island, a long way from the mainland of Nassau, and we had charted our course to arrive at the island’s marina at Marsh Harbour so we could take a mooring for the night and buy supplies and refuel.
That first evening, instead of cooking onboard in our tiny kitchen, we went ashore and Mom treated us to dinner at Wally’s. It’s the local scuba divers’ hangout: a bright pink two-storey place, run-down but in a nice way. We sat on the balcony and I had a conch burger, which I always order, and fries and key lime pie. I was halfway through my dessert, when I asked Mom about moving back to Florida.
The funny thing is, when we left Florida Mom had me totally convinced about how much fun our lives would be. It would be an adventure. I’d be skipping out on school and travelling the high seas – like a pirate or something.
Trust me – it is not like that at all.
For starters, I still do school. Only now I am a creepy home-schooler. I do correspondence classes and workbooks and talk to my tutors over the internet.
“I have no friends here,” I told Mom as I ate my pie.
When I left school everyone made this huge fuss about how much they would miss me and stay in touch. Especially Kristen, making a big show of how we would be Best Friends Forever. Forever, it turns out, was a couple of months and then the emails and Skype just stopped.
“Well maybe you need to make more of an effort,” Mom countered.
This was what she always said. But she couldn’t say it was my fault about the horses.
In Florida we had a stables just down the road. I would park up my bike there after school on the way home and feed the horses over the fence. I had been begging Mom for lessons since I was really little and right before we left she had promised I could start.
“You did,” I said. “You promised.”
Mom sighed. “Sometimes things don’t work out the way we want…”
The thing is I have this whole plan where I become an amazing rider and go to the Olympics. Mom knows this because it is all I talk about.
“I am running out of time,” I told her. “Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum had already won her first Grand Prix by the time she was my age. How am I supposed to train for the Olympics when I’m stuck on a boat?”
Mom reached over with her spoon and helped herself to a chunk out of my key lime pie.
“Why don’t you train for the swim team instead?” she offered.
“Mom! You’re not taking me seriously,” I said. “I want to go back to Florida.”
“No.”
“You can’t just say no. I am a US citizen and I have rights.”
“You have the right to remain silent,” my mother said.
“How about if I lived with Dad? I could visit you in the school holidays…”
“Beatriz!” I cannot even mention Dad without her getting mad. “I have told you to drop it, OK? That’s not an option. You live with me. End of discussion.”
***
The following morning we set off at dawn, chugging out of the marina and heading South along the shoreline of Cherokee Sound where the tangerine, mint and lemon-sherbet-coloured beach cottages dotted the shore. By the time we reached the end of the Sound, the cottages with their bright colours and pretty gardens had disappeared and the coastline had become colourless and windswept. The white sand beaches were deserted, and instead of manicured flowerbeds there were nothing but tangles of sea grape, mangroves and cabbage trees.
This was the Great Abaco wilderness reserve. The whole southernmost end of the island was uninhabited, cloaked in jungles of Caribbean pine, snakewood and pigeon berry. From the bow of the boat the jungle seemed to sit like a black cloud across the land as we moved by.
“We’re going to anchor here.” Mom throttled back the engine.
“Where is here?” I asked, peering out suspiciously at the desolate shoreline.
Mom kept her eyes down on the scanner as she steered the Phaedra.
“Shipwreck Bay,” she said.
She handed me the map, her eyes still glued to the scanner and I could see now why she was steering so carefully. There was a hidden reef at the entrance to the bay, so close to the surface that it was almost impossible to navigate your way through.
I went to the side of the Phaedra and stared down into the water. It kept changing colour as we passed over the reef, turning dark indigo where the water was deepest. I could see shadows moving beneath the waves. Reef sharks, big ones by the look of it. And then another shadow, deeper down below, which looked like the outline of a ship. I lay down on the deck of the Phaedra and hung my head over the side so that I could get a better look, staring down into the dark water. It was a ship all right. As we motored over it I could make out the shape of the mast.
“Bee?” Mom called out to me. “Go drop the anchor for me, will you?”
Mom kept the engines of the Phaedra running as she turned into the wind and I ran downstairs, going through our room and into the jellyfish quarters to engage the anchor winch. I pressed down hard on the button and the motor began to grind, unravelling the chain link and lowering the anchor into the sea. I watched it unravel until the marker hit twelve metres and stopped. The anchor had struck the seabed.
By the time I got back up on deck Mom had already started work. She had her laptop out and various sea charts were spread over the kitchen table.
“What are you doing today, Bee?” she asked me.
Sometimes when Mom is working, I stay onboard and lie on the deck and read books. I am brown as a berry from all that reading. Mom says it’s our Spanish blood – we tan easy. She is dark like me with the same black hair, except mine is long, hers is short.
The problem with staying onboard is that Mom says she doesn’t like to see “idle hands”. There is always a list of chores that she is keen to dish out to me.
“I’m going ashore,” I said.
“Have you done your school work?” She didn’t look up at me.
“Yes.” I lied. I had a Spanish vocab test on Friday and I hadn’t studied for it, but I could do that later. Being home-schooled, you can kind of keep your own timetable.
I stood on the deck of The Phaedra and looked at the island. I didn’t need to take the Zodiac. It was only forty metres to shore and I could swim that far easy.
Mom wasn’t totally joking when she said about me making the swim team. If I trained I could probably go to the Olympics. I can swim like a fish. Maybe better than some fishes. So Mom never worries about me.
I stepped out of my shorts and pulled off my T-shirt and stood on the edge of the boat in my bikini, staring down at the deep blue water. Then I raised my hands above my head and I dived.
The water was cooler than I expected. It shocked me and left me gasping a little
