Treasure Island

I spun the wheel until the knotted center mark was in my palm. I lifted the engine’s lever and the diesel hummed as I quickened my step along the deck, grabbed the stinger and lifted the mooring knot unto the forward cleat. Holding the lead line, I walked aft and draped the noose around the aft cleat.

We had sailed from Marina del Rey to Avalon Harbor on Santa Catalina Island. It was August and we were on our annual escape from Los Angeles to the Northern and Southern Channel Islands.

There are a few dishes that my kids really loved. Since this was our first night, I prepared the Cornish hens just the way they preferred. The surprise was how hard the ice cream remained. We had a refrigerator and ice box but it was infamously inadequate at the lower temperatures.

Our first night ended well and the kids were asleep before the stars could reveal themselves.

I went ashore and concluded my work for the day.

I flipped applesauce pancakes, and fried turkey bacon while the kids squeezed fresh orange juice into our ceramic cups. As we ate breakfast, I told them, “When I went ashore last night, I met a man in the bar who sold me this treasure map. He seemed honest enough, so I bought it from him. How would you guys like to go and see if its really there?”

Their eyes tripled in brightness. “A treasure map? Wow! How cool is that?”

We walked fast enough to get their before long and slow enough to verify that we were headed in the right direction. After about twenty or thirty minutes, we arrived at the skull and crossbones mark on the map. We were standing in front of a grotto, its floor a deep sea of tumbled rocks. Ever so cautiously, we moved among the rocks until we were certain we stood almost atop the nexus of the bones and head. There, we dug furiously. Hand over hand, rocks were tossed aside in our fervor for unearned wealth and fame.

And there it was! A huge bag of coins: hundreds of quarters, dimes, pennies!

My daughter jumped in the air and shouted, “We’re rich! Daddy! We’re rich!” My son was as enthused but a little skeptical. Not  before long, though, he, too, succumbed to the greed that had led so many on adventures seeking wealth and fame.

Discreetly, we got our treasure on board. There was simply too much booty to count, although we tried. So we stashed the money carefully where no one could find it while we went ashore to feed ourselves as we had grown hungry from treasure hunting.

Save your pennies, quarters, dimes… all your loose change and you, too, can have the wonders of a treasure hunt plumping your memories.