A Mile Down (16 page)

“Yes, I can imagine. But you were able to get it back on in those seas. Did you hear any other sounds while you were doing that? Anything from the rudder?”

“It was banging a bit. I think its top edge must have hit against the hull, limiting how far it could swing. I imagine we'll see marks when we're hauled out.”

So now I had confessed everything. I only hoped Nick and Pantaenius would be kind. Nick took some more notes, then had me turn the helm both ways while he watched the rudder post. He came back up to the pilothouse, made some more notes, told me he'd try “straight away” to arrange the lifting of the arrest and the haul out, then left.

Nancy and I heated some cans of soup for lunch and sat in the pilothouse staring into our bowls as we ate. The crew were helping to clean the mess from the tow, but they were also spending quite a bit of time on shore, which was fine. They were frequenting Dad's Bakehouse and the Clipper and other comfort spots. At the moment, it was getting windy and rainy, and that's always when food in a warm, homey pub sounds best.

After lunch, I tried again to start the engines. They wouldn't turn over, and by now their batteries were low. I was tired and didn't feel up to the project, but I decided to shop for a twelvevolt charger to give a direct boost to the start batteries. That would be a good backup to have on board anyway.

Nancy and I walked a long way in our foul weather gear. Half the length of the country, in fact, to Sheppard's chandlery in Marina Bay. But we found what we needed, and the price wasn't marked up as high as usual. This was a rare find, perhaps even a mistake on their part. We snapped it up quickly and left.

I charged the starboard engine for quite a while, tried it with the boost and still didn't get it to turn over. So I went down to the engine room to inspect. No visible sign of problems on the starters, batteries, or connectors. I couldn't think of what else to check, so I just started checking everything, and when I looked at the oil in one of the engines, I found the problem. A terrible problem that I'd had before and hadn't thought was still possible. The oil was creamy, which meant saltwater had gotten into the engines, siphoning back through the exhausts.

I was so frustrated I started yelling, which made Matt, Emi, and Nancy come down to the engine room. “The engines are full of salt water,” I told them. “That's why they won't start.”

“Oh no,” Nancy said. “Not again.”

“We have to drain the oil,” I said, “then remove the injectors and blow the saltwater out. Then we have to change the oil a million times and run under load at the dock with the fill caps off and our lines doubled, which we actually can't do because of the fouled props. Goddamnit.”

I was demoralized during this time, pushing myself to get through each part of each day. Nancy encouraged me to remember the good parts of my last few years.

“Look at me,” she said, and I looked up and she was beautiful and it was a comfort to have her with me. “You've changed people's lives. Think about Pete, and Dave, and others who care more about their writing now than anything else. Think about that guy who quit his job to go sailing, and the people who decided to retire early. Think of the great friends you have now that you met through the trips.”

I couldn't help but smile. “Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Seriously, David. It was a unique program you set up, and you worked hard, and this will all get better. And think of all the places we got to see, too.”

“You're right,” I said. “I'll quit moping.” I did feel lucky and grateful to be with her.

I was helped also by Nick Bushnell. He managed to get the arrest lifted, and he convinced Pantaenius to accept the damage at the dock as part of the overall claim. He also found a yard in Spain that could haul us, in Sotogrande, about fifteen miles down the coast, inside the Mediterranean, and he arranged the tow to take us there. His help was an unexpected kindness, a great gift.

Sotogrande has a beautiful marina lined with pastel buildings. A large country club development, one of the exclusive golf and marina communities along the Costa Del Sol. Several tenders were waiting and helped the tug maneuver us to a stern tie along the inner quay. We couldn't go directly to the slip under the 150-ton travelift, unfortunately, because there was a waiting list to be hauled out. Nick Bushnell impressed upon me the need to visit the office several times each day to make sure I was hauled out soon. “You need to keep after the Spaniards a bit,” he said.

Senor Guido, the yard manager, was likeable and mild-mannered, in his early forties and a bit plump. I explained my situation to him and he sympathized. My boat was also larger than any other sailboat the yard had ever hauled, if you considered its weight and beam, and it needed a lot of work done quickly, all covered by a large and reputable insurance company. This made it attractive business. And I was constantly in his office, just saying hello, so that none of the other captains could get around me. I was hauled out within three days, which Nick Bushnell said was a new record. If I could be repaired and back in the water within three weeks, I'd make the crossing to Mexico in time for all but the first charter.

When the boat was finally parked on the pavement, we could see the prop shafts bundled with dock line. Amazing they had still delivered enough power to maneuver up to the liferaft. On most boats, attempting to use the props with line around them would have bent the shafts, but these were very thick.

The rudder was completely gone. Just an inch or so of steel rod sticking out from the bottom of the hull, its edges uneven from having been torn off. Nick Bushnell examined it and said there was no way of knowing exactly why it had done that. For the repair, the new rudder could be made in the yard, but the post, which would need to be solid Aquamet 22 or some other high-tech stainless steel, 3.5-inches thick, would have to be custom-made in Algeciras or another city.

The challenge now was to get the repairs done on time. The shops in the yard were independent. They paid a commission to the marina, but I had to contract separately with the metal fabricators, the painters, the carpenters, etc. Each shop was busy, and the proprietors, each an oddball in his own way, had to be wooed.

The workday here was not what I was used to. It started at about nine-thirty at the local Café Ke for breakfast, which meant coffee and almost an hour of shooting the breeze. Then actual work from ten-thirty until two. Then lunch from two until four, then work again until five, six, or whenever they happened to feel like stopping. Every two or three days there was a national holiday and no work at all.

For the first couple of days, until I figured out this schedule, it was nearly impossible to find anyone. Endless walks back and forth across the yard, chasing shadows. When I finally caught on and appeared at Café Ke at ten one morning, it was like a revelation. Absolutely everyone was there, all in one small room. In half an hour, I was able to circulate to everyone I needed.

My break from the daily antics of the boatyard was to go to Puerto Banus with Nancy. Puerto Banus is one of the spots where the wealthiest people in the world gather. The harbor is tiny and filled with expensive yachts. The narrow, short road along this waterfront has become a car show. A Mercedes, Porsche, or BMW doesn't mean anything here, except the rarest models. German practicality run over by the extravagant waste of British and Italian models. We saw Bentleys—not one but several—Aston Martins, Rolls Royces, Ferraris, and Lamborghinis. A few token Americans, such as the Shelby. We always enjoyed the show, and the fact that the drivers looked unconcerned, as if they weren't parading. We found the one or two reasonable places to eat, and after some food and a stroll, we'd hit the Internet café.

Two things were becoming clear. First, there was no way the boat would be finished in three weeks. It would be more like six weeks, probably, so I would lose all my crew. Second, I would have to fly to California for a week to put my business back together. Amber and her friend Heather, whom she had basically forced me to hire part-time, were messing up everything, and they were both about to bail for the big bucks at a dot-com, so I needed to hire and train someone new. The dot-com thing was annoying. Heather was straight out of an unimpressive college, with zero experience, and somebody was going to pay her $50,000 to start. I had made $27,000 as a lecturer teaching full-time at Stanford. Amber, who couldn't even pay bills correctly, was going to be a product manager and make even more.

MY SIX DAYS in California were extremely rushed. The first night back, I met with Amber and Heather.

Our office was just one room in a two-storey building in Menlo Park, but it was big enough, and it was clean. Heather had done a lot of filing. She and Amber showed me what she had done, and it became clear that all she had done was filing, and I saw that she had filed documents related to my pickup truck in four different folders. “Nissan,” “Truck,” “David,” and “Insurance.” I had paid a thousand dollars or so over the past month for unnecessary and poorly executed filing.

Amber and Heather were both young. Amber about twenty-three, maybe, and Heather probably a year younger. They were acting like schoolgirls caught not having done their homework. It was odd. I was running a business. This was my life. It wasn't an amusement. But I could tell that less than complimentary comments about me had been the staple in this office for some time.

I was going through bills with Amber when we came across one small one, for only $700, that had been paid late, after three written notices.

“I asked to have the small bills paid on time,” I said. “Especially ones like this related to marketing materials.”

“I know,” Amber said. “I meant to pay this one, and he called several times. But I just forgot.” Then she giggled. She actually giggled, and Heather, who was standing in the doorway, had to suppress a giggle. I learned a couple of years later that Amber was a stoner, so I have to assume now that this giggling was marijuana.

“Well it says here he's going to report me to credit agencies if it's not paid by September 1. But it looks like it wasn't paid until late October.”

“Yeah, I guess that's what happened.” And she smiled.

I looked at her, and I couldn't figure out how things had gotten this bad between us. “This is my credit,” I said. “It's not funny.”

“Look, David. You weren't here. I'm always having to juggle bills because you don't have enough money. I'm tired of it. Now you get to do the juggling.”

“You mispaid bills by $48,000 in one month,” I said. “And you let me be reported to credit agencies for small bills that we could have paid.”

“Yeah, well, it's all done now. And it's late. We're outta here.” She and Heather left.

I sat in my office under the fluorescent lights that night and finally just put my forehead down on the desk. I had been out of the country most of the time, but Amber was a smart, educated person, a Stanford graduate who had needed a job after her marriage engagement was broken off, and I was a reasonable and obviously trusting employer. I just didn't understand.

I spent every waking hour that week in the office. I went through all of our records and updated QuickBooks, having to call Amber several times a day because records were missing or entered incorrectly. She hadn't recorded deposits, for instance. I could find a deposit on a bank statement but had no way of knowing which three passenger payments were included in it, and she had kept no record at all. Taxes were going to be a nightmare.

I also tried to save our winter charters. I made a lot of phone calls, but the list was too old. These were potential passengers from a month or two earlier who had never received a brochure in the mail or a follow-up call from Amber. By now, they had made other plans, booked other vacations. She had let my business die.

I wasn't convinced my new employee was going to be much better. If I'd had more time and other choices, I wouldn't have hired her. But I didn't have more time or other choices, and I had to have someone in the office. So I simplified our sales and customer service protocols, producing a series of sheets which told her exactly what to do at every step in all aspects of the business. The only important element I had to rely upon her for would be sales. I couldn't return calls from the middle of the ocean.

I still didn't have John's loan, and I needed it desperately, so I wanted to drive down to Hemet in Southern California to see him, but he wouldn't return my calls, and I didn't know exactly where he was living. I had talked with him a week earlier, and he had told me then that he was delayed because the bank was slow to clear funds out of the trust. But he had assured me he was still giving the loan.

I did manage to pull in two more small loans, $5,000 and $10,000, but I was getting frantic. I was supposed to pay $35,000 in interest on December 1, a few days away, and I didn't have enough money.

I returned to Spain trying to remain hopeful. But in my week away, the contractors had really slacked off, so I was in a panic trying to get everything done. My new crew were arriving in a few days and I planned to set sail in a week for Mexico. Everything had to be finished immediately.

So many things had to come together, it was overwhelming. I really didn't think it could be finished on time. Further delay would mean canceling more winter charters, and possibly losing my crew again, neither of which I could afford.

The welders stayed until after 8
P.M.
every day, and I had to pay overtime and tips and be there through all of it to pat their backs and do some of the work myself and keep them going.

The carpenter was high-maintenance, a young guy with long curly hair who felt he was an artist, but he did replace the deck piece and aft rail. The painters touched up the side of the boat and bow, and a few days before we were to launch, I actually had a new rudder and post in place. I still didn't have a skeg, but the fabricator assured me it would go quickly, and it did. He brought out some pieces of steel, welded them to the hull, welded the attachment, and there it was, ugly but burly. A rudder that looked a little small to me, smaller than the last one, but which certainly would never fall off. Nick Bushnell and the naval architect approved it for Pantaenius, so that I would still be insured, then some bottom paint was brushed on and we were ready.