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CHAPTER 4
Female Scientists Love Happy Hour at The End of the World
The Shark cruised into quaint Alice Town harbor on Bimini late Saturday
afternoon but no slips were available. On the radio Gun began communicating
with a Bahamian official who was difficult to understand and asked a lot of questions.
Everyone endured the bureaucratic dullness and fell into a form of stupor,
then, expressions turned to relief when a Harbor Patrol skiff motored over to
lead us somewhere.
Twenty
minutes later the Shark pulled into
the marina of a small out-island. “For Sale”
real estate flags lined the entrance channel, and the spanking new docks were
surrounded by dozens of unsold townhouses. Only two yachts were moored with us
but they were magnificent vessels almost the size of mansions.
It
was a state-of-the-art marina, each slip connected for phone, computers, cable
TV and of course electricity and fresh water. One yacht had a portable
satellite TV dish set up. The other had big exotic birds dining on deck with
the owners. Such a perfect life for some people, and some animals!
I
recalled the past eighteen hours since arriving at the Miami docks. “Boy, what a day we’ve had,” I mentioned
Gun.
“No,
yeah, you did okay, Caleb, mah belle. I don’t know if it’s an addiction yet.
I’ll let you know in a couple days. You should be able to sleep good tonight
since we’ll be docked.”
“Thank
God. Thanks for helping me down there. Whenever I got panicky I saw you, and
calmed right down.”
“No,
you didn’t look bad. Didn’t over breathe. But, you have to use your legs!” he
almost yelled at me. “Tomorrow you will hang off the stern platform, practice
only your kicking!”
We
waved at the family with the exotic parrots, which they entertained while
snacking on big submarine sandwiches. I wondered what we would be eating
tonight.
On
the galley table was a laminated sheet of colorful fish native to these
waters—red and black squid, spotted gray and black octopuses, the stingray with
its barbed tail, red soldier fish, the man-eating tiger shark,
cauliflower-shaped jelly fish, anemones and those tiny anemone fish that
embedded themselves in their tentacles for protection, immune from the stings.
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