Charlotte squinted into the night. The moon caught the silvery back coming out of the water, and then a slow, giant tail, almost as long as the Gypsea herself, rose from the water and sank below the surface again.
Nancy realized she was holding her breath, transfixed by the quiet majesty.
Charlotte reached for Nancy’s arm. Together they sat there and stared down at the black water, marveling at what they had witnessed and hoping for the whale to come back up.
“What kind was it?”
“Out here, it was likely a Pacific Fin whale. Probably on her way down to Mexico to have her baby.”
Charlotte smiled, and her eyes lit up. “Have a good journey, Mama Fin.” She looked out over the water, and then she snuggled into her gran. Nancy put an arm around her. The moon shone bright, and for a glittering, peaceful moment, Nancy forgot all about the race.
* * *
The wind had dropped off some, but it was still chilly. They sailed through the night. A few more hours had passed, and soon the skies would turn pink with the dawn, and the wind would start to grow stronger before dying at midmorning. Nancy was obsessed with the weather reports like a new mother with a baby monitor. More than anything, she hoped Santiago was right. She hoped for the weather pattern to stay as they’d predicted. She hoped.
Charlotte finally grew tired and went below to try to take a short nap. Lois came up to join Nancy and to keep watch for ships or rocky outcroppings.
“Are you sure you don’t need a break?” Lois asked.
“Nah. I’m running on gummy bears, coffee, and pure adrenaline.”
Lois wrapped her black wool sweater around her and looked out over the sea.
“Your impending divorce might just be the best thing that ever happened to a bunch of old hens like us. Three months ago I was considering taking up scrapbooking. You know, where you buy tiny clothespins and decorative rolls of tape? Scrapbooking, for Christ’s sake!” She let out a mystified laugh.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” Nancy interjected.
“But instead I’m out here on a boat in the middle of the Pacific, risking life, limb, and possible drowning at sea. I’ve never felt more alive!”
“Slightly better than tiny clothespins …”
Lois studied the horizon and mused, “I know everyone has their own recipe for happiness. For some, its money. Or travel. Or Netflix bingeing. Maybe even scrapbooking. But the longer I’m around, the more I realize the thing that gets me going is to have a purpose. Doing nothing made me feel old for the first time. Might have even made me a little paranoid.”
Nancy realized Lois’s hypochondria might have been born of simple boredom.
“What’s the point of trying to live forever if you’re going to be dull about it, if you’re not going to do anything special with all that time you have left?”
Lois’s rhetorical question hung above the boat like an unanswered prayer. She continued, “As long as we’re still breathing, we still have a chance to make it count, to make the most of it, to make it ours.”
“These past few months have been the craziest, hardest, most painful, and yet the most exhilarating of my life,” Nancy said. “And I don’t know what’s next.”
“Silly girl.” Lois let out another laugh and added, “That’s the best part.”
And just like that, the long-dormant dreams in Nancy’s heart began to bloom again. She felt hope without doubt and knew that it led to a freedom of a totally different kind.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
THE SONG OF THE MERMAID
“All hands on deck!” Lois yelled below.
The girls scurried up to the cockpit. Judy was still adjusting her scarf and Charlotte was wiping sleep out of her eyes but desperately trying to wake up as Lois came up with another pot of coffee.
“What’s going on?” Judy asked, concerned. Charlotte sat next to Judy, like a good soldier trying to stand at attention.
“Look,” Nancy said, and pointed eastward.
The sun was about to break over the mountains of northern Baja. All the girls turned to watch the flicker of the sun’s rays rise and beam across the sea, bathing the Gypsea in golden light as the clouds lit up like enormous pink cotton balls behind them.
Nancy gently interrupted the moment. “All right,” she said softly. “We’re heading into the last stretch of this race. Most of the other boats that took the more direct rhumb line are ahead of us. But they’re going to be facing lighter winds when they turn toward Ensenada. They won’t be as fast. We’ll soon be far enough south, so when we make our final jibe and fly the spinnaker, we’ll come into Ensenada like a song, on a straight and fast run that just might get us across the line first.”
The girls looked at each other, expressions of doubt on their faces. They’d brought out the old spinnaker only twice during their training nights, and it had never gone well. The spinnaker was the largest sail, and when it filled with wind, it ballooned out in front of the boat, which was why it was called “flying.” Problem is, it could collapse as fast as it could billow out. So, the wind and the direction had to be dead, solid perfect. In fact, a spinnaker fail, going as fast as they were, could make them keel over so far it might be disastrous. Nancy knew the boat could go over, with her best friends and granddaughter on board. And they were way the hell out in the middle of nowhere. She steeled her resolve, stopped conjuring up worst-case scenarios, and tried to tamp down her fear.
“I know we haven’t had the best of luck with the spinnaker,” Nancy said, sensing her crew’s unease, “but I have a hunch we’re due. We know what we need to accomplish. And there’s no one in the world I trust more than you, my Mermaids. Are we ready?”
Judy adjusted her glasses and scarf and said, “That crowd better be ready for the Mermaids,” and put out her hand in the middle of them. Lois quickly joined her with her hand. Then Charlotte nodded and added hers. Finally, Nancy joined. “Mermaids!”
“We’re heading south on this outside line for about three more minutes, and then we make our move.”
Everyone nodded.
The Gypsea was sailing fast and sure, and before long, the other racing boats came into view in the distance. Through the binoculars, Nancy could see Roger and Bucephalus in the lead, followed closely by Turk and Hot Rum. A long line of boats pursued the leaders.
Charlotte took another look through the binoculars. “Gran, Grandpa Rog looks pretty confident up there in the lead.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve never met a man so confidently wrong as Roger,” Lois said.
“He doesn’t like surprises,” Nancy said.
“Explains a lot,” Judy added.
This was it. The final two miles to the finishing line. The sun glinted off the water as the sun rose high above the Northern Baja mountains that cradled Emerald Bay and the Port of Ensenada.
The Gypsea was traveling fast enough that seawater sprayed over the bow as they rode the rolling current. The wind was constant and steady. The crowds that gathered at the marina’s edge were growing. Brightly colored umbrellas dotted the docks, and the sound of cowbells rang out from people cheering on the sailors. They could just make out the E72 buoy mark where the boats would make their final turn before sailing straight downwind to the finish line at the Ensenada Marina.
Nancy held the helm, staying on her line. A line that was taking her farther outside—away from the final buoy—and likely losing them further ground to Roger. Her mind was racing. It was now or never. Santiago’s words came back to her.
There is a secret westerly wind. It’s more powerful than the winds in Hurricane Gulch up in Cabrillo. It comes in way offshore, and it should happen just around the time the vessels are rounding the cliffs to come into Ensenada. Go out, way out. So far out that the other boats think you’re abandoning the race. And she will greet you. When she does, be ready.
Santiago had told her of the famous wind that few sailors knew about off the coast. He had studied the weather, and this year conditions were
perfect for this unpredictable zephyr to send them screaming back into Ensenada. But it was a huge risk.
Nancy was leading them directly to the spot that Santiago had pointed to on her nautical chart. Her plan was to jibe toward Ensenada the second Santiago’s winds hit. The risk lay in the extra distance they’d have to travel. If Santiago’s winds weren’t there, they’d likely come in dead last. As she kept her line, she saw the look of worry on the girls’ faces. “I know, I know. Trust me.”
For the next ninety seconds, the Gypsea maintained her course at the point where the winds would come up.
But right then, the wind died.
The sails flapped and went slack. She looked up at her wind vane. It lazily rocked back and forth. They had entered a dead calm.
She looked at her watch and then looked up at the boats all sailing toward the finish line.
“Come on,” Nancy said, more to herself than the others. Lois busied herself with organizing some line. Charlotte squinted into the sun, looking toward the shore. Judy sat there with her winch handles at the ready.
“Wait for it,” Nancy muttered as doubt filled her. No wind. She couldn’t wait any longer, they had to jibe directly to shore and the finish line. “Let’s bring out the kite,” Nancy said, referring to the spinnaker.
Judy and Charlotte headed up to the bow to unleash the spinnaker, but without wind, it almost hung limply in the water. They had to hold it up so it didn’t spill into the sea. Another minute passed without a whisper of a breeze. Nancy shook her head and massaged her forehead. “Maybe I was wrong …” The boat sat there, barely moving. Doubt and dread crept in.
In that moment, Judy completely abandoned her indecisive nature and piped up, “No, it’s coming. Be ready.”
Nancy looked at her and had never loved her best friend more than in that moment when she needed it most. She beamed at Judy and then looked skyward and said a little prayer to her mom, Grace, who might have been watching. She whispered, “If you’ve got any pull up there with the Sky Chief, Mom …”
Nancy looked out to the vast, open sea and saw tiny ripples appear on the water all around them. A gust of wind whipped her hair back.
“Here it comes!” Charlotte yelled.
Nancy turned her back on the approaching wind and readied herself at the helm, hand steady on the tiller, sure of her direction, and waited for it to take her.
The wind began to fill the spinnaker slowly, and then all at once, it billowed out with a loud snap before them.
Known for their bright colors, spinnaker sails were a good way to tell one boat from another out at sea. Some more colorful sailors had them designed to more properly represent their personality. And that’s just what Nancy had done. Her new spinnaker had arrived a week before the race, so the girls hadn’t even seen it. She’d wanted to keep it a surprise. So, when the wind finally filled it and the girls could see it in all its glory, they beamed at Nancy. Charlotte and Lois even fist-bumped, which was saying something for a teen.
Nancy had the mainsail and the jib all the way out for a full downwind run, but it was their beautiful new spinnaker that made all the difference. They felt a jolt of speed as the boat went surging through the water so fast it created a wake. They smiled broadly as they felt their speed. Charlotte went up to the bow.
“We’re closing in fast, Gran!”
It was true. The Gypsea was flying, and with every passing minute they were closing the gap on the other boats heading into Todos Santos Bay and the Port of Ensenada.
* * *
From the shore, onlookers witnessed twenty to thirty boats racing along the coastline, all coming south toward Todos Santos Bay on a glorious morning. The boats that had taken the inside line were under the cliffs, sailing in the light and variable winds.
“Dios mio, qué pasa?” An elderly onlooker shielded her eyes from the sun.
A small group standing at the marina’s edge of the Emerald Hotel, who had been paying attention to the incoming boats along the coast, suddenly pointed out to sea, directly west.
“La sirena!” A man exclaimed, but the English speakers had no idea what he was talking about. “Gringos,” he grumbled. Then he pointed excitedly and said in English, “The mermaid!”
This got the attention of Faye Woodhall, who stood with a morning brandy in her hand, watching the boats head toward the finish line. She, too, looked to the west. There she saw a massive spinnaker sail coming directly toward the marina at great speed. It had a beautiful giant mermaid on it, her golden hair flowing back over her turquoise scales. Faye smiled genuinely for the first time since the Reagan administration, moved to get a better vantage point, and murmured, “Come on, Mermaids.”
* * *
Roger and his crew were still in the lead, despite the light winds that were affecting all the boats besides Nancy’s on her outside line.
Roger saw Turk about two boat lengths behind him off Bucephalus’s port side. The other boats were far enough behind that Roger knew it was going to come down to him and Turk once again. All he and his crew had to do was make one last perfect jibe around the final buoy a half mile ahead, set their spinnaker, and pick up the trophy. Then Roger looked out to sea and saw it for himself.
A boat, with a mermaid spinnaker, was coming in at a crazy angle from the west on a straight run directly to the finish line. And it was coming in fast. They wouldn’t need to jibe at the final buoy. He couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be her.
He got his binoculars out as he cursed in broken Swedish to his ringer crew to do something, anything. He peered through the lens to see Nancy broadly smiling as she hurtled toward the finish line. Judy and Lois were on the lines; Charlotte was at the bow. He could not let this happen.
He bellowed at his crew to do something, which utterly confused them. They were on a perfect line to win the race.
Roger wildly pointed to Nancy’s boat flying toward the final mark. The Swedes had obviously been thinking about all the beautiful senoritas they would be flirting with at the trophy presentation and hadn’t noticed the interloper from the west.
Even the Swedes were a bit rattled, but then Magnus, being one of the best tacticians in the world, calmly informed Roger that he was certain they would beat the other boat to the mark and that, because they would be the leeward boat, they would have the right of way.
“Hold your course, Mr. Hadley. We’ve got them covered,” Magnus said in broken English.
“It’s Captain Hadley!” Roger hated that the smug Swede was telling him what to do, but he angrily held his course.
A key rule of racing was that as you approached a mark, for three boat lengths around it the leeward boat had the right of way and all other boats would have to give way.
Roger—well, actually Magnus—had made the same calculation, and a wide grin appeared on Roger’s face when he realized he had Nancy snookered. Another win was literally right around the corner, and this one would be the sweetest of all. Maybe he’d even take Claire to Kauai to celebrate.
They were closing in on the final mark, and Gypsea and Bucephalus were on a collision course. Roger let out a wild laugh. Knowing Nancy’s nature, she would have to luff off and watch him win it all again.
But Nancy did no such thing. She was within twenty meters of Roger and headed directly at his beam. Roger couldn’t believe it. She was going to T-bone Bucephalus and put them all in real danger—
Just then, Nancy steered slightly behind Roger’s stern and missed Bucephalus by less than three meters. She immediately spun the wheel hard to starboard, and the Gypsea followed and swept up underneath Bucephalus. This meant that Nancy was on the leeward tack and inside Roger as they approached the final mark. She had outsmarted him with a legendary sailing move—the same move Humphrey Bogart had used to win the inaugural Border Dash back in the forties. The move was called Humphrey’s Hook.
The Swedes instantly realized that Nancy had outwitted them and that she now had the right of way. They were about to bear away
when Roger maniacally bellowed, “Hold your line!” The strapping Swedes looked at their captain, who was now red in the face, and then looked at each other.
The boats were going to collide. Nancy had the right of way, but the most important rule of racing was to protect your crew. As Nancy held her line and the two boats were close enough to send a jolt of adrenaline down her spine, even the crowd on shore gave a collective gasp that carried across the water like a vocal tsunami. Then Bucephalus veered wildly to the right and miraculously cleared a path to the buoy before her.
Magnus, professional sailor that he was, had pushed Roger aside and grabbed the wheel to honor the rules of racing.
Mutiny was a serious offense. Historically, you could hang from the gallows for disobeying a captain’s direct order. The Swedes knew this. But they also knew a crazy captain when they saw one. They weren’t about to put themselves or another boat, with a child on it, no less, in danger for a recreational race. So, they disobeyed Roger and saved themselves from a collision, which allowed Nancy to round the mark in first, and with the best spinnaker reset in their short sailing history, the girls deftly had the boat back up to full speed within seconds.
Nancy briefly looked back and saw Turk and Hot Rum round the mark in second while Roger frantically tried to take back control of Bucephalus from the Swedes. He was raging and turning purple, two shades darker than eggplant, bellowing at his mutinous crew.
Nancy gave a quick wave and wink to Turk, who congenially waved back. It took Nancy and her crew of Mermaids a few seconds to realize what now was certain—they were going to win the race, and they had outsailed and outsmarted Roger to do it. Nancy bit her bottom lip and tried not to cry from sheer joy.
Ten seconds later the mermaids crossed the finish line, a full minute ahead of Turk on Hot Rum. They looked around at each other, making sure this was actually happening. The race master waved the victory flag and announced the Gypsea as the winner over the loudspeaker. They broke out into a laughter born of relief and joy. They had won the Border Dash. The Mermaids had won.
Beware the Mermaids Page 27