Saving The Yacht Kittiwake

This is the story of how Steve Decatur, with a sea god’s help and action, put a drug smuggler out of business and saves a sailboat used to bring the drugs into Miami. It begins when I and Jeanie Jones grow up together on City Island City Island, NYC. We are best friends going to PS175 and the island library to read about sailing and mythical sea gods. At age 8 on a summer day in Eastchester Bay we tip over our rowboat and someone or something pulls us and the boat to the shore. We never understood what happened or why. Our interest in law enforcement begins on the NYPD Police boats stopping at the yacht club dock every summer. Jeanie wants to join the FBI and attends Fordham to become a lawyer. I am appointed to the Coast Guard Academy. Being outstanding small boat sailors with good grades has its rewards. Now we live in Miami where we are stationed and are more than just friends wondering who helped us as kids. The story of removing a drug smuggling sailor from the sea begins.

The law at sea is different than on the land. Throughout history, sea battles are usually to the death. Fighting to stop drug trafficking should be fought the same way. Warriors at sea fight to kill where the loser is left to die on a sunken ship. To do it this way I need help and remember a story by a Norwegian carpenter we read in the City Island library as kids. He wrote about how the sea gods help a Viking sailor go home.

This writing is found in a Voss Viking burial site along with his birch bark canoe, pine paddles, fishing spear and a lacrosse stick. The Vikings can get lumber and iron from northeastern Europe and the voyages west stop until the 14 ^th century when fishermen find the Great Banks off New England. Now will gods protect us from evil beings, monsters and ourselves? This is why ancient and modern civilizations have them and we need their help again. If people believe in them they exist so if stories are true how different our life could be with their help. I believe a god can help me remove smugglers from the sea.

I started my desk job at the base in April when I first see Kittiwake sail by my office window overloaded in May. I didn’t think about it until August when she comes by again overloaded. I know the old girl is used in something shady as I watch her rise over time at a canal dock near the Miami Coast Guard station. Is she a drug source for dealers? If so I want it to stop! I know where she has been before arriving here sitting too low in the water. I want Kittiwake taken and call Jeanie,” She says “No can do. Drug Enforcement Agents and Police will.” Her answer makes sense. The dealer is being protected and will not be arrested. I have to find another way to get the boat. That the boat is making quarterly runs to the Bahamas for drugs is clear, so I will stop it. The Academy taught me men fight for their country “right or wrong” believing they are doing some good. It reminds me of history classes and the City Island Viking story when sailors call on their gods for help. I need a god’s help as I and the FBI can’t go to the Bahamas to take her there.

On their next run we need control of the boat before they can throw any evidence overboard in weighted bags or scuttle it to stop finding who is running the show on the shore. That means phones, paper and any other possible clues can’t get wet. I want the boat and don’t care about the crew. If arrested they will just serve some time before sailing again. I am just not sure how to do what we need. Like our best naval leaders I will find a way to do what is right.

Now I know what to do after remembering the old Viking story when my Chief Petty Officer Oliver Perry tells me about his mermaid girl friend. She is Poseidon’s granddaughter and like all mermaids with interchangeable legs and a fish tail. Unlike her grandfather, father and brothers who can walk on water. Only Poseidon can see that the crew goes down before throwing anything overboard. Why not try and ask if he will help? After all, I have been saved by an unknown source before. So I put a letter to Poseidon in an empty pickle jar telling him what and why I need his help. Annette gives letter to her granddad asking him to watch when Kittiwake sails, and deliver her to me when returning. He agrees and will see it is done. We are brave and resourceful sailors who excell at completing rescue tasks without endangering our crews. This will be one but only for a boat. Kittiwake has managed to avoid our Coast Guard ships too many times because Biscayne Bay has so many ways in or out of its 271 square miles it is easy for a sailboat to sneak out or in as this Luders 44 wooden yawl built in 1944 for the Coast Guard Academy is a fast seaworthy yacht that like every wood boat is difficult to see on radar even when skippered by a captain unfamiliar with the sea and its ways. I have my plan to capture Kittiwake in a way no one can contest.

Kittiwake’s owner, Bart Roberts, needs more cocaine to sell until Spring and will not risk Kittiwake in a winter storm. Now she sails and Poseidon responds with the message “Kittiwake set sail.” Is asking a god to bring back a boat to stop deaths a crime? I only want the boat. I don’t know this is Roberts’ last run before escaping to Brazil so nothing can go wrong on this Thanksgiving weekend. He should have quit when he was ahead. I am glad he didn’t and will put him out of business and end his life.

Kittiwake sails south past Fowey Rocks Light tower then turns east to the Bahamas. The crew as all sailors is not happy sailing on a Friday night even in perfect weather. It is considered bad luck. Like many fall nights the weather becomes a squall. Rain wind and lighting fill the ski. The boat now faces a head wind and waves three feet high or more. Shortly after a wall of water comes over the bow and heads for the stern into the cockpit down into the galley the warm salt water goes. Then it happens again! The rest of the crew comes on deck fearing their life is over. Instead the first flashes of the Great Isaac light are seen and the wind shifts aft and is warm and gentle for the first time. It is only Poseidon having some fun. Too bad these men are criminals because they could be good sailors except for greed they seemed to have the right stuff. Now like the pirate of old, Black Bart Roberts, they will make their payment to Davey Jones when the time comes.

The boat makes a right turn at Great Isaac Light to go southeast of the Biminis to sneak into a smaller cay further south. This voyage is unusual having dolphins led by Nereid, a nymph of the sea, following astern as Kittiwake approaches the smallest cay south of the Biminis islands. On arrival, the crew loads rum, cigars and cocaine overnight before sailing home late in the next day to avoid detection not knowing about how Poseidon will act. With the Gulfstream pushing them it will be a fast sail to Miami. There is no way for a Coast Guard cutter to go into Bahamas waters and because she is wood to find her at night returning to Miami is impossible however Poseidon will know where she is and has a surprise for the crew.

Sunday’s morning sky is red when Kittiwake’s new crew member screams “Something is wrong! I can feel it.” Roberts replies “If I didn’t need the spinnaker hoisted I would toss you overboard!” Around noon they sail south towards Andros Island into the wind. So they have to tack to work their way before turning west. It takes more time than they planned. Just when they can head west into the Gulfstream the wind veers to the west. So again it takes more time tacking up wind to get into the Gulfstream. Finally they are there without knowing Poseidon had Aeolus and his four gods of the wind force Kittiwake waste hours to get far into the Gulfstream. There they sail north on a reach after the wind backs to the east to carryout Poseidon’s plan to take Kittiwake. Roberts tells the crew to breakout cigars and a bottle of rum as the hard work is over. Little does he know it is too early to celebrate? Two hours later the ocean is dead calm. With a Gulfstream push it is about four hours to Miami and arrive in the dark. Roberts asks “Why are no birds, clouds or ships in sight?” Suddenly whales circle the boat starting a whirlpool so Poseidon’s sons who can walk on water throw the crew into the sea pulling them under. A Kraken takes the crew in tentacles to Davy Jones’ Locker to join history’s worst sailors.

Kittiwake surfaces, deck and sails dry, cargo still aboard as Poseidon planned. I get a message from Annette saying Kittiwake is about 30 miles south of Miami in the middle of the Gulfstream ready to be taken so I radio the USCG cutter nearby. A short time later Chief Perry who is on the patrolling cutter finds Kittiwake adrift in International Waters and says! “It’s Kittiwake and she is ours” then the Captain orders boarding the abandon derelict boat and takes her to Miami! The cutter crew thinks “Too bad we can’t get prize money like the privateers did for a captured ship.” The Chief and three sailors go aboard Kittiwake to take a tow rope from the cutter and lash it to a cleat in the bow. While the sailors secure the tow rope the chief goes below and finds a waterproof case with four cell phones, wallets and papers the crew wanted to keep from getting wet. The sails are lowered and everything aboard is made secure. The boarding crew returns to the cutter with the waterproof case. They start to Miami with their prize as the wind comes up as a gentle breeze from the southeast.

I see Kittiwake tied to Coast Guard pier after sunset a little earlier than Roberts friends think she should be at her dock. “Thanks Poseidon, you treated her well“, then I call and tell Jeanie a mermaid helped, and we have the boat. When I get to Jeanie’s condo she asks “Who is she?” thinking her husband to be and lifelong boyfriend has changed his mind. I reply “Perry’s girlfriend Annette is the daughter of Poseidon’s son Triton.” After a short explanation including that Annette is ageless she says “How do you like your eggs in the morning? By the way, I waited long enough it is time we marry as we are not ageless! Invite Poseidon and family to the wedding but his Kraken stays home.” “I was about to ask you! I had this engagement ring in my pocket too long.” I reply. Jeanie smiles and says “Saw the box in your car two weeks ago.”

Meanwhile the FBI station chief when told immediately gets the phones on the boat and has the phone owners and who they call or called them identified. Monday at noon Jeanie goes into her boss’s office. She is told that four are agents or police who are already being watched and investigations started. She says “We can trail them because they will think the boat is coming tonight and will not suspect something is wrong“. The chief tells her he has drones collecting car license plate numbers near the dock. Now they are identified and everyone who would see or call will be followed and ready to be arrested. We have spread a net to catch more fish.”

Tuesday morning the two DEA agents whose phones were identified arrive at the Coast Guard pier and see Kittiwake. A smart ass one right away asks me “What about the drugs?” I ask “By the way do either of you know a Bart Roberts?” Their reply is “Of course not. Why?” From how they talk about the boat now I know why. Then I say “We will have the boat’s Cuban rum and cigars at our wedding, and we found a foul weather jacket with the name B Roberts on the boat. Anyway take the drugs, go golf, and stay off the ocean! I think you know what the boat is used for and did nothing?” They deny it of course. I tell them “We were lucky and think the boat seems to have been attacked by a deranged whale or giant squid swallowing some drugs spilled in the water while the crew snorted too much coke. These are cold water animals so maybe global warming is causing this behavior. Now who do you think will try to bring drugs to Miami in anything smaller than a battleship after this gets talked about?” is my retort ,so I will start the great rumor when the press asks what happened. On their way off the base the agents are taken by the FBI to join the policemen and the questioning begins. It doesn’t take long before they are on their way to the Miami jail and additional arrests will soon follow, I am told. We already know who we want. They can’t get away. The boat was only one of the ways they hid drug deliveries in South Florida. The phones and papers reveal more gang members and drug dealers to arrest plus city officials who will not run for office again. The DEA office will have a management change as a task force of FBI agents with Jeanie Jones in charge clean house. Could the Bahamas Navy find that more drug delivery boats will be lost at sea in the next few months on their way to the islands for some unknown reasons is a question the press may ask?

Finally on Sunday in front of the base chaplain, Steve and Oliver will marry Jeanie and Annette on the Coast Guard pier with sailors and FBI agents there. It is unlike any Miami wedding before considering who one participant is and some of the guests are. Then Poseidon arrives aboard his carabus with family and crew and meets with the base Captain who remarks Poseidon is an unusual name. Annette tells the Captain her grandfather used the name when he came over from Greece and opened a fish market on City Island.

And what weddings they are with sailors and mermaids dancing up a storm to music by six base sailors. A few young FBI agents also get their chance to dance with the beauties from the sea as well. When the weddings are over I say to Jeanie “We must keep our new friends and it is time to leave. By the way which condo should we keep?” She replies “Keep both as we will have future guests, the married Chief and Annette plus your sailors and mermaids have a spring beach party planned. I expect a few FBI agents will there and maybe the Poseidon family and other visitors as well”. I reply “Good, I hope your boss is happy with what we found.” Roberts’ and the crew’s cell phones in working condition plus some papers explain why he was never caught. Jeanie says “The local papers have already been fed the official story. The Miami jail has four new inmates and room for more. It made sense that more insiders are rats.” These rats will be in jail in a matter of days. They will be told “They are going to go where the crew went if they don’t tell us all we want to know.” They may learn that Krakens are always hungry.

As the sun sets the pier clears of guests while the newlyweds walk Poseidon and his wife, Amphitrite, to the carabus. Suddenly a squid like head with giant eyes using two very long tentacles places two buckets on the pier. Poseidon says “These are for you newlyweds and are filled with jewels and coins collected by Krakens from the oceans over many centuries. Annette, you may stay human as long as you like. We will visit from time to time and I will see you always sail on a smooth sea with a warm breeze at your backs but please don’t ask me to sink too many ships. I am the protector of good sailors and the sea as you know. Our family kept a boat on City Island and here is my son, Triton, who pulled you out of the water when you were eight. I have watched humans for thousands of years. You still have a lot to learn about life.” “Thank you Poseidon you are a great, powerful and honorable god” I and Perry shout as Poseidon boards the carabus and pulls away from the pier he replies “By the way, I told your Captain I am happy to help. He replied “You are always welcome here, after all it is your ocean.” As I and the new Mrs. Decatur go home I have one last thought “Would the world be a better place if we use their wisdom more often? Don’t answer until reading what they and other gods did ages ago.”

THE END

Bio: Bob Boder raced sailboats since age 10. He lived on City Island, NYC and in Fort Lauderdale before going to the Naval Academy where he was on the varsity swimming and offshore sailboat racing teams, a swimming letter winner, record holder and certified to skipper the Luders yawls. After leaving the Navy he crewed and navigated offshore racing yachts around Florida and the Bahamas.

E-mail: Robert H. Boder

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