to deal with a few other matters before leaving. After I got my errands done, we were able to leave.

There wasn’t much wind, and it was a little later in the day. This meant we’d arrive in Utila in the evening. This is not a problem for me, since I’ve done it a few times. We motorsailed most of the way, and still made it in a reasonably good time. We set anchor, and alas, we were back in Utila again.

It was nice to be back. Most of my Utila friends were starting to wonder if I’d ever get back. When I left back in February to go help Sjelle with her boat, I was only supposed to be gone a couple of weeks. Most, like Tony P, had already heard about Sjelle’s big mast-falling incident. However, some of the points of the story were a bit exaggerated as it so often happens when things are communicated over the “coconut telegraph”.

We’ve been here for about a week now. Mostly because Sjelle and I have both been sick with some kind of nasty flu. We finally came out of it, and took a sail out to the Cays for a couple of days. It’s Holy Week right now (Semana Santa), so we are trying to stay out of any population centers in the area until after Easter. So it’s probably onward to Cayos Cochinos after a brief provisioning stop in Utila town. We don’t have much more time to sail this month, because we have to be back in Rio Dulce by the 20th to finish up getting Sjelle’s boat secured for the summer. After that, we should have a good few more weeks of sailing to do.

But it sure is nice to be back out on the water again. Hope it holds out for the rest of the season.

Just a quick entry to say that Andiamo is back in Utila, after a productive stay in La Ceiba and then Roatan after that. I’ll be following up with a better-detailed post outlining all that has happened in the past couple of weeks.

Stay tuned. =)