Free Flotilla by Daniel Haight Page B

feet hanging over the side of the top deck ... I hadn't realized how tired I was. The green smell of the gardens wafted over to me through the salt air - it was really chill to just relax here and enjoy the day.
    Dad wandered by as I was finishing the Gramma Alice job. They talked for a bit while she filled two grocery bags with fresh veggies. Dinner that night was a couple of freshly-caught tilapia from the pens and some of the carrots, done up tempura style. We had a quiet evening at home, which probably sounds boring but after the last few weeks it was a welcome change.

    Our current position is: 34deg 6'54.35"N 120deg17'31.99"W

Chapter Four - Main Street and The Big Fourth

    Because Dad was a long-timer, 'a lifer' he would say, I got a lot of latitude in people treated me. I found out just how far I could push it during the Big Fourth when Miguel found me passed out on a dock and hung me up by my ankles.
    The Big Fourth was the weekend where 4th of July, the Pacific Fisheries Founders' Day and several large fish harvests fall on the same weekend. A three-day weekend was declared by silent majority and the party lasted all 72 hours of it. Everyone went crazy and I could only remember what happened up to a point. The next week, productivity was down to almost nothing as people recovered from whatever their substance of choice was. We were lucky that nobody died.
    The Big Fourth hit about a month after I arrived - I had gotten used to the place and my time at the Grill had ended. I was starting to come out from under the hoodoo that mom put on me at the Denny's way back when. The pills weren't making me as sleepy and things were generally getting dialed in. I wasn't supposed to be drinking: sobriety was a condition of my probation. Then I had a slip-up.
    The Colony is a weird place. While you are here, you're constantly involved in this bizarre human experiment. Dad says that you can't read too much into it. We were hauling supplies back from the dock - enough food for an army. Dad was busy organizing a barbeque of meat that included a special shipment of mesquite charcoal in from the mainland. He wanted to celebrate in style.
    Once inside, we were chopping vegetables for salsa and measuring out ingredients for the three different kinds of marinade he wanted to use. "The collision of bohemian and blue collar in a space smaller than the footprint of your average shopping mall," he said over a sizzling pan of roasting garlic. We were having eggs and hot dogs for dinner. "This is a melting pot full of people who refuse to melt."
    "What does 'bohemian' mean?" I wondered out loud. Dad grumbled something about my 'lack of vocabulary'. I'm not an English major so it's like, get off my back already.
    I gradually understood that he was talking about the different cultures we had out here. The fishermen who had left the East Coast were from Gloucester were these throwback square-jawed types and they were constantly at odds with the 'Children of Black Rock City' who used their catch money to finance art projects and annual trips to Burning Man.
    Dad and I were out in the Colony yesterday, looking for a few items he forgot to order. He located the kosher salt we needed at one of the floating restaurants. The owner was an old Asian guy who told us over a lunchtime plate of egg rolls about sailing junks on Victoria Harbor while growing up in Hong Kong. Now he is here, experiencing the manana culture of the Baja fishers who lived on the boat next door.
    "Everything is a bit new," he said in a British accent, which was a surprise to me.
    "Are you from England?" I asked.
    "No, Hong Kong."
    "Why do you sound like you're from Eng-" I began but Dad hissed and gave me the cut-throat sign.
    "Eat your lunch," he broke in before I could embarrass myself further. The old guy was laughing and I think Dad was amused too. It would be easy to say that a constant state of conflict existed on the colony, and some conflict did occur. For the most part,