Molokai Reef (3 page)

As
the water heated, Gybe pulled the Maui French Roast beans from the
reefer and ground enough for a full pot of coffee – he had a
guest. Unlike the average tourist, the high priced
Kona
coffee of the Big Island held little interest to Gybe or his budget.
Besides, most of it was
Kona Blend
, which contained at most
fifteen percent
Kona
beans. That is, if he could believe the
barista who worked at the Coffee Gallery in Hale‘iwa. Scarred
by too many jalapeños, his tongue could not distinguish the
unique flavor. While the aroma filled the cabin, Gybe replayed the
events of the last evening.

Late
yesterday afternoon Gybe had been sitting at the Hotel Molokai Lanai
Bar washing down a bowl of tortilla chips with back-to-back Fire Rock
Ales when a travel-weary woman dropped anchor on the adjacent
barstool. Actually, upon closer inspection, Gybe heaved the anchor
metaphor.

In
Gybe’s mind, the Lanai Bar represented the stereotypical South
Seas beach bar. Similar to many tropical structures, a thatched roof
deflected the sun and rain while the persistent trade winds, or
trades, blew through the room, a room unburdened with walls.

Throughout
most of the year, the northeasterly trade winds cool the islands.
Trade winds, known since ancient sailing days, blow towards the
equator between the horse latitudes and the doldrums –
northeasterly above the equator, southeasterly below the equator.

The
trades were a natural air-conditioner to the tropical islands of
Hawai‘i.

Waves,
always gentle after crossing the fringing reef, lapped the sandy
beach at the edge of the bar. The coral reef lay between 50 yards
and a half-mile offshore along most of the south coast of Moloka‘i.
In front of the bar, the reef was two hundred yards offshore.

Beyond
the reef and about nine miles across Kalohi Channel, Gybe could see
the island of Lāna‘i. From his barstool, he watched
humpback whales spout and sometimes breach near the reef.

Attired
in winter clothes of surfer shorts, aloha shirt, and sandals, Gybe
raised his bottle to the woman, “to winter.” It was
December 11 across the Hawaiian Islands.

The
top of the brunette’s head was level with his nose and she
weighed maybe one twenty. She wore shorts with a sleeveless chambray
shirt and was barefoot. Iridescent blue toenails, if dipped in the
ocean’s edge, would send Nemo into a mating frenzy.

“
Have
some chips.” Gybe moved the chips basket and salsa bowl
towards the newcomer.

A few
weeks earlier the bar had begun offering complementary chips and
salsa. Every day since then, guests and locals had packed the bar
during happy hour. The holiday green colored tortilla chips and
bright red salsa lent a festive atmosphere. In the tropics one
seldom smelled roasting chestnuts, skated at the winter rink, or saw
a dishwater gray sky through barren tree limbs. In the tropics, one
noticed the little things like the green and red of chips and salsa
or the seasonal return of humpback whales.

She
started with the small talk and soon introduced herself, “I’m
Kara.”

“
Gybe.
Nice to meet you. What brings you to this little island?”

Kara
was from Mendocino – in Northern California. “It’s
about a hundred and fifty miles north of San Francisco.”

“
Yeah
I know. Beautiful town. I used to live in the Bay area. One of my
favorite road trips was the drive north along the coast. You here on
vacation?”

Less
than an hour earlier, Kara had checked into a room after a tedious
two-day trip from the mainland. She told him that she was on
Moloka‘i to help her friend Susan. They had been friends for
several years and Susan worked for the organization that Kara
founded.

“
Susan
is in jail. She’s in the Moloka‘i Police Station. They
think she murdered two people.”

The
noose around his heck tightened as he felt the cowboy flick the
lasso. Walk away. Walk away now. Pretend you have to be somewhere
else soon. Gybe took a second scan of the pretty young woman and
signaled the bartender for another beer.

“
She
murdered those two scientists that were found a couple of days ago?”
Gybe asked without revealing that he had found the bodies.

“
NO!
She didn’t murder them. She didn’t murder anyone.
Susan would not, could not, murder anyone.”

The
deepening aroma of fresh coffee snapped Gybe’s thoughts back to
the present. He stepped up through the companionway and into the
cockpit, favorite coffee mug in hand. From long habit, Gybe took
visual bearings to confirm
Ferrity
’s position.
Makani
rested at her anchor shoreward, the pier rested at the end of the
causeway to the east, the island of Lāna‘i lay to the
south, and to the west, the ocean was open to the horizon.

In
the distance, Kara turned and backstroked toward the boat.

“
Want
some fresh coffee?” Gybe hollered.

“
Absolutely.”

Just
as he thought, she wasn’t wearing a suit.

As
Kara stepped over the lifeline, he handed her a fresh towel
emblazoned with a boat under full sail in front of a setting sun. Or
was it a rising sun? “Any additives for your coffee?”

He
hoped that she didn’t require something exotic like
half-n-half. Aboard
Ferrity
, he carried unrefined sugar. And
somewhere he had seen a pinkish block that once upon a time might
have been individual sweetener packets. If necessary, he could break
off a piece and toss it in the coffee grinder.

“
No
thanks.”

He
handed her a steaming mug with “Foggy’s” stenciled
on the side. His mind wandered back to the little café near
San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. He halted that train
of thought before it derailed into the swamp of past loves and
heartbreaks. Each of his eleven coffee mugs had a story to tell if
only mugs could tell stories.

“
How’s
the coffee?”

“
Thick.”
She grimaced. “This isn’t Kona, is it?”

“
Nope,
Kona is on the Big Island.” He said without explanation. “How
about some cereal?”

Entertaining
women on the morning after involved coaxing them into his inflatable
dinghy,
Aweigh
, for a quick and preferably silent ride ashore.
Kara had shattered his routine with her wakeup splash. She had slid
from his berth, then into the water without awakening him. How?

Trapped,
he ducked below for cereal. Into a bowl, he mounded four-grain
granola from a Honolulu health food store. The granola was the least
sweet and contained the least fat of the several granolas available.
Why, he wondered, had the granola manufacturers felt obligated to add
sweetener and fat? If he wanted fat and sugar, he was capable of
adding them himself.

To
each bowl, he added two shakes of whole sesame seeds, a generous
topping of flax seeds, and six almonds – cut into thirds. An
island grown apple banana sliced onto the mixture expanded the meal
into the fruit group.

In
the reefer, there was low-fat milk, and under the settee, he had
several cartons of soy milk. “Do you want moo juice or bean
squeeze on your cereal?”

As
expected, she opted for the bean squeeze.

He
passed Kara the cereal and a glass of orange juice before re-joining
her in the cockpit. To the east, the sun had yet to scale Mt.
Haleakalā on Maui. To the south, a two-foot swell broke along
the reef on either side of the narrow channel into the harbor.
Shoreward, the town of Kaunakakai lay silent beyond Mongoose’s
Makani
.

“
So
tell me more about yourself Gybe. And you can start with your name.”
Kara asked as she handed him the empty bowl. “And don’t
think I didn’t notice that you served my cereal in a dog bowl!”

“
Back
at you syrup girl!” Aboard
Ferrity
, Gybe used dog food
bowls for cereal, salads, soups, and anything else that wouldn’t
stay on a plate tilted at thirty-degrees. The high sides and
non-slip bottoms of the bowls were perfect for use either underway or
when the boat rocked at anchor.

“
Syrup
is C-A-R-O not Kara.” She spelled.

Trying
to recover while wondering why she was still aboard, he began his
story. “Gybe, it’s German for the man who shoes horses.”

“
And
why would your parents name you after a farrier?”

Last
night at the Lanai Bar, after three amber ales, or were there more,
Kara agreed – a little too quickly he recalled - to come back
to the boat with him. Back aboard
Ferrity
with the moon four
days past full, they stripped one another and dove over the side.
Their intent was to swim off the alcohol. Nude, inebriated, and
adrift near
Ferrity
, they attempted sex. They tried, laughed,
and tried again. However, unlike astronauts who don taxpayer funded,
two hundred thousand dollar, Velcro and bungee cord mating harnesses
– the male with loops, female with hooks – Gybe and Kara
could not engage locks and keep their heads above water. After
several efforts to hold their breath, they returned to the inflatable
dinghy where they coupled with ease, without grace, and with
considerable noise.

After
her swim this morning, Kara had failed to dress. The woman sitting
across from him with a towel around her waist was five feet seven.
Using his own features as a reference, Gybe had perfected a technique
for determining a woman’s height. When writing, he often
modeled a character after a street acquaintance or someone at the
mall. For accuracy, he developed a technique for estimating the
height of strangers. Since he was six one, he determined that if the
top of her head came to his eyebrows, she was five nine, to his nose,
she was five seven, and so on. As a sportsman, he supported tag and
release for those women whose stature failed to reach his chin.

Kara
wore her brunette hair short and manageable. Her large round eyes
were of some color and she was physically fit. Her skin suggested
that one or more of her ancestors had fornicated somewhere near the
Mediterranean. The light almond skin would soon glow in the tardy
sun still struggling to rise above Mt. Haleakala. Like a ripening
fruit on the tree of love, she was at that yummy age – firm,
sweet, juicy, and delicious.

Ignoring
her comment about his name and anticipating her next question, Gybe
continued.

“
As
to the rest of the story, I’m a sailor or more accurately a
cruiser. I sail about the world from port to port with neither
destination nor terrestrial home. The boat is my home; each new port
becomes my yard; the waterways - my streets. In most ports and
anchorages, I stay from one night to a fortnight. Sometimes when I
like the port or the women or need to replenish the cruising kitty, I
may stay up to a year.”

Having
heard enough, Kara interrupted. “So how long will it take you
to sail around the globe?”

“
Around?
I don’t know. I’m sailing ABOUT the world.”

“
And
for money?”

“
Bit
nosy are we? Now, tell me about yourself?”

Kara
told him that she was the founder and president of the activist
organization called Oceans Now. She had founded Oceans Now six years
earlier modeling it somewhat after the environmental groups Earth
First and Earth Liberation Front. Like those groups, Edward Abbey’s
The Monkey Wrench Gang
had served as inspiration. Kara was
quick to point to the
A Sand County Almanac
by Aldo Leopold,
Silent Spring
by Rachael Carson, and more recently
Sea
Change
by Sylvia Earle. Like the bibliography to a thesis, she
rattled on with names including Roszak, Traven, Dillard, Lopez,
Berry, and Jackson before Gybe held up his hand to signal her to
stop.

“
Whoa
wahine. Just e-mail me your card file. I’ve read some of
those and looked at the pictures in others. But, what does Oceans
Now do?”

He
learned that O.N., as Kara referred to it, believed that the ocean
was the life of the planet. Not just the source, the original
primordial soup of high school science classes, but the life that
recognized every sunrise. Kara believed that the ocean was more
important than the land, hence Oceans
Now
before a literal
Earth
First
. Misanthropic as he, she believed that the third
major rock from the Sun was misnamed. The ocean covered seventy one
percent of the surface of this marble, and that number grew as the
glaciers melted.

Kara
bragged that the organization had chapters in every coastal state,
Canadian province, and most Mexican states. Kara’s now jailed
friend, Susan, lead the Hawai‘i chapter. Hawai‘i was the
only U.S. state in the Tropics. When the two hundred nautical mile
Exclusive Economic Zone was included, Hawaii was larger than the
state of Alaska.

“
I
need help.” Kara said as they finished second cups of coffee.

6

He
hated it when women used him. Gybe was independent, freethinking,
beholden to no one, yet here in his cockpit sat Kara – the
woman who like many of her ilk wielded species propagation desires
more efficiently than Zorro swung his sword.