Alex & Lang - 11. A & L Ch 11

I glanced over in Langley’s direction, and he was now looking at me with a sad and worried look on his face. “I… I am so sorry. I had no idea that you would…” Langley began before Mrs Cooper cleared her throat to indicate to say no more. ‘It’s ok, you weren’t to know that I have connections to that place, and I had no idea that burying the knowledge, that it was the place where my father passed away, would affect me this way,” I replied.

“Oh my god, I’m …” Langley started before he began to sob uncontrollably, and I indicated to Langley to come and join me on the bed, which he did. We must have both fallen asleep, as when I woke next time, it was dark outside, and I could hear the soft breathing of Langley sleeping beside me, which made me smile.

There was a soft tap on the door and it opened, and Wyatt entered, “Hello sir, are you both ready for some dinner?” he asked me, “Give me ten minutes and we will be right out,” I replied, and after Wyatt left, I began to tickle Langley to wake him up.

“If you keep doing that you are going to be in trouble,” Langley said sleepily, and I chuckled at this, “Time to get up sleeping prince, time to get some food into us,” I responded, and after a quick wash, we walked down the upper deck saloon, where the table was set for our dinner.

“There you two are, hiding from us again,” came the familiar voice of my good friend Kyle. “Hey buddy, how are you and your family settling in?” I replied. “Good mate, Sue is relaxing in the jacuzzi as we speak, with Mrs C watching here at the moment,” Kyle replied.

“What about the boys, are they ok?” I asked, “Yes, your God-Sons are fine, and really enjoying the luxury of the yacht, as is our newest guest,” Kyle replied. “New guest? Without me knowing about it?” I queried, and Kyle laughed.

“It’s only Rev, we thought you wouldn’t mind and extra passenger,” Kyle said to me smiling, “Wonderful to hear that she has joined us, have you allocated her a guest cabin or a crew cabin?” I asked. “I heard that, Alexander Huon Devonport,” came the voice of Kyle’s mother, and Kyle burst out laughing.

“Oops, sorry Rev. Oh, have you met my boyfriend yet? Reverend Annette Davies, this is my partner, Mr Langley Atkins,” I said making the introductions, “It is a pleasure to meet you at last, I have heard so much about you and your family,” Langley said politely as she shook Annette’s hand gently.

“What a gentleman, just like someone else I know… speaking of which, do we have a destination yet? Are we heading back to FI?” Annette asked. “No, I have changed my mind about that, I think we will go and find some new places, starting with an 1,890 nautical mile journey west of here,” I announced.

“In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean?” Annette asked, “Not quite Reverend, if my guess is correct, that is the area of the Tristan da Cunha Islands,” Wyatt said, and I nodded my head in agreement. “Wow, that is along way out in the middle of nowhere.” Langley stated.

“Yes, it is, and it is a place that I would very much like to visit, I have already asked the Captain to make arrangements for us to visit there and also St Helena as soon possible,” I replied. “How long is it going to take us to get there?” Langley asked.

“The Captain said it will be about six days of sailing,” I replied. Early the next day, after getting Customs clearance, we headed west towards the Cape of Good Hope, before heading north to St Helena, after our request to travel to Tristan de Cunha had been rejected, which didn’t faze me at all.

It would take us just under nine days to get to Saint Helena, where we would be welcomed, and we had permission to stay for up to three months if we desired, since we would be living onboard when we arrive, as well as providing income to the island community by going on tours, paying mooring fees, going out to the restaurants for meals and buying supplies etc.

The trip north up the west coast of Africa was virtually uneventful, with just two days during the journey where we encountered some rough weather, but for most of it, the sailing was perfect. Saint Helena has a sub-tropical environment, so the temperatures were quite nice and comfortable, as we set anchor just off the coast of the capital town, just an hour before sunset.

We elected to stay onboard after clearing customs and immigration, and we would start exploring the island first thing in the morning. Our VIP guests had enjoyed the journey so far.

This even gave Sue a bit more energy than usual, so she was able to move around the yacht a bit better than she did when at home in Western Australia, and this in turn made Kyle happier. For the first few days at the island, all the crew and visitors did all of the usual touristy things, with a generous gift from myself, to allow everyone onboard the chance to see everything, and to help boost the economy on the island, which I thought is very important for such a remote island as this.

When I learnt about the problem of shortage of housing for the residents on the island, I asked for and was given a chance to meet with the Executive council of the island, once I explained who I was, and who my first cousin and his partner are, even though Lewis was currently taking some time to himself, and his location was not known to Sebastian or myself, or any of the staff.

I had learnt that there had been a plan in place to build new housing and businesses, but the cost involved in getting the building material and workers to the island to build them had caused for the project to be cancelled a number of times. At the meeting, I explained that I had the money and the resources to be able to have this housing development built, without too much disturbance to the community.

I mentioned that I have at my disposal, an 86-metre-long multi-purpose expedition ship, that not only has room to carry plenty of building material cargo, but it can also accommodate 44 guests in 22 cabins, which should be sufficient to install the modular homes that I thought would be ideal for this situation.

To be built in Western Australia by two or three separate companies, the homes can be transported by ship to South Africa, where they can be transferred to the Family Corporations ship, where it will transport them to the island, and a helicopter crane will lift each section of the homes, a place them in position on the island.

The stunned looks on the Executive Council members faces was one of shock and surprise, especially when I mentioned that it would cost the island absolutely nothing for them to be built, but the homes and the land that they stand on would be owned by the corporation, and leased out to residents at a very reasonable cost, for a period of 50 years, then the ownership of the land and homes would be transferred to the people of the island.

After some lengthy deliberation, my offer as accepted with gratitude, and once all the legal documentation was completed, with some alterations made by myself, when I saw a few sneaky clauses put into the contract, which were omitted and countersigned, so as to make them non and void, and this was witnessed by Captain Anton, who I had asked to be my witness.

I notice the Executive Council had not bothered to check for any changes when they too signed the contract, thinking they got away with the inclusions that they had made, not realising that I was a lot smarter than they had presumed, and that I knew all about legal business contracts.

Two days later, while I was relaxing on the yacht just off the coast of the island, I received a call requesting my presence to a meeting with the Executive Council, and I asked Captain Anton to join me. “I think they have just woken up to the fact that they don’t have what they wanted, as they tried to include in the contract,” I explained to Captain Anton, as we boarded the yachts dingy to be transported to the island, by two of the crew members, and the Captain chuckled at this comment.

“They should have re-read the whole contract just like you and I had done, and they would have known, before they signed it,” Captain Anton responded. “Very true, and now we have to deal with they aftermath of their errors,” I replied smiling. Twenty minutes later, we entered the main conference room, where the whole council was seated, and it looked like they had been there for some time, by the looks of all the paperwork on the desks, as well as the platter of food and drinks on the side table.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, how may I be of assistance to you?” I said to start of proceedings, and over the next twenty minutes, we argued back and forth about the contract, accusing us of been sneaky and heavy handed with conditions to the contract.

“Executive Council members,” Captain Anton said, after been silent for most of the past twenty minutes, and everyone went silent. “It is quite simple, my employer has offered you an extremely generous offer, which you have all verbally agreed to.

When it came to the written contract, you attempted to make changes to the conditions of that offer, which my employer and I have both noted, and adjusted… It comes down to this one thing, do you or do you not want this deal to go ahead?” Captain Anton said to the Executive Council, and he sat back down. I smiled, pleased that Captain Anton had done this, as I was feeling that I was not getting anywhere with them at all.

Reluctantly the Executive Council admitted that they had tried to make some changes on the sly, and that they will accept the contract as is, with the set term of fifty years instead of the twenty years that they wanted. With that announced, we wished the Executive Council a good day, and we left the conference room and building.

“Sir, do you think that they may try to make changes to the rules of housing on the island that may make the contract be terminated in the favour and they get ownership of the housing estate?” Anton asked me, once we were on the dinghy and on our way back to the yacht.

I smiled, and chuckled a little bit. “Yes, I did have that in mind, and that is why I had added a clause to the contract that none of them have probably never heard of, and that they may have just let slip by. The island is a British Overseas Territory, and as such it comes under UK law jurisdiction.

This means that if they attempt to do anything like that, then they will have to face UK law at its full force, and with my financial status been a lot higher than the whole island, I highly doubt that they will win,” I replied, and Captain Anton laughed.

We ended up spending nine wonderful weeks on Saint Helena Island, supervising the construction of the new housing and some commercial buildings on the island. One of the commercial buildings is to house Devonport Property Management SHI, where I employed two local people in the office, full time, as well as a local part time cleaner/gardener, to keep the property looking in perfect order.

After leaving Saint Helena Island, we continued on northwest for 705 nautical miles to Ascension Island, where we stayed for a week to explore all the wonders of the island. During this time, I was receiving daily reports from my new office on Saint Helena Island, on how things were progressing with the leasing of the 46 houses, 32 apartments and 14 commercial suites available to the community.

I was informed that 32 houses and 18 apartments had been leased by the island government, to accommodate government workers and their families, while the 8 commercial suites had all leased to the government, and the remaining 5 medium sized commercial suites had been leased to members of the community to establish new or existing businesses.

All but 2 houses and 4 apartments had been leased to community members, which meant there was now more of the older houses, available for renovation and to be used for guest accommodation for visitors, once the changes have been made, and this would help to promote more tourism to the islands.

From there we continued north for another 1,630 nautical miles to the Cape Verde Islands, where we spent two weeks exploring all the islands, and experiencing the culture, with the yacht anchored just off the coast of Mindelo, which is a major harbour in the region.

From there we continued north 890 nautical miles up the Atlantic Ocean to the Canary Islands, where we spent another two weeks exploring. For Kyle and Sue, this time was very precious to them, spending family time just relaxing and enjoying the luxury of the yacht and exploring new places, and the two boys were having a wonderful time too.

From there we headed 700 nautical miles East to Gibraltar, where we planned to stay for a month or so, as Sue’s condition had worsened during the trip from the Canary Islands to Gibraltar, and she was admitted to the Royal Naval Hospital, and sadly three weeks later, Sue passed away from her illness.

Mrs Cooper, the Cooper twins, Langley and I supported Kyle and boys as best as we could during this difficult time, and after the funeral, Sue was cremated, and with her ashes, Kyle and the boys flew home to Western Australia, via Rome and Singapore, with Mrs Cooper and Wyatt travelling with them.

A few days after their departure, we continued on East into the Mediterranean, where we stopped over at Genoa, so as to spend some time with Joachim and Louis, who had also attended the funeral on behalf of Sebastian and Sir Lewis, who we learnt were now officially separated, before flying back to Vaduz in Lichtenstein, where they were now permanently living.

In a way I was not surprised that Sir Lewis and Sebastian had separated, as their marriage had been a big rocky for the past few years, and it always showed that things were not good between them each time we saw them together, or more like in the same room as each other.

While visiting the Wagner twins, I had arranged for the yacht to be transported by cargo ship through to Canal, where the crew and us would re-join the yacht in Columbo, Sri Lanka.