Seahawk

Today is April 31, he wrote in the logbook, still no radio contact. Approximately twenty some miles to Marathon. He smiled.

“Still, no contact.” he called up through the hatchway.

She looked over at the horizon, thinking about what they will be able to eat once ashore. She thought about anything but fish, but first vanilla ice cream; a triple scoop of tilting sweet milk on a perfect cone. She thought about sleeping in a bed. They could afford one night in a hotel or motel just to turn on the tv and sleep sprawled out and laugh at the news or a comedy or a drama or a movie. We could go to a movie. She looked forward toward the shore knowing that the low Florida coastline would not be seen until they were within seven miles and they were now about thirty miles out. She looked at the winch and the braided line loose around it waiting to change tack and be pulled tight. With this breeze, she though we might not need to tack.

Seahawk moved along forming white caps on both sides that vanished before getting back alongside the cockpit being pulled under by the surge of the hull. She was steady and fast as though knowing that home and stillness was just a few hours away. Way over two thousand miles under her from the Canaries without a stop with a steady breeze and nice wind. They had been lucky except for the radio contact.

He came up through the hatchway balancing with elbows nudging the sides of the cabin with two cups in hand. He was smiling in that awkward way that he had when he was a bit tipsy. She smiled back at him.

“Put the auto on and take a break.” he proffered the cup and she smelled the rum.

“What’s this?” she asked, surprised that he wanted to drink while still underway.

“It is to our last day at sea.” he was toasting the ocean. Turning to her, he said, “I figure we will have about a couple of hours before we have to really concentrate on what is ahead so why not spend this last bit of time before busy-ness takes hold.”

She raised her cup, also to the sea, “ To the feeling of dropping an anchor and stopping motion.”

“Amen.” he said before gulping the contents of his cup. His eyes widened and began to water.

She laughed, “Can’t take it, ol’ Matey?” then put her cup down on the seat, moving to turn the auto-pilot on. She turned back, picked up the cup and drained it of the small amount he apparently had measured out. The caramel taste of the liquid sent a small burning sensation down her throat and she almost coughed but felt the luxury of something different take over her body from top to stomach. There was the thought to take a nap. It was her watch and that was not in the cards.

A buzz of a voice came out of the cabin and he rushed down to respond without looking at her. She could hear his soft responses and the buss muffle on the other end of the receiver. The buzz stopped and he started yelling into the mike for a response but the buss did not return.

She called down,”What was it? Who was it?”

He came back up with his empty cup in hand. He looked angry and sad at the same time. “They fucking finally did it.”

“Did what? You’re getting me nervous, now. Who did what? Drop a bomb or something?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“They dropped the bomb.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“He went off the air but he heard us trying to reach somebody this morning and when I told him that we just crossed the Atlantic he said don’t come back here. He said he had to go, just wanted to make contact and will try again when they are settled.”

“Settled?” she was shaking her head at the calm, steady breeze playing on the sea all around. She thought, no movie? Where did they drop this bomb and what kind of bomb? she wondered not knowing that she was talking aloud.

“I don’t know.” he was sitting sideways on the top stair looking out at the horizon. “That’s why no contact on the VHS; there was nobody on the lines. This must be serious if the military isn’t on the line.?”

He looked into his empty cup, then at the Popeye character on the cup, then put the cup down on the step bolstered by his thigh. Little details seemed important as his gaze moved from the cup to his wife’s eyes. “He didn’t say we were at war or anything like that just that a bomb had been dropped and we should not come back. I don’t know where he thought we should go? Why would he say not to come back? Fall out or something?”

She was still not quite picking up on all of this. A bomb. A bomb dropped. Where?

An hour later when her watch was over, she immediately went to the radio-telephone and called out, unanswered for the next half hour until he told her to get some rest since they were going to need it especially now.

It was an hour and a half into his watch when he was taking a leak leaning against the starboard shroud looking at a shimmer of what could be land and got excited,. Then fell overboard.

In the water he looked at Seahawk’s hull passing by him. He reached out and felt the hull steadily moving by and looked up at the shrouds where he must of have grabbed at the air thinking it was the lower shroud and fell in. He yelled out for her to help get him back aboard. As Seahawk showed her stern to him, he yelled again louder while treading water. The inflatable vest inflated and he thought about having to replace the propellant cylinder and if there was a war problem that might be difficult and probably expensive. They always profited in war, didn’t they, he thought, as Seahawk kept sailing away toward the West. He called out again, and then again, remembering she was probably below sleeping. Then, he thought and said aloud, “Shit!”.

She woke suddenly and instantly looked at her watch. She shook her head, and spoke to the watch, “He let me sleep a couple of extra hours.” She stretched and put on her life vest, coupling her safety harness and stuffing the lifeline into her shorts pocket. Standing called for another stretch and the thought to surprise him with the last of their canned bolognese as a dinner treat. She turned on the stove, noticing he was not at the helm but the auto was moving the tiller like it should.

“Thanks for letting me sleep.” she called up.

No answer. He was probably up forward wanting to be the one to sight the land. She imagined him sitting there hunkered down with his back against the cabin looking up at the jib and staysail and out toward Florida. She looked at her watch again. It was five thirty-two. He will be calling out, Land Ho, or some dribble like that that he had remembered from some movie. She would come up with dinner, spaghetti bolognese with plenty of canned tomato and lots of onion and garlic and a side of canned peas.

The aroma of the cooking made her smile since it would soon be a last meal before steak or lobster or even a hamburger. She thought of ice cream again and then remembered the VHF and the bomb. She pulled down the microphone and called out, “Sailing yacht Seahawk, anybody this station, over?” She repeated that over a few times and returned to the cooking.

She yelled up, “Still no contact.”

He was swimming toward the West, thinking, she would get up and see that he wasn’t there and turn Seahawk around and retrace the course and find him. He just needed to not get eaten by a shark and keep swimming in the direction that Seahawk’s masts disappeared and keep the sun in an alignment with that course. He just kept his strokes even and slow to conserve energy. Every now and then he would smile at himself for falling overboard.

She found some candles and stuck one into the meat sauce and lit it, smiling all the while. She balanced herself on the steps and climbed up with her head moving around the boat to see where he was. She didn’t see him but thought he probably is laying on the fore deck asleep. This was great, she thought and smiled to herself as she gained the cockpit and set the plate down on the cockpit bench.

She called forward, “Okay, wakey wakey. Diners up.”

He didn’t answer and she could not see his head so she took out her safety belt and hooked it onto the safety line, climbed over the cockpit coaming onto the deck and went forward rocking with the movement of the boat over the seaway. No feet, no head, no body… She looked back around the boat thinking he was somehow playing hide and seek. But that was no logical since there was nowhere to hide on deck. She lifted the fore hatch and called down, “Found you, come on out.” and chuckled at his clever hiding place wherever it was. Her brow furrowed with the thought that maybe he wasn’t aboard. But, where could he go? Her head jerked around to the sea, then all around the sea’s horizon as she screamed out, “This ain’t funny. Where are you?”

He couldn’t hear her screams as he started counting his strokes and imagining her return to him just over the horizon he would see the masts as he stroked and stroked. Left right left right seventeen eighteen nineteen. Water kept sloshing into his mouth and the sun beat down on his head and back. His t-shirt probably pulled at his progress but it was his favourite one with Santana on the front with that hat of his that he had a copy of. But, maybe he could get another one was his thought as he looked around for a shark fin and stopped to tread water while working the clinging t-shirt up and over as he sunk under the water until it was finally off. He resurfaced, blew water out of his nose and spit it out of his mouth looking at the t-shirt waving under in the clear water. He thought maybe a shark will be wearing it some day pulled up by a fisherman. He almost smiled at that humour but began stroking again and searching for the sun to find his course, then looking of Seahawk’s masts.

She ran around the deck twice looking over the side for him hanging on, then she searched below under the mattresses and even in the drawers where she did find the pen he lost in Spain. She decided that in place of looking in drawers she should turn the boat around and retrace their course. She looked at the compass and saw the bit of swing that the automatic steering made and estimated the reverse course. When she looked up Florida rose from the horizon as though it was rapidly growing. She turned off the steering mechanism and came about to head on the reverse heading not knowing when he went overboard or even if he hadn’t hit his head and drowned.

Night was coming, he thought looking at the sun being a little above the horizon. He stroked and stroked and counted four hundred and six four hundred and seven four hundred and eight. She would not find him in the dark so he had only a couple of hours left until feeding time for the sharks. Four hundred and what number was it? Four hundred and well, let’s say twenty. Four hundred and twenty-one four hundred and twenty-two four hundred and twenty-three.

As darkness came so did his weariness. He did not see her anywhere and he had to rest somehow. So, he put his head up and let his legs relax and his feet touched sand. His head was above the water and his feet touched sand. Ahead of him were little flickers of lights ranging from one side to the other. Land?

II Lost him

As night fell she was left shaking her head in disbelief. He could not just be gone like that. They had just crossed the Atlantic Ocean, weathering four real storms, grown into each other as they never had on land. They had learned to laugh at their own sillinesses and cry at there past crazinesses in each other’s arms. They were warm. They were wonderful. They were they. He was gone and she was now just she.

Everything around her was a part of them. But, he was gone. He was not there. Her mind kept telling her that he was just over there or about to climb aboard or a heavenly spirit just on the other side of that cloud. She had been sailing with the lights on for more than two hours and another two hours before she thought to put the lights on while there was still light. She listened for any slight noise but all she heard was Seahawk’s efficiently and relentlessly caressing the seaways.

Before midnight she gave up. She didn’t know the time exactly but logged the course change at 2330 April 31, 2042.