God Answers My Prayer

Author © Scott D. Zachary

Once upon a time, there was a lonely man, a lonely woman, and a boat in disrepair. The lonely man hoped fruitlessly. The lonely woman had given up hope. The boat was hopeless. Then the lonely woman and the hopeless boat kindled a sparkle in the eye of the lonely man. What a trio—the threesome interlaced high sea adventure with the romance of the century.

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On the 27^th of February 2002, I, Scott Zachary (the lonely man) didn’t have a clue that I was going to buy a boat, nor did I have an inkling that I would abruptly change my steadfast bachelorship. That morning, Bobbie Hess (the lonely woman) unknowingly launched our fairytale romance when she telephoned my computer consulting service, seeking assistance with a computer software bug. After solving Bobbie’s computer problem, we casually discussed several topics including the fact that she loved to read. An aspiring novelist, I shared with her the storyline of my current manuscript, titled Scorn THIS. Bobbie said she had always had a desire to write but didn’t know where to begin. I suggested she start by becoming my part-time writing assistant over the phone in the evenings and weekends. Bobbie accepted, and I emailed her a copy of my unfinished, 120-page novel.

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I was programming my clients’ software requests remotely during the day, Bobbie and I were working on my manuscript by phone in the evenings, and Bill and I were working nights reconditioning my newly acquired boat. I had no use for sleep—I was on a manic roll and having a blast!

During my second shift, Bobbie and I uncloaked the gamut of our life experiences for each other’s perusal, she in Kentucky and I in Florida. We laughed, we cried, and we prayed together. I fell in love with Bobbie’s optimism, her humility, and her kind spirit. I told her so. Enthralled, I asked her to go to the Bahamas in two weeks with me in my 24-foot cabin cruiser. Bobbie said that would be Spring Break for Jonathon, her sixteen-year-old son. I told her that I would gladly pay for Jonathon’s airfare to Florida as well.

Bobbie and I had been talking on the phone for some hours the next evening when I abruptly changed the subject. “Bobbie, will you marry me?” I proposed. “You can wait until we get to the Bahamas to answer me, and either way will be fine.”

The following evening, Bobbie accepted. “Yes.”

“Really?” I effused.

“Yes. Yes. Yes!”

I howled!

“Remember now, you haven’t seen me, Scott.”

“You could be the green monster, Bobbie, and that would be perfectly fine with me.”

“Well, I’m not green.”

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

To recap, 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. Up to eight people worked simultaneously overhauling the Dream. When the last craftsman quit work each day, I called Bobbie, and we conversed romantically through the night, oblivious of time. I would nap a couple of hours on-board the Dream and get up with the sun.

The owners of Nelson’s Marina, Ed (not Woofie’s Ed) and Flo, told me to be sure and bring Bobbie by to meet them. Flo said she would have a wedding gift waiting for us when we return from the Bahamas.

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My hired limousine picked me up in the early morning on the 3^rd of April and drove me to the Orlando Airport to meet my fiancée Bobbie and her son Jonathon. I told Leon, my inquisitive chauffeur, all about my fantastic adventure as we drove. My starry-eyed story thoroughly amused him.

My future bride only knew that I would be wearing a shirt with swordfish on it; however, glancing around in the airport, she noticed that nearly everyone had some sort of fish on their shirts. I scanned the crowd for a lady carrying a bouquet of daisies. I didn’t see the daisies, nor did Bobbie see my swordfish. Bobbie’s blue eyes and my brown eyes locked. We saw each other for the first time and knew we were meant to be. Wow!

       Bobbie, Jonathon, and I had a delightful chat on the way to Mims Travel Park, discussing our upcoming voyage in my new boat and our imminent wedding. As the limo pulled up to my travel trailer, Bobbie pointed at my kayak that was strapped onto the cab of my truck. “That was your pink kayak that I used to see parked outside my office!”

       “Yes, ma’am, it used to be red.”

       “It’s hard to believe that we worked in the same building for five months and never met.”

       “I believe it all worked out perfectly. I prefer that we fell in love from the inside out.”

       Bobbie smiled and kissed me.

Later that day, boat in tow, we set out for West Palm Beach—Bill, the captain; Jackie, my favorite bartender from the Landings Bar; me, the navigator; and Bobbie and Jonathon, my new family.

Thursday dawned a beautiful morning in West Palm Beach as we powered up the Dream’s Chevy 350-cubic-inch engine. A gas-flame blue sky bridged the horizons as we passed through the Intracoastal cut into the Atlantic Ocean. I noted our GPS coordinates at the mouth of the cut, calculated the required heading to Grand Bahama Island, and advised “Cap’n” Bill. Our spirits high, we steered toward the Bahamas (or so we thought).

       While Bill and I were restoring the Dream, I had calculated that she could make the 66-mile crossing from West Palm Beach to West End, Grand Bahama Island, in about three to four hours at a leisurely pace with a marginal reserve of fuel. I was having such a good time drinking Coronas and getting to know my fiancée in person that I didn’t bother to recalculate our heading for well over an hour.

       Three- to five-foot seas provided a rolling, pleasureful, scenic trip to West End, Grand Bahama Island. Along the way, we saw porpoises playing, flying fish skimming over the water, huge sea turtles basking in the sun, and occasional shark fins slicing the surface. We delighted in seeing these wondrous creatures out in the deep blue. A distant waterspout added to our excitement.

       I recalculated the heading from our current GPS coordinates to West End. I was shocked. I double-checked my calculations, and sure enough, we were far north of our original course. That’s when I realized I should’ve taken into account the Gulf Stream’s current!

       Leaning over Bill’s shoulder as he steered, I whispered, “As your navigator, I recommend that we turn around—I didn’t think to compensate for the Gulf Stream. We are far off course. We may not have enough fuel to get there. I’ll leave it up to you. Here’s your heading to go forward, and here’s your heading to return to West Palm Beach. Both are fudged to take into account the Gulf Stream.”

       Bill pointed through the windshield. “I’m goin’ that way.”

       “Okay, Cap’n.”

       I recalculated our heading every twenty minutes or so for the rest of our journey to West End. We made it with fumes to spare. Cruisin’ Skipper’s Dream eased to a stop in front of the Port Authority in Old Bahama Bay. I performed a three-quarter back-smacker into the water, and everyone else jumped onto the pier, except Bill.

“If you’re goin’ fishing with me, you better get back on the boat!” Bill exclaimed. “I’m gonna catch me some kingfish!”

My bride was going one way; my boat was going another. What to do? My better senses prevailed. We watched Bill gas up and leave. Then it occurred to us that we should probably check in with Customs. The Customs officials gave us forms to fill out and asked where our boat was. We told them that Bill, the captain of our boat, went fishing.

“Sit down!” they commanded. “You’re detained!”

We had suddenly become illegal aliens. Hours of interrogation and me moaning about bread and water convinced the Customs officials to allow us to go have dinner at the marina restaurant. After all, where were we going to go?

Bill returned after three hours of fishing, and thank goodness he had filled the fish well with kingfish. That helped to convince the officials that he was not a drug runner.

I wanted Bill to experience our inconvenience, so I tried my best to bribe the officials into locking him up for one night.

“This isn’t funny, Scott!” Bill shrieked.

“Sure it is!” I zinged. “It’ll be hilarious if they put you in jail for one night.” (I intended to put Bill in the hot seat, but I had no idea how panicked Bill must’ve truly been. A later story will reveal the aggravating circumstances that could’ve turned the one night in jail into years.)

“It really isn’t funny,” warned the senior Customs official. “We can confiscate your boat.”

“We had a blast restoring it, so I don’t care if you guys keep it as long as you put Bill away for a night—we’ll just call it even.”

Bill was not amused. But I was!

Despite my efforts, Bill went free, and Customs released all of us to continue our adventure. Bill secured the boat alongside the pier while Jackie and Jonathon went exploring. Bobbie and I strolled around the marina, admiring the polished million-dollar sailing yachts and cruisers. Our admiration turned toward the beautiful hotel condominiums overlooking the marina. We decided to rent a room for two nights rather than spending our wedding night in close quarters with three other people aboard the Dream. The view from our balcony magnificently presented the unforgettable surrealism of the quilted tourmaline blue-green water of Old Bahama Bay.

Friday morning, Bobbie and I set out to make our wedding arrangements. Jonathon and Jackie were well aware of the fact that Bobbie and I were planning to get married while in the Bahamas, but Bill didn’t have a clue. I was saving the news for the last possible second.

The ladies at the Port Authority, Sharon and Naomi, informed us that we should go to the Registrar General’s Office in Freeport to obtain a marriage license. We hopped the next bus into Freeport. The bus driver, J.D., escorted us to the Registrar’s Office where they informed us that we needed divorce documents with raised seals rather than copies. They would accept a facsimile directly from our respective counties in Arkansas and Idaho; however, in that case, the Registrar General would have to marry us.

Arkansas readily agreed to fax my divorce decree. Bobbie called the courthouse in Lewiston, Idaho. Bobbie’s end of the conversation was enough for me to know that the clerk refused. Tears fell from Bobbie’s eyes as she hung up the phone and explained to me that the clerk said she would have to get her boss’s approval which would take several days. After Bobbie hung up, I took the phone from her and instructed the exchange operator to redial the number.

“Hello, Nez Perce Court Records, Amy speaking.”

“Hello, this is Scott Zachary, Bobbie Hess’s fiancé. Bobbie and I spent our life savings on this trip to the Bahamas to get married. We brought copies of our divorce decrees, but we didn’t know that they require raised seals. The Registrar said a fax would suffice until we get official copies. Arkansas didn’t have a problem faxing my decree.”

“Sir, I have to get my boss’s approval to send a fax out of the country, and that can take up to three days.”

“Why don’t you do me a favor—look straight up and ask the big Boss and see what He says.”

“Just a minute, sir.” She put me on hold for a couple of minutes and came back with, “Okay.”

Astonished, “Did you say ‘Okay’?”

“Okay,” she said.

Next, J.D. guided us to Columbian Emeralds International to purchase our wedding rings. Bobbie and I were already excited. The Bahamian sales girl Thelma Douglas’s exuberance about our forthcoming marriage infused us with superlatives. Bobbie chose a solitaire marquise diamond set in a two-tone gold ring. My ring is set with three baguette sapphires highlighted by six channel-set diamonds. I borrowed the jeweler’s loop and certified the high-grade stones. (Someday, I will trade this exquisite ring for a rubber band.)

Heading back to the Registrar’s Office, Bobbie purchased a floor-length beach dress adorned with palm trees and lighthouses as her wedding dress. I grabbed a case of champagne for the evening’s celebration.

       Alonzo Lopez, the Registrar, married us in a delightful garden, decorated with colorful crotons, outside his office. The Clerks (Dorcus, Anne, and Ruth) witnessed our nuptials. I had pictured a government wedding as cut-and-dried, but the ceremony was remarkably emotional. Tears of joy streamed from our eyes as Bobbie and I repeated the marital vows. We became one. Everyone’s cheer enhanced the moment’s magic.

       Bobbie and I missed the last bus back to West End. I asked a young Bahamian fellow sitting in the back of a rickety old pickup truck how we could get a ride to the marina. He talked through the sliding glass window to two guys in the front seat, and they offered to be our taxi. So we hopped aboard and off we went. I immediately commenced our wedding celebration by popping a bottle of champagne. Soon, Jorge and I were popping corks at the signs along the highway.

We arrived back at the marina, and Bill came bouncing down the sidewalk. “I’m goin’ fishin’! Wanna go?”

Oh, no! I knew when Bill goes fishing, you never know when to expect him back. I finally had to let him in on our romantic secret. I draped my arm around Bobbie’s shoulder and propped a serious face. “You’re the captain of my boat, Bill, so I think it’s only right that you should be my best man when Bobbie and I get married again as soon as the minister arrives.”

Bill never, ever drinks, but my statement made his head swim as though he was stoned out of his mind. “Well, uh... s-sure... I guess,” he mumbled.

Reverend Woodside blessed our rings in a touching ceremony on our balcony overlooking Old Bahama Bay. Bill served as best man, Jackie as the maid of honor, and Jonathon gave his mother’s hand in marriage.

Jorge had suggested that Bobbie and I celebrate our wedding night at a reggae concert in the village of Eight Mile Rock that evening. The festivities doubled as a raucous political rally. Afterward, Bobbie and I strolled three miles in the moonlight back to the hotel. We had successfully fought the urge to consummate our marriage prematurely, so we reveled in our blossoming love all night long.

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We had planned to return to West Palm Beach Sunday morning; however, the winds had picked up considerably on Saturday, generating horrendous seas in the Gulf Stream. Bill debated with the seasoned mariners throughout the marina about when we should return. It wasn’t going to be Sunday because the Tropical Prediction Center forecasted 22-foot seas. Monday didn’t fare any better. Monday night, Bill learned that we had a four-hour window the next morning offering a potential of six- to eight-foot seas. I was leery. We booked a flight for Jonathon and Bobbie out of Freeport to West Palm Beach. Bill and Jackie didn’t have a passport or birth certificate, so the three of us decided to go for it. We lightened our load to streamline Skipper’s Dream and left port at 8:30 Tuesday morning.

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Bobbie and Jonathon’s eyes met in doubt several times as they gazed down upon the frothing ocean through the portal of their twenty-passenger plane.

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Jackie, Bill, and I were having the adventure of our lives. Six-foot seas increased to fifteen as we crossed the midpoint of the Gulf Stream. We debated turning back, but severe weather fronts on three sides in the form of encroaching black walls forced us to continue west toward clear skies.

The waves became so violent that I didn’t see any point in getting the life jackets out of the cabin. I’m an expert swimmer, but even with a life vest on, I wouldn’t have lasted more than a few minutes in that ferocious washing machine. And I wanted no stake in being slammed around below deck.

When I wasn’t calculating a new heading for Bill, I was capturing on film the waves that had escalated to as high as 28 feet (according to Coast Guard records for that morning). We had to wait until we topped each perilous wave to look for land. Ascending one of the mountainous waves, Bill looked over at me with a puzzled expression. “I wonder why it’s so much rougher on this side of the Gulf Stream than on the other side.”

I thoughtfully looked up from my navigational calculations and matter-of-factly replied, “Seems pretty simple to me, Bill. The waves are bigger over here.”

He rolled his eyes in disgust as he returned his attention to the tumultuous sea.

When we began to crest one of the most massive waves, I could only see the sky through the windshield. I wondered how Jackie was faring where she sat on the cooler in front of the engine. I looked back, which was really down because we were about thirty degrees off vertical. I pointed beyond the back of the boat. “Jackie, look down! Hah!” I hollered.

Jackie ogled the twenty feet of water between the Dream’s transom and the wave’s trough. Her face hatched a goose egg of terror! If you’ve ever seen the movie Perfect Storm, this was it. Had our fish well been full of catch as it was in the movie, I wouldn’t be writing this—my new wife would be a widow.

To maintain our bearing in that thrashing ocean, Bill kept the Dream’s RPM gauge redlined. The thrust hurtled us airborne from the top of each enormous wave. Tantamount to lightning striking ten feet away, we thunderously slammed the water. Each time we bashed the ocean, Bill and I cheered “Hoe-Dee-Doe!” and high-fived, knowing that we had cheated death one more time.

Our heading nailed the Golden Isles Inlet, West Palm Beach; however, as we approached, the wind and waves commandeered us off course by approximately a hundred yards. We were forced to turn broadside against the towering waves. I don’t understand what kept the Dream from rolling all the way over. Cruisin’ Skipper’s Dream came through like a champ.

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Bobbie and Jonathon arrived safely at West Palm Beach Airport and waited. An hour and a half elapsed, and still no sign of us.

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

Bill steered us through the thrashing sea as close as possible to a concrete pier. I swan-dived onto it, skinning both knees as I scrambled to the top. We surgically loaded Skipper’s Dream onto the trailer. Sound odd? It was. The sea—even in the Intracoastal—violently battered the Dream with ferocious ten-foot waves. Bill and I had one shot to load the Dream on its trailer. Loading the boat in the usual fashion would’ve been impossible because even if Bill did manage to steer accurately onto the trailer in that washing-machine-turbulent fury, the waves would’ve instantly thrown the Dream off the trailer onto the concrete ramp.

       Instead, I would provide him a moving target. I backed the trailer down the ramp as far as I could go into the water to give me as much room to build up speed as possible. Bill coached me over the walkie-talkies as he accelerated the Dream toward the trailer on the ramp. A split-second either way would be a disaster.

“GO!” Bill barked. I floored the gas pedal, squealing the truck’s tires up the ramp, almost trying to outrun the boat as it rammed its way up the trailer.

“Houston, we have a touchdown.”

We hastily fastened the Dream onto the trailer and dashed off to the airport. In our haste, we forgot to lower the eighteen-foot fishing outriggers. While I drove toward the airport, Bill craned as he scrutinized the reflection in the passenger’s side-view mirror. “I think something fell off the boat, Scott.”

I looked in my side mirror. “No, we just took out a stoplight. I think we better lower the outriggers, buddy.” I whipped into a neighborhood where we secured the stoplight offenders.

       “I wonder how many other stoplights and power lines we took out.” Bill grinned.

       “I don’t want to know, Bill. Let’s go.”

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

Bobbie, more and more anxious as each moment passed, stood with Jonathon in front of the airport, hoping and praying. The countless hours that Bobbie and I intimated over the phone had unlocked a treasure trove of feelings.

Bobbie looked at Jonathon. “I wonder how much longer we need to wait before we notify someone.” She winced.

“Look, Mom!” Jonathon pointed at my red and white pickup truck towing the Skipper’s Dream, erasing Bobbie’s anguish.

       I cruised to a stop in the middle of six lanes of traffic. Bobbie and I ran into each other’s outstretched arms, full of hopes and dreams for our future.