Cuban Tooth Fairy

In every adventure story, the hero and/or heroine has to overcome some serious trial or obstacle to get the golden goose at the end. True? Well, it's true in fables and it's true in life, trials come when you least expect them.

The day after we got back from Santiago de Cuba we settled the accounts with the Marina and decided to get the heck out onto open waters. Note this: if you are saying you want to leave a Marina and the Harbourmaster boards you, searches your boat and signs your papers, you had really be ready to leave because they expect you take off within a minute. Maciek was still checking his charts as to figure out where indeed we were headed and I was rinsing off the last of the load of laundry I was doing (yes, by HAND, but at least it was fresh water) when the official was untying our line. "Wait!" I still had to say good-bye to our friends in the village and explain we wouldn't be there for dinner. I pleaded as best I could and after a five minute debate the man finally relented and let me go, warning me I could take no more than five minutes. I ran to the little shack and explained that we'd be leaving, and was cut to the quick to see the sadness of their faces. We exchanged addresses though and I tried to comfort myself with the thought that I'd be back some day.

Mr. Harbourmaster was waiting to see that I got back in time and as he inspected the little notebook I'd foolishly left open with that kind couple's address written on it, I wondered if I had gotten them into trouble. Cubans were still not really allowed to befriend tourists, just to treat them as foreigners.

When we finally got going and under sail in the bay, I had another occasion to appreciate at close hand the wisdom of yet another one of Maciek's many sayings:

"Stay under the boom!"

I don't know how many times I have heard that from the Captain, and how many times I've bristled under the implication that I wouldn't be able to duck the boom if it came swinging. The warning was fair though: once Maciek had seen his German crewman, Johannes, flattened by a crack of the boom to his head and he never forgot it. This time, I was untying the topping lift from the boom, a trivial exercise that just stopped the line from flapping against the sail, when the boom swung gently away from me... and then right back at me, hitting me smack in the mouth. Ow.

Tears and blood flowed as I spat out some tooth chips and I kept sobbing as I imagined myself, with front tooth knocked out, looking like some snaggle-toothed wench, all too like my on-board job description of "Anchor Wench". Maciek tried to comfort me but he was crying too and we must have looked a sight as we sailed out of the harbour and into open sea. The tooth didn't actually look too bad, once I got below to look in our one mirror, I had a nasty chip that took out a quarter of a front tooth, but the crack went further up behind and I was afraid the root had been hit and I would lose it altogether.

For better or worse, sailors must sail on.

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