Lift on a Wave

"Fuck!" he said.

"David! Be still!"

He froze, listened to water break smoothly just behind his head, heard a much bigger blowhole open, gentle air expelled and inhaled deeply. The head of a large male Orca slid from the surface right beside his own; the top of the whale's head was a good two and a half feet above the water, its towering dorsal fin easily five feet above that. He felt his heart hammering in his chest and for some reason he knew the whale by his side was listening to his heartbeat too. He felt like he was being examined, measured in some way, then as suddenly the huge male slid silently under and was gone.

He reached for the boarding ladder and pulled himself up onto deck; only then did he feel his heart slow down. Then he started shivering.

The woman jumped down and grabbed two towels, guided the man back into the safe confines of their little home, then she wrapped herself around the man and hugged him for a very long time.

+++++

Inside Tiputa Pass, Rangiroa Atoll, French Polynesia

Monday Morning

Timing was crucial, their navigation had to be perfect.

To exit the lagoon one had to time the move for precisely slack water; when the tide ebbed or flooded powerful currents wracked the pass, swirling eddies churned the water and breaking pyramid-shaped waves up to ten feet high rose and broke with incredible intensity. Small boats could be tossed around and pulled under inside this funneling vortex, and had been many times over the years. The simple fact that silver-tipped reef sharks, known man-eaters, cruised these waters made the passage all the more interesting. In order to get out unscathed one had about a twenty minute window between the ebb and the flood -- the brief period of so called slack water, when the pass grew still, when the currents subsided -- and during this uneasy truce boats completed the transit or risked getting caught in the maelstrom.

The man stood at the bow perched high on the pulpit, watched the swirling waters for signs of calming; two other sailboats and a dive boat waited behind them. The woman remained behind the wheel, ready to pour on the throttle and follow any steering commands that came from the man on the bow.

The man looked at his watch then down into the water.

"Alright, away ahead, right for that first buoy!" he called out. The woman pushed the throttle forward and the boat accelerated into the pass; the other sailboats waited a moment -- perhaps to see if they'd missed the timing -- then they too poured on the coals and darted into the pass. The dive boat, powered by huge twin outboards, roared by, leaving a fairly massive wake as it passed. The man perched on the bow pulpit grabbed hold of the headstay as the boat rolled under him, but he took the motion in stride while he scanned the water ahead for any unseen coral heads or floating debris that might get caught in the little ship's propeller. Fifteen minutes later they rounded the last mark and turned to the west to round the huge atoll before turning south towards Tahiti. The man walked back to the cockpit and stood beside the woman with an arm around her waist.

"Good job, darlin'," the man said as he kissed the top of her head.

"We do make a pretty good team, don't we!" The woman beamed.

"Always have, darlin'. Always have."

She looked down at the chartplotter and the moving nautical chart that displayed their position, then settled in on the next waypoint ahead and watched as the course lined-up on the compass.

"Ready for a sandwich, June?" the man said.

"I'm famished," she called out as he trundled down the companionway. "Two!"

Standing in the galley, he looked back at her and smiled, braced himself as a deep ocean roller passed under the boat. He opened the 'fridge and pulled out four already made sandwiches and handed them up, then poured some iced tea into plastic cups before heading up himself.

It was her watch so the next three hours he could rest. She'd steer, she'd navigate, if the sails needed trimming she'd ask David to do it or, if she wanted, do it herself. She steered by hand with the breaking reef of the atoll still so close to port, but as they moved farther away she'd more than likely set the Monitor windvane and let the boat steer itself. He opened a sandwich and handed it to her and she wolfed it down. He smiled.

"Ready for another?" David said wryly.

Another huge roller crossed under the keel and the boat wallowed and yawed as she compensated, then she held out her hand and snapped her fingers. "I can't believe how hungry I am! Cripes!"

"Neither can I," David said through a deep smile. "Kinda exciting, wasn't it?"

"I've never been so happy-scared in my life! And when that dive boat went by?! Crap!"

"Yeah, I puckered-up pretty good."

"Oh, so that was the popping sound I heard!" she said between bites. "Honey, I hate to say it, but I think I'm gonna need another one."

"How about a PBJ? Maybe a little sugar will tame the beast?"

"Sure, yeah, great, whatever..."

He laughed while he made his way back to the galley.

"Where'd all these rollers come from?" she called out when another huge one rolled by.

"That storm the night before, the one to the south. It turned north last night and is chewing things up pretty good as it moves out."

"These suckers must be ten, twelve feet!"

"Feeling seasick?" he asked. Their first long passages that had been an issue.

"Nope! I love it!" He heard her "whoop!" as another big one rolled by; the bow fell into the trough and he heard a wall of water cascade down into the cockpit.

"Yee-e-e-haw-w-w!" they both yelled. "Are we having fun yet!?"

The both laughed. It was an old joke.

"Need a towel?" he called up.

"No! Feels great!" he looked up and saw her shaking the water from her short hair.

"I'm the luckiest man that ever lived," he said quietly as he watched her smile and wrestle the wheel around to take the next roller.

"What'd you say?!" she shouted.

"I said 'you're a nut!'"

"And aren't you glad I am?!"

"Never more than right this very moment!"

She looked at him, smiled, turned to meet the next wave, then she mouthed 'I love you' and threw a kiss his way.

"Ditto!"

She finished her third sandwich while he made his way through his second; soon she turned a little south and the rollers disappeared in the lee of the atoll. The sky was bluebirds, the sea smooth; he let out the big headsail and the boat surge ahead, the circular atoll still off their port beam, then he stretched out in the cockpit facing aft and watched his wife steer for a while. His eyes grew heavy, he suddenly felt very, very tired, so he closed his eyes and drifted off.

+++++

She shook him awake early in the afternoon; he looked pale, feverish, and she poured him a chilled Gatorade, put some fresh pineapple chunks in a bowl and handed it up. He sipped the juice and nibbled some pineapple, then curled up and went straight back to sleep.

He woke some time later, the sun was still up, but just barely. He needed to pee badly and he stood, walked back to the aft rail and let loose. The sea was smooth as glass, barely a breath of air stirred. He looked at the headsail -- June had already rolled it up, ditto the mainsail, and she'd tied off the boom to keep it from slatting around. He looked at the chartplotter: Makatea was on their port beam about ten miles off. It wasn't dark enough yet to see any navigational lights on the west coast.

"You awake up there?"

"Yeah, I think so. What day is it!"

"Ha-ha! You had me worried there for a while! You cracked off a good eight hours!"

"Slept through my watch?"

"You had a fever."

"Shit."

"You hungry yet?"

"Not really. Actually, I feel kinda queasy."

"What!? You? Old Iron Stomach?"

"Well, there you have it, ladies and germs. Film at eleven!"

"Here!" she called out; a cup with Gatorade appeared from down below, followed by a cup of chicken noodle soup.

He ate the soup and it tasted good, then he sipped Gatorade while he regarded the chartplotter for a while. He reached up and put the radar on standby. "What do the batteries look like?" he asked. With any luck the solar panels and wind generator would have topped off the primary bank this afternoon.

"Looks like ninety eight percent of full," he heard from below. With the fridge and chartplotter going all night he might have to fire up the engine to top-off the batteries during the night, depending on how often he used the radar.

"Okay. The bilge dry?"

"Ten-four." He heard her cycling through switches on the main panel, then: "Weatherfax is clear. That storm is about four hundred miles northeast. There's a low down below Tahiti."

"Right," he said, their routine both familiar and absolute. He'd not have to ask her to put all that stuff in the logbook; he knew everything would be there, all in her obsessively neat handwriting. He cycled on the radar now that it had 'warmed-up' and he set the range circles to sixteen miles. A handful of targets, probably all cruising sailboats, blossomed on the screen. "Go ahead and flip on the lights."

"Is there anything on Makatea?" he heard her ask while he stood and walked the deck.

"Not much. I think about a hundred folks. That movie with Harrison Ford was supposed to have taken place here."

That got her attention.

"Oh! Which one?"

"Oh, you know, he played some washed up old pilot; he and the blond-haired, blue-eyed beauty crash land on the deserted island in a thunderstorm..." he kept his hands on the lifelines as he made his way forward.

"Oh, you mean 'Indiana Jones goes to Gilligan's Island'!"

"The very one!" He heard her laughter down below and he smiled. He loved the sound of her laughter... always had. He checked the nav lights one by one then walked back to the cockpit. "Lights are good."

"Okay." Next he heard her rummaging around in the locker by the chart table, then metal banging on the galley stove; she crawled up from the cabin a moment later holding two safety harnesses. She hooked them up to the 'jack-lines' that ran from bow to stern; if either fell overboard they'd remain attached to the ship -- presumably long enough to yell and wake the other before drowning or being eaten by Godzilla. She pressed the 'battery-test' button on the attached strobes then handed one to David while she slipped hers on. The rule on-board was simple: the harness stayed on after dark -- no matter what, no excuses. It was a pain in the ass to go below while hooked-up, but it was better than drowning.

"You must be exhausted," he said. She sat beside him, snuggled under his arm.

"Um-hm-m." She looked up and gave him a gentle kiss. She was dozing within moments but jerked awake, shook herself.

"You okay?"

"Yeah... bad dream or something. Weird. Mind if I go below. I think I need some solid sleep."

He kissed her on the top of her head. "Go ahead, doll."

She dropped below; he heard her unclip from the safety harness and walk forward to the vee-berth, then brushing teeth -- and finally the lights went out.

He dimmed the chartplotter to preserve his nightvision, watched as the wind gauge registered a puff, then another. Within a few minutes a gentle breeze filled in and he rolled out the headsail; there was just enough wind to fill it and soon the boat was slicing through the water at a gentle three knots. He cycled through nav screens to the radar, noted the positions of the boats in his mind, then switched back to the plotter. Makatea was sliding steadily astern; soon it disappeared into the darkness and he scanned the horizon. Not another vessel in sight. He dropped below and made a log entry, then climbed back into the cockpit.

And through it all, through all the chatter and the walking around, through dinner and while he watched instruments record their progress, the dull, grinding pain grew steadily, insistently more painful. He watched Orion slide down to the western horizon; first Rigel slipped from view, then the cotton-ball shaped nebula in the middle of his sword, and finally, Betelgeuse. More time drifted by, still the pain in his pelvis grated away within.

"I need a fucking Tylenol," he said to the stars; he was unable to concentrate anymore. He edged over to the companionway and unclipped his harness, slipped quietly down the steps and took two tablets from the small bottle inside the chart table, got a glass of water and took the pills. He leaned forward, gripped the edges of the table when a deep, piercing pain sliced through his gut. Cold sweat formed, began running down his neck and a shiver arced through him like an errant electric current. For a moment he couldn't remember where he was...

Ka-wooomph. The boat lurched, something thudded alongside.

He scurried up the companionway, flashlight in hand, leaned to port -- nothing -- then hopped to the starboard rail.

An Orca -- was it the same one? -- was there, its body vertical, its head jutting high from the water.

"What the heck are you doing here, buddy?"

The animal shook, water thrashed around it's pectorals. Agitated, he thought, the thing looks agitated. Not angry... more... scared than anything else...

The big male leaned its head away from the boat and he heard another animal thrashing not far away; he shined his old Mag-lite out into the inky blackness and saw the calf again, its mother trying to support it from below. It was wrapped in a pale blue gill-net, thrashing and -- obviously about to drown. Without thinking he darted below and grabbed his knife, then bolted up the steps and in one smooth motion dove overboard; he swam the few yards to the thrashing calf and began frantically slicing away the netting. He cut himself once, grateful the salt water didn't sting too badly, and hacked away the last strands of the net. The calf burst free and disappeared under the water; once again he felt the big male by his side and he turned, looked into its eye.

"Oh fuck," the man said. "Oh my God, no."

The boat was now several hundred yards away, the freshening breeze filled the headsail, her speed was picking up. He sat motionless in the water -- motionless -- as he saw the shape of the end of his life taking form in the air before his eyes. He turned, looked to see if the whale was still there, but it too had slipped away from him.

+++++

She got up in the middle of the night and stumbled into the head, heard the sails pulling, the bow-wave gurgling and hissing its way astern. She smiled and crawled back into the warm berth. She'd been dreaming of the time he'd first kissed her, and she hoped the dream would still be there, waiting.

+++++

She felt the sunlight on her face and looked up; the sun high overhead.

"David? Why'd you let me sleep so long?"

Silence.

"David?"

She felt a little annoyed. Obviously he'd fallen asleep at the wheel. She slipped out of bed and padded back to the galley... Nothing... the stove unused, everything as it had been last night...

"David?"

Then she saw his safety harness, unclipped.

Cold fear jabbed at her belly as she leapt into the cockpit. She turned, looked forward; a purple wall of thunderstorms lay ahead, lightning rippled through roiling clouds. The island of Tetiaroa was ahead and well to her right; even Tahiti was visible now through the low-scudding clouds. She jumped to the wheel and hit the man-overboard button and fired-up the engine, rolled in the headsail and engaged the autopilot, then grabbed the radio and flipped it to the emergency frequency:

"Mayday-mayday-mayday, this is sailing vessel Sirius calling mayday-mayday-mayday."

"Sailing vessel calling Tahiti Ocean Rescue, go ahead."

"Tahiti, my position is 16 degrees 51 minutes south, 149 degrees zero four minutes west, we've had a man-overboard during the night!"

"Sailing vessel Sirius, are you onboard, uh, alone?"

"Affirmative, Rescue. We were southbound from Rangiroa... standby one..." She jumped down and grabbed the logbook... looked at David's scrawled entry on the page and her heart filled with a mixture of pride and fear... then she jumped back up to the radio...

"Ah, rescue, his last log entry was at 2200 hours, at 16 21 27 south by 148 46 17 west."

"Ah, Sirius," came a strong voice rich with a clipped English accent, "this is sailing vessel Achilles, we copy and are ten point three miles behind you. We'll analyze that track and commence our search."

"Rescue, this is the sailing vessel Jumpin' Jack Flash, I have us about five miles east of Achilles. Can we help?"

"Tahiti Ocean Rescue to all search vessels, be advised a strong line of storms with high winds and lightning is passing the island at this time; all aircraft are grounded. We anticipate clearing in about two hours; dispatching cutter to assist at this time. Achilles, can you search north and west of your track?"

"Achilles, roger north and west."

"Ocean rescue to Jumpin' Jack Flash, can you search west then south?"

"Yeah man, that's cool, south then west."

"Ocean Rescue to Sirus, advise you reverse course at this time and search east of track, repeat east of your earlier track, due to east setting currents overnight."

The woman listened to the chatter, scrawled notes in pencil on the logbook beneath her husband's last entry. "Sirius, received, my course is zero four four magnetic..."

+++++

He lay on his back for a while, kept his lungs full of air to keep his body as buoyant as possible, his legs tucked up to preserve what warmth was still left in his body. The waves had been, so far, mercifully small; now he could see dark storm clouds swallowing jagged Tahitian mountains, spitting lightning out like angry, fractured bones -- and he knew, just knew this storm would be his undoing. He held the flashlight in his right hand, the Swiss Army knife in his left. He was getting thirsty and his gut burned.

He felt a rolling swell move through the water, felt his body lift on a wave; he raised his head and looked around at the crest then lay flat again as he fell into the passing trough. Nothing. No one. He felt his hair flowing in the current, felt water sloshing against his ear-drums; every now and then a wave found him dozing and stinging brine burned his eyes.

"Don't give up!" he heard her saying.

"I won't."

Time passed. Slowly. The sun overhead began to burn the flesh on his face. And he was thirsty. Alone in a limitless ocean of water... and he was thirsty.

+++++

"Ocean Rescue to all search vessels, be advised we have an aircraft en route. Sirius, we advise you begin a zig-zag course at this time."

"Sirius received."

"Ah, Achilles here, reporting a large pod of Killer Whales in this vicinity, appear to be south bound."

"Rescue received and understood."

'Now what the fuck does that mean?' the woman said to herself. 'What? Do they think the goddamn whales are going to eat David?' She brought the binoculars that hung from her neck up to her eyes and scanned the horizon for dorsal fins.

Lightning cracked overhead and she winced. She resisted the urge to disconnect the GPS and radio -- to spare them in a strike -- but she knew she'd have to chance it, knew that without them she'd be hopelessly disconnected from the world. Another blistering crack rent the air, the shattering noise seemingly right on top of her head, her hair standing on end now, the air full of ozone but still no rain, still no wind. Sirius rose on a wave and she she saw something, she turned towards whatever it was -- then saw it was a whitecap forming as the wind moved in. Her hair flew in the first ragged gusts, wind howled in the rigging and she watched as the wind gauge leapt to thirty five, then forty knots. Sirius heeled ponderously as a heavy gust slammed into her, the wind gauge leapt yet again, this time to seventy knots and the woman struggled to right the little ship, to keep her on course. Blinding rain fell in horizontal sheets, visibility dropped to a few yards.