Sharkbait

I was pinching myself the whole drive to the airport, not saying anything that might break the dream I was having. Our jet was ready to depart as soon as we arrived. It wasn’t until the doors of the business jet were closed, and we lifted off that I turned to Linda. “PLEASE, tell me that ACTUALLY happened to me. I’m not dreaming, right?”

Linda reached out and pinched my arm to prove it. “I have the entire tour on video, including the meeting with the vampires. I never stopped recording,” she said. “And thanks for not giving me ANY warning on that! I almost sharted myself when the door opened, and the scent of vampires, werewolves, and gumbo hit me.”

“The gumbo was good, though.” I still couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t wanted to pull my phone out while in the limo, but I took it out now and turned it on. Opening up a group text to Amy, Makani, Noelani, Brent, Olivia, Beta Lawrence, Leo, Adrienne, Linda, Captain Lynette Vickers, and my Alphas, I sent them all a message. “Search is over for a research vessel!! Will explain in the morning, 9 am PT/11 CT conference call for all that can make it. We’re all doing great. Love you, SB.”

Everyone I just texted was supernatural, but not everyone in my team was. I sent a separate text to Stan Greenberg, my accountant, and my investment manager. “Research vessel is being donated to my foundation. I need to know what this means for me if I’m using it to film my shows. Send me an email with a summary ASAP.” I would need this for the group call.

Linda airdropped the video file to me as I read through the messages I’d missed.

When I turned my phone off again, I opened up my juice bottle and looked across at Linda. “Am I just kidding myself that I can do all this?”

“Hell, kid, I don’t know if I can do all this,” Linda replied. “Hire who you need to get this done. We’ve got a couple of weeks until we head out on tour, and then we’ll be busy with travel and filming the show for two months. These are the same two months that we need for the Sea Scout overhaul and outfitting. We can’t be in two places at once.”

“We need to put people we trust in place to take care of this,” I said. “We need someone to oversee the overhaul. I’d like that person to be the Captain of the ship once it’s back at sea.”

“That makes sense. I have a tech guy I work with a lot. I’ll work with him on designing what we need; we can fly back there and sketch it all out, then he can return after the equipment arrives and get it all installed. We’re going to put everything out there from photography to editing so we can get a head start. I can stay on the vessel and use the survey room to edit in between expeditions.”

“I need to figure out how to outfit this baby for shark science instead of ocean mapping, too. I don’t have much experience in that.” I’d only been on two vessels, although I had watched a lot. “I could reach out to Doc Holliday.” I pulled up my contact number for Doctor John Holliday, the shark researcher I’d worked with on the Ocean Explorer. “John- I need help with outfitting a 134’ boat for shark research. Are you available for a day or two in the next week? I’ll handle travel and expenses. Vicki”

Linda didn’t say anything for a few more minutes. “I was going to suggest hiring crew full-time, instead of hiring for each expedition. The design is two weeks at sea, so a two-on two-off rotation makes sense from a scheduling standpoint. Start in late January, so we have more time to prepare. We work on a schedule from there.”

I rolled my eyes. “Schedule? I don’t even know if we’ll be East or West coast right now.”

“You don’t want to be in San Diego?”

I let out a sigh. “If I do San Diego, we could start at Guadalupe Island and work our way north to San Clemente, Catalina, Farallon Islands, and Puget Sound,” I said. “The problem from a show perspective is that Great Whites, especially the bigger ones, don’t start showing up at Guadalupe until late summer, and not in the Farallons until October or November. We’d be better off going to Hawaii in the spring for them.” Great White Sharks migrated thousands of miles a year, sometimes disappearing into deep water for months at a time. “On the East Coast, you’ve got hammerheads, bull sharks, great whites, tigers, reef sharks, and many others. We could do Honduras, the Florida Keys, New Smyrna Beach, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, maybe Cuba.”

“It sounds like the sharks made our choice for us. Leave the Sea Scout in the Caribbean for the winter and spring shooting season. After that, in the summer and fall shooting season, we either keep moving up the East Coast to Cape Cod, or we move the Sea Scout to the Pacific for Great Whites.”

I nodded, but there were more ideas in my head. “You forgot some options. We could send the Sea Scout to Hawaii, Australia, or South Africa after the overhaul. All three will be in peak season for sharks.”

Her eyes got big, and she started tapping on her phone. “Hawaii is the closest, but that is still a six-thousand-mile transit that would take fifteen days or so. South Africa is even farther away, 8300 miles. That’s twenty-five days nonstop at 12-knot cruising speed, but you’d have to stop at least once for food and fuel. Australia? That’s another thousand miles further, making for a month-long voyage with a real stretch between stops in Panama and New Zealand. I don’t think either one should be our maiden voyage on the Scout.”

It was a lot to consider, but we needed to decide before I started partnering with researchers and before we set a schedule. I made a list on a legal pad, listing the four locations and their pluses and minuses. Ten minutes later, we looked at it.

Linda pointed to the East Coast option. “This is the lowest cost and lowest risk. Florida and the Caribbean offer good diving, better visibility, multiple species, and warmer waters. It’s better for the show if the four of you are free-diving in bikinis instead of wetsuits with hoods and booties. The other advantage is that the Sea Scout is ALREADY in the Gulf. You save two weeks of transit and a lot of fuel by not having to send it through the Panama Canal.” She looked out the window, then back. “Plus, if we run into any problems getting the boat ready, we’d have more time to recover on that side of North America.”

“It puts everything across the country instead of around here,” I said. “I was kind of looking forward to being home.”

“It’s not that long a flight, and if we do two-on, two-off rotation, we’re only gone one weekend a month,” Linda answered. “We won’t be going into port in the same place, either; we’ll have the crew transit to the next episode’s base while we are gone. Either coast, you’re moving north the whole time.”

She was right. It wasn’t like the guys were going to be in Coronado the whole time. They had jump school and other specialty schools they would be attending over the next year, and many were not in Coronado. Long term, they could ask to be on an East or West coast SEAL team, but ‘the needs of the Navy’ would have the final say. “Better to be flexible.”

“Exactly. Decide in the next week or so, because we’re running out of time before the tour.”

I snickered. “Looking forward to following four teenage girls around for two months?”

“You don’t know how,” Linda said. “What’s left to get film of before we leave?”

“Amy’s nineteenth birthday party is the weekend after this, but don’t tell her. I’m inviting her husband’s SEAL class, their wives, and girlfriends out for a cruise on my boat.” Her eyes got wide, thinking of all that man-candy on my yacht.

“Can I record it? PLEASE?”

“You’ll have to get releases signed.” I was hoping to hear back from him. “I don’t think we will get permission to shoot that episode about undergoing some of the SEAL training until after we return, though.”

“We have plenty to do without it.” We started making lists of things we knew we wanted to get done; gear, people, and support. I had a lot figured out by the time we landed in San Diego.

The next morning, I got an email from my accountant. The bottom line was that the Foundation’s use of the boat to support shark research was perfectly legal. The film crew and the four of us would have to reimburse the foundation for our added costs, like our food. Also, if we did any shooting that wasn’t incidental to shark research, we would have to pay the Foundation for that time. It wasn’t a bad deal, because we expected shark research to be the focus of the at-sea times. Operating and maintenance expenses, including the crew, would be the responsibility of the Foundation alone.

When everyone available joined the video call, I played the tour video that Linda had recorded without telling them what was going on. They all knew I’d found a boat, and it was fun watching expressions as they fell in love with it. When Master Cyprian said they were DONATING it to my foundation, people went wild. Amy was crying, while the twins were jumping up and down and screaming behind me. I ended the video and waited for everyone to calm down. “So, we have a boat,” I started.

“One HELL of a boat,” Lynette said. “That’s faster than any yacht I’ve driven.”

“Linda and I made some lists of what we will need to get done by the end of the year to be ready for shooting in January. She is going to supervise the purchase and installation of cameras, video editing, and lighting on the Sea Scout.”

“I’ll get all the wiring runs and mounts in place during construction, and put the cameras in last, so they don’t get damaged,” Linda agreed.

I looked at Lynette on the video. “I need a person to oversee the Scout’s overhaul and learn the systems. To that end, I’d like to hire, at a minimum, a Captain and an Engineer this year and get them to New Iberia. Lynette, I’d like that to be you. You’ll have the discretion to hire the crew you want. They should be female, and I’d prefer supernatural, so please send the postings out to both our people.”

I could tell she was shocked; she didn’t expect to be offered the job as a newly licensed Captain. “We’ll have to talk about the contract, but I’m interested.”

“You’re going to have a bunch of werewolves, so make sure the cook is good at her job,” I said to laughter. “The last part is outfitting the Scout for shark-specific research. I’ve reached out to one person already; once we have a plan, I’ll need to run it past the Foundation’s board for approval.” I chaired the Foundation, but Alpha Leo, Luna Carolyn, Amy, and Ocean Ramsey were also board members. Between the million dollars I had donated and the $1.4 million from the Sotheby’s auction, we had enough cash to buy a lot of gear. I’d be putting another million into my production company based on the budget numbers I was crunching.

I explained our plan for two-on, two-off shooting schedules starting in January. Then I put up the slides talking about the potential locations, which led to a lively debate. The consensus was to stay in the Caribbean for the winter and spring and worry about the summer later. “Are you returning to San Diego between expeditions,” Leo asked.

“That’s my intent, but the girls may go to wherever their mates are training,” I said. I could tell the twins were nervous, as we were going to explain to their boyfriends and Hammer about our true nature this weekend.

Leo asked me to call him back when the call finished. I went into my bedroom to make that video call. “What’s going on, Unky?”

“I just wanted to tell me how proud of you I am,” he said. “You’ve accomplished a lot, and you have a lot going on. Don’t hesitate to ask for help or slow things down if you’re overwhelmed.”

“I will.”

“As a future Alpha, you have responsibilities during the reveal and the eventual turnings. Normally, I would tell you that if they respond badly, you have to kill them to protect our secret. You’ve given yourself an option that none of the current Alphas would consider.” I didn’t know what he was saying. “You have friends in the vampire world. IF you can trust them, and that’s a big if, then I think you should work to get one of them onto your yacht this weekend. I also think you should bring one onto the Sea Scout for your expeditions.”

“Why?”

“Vampires can remove memories, Sharkbait. It’s better than killing their mates.”