We had five minutes to get back to the ship, and we were at least ten minutes away.
I began making plans to spend at least one night in St. Maarten, while hoping that somehow one of the waves our little boat was racing over would drop us into a wormhole that ended at the pier. Then, I had an idea. “Hey, you can drop us off at that dock which is right next to the pier, right? We don’t need to go to a dock that’s a seven minute walk away, do we?”
“I can try,” the captain said.
Four minutes (which simultaneously felt like forever and also passed much faster than time typically allows) later, the closer dock was in view. It would be close, but we were going to make it. That’s when the little boat we were on veered sharply to port, and began to go toward the other dock.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“See that boat behind us?”
I turned and looked over my shoulder, aft (to use a nautical term), and saw a black Zodiac raft. On that raft were five men dressed all in black. Holding machine guns, which were also painted black. Mounted on the raft was a large machine gun. It was not black, but it was pointed right at us.
“Um…”
While I’m gone, I don’t plan to get online at all, because boat internet is expensive and slow, and taking a week off from being online is probably good for my mental health. If I’m lucky, I’ll come home with a finished draft of at least one story.