Smiles

The anchor was down and holding. Casaya Cay islet was completely perfect for anchoring in a place you do not know and just as the day decided upon going to rest it was a good place for me to follow suit before heading out for the Canal in the morning with the tide. I was complementing myself for entering Panama Bay on a perfect tidal current that rushed me toward this little group of islands and cays on the approach to the Canal and Panama. There was plenty of water and no coral reefs and the islands were tropically green.

I patted myself again on the choice of Casaya, protected in a nicely sized cove from the northerlies by a larger hilly cay and all around by the protruding arms of the cay . Perfect. The darkness fell softly but assuredly and I cooked a nice meal of spaghetti with a can of tunafish and ketchup acting as tomato sauce. Soon, I will be in Panama City and Red Snapper with cold beer.

I did my routine walk around the boat to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be and all lines neatly coiled and belayed and the halyard tied off away from the mast with elastic and the big anchor secured. It was dark by the time I went below. The cabin was moving with a change of tide and she only moved as needed without much in the way of rocking, just slowly shifting from North to East. I turned off the cabin light, considered turning on the anchor light but nobody was anywhere around me all day and the current was now going against an approach to this cove behind all of these barriers in this deep moonless darkness. I got into my bunk, pulled up the sheet and was asleep before I could say, go to sleep.

In the dark of the cabin my watch showed me it was 0238 and I wondered why I was looking at my watch. I was asleep but now I was almost awake. Okay, I know the time, so closing my eyes I was asleep again.

In the dark there was a soft splash. Not a big splash but like a winch handle falling into the water. Winch handles cost money, so I didn’t want to but I took my sheet off and put my feet on the cabin sole and yawned a long yawn and looked back down at the bunk and how comfortable I had been or at least I thought I must have been comfortable or I would not be craving to lay back down again and not worry about the winch handle. But I stood up and walked over to the hatch ladder feeling the weightlessness of soft water holding up my wooden cutter. I smiled with the thought of how they love each other, especially when the weather is perfect, the breeze light and no recognisable swell. Of course that was me just loving my boat in this condition with a warm breeze and all, but I could almost feel Magic’s vibration of satisfaction and smiled again before climbing the ladder to look for the starboard winch handle, which was in its holster secured to the cabin bulkhead within easy reach. I looked to port and saw the port winch handle still on the winch. I reached over and unlocked it’s top lock, pulled it out and stuck it in its holster on the port bulkhead.

I remembered why I came up and looked around to see what could have fallen overboard but could not think of anything in the cockpit and thought to forget it and go back below to the bunk as I was not out of the cabin yet and that made a lot of sense. The nag got to me though and pushed the lazy thought of sleep overboard. Something must have fallen overboard since I definitely heard a splash. I grabbed my long policeman’s flash light, switched it on with a glare against the darkness that made me squinch my eyes almost closed. I stepped up onto the bridge-deck, shining the light to port from where a light breeze was coming and saw nothing but wet water. I shined the light on the side deck and cabin top, then, turning around lit up the cockpit, boom with furled sail, boom gallows with its supporting poles and on around to the starboard side deck and that top of cabin seeing nothing out of place nor missing.

As I descended toward my waiting bunk there was another splash and I awarded that one to a fish or porpoise or whale or something like that. That felt good to know, though of course I did not know, but that seemed right. Okay, back to bed. I didn’t get the sheet up before I was asleep and I know that because the watch told me it was 0404 and I was looking at it awake. There had been two splashes and as I was looking at my watch there was another splash and a thump. The thump must have been what woke me but it could have been all of them. But, awake, there was a splash that sounded just like a winch handle falling in the water. I knew that it wasn’t and thought it was just some kind of fish party going on tonight or this morning. I forgave the fish since I planned on having an all night party when I get to Panama.

I laid back down again but started thinking about what kind of fish would jump out of the water with no moon attracting it and fell asleep. I know I had been asleep because my watch, that I was about to toss overboard to join the fucking party, showed me I had been asleep for about fifteen minutes. Two thuds opened my eyes. My first thought was flying fish for breakfast but there was no flopping around sounds that flying fish make, just a couple of thumps on the deck above my head.

I lay there staring up at the deck. There was a movement, a sort of sliding movement Not much, as though something did not want to make it known of its presence. I looked over toward the cabinet that held my flare gun. Another sliding movement further away from this one. Another thump in the cockpit now but with a soft grunt. I lifted the sheet, feeling the sweat on my stomach with my right hand.

Feet on the sole, I moved slowly over to the cabinet, opened the door upward with a tiny squeak that I had been meaning to oil. Concentrate, I thought to myself, as I slipped my hand into the space groping around for the gun case. My shoulders slumped as I remembered the gun is in the cabinet above my bunk, so slid silently over to that side of the cabin, opened that cabinet door and felt almost immediately the flare gun case handle. I lifted it and pulled it out to setting it on the bunk. I opened it, pulled out the gun and cocked it open. I breathed a sigh as I took a shell out and slid it in the barrel and snapped the gun shut. That snap aroused sounds outside with more sliding movement and several thumps and some high pitched guttural noises. Aliens, I thought. I had to anchor, in all the spots on this planet, in a place that aliens landed.

I took two more shells out of the case and looked at the hatchway holding the gun in one hand and the shells in the other. Phosphorous will burn through anything, I thought, as I walked slowly toward the ladder with my vision outside not quite high enough to see into the cockpit but I could plainly hear more thumps and the guttural speaking noises and the sliding sounds all around now. Maybe when I light one or two up they will fly back to wherever they came, I asked in my thoughts.

I took a deep breath and slipped on the first step as I tried to climb up and banged my knee. More scuttling and thumps drowning out any slithering movement sounds. Over my head through the open hatch shining things were flying but it was too dark to see what they looked like. I stepped back and grabbed my flash light, turned it on and climbed up the ladder quickly to egg sized dots of white reflections all over the cockpit. I shined the light upward and saw bulbous bodies with long legs flying passed me and light splashes on the port side of the boat in the water. My beam went toward those splashes but I could not recognise what it was or they were.

Above me, my light showed hundreds of them flying overhead with almost white in the light bulbous bodies and long dark legs but I could not see the heads. I lowered the beam to the cockpit again and steadied my shaking hand to concentrate on what seemed to be giant frogs with very wide heads and closed mouths that extended from one side to the other. They were approaching my light with squeezed blinking as the light seemed to hurt their big eyes. I waved the beam back and forth but they kept coming. I must have dropped the shells when I grabbed the flash, but I aimed the gun at the first one that seemed to be at least a foot across and had an angry expression with a forked tongue barely laying down outside its lips. It had pink lips that turned up at the edges.

It stopped as if judging the gun and turned to the left letting out that high pitched croak. I shined the light over at the others behind him and they all seemed to make the croaking sounds as though judging something in agreement. The first one turned all the way around and lifted its head to let out a loud long winded screeching sound. some of those flying overhead turned and landed in and around the cockpit. Within a few moments there were at least a hundred of these giant things squirming to get a position in the limited space. My whole after deck and cockpit was covered with hundreds of light reflecting eyes with some blocked out by the nearest thing still with its back to me. There were bumps reflecting wetly all over its back and it was a very dark colour that I could not discern in my nervousness.

Hundreds were still flying over the boat and landing in a roar of splashes to my port. I was breathing heavily now and not wanting to die being eaten by a bunch of giant frogs. I aimed the gun into the air and flying frogs and shot it upward with a trail of smoking light. The flare hit and bounced off of some of the flying things and fell back down into the water to starboard. I ducked below to look for the shells and found one on the stairs. I cocked the gun and loaded the shell and snapped the gun shut. Breathing in gasps I raised my head to see an empty cockpit and nothing above but stars. My eyes found my watch and it peacefully showed me it was 0431. I looked again blinking my eyes clear to see the minute hand signal 0432.

I rose out of the hatch and looked around to see dark water and starlit sky. There were darker mounds that were land and there was me on my boat at anchor. I went below to turn on the stove and put some canned milk in a pot to make some hot chocolate when I heard a thump on the deck.