Once Upon a Gypsy Moon (19 page)

Within a month’s time
the
Gypsy Moon
’s engine problems had been resolved. (I was told that a faulty fuel pump—not insufficient oil—had been the chief culprit.) It was February 2011. The boat was again ready for sea, and I was eager to head south. This time, Susan would be coming along for the planned offshore passage of three days to the Dominican Republic—her first.

I found the service at Caicos Marina & Shipyard friendly and the rates affordable, but this remote, undeveloped corner of the island suffers from an overabundance of sand fleas and no-see-ums after dark. That won’t bother you at all if you’re staying aboard an air-conditioned megayacht, but it made the one night Susan and I spent aboard our boat on Provo something less than a vacation. Her soft, smooth skin was a prime target for the little buggers, and she awoke the next morning looking as if she had been stricken with the chicken pox.

The highlight of our return trip to Provo was a chance meeting with some friendly Swiss sailors. They have spent half of each of the last twelve years wandering around the Caribbean and homeschooling their charming daughter, returning to work and live in Burgundy, France, for the other half. They invited us aboard their boat, the
Taua
, for wine and cheese the night before we were due to sail for the Dominican Republic. They planned to follow us there once they finished fitting out. It was good to share the camaraderie of people who didn’t need us to explain why, exactly, we were bothering to cross an ocean in a sailboat.

The clear, shallow waters that extend sixty miles southeast of Providenciales mark the outer edge of a vast limestone shelf. Formed 135 million years ago in the Jurassic period, it supports the low-slung islands within the six-hundred-mile contiguous range of the Bahamas, including the Turks and Caicos. South of this rim, the sea runs much deeper and the islands rise markedly higher than any in the Bahamas, owing to eons of seismic activity in the Caribbean Plate.

Hispaniola is a large island 130 miles south of Providenciales. Its landmass is divided between the countries of Haiti to the west and the Dominican Republic to the east. The Haitian side has been deforested and its people impoverished from decades of subsistence farming, while the agricultural export and tourism economy of the Dominican Republic has preserved the people of that country and their land. With lush green mountains as tall as ten thousand feet, rich valleys, and cascading rivers, the Dominican Republic resembles the volcanic islands of the South Pacific.

After a night spent studying the chart and plotting a series of GPS waypoints and compass headings for a course generally south, we left Caicos shipyard early in the morning. With the ever-dependable easterly breeze, I had the sails up almost right away. The diesel engine was promptly retired, not to be summoned again for three days.

With a woman aboard, I became a tornado of helpful assistance in comparison to my usual despicable lethargy. I was able to keep Susan reasonably comfortable in the cockpit, where she had a reliable view of the horizon to maintain her equilibrium. Her seasickness waxed and waned. At its worst it dampened her appetite to a mild degree, and she did make one small offering to Neptune over the course of three days, but her spirit never faltered.

By noon of the second day at sea, Susan was stretched out in the cockpit in all her glory, basking naked in the sun and sipping a rum punch, her head propped against a pillow as she listened to the iPod play through the cockpit speakers. While 30-plus sunblock is an unavoidable rigor of genetics for me, Susan can achieve a California tan without much assistance, and in her case the overall effect is so much more appealing. Alas, she underestimated the strength of the Caribbean sun that day. By evening, she was pink and swaddled in a blanket beneath the dodger, where she remained as well buttoned as a parson’s daughter for the remainder of the voyage.

It was such a thrill to see the outline of the Ile de la Tortue (Island of the Tortoise) come faintly into view off the coast of Haiti as we made our way south on the long first tack from Providenciales. It looks literally like a turtle on the sea—just as it did to the first explorers who named it. I felt a swell of pride in knowing that I was coming upon a place that is beyond the itinerary of any day trip from the United States. This, I thought, was a view of the horizon known only to voyagers, not fishing buddies on a weekend binge from Miami. I was crossing, at last, the long-awaited Rubicon of my boyhood dreams.

Despite her mild
seasickness and for reasons I didn’t otherwise understand, Susan asked me repeatedly about fishing while we were underway for the Dominican Republic. She wanted to know when I would start fishing, how soon I would catch a fish, what I would do with the fish once I caught it, why I hadn’t started fishing yet, and then again, when I would start fishing.

To be honest, as the one in charge of the bloody mess of cleaning and preparing the catch, I would much rather have opened a can of chickpeas and made a lovely meal of them sautéed in olive oil with red bell pepper, cumin, and sea salt, served over a wild rice medley and seasoned with parsley and cayenne. Everything in that dish comes from a can, a bag, or a jar that can be neatly stored in and retrieved from the ship’s larder, not a writhing, indignant beast that must be ritually sacrificed before it is served.

Fishing aboard a sailboat underway involves trolling a line from a rod mounted on the stern rail. This method poses hazards to navigation regardless of whether one ever catches a fish. Twice while sailing offshore I have tacked or jibed without first thinking to reel in fifty yards of fishing line, only to discover that as the line passed under the boat during the turn, it became wrapped around the propeller. On both occasions I wound up playing Lloyd Bridges in an episode of
Sea Hunt
—jumping over the side in midocean with rigging knife at the ready to cut the line free. It is an eerie feeling to swim atop a mile of ocean, see nothing but a continuous gradient of blue descending beneath you into the abyss, and realize that you are one of the smallest living things in that world.

That feeling again came suddenly to mind as I heard an uncharacteristic whirring sound come from the drag on the fishing reel, about seventy-five miles off the coast of Hispaniola.

The open-faced reel and short, stubby rod that I keep aboard the
Gypsy Moon
are made for deep-sea fishing. I set the drag so that the amount of tension needed to strip line from the reel was just below the breaking point of the thirty-pound-test line. That means that a firm line will set the hook hard enough to keep smaller and medium-sized fish from getting away, while larger fish will strip line from the reel without breaking it unless they are—well, truly huge.

The only lure I bother to carry anymore is a ridiculous green lizard wearing a hula skirt. I don’t understand why, but it is deadly seduction to mahimahi and just about everything else with teeth that swims. When a fish hits the lure, if he is not small enough to be towed along by the boat’s motion under sail, the drag will clatter and clack as line is pulled backward off the reel. The noise made by the drag is usually a short series of halting staccatos, like the sound of a metronome with arrhythmia. On this occasion, however, line was flying off the reel as if it were a motorized spindle in a textile mill, and the noise it made was an even, electric hum.

Standing in disbelief at the stern rail as I watched the smoking reel, I didn’t quite know what to do. Susan was apoplectic with excitement that we had finally caught something, but at this rate, I knew that all of the line would soon fly off the reel in the direction of West Africa along with whatever was pulling it.

About the time I could count the number of wraps of monofilament remaining on the metal spool, the great beast paused. When he did so, I gently eased the rod out of the holder and began to crank the handle of the reel, to no effect whatsoever.

So great was the weight on the line that the gear ratio of the reel could not overcome it. Undaunted, I positioned myself facing aft, with both feet braced against the cockpit coaming, and began what looked like ritual prayers to Mecca. Holding the butt of the rod in my abdomen, I leaned far backward, then far forward, and reeled up the slack in between like a madman. This tug-of-war went on for close to an hour, after which the fish was still clearly in no mood for surrender.

I would gain a few yards at a time, the fish would gain them back, and we remained at a draw. Susan was incredulous. Her past experience in snatching sunfish from farm ponds bore no resemblance to the blood feud taking place before her. Yet there was nothing to be done.

Eventually, I returned the rod to its holder on the stern rail and let the
Gypsy Moon
do battle for me. She fared no better. The rod stood there, thrumming and pumping from the strength of its quarry, and the line remained taut. After another ten minutes of this spectacle, I again tried the rod in my hands. Again the beast would give no quarter. I could not bring him a foot closer to the boat. It was as if I were trying to hoist an engine block up from the sea floor.

Unwilling to admit defeat, I had defeat handed to me when I pulled the rod back in one final, herculean effort and the line promptly snapped. Susan’s disappointment at the lost fish was palpable but tempered by the realization that we probably didn’t want to know just what sort of monster had gotten away. Had we managed to pull it alongside, we likely never could have brought it aboard, and if we had managed that, it remains unclear who would have become lunch for whom.

I did have some spare fishing line, and the dancing hula lizard, happily for all, had an understudy. My failed struggle with the great beast was proof at least that we were in prime fishing waters, and surely there would be other fish in the sea. Before long, the hula lizard would ride again to work his terrible temptation.

Not more than a half hour after fresh line was on the reel and back in the water, the drag began to sing a different song. This time the noise was more familiar. The halting
clack-clack-clack
signaled that the fish was large enough to activate the drag but too small to overwhelm it. Taking the rod in my hands, I felt a more manageable weight on the other end. Fifteen minutes later, a fat mahimahi, luminescent green and weighing about ten pounds, lay flopping in the cockpit.

When the fish had lost his color and his life and thus was ready to be prepared for the pan, Susan startled at the red blood coming from the path of my fillet knife. The richly vascularized, red meat of the common dolphinfish, or mahimahi, as it was only recently renamed to ease the conscience of American diners, has a texture closer to a fillet of beef than most other varieties of fish. I set about the task of preparing this one for dinner.

The two thick, fresh fillets that sat in the pan of the
Gypsy Moon
’s galley that afternoon off the coast of Hispaniola would have been a prize meal at any restaurant anywhere in the world. But before leaving on this passage, I had had neither the time nor the inclination to shop for the ingredients needed to make an elaborate presentation of what we might catch. The items I had on hand would have to do.

In the ship’s larder I usually keep bags of ramen noodle soup. These make for a warm meal with enough fat and carbohydrates to be filling, and—importantly on a boat at sea—they can be prepared in one pot on a swing stove in all weathers. I began to eye one of these, in oriental flavor, next to jars of honey and olive oil that were visible in the cupboard. A plan evolved for a simple yet elegant preparation of the day’s catch. What follows is the recipe for that meal, happily ever after known as Mike’s Minute Mahi:

• Crush a package of oriental-flavored ramen noodles inside the closed bag using the heel of your palm until the noodles are evenly broken. Carefully open the bag and remove only the foil spice packet inside.
  
• Bring two cups of water to boil in a saucepan. Add the noodles without the spices and simmer for three minutes, or until tender. Drain and cover the noodles to keep warm.
  
• Add about ½ cup of olive oil to a skillet.
  
• Add about ¼ cup of honey to the olive oil, then add the spice packet and a pinch of sea salt. Stir these ingredients in the skillet over low heat until well blended.
  
• Add ½ cup of cashews to the skillet.
  
• Add the fillets to the skillet and coat thoroughly with the oil, honey, cashew, and spice and salt mixture. Cook the fillets over low heat until done and remove them to a bowl. Continue to reduce the sauce in the skillet over low heat for a minute or two until it is slightly thickened. Leaving a thin layer of sauce in the pan, reserve the remainder of the sauce in the bowl with the cooked fillets.
  
• Add the drained cooked noodles and parsley flakes to the remaining layer of sauce in the skillet and toss for a few seconds until the noodles are well coated.
  
• Divide the noodles between two plates and place a fillet on each bed of noodles; spoon the reserved sauce over the fillets.
  
• Lightly dust with grated Parmesan cheese, parsley, and cracked black pepper. Serve immediately.
  

Simply said, the meal prepared that afternoon, the last day at sea before our landfall in the Dominican Republic, was exemplary of an unforgettable time in our lives. Susan, already feeling queasy and made more so by the smell of fish blood mixed with salt water, was able to eat only a few bites, but what she did eat she savored. In hindsight, I can see that this fish and the meal it became are a metaphor of our life together.

What made the dish served that day off the coast of Hispaniola so memorable was the utter imperfection of its preparation and presentation. For starters, this was not the fish we had hoped for. That mythic, superlative specimen had fled to the bottom of the Atlantic with a disgruntled hula-lizard in its mouth. We were forced to accept instead a more moderate meal of the smaller fish that came our way. It would seem that for these obvious reasons, this could never be the perfect mahimahi, and yet it was.

Because the catch was sudden and unexpected, there was no time to plan an elaborate, nuanced presentation at the dinner table. The right opportunity could not wait for another day—there was no refrigeration on board. This was a moment made to be seized. The meal had to be prepared and served right then or not at all.

Because the fish had to be prepared in the rolling, pitching galley of a small boat and on the dim flame of an alcohol stove, the odds that it would be remarkable, in any event, were slim. Yet it was. Through what improvements we could impart using only our imagination and the few ingredients we had on hand, it became something sublime.

I had occasion months after this voyage to reflect upon that modest fish and its remarkable transformation in the galley of the
Gypsy Moon
. I happened to be watching, of all things, a live Internet video stream of the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, now the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

I had a strange feeling of paternalistic pride in seeing these two very young people express such hope in each other and in the institution of marriage in today’s fractured society. I felt compelled to tell them so in a brief note of congratulations that I wrote on behalf of Susan and myself and mailed to London. Before I finished the letter I added the recipe for Mike’s Minute Mahi with a postscript urging the newlyweds to give it a try. With characteristic British politeness, the royal couple’s thanks were given to us in a very kind reply from the palace secretary, and that note is now a cherished keepsake of ours.

Of course, it is very unlikely that the duke and duchess will ever attempt my recipe, and their aides may wonder how anyone could suppose that ramen noodles are worthy of a royal recommendation. Nonetheless, it remains my hope that one day when the kitchen staff is busy and nothing else looks appealing, William and Kate will discover that mahimahi, like marriage itself, is what you make of it.

Unlike Kate’s choice of William, I am no one’s idea of Prince Charming, nor am I Susan’s first husband. She threw that particular fish back into the sea long ago. Neither am I the one who got away—full of drama, excitement, and mystery, refusing to surrender and eventually snapping the line. I am instead the fish who chose to jump headlong into the boat. Our meeting was sudden and unexpected, and to make something worthwhile out of that moment we both had to seize it. We are so glad we did.

We are still in the kitchen, Susan and I. What we are making of our marriage from the dreams we have on hand, mixed with a dash of innocence and not an ounce of guile, is something sublime in all its imperfection. The resulting creation is greater than the sum of its parts. Now, at the twilight hour, just when it seemed I might wander forever alone on a bitter sea, I find that I am a woman’s loving and faithful husband and the apple of her eye. Not a bad day’s fishing, I’d say.