Island

He started pulling Barb's lifeline. He was amazed at how heavy Barb seemed. He briefly saw her hand try to grab the rope railing. He released the handhold, grabbed the line with that hand too, and moved closer to the railing, again scared to death his lifeline was also long enough for him to topple over the side of the boat. He had been screaming with each step, shouting some quick prayer like, "Please God please!"

At the railing he saw Barb submerging and partially resurfacing with each roll of the boat. It was why she seemed so incredibly heavy, she was underwater half the time and they had to be doing some fast speed in the wind. She tried to grab onto the rope railings whenever she surfaced. It was nearly impossible for his hands to get any purchase on the lifeline. It was too tight for him to wrap it around his hand even if he had thought it would have been a good idea.

He finally held her lifeline with one hand while he leaned over the railing. When Barb resurfaced he grabbed the waist of her life vest. He was able to keep her out of the water long enough for her to grab onto a rope railing first with one hand then the other. She then tried to pull herself up while he had pulled too. With the rolling of the boat and the pitching up and down he kept losing his footing and had almost toppled over the railing himself. They just couldn't get timed together to get Barb back on deck. He had cursed himself for his lack of knowledge, then cursed Jeff for not explaining everything better back in Honolulu.

Luckily, Barb's daughter, Amy, came to the rescue. She helped pull Barb up and over the railing. Barb was either coughing up or vomiting sea water when she finally got on deck. It was then he remembered the radio antenna. He told Amy about the antenna. She had nodded and then shouted that she'd help after she got her mother below.

He went back to the mast. He couldn't find the rope, couldn't find the radio antenna cable either. He kept searching, crawling back to the port railing, then across to the starboard side railing, then looked at the mast, thinking it might have gotten wrapped around. He was nearly frantic about finding it. Suddenly the deck started angling, much steeper than any other time. He started sliding on his hands and knees. He desperately reached for a handhold but he missed it. He kept sliding toward the stern. His lifeline caught on something and jerked him to a stop. He had lain flat, closed his eyes and tried to hug the deck. He thought they had it, the damn boat was going to flip over backwards.

Then just as quickly as the boat had tipped upward, it angled steeply downward. He slid to the mast and his head rammed it. He saw stars from it. Something that hadn't happened since his last fist fight in high school. He was stunned but not so much as to not have the wit to hug the mast.

A minute or two later, Amy was clapping his back shouting that they had to get the radio antenna cable up. He shouted that he couldn't find it, that it wasn't on the mast and not on the deck. He had gotten off his stomach and grabbed a handhold and watched Amy frantically looking around the mast. She wrapped her arm in his and shouted that it was gone, probably washed or blown overboard. He had asked if there was another one. She shrugged and then shouted she'd go below and ask her mother.

He had watched her move towards the hatch for a moment and then realized he had no clue about what to do in the meantime. He followed behind Amy, holding on anything available with two hands whenever possible along the way. He helped Amy get the hatch open, slamming it shut when her head cleared it. He made his way to Jeff, explained they had lost the antenna, and asked what he should do. Jeff told to him to get two girls to replace the ones on the sail winches and then to come back to him ASAP.

Below deck there was an inch or so of water sloshing around on the floor. When he asked for volunteers to man the winches, Ann, wide eyed, was the first to raise her hand. He had wondered if she had done it out of fear of staying below. When no one else volunteered, he was about to just pick the largest girl, when Amy angrily shouted she'd go back to the winch. The three of them made it up the ladder and on deck without too much water entering the hatch. He made sure they were all hooked onto the lifeline cable.

He made his way to Jeff as Amy and Ann replaced the other two girls at the winches. Jeff shouted in his ear but he missed parts of it, that the something or other sail had to be taken down it because it was ripping. He had shouted back at Jeff to quit fucking using navy terms and just say which fucking sail needed to come down. Jeff had grinned and shouted that the one in the very front of the boat needed to be lowered and secured. Jeff told him to get someone from below to help.

Below he talked to Barb about the antenna. She said she was trying to figure out what to use because there wasn't another replacement. He told her that Jeff told him to get one of the girls to help him lower one of the sails. She told him to do that.

He moved into the main cabin and asked for a volunteer again. No one spoke for a few moments, then Lisa pulled her face away from her vomit bucket and said she'd do it. If she hadn't been tossing her cookies, Lisa would have been the one he would have selected. She was petite, but one of a few of the girls on the boat who had muscles with any sort of definition. She also had one hell of a killer apple ass.

Lisa had looked scared but not terrified, the same expression Ann had on her face before she went on deck. He grinned and told her he'd appreciate the help, then added he just didn't want her puking on him. Lisa and another girl giggled. It was Nan who was soaked. She had been one of the girls on the sail winches. She was the girl he sometimes confused with Lisa. Same height, weight, muscle tone, and from behind they were virtual twins. He knew their brief laughs weren't because he had been funny. His lame comment had given them a chance to release at least a drop of the fear they were dealing with. Lisa told him she hadn't puked but had the pail just in case.

He and Lisa had made their way to the bow of the boat without too much trouble, no rogue waves or near vertical angles of the boat. The sail was split in a few places. There were two large rips, one from the bottom going half way up, the other from the top going half way down. It was flapping constantly. He told Lisa to winch it down as he tried to gather it. He wasn't going to do anything too fancy as Jeff had taught everyone.

Just as Lisa started working the winch, Bob arrived, grinning like an idiot. Bob had a lot of sailing experience like Jeff, and had tried to reassure him, shouting that it seemed worse than it was. He hadn't believed Bob for a moment. Bob helped him gather up the sail as it came down, then tie it down. Lisa had moved from the mast and helped too. When Lisa was next to him, he had surprised himself by grinning, let alone shouting to the young woman that he knew she was one hell of a tough broad the first time he had seen her. She had grinned back at him. When they had it secured, Bob shouted to him that Lisa should walk in the middle on the way back and that he would bring up the rear.

They moved slowly. Water had again begun washing onto the deck in short intervals. He had thought the waves were coming from one direction and the wind from another, but it had been so terrifying at the time, that now he wasn't sure of that.

It was slow going to the stern. At every new handhold he had turned around to check on Lisa. He could see she was very scared. It had been nearly night at that time. When they were even with the main mast where he had lost the antenna cable, he heard an air horn. He looked to the stern and saw Jeff waving one arm then making a fist in a sign to hold on. Behind him Bob was shouting to use both hands to hold on. He turned around and saw Lisa desperately trying to reach a second hand hold. Her fingers were a few inches shy of it.

It was then he had seen a black wall approaching, darker than the sky. He had grabbed a handhold then grabbed Lisa's wrist, and shouted at her to hold his wrist. The boat started to tip dramatically upward once again, worse than the other time it had scared him to death. As he waited for the boat to actually flip from nose to tail, the deck was deluged with water. Lisa slammed against him. She grabbed onto him with her arms and legs. He grabbed the second handhold and then sucked some water into his lungs. He was on the verge of panic. He thought they were under the wave, inside the wave but he also continued to sense an upward and then upward and side movement to the boat.

The crashing water didn't let up. He had thought he heard a mooing sound. An image of a Holstein had flashed though his mind as he coughed up sea water. The boat began rolling towards its starboard side severely, then a moment later it seemed as if they were flying. The crashing water stopped smothering the deck. The boat then smashed into something. He and Lisa jerked from the force of it and he nearly lost his grip on the handholds.

His first thought was that they had rammed another boat or ship, then he realized they might actually have been airborne and had hit the water. The boat righted itself, then continued leaning more towards port, their side of the boat. The mooing began again. He happened to look up and saw the main mast seemed to be angling faster than the deck.

For a moment he had been completely disoriented, thinking the deck was somehow bending, then he had realized the mast was falling. He frantically moved towards the stern, still coughing, holding Lisa tight to himself, trying not to lose his footing as he desperately reached out for the next handhold. He grabbed it, then turned around rolling Lisa over himself. He released the handhold and grabbed another, then shouted to Lisa to reach out for a handhold just as the mast slammed onto the deck.

The boat continued leaning to port for a few more seconds, then started to right itself once again. More water washed over the deck, so much so that he and Lisa had been covered up, completely submerged, his legs had left the deck in the onslaught of water. He had prayed it wouldn't last long, he hadn't had a chance to even think about holding his breath and had hoped to God that Lisa's lungs weren't filling with sea water. The deck resurfaced. Lisa was coughing up water.

He turned to shout to Bob in the near blackness but Bob wasn't there anymore. He looked for Bob's lifeline at the railing but in the growing darkness and confusion he couldn't see it. The boat started angling upward again. He saw the mast moving. He shouted to Lisa to move, that they had to get to the stern. The mast slid towards them but stopped three feet from him when the boat began to level off. He kept shouting at Lisa to head to the stern. He hadn't known what else to do. He hoped Jeff would tell him what to do. He thought he heard screams but with the wind and waves he wasn't sure.

As they neared the hatch, it opened. Barb came up, quickly clipped onto the lifeline cable, then began pulling something heavy out of the hatch. Another large wave crashed over the deck. Lisa's arm tightened on his own so much that it was painful. The water engulfed them but only for a moment. When it passed he half expected to see that Barb had vanished, but she was there in the light coming up from the open hatch. She was pulling up a cylindrical bundle.

He shouted at Lisa that he needed to help Barb. She had screamed at him not to let go of her. He continued holding her waist and she kept her arm around his, both of them grabbing handholds with one hand, moving from one to the next, finally to the hatch. Barb was pulling something else up. Another wave washed over the deck. Again Lisa held onto him with one arm and both legs. When the water retreated he thanked God again that Barb was still there.

The light at the wheel and what was coming up from the hatch flickered then disappeared. He had definitely heard screams from below then. A few moments later he saw a flashlight beam from the stern. It had to have been Jeff holding it. Barb was shouting into the hatch. He wasn't sure what though. He moved himself and Lisa closer. He shouted to Barb telling her he thought Bob was overboard, then told her that the main mast was down. He had wondered if Bob had taken off his lifeline to get past the loose mast.

Barb nodded at him, leaned down into the hatch and pulled up a large flashlight. They both had looked down the beam of light along the railing for Bob. They didn't see him nor the lifeline, just the mast sliding back and forth still connected to its ragged stump by a bent piece of metal. He shouted again, asking if he should go towards the bow and look for Bob. Barb told him no, that they needed to get the girls out and in the stern of the boat. She told him they were taking on water.

Obviously they were taking on water, he had let some in through the hatch himself. He asked what he should do. She told him to take the large bundle to the stern. He saw she had clipped it to the lifeline cable. He nodded. He shouted to Lisa that he had to let her go and told her to use two handholds when she moved. She nodded at him and released his arm. He told her to follow him.

He pulled the bundle towards the stern, it was heavy and he wondered what it was. It was then the meaning of "taking on water" hit him. The boat was sinking. They were abandoning ship.

He thought about the life rafts. During the week of instruction, Jeff had opened one up and they had practiced what to do in an emergency for a while. He recalled how dinky it seemed even though it was ten feet in diameter. There were two, Jeff said the other one was stored on the bow side of the main hatch. As he had pulled the bundle, he had wondered how, if the damn big sail boat they were on wasn't able to keep Bob on board, nor Lisa and him from nearly drowning, how could a thing that resembled a kid's inflatable swimming pool do better.

After they reached the stern, most everything was a blur in his memory. He could recall Jeff shouting, everyone shouting in the dark, but he hadn't been able to make out more than a few words of what anyone said. He had helped Barb get the girls up from below. Bob's wife was hysterical, the girls weren't much better. Hell, he probably hadn't been much better either.

It had not just been dark but black dark except for the slight phosphorescence of the sea foam around them, the flashlight beams, and of course the flashes of lightning. The sounds of screaming wind and crashing waves had been nearly deafening. Through that noise he kept hearing groaning metallic sounds from the barely attached main mast.

Jeff had told him to get the life raft out of the stern compartment and ready it. He recalled seeing the beam of a third flashlight and seeing or sensing Barb readying the second life raft on the other side of the hatch. The waves were flooding the deck nearly constantly. The boat was no longer heading straight into the waves.

In the stern he pressurized the life raft, shouting to the girls to grab it and hold it. When it was nearly inflated, the wind tore off the snap-on roof from the raft. The girls and Deb luckily held onto the raft and to their lifelines. Jeff had shouted it was time to get people in the raft and said to do a headcount. Back in Honolulu Bob had been assigned to be the leader of the raft if it ever came time to use it. But Bob was gone. He had only been able to remember that Ann and Bob's wife were on the list for that life raft. In the dark he couldn't really see anyone. He shouted for Ann, and he heard her shout back. He cursed himself for not paying closer attention in Honolulu so he could now remember who was assigned to the goddamn raft.

He shouted in the dark to the girls holding the raft that they should all shout their names. He hadn't thought asking them to count off would work. Asking for names had been an even dumber request on his part. He really didn't want to know their names other than Ann. All the girls screamed their names nearly at the same time, and then some repeated it a few more times probably expecting him to shout "check" or something in response. He made out one girl's name, Lisa.

The waves kept coming, flooding the deck for longer and longer periods. He shouted telling them to get into the raft one at a time which even then knew was stupid to say. No one could see anything in the dark. He could barely see Ann right next to him. He now guessed he had more felt her there than had actually seen her. He knew there was someone on the other side of him. When that girl shouted to him that she couldn't see anyone getting in, he had realized it was Lisa.

He shouted telling her to get in, then turned to Ann and told her the same thing. When he felt them disappear he shouted again, asking if anyone wasn't in the raft yet. A few girls yelled everyone was in except him. He shouted telling everyone to make sure they had unhooked their lifelines. He got in, sat with his back against the side, grabbed onto a handhold and unclipped his own lifeline. He then twisted and looked at Jeff. Just as he was about shout to ask why the raft's light wasn't blinking as it was on Barb's raft, and if the large bundle on the deck was for their raft, a huge rogue wave washed over the boat. The girls had screamed, maybe he had screamed too. The next moment the raft was on the open sea.

If it had been a blur getting the raft readied, what followed was even less clear in his mind. He thought the raft had flipped over at least twice, or maybe it had just seemed that the raft had capsized and somehow had righted itself. He knew it had filled with water numerous times, but somehow in all the roller coaster tossing and churning of the waves, it would somehow drain for a few minutes before it filled again.

A few of the girls screamed nearly constantly for the first ten minutes or so. As the screams subsided, he recalled that he had wondered if their fear had exhausted them, or if they were no longer in the raft. It had been nearly impossible to figure out what was up and what was down. It was a roller coaster and water slide within a hell of terror. He had wondered a few times if it had been a blessing that the roof had torn off the raft, or if, because he had lost it, it would be their doom.

He wasn't sure but he now thought that the worst of it had been over in a couple hours. The truly mountainous waves stopped coming. Huge cresting waves still crashed upon them, but not as frequently. He had thought it had been raining hard the entire time because of the lightning flashes, but he had no idea if one drop had actually fallen from the sky. Water was coming from every direction.

With each passing hour the waves continued decreasing in height and volatility. The swells were very large though. In the brief flashes of lightning he had gotten the impression that there weren't enough people in the raft but his eyes were barely open and water had been constantly slapping his face.

Eventually, the roller coaster ride became more of an express elevator on the swells. He had been shaking violently through most of it, at least partly because he had been freezing. When the crashing waves and the wind had lessened a little more, he shouted into the dark that Ann was going to shout her name, then the person to her left would shout their name, then the next person all the way around the raft. He leaned towards Ann and told her to begin. He could recall his shock. "Ann!" "Nan!" An interval, then - "Liz!" There had been silence for a few long moments, then Lisa shouted her name.

He had remembered one thing about practicing in Honolulu, there were supposed to be ten people in the raft. He subtracted Cheryl who was safe somewhere and Bob who had been washed away. That left eight. He recalled now how his heart had sunk to depths he thought were impossible when he realized three persons were missing. He knew Deb had been holding the raft. He had called out asking if Deb had been in the raft. A crying feminine voice answered she had been next to her. Lisa said that Beth Ann had been next to her. Another voice said that Carol had been in the raft. All the girls had started crying then if they already hadn't been. He had stayed silent with his initial sense of overwhelming guilt. It wouldn't allow him to utter a sound even if he had wanted to cry.