The Journey

It was the winter of 1992. I was only 10 years old then, just on the verge of 11. My life, on the other hand was just on the verge of complete upheaval – an upheaval that would change my little world, and my perception of the whole world, forever.

Political campaigns raged on the national stage as Bill Clinton vied for office over George H. W. Bush’s push for a second term there. At the same time, tensions rose on the other side of the continent as the trial of the four officers involved in the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles, CA neared completion. While the country itself braced for upheaval, my family moved onto: The Boat. 

“The Boat” was a 49′ engine-powered fishing boat that my father previously used for his commercial fishing business. As a boat captain, he would lead a crew of 3 or 4 guys out to sea for 2 to 3 weeks at a time. Their deep sea fishing ventures would yield giant “live wells” of seafood that were housed on the open back deck of the boat which constituted about half of the boat itself. When the men returned from sea, they would sell their catch at an open market held on the docks where my father’s boat, called the SNAFU, lived when it was at shore.

It was at this point that my father experienced a moment of radical religious conversion in the summer of 1990. Over the following year and a half, he gave up his former life at sea to pursue his new passion: a life of religious exaltation in the Christian faith. During that time, he decided that his true calling in life was not to be just a fisherman, but a Fisherman of Men’s Souls. Identifying with Jesus himself, my father felt sure that his past occupation was all part of God’s divine plan to make him a missionary. His target? The community of full time live-aboard boaters existing along the fringes of society who had just as great a need of Jesus’s salvation as any other heathen souls.

So in the winter of 1992, my parents began preparations to move our family of four onto my father’s commercial fishing boat – permanently. Little, if anything, was done to adapt this vessel to full time living. It did not offer such amenities as air conditioning, refrigeration, a shower, or even a proper bathroom. The “head” was located in the bow of the boat and contained a toilet bowl with a pump-flush mechanism. There was no door dividing it from the rest of the small cabin area, but a thin Mickey Mouse beach towel was threaded at one end with some fishing line and hung in the doorway like a curtain to provide some semblance of privacy.

There was one sink in the main cabin area, next to the dining booth which offered the only seating inside. A two-burner gas stove stood on the other side of the cabin, next to the indoor cockpit. Directly below this cabin area, down the stairs, was “the hold” which was stocked with canned foods and rations from military surplus stores and a food bank. This was to sustain us on our new voyage.

A minimum of clothing and basic necessities were packed since storage was scarce in the actual enclosed living area. Our little bit of clothing, towels, blankets, and basic hygiene products were stuffed into the available nooks and crannies. For sleeping arrangements, our vessel boasted two bunks on the right hand side, down the stairs of the cabin. Opposite these bunks were the cabinets and shelves that offered our only storage. Behind the stairs, and beneath the upper cabin area, lie the door to “the hold.” Beyond the bunks was the bow of the boat which housed the head. Above the toilet was a v-shaped shelf that ran around the bow, and above that shelf was the V-berth which provided two more sleeping bunks. All told, the cabin (the indoor living area of the boat) was maybe 200 square feet.  

Sleeping arrangements were assigned by necessity. As my father is a large man of great stature, 6’6″, his frame took up every bit of the largest bunk. Since the bunk below his was exceptionally shallow (even as a child, there was not enough depth to sit up), my slim sister inhabited that sleeping space. My mother and I each occupied one side of the V-berth in the bow. Since the V-berth was above our heads, it required a monkey-like ability to climb up into it using the ledge of the bathroom shelf as a gripping and stepping point.

When the SNAFU embarked from the dock on that chilly January morning in 1992, I eagerly waved goodbye to our church friends (who had come to see us off) with a mixture of sadness, trepidation and a sense of adventure for the complete unknown that spanned out ahead of us. I remember a clear blue sky and calm seas for that maiden voyage. My father set a course southward toward Florida and by mid-morning, we were trucking along down the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway without a clue in the world of what to expect next.

The coming months were full of “firsts.” A traditional southern family learning to make do with our simple rations of food, our two burner stove and a limited water supply which was fed from one of the giant “live wells” my father repurposed from his previous occupation. He lashed it to the side of the bridge of the boat and filled it with fresh water from a garden hose. We “bathed” with Dawn or Dr. Bronner’s soap in the open ocean as necessity would dictate. We adjusted to living in extremely confined quarters, all of us all together all the time.

We spent an introductory period in West Palm Beach, FL where we learned the ins and outs of leading a boat ministry from another, similarly focused live-aboard family. The Tatum family lived on an actual houseboat with their four children and evangelized to other boaters there. They were called the Good News Ministries. From them, my father learned how to host weekly church services on the back of our boat, to invite attendees by going “door to door” within the anchorage as well as proselytizing ashore, and making sure to offer food as an incentive.

Being an alpha male and often a loner, my father soon decided to set sail for more southernly seas where he could establish his own evangelical dominion. That’s how we ended up in the Florida Keys on the outskirts of a small anchorage next to a mangrove island called Rodriguez Key. By the spring of 1992, as temperatures rose in these already warm climates, so did tempers inflate with the daily strains of our uncomfortable living situation and our awkward mission.

The sheer exhaustion and grueling day to day routine of our lives drove morale low — very low. Rodriguez Key might as well have been a protected habitat for mosquito breeding grounds. A lack of climate control in our little boat cabin required windows to stay open for fresh air and some slight cooling effect, but this allowed the mosquitos total access to us, particularly at night. Closing all the windows and door resulted in sweltering, sweaty nights. Sleep was little and poor, either way you went. We were hot, sticky, itchy, exhausted and in need of real, living food.

At the same time, my father’s sole focus was on our mission and how to reach the unsaved souls all around us. Our general routine involved a 2+ hour Bible study every morning over a bowl of cereal and reconstituted powdered milk (a culinary invention which I found to be particularly offensive). After this, my father would generally go ashore in our only dinghy while my sister, mother and I stayed on the boat to do our homeschooling work. Most mornings would involve a swim around the boat before the schoolwork started which was the single most exciting and pleasant part of my day. Then there would be books and study, some lunch, a little more schoolwork followed by a dreary afternoon of boredom on the back of the boat with little to nothing to do. Eventually, my father would come home in the late afternoon and preparations would be made for another meal of canned meat and canned vegetables. The days drug on in this manner, and while my father went ashore daily, my mother and sister and I would often be trapped on the boat for days at a time with no way ashore while my father was gone.

As tensions grew under these conditions, my family reached a combustion point resulting in a night that would forever be recorded in our personal histories as “The Duct Tape Incident.” It happened during one unremarkable weeknight meal while each of us occupied our usual seats at the booth. General conversation ensued over the dinner table. I recall a dinner plate consisting of canned chipped pork meat and canned yellow corn that had been reheated on the stove. I don’t recall the specifics of the conversation, just that it pertained to our ministry work. 

There was a lack of consensus on actions we should take regarding some aspect of our ministry. This differing of opinions escalated into a slight bickering and from there a most holy anger arose in my father. He suddenly decided that Satan himself was attempting to infiltrate our family and tear it apart due to the threat our ministry most certainly posed to The Fallen One and his fiery kingdom. This could NOT be allowed to happen. We must deny Satan and his demons who were now at work amongst us. My impassioned father paced frantically within the small space of the cabin as he boomed his grave, spiritual warning. But that wasn’t enough. Action must be taken. Spiritual warfare was afoot. 

Before I knew what was happening, my father bounded down the three steps to the storage area and reappeared brandishing a roll of silver duct tape in his hand. From this he pulled free one end of the tape and secured it at the edge of his mouth. Without pausing, he continued to unroll a long piece of tape which he wrapped across his mouth all the way around his head – two times – before ripping the length free from the roll. Without hesitation, he began to pull more tape from the roll as he moved toward my sister whose place at the booth was beside him, on the inside. My sister sat wide-eyed, frozen as a statue in her abject terror of my father, as we all rapidly processed the consequences of my father’s actions were he to perform the same process on her with her long, brown hair falling down her back. My mother finally found her voice and meekly raised it in protest, “Varn…VARN! Her hair…” loud enough to cause him to halt, mid-air. I watched a grimace of turmoil cross his face as it was unfamiliar territory for my father to acquiesce to anyone else’s will. But whether angels prevailed or some semblance of reason descended upon his meager intellect, my sister was shown some mercy. Instead of wrapping the duct tape all the way around her head, he merely tore off a sufficient strip to secure her mouth closed from cheek to cheek.

My mother would be next in line as she sat beside me, on the outside of the booth, and was the next closest for him to reach. As he bore down on her with yet another strip of tape, it was as if she suddenly woke up to her whole life out of a long, deep haze and just realized where she was and what was happening for the first time ever. My mother finally raised her voice, and her whole 5-foot-2-inch stature, against my father in protest. She yelled and screamed at him to stop what he was doing which caused everyone quite a bit of shock. Within moments, he turned and stormed back down the stairs while my mother stormed out of the door of the cabin onto the back of the boat, yelling and screaming at both Satan and God all the while. 

There at the booth, my sister and I sat opposite one another. There was nowhere to go. We were all trapped there, on The Boat, together. Our father paced in fury next to the bunks just below us while our mother raged her tirade to the sky out on the back of the boat. My sister stared across the booth at me with wide, sad, scared eyes which said more than words ever could have uttered. She dared not remove the piece of tape from her mouth despite my hushed demands that she do so. It made me so mad to see her sitting there that way, but I couldn’t blame her. Paralysis often overtook us in these moments – neither fight nor flight, only freeze.

Internally, though, I raged against my father: I swung fists of steel at his face, I took action to protect my sister from this indecency and to liberate us all from his tyranny. But in reality…in reality, I was held hostage by an overwhelming sense of helplessness as I sat trapped at sea, too terrified to move. Meanwhile, a blaze of indignant, helpless rage consumed my heart, brighter than any hellfire I’d ever been warned against.