Like them that dream

15 – Greece, Mediterranean, Malta, Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, Panama Canal, Los Angeles, Pacific Ocean, Tahiti, New Zealand

Summer had come to the Kinetta Beach Bungalows. They had these thin, flat boats like paddle boards at the resort and the water was warm and crystal clear. I would spend hours just floating around and diving down deep to pick up starfish and other things off the bottom. It’s a good thing we liked it because we didn’t really have much else to do.

I had a pellet gun at Kinetta. One day, some of us boys were shooting stuff. We were aiming towards the water so we wouldn’t hit anyone. However, we either didn’t notice some people who had started paddling by out in the water or we didn’t think the pellets would reach that far. All of a sudden, one of the ladies jerked her head like she had been hit. 

Like all smart boys…we ran. Once again, they knew it was us. It had hit the lady in the ear, fortunately on the cartilage and not in the canal. Other than a little red spot, she was okay and we got a good lecture on the perils of shooting pellet guns around people.

A shipyard on the island of Salamis agreed to do some more repairs but this time we could stay aboard. We moved back on. This time period fit the cliché of darkest before the dawn - figuratively and literally. The area where we were docked was a nasty, depressing shipyard and again, we had very little money. They would take barrels to the gas station for fuel so that we could run the generators for just two hours a day - one in the morning and one in the evening. There were no hot showers. In fact, water was in short supply too. We were asked to take “YWAM” showers. You wet yourself down, turn the water off, soap up, turn the water on to rinse off and you’re done. The cold water made it easy to keep it short.

Yet, while we were in that dark place, one of the most exciting things happened so far. We underwent sea trials! Up until now, the ship had not been able to run under her own engines. It always had to be towed by tugboats wherever it went. Now it was repaired enough to run under its own steam. Lloyds of London was going to insure us so they were present to observe. We sailed out beyond Salamis to do all the maneuvers and had a lifeboat drill to make sure everything was working and the ship passed!

It was very surreal for us to sail away from what had been our home for these past several years. Swinging around our anchor or living in a hotel or docked at a pier was all we had known. This was what we had been working towards for so long but to be actually sailing under our own power, heading somewhere was kind of mind-boggling.

We weren’t just heading anywhere either. We were going to the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. And not just anywhere in the United States - we were going to Los Angeles! For many of us kids, especially the ones from other countries, Los Angeles represented the Mecca of the United States - the city of the movies and super-cool Californians. We held it in awe and we were actually going there!


Comments

  1. RhondaSeptember 26, 2020 at 12:50 PM

    It’s so great reading your commentary of these events!

    ReplyDelete

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