Tug and the Holy Grail

This continues the story of the Tugboat Man and his Atlantean wife. There's been some debate about whether it's in the right category. As far as I'm concerned, it's a romance. So, it stays there. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it... DT

TUG AND THE HOLY GRAIL

My wife Maria, was a Priestess of the Sun on the lost continent of Atlantis. She was also the concubine of Alexander the Great. Her fling with the Great Conqueror might bother me. But, it took place a few years before we met; two thousand three hundred and thirty-nine to be exact.

I am a nerd from Ann Arbor Michigan. I have been one my entire 33 years. In fact, when I met Maria I had recently moved out of my parent's basement. I was a mere 31 at the time. By nerd standards, I faced life early.

Maria can control people with her mind. I don't have her mental abilities. But I DO rule cyberspace. More interestingly, I haven't aged a day since my visit to the Fountain of Youth. So, I suppose I'm semi-immortal too.

Therefore; it is probably safe to say that we are not your typical married couple.

How I ended up with this stunning woman is another story. But the reality is that, we live on our 109-foot ocean-going tug. My wife calls it "Pegasus." I told Maria that the tug was too ugly to be named after a legendary flying horse. But Greek Mythology doesn't feature any flying hippopotamus's. So, Maria's choice won.

The tug is also the source of my name. I have a real name. But, after I bought my boat, the people on Bimini started calling me "The Tugboat Man." That quickly got shortened to "Tug."

Falling deeply in love with Maria was a surprising state of affairs, since I spent the prior thirty-one years deeply in love with MYSELF. Nerds are like that. We are disconnected from others because we feel superior. My genetics might account for some of that; it turns out that I really AM not like any of my friends. But I had to admit that most of it was just me being an asshole.

My connection with Maria is so deep that I could have happily spent the rest of my life living on a desert island with her. We never run out of things to talk about. Three hundred years of life have given her a profound grasp of the human experience. Perhaps that's because she has lived through momentous events, like the Revolutionary War.

Nonetheless, my use of the term "human" is somewhat qualified. I don't push her on that. But I am almost certain that she is NOT human. She behaves like a normal woman and her plumbing works the same. But I get the feeling that whatever offspring she produces will be able to trace their lineage to the stars.

Because Maria was a Priestess of the Sun, the Atlantean Elders had to release her from her vows. We were almost shot up by the Cuban Air Force as a result. But, in the end there were no hard feelings. In fact, the High Priest of Atlantis presided over the marriage ceremony.

We were wed in a three-day celebration of gorgeous music and finery. That was at Our Lady of Peace Chapel on the south coast of the island of San Miguel in the Azores. That site was chosen because the original Atlantean Temple of the Sun is only two miles away -- straight down on the bottom of the Atlantic. But the Atlanteans can access its aura from there.

Marrying me meant that Maria was committed to living out her long life in my era, not 13,000 years in the past, in New Atlantis. Over her lifetime, she plans to produce generations of pure Atlanteans to restock the gene-pool. That's' the fun part of our obligation.

Maria is stunningly beautiful. She has the perfect face and the hard body of the hottest Chiquita on the Copacabana. And she can fuck you in more interesting ways than Messalina on hashish. Nevertheless, the one thing that I know for sure is that she will never leave me. Atlanteans marry for life. Even though that life is thousands of years long.

After she returned from Atlantis, we had a bit of a problem. The concern was that, everybody on the island of Bimini thought she was dead. After all, her yacht HAD disappeared in a huge fireball; and terrorism WAS suspected. So, I knew, her sudden resurrection would be hard to explain.

Of course, what REALLY happened was that they were launching into the time-space continuum. Maria told me that it used to be easy to jump home, because the people who witnessed the event thought that the flash-bang was religious.

She said that; when she disappeared in a puff of smoke her boyfriend Alexander thought he had been fucking the goddess Theia. He even built a temple in Sogdiana in her honor. We visited its ruins in our time; notwithstanding the severe jealousy pangs that caused me.

We spent a week laid up in the shallows off the southern tip of Andros Island. We made love, talked and grew closer together. Given that I had thought I had lost her, the interlude gave us time to reconnect; get reacquainted with all the old emotions; like passion, companionship and hope.

After that, it just seemed prudent to move on to another place. Fortunately, that was easy to do. The tug was our home and all our worldly possessions were sitting in it. I was going to miss my friends, especially my buddy Reg. But that friendship was an insignificant drop in the bucket compared to the love of my wife. So, we planned to never go back to Bimini.

We talked it over and decided that Bermuda was the best alternative. It's remote, subtropical and roughly 500 nautical miles East-Northeast of North Carolina. So, we could make it there without refueling. The tug had a 10,000-gallon main tank and we could make the trip across in three-or-four days. Maria knew Bermuda well. She said it was the lip of a dormant volcano. A lot of sheep and cattle were raised on is verdant slopes.

We left Cape Lookout under beautiful blue skies. I had been watching the weather patterns for a couple of weeks. The tug could handle high waves. But since we would be on the edge of our range, I didn't want to burn any extra fuel maneuvering through rough weather. Running out of fuel in the middle of the Atlantic could be hazardous to our health. So, burn rate is more of a "staying alive" issue, than it is some fussy nerd concern.

The crossing took almost four days and it was night when we detected a faint glow on the horizon. We were still some 40 miles out on a course 80-degrees east-northeast. But the lights of St George's Island were reflecting off the clouds. The island itself rose over the horizon as the sun began to come up. The first signs of life were the Long-Tail Birds of Bermuda. They are basically big seagulls, with long white tails. Their habitat is Bermuda and for approaching sailors, they are the ambassadors of the place.

We circled north of St George's and approached from the northeast to avoid the reefs. I was at the helm and Maria was carefully studying the approach chart. You enter Bermudian waters through a narrow channel between St George Island and Higgs Island. There are treacherous reefs in the area. So, you approach carefully. Once we cleared the channel, we proceeded to Ordnance Island and the Custom Dock.

They went through our paper work; clearances, immigration and health documents. The main hassle was over Bastet. Bastet is our ships cat. She's Egyptian; hence, the name "Bastet." And, in the dictionary under "imperious" it says, "See Tug's cat." However, like everything else in my life, she isn't exactly a cat. Bastet is larger than a domestic feline and more closely related to the cheetah.

We had a health certificate for her and I had to promise that I wouldn't take her ashore; which was ludicrous. Bastet is the Egyptian Goddess of War. I can't pet the beast without losing a limb. So, I couldn't imagine what would happen if I tried to stuff her in a cage.

Bastet doesn't allow anybody to touch her, except Maria. Bastet is perfectly sympatico with Maria. There are many similarities between the two. Both are self-contained to the point of mystery. Bastet has huge amber eyes, just like Maria. Maria has a sinuous grace, just like Bastet and my wife is as ferocious in bed, as my little killing machine.

Once we cleared customs, we pulled the tug into the Bermuda Yacht Services dockage. We selected that service because it is a short walk to Kings Square. More importantly it was the nearest dock that could handle the tug. At 109 feet, we were slightly over their length requirements. So, we were berthed with the big yachts. That was both expensive and humiliating, because my rusty old girl stood out among the gleaming white mega-yachts, like Rosie the Riveter in a crowd of super-models.

Once we were berthed we had some decisions to make. I had given up nothing to bring this beautiful and vibrant woman into my life; whereas Maria had made a huge sacrifice leaving New Atlantis for my imperfect world. So, I wanted to do whatever I could to make her happy.

Money was no issue. I had lots of it thanks to my larcenous exploits prior to meeting her. For her part, Maria seemed to be able to access billions. I suppose that a girl can pile up a lot of wealth over 13,000 years.

Maria might be a former Atlantean priestess, but she works like a deckhand. We had come in from a long sea voyage and there was a lot of scrubbing, polishing, coiling and battening to do. That's the reason why Maria was on her hands and knees cleaning salt off the afterdeck of the tug.

I couldn't help stealing the occasional glance in her direction. Her thick sheaf of sun streaked hair falls to the middle of her back, in rich cascading waves. It is probably the most remarkable thing about a very extraordinary woman. Celebrities pay a fortune for hair like hers. For the moment that bounty was secured by a bandanna and a long thick pigtail.

Her big hard buns were clad in a pair of boat shorts and those huge tits were constrained by nothing more than a wife-beater. As she worked, she was sweating under the increasingly hot afternoon sun. That turned the t-shirt transparent and I could easily make out her delectable brown nipples as her succulent tits swayed back and forth.

She is five-six with very well-proportioned, muscular legs, long, narrow supple waist and large melon-like breasts. It was obvious from the way those big things were swaying that she was not wearing a bra.

Fortunately for the sanity of any male in the vicinity, she was beneath the gunwale so it blocked everybody's view except mine. I had to take a long gloat at her wriggling buns; which she had elevated in the air as she concentrated on her work.

It was such an inspiring sight I was thinking of going over there and pounding on them. Of course, I temporarily lost track of Maria's mind reading ability. Her voice in my head said, "Don't even think about it while I'm so dirty and sweaty!!!"

Once we got the boat shaped up, we showered together; which provoked a wild bout of passion. Most guys would remember that afternoon for the rest of their lives. However, with Maria it was just your average Tuesday. Then we dressed for a casual dinner. We walked over to Kings Square and the White Horse Pub.

Bermuda is a diverse culture. But, its bones are as deeply Rule Britannia as Winston Churchill. So, the pub-life is as pervasive as downtown London. The White Horse might be the best pub in Bermuda and it is certainly one of the oldest. It was just a few hundred yards from where we were docked and it looked like the perfect place to post up for the duration of our stay.

The White Horse is an English river pub; if you picked the building up and dropped it on an island in the middle of the Atlantic. The outdoor deck looks out over St. George's harbor and it hosts a wonderful mix of Bermudans and tourists. More importantly, the beer is English, meaning it's smooth and nutty and served at cellar temperature without fizzy carbonation.

I had never been to Bermuda. In fact, I had never been anywhere until I went to Bimini. Maria had been exactly where we were sitting. But that was back when it was the top of a dormant volcano. We sat and drank. Eventually we ordered dinner. It was a wonderful evening, just putting our roots down in a new place. I was thinking, "Maybe we'll settle here. It IS in the middle of Maria's former homeland; even IF most of that homeland is a couple of miles under water now."

~

Maria likes to dive. I first noticed that when I took her diving on the Bimini Road. She was hovering over those stones like she had been there. It wasn't until later that I found out that she HAD been there; about 13,000 years earlier.

It was also the first time I saw her lithe body in a microfiber swimsuit. The sight of her smooth muscled back and full shapely hips is a sight I will treasure forever.

I said, "How would you like to do a little diving?" Her odd amber eyes flared with interest. She said eagerly, "I'd love to. When can we go? Let's go tomorrow??" I laughed and said, "I need to do some research first." Maria might read minds but I have the internet.

I am not Atlantean in the sense that I didn't inherit their psychic powers. But I have an uncanny ability in the virtual world. So, I've always been able to visualize complex problems in concrete terms. I wonder if abstract visualization might be my version of Maria's ability; now that I understand that there might be more to my genetics than pure nerd.

There are perhaps 300 wrecks surrounding Bermuda; because it has so many deadly reefs. In fact, the first settlers ended up on the island because they were wrecked on a reef. Maria played with Bastet, while I did some basic exploration of dive sites.

I am always amazed by Maria's adoring relationship with that creature. I only get recognition from Bastet when she has depleted the mouse population and wants to be fed. She will normally announce that by spearing me in the leg.

If Bastet wasn't such an efficient killer, there would be a weighted bag in her future. But Maria has one of her world-famous psychic bonds with the beast. So, I could look forward to a millennium of abstinence if I dropped her cat over the side.

I didn't want to unhook from the power and sanitary lines. Instead, I planned on using our 25-foot RIB 7.8. I keep it on a davit in the foredeck for in inshore transportation. It also serves as a diving platform. It has a 300 horsepower Yamaha on the back and it can fly. In fact, it was a much more powerful version of the boat I used to snatch Maria from the Cubans.

The ocean on the other side of the reefs is nasty. So, I wanted to stay close to shore. Fortunately, there were a couple of interesting wrecks in Turtle Bay. That Bay is on the other side of the long peninsula that forms Castle harbor, which was St. George's original port entrance. One ship was an almost 400-foot-long freighter named Pelinaion. Nearby is the wreck of the Rita Zorvetta, another 400-footer.

But, I actually chose that spot for another reason. The "Cathedral" is in the area between the two wrecks. The Cathedral is a series of vast underwater caves near Gurnet Rock, the largest of which looks like a Cathedral. It is a huge underwater dome with several "openings" where shafts of light penetrate the gloom.

When you are inside that structure, you get the sense of being in a vast church, hence the name. It was probably a natural formation. But I was wondering what Maria would make of it, given what she had told me about the area.

The next morning, I woke to the wonderful feeling of somebody lightly teasing me to "battle-stations-torpedo." My first waking image was her gorgeous face, eyes stoned with lust as she inserted the tent-pole that she had just created. The heat and wetness instantly transferred most of my blood and all my consciousness to my lower brain.

She gave a lurid groan of pure sensation; put her hands on my shoulders, thereby dangling the fullest, most perfectly shaped and firmest mammary glands ever mounted on a female frame. The red-hot nipple was hanging in front of me so I began sucking and gently biting on it. Maria shrieked and started an out of control back and forth motion. It was so rapid that we BOTH got to the end of the line a little faster than either of us wanted.

That was understandable. Prior to our gymnastics yesterday, it had been almost a week since we had made love. Our abstinence was an artifact of the vigilance required for an ocean crossing, not a lack of interest on either of our part. NOW we were making up for lost time.

An average bout of sex with Maria is like the hottest night of your honeymoon. She is totally wild and uninhibited. But it is her unearthly orgasms, and they might BE from another planet, that differentiate her from every other woman. We showered together and of course that led to a much more satisfying second round.

Ninety minutes later we moved past Channel Island and entered the passageway between Smiths and Paget Island, thence around Little Head to the area off Clearwater Beach. We anchored next to the bow of the Pelinaion. It would be hard to miss a ship that massive and the part we were sitting over was only twenty feet below us under clear water.

Maria was wearing her dive harness and one of her black microfiber swimsuits. Maria likes, the feel of the water sliding past her with only one micron of material separating her skin from the elements. She wasn't specifically trying to be erotic. In fact, it would be an extremely modest little outfit if it weren't for the fact that the fabric was so thin. This one looked like she was wearing nothing more than a coat of black paint on her magnificent body.

We both use a Dive Rite O2ptima Rebreather, which is expensive but gives us a much more pleasant dive experience. We went in backwards, turned and swam the 400-foot length of the freighter. We marveled at the still intact cranes and engine room. The bottom was sand so the water was perfectly clear. Then we finned through the crevices and canyons of the reef, over to the Cathedral cavern. It was indeed impressive. But it was clearly a natural phenomenon, not Atlantean.

After we surfaced I told Maria that I was hoping that it was an Atlantean structure. Maria said that the only significant building in the area was a temple to Mars the Destroyer. But that was beyond the outer edge of the Challenger Bank, which was a high plateau 13,000 years ago.

The Atlanteans "communicated" with their war god" Mars" through that Temple; which implies the existence of a powerful transmission device. Of course; if that device was still active it might ALSO explain the happenings of the Bermuda Triangle.

It was a beautiful sunny day, not as hot as it had been the day before. So, we decided to make our leisurely way down the eastern shore toward the wreck of the Virginia Merchant. I was particularly interested in that, because it reputably had the greatest loss of life; very few people could swim in the 17th Century.

The trip to the wreck was ten miles but we broke up the journey by stopping by the Pollockshields, which was a World War I ammunition ship. What the guidebooks didn't tell us was that artillery shells were still scattered around the bottom. So, we didn't linger. Then we stopped at the sunken, Forceful.

Forceful is a 70-foot harbor tug, sunk in 2008 by the Bermuda diving industry. It gives divers the chance to explore a fresh wreck. It is perfectly preserved and the stern is a well-known place for divers to photograph each other. So, you see pictures of the Forceful all over Facebook.

Maria posed at the stern looking like a mermaid in her skin-hugging suit. I took a close-up picture and then backed up fifty yards to get the whole thing in perspective. As I turned to swim back I saw a truly spectacular reef system perhaps 200 yards to the southeast. It looked interesting so I thought I would just fin over there and explore. Truthfully, I was still looking for signs of old Atlantis.