Cruisin’ Skipper’s Dream

Author © Scott D. Zachary

I had become a “snowbird.” At the first mention of snow each year, I hurriedly hooked my travel trailer, which served as my office and home, to my heavy-duty Ford pickup truck and dashed to the warm recesses of Florida. November 2001 was no exception.

During Thanksgiving dinner at my girlfriend Scharlotte’s house, her sister Sherry had mentioned snow. After we finished eating, I asked Scharlotte if she appreciated me. I suppose she didn’t answer me because we’d been quarreling. That and her sister’s comment stamped my express ticket to Florida. I grabbed my few belongings, drove out into the field behind their dad’s house, hooked up to my travel trailer, and headed southeast from Morrilton, Arkansas, to sunny Florida.

Scharlotte assumed this spat would be like the last one when I temporarily moved into a hotel in the next town. WRONG. She called me on my cell phone the following evening. “Where are you?”

“I believe that last sign said ‘Pensacola,’  ” I flippantly quipped.

“Oh.”

I smirked all the way to Cape Canaveral near Cocoa Beach, where I booked a hotel room overlooking the bay. After setting up my computers in this temporary office, I drove to the KOA campground near Mims, Florida, where I parked my trailer. After the telephone company connected the phone lines at my campsite a few days later, I relocated my office to the campground.

I began my daily routine by remotely taking care of my clients’ software in Arkansas and Kentucky until 4:30 p.m. After work, I always called for either a taxi or a limousine to take me to Cocoa Beach to party. (I had no desire to ever spend another night in a jail cell for driving under the influence of alcohol.) On those nights that I planned to barhop, I retained a limo because it was cheaper and more convenient than a taxi. The gals liked it too!

One morning while jogging off my hangover, I met Ed Matlack who had migrated down from New Jersey. He lived in his RV, which he parked behind my trailer. Ed and I would become as close as two mutually and perpetually antagonistic friends could be. Ed was always as sarcastic as a “Joizy” fellow might be, continually pinpointing and harping about the negative attributes of everything. When there were none, he proposed some. I, at the opposite end of the spectrum, lived in the silver linings. Ed and I could never tolerate each other’s company for more than a few minutes at a time. Our mental chemistry in proximity parallels jumping a cable from the negative to the positive battery terminal of your car.

Ed usually walked his dog Woofie about the same time that I jogged. Woofie’s real name is Rufuz. I’m not sure how I came up with “Woofie,” but he seemed to like it. We fell in love at first glance. Woofie was a beautiful mix of German shepherd and collie with a lovable personality. Ed usually groaned about having to get up and take Woofie for a walk, so I asked him if Woofie could run with me in the mornings. That thrilled Ed, and Woofie loved being my running partner.

Ed told me that he was looking for a job. The campground had hired him to do menial labor, but he couldn’t handle the heat. Ed had seen me coming and going in my hired taxis and limos. He reasoned it would save me money and earn him some sorely needed cash if he could be my driver. It made good sense to me, and that’s how we three became good friends.

Ed, Woofie, and I barhopped together nearly every night for several weeks. I did all the drinking; Ed did all the driving; and Woofie did all the sniffing up and down the beach.

I had a taxi drop me off at a string of bars on Cocoa Beach one particularly dismal evening. Why I didn’t have Ed drive me, I don’t recall. I do remember getting exceptionally drunk that night while scouting for a woman. Granted, I was looking in all the wrong places. I finally became frustrated and gave up. I walked out the door across the wooden deck. Oblivious of the two-foot drop-off, I fell forward flat on my face. I got up and stumbled toward the beach. Standing between two dumpsters, I dropped to my knees, put my hands together, and looked skyward. “God, give me a good woman, not one that wants me for my money. Give me a respectable lady who will lead me to know You.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Ed introduced me to Bill Kesl, who also lived at the Mims Travel Park. Bill took me fishing in a sixteen-foot aluminum boat out in the Florida Keys. I couldn’t imagine anyone more perfect to play the part of the old man in Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea than Bill. Skinny, balding, several front teeth missing, cantankerous, eccentric, and adventurous—that’s Bill.

Our trip, along with Bill’s love of the sea, stirred my life-long wanderlust—this time toward the ocean. After 36 hours and dozens of miles out into the endless shark channels of the Keys, we lost our bearings. Yikes! In our quest to find a way back, I struggled to pull the boat across a shallow shark-infested reef. I never saw anyone laugh as hard as Bill did while I tugged on the anchor chain. I was not amused as fins sliced the surface all around me. You would never have guessed that we were friends. Somehow, I blundered our way out of that predicament.

The following week, Bill and I were driving along Route 1. “Let’s take a look at that boat for sale,” he gestured.

I drove into the sales lot. “That dinghy is not my style,” I spouted. Turning around toward the road, I spotted another, much nicer boat. “Now, that’s my style.”

We drove across the parking lot, got out, and walked behind the boat’s transom. I glanced at the name and read Skipper’s Dream, the name of the boat in my first novel. I couldn’t believe it! I looked again, and it read Cruisin’.

        “Okay for me to go aboard?” Bill asked the chunky, bleach-blonde lady.

“Sure, help yourself,” she motioned.

Bill, a former charter boat captain, flipped the ladder down and climbed aboard. After our journey through the Keys, Bill was well aware of how little I knew about boats. In summation, I knew that they should ideally float.

“How much do you want for it?” I inquired.

“The price is $13,500.”

“Will you take twelve?”

“Can you pay cash?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Sold.”

I had no idea what I just bought. I merely wanted to blow Bill’s mind.

       Bill jumped down, declaring, “It’s a 1973 Stamas 24-foot Sports Cruiser, and she appears to be sound but needs a major overhaul.”

“She’s mine now, Bill—I just bought her.”

Bill stood there with his mouth open.

“How long do you think it’ll take for us to restore her to like brand-new condition, Bill?”

“You’re not serious?”

“I told you it was my style, Bill. Keep up with me. Perhaps you should sit down while I run across the street to that bank and get some cash. You’re looking a little pale.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I decided to rename the boat from Cruisin’ to Skipper’s Dream until my good friend Ed cautioned me that he’d heard it was bad luck to change a boat’s name. Rich and Kathy who lived nearby concurred with Ed’s warning. “That would rile the Sea Gods, and thus, jinx your journeys,” Rich emphasized. Ed suggested combining the names into Cruisin’ Skipper’s Dream. Rich silently nodded his affirmation as he chewed on the stem of his corncob pipe. Done deal. I called a graphic artist who painted the fused name on my boat’s transom, gilded in gold.

Bill and I worked diligently for a week to get the Dream ready for our cruise to the Bahamas. We needed help to complete the job within the next seven days, so we dry-docked her at Nelson’s Marina in Titusville, Florida. The owners, Ed and Flo, are a kindly, old-fashioned couple who cheered us forward in our endeavor. Eight contractors worked simultaneously overhauling the Dream to have her ready by the end of March. When the last craftsman quit work each day, I dawned my security guard hat and kept watch over all the tools and equipment throughout the night. I’d nap periodically aboard the Dream and get up with the sun.

Restoration complete, a cavernous device with man-size knobby tires on each side crept along until it overarched my boat. The operator looped wide matted straps underneath and cradled her to the water’s edge where I christened her Cruisin’ Skipper’s Dream with a bottle of Corona. Ed offered his best wishes on our journeys by giving me a pair of expensive-looking binoculars. Bill and I were both impressed with Ed’s generosity.

       Bill, Ed, and I took the Dream for a trial run up the Intracoastal Waterway to Daytona Beach. Ed became seasick, so we dropped him off at a pier somewhere along the way. I gave him some money for a taxi back to the Mims campground. Bill and I continued to the channel cut at Daytona Beach, where I wrote down the GPS coordinates. I pointed yonder. “Take us over the horizon, Cap’n.”

Bill studied the overcast sky. I sensed his concern that we would have no celestial references to find our way back. “You better know how to operate that thing,” he warned.

“Not a problem.”

       I lied. I had no clue how to operate my handheld GPS device beyond reading the coordinates on the front screen. I was thoroughly confused when I tried to comprehend the jumbled instructions the day before, so I left them at home on my desk. Unfazed, I was reasonably confident that I could dredge up my knowledge of vector mathematics that I applied during AWACS aeronautical programming and calculate a return-trip heading from the GPS coordinates. Though, I hadn’t thought about it for twenty years. We’ll find out.

Daytona Beach faded from our view. Bill pulled out the binoculars Ed had given us. We hadn’t taken them out of the case till now, and as Bill raised them to his eyes, a distinct chingling sound resonated from them. Bill pointed them toward the minuscule beach and blurted, “Damn that Ed!” He handed them to me. I looked through them and echoed Bill’s damnation. 

The glass lenses were shattered. Ed’s lousy gift prompted mine and Bill’s conspiracy. We decided to take the big Bowie knife that I kept in the boat and machine its blade down so it would become our stage prop. We plotted to let the air out of Ed’s RV tires and attach the blade of the knife so it would appear as though it had been stabbed through one of his tires. The punch line was going to be the note that the knife was stabbed through:

This

is for those

screwed up binoculars

you gave us

Bill and I laughed deliriously about that scenario many, many times over the next several days while we prepared the Dream. That was funny enough, but we lost all control every time we envisioned Ed’s reaction when we finally told him that we had set him up to make him think we slashed his tires just so we could watch his quick temper skyrocket.

Alright, where were we? Oh yeah. We’re out over the horizon where I instructed Bill to do several large figure eights and donuts.

“Boy, you better know what you’re doing,” Bill repeatedly warned while we became disoriented as to the direction of Daytona Beach.

After we cruised around and around, up and down, and back and forth, Bill decided he wanted to fish a while before returning home. I love fishing. As a young boy, I wanted nothing more than to fish. Bill trumped my childhood obsession with spades. We cast our lines, relaxed, and enjoyed the four-foot, gently rolling waves.

Nearly two hours escaped without a bite. Bill finally hooked into a fish on the port side and confidently began reeling it in. Whooping and hollering about being the king, Bill condescendingly offered to teach me how to fish—me, the child prodigy of fishing! Within a second or two of Bill bellowing his kingship, I got a bite on the starboard side and hooked it. Bill was so wrapped up in himself that he didn’t even notice me reeling one in as fast as I could while he lollygagged with his.

Bill looked down into the water to see what kind of fish he was about to net. “Looks like a sea cat.”

I leaned over Bill’s shoulder as I held out my sea cat in front of him. My Groucho Marx impression clamored, “Does it look anything like this one?”

Bill was dumbstruck. “Where’d you get that?!”

“Oh, it jumped out of the water on the other side of the boat, so I grabbed it.” I think Bill half-way believed me and I never told him otherwise. “Now, what was all that nonsense about, your majesty?” I matter-of-factly contested.

Bill moped.

The seas had progressively worsened to eight-foot and choppy while we fished. Bill—still torqued about my “fish out of the hat” trick—told me to give him a heading. He became irate when I informed him that I had no clue how to operate the GPS. He ranted the whole time I mathematically calculated the heading that I gave him to follow. Bill sideways-eyeballed my sheet of scribbled calculations periodically as he steered my directed course, emphatically shaking his head. Seeing the Daytona Beach cut appear on our horizon delighted me even more than it did Bill.

Bill gaped; I grinned.

Fog increasingly shrouded the Dream as we cruised down the Intracoastal until even the lighted channel markers were hidden from our view. Bill strained to pilot through the dense fog. I climbed up on top of the steering deck and pin-balled the spotlight’s beam back and forth, revealing a minimal passage to blaze. Our minds singularly embrace that cloistered patch of water at the Dream’s bow, tenuously grasping its vague kinship to our coveted destination. Its enticingly deceptive moment perhaps fleetingly shields our undoing. For an eternity within eternity, we peek our way through this tunnel of penumbral haze which eerily banishes the remainder of existence. Ultimately, the flashing beacon of Manatee Point brought us back into reality and into our slip at Nelson’s Marina. Safe, at last!