Capt. Gary
(real name: Jameel Garanhir. Last name is Welsh & first name is Arabic—the name of his father’s  favorite ship!) Owner of the 25-foot (8-meter) Sloop, RED WOLF.

Species: Timber Wolf

Nationality: American

Age: Mid-50’s (circa 1933)

Profession: Retired merchant ship captain, now a free-lance “delivery skipper” (hired to sail ships to new owners or new home ports) and self-described “Sea-Bum”.

Appearance: Thickset and middle-aged with bald head and long, full beard. Wears glasses and smokes a small pipe. Usually dressed in white duck coveralls and seaman’s cap, with a short-sleeved khaki jacket whose pockets he refers to as his “bosun’s locker” for all the assorted stuff he keeps in them.

Marital Status: Widower.

Locale: The Capt. might be found at anchor anywhere in the Spontoon Archipelago, but prefers Polynesian areas, as, “You can see more pretty girls, & more of them,” there than in other areas. His policy, though, is strictly one of ‘look, but don’t touch’. If asked why, he’d say it’s because “Those young gals wouldn’t have anything to do with a fat old man like me.” But in fact, he’s still carrying a torch for his late wife and isn’t ready to let another woman into his life yet. (Timber wolves usually mate for life.)

History: Born of an old seafaring family, Gary went to sea very young, in the last years of the age of sail. He knocked around most all of the Pacific, and while serving on some trading schooners, became familiar with the “Storm Slot”—that combination of weather conditions that would permit a ship under sail to make the difficult run against the prevailing winds and currents and through the maze of surrounding reefs and atolls into the Spontoon Island Archepelago.

In his 30’s he met and married a Stateside girl, and settled down on the Atlantic coast of the USA, where he limited his seafaring to coastal shipping and eventually became a tugboat captain in New York Harbor. When his wife died some 20 years later, he decided there was nothing holding him to the land any longer. He retired from merchant service, sold all his other possessions, and bought a small (25-foot (8-meter)) sailboat he named RED WOLF, and took off for the South Seas he knew in his youth. 

When a combination of circumstances saw him sailing into the anchorage off of Moon Island in the Spontoons, it caused quite a stir, as it had been thought impossible for a small, unpowered sailing boat to make it there! While it’s easy to sail out of Spontoon Island, only the most skillful of Skippers have ever made it in without at least an auxiliary engine to power them through! 

This feat brought him some offers from rich Euros on the islands to sail their own yachts over from Stateside for them. While he only accepts a few such deliveries a year, it pays more than enough to keep him and his own boat going, and allows him the rest of the year to loaf about the islands. 

He likes fishing, exploring out-of-the-way anchorages on the larger and smaller islands making up the Archipelago, and relaxing in comfortable taverns with good rum and decent cheeseburgers. If the rum and his mood are just right, he enjoys singing old sea chanties (some printable!) in a fine bass voice. Most of the time, though, he just likes to sit back quietly, watching pretty girls and listening to “those babyfaced flyboys” yarning over the “new & exotic locations they’d discovered”—places he recalls dropping anchor in, some 30 years ago!