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From: Roy Rogers <roy.skipperroy.rogers@gmail.com>
To: Roy Rogers <roy.skipperroy.rogers@gmail.com>
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The catamaran was about 36 long. Where the dinghy was tied the freeboard was at least four feet. I used one of the empty port lights as a foothold to boost myself up onto the deck. The cockpit was large, as all catamaran cockpits are. There was a pile of trash to one side. Plastic bags, random paper, couple empty bottles, rusting hand tools, unopened cans… The binnacle was on the port side with the steering wheel still attached. There must have been a cockpit table in this big open space, but it was now gone. I looked forward over the cabin top and saw that except for the mast step and a few cleats, it was stripped of hardware. Someone went to a lot of effort here. Why did they leave the wheel?
I stepped down to the companionway threshold and looked into the cabin. The shade of the cabin was lit with sunlight through forward facing Plexiglas windows. I was surprised by the contrast. While the deck and cockpit were stripped, the salon was filled. My first thought, was someone still onboard? I said, Hello? No response. I looked down into the hulls on either side of the salon. In the port side I saw the galley. Counters, stove top, shelves and cabinets covered with galley items, but lower down, knee-deep seawater surged and sloshed around. The hull was flooded. Looking down to the stbd side that hull was also flooded. I saw a passageway and forward was a door open. To a stateroom, I thought, and probably another aft under the cockpit.
I looked more carefully at the items in the salon. There was a large table in the middle with settee seating around three sides. There were shelves behind the settees and the table and shelves were crowded with random items, too many to make sense of. Like a table at a garage sale but much more of a mess, with no attempt to arrange order. These were the details of someone's life on this boat. Box of cereal. A pad of post-it notes. A balled up tee-shirt. Scattered papers. Can of corn. A black Caselogic CD holder with about a dozen CDs in it. Names of French artists on the CDs, Bottle of J&B scotch. There was a string of Christmas lights hanging behind the forward settee. Among the chaos on the table was a pineapple, only partially spoiled. This had not been here long at all. Christmas was just two weeks earlier. I was more puzzled now than ever.
Down in the galley it was much the same. Bottles of spices on a shelf. Pots on the stove. Olive oil. Syrup. Bag of rice. Cooking utensils. Vinegar. Another bottle of liquor.
On a shelf behind the settee and above the galley, more items of ordinary life. A box of waterproof matches. Coins. A small padlock. Some loose stainless fasteners. Small pair of pliers. What happened here? Why would someone go to all the trouble of stripping the boat of rigging and hardware, yet leave all this? It made no sense.
Looking back at the table a closed note book caught my attention. I opened the cover. The front page was filled with tight, neat print in blue pen It was in French. I turned the page. It was blank. The entire notebook was blank except for that first page. What did it say? On another shelf I saw a stack of glossy paper, mostly blue, with print and photos. Picking it up I saw it was advertisement. Like a brochure. One picture was of this catamaran, still whole and sailing past a beach in the background. Another photo was a thin man in a blue ball cap and black short sleeved shirt behind the wheel of the boat. The owner/captain? The print was in French but there were words I could understand. Destinations like St Martin, St Barts, Guadeloupe, Les Saints. Prices too, in Euros. And an address for a website: http://www.catamaran-croisiere.com/. So this was a charterboat. Were there guests onboard at the time of the grounding? Or was he alone?
I looked around and found a reasonably clean plastic bag. I took several copies of the brochure and put them in the bag. I picked up the case of CDs and put them in too. Then the bottle of scotch. I had to go one step down in the galley, almost into the seawater, and stretch to reach the other bottle. Napoleon brandy. I put that in the bag.
The bottles were for our friends on my charterboat who drank. Pirate's booty, we later joked. The CD and the brochures were to help tell the story, and speculate over the mystery.
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