New Leaf Literature

"I can't leave much sooner than October," Hatter warns, his eyes swollen slits and his hair a wire mesh, "I've got things to do before then. It takes about two weeks to Columbia at a good pace, you could make Panama in less."

"There's plenty I want to do to my boat as well," I concede, "it's just good to know there are people headed out that direction. I'd prefer to go with a group if it's possible, you know?"

"I'd like to round up some girls," says Hatter with his wheezing voice, one hand controlling the smoking outboard on his swamped fiberglass dinghy.

Gulf of Mexico. We've been at sea for three nights and have covered less than two hundred miles. The weather, while admittedly benign compared to our previous run from Key West to Tarpon Springs, has been unfavorable to say the least. After being towed into open water by Sonador and taking to the wind in a full six knots of glory, Arianna charged thirty miles into the Gulf before coming to an abrupt and alarming stop.

I'm elbow deep in the Guana Coop's Samurai, a Japanese built compact that's painted garishly with the colors of the Guyana flag and plastered with coconut related bumper stickers. It's more rust than metal, and appears to be bound precariously together by the litter that pours out of its every orifice. Earlier, before packing up our coconut water stand at a local beach, we began the day with a practical game of find that smell. Something in the car has taken a trip to the great beyond.