Faith

Just like the fairy tales, this story's catalyst was a masquerade ball.

In the summer of 2014, I turned 27. I sold everything that didn't fit into a duffle bag, including my car. I quit my job, and walked away from my entire life. Why? Why not. I felt stuck. I booked a flight to Ft. Lauderdale and the taxi dropped me off at a crew-house situated right next to a sex shop... at night, in the rain. A good, strong start. What's a crew-house? Think The Real World, only thankfully, nobody was broadcasting. The house was a stop-over for potential crew—kids trying to get jobs in the world of private yachting. I remember walking into the house. It didn't look like much from the outside. I had to call a few times to get the owner on the line, I went to meet her around back and entered into the next—truly bizarre—phase of my life. The hallway was lined with refrigerators, the black-tiled floor led to an open concept kitchen and living space with a spiral staircase winding up to a hall of dorms. I was the first to arrive for the season—anxious to have something new in my world—and the emptiness of the house kicked off what would be an extremely long waiting period.

Over the next two months I did a lot of small, no-contract jobs—or "day work"—cleaning yachts, working boat shows, working on a sport fisher—but wasn't finding anything permanent. The house, which had filled to full capacity at about 25 people, was dwindling as everyone started to get jobs. The crew-house wasn't cheap: it was a cash monster, and it was chomping away at my money as fast as I was making it. Something had to break. Thus, the annual crew masquerade ball. With makeup done and lace glued to our faces, we all piled into a bus which took us to a tented venue. The seasonal string of crew parties and National Marine galas held the best networking opportunities and the remaining hopefuls started pulling out all the stops.

A friend and I met a guy at this party who was in charge of a scuba charter company based out of Nassau. I'm skipping a couple beats here, but all-of-a-sudden I found myself on a flight headed to the Bahamas. Finally, employed, with the gift of financial stability on the horizon. The job was as a live-aboard cook on a 65' catamaran able to hold 12 guests with four crew members including myself.

I got a little lucky with an adjustment period. When I arrived, the boat was in a two week yard period. The Captain and his wife, the dive instructor, were just finishing up their vacation. I spent two weeks away from the kitchen covered in epoxy paint and wood stain helping with maintenance on the boat. Then, it was time for the perfect storm.

There were three vessels which belonged to the dive company docked in the marina. Two sloops and a catamaran. The sloops (for those that don't know) look like pirate ships. To get below deck you have to climb down a ladder. One of the dive instructors fell down it the day before charter and fractured her shin. The crew took her to the hospital and they weren't able to do anything but give her crutches and tell her to stay off the leg. This is important information because the very next day—the morning of our charter—I got caught with my leg between the dock and the boat just as a wave came and pushed me into the most inconvenient and painful sandwich of my life to-date. I can still feel the dent in my shin—and I'm fairly certain I'll be one of those fantastic old lady barometers with purple hair, predicting the weather with my ancient battered bones. Being that it was just hours before our charter began, knowing how little help the hospital had been for the other girl, and bolstered by my stubbornness, I said nothing.

Our charter was made up of two very lovely families from Texas and a few of their friends. They arrived in Nassau via private jet. Over the next few days I attempted to cook for them, and let me tell you, I have never been more stressed in my entire life. I've had cooking gigs before, but this was the first where the kitchen rose and fell with the ocean. On the larger yachts you have stabilizers but our boat was a converted racing vessel from 1987. In true comedic fashion, I absolutely botched a solid 80% of everything I attempted. After 48 hours of messing up at every possible opportunity; not cooking the turkey all the way through (never in my life have I made that mistake before), baking cookies that melted into one big sheet pan cookie blob, almost failing to submit the ordering for the following week before we got too-far out to sea to get internet and a dozen other things I'm probably suppressing, I started to wonder—"Is this for me?"

The day before Christmas Eve, we anchored off Shroud Cay—a beautiful island in the Exumas with an intricate mangrove and a nice beach. There was a dog stranded on the beach. In the Bahamas, they call these pups "potcakes," because the locals feed them the leftovers from the bottom of their cooking pots. The poor dog was starving so we took her some food and water and reported her to the park service. I believe she had already been reported. In fact, I believe two dogs had been reported—I'm assuming one didn't make it. I've never bothered to confirm it, but I'm fairly confident you aren't supposed to bring a stray animal onto a professional vessel—I'm sure there's a long list of health code violations or something in place but what kind of monster leaves a puppy to die on a deserted island? Everyone on the boat was all for it, guests and crew. The plan was to go and grab her in the morning before we departed, but that's not how it happened. I think she was afraid she was going to be left behind. I can't imagine how many other tourists had come and gone and left her.

That night when the Captain went out on the dive deck to turn off the lights, she was there—shaking and totally exhausted from a .3-mile swim in the dark. She was named Faith for taking a leap of faith from the rocks and swimming to our boat. You couldn't have asked for a sweeter dog, or a better first mate. The best part of the story is that one of the families on charter decided to adopt Faith. The crew agreed to keep her through the next week, get all her papers and vet visits done, and have her ready for pickup via private jet to go start her new life in Texas. Lucky pup.

Faith stayed with us through our next charter—which went much better for me (maybe I pulled some new kind of resolve from the actions of this little dog).

So many questions are unanswered. Shroud Cay is just over 80KM from Nassau, and over 200KM from Great Abaco—from what I can gather those are the two most likely places she could have come from. The kicker is that someone had to physically take her to Shroud. I told myself a story for awhile that someone must have loved her. Shroud is a very popular tourist stop for charter vessels, and these dogs don't always have the best lives on the populated islands—often used as sacrificial training devices, teaching bigger dogs how to kill for sport fights. Maybe someone took her there to give her a shot at a better life—abandon to save. I'm not sure, and I may never know.