Ocean Black

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“She’s just too damned pretty for my likes, Chief.”

Orville “Bull” Kontas, captain of the Mighty Moose, didn’t care for the new paint scheme on his workboat, an ex tugboat converted to new uses by the Marine Visions Unlimited crews.

Kaylene Thomas had sold the other two workboats, Priscilla and Cockamamie, and used the proceeds to drydock and fully refit the Mighty Moose. In addition to her new engines and refurbished living and working spaces, she sported the company’s recognizable theme of white paint with a yellow stripe rising diagonally on each side of the pilot house.

“You’ve sailed prettier, Bull,” Dane Brande told him.

“Maybe. But not on a damned tugboat.”

Brande had to cede the point. The workboat’s captain had probably sailed every classification of boat and ship in every sea and ocean available. Kontas was over seventy, with no documented evidence of his true age. His black market purchased papers birth certificate and passport reported that he had been born in Shanghai of a Greek father and a Chinese mother, but the data was based primarily on hearsay. His bald pate had a rusty edged fringe of white hair, and the lines of his weather and sea beaten face were deep. His ears were huge and blistered. Whatever his age, his strength seemed undiminished, and his loyalty would never be faulted. He had been with MVU from soon after the start up.

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