| TRAVELS OF DURSMIRG VOLUME IV THE ROGUES OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND OTHER SOCIAL MISFITS Chapter 41 |
 | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  |
previous chapter 40
Mack Forman aka “Mack the jailbird Monkey” and his side-kick Greg Vacaro;
Lanky Mack sucked up his share of the high-times and even spent government hard time plus parole for his
psychedelic pleasures.
Tall, lanky and perpetually wearing a spaced out, dazed out shit eating grin of the far-out cannabis crowd, Mack
floated from one fiasco to another and had the creepy uncanny good fortune to somehow survive semi unscathed
from his colossal screw-ups that would have killed most sober and cautious folks.
(Boat delivery; from Trinidad off the South American coast of Venezuela to Key West, Florida.)
Mack the jailbird Monkey jumped bail on a drug conviction charge to make the boat delivery trip April 28, 1978.
I was completely unaware of Mack’s criminal problems when he approached me to put a crew together for this trip.
Mack the jailbird Monkey couldn’t get a crew together for a number of reasons but I had been in the trawler delivery
business in the St. Augustine area and knew enough men that I could trust and that were at least competent
seaman. So, off we went.
My number one pick was the sprightly and spry salty 78 year old Swede named Dick Jansen who started his
seamanship career aboard a Baltic sailing schooner when he was in his early teens. Dick went on to captain a
variety of fishing vessels in New Jersey and Florida.
My second pick was a guy who was a middle aged drop-out sailor that had escaped the system on his little sailboat
along with his mate Mary Metter and was just hanging out in the warm waters of Florida. John Darrel had made a
number of trawler delivery trips with me to Mexico and I knew that he could be counted on and trusted.
(I have found out that a number of crew members take the job so lightly that as soon as they are left alone on their
shift at helm duty they take a snooze trusting that the auto pilot for the next four hours will miraculously cover their
ass in all eventualities.)
We were to fly out of Miami to Venezuela then on to the Dutch island of Aruba and finally to board our last flight to
Trinidad off the South American coast near Venezuela.
The purpose of the trip was to bring back to United States waters three trawlers that had been fishing the waters
along the South American coast.
At this time an international treaty had just been enacted that gave every country a two hundred mile jurisdictional
limit. This meant that fishing trawlers would only be able to fish the waters of their home country unless they
obtained a special license or permit from the foreign country.
We six sailors, three captains and three crew members arrived late at night after a long and very tedious day of
travel to the old city of Port of Spain the capital city of Trinidad and Tobago.
It turned out that the taxi driver must have been a direct descendant of the Caribbean pirates that had plied these
waters in years gone by.
We got a quote at the airport for our trip to the hotel in town and when we arrived at the hotel the taxi driver pulled a
real charlatan act and demanded the full fare for each passenger or six times the price originally quoted.
The police were summoned and Mack the jailbird junky reluctantly coughed up the loot.
This was not a good introduction to a new country but rip-offs do happen everywhere.
Our hotel was big spacious and ancient and outdated, obviously seeing its heyday several centuries earlier.
The amenities were seriously lacking and smacked of third world hardships.
Port of Spain is not exactly your international jet-set crossroads or tourist playground so the big names in hotel
accommodations gave the place a wide berth back then.
We were at least happy that the antiquated old hotel did indeed have electrical power. Our happiness rapidly faded
away when at ten PM the lights went out without any prior warning and we were left in total darkness until the sun
came up the next morning.
I felt my way to the hotel lobby to ask the night clerk for some candles but he had already abandoned his post…we
all felt a spooky uneasiness like we had slipped off into some never-never land of the twilight zone.
We six shared the same dilapidated room.
After an unmemorable lackluster breakfast we all took a taxi down to the commercial fish docks to move aboard the
vessels that would be our new homes for the next two weeks.
The city of Port of Spain took on a totally new look in daylight.
I had never in my many travels been in a place that was so totally congested with street people.
Colorfully dressed and sturdily built the black natives of Trinidad jovially moved through the narrow streets that were
conspicuously lacking of motor vehicles.
The fish docks were a special treat in new experiences. They were filled with a myriad of vessels from all corners of
the planet in all sizes and descriptions. They had one universal thing in common. They were all actively engaged in
commercial fishing and their port call was merely an unloading and provisioning maneuver that was expeditiously
being carried out. Those crew members that were not actively involved in off-loading or provisioning were kept busy
with repairs and maintenance.
Surprisingly many of the crew members aboard the wide variety of trawlers, purse-seines and long liners were
Oriental and very young.
The owner of the three vessels we were to deliver back to the U.S. was at the dock to greet us. Not a friendly
person, he was only interested in getting his vessels back as cheaply and expeditiously as possibly.
Two of the vessels were 75 foot fiberglass Desco trawlers manufactured in St. Augustine and the third vessel was a
78 foot wooden trawler also built in St. Augustine but at the St. Augustine Trawlers yard. I was very familiar with both
of these types of vessels and had over the years captained these models at different times.
The trawlers that we were to deliver all had several things in common. First they had been worked unmercifully hard
with a minimum of maintenance or upkeep and the other thing that they had in common was that they were all
profoundly infested with the biggest healthiest most robust cockroaches I had ever laid my eyes upon in my entire
life. I swear that they were big enough to saddle up and ride home. These courageous critters stood their ground
defiantly and didn’t scurry off to hide in daylight like others of lesser breed.
We spent the next day and a half provisioning and familiarizing ourselves with these worn out and over worked
vessels.
Shopping in Port of Spain, Trinidad was a trip back into another dimension in time and space. The stores were not
totally unlike the stores in the Bahamas Islands with their many products and sparse selection from the colonies of
the British Empire.
Canned butter from New Zealand and Tetra Pack milk in boxes that didn’t need refrigeration, (this was the first I had
ever seen of Tetra Pack, a product that nowadays is found nearly world wide.), and stacked sacks of rice and beans
and the liquor and rum were all Caribbean made.
The local beer Carib in its clear half pint sized glass bottles which is found throughout the eastern Caribbean Islands
was our only choice but it is perfectly acceptable. I was the only one to pack beer aboard my vessel but I knew that I
could implicitly trust my loyal old Swedish crew member Dick Jansen not to drink and drive.
Industrial strength cockroach killer was nearly a shot in the dark when it came to the population control aboard our
vessels but I gave it a try and at least had a few days of unmolested rest in my cabin before those voracious over
sexed rabbits of the insect world multiplied to such astronomic numbers that escape at sea would only be possible
by sinking the ship.
Old Dick Jansen and I took one of the 75 foot fiberglass Desco trawlers.
Old Dick had just gotten out of the hospital with leg surgery when we started this trip but this jovial man of the sea
definitely sprang back into youthful exuberance with a definite spring in his step as soon as we had cast of the
mooring lines and headed out to sea.
I had made a number of trawler deliveries with Old Dick and had complete confidence in his natural attention to
detail and incredibly innate instincts to the sea.
We never ran out of things to discuss and sooner or later we would get around to politics. Old Dick was a lot more
socialistic than I was at the time perhaps it was his
Swedish roots but whenever he had enough of our discussion he would simply say; “OK, have it your way, but
remember that I am right.”
Our eleven day voyage across the Caribbean to Puerto Rico and through the Mona Passage up the Old Bahamas
Channel past the Cay Sal Banks and on to Key West, our final destination, became a real test of physical
endurance.
The weather in the Caribbean was never like this. Normally the wind is so strong that it will blow the coffee right out
of your cup. This trip we could have made it in a canoe because the sea was as slick as a mill pond, which rarely
happens.
The weather cooperated and that was good because our Wood-Freeman auto-pilot refused to work no matter how
much tender loving care I gave it. The switching contacts on the magnetic compass were simply worn out. This
repair was simply not possible at sea and would require specialized shop equipment.
The net result was that Old Dick and I split the helm duty into four hours on and four hours off duty for the entire
eleven day voyage. The vessel would require hand steering every minute. Even though we were able to sit in the
wheelhouse chair and do most of the steering with our feet, the drudgery of this helm duty took its toll. When I was
off helm duty I had to maintain all of the machinery with lubrication and adjustments to the propeller shaft packing
gland plus many other numerous tasks.
Old Dick on his time off pulled all of the galley chores.
Rest and sleep had to be fit in when we could.
Four hours on and four hours off are OK for a day or two but a certain kind of numbness eventually sets in after
several days that tends to drag down even the toughest seaman.
In spite of this rigorous schedule when we finally arrived at Key West, Old Dick spryly sprang off the boat more
chipper than any of the others including me, and Old Dick was 78 years old.
Mack the Jailbird Monkey tried to stiff us all on our pay and he was lucky to have escaped with his life…we got our
money!
Remorseless Mack had a glib tongue that got him jobs he couldn’t handle because of his incompetence but
somehow he managed to find someone to steer him through most of these dilemmas. Among other things he didn’t
know how to adjust the rheostat on the alternator control voltage and completely destroyed the entire bank of ships
batteries. He didn’t adjust the propeller packing gland and never checked the bilge water which flooded over the
transmission and destroyed it. Who knows how much other damage his ignorant incompetence caused?
For our trip back from Key West it turned out that it was cheaper to rent a car and drive home to St. Augustine than
it was to buy six bus tickets, so we drove home.
I was truly tired and completely spent upon arrival.
Jane and I were living on board Dursmirg moored at Jimmie Ponce’s resort in Salt Run at the time.
Jane had stayed home in St. Augustine to run our apartment business completely by herself, then after work
bicycled to Salt Run and rowed the dinghy home to our boat at a mooring every day.
The next day my 78 year old mate Dick Jansen, flew off to Sweden for a vacation to visit his family…amazing old salt
of the sea that he was.
Jane at the helm of a new 75 foot Desco trawler headed from St. Augustine to Tampa.
next chapter
