Page 10 of The Hitchhiker in Panama
“Well, I had a boat lined up,” Elayna started. “I found its owner on a website to match boats and crew. When I arrived, it was a mess. The boat was dirty and the captain drank too much. I started to look for a different boat, and thenEikcame in.” Elayna beamed at Jonas.
Eivind rolled his eyes and he and Marcella shared a look.
Elayna turned to me. “Will you be sailing across the Pacific with us?”
“Oh, no,” I said. “I’m just crewing across the canal. Speaking of which, do you have a date for the transit yet?”
Jonas shook his head. “When Robert comes by this afternoon, he’ll bring a guy he calls an admeasurer.” He pronounced the word slowly.
“What is an admeasurer?” Marcella asked, and I was grateful not to be the only one learning something new, at least until I realized Marcella was looking at me. I guess as the only native English speaker, I was expected to know.
I shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve never heard the word before.”
Jonas spoke up. “Robert says he measures the boats and we have to complete some paperwork. He is the person who will give us the transit date.”
Eivind swallowed his last bite of toast and dusted off his hands. “It is fun to talk to you, Lila, but I have projects to get started on.”
Our little group broke up. The crew all had their own projects to tackle: Marcella left to inventory the galley, Elayna packed up a laptop and went to the lounge to download and research some of their future ports, Eivind had to pickle the watermaker—whatever the hell that meant—and Jonas, who worked remotely on a contract basis, had assignments to catch up on.
I excused myself and promised to be back in the afternoon to meet the agent.
Five
I knocked on the hull ofEikand a face popped into the nearby window. Elayna waved me on board. I climbed into the cockpit and Eivind met me on the stairs.
“Our agent is not here yet, but come in.”
He turned and I followed him down the steep stairs into the main salon of the boat.
This wascompletelydifferent fromSilver Lining.The forward-facing windows let in a huge amount of light, showing me a big round table off to the left and a small couch to the right. The fabric was a deep blue and made of soft material, unlike the couches onSilver Lining,which were just as hard as my mattress.
“Wow. This is amazing. What kind of a boat is this?”
“Eikis an Oyster 56.”
Not that it meant anything to me.
Jonas sat working on his laptop at a desk to my far right. Both women were in the galley around the corner to my left.
Eivind led me forward on the boat to a small hallway. An open door on the left side showed me a small cabin with two bunk beds. The bottom bunk was neatly made and free of clutter. The messier top bunk contained some books and headphones.
The mattresses were tapered, with the narrow end toward the front of the boat. There was room for a small set of cabinets for clothes and whatnot. I couldn’t help myself; I pressed on the mattress and sighed in relief when the memory foam squished underneath the sheet.
“You’ll share this room with Marcella. She has the top bunk and you’ll take the bottom.”
“Is it weird that I’m kicking Elayna out of her room?”
Eivind chuckled. He leaned in and whispered, “I do not think either of them will suffer too much.” His eyebrows waggled and my cheeks heated.
He turned around and put his hand on the door across the hall. “This is the head. You have been using the restrooms at the marina, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Same here. But when we leave the dock to do the transit, we will start using our heads again. Let me show you, and if you need a refresher when you move in, ask, ja?”
The head was very small, so I had to lean in from the hallway while Eivind very matter-of-factly showed me how to use the toilet. Only bodily fluids and toilet paper went into the bowl. He pressed and held a button to fill the bowl with water, then pressed and held another button to flush. The flush was loud, sucking the water down with violence.
“Nothing else goes in the toilet. We have a little bin for female products here.” He opened a cabinet under the sink where there was a small bin with a liner. Extra toilet paper and some cleaning supplies were stacked up on one side. “If you need to clean up, it is all in there. If you take a shit, you will want to flush two or three times, to get it out of the pipes and make sure the toilet is clean for the next person, okay?”
