Dangerous Shores: Book Three; The End of the Road

by Christine Conaway

  She pointed at the corner lazarette. “There’s some old line hanging in there but, let’s go ahead and roll the jib in most of the way and reef the main. That’s not looking good.”

  They were now facing the approaching storm, and with the coming of dawn they could now see the towering thunderheads on the leading edge.

  “Alan! Rob! We need some help up here.” Frank bellowed down the hatchway.

  Within seconds first Rob then Alan were standing in the cockpit. A storm was the farthest thing from their minds as they were both armed. They had come prepared to do battle with pirates or other sailors. Frank thought it was good they had thought of safety first.

  “Good job guys but we need to get anything loose tied down. Rob, how about you giving me a hand up here and Alan, you help the girls down below?” Frank was pulling old line out from the lazarette.

  “Alan, pull the cushions out of the V-berth and aft cabin. Anything that can turn into a missile throw in the V-berth. That means everything, books anything on the counters everything. A glass can be deadly flying through the air.” As soon as she said it she knew it was a reminder when she saw Alan’s face turn white. She touched his arm, “Sorry, I should have thought before I said that.”

  He knew she wasn’t referring to him throwing the glass at the bad guy in Palmetto, but it was something he was trying to forget and it seemed someone was always saying something that reminded him of it. He had killed one of the bad guys and he would just have to deal with it and not take every reference to glasses as a reminder.

  “Got it,” he said. “Basically everything goes into the forward cabin and close the door?”

  “Yup, save out the box of zip lock bags. The gallon size. Arrange the cushions on the floor as best as you can so everyone has somewhere to sit or lay. Oh, and make sure to lock the stove down and hanging from the bulkhead is a steel bar that goes across the top. It’s self-explanatory. Check the straps on the freezers.”

  Alan held his hand up to stop her, “I’ve got this and I understand.” He started down the hatch and turned back, “Why the zip locks?”

  Ellen raised her eyebrows in disbelief, “Really?” She mimicked holding a bag over her mouth and barfing.

  Alan shook his head in disgust. The thought seemed to not settle well and he went back below.

  Frank started the diesel and they motored out immediately changing the feel of the boat.

  Ellen ran the jack lines with the help of Rob. They pulled the dinghy tight to the back of the boat and wrapped it in yards of line securing it to the davits as well as the handrails. Cockpit cushions were thrown down below and the last of all they locked each lazarette. Now, no matter what happened they would not lose anything from the deck.

  Frank and Ellen put on the two harnesses and clipped a tether on the jack-line.

  “You may as well go down below and find a comfy place to rest.” Ellen told Rob.

  Rob pursed his lips and stared behind them. “Actually, I was hoping to spend some time up here. I know we’re going to be in rough water pretty soon, I can see it coming, but I saw “The Perfect Storm” about a dozen times as well as “The Guardian” at least half a dozen times and I can’t get my mind around the size of the waves. I’d really like to visualize it firsthand.”

  Ellen laughed, “We don’t normally get those kind of storms on the west coast. At least not that I’ve ever been in. The biggest waves I myself have ever experienced were crossing the Columbia River bar. It’s not something I would ever voluntarily do again.”

  “You’re welcome to sit up here as long as you tie in. You can’t be up here without a tether.” Frank looked at Ellen, “I don’t suppose you have another harness?”

  “I do but it doesn’t have the inflatable jacket on it. It’s just the basic harness.” She pulled the padlock off the corner lazarette and reached in. from one of the hooks that held spare rope she pulled up another harness, followed by an orange lifejacket. “It’ll be bulky but it’ll save your life.”

  “Ellen, it’s time to roll in the rest of the jib. That front is almost on us.”

  She hurried and did as he asked. Thankfully she didn’t have to leave the cockpit.

  The storm hit them with a vengeance. It was all Frank could do to keep the Annie-C facing into the waves. The wind howled through the stays and shrouds sounding like a freight train was hovering overhead. The waves quickly changed from six to eight feet to an impressive twelve to fifteen feet in a matter of minutes. Frank would try to angle up the leading side of the wave and slide down the other. He did his best to hit the trough at an angle so as to not bury the bow. They would climb up the next and slide down the backside. Waves broke over the deck threatening to tear them away from the boat. The cockpit filled with water so fast it didn’t have time to drain out the stern between waves. Foam blew off the tops of the waves as if the sea was spitting on them.

  Time lost all meaning for the three of them. They took turns behind the wheel trying to keep them faced into the storm. The wind and waves at the same time would catch the bow and force them sideways into the wave. The boat would slide down sideways into the trough a wall of water covering them up. When it felt as if they were going to drown they would pop back up on top of the next and teeter on the cusp and topple down to begin the dance all over again.

  They had just been thrown to the side when Frank reached over and pulled the engine shut off.

  Ellen stared at him, she blew the water off of her face and yelled, “What the hell? What did you just do? Are you crazy? We need to keep it running.”

  She was trying to reach past him to turn the key on. “Leave it! Something is wrong with the rudder. I can’t steer it.” He yelled back at her. Even though he was standing right in front of her the storm drown out his words. He turned the wheel and nothing happened.

  The wave knocked them crossways and the wind spun them around. The Annie-C rolled on to her side floundering in the water.

  Ellen was pinned up against the lifeline netting. She didn’t know if she had been breathing in when she was flung to her knees, but the icy water made her draw in a breath and instead of air she inhaled ice cold salt water. She coughed and choked trying to rid her lungs of the liquid to no avail for every time she inhaled she filled her lungs with water again. Her nose burned from the salt and she only saw green water when she opened her eyes. She was beginning to see the stars behind her eyelids and knew it was the end, when strong hands grabbed her and pulled her up.

  About the same time as Frank grabbed her, the boat finally righted herself, only to be flung back into the next rough. Water washed over them again. This time she had Franks arms around her. She managed to cough up the last of the ocean water with her head buried against Frank’s chest.

  Finally, able to breath she screamed, “We need to get below, where it’s safe!” she saw the petrified look on Rob’s face and figured he had gotten his fix of big waves. He was wedged into the cockpit at her feet. She pointed to the hatch doors. “Go!”

  He turned, pulled the doors to himself and dove into the opening. On the ladder, he unclipped his tether from the harness. And threw it back topside.

  Frank managed to kick the doors shut just as another wave broke over top of them. He pulled her down into the spot that Rob had vacated. With one hand he clipped their tethers from the jack-line to the pad eye in the cockpit. Unless their combined weight pulled the pad eye out of the fiberglass they were safe, unless the boat sank. If it sank there was not even a way to free up the dinghy, with all the rope they had put on it.

  The next time they rose to the top of the wave the boat swirled around and they were looking straight down into the abyss. It seemed they would fall forever until they were caught by the boiling gray water. They were in the bottom of a canyon of steel gray water and it looked as if the walls were closing in on them.

  It seemed to take forever for the boat to shrug off the water and rise up. At one point Ellen didn’t think they were going to surface.
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  “The next time we go up, I’ll unclip you and go below!” He was screaming into her ear, and she was shaking her head no.

  “Yes, I’ll be right behind you.”

  As soon as they began the climb, he wrenched the doors open, unclipped her harness and practically threw her down the ladder. The doors slammed shut an instant before the wave broke over the top of them filling the cockpit with sea water. Frank held on for his life waiting for the water to drain and the boat to begin the climb again. Only then would he make his dash for the safety of the cabin.

  Ellen had fallen to the bottom of the ladder and lay there. Cushions from the aft cabin softened her landing. She lay trying to catch her breath. She felt the boat roll on to her side and braced her feet against the cabinets.

  Someone had put the lee cloth up on the port settee and she could see the top of Margaret’s head. She heard the sound of someone crying but she couldn’t make out who it was. She’d hit her head on the way down the ladder and her whole body hurt. Something banged on the hatch above her and Ellen rolled aside.

  A pair of feet came down the ladder along with gallons of water. Then she realized she was laying on sodden cushions. She didn’t care at that point she only wanted to sleep and now that Frank was crumpled beside her she did.

  Chapter Twenty-eight - The end of the storm

  “Can we get up yet?” Asked Dana.

  “We’re not jumping all over anymore,” said Olivia.

  “Nana, we need to check on Holly. She might be afraid all by herself now.”

  “Can we please?”

  From beside her, Frank groaned in protest when Ellen tried to move. The girls were right; they weren’t jumping all over. Sun shone through the cabin ports.

  Ellen groaned and pushed Franks arm off of her waist. She moaned softly in pain. There was nothing on her body that didn’t hurt.

  “Ellen? Are you awake?”

  “I think so Margaret, are the girls okay?”

  “Oh they’re fine now. They thought this was their own personal carnival ride. It was all I could manage to keep them both in here with me. And why don’t you call me Maggie, Margaret is so formal.”

  Ellen smiled and decided she like the name Maggie so much better than the formal version. She nudged Frank and he rolled toward her and opened his eyes. They were unfocused at first but after he blinked a couple of times they fixed on her. “Are we there yet?”

  “Almost,” she said and asked, “Is everyone else okay? Any broken bones?”

  Hannah was on the cabin sole on top of the cushions from the larger starboard settee. Rob lay on one side of her and Alan on the other. They were stirring and groaning in complaint. Apparently none of them had come through the storm unscathed.

  “Hannah how do you feel?” Hannah’s pregnancy was showing itself in the form of a well-rounded tummy bump.

  “Oh God, I am so sore. I feel like I had two grown men rolling around on top of me all night.” She hadn’t expected for everyone to laugh at her words, but laugh they did.

  “Oh my gosh and said so innocently too.” Ellen exclaimed when she could finally talk.

  There was barely room at the bottom of the ladder for her and Frank, but now Dana wanted to get by.

  Ellen crowded close to Frank and he grinned at her. She put her elbow into his chest to change the way it looked like his thoughts were heading. “Don’t get funny,” she said and ground her elbow in, punctuating her words.

  Dana, with one foot on each side of Ellen’s head untied the piece of line that held the door shut tight and opened the oven door. She reached in and pulled out a small gray tote.

  “Just a minute Holly,” Dana said in an effort to comfort the whining puppy and stepped back over Ellen. “Can you close the door so you don’t bump your head please?”

  Ellen reached up with one hand and shut the oven door. “You put Holly in the oven?”

  “Poppa Alan did so she wouldn’t get hurt,” Olivia said. Dana set the plastic tote on the settee without the cushions and removed the lid. Someone had poked holes all over the sides and lid and a towel filled most of the interior. Holly sat up with a corner of the towel draped over half of her head. She stood up on wobbly legs, squatted and peed.

  “Holly, “Dana squeaked with dismay, “oh no…not in your bed.”

  Frank laughed loudest of all of them. Whether it was the fact they had survived the storm or a much needed release of built up tension they all laughed until they had tears running freely. That is, all of the adults laughed.

  Olivia and Dana stared at each other and then at the laughing group around them. Olivia rolled her eyes and said, “Grownups think everything is funny. Even when it’s not.”

  “Yeah because it’s not funny when it’s your towel the dog peed on.” Dana said.

  Olivia stopped what she was doing and removed the towel out from under Holly and held it up. A small wet mark hung in the center of the towel. “Dana, this isn’t your towel. This is Mr. Franks towel.”

  They looked at each other and then at Frank. He was laying on his side doubled in two with laughter.

  Dana looked back at Olivia and said, “Okay, now this is funny!” and she began to laugh. It took only a moment for Olivia to see the humor and she finally joined in. In the manner of children everywhere, they did get carried away.

  For a few minutes they enjoyed being together and sharing the moment of feeling alive. Finally, Frank and Ellen stood and Frank reached up and slid the hatch open and then pushed the doors.

  Bright January sunlight streamed in on him bathing him with light. For just a second he looked transparent and had a glow of light surrounding his body.

  A shiver went up Ellen’s spine and the hair on her arms stood up. She blamed it on surviving the storm. She realized the results could have been significantly different. Someone had to have been watching over them.

  She followed Frank up the ladder. He stopped as soon as he stepped over the combing and she had to push on him to get him to move. He moved allowing Ellen to step into the cockpit.

  Her mouth dropped open in horror and her eyes filled with tears. Her knees gave out and she sank to the lazarette. She put her face in her hands and cried. Frank rested his hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

  He looked around at the mess on deck. Sometime, probably during one of the knockdowns the starboard shrouds had parted from the turnbuckle and were twisted around the mast. While the mast was still standing, it leaned to the port side.

  They had done an excellent job of tying the dinghy to the stern because the dinghy and the davits were gone along with half of the handrail it had been tied to.

  The lifelines on the bow had been ripped lose from the deck. The anchor locker, the only one they had not locked stood open and the anchor road hung over the side. At that point he didn’t know if the anchor was still attached or not.

  He sat down across from Ellen. She had raised her head and while tears still ran down her cheeks she wiped at them with her sleeve. “Damn, damn, damn!”

  “If it’s any consolation, those waves rivaled the “Perfect Storm.”

  “Oh shut up! They did not! We’d all be dead right now just like the crew of the Andrea Gail.”

  “Sorry, I was just making an observation. Those were the biggest waves I’ve ever been in. I keep thinking about the little Westsail at the end of the movie…the one those people abandoned. Why did it survive and we have this?”

  “The class of workmanship. That boat was made to cross oceans while this boat wasn’t. Shit Frank she’s old…we did survive just like they would have if they’d stayed on the boat.” She raised her eyes and looked around again. “I just can’t rebuild her again.”

  He didn’t know what to say to her. The best he could offer was to begin the cleanup. The ocean had grown deceptively calm. There was barely a breeze to indicate a storm had ever passed and annihilated them.

  He took the padlock off of the lazarette and opened it. The tools looked like they’d b
een dumped in and stirred with a big stick. He had to dig but he soon found a screw driver, crescent wrench and pliers. He began with the dodger frame. They had folded the bimini top up and tied it off to the dodger frame and now they were both nothing more than bent stainless steel. Not so much as a thread of canvas was left clinging to the metal frame. Where the frames had been attached to the house was little more than soft fiberglass from the frames being worked back and forth destroying the integrity of the fiberglass.

  There was nothing he could do about that. Removing the framework was the only option to save poking out an eye or worse.

  He heard the lazarette behind him open and knew it was Ellen. She was digging like he had and he thought he knew what she was looking for. He didn’t say anything, because the boat was hers and would be up to her how they dealt with the devastation of the Annie-C.

  Tools in hand, Ellen went to the mast and began. She cried while she worked and swore occasionally. He knew she was emotionally on the mend, when she began making plans for the repairs out loud.

  He ignored her and went forward to deal with the anchor chain. Rob came up and asked if he could help and Frank had him pull up the line until he saw that Rob had a new bandage on his hand. Somewhere in the melee he must have re-opened his wounded hand.

  Frank waved him off and had him layer the line in the locker as he pulled it up. It was hard to say if the anchor was there or not as the chain itself was heavy. When he reached the chain, he knew that somehow the anchor was missing. He didn’t know how it had possibly come unfastened, but it was gone.

  “Frank? I could use some help here.”

  Somehow, she had untangled the shrouds and had them hanging in a relevant position to the frayed ends still attached to the deck fittings.

  “What do you need me to do?” Frank asked as he kneeled down beside her.