I.
After Stacy dropped Amanda off outside the Miami harbor, she headed back toward Bimini.
As she piloted the craft Bimini-wards, she found herself laughing out loud at times for the sheer joy of living. The Scylla and Charybdis was a powerful, well-behaving craft which was a joy to handle. Top that off with an azure blue ocean and a paler blue sky, and life was good.
Occasionally she’d pass another craft – Floridians loved their boating, as did Bahamanians – but for the most part she was alone on the water, lost in her own thoughts.
Bimini consists of two islands -- North Bimini and South Bimini. The town on North Bimini, an island about seven miles long and 700 feet wide, is Alice Town. A single road, the King’s Highway, runs through this collection of shops, restaurants, and bars.
South Bimini is a quieter place, with only one community as well -- Port Royale, which is, indeed, where the Suttons live and the Sutton kids grew up.
Tourists come to Bimini for a day of big game fishing and then a night out at the bars. Lots of tourists come for the snorkeling and scuba diving.
As far as literary figures are concerned, Ernest Hemingway lived on the island for a couple of years, from 1935 to 1937, writing bits of To Have and Have Not while staying at the Compleat Angler Hotel. (An iconic part of the island, the Compleat Angler was destroyed by fire in 2006). Singer Jimmy Buffett worked on one of his books while living on South Bimini.
II.
An hour or so after the Scylla and Charybdis glided into its slip on the coast of Bimini, it glided out again, with Stacy once more as pilot and Chelsea and Robert Wade as passengers. Acting as a guide to only one passenger was not really an economical use of the large yacht. Both Chelsea and Stacy knew it. It would have been better to have just taken the Zodiac. But…Amanda needed it and that was that. Besides, it was fun to put the powerful craft through its paces.
Stacy wore a bright yellow t-shirt and shorts, and a yellow baseball cap. She also wore large, black, wraparound sunglasses, which served to hide the fact that she and Chelsea were identical twins.
Stacy guided the Scylla and Charybdis to an optimum anchor position a few hundred meters from the Bimini Road.
After her two passengers disappeared beneath the waves on their little adventure, Stacy pulled out a notebook and pen, and wrote down the title a new short story, the plot of which had occurred to her as she returned to the islands. One of her goals – for she, like the other two Sutton sisters, had many goals – was to be a published author. In her sea chest at home were dozens of notebooks filled with short stories (she preferred to compose her first drafts with old-fashioned pen and paper, before transferring it to her computer.)
Stacy relaxed on deck, gazing occasionally at the glittering horizon while she sought for inspiration. She was going to try science fiction this time…a science fiction love story under the sea…
III.
Robert Wade had arrived at the pier with a shirt and baggy shorts thrown over a shorty wetsuit (a spandex or neoprene wetsuit that covered the wearer from arms to upper thighs). He was somewhat disappointed..or was he relieved?...to see that Chelsea was also wearing a shorty.
“Hi,” she greeted him cheerily.
For the next half hour, Chelsea took him through dive preparation. They checked the tanks and regulators they’d be using. Chelsea tested him on the various hand signals that divers used while underwater. Finally, she gave the dive plan. They were going to dive all three rock formation, the Bimini Road and the two formations near it. Chelsea would lead, he would follow her on her left side. If they got separated, they would surface and inflate a rescue pole.
Wade was quite pleased to see the professionalism with which Chelsea conducted herself. He was careful to pay close attention and he tried to show some hesitation as he did the hand signals, to make it clear he was a novice.
Finally, they settled themselves on comfy chairs in the prow of the boat, and their pilot pointed them out to sea.
As they headed toward their destination, Chelsea chatted more about the history of the Bimini Road.
The Bimini Road, also called the Bimini Wall, is a submerged rock formation near North Bimini. It consists of a half-mile long linear feature that runs northeast-southwest, and is composed of limestone blocks that are roughly rectangular. There has long been controversy about the Road – is it a natural rock formation or was it made by human hands in the distant past?
She recounted the story of the discovery of the Road. It had been discovered on September 2, 1968 by a diver named J. Manson Valentine. Since its discovery, it has been dived on by geologists, archaeologists, anthropologists, marine engineers, and tourists, all trying to decide if it was a man-made structure or just a natural phenomenon.
The Scylla drove through the ocean, and Wade sat silently, enjoying the sea-nery. [Yes, I said sea-nery.] When they anchored, just off the Road, he followed Chelsea to the rear of the boat where they put on their gear, then walked off the edge of the boat. They surfaced, performed an OK hand-signal, and then submerged simultaneously into the crystal clear water, with visibility of over 100 feet.
It was beautiful. It was peaceful.
No comments:
Post a Comment