The Sea is Glass

I searched for what I've already found. People search for many things here in the Caribbean, like revelry, good rum, youth and sunken cities.

There is a window into the past out at sea, in a place where lines are erased and borders are where you place them, between the crests and troughs of waves.

There, anchor stones bind heaven and earth and sea in either a curse or a blessing. Nexus is a single object called the Damascene Chalice.

According to the book, Egyptian royalty returned it to the king of Spain shortly after it disappeared from the royal palace in Catalonia in 1656, only to be stolen again and never found.

I plotted a route late the peak of an unusually quiet hurricane season on October 26th, 2025, with a crew of three Puerto Ricans: Matthias, a diver, Ric, another diver, and Juan, a fisherman, offered to sail us to my coordinates in exchange for the ride home.

I made them a more lucrative offer of piracy to cut costs for the salvage, telling them about the Spanish Galion lying there, somewhere, and they accepted.

The sunken city of Port Royal is where I cast off, sailing under a new banner after renaming my boat 'The Sea is Glass'. Our destination was one and a half miles south west of San Juan.

As we sailed past Port Royal towards open sea I thought about the sunken city, destroyed by God himself, they say, in 1692. It sits there like a curse at the bottom of the sea.

I imagined coralized bones of the buccaneers, and what they experienced during the moment of destruction, while sailing towards mine.

Matthias called me la Reina de la mar, superstitiously apprehensive to the name of my boat. He turned stone faced when confronted with the offer I made. I believe he accepted out of belief in a curse barrier, me, since the boat belonged to me, and the adventurous voyage mine.

Matthias made me comfortable early on with obvious expertise in navigation, familiar with routes from eastern Jamaica to Puerto Rico, always sailing with another boat in sight.

I watched him at the helm from behind. His broad shoulders reminded me of someone, and Matthias could've sailed me anywhere.

He didn't need to mention a life outside of diving. I've heard of guys like him, and he astutely concerned himself with navigating safely, reminding me of dangerous men roaming the waters around us. I pretended to care.

I didn't tell them that my boat had a sister, part of a ghost fleet of two,setting sail for the same coordinates, since the share would decrease with an increase in headcount.

At first seas were glassy and clear, skies, clean and blue. Whenever I took the helm I listened to three sweaty sailors laughing on the upper sun deck. They were basking, barefooted, shirtless and happy.

I switched the engines off, and we were adrift one and a half miles south west of coordinates.

I tried joining them in a bikini, sun glasses and with a bottle of sun screen in hand, climbing to the upper deck to see them in their natural, non-mechanical state.

Disappointment set in early. As soon as they saw me they stopped talking, smiling and laughing, returning to their mechanical state. Sober, since they'd be diving in a matter of hours.

No one worked up to apply the lotion for me. Matthias showed interest before Ric and Juan convinced him otherwise with throat-clearing.

Instead of sitting again he passed me by for the stairs, and so I applied it myself.

Matthias climbed down, starting the engines again to continue the voyage.

I wasn't one of them. In their eyes I remained the owner of a fancy boat searching for cursed treasure I didn't need. They were simply looking for a hefty pay day.

The. I remembered, bikinis and beach bodies are nothing new to Puerto Ricans either.

I climbed down to help Matthias with the coordinates. When the other boat came into view he sternly questioned it's presence, throwing his hands in the air cursing when I explained.

He quieted down when Ric and Juan came down and calmed him down, but that looks he gave me, I'd be shark bait if I told them earlier.

Matthias folded his arms and stepped away from me,refusing to dive without a bigger cut. Juan and Ric fell in line with him quickly. I agreed, since my interest lied mostly in the Damascene Chalice and my ability to sell it for the value of the weight of all the gold resting with the Spanish Galion.

A truer curse had never been so inviting. There were no currents stirring the depths. Seas were glassy, calm and warm.

When Matthias came up empty-handed at first he claimed he hadn't been that warm that deep before, and with oxygen tanks and wet suits extending their dive time, in no time, and a quick brush of the sand, anything that glittered had to be gold.

A hand with a gold coin clasped between the fingers broke the surface to sounds of me jumping around and screaming, and to thunderous cheers of success on the other boat.

Juan splashed down, joining Matthias and Ric. They alternated attaching buckets to the line, bringing coins, gold bars and precious jewelry to the surface to be emptied, diving quickly again for the rest.

Three golden chalices came up with it, and finally the glass Damascene Chalice, an unmistakable object, made for a king.

As described in the book, it had the look of antiquity and royalty, with an aquamarine hue of the sea. Blood-red garnets dotted it's already heavy base, making it even harder to topple.

It had no sparkle of gold or silver on it, making it easy to sell without the hassle of scrutiny. With no metal anywhere on it to trigger metal detectors at ports of entry, buyers would be lining up.

Life was good. Greed caused me to hold on to all three golden chalices along with the Damascene Chalice, and with the sheer size of the discovery I added a full eight kilograms of gold coins and bars to my boat, all mine,but the weather was changing. Wind picked up and the sea began to stir.

When we recovered all that we could find, we didn't wait for the coast guard to arrive to board our vessels.

Matthias sailed me half way home, waves grew taller, but along the way he mellowed. That's when I told him my name: Sharon.

Correcting his mistaken ideas of me in our conversations. He confessed that he believed I was a drug runner instead of a wealthy, young widow.

Matthias reminded me of my late husband David, but I lied about who David really was, changing his name to Christopher when Matthias ask about him.

Here, Matthias smiled for the first time, as if he wanted to come back to Jamaica with me. I could tell he thought about it, and I looked twice before saying goodbye. So did he when he stepped over to the other boat.

In a sense I'm happy he went home, due to a strong possibility he knew the old banner under which David sailed. He could have also known David personally, earning me his perpetual fear.

I stayed close to other boats to get home, celebrating a heavy hull with a spicy steamed yellow-tail snapper and a bottle of Hennessy on Helshire Beach in Portmore, hoping Melissa would keep on going west.

I brought the Hennessy with me for brining purposes, and thought about giving it to Matthias before he disembarked. Having made him a rich man, I decided against it.

Hugging the coast to get to the Black River port, home waited for me on Crane Road near Parotti. A five minute drive on flat, asphalt roads, flanked by lime-green savannahs brought me there while new found trinkets stayed on the boat.

Somehow the keep didn't feel as exciting as the find, and I couldn't stop thinking about Matthias, wondering if I brought the wrong treasure home.

He reminded me of David so much, before David crossed over to the dark side, from being a humble fisherman, and I didn't want to be home.

Something changed, including in the atmosphere.

With my backyard ending in the Caribbean Sea, warm and saline waters proved Matthias right. I've never been that warm in the sea at night, and Melissa seemed alive.

On October 27th, 2025 I woke up to a watery nightmare. It was already raining since the previous afternoon. In the night I dreamed about the chalice teetering inside the cupboard of the galley, about to topple and shatter. Springing out of bed, I ran outside to try and get to Black River to save it, running right back inside the house, I thought Melissa already landed.

I couldn't believe it, how I waited, and waited for the buyers to call and say when. On the 28th they called to say they got a better deal in Puerto Rico and would not be heading my way, leaving me in the line of fire of Hurricane Melissa with a boat load of shipwreck.

It was too late to evacuate, I sat in a corner of the upstairs bathroom in the master suite, covered my ears, closed my eyes, and hoped for the best, that is, to survive.

Events which followed are indescribable. I would wish such a curse on anyone, not even the wicked.

Waking up again I said a thankful prayer, sitting upright in the back of a police unit, wrapped in a blanket outside of the Black River hospital.

Surrounded by neighbors and a doctor, they pressed me for an explanation as to I didn't evacuate, telling me how the found me clung to a tree, and I don't remember that.

Checking myself out of hospital against advice, I walked to the port to find my boat.

I didn't, and the only thing I found on Crane Road was the lot where my house once stood.

I think there are many like me who still wait on experts to explain Hurricane Melissa,since we are seasoned to hurricanes here in the Caribbean.

My guess was association with the Damascene Chalice, again resting at the bottom of the sea where I convinced myself it shall remain.

There is nothing left to identify at ground zero, and so I moved further inland to stay with relatives, occasionally visiting the tree that saved my life.

I also evaluated the reconstruction of my home. One day I sat there confused, hugging my knees, trying to figure out what David would do. Would he rebuild or move on?

I started paying attention to a small local fishing boat heading for a shoreline along what used to be my back yard.

It sailed close to shore, and I recognized Matthias's broad shoulders wedged between two local fishermen. Waiting patiently for him, I heard him telling them to wait for him,cand he swam ashore, calling me by name.

There were enough rocks on the beach from Hurricane Melissa to Stone him with. He skipped around on the beach avoiding them with the guys on the boat laughing and speeding away.

Dividing attention between evading rocks and watching his ride home sail away, Matthias stretched out his hands, pleading with me to stop.

I wanted to hear him explain why he stole my buyers. He seemed genuinely surprised, and froze when accused.

"No Senora, I didn't!" He said, inching towards me with outstretched hands, hoping I'd be willing to listen instead of retaliate.

It shocked me equally to learn that Juan and Ric orchestrated mutiny aboard the other boat, killing the crew and forcing him to jump overboard. He treaded water for two hours until Jamaican fishermen seeking safe harbor rescued him.

He'd been in Jamaica ever since, searching for me.

Unable to get to Black River by road, he asked those same fishermen to take him to Black River to find me.

There were no lies in his eyes, only despair, "I can't go back, Juan and Ric believe I'm dead," he said.

I explained that I was also homeless, like everyone else around me, and that my boat had been lost with the rest of the treasure on it. He sunk even further into despair.

We sat beside each other for a while on the beach until I came up with a solution. Staying with relatives in Treasure Beach, I rented a single occupancy flat for him nearby until we found another solution.

Once roads were cleared I picked him up every morning to accompany me to Black River, and to Crane Road. He showed me what to do if I decided to rebuild, how to built a proper sea wall, refill the land, and lay a more befitting foundation for a coastal residence.

Instead of starting with mine, I asked him if he'd be willing to help me reconstruct the homes of the less fortunate until I decided what to do, and to my surprise, he was.

I've never experienced a man like Matthias before, being ready by 8 am every morning, swaddling a utility belt of hammers, drills and other tools, a bottle of water and with a hard hat under arm.

I smiled just watching his broad shoulders flex and work and sweat in rolled up sleeves in the broiling sun, listening to him as me for nails, strips of lumber, and more water.

By the time we got to house number three he needed a break, a well deserved one, and so after a full night's rest I picked him up in the afternoon since there was a nightly curfew,taking him to post-hurricane therapy, something I'm sure he'd be used to in the Caribbean.

They opened the dance floor with a fitting song Titled 'Blame it on the Music' by Rupee, and I asked him if he knew how to dance.

He smiled, sweetly kissed me on the hand, and said, "Bailamos,"

I thought of myself as a great dancer, until Matthias showed me more, leading me the rest of the way. Our feet moved as if they were on ice. It ended with a warm kiss to melt it.

Our first appeared as one of several previous ones to others,echo chastised me for not introducing a new flame earlier.

I asked my friend and neighbor Marlon to bring Matthias home,out of concern I might have stayed if I did.

In the morning Matthias waited for me again at 8 am, destination being Crane Road to meet Marlon.

On the way we didn't speak, and on arrival, instead of Marlon, two boats anchored offshore waited, with five Hispanic men waiting for us on the beach.

Matthias quickly understood, pushing me behind him.

The men laughed. One addressed me, "Sharon, your husband, David, still owes me money. I'm here to collect," he said.

Matthias asked them, "Are you sure about how you want to proceed with that?"

They laughed again.

"We already paid the right people to be here, and they are not coming to help you...Sharon," the leader said.

Matthias coiled his fists, and I couldn't lose him the way I lost David.

"Wait, I'll pay you, if you'll leave and never come back," I said.

They all looked at each other,cand the ring leader in shades, he shrugged his shoulders, saying, "No problem,"

Taking charge, Matthias turned to me, and said, "If you trust me, wait for me," following them out to sea to board bigger boats. They knew each other.

I waited for him for days, staying in Black River, going to Crane Road every day to see him come back. On the fourth day the boat that brought him to me brought him back.

I couldn't wait for him to come ashore. Running into his arms in the water, I kissed him so passionately we fell, coming up for air to laugh about it in tears.

"Did you find it?" I asked.

"Si," he said, "but I believe what I've been searching for all along, I've found in you," and we locked lips again.

I brought him to work and watched him work, rebuilding the homes of the homeless, giving instead of taking. It felt good.

We talked about his status, playing hide and seek with Jamaican immigration. I thought of marrying him to fix the problem. It's hard not to want to, and then one day, before boarding another fishing boat, he said in a matter-of-fact tone, "If you trust me wait, we have unfinished business in Puerto Rico,"

Hearing him say that gave me a sinking feeling inside my stomach, but I trusted him. Before leaving he mentioned a fate to meet at Norman Manley International Airport in kingston, and I made sure to be there.

On December 24, 2025, running into his arms came as natural as kissing him. I absorbed his warm embrace and broad shoulders, and they embraced me tightly, in a way of never wanting to let go. They still do.

People search for many things in the Caribbean, like revelry, riches, sunken cities and sunken treasure. I know I'm leaving behind all that, I have found Matthias.

Truth is, what rests beneath the waves is already lost. This curse of the Damascene Chalice is gone away from Jamaican shores, and they can keep it.

I've purchased another repaired boat. This time I watch my shirtless Captain instead of waves, because the surface is nothing more than a window into the past.

THE END