Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter Fourteen
South to Palmyra and beyond with Gavin.
Plucked from the reef.
Meet the dogs.
Indecent propositions.
Little miracles.
Emergency evacuation.
Cruelty in paradise.
After a heart-wrenching and soul-searching goodbye to Miss Jeri, where I once again
thought that I must, at some stage in the future, question my motives with women, Gavin
and I set sail aboard Déjà vu. We were headed for the now famous Palmyra Atoll, a thousand
nautical miles due south of Hawaii, one hundred and ninety degrees magnetic to be exact,
after taking into account my inherent compass deviation.
Yes, I would have to sit down and have a talk with myself about women, what they meant
to me, what I meant to them, and what I wanted from these sweet and gentle creatures. God
knows I adore them. Most of them anyway. Jeri was head and shoulders above the average
woman. She was strong, beautiful, and funny with an oddness to her character that made her
constantly alluring, never dull; there was always something new going on in her wild-haired
head and hectic life. I was feeling guilty again saying goodbye to yet another sweet woman.
Surely she must have realized that befriending a transient sailor had its share of limits? It
was interesting for me to see that Jeri was older than I, the same age as Judi was in fact, and
that Jeri wouldn't be the last older woman I fell for. We had had a fun time; I had grown to
respect her immensely, and if I had been living there instead of passing through, things prob-
ably would have worked out differently. I knew that at this stage of my life I did not want
or need a long-term relationship. I had been very happy with my wife Judi, but my ambition
to sail around the world destroyed our marriage. Perhaps also I was too young at the time of
marriage and did not fully understand what was involved with such a commitment. Perhaps
I was destined to love and leave women? Time would tell. I knew that already I missed the
warmth of a woman's love and the confidence I felt and needed from them. I wanted to be
independent of that now, at least for the time being. I needed to reach a new and higher level
of maturity. I had missed out a lot in my teens as far as dating and experiencing romance
was concerned; I was painfully inept in matters with the opposite sex.
Jeri's cloud was on my horizon for many days as we sailed, rolled, and pitched southward.
The first week out was rough, choppy, and a time to get back the sea legs. We greatly appre-
ciated Jeri's dried food that she had labored over. She had bought an electric food drier, and
through the weeks we had dried turkey, carrots, peas, beans, mushrooms, fruit, and more.
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