Page 2 of Total Dreamboat
Felix
What do you do when the woman you were inadvisably falling for on holiday shatters all your illusions about romance?
In my case, you rent a jet ski in the Bahamas and angrily zigzag back and forth across the bay at top speed, hoping that stirring up a violent wake will exorcise the pain.
It doesn’t, but apparently it is a good way to run out of petrol.
The jet ski lurches to a stop with such force I almost catapult into the sea. I jam down on the throttle, hoping the ignition will miraculously turn and let me chug back to shore.
It emits a sound like an elephant passing wind.
Right.
I’m only about a thousand feet from the beach, but this being late in the day, there’s no one else on the water to turn to for help. I’m going to have to wait for the clerk at the surf shop to notice I’m stalled out and rescue me, or float off to my death at sea.
I refuse to perish on a Sea-Doo personal watercraft. I take off my mandatory orange life vest and wave it above my head whilst blowing the whistle attached to my key for emergencies. After about six minutes of this, someone on shore finally sees me. A guy from the surf shop motors out in a skiff.
“So sorry!” he shouts cheerfully as he approaches. “This never happens! I’ll take you back and get you a new WaveRunner. Full refund.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I say. My zest for channeling my depression into water sport has abandoned me.
The man attaches the dead jet ski to a towline and drives toward the beach at approximately three miles per hour.
His speed is making me anxious. I only planned an hour for this excursion, and it’s been at least ninety minutes.
I grab my rucksack out of my rented locker and rummage inside for my phone to check the time.
It’s 5:09. The boat leaves at half five.
I panic jog out of the shop and in the direction of the port. Six streets in, I realize I don’t have my rucksack. I must have left it on the bench by the lockers in the shop.
Fucking hell.
I race back.
It’s not there.
“Did someone turn in a rucksack?” I ask the attendant. “I left it here a few minutes ago.”
She looks at me blankly.
“Sorry, no,” she says.
Which means I am in a foreign country with no money or proof of my identity save for a tasteful blue cruise line wristband embossed with my name.
And it’s now 5:16.
Making it back to the ship on time will be somewhere between tight and impossible.
It’s fine , I tell myself. Surely there must be a grace period when it comes to a vessel catering to elderly tourists addled with sunshine and rum.
My passport is still on the ship. All I need to do is get back to the port and explain my predicament and I’ll be off to sea to complete this miserable voyage.
The trouble is that I arrive at the port just in time to see the Romance of the Sea gliding out of the quay.
I wave my arms madly. “Wait,” I call frantically. “Wait.”
Other tourists are watching me, some concerned, some snickering. “Look,” I hear a jocular American say to his wife. “A runner.”
I skip past the queue at the embarkation entrance and breathlessly corner one of the agents.
“I’m meant to be on that ship,” I say, my chest still heaving. “Can you radio and tell them to come back?”
He chuckles. “Once it departs, it doesn’t come back.”
“Surely they wouldn’t just leave a passenger stranded,” I say. “Please, there must be a tender, or—”
“Over there,” he says, pointing at a kiosk by the gates to the port. “That’s where you go when you miss the boat.”
Ah. There’s a protocol. Mildly reassuring.
I sprint toward it.
“Hello,” I say to the attendant. “I missed my ship. That gentleman”—I point to the dock agent—“suggested you might be able to help.”
The attendant gives me a sympathetic smile.
“What’s your name, sir?”
“Felix Segrave.”
He nods. “Yes, the ship alerted us that you hadn’t returned.”
“So they knew, and they left?”
“Ships are not permitted to depart past the scheduled time. By regulation.”
“Can I get a water taxi to catch up with them? I’ll pay, of course.”
“No, sir. Passengers who fail to embark must meet the ship at the next port of call.”
The next port of call is St. Martin, which is technically France. I’m fairly certain border control does not accept cruise ship wristbands as a form of ID.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have my passport,” I say. “I must get back on that boat.”
The man shakes his head. “You’ll have to contact your embassy, in that case. I would be happy to provide you the phone number.”
“This is absurd,” I protest. “I can see the ship. It would take five minutes to get there by tender.”
The man gives me an apologetic shrug. “I’m sorry. It’s the policy.”
I am about to argue that surely a policy that stipulates leaving a passenger stranded in a foreign country with no money or identification is a very bad policy when I hear a sharp intake of breath behind me.
I turn around to see a beautiful face.
A beautiful, tear-stained face half-hidden beneath a conch-themed sun hat. But not so hidden that I can’t see the face is frozen in a rictus of loathing.
I gape at the woman who has arguably caused this whole misadventure.
“ You ,” she hisses.
“ You ,” I hiss back.