THE DELIVERY FROM HELL, Part II

‘Wake up! I have been up for half an hour.’ It is the Russian. It is 5.50am. ‘Yuri!’ I groan. We had agreed to get up at 6.30am and I am shattered. ‘Let’s go,’ He says. At this point I am awake, so we might as well. Then I see that his bunk is unmade, the dishes are still in the sink and nothing has been put away. I am furious, but the sooner the boat is returned to Brooklyn the better, so to hell with it.

Motoring out of Montauk channel, we have this big argument. I ask Yuri to put away the fenders- he may not have realized that there were two dangling off the port side as well as those on the starboard side- and he blows up on me. ‘Don’t tell me what to do. I won’t have you telling me what to do!’ He doesn’t care that I only asked him kindly to put away two fenders and after many more angry words on his part, I threaten to turn right back round and put him back on the dock – which finally shuts him up. It’s going to be a long day.