Night Run

02:00 Saturday morning running SSW on a windless, moonless, overcast black square of Gulf Stream.

It’s amazing, this crap I get into for money.

We were down this way, heading for the forty-watt glow of Cuba, a year or so before. That however, was in the company of three other boats in some flotilla affair cooked up by one of the very numerous Cuban émigré organizations in ”Little Havana.”

Their intent was a media event to make their point to anyone who would listen about Fidel’s deplorable human rights record. According to those who claim to know, this was the biggest thing since the old boy emptied the jails for The Marial Boatlift. Curious onlookers lined the bridge and the approaches as Garrison Bight marina hummed with camera trucks, reporters and earnest looking people to interview.  As we headed out the Southwest channel, up to the minute tapes were airlifted from the press boat by choppers and whisked away to the mainland. Film at 11:00.

Tonight, there were no friendly voices on the VHF, no cheery running lights close by. This time we were alone; four Cubans, Jimmy Harrison and me.

The anticipation of the glow ahead was comforting. The light loom of the city was visible sooner in the inky dark. It would provide some orientation to the horizon in what was, otherwise, a surreal, windless, palpable, rolling black void. Then there was the two hundred and fifty bucks an hour for what would I had planned to be a twenty hour round trip.

Also along for the ride was an eighteen inch, twenty gauge Mossburg we kept for sharks, a Walther .32 in the small of my back and a single action Smith & Wesson .38 taped to the overhead in the engine room. Things were going well.

The events of the previous morning replayed in my mind.

10:45 on a still Friday morning at Garrison Bight Marina, Key West

The dock phone rang.

“ Hey Curly, Andy Sanchez.’’  His rich Columbian accent was unmistakable.

“ Hey, Andy! How’s the fishing in Miami?”

Andy was just slightly larger than life. A former “mud Marine” recruited by the Company in ‘Nam, he worked on various projects the details of which are the subject of another night's drinking.

After some years doing such stuff, he settled down to something a bit saner; charter fishing. He had fished out of Key West for eight or so years before he went “up the road”. His drink was rum and Coke which he mixed by lining up the iced glasses and moved the various bottles back and forth in grand, sweeping, gestures.

“Ah, you know Curly, a hero one day and a bum the next. Listen brother, you want to go to Cuba tonight? I got some guys here are interested.”

“Ah, sure, but maybe you could fill me in?” I made an effort not to get excited, not yet.

“ Yeah, four guys from one of those outfits up here that did that flotilla thing last year. They say they got some friends coming out tonight and they want to go look.”

“ Oh, yeah, those folks. You told them about no moon tonight? Do they know where their hermanos are coming out? Matanzas, Bay of Pigs? What sort of boat? Anything like that?”

Some rapid Spanish took place near-by.

“No, no real idea.”

“ Wonderful. Anything helpful? Communication? Cell phone, light signal maybe?” Some more Spanish took place. I heard the answer loudly repeated in the background before Andy told me. “No” is the same in both languages.

“You heard, right?” I could imagine his square brown face split with the laughter in his voice.

“ They are about to waste a lot of money.”

“ Oh sure. But Curlito, you know how these guys are.”

I do indeed. Ardent to a fault in their machismo politics, they had to make- or seem to make- an effort. Gestures like this are very important.

“Right. Well it’s two-fifty an hour, right around twenty, in cash, for the deal. I will need to see either a passport or green card for each person. I will also insist on searching any luggage and their persons before we move an inch.”

After some higher decibel give and take they were agreeable. Apparently Andy explained the realities.

“ O.K then Andy. Tell them to get down right away; we’re leaving at sunset. And thanks a lot for this. I owe you a drink.”

“You owe me a steak dinner sucker!”

“It’s yours.”

“Curly, “ he sounded less amused now, “ Be careful man. Call me when you get back.”

“Sure Andy, best to Anne.”

Now it was time to get excited. I called the mate, Jimmy and explained the deal. Yes or no?

“ We need to get over to the fuel dock as soon as we can. We have five hours to get squared away”

“ Outstanding! I’ll be there in an hour.”

Jimmy? Let’s see, an adrenaline junkie that is at his best with large billfish. He flew jets in the war and, later on, did some flying further south for some outfit in Miami where he transported any number of things back and forth including the bodies of four nuns who met a nasty end in some banana republic. He is a vegetarian and speaks fluent Spanish.

Meanwhile, I headed down at the opposite end of the dock to tell my friend Bud Williams what was going on.

“Down Cuba way huh?”  There was an added touch of gravel to his Texas cowboy voice as he rummaged through a locker in the main cabin of his boat, “MS Gina.” 

“You better take this along.” He sniffed loudly to emphasize his point he handed me his chromed .38.

I knew that inclined head and cocked, bushy eyebrow. His face, tanned to the color of a third baseman’s glove, was all concern. Bud was about to hand out some advice that, from him, was always plentiful and free.

“One incident like Hanzie is enough for a lifetime.”

It was. Old Hanzie ran a light tackle boat to help him support his devotion to pricey  scotch and the dog track on Stock Island. As you may imagine, he was always a little short. A couple years before three Cuban guys showed up with a pile of cash looking to “go fishing”. No one liked the feel of them but Hanzie. That day he and his boat went missing.

Three days later a charter boat found him floating face down to the south of Kingfish Shoal. The pirates were so stupid they could not read a compass and ended up drifting, out of gas, further west. They are currently doing twenty-five to life upstate.

“It’s a good thing not to make a lot of noise about this sort of thing this till people see you leaving. Can Jimmy keep his mouth shut for a couple hours?”

I assured him all was well but he had a point. This could be all over the dock in minutes and in at least two bars inside a couple hours. Too much curiosity was not a welcome thing.

“No signals of any kind or even an idea of a heading?” Bud laughed and shook his head in disbelief.

“Well, fools and their money that will soon be yours!” Thrilled at the idea, Bud extracted a couple beers from his seemingly unlimited supply. He drank with the appreciation of the truly thirsty. As a massive belch gathered, he sort of croaked, “How close you taking these idiots?”

“Twenty miles off.  No closer.” The air around us resounded.

“ Twenty-five is better. Those Cubanos are pretty liberal in what they think is their water.”

About then Jimmy came around the corner on his scooter and we all headed for the fuel dock. Because of the hijack thing nobody ever carried enough fuel for a really long run. "Tenacious” has a cruising range of two hundred fifty miles with her two waist tanks topped up. By running at a conservative speed- especially in the dark- her consumption would get us to and from with no problem.

When we got back to the dock, she lay a couple inches lower on her boot stripe. After a few more system checks and a little fresh oil “Tenacious” was ready. I spent some time getting some loran numbers set in the navigation computer. When we reached the twenty-five mile limit it would sound an alarm. It was a little overkill, as the Cuban shore would show on the radar at twenty-two miles.

18:25 hrs.

“I have a chart.”  The guy indicated the tube he was carrying.

I recognized two of the four who pulled up minutes before. They had been on the boat the last time and, apparently, were some big deal. One last time I advised them of the odds against them. They were determined.

The guy with the "shart" had worked out a textbook search grid [allowing for the easterly set of the Stream] that would have been ideal had it been daylight. As it was, forty-five square miles in the dark was just absurd.

The paperwork was in order and their bags contained nothing more lethal than cans of smoked oysters. They weren’t all that happy about being patted down but, no search, no trip. We also made a not very subtle display of taking the shotgun aboard. This was Bud’s suggestion to add a touch of intimidation. Yeah, alright, although to me [ but for the oysters] they looked harmless.

Earlier, at home, I had stocked up on sandwiches and a couple thermos bottles of hot Cuban espresso mixed with milk and sugar. I kissed my wife and assured her all would be well. Just a long boat ride, that’s all. Still, she had “that look” common to those who can do nothing more than wait ashore.

We cleared the reef at Sand Key Light with the sun staining the heavy overcast a less than spectacular red. Behind us, the sun set crowd at Mallory Square would be looking for a bar and another night of the perpetual Key West party.  Ahead, over an eerie dead calm sea, was the rapidly advancing curtain of night.

Jimmy was busy chattering away with the passengers who had settled in the fighting chairs watching the island recede. As the light quickly failed, he came up on the bridge shaking his head.

“ These guys really think they are going to find these people coming out.”

“ Can’t convince them otherwise. So we take their money, say thank you very much and hurry back.”

As we talked, the man who seemed to be the head of the group joined us on the bridge. I recalled him vividly as a pushy sort who was thoroughly pissed when we all stopped at twelve and a half miles off Cuba the last time.

“Go, go!” He had gestured emphatically ahead.

He clearly disapproved, despite being informed, that we would not go calmly cruising into Havana Harbor. Their notion of going ashore to register their displeasure was not on the program.

He waved a hand in my direction and made a comment to his friend about “pendajo capitan.” Right. I really dislike being compared to an anatomic feature on the best of days and, most assuredly, not by this squirt.  I knew very well he spoke English when he felt like it, so I ventured my opinion.

“Listen Jack! You call me that one more time and I turn this boat around now. I don’t give a damn if you ever see this island again! You habla that?” He did.

So here he was again, talking about what would happen when we found his buddies. You really have to admire his positive attitude. Although he knew better, he was up to his old tricks of thinking he was above good sense.

“You take them on this boat and we come back?”

“Didn’t Andy explain to you we don’t do that?”

“Well, yes but . . ..”

“But nothing. In the very unlikely event we find them, I will call the Coast Guard and say we encountered them while fishing and they will do the rest.”

“ How much to take them ashore some place, you know, quiet?” What part of no is escaping this tedious little man?

“Do you understand that we are going to be a little bright green blip on several radar screens before this night is over?” He did not.

“ There is always a Coast Guard cutter on patrol in the Straights all the time. If they happen to notice our little blip heading for ‘someplace quiet’ on the Florida shore they will be all over us. I lose this boat, my license and you will gain all kinds of trouble” Clearly distressed at this reality, he went back down the ladder to sulk.

Some people just don’t get it.

Night runs are interesting as they encourage steering as much by feel as by sight. It’s eighteen miles from the reef to “The Wall”, the Continental Shelf. Beyond, the bottom drops to an abysmal deep across the Straights to Cuba. An hour or two after we left the flat run was interrupted by a rhythmic eastbound swell. We had entered the Stream.

Looking aft, the glow of Key West was growing to a thin sliver of light. Before it was gone, we would see Cuba. Not what you would call a feat of close navigation.

Jimmy came up and brought the shotgun case. His eyes glared with a disgust.

“They’ve started in on those oysters. Stinken’ up the cabin. God, they’re awful!’
For the curious, the fishy smelling, oily gray globs are usually consumed with ketchup and hot sauce on crackers. Mmm!

“ They made some noise about the reduction in speed after dark.”

There is a nice bit of lack of common sense. Why is that everybody does this better than those who know about it? I once had a guy aboard who talked in a general way about this boat he owned and then asked me if the clock by the wheel was a compass. I expect he could see the dock across the pond.

“And you told them?”

“The obvious.” He chuckled. We drank coffee and watched the dark. Two pair of eyes is a good thing

“Curly, ahead there, there’s a glow in the water.”

Photo-phosphorescence is thin in tropical waters so the light show that comes with bow wave and wake further up in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states is only the stray flicker from time to time. This was big.

We came up a few yards off saw a pale blue-green round something about seven or eight feet across that was slightly pulsing about six feet down. The passengers took a quick look. One of the guys crossed himself and they went back in the cabin with the oysters. I learned later that the thing was probably a Lion’s Mane, a huge and really ugly oceanic jellyfish that travel in the Stream.

Ahead was another sliver of light.

“ Hola!” I called down. “Cooba!” The bridge became crowded and permeated by a strong smoked bait odor. One of them had spilled some sauce on his shirt.

They stood quietly for a few minutes looking at the place where they had a slim chance of ever setting foot. A lot of these families had lost homes and business property in the revolution and harbored plans to eventually get it back. They had been waiting for two generations.

“How close are we?” The guy with the stain on his shirt whispered. The numbers indicated another fifteen miles to the turn around point.

“I need to spell Jimmy here on the watch. One or, better, two of you can help keep an eye out.” I offered coffee to the two who did. Mr. Importante and his buddy left them to it. Jimmy told me later he had talked to the other two till he had a headache before dosing in the big chair.

As predicted, we saw no sign of anything like a boat. We ran until the bulk of Cuba started to appear on the radar.

“Let’s head west for awhile, look as though we’re fishing.” We turned, keeping the island just reappearing at the top of the green circle and ran a zigzag course for another two hours or so. They needed to feel they got a good shot before we turned around. There was an intermittent crackle of Spanish on the radio but nothing showed on the screen.

We turned for home just after three. It would an anti-climactic few hours till first light.

05:30

The sky was turning flat gray as the southwest breeze returned, rippling a growing swell in the counter current on the edge of the Stream. Another two hours at normal cruising speed would put us at the dock.

At around seven the radio lit up with Bud’s familiar voice.

“ ‘Tenacious’, ‘MS Gina’ Come back.”

“Morning Bud! How they going? Getting out today?”

“ Naw, Where are you?”

“ Forty minutes from the reef. How about breakfast at “Shorty’s"? And will you call the house for me. Tell Becky I’ll be home after we eat.”

“Roger!” Bud sounded buoyant. “See you in a few. MS Gina clear.”

A couple boats were getting out fishing that morning and gave thumbs up or raised caps as we entered the harbor. John Simone, skipper of the “Reel Fun”, sounded two short and one long- the Captains salute-on his air horn.

Jimmy had been awake and grousing about eggs, a pile of toast, and sliced tomatoes. I asked him to take the wheel while, down in the cabin, we settled the bill for the night’s work. Not without complaint, they forked over the cash and slumped moodily in the fighting chairs till we were tied up.

Bud and a few others were on hand at the dock. The passengers made a hasty exit leaving a nasty collection of oily oyster tins in a bucket and cracker crumbs strewn around. They were not what you would call appreciative. To tell the truth, I really didn’t give a damn.

We jumped in Bud’s truck and headed downtown.

After a huge breakfast it was a short walk to “The Bull” where Skunk had just opened.  She didn’t bat a blue eye when we ordered doubles.

After Bud told her the story, she smiled and placed an inverted shot glass in front of us. Life was sweet.