Grenada, May 18, 2008, Sunday, 03:00 EST
Queen of India, King of the road, Ship of fools.
Watching St. Georges’ harbor lights dance along the ripple, turns a lingering buzz from an evening misspent at the Pearl, into a foggy dream, while cool early morning breezes keep brain cells alert. Willie throws a spotlight on the Queen as we approach, helping the old ferrier to ease his water taxi alongside the schooner, just long enough to use my remote control, killing the alarm a moment before my feet hit the deck. Grenada’s sky is clear, but with the tropical moon below the horizon and the bulkhead lights off, when Willie turns his taxi away heading back across the harbor, it gets dark as a pirate’s soul.
Depending on instinct to steer me towards the cabin-deck ladder, turns out to be a dumb idea. About halfway across the deck, I stumble over something soft that lays me out on the deck. What sounds like a groan, starts me groping until my hand touches what feels like a foot. Just then the lights come on exposing Jacob, screwing up his face as he gasps, “Hey Roque, watt you doin'?”
“Looks bad, doesn’t it, Jacob?”
Moving closer, he asks, “Think he’s dead, Roque?”
Checking the intruder’s carotid artery for a pulse, I feel how warm his skin is, and peering under his eyelid, one large black hole stares back. “He’s not dead but in a whole lot of trouble. Stand by Jacob while I roust the Captain.”
Suspicions fill my head, as there is no answer to a knock on his cabin door. After three attempts, each louder than the one before, I open his door a crack, then enough to stick my head inside and call out, “Ash, are you decent?” Switching the lights on, raises the curtain on an unspeakable scene: Ash is lying on his bunk, but when I approach with thoughts of waking him, I am repelled by a horrific stink. Lying in a cesspool of his own vomit and excrement, he appears to be in a coma because nothing tickles his life line.
Telling Jacob that his soul mate is comatose only heightens his anxiety. Thinking how humiliated Ash would be, he pulls Sofia out of a sound sleep and starts her and Maria on the task of cleaning up the mess. Sofia decides to relocate him from that god-awful cabin to deckchair topside where tropical breezes will temper the stench.
Jacob, a man of few words, is our Chef, Maintenance Mechanic, Cabin Boy, and Deck Hand. He is inordinately loyal to Ash, who discovered him, a child of twelve, as a stowaway when he slithered aboard ten years ago. Just over five-feet-ten, Jacob has a full head of jet-black hair, kept short and well groomed: a dark skinned man with clean-shaven native Latino features, his body is muscular and firm.
Sofia, Jacob’s woman and helpmate, is the only survivor of a two-hundred-fifty-foot motor launch that exploded a thousand yards north of the Biminis. With the Captain’s approval, Jacob brought her on board one time when we rode out a hurricane there at the South Bimini Yacht Club. He was smitten and she wanted to experience the nomadic life aboard a schooner. She is a world-class cook and a friend to all.
Maria works with Jacob and Sophia as they tend to the maintenance of the ship, seeing to it that every square inch of the Queen is cleaned, or at least inspected, every day and prepare meals for anyone staying aboard. They also secure all necessary supplies required for the operation of our vagabond home.
Born weak-minded, Maria, who understands colloquial Spanish but cannot speak, had just lost her mother when Ash offered to keep her, suggesting she take a position with the crew. When Jacob brought Maria aboard she came complete with a brown and white Chinese Shar Pei. Ash had this look of horror which quickly turned quizzical as he asked, “Must we have the canine?” whereupon Jacob explained how attached the two creatures were to one another. Maria’s ‘doggie’ proved to be well behaved, intelligent and easily trained to obey ship dwellers rules, following close by Maria wherever she goes. Ash remarked that the animal’s face reminded him of a military man he once had a quarrel with and thereafter he referred to the pet as ‘Sergeant Pooper’.
Ash’s legendary hundred-foot, three masted, steel hulled schooner, the Queen of India, is anchored at the mouth of the busy horseshoe-shaped harbor at St. Georges, the capital of Grenada. Sometimes called the Spice Island, it is located south of the Tropic of Cancer and close by Trinidad and Venezuela. Looking beyond the colorful harbor to the hills above, you can see a quaint tapestry of pastel colored homes, with wrap around verandas, embedded into the hills. Grand old Victorian homes, made with metal siding, metal roofs, and a lush green hillside dotted with nutmeg trees, heavy with yellow nutmeg fruit. And, beyond that, misty rain forest mountains in the distance.
Life aboard the Queen is exceptional. A crew of five includes the Captain, Ashtyn Weathersby, who wears the weathered face of an ancient mariner. First thing you notice are his fiery blue eyes. A well-proportioned head supports a thatch of what used to be blond hair and a jaw as square as his professional ethics. Ash, tall and slightly built, has the muscle tone of an athlete. His expertise extends beyond science, genealogy, and moral philosophy into human nature, which he has observed and scrutinized for fifty-five years. Professor Ashtyn Weathersby, also known as the Earl of Devonshire, is a partner with Aalexia Fairchild in the Palm Beach, Florida, Daniel Bernoulli Institute and lectures on topics related to Gossamer Government Formation, Creative Accounting, Deceptive Software, and Inventive Religions, during seminars frequently held aboard the Queen.
