LEG 3 - Tony and Jeff
In the summer of 1997, John Busch et. al.
sailed the Good Ship IBIS from
Padanaram Harbor
through five days of rough seas to Bermuda (LEG 1)
and then ten days of calm wind to the British Virgin Islands (LEG 2).
Day 0: Wednesday, November 12, 1997
(click blue-outlined thumbnails for a larger view.)
John writes:
The third leg in the journey began, by design, where the second leg left off--in the BVI.
Some days before our return, Arjan, the boat's caretaker, fetched the IBIS from The Bight
where she had spent the summer basking in the sun, watching the tourists come and go, and dodging hurricanes.
He tied her to his dock in Roadtown, Tortola, awaiting my return and, presumably, eager to head north.
If you need something done in the Islands, find the Dutchman--there is always one around, one per island,
and they are often the only islanders with a Western sense of business.
The Dutch pride themselves in their frugality and the flip-side of frugality,
from a business perspective, is responsibility.
As long as no one else comes along with a better offer, a good Dutchman is true to his word, awaiting payment in full.
Need a little extra service, just pay a little extra money.
Tony Mascarin and I deftly jumped through the hoops separating Boston from the boat--getting up,
checking-in, flying, another flight, claiming luggage, customs, immigration, taxis--and arrived
at the boat by 15:15.
Still moving at Boston's clock-speed, we completed a hasty clean-up, stowed the stuff,
got fuel and water, and we were underway by 17:10.
Our immediate destination: Calm Bay and Joel Clark's house, where we were to meet up with Jeff Dieffenbach,
the other crew member for this leg.
The 2 hour passage to Calm Bay was uneventful, although we arrived after dark,
and Calm Bay is calm because it is surrounded by a reef.
The passage through the reef, however, is wide and we made it in and "on hook" with no problems.
Jeff and Joel met us on the beach. We were back in paradise.
Time to slow down the clock speed, relax, and reset our attitudes to IPT-Island People's Time.
I have known Tony and Jeff for longer than I care to admit.
Tony was IBIS's 3rd employee, Jeff its 4th.
An empath, Tony relates to people better than anyone I know.
Jeff is Tony's opposite, but in a positive way.
Organized down to the molecular level, Jeff defines the word efficiency.
Together, their brains are a hemispherologist's book ends: Tony's dominant right hemisphere and Jeff's left.
They buttress each other in a way that is unshakable. A better crew could not have been hoped for.
Joel would have been the fourth suit in our deck of cards--the others represented by me, Jeff and Tony--if
he was able to come along on this trip. Joel is a 50+ year old free spirit (think
Jimmy Buffett as an MIT professor),
and that night at his house the spirits and wine and beer and rum and fun flowed freely--too freely.
Well after midnight, we stumbled down the hill to the boat, steered only by the force of
gravity,
for an abbreviated night's sleep.
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