The Pulse

by Scott B. Williams

  “They don’t usually mess with you if you don’t hang around too long,” Larry said. “Like Scully said, as soon as you spear a fish, get it out of the water as fast as possible to minimize the blood.”

  Artie was still skeptical a half hour later, when, anchored over the reef, he put on a mask and snorkel and sat on the edge of the deck with a pair of fins. Scully was already in the water, and Artie could see him free-diving effortlessly into the winding and convoluted canyons between the coral, his dreadlocks streaming behind him as he cruised 20 feet below, with his speargun at ready.

  By the time Artie was in the water, still swimming by the boat and looking around beneath the surface with his mask, Scully was on the way back to the boat with a two-and-a-half-foot long, heavy-bodied fish impaled on his spear. Artie found out later it was a Nassau grouper, a reef fish much sought after in the Bahamas that is much more scarce near the populated islands. The Anguilla Cays were so far from the rest of the Bahamian islands they may as well have been in another country, and from what Artie could see as he snorkeled along the surface, Larry had not been exaggerating about the possibilities for stocking the boat with fresh fish. The only problem was that, for Artie, handling the awkward Hawaiian sling spear gun underwater was difficult enough, on top of the fact that to get within range of the fish, it was necessary to hold your breath and swim down to at least 15 feet or deeper to reach the coral. Artie had little experience using the snorkeling gear, and even less free-diving to any depth. By the time he got close enough to start looking for potential prey, he invariably felt the need to return to the surface for air. When he did get a shot at a grouper, the stainless-steel spear missed by a wide margin and went into a patch of sand on the bottom, a good 25 feet deep. He tried twice to reach it, each time having to abandon the attempt and lunge for the surface for another breath before he could reach the bottom. Finally, Scully came to his rescue and got the spear. By this time, Scully already had more than a half-dozen fish on the decks of the Casey Nicole, and when Artie saw a 10-foot shark swimming around just on the edge of his visibility limit, he made for the boarding ladder as fast as he could.

  “Sorry, little brother, but I guess we would starve to death if we were dependent upon my abilities as a hunter.”

  “That’s all right, Doc. It takes practice. You’ll get your chance again.”

  Artie marveled at the array of fish Scully had lain out on the teak slats of the forward deck. When he finally came aboard and took off his gear, he had one last prize—a huge spiny lobster, which he held up for Larry with a grin.

  “You’re the man, Scully!” Larry was ecstatic about the lobster. “Scully won’t eat lobster,” he explained to Artie. “But he got one for us, since I couldn’t do it myself.”

  “Dat’s not I-tal, mon,” he said when Artie asked if he did not like lobster. “A Rasta don’t to eat dem lobstah, crab and animal like dat—only fish. But if I an’ I got not’ing to eat, not to worry ’bout dat, gonna eat dem too.”

  “Well, too bad for you, Scully, but the Doc and I are going to have lobster tail for breakfast, so we need to get going.” He said to Artie, “I told you this place would be worth a short stop, didn’t I?”

  An hour and a half later, with drying fillets of fish spread out on the decks, they were underway again on a broad reach, sailing over the smooth waters of the banks just inside the reefs that break up the swell from the open ocean. This was some of the best sailing of the whole trip, the wide, stable form of the catamaran gliding over a transparent sheet of smooth crystalline water that stretched as far as they could see over the shallow, sandy bottom of Cay Sal Bank.

  They were approaching the Damas Cays, the next islets north of the Anguillas on the rim of the atoll, when Scully spotted a sail out on the banks to the southwest. Closer inspection through Larry’s binoculars, which they all passed around for a better look, revealed that it was not just a single sail, but rather a two-masted schooner. It didn’t take long to ascertain that the distant vessel was coming their way, and Larry said it appeared to have adjusted course to intercept them if they continued on their present heading.

  “Who do you think they could be?” Artie asked.

  “It’s still too far away to tell, but it doesn’t look like your typical cruising yacht to me,” Larry said. “I’d say it’s over 60 feet, and probably built somewhere in the islands.”

  “Could be dem Cuban, mon.”

  “You’re right, Scully. Or Haitian. Or from the west, maybe Honduras or Belize. It’s been long enough now since the pulse that people who are able are probably starting to get on the move. There’s just no telling, but I don’t like the looks of this. Let’s bear off and get all the speed we can out of these sails while I look at the charts. There are some dangerous shoals just to the south of those cays ahead.”

  Scully eased the genoa sheet and adjusted the mainsheet traveler to leeward. They were on a broad reach, which was generally a faster point of sail on a catamaran than a dead downwind run. The morning breeze had been light while they were anchored over the reef, but now, as it was getting toward noon, the trade winds had freshened to 15 knots again. Artie glanced at the distant schooner and then at the wake behind their twin sterns. At its fastest speeds, the Tiki 36 created quite a bit of turbulence astern, and Larry estimated they were hitting 16 or 17 knots. The schooner wouldn’t be able catch them in an even race, no matter how much sail they piled on, but it had an angle advantage on them in relation to the wind, and it appeared it would intersect their course if they continued to the northwest inside the reefs of the bank. Artie could tell that Larry and Scully were both getting nervous about the situation, and he felt knots in his stomach thinking about the attack at Isleta Palominito.

  “I don’t like this,” Larry said, as he stared at the schooner through his binoculars. “They’ve adjusted their course again to account for our increased speed, and it looks like they’re trying to cut us off before we can reach the north end of the bank.”

  “What can we do?” Artie asked.

  “First of all, you can get my shotgun and bring it up on deck. There’s a couple of extra boxes of buckshot and slugs in the locker under the chart table.”

  This was the last thing Artie wanted to hear. The thought of having to use the gun again twisted the knots in his stomach even tighter. “How do we know what their intentions are?”

  Larry handed him the binoculars. “Take a look. It’s definitely not a family cruiser or vacation charter boat.”

  The schooner was now within a mile of the Casey Nicole, and with the binoculars, Artie could see that it was anything but a modern yacht. It looked as if it had been built back in the days when all ships harnessed the wind, and its peeling paint and stained and patched sails proved it was an island fisherman or cargo vessel, probably from Cuba. Despite its condition, it had obviously been built from plans that came from the drawing board of a skilled naval architect, evidenced by its graceful lines, raked masts, and purposeful bowsprit. It was clearly well sailed by its unknown crew, and Artie could see that if they didn’t do something different, they would be cut off soon. He handed the binoculars back to Larry and went below to get the gun as his brother had asked. When he came back on deck with it, Larry was grinning as he studied the chart while Scully steered. His new excitement had nothing to do with the gun being on deck.

  “You look too happy for a captain about to be run down by pirates, little brother.”

  “I’ve got a plan now, Doc. I’m about to show you why catamarans rule. Then you’ll know why I spent so much time building one.”

  “Aren’t we already going about as fast as she will go?”

  “I’ve got more tricks than speed up my sleeve,” Larry said. “Hang on. Just another quarter of a mile and we’ll be home free.”

  “Dat boat full of Cuban, mon.” Scully had the binoculars now while Artie took the helm and kept them on course. “Must be ten, maybe twelve on de rail. Probably got dem AK too. I hope you got a goo
d plan, Copt’n.”

  “Just pray to Jah the wind holds, Scully. We’re almost there.”

  Artie couldn’t see what “there” was. There was nothing ahead but more of the same pale green water and white sandy bottom clearly visible beneath it, while to their starboard side there were occasional rocks and crashing breakers where the open Atlantic was separated from the bank by reefs. He looked at the schooner again and was shocked to see how close it appeared. Just as it seemed hopeless to try and outrun it, he found out what Larry had in mind as his brother took the helm with his one good hand.

  “Okay, Scully, get ready. Just past those two rocks ahead I’m going to put her hard over to starboard. We’ll jibe and run off to the northeast straight outside. Artie! I need you on the forward deck. Help me look for coral heads. The chart shows an area with about two feet of water over the reef at low tide, but that’s still six hours away. We should be able to slide over as long as we don’t hit something sticking up where it’s not supposed to be.”

  Artie scrambled forward and crouched low on the deck as Larry brought the stern through the wind and Scully sheeted the genoa on the other tack. For a moment, the boat slowed dramatically, and seemed to be coming to a stop, but as soon as the wind filled the sails from the other side, it surged forward as only a light multihull could, and was quickly up to at least 10 knots again. Artie stood and hung onto the forestay where he could look around the luff of the sail and study the waters ahead. There were breaking waves outside the reef and dark patches of brown under the clear water all around them. He held his breath as they passed over rocks that looked like they would tear the bottoms out of the hulls, but depth was deceptive in the clear water and they never touched bottom, despite the appearance that it was only inches below the surface.

  He heard a series of loud cracks that had to be rifle shots from the schooner, but didn’t dare take his eyes off the course ahead to look back. Pointing with his free hand, he motioned for Larry to adjust course to dodge a rock just close enough to the surface to hit, and when they skimmed past it, he saw that he had been right to do so. It was a near miss, but now the water color had changed to sapphire blue and the reefs were astern. The bows pitched as they sliced into a four-foot swell, and Artie hung on to the forestay with both hands to keep his balance. At this point, he could relax and look back.

  The schooner was dead astern and coming right at them, having altered course to follow the catamaran off the banks. Artie wondered if such a big vessel could possibly clear the reefs over the route they took, then he began to understand why his brother had been grinning. If the crew of the schooner were not familiar with the area and did not have proper charts on board, they might have assumed that if their prey was able to sail off the banks at that point, they could too. He rushed back to the cockpit where Scully and Larry were also watching to see what would happen next. Someone on board was still shooting in their direction, but Larry said the range was still too great for ordinary rifles.

  “Come on, baby!” Larry said as they sailed east. “That’s right, just keep on coming and try to catch us!”

  “Dat copt’n is a fool!” Scully said. “Got no chart and no common sense too!”

  “He’s still coming,” Artie said. “How much does a boat like that draw? It’s got to be more than Pete and Maryanne’s Celebration that we were on.”

  “Actually, no. These fishing schooners were designed to work the banks and are considered shallow-draft vessels at four feet. That’s a lot more than us, though, and they’re about to get a surprise!” And soon after he said it, when the Casey Nicole was nearly a half mile east of the reef, the big schooner came to a sudden stop with a sound of splintering and breaking wood. With the bow plowed up on the reef, the stern swung around until the hull was nearly at right angles to the direction it had been sailing, then heeled over until the masts were leaning at a 30-degree angle to the horizon.

  “Yes!” Larry shouted, shaking his fist in the direction of the wreck. “Serves you right, you stupid son of a bitch!”

  “Damn! They hit the rocks at full speed.”

  “Dat boat is finished, mon. Nevah gonna get dat hull off de reef again!”

  “I love it, Doc! See what I told you about Wharram catamarans? Fast under sail, seaworthy, and shallow draft too! What’s not to like?”

  “That was scary, though. They almost got within rifle range before we crossed that reef.”

  “Almost, but almost doesn’t count, does it, Doc? We’re home free, for now at least. Let’s point this vessel to Florida and get out of here.”

  “Sounds good to me. I never wanted to stop, anyway, but I guess it was worth it to get all this fish.”

  Larry gave Artie the course to steer while Scully moved the drying fish from the forward decks to the netting stretched between the sterns behind the cockpit. There it would be safe from getting washed overboard by the occasional large wave and be out of the spray from the bows. To avoid the reefs and the possibility of running into other aggressors on the banks, Larry wanted to head nearly due north for another 20 miles before setting a northwest course directly for Marathon, in the middle of the chain of islands making up the Florida Keys.

  “It’s nearly noon now. That’s good and bad at the same time,” Larry said. “It’s nearly 90 miles to Sombrero Key light, which is where I want to make landfall. The good news is that we’ll get there after dark. The bad news is also that we’ll get there after dark.”

  “I don’t understand, the logic, but go ahead.”

  “Well, we need to cut through the Keys just west of Marathon to get to the Gulf for two reasons: one, it’s a more direct route than sailing all the way around Key West, which is another 70 miles west, and two, we have to cross the Gulf Stream between here and the Keys, and its current will be setting us to the east of our rhumb line. Trying to sail directly to Key West or points west of there would be even more difficult. Anyway, going through the Keys at night might be a good thing because we won’t likely be noticed and it will give us a look at how things are in U.S. waters, and whether everything is totally blacked out or not.”

  “And the bad?”

  “It’s a treacherous area to be sailing through at night—especially with no working channel markers or other aids to navigation, and no GPS. I wouldn’t even attempt it in any kind of deeper-draft sailboat. And I also wouldn’t attempt it if I weren’t intimately familiar with that area. There are reefs, rocks, wrecks, derelict boats, and no telling what else on the Atlantic side of the chain, and about a million crab traps with their floating buoys scattered all over the Gulf side for miles and miles. But the good thing is, I’ve been in and out of Boot Key Harbor in Marathon in more conditions than I can count: day, night, squalls, approaching hurricanes, you name it. So considering all the pros and cons, I’m willing to risk it, especially since we’ll have nearly a full moon tonight.”

  By mid-afternoon, Cay Sal Bank was far astern and they were once again sailing off-soundings through an inky-blue sea with empty horizons for a full 360 degrees. Larry had plotted a course that would compensate for the lateral drift they would experience crossing the Gulf Stream, and he calculated they would reach the outlying reefs of the Florida Keys by 1800 hours, considering they were still averaging 10 knots throughout the afternoon. By the time the sun was approaching the horizon to one side of their course, the almost-round moon, just two days from full, rose from the sea on the other, and with only a few scattered cumulus clouds in the sky, promised to light their way through the night.

  All three of them were still wound up from the encounter with the schooner, and with another landfall approaching fast, no one wanted to leave the deck to take a turn off watch. Sleep could come later, once they were clear of the Keys in the wide-open waters of the Gulf of Mexico. As the last hint of twilight disappeared, the moon lit a silvery path across the waves and a pod of dolphins joined them, leaping and broaching ahead on both sides of the boat and between the bows, seemingly delighted to lead
them home to U.S. waters. As the distance to land had to be closing, according to Larry’s dead reckoning, he constantly scanned the horizon ahead and through 180 degrees to port and starboard with his binoculars.

  “There it is!” he said at last. “Another half mile to the west and we’d have run right into it!” He handed the binoculars to Artie. It was incredible how much light these high-quality German-made navigation binoculars gathered even on nights lit only with starlight. Under the moon they had tonight, looking through them was almost like viewing in daylight. He saw what Larry was pointing at: it was a steel tower rising out of the sea, the 142-foot Sombrero Lighthouse. Larry said it was the tallest light in the Keys. While the flashing white light that would have enabled them to see it from much farther out had been extinguished, the tower itself was an adequate landmark on an otherwise empty sea to mark their position. More significantly to Artie, it was a major milestone in their voyage. It meant they were back in mainland U.S. waters and that he was that much closer to Casey.

  “I don’t know how you do it, little brother,” he said, as he handed the binoculars back to Larry. “That was an incredible feat of navigation with nothing but a compass.”

  “Nah, no big deal. I just followed the dolphins,” Larry said, but as he looked around, he saw that they had disappeared. “The good news is we made it to the U.S. It looks like the bad news is that the lights are out here too. From here you would normally be able to see a whole string of towns lit up along the Overseas Highway, dead ahead. You’d also see the glow of Key West off to port and the glow of Miami way up there to the northeast. But I don’t see anything. This is truly bizarre.”

  “I guess every place we come to that has no lights just proves how incredibly widespread this event was, whatever it actually was. I don’t guess there’s any reason to hope it’s not the same in New Orleans.”

  “Nope, I wouldn’t think so. We all need to keep a sharp lookout now. There aren’t any reefs to worry about if we hold this course, but there could be other obstructions. We should be able to see the Seven Mile Bridge soon. It will be to the left of the closest key we’ll pass on this route, where Marathon and Boot Key Harbor are located. We want to aim for the high-rise span in the bridge that’s about three miles from the eastern end. The vertical clearance there is 65 feet, so we don’t have anything to worry about there.”