I said wryly, “I’m aware of that. It’s called the Venturi effect. Constrict flowing water or gas, and its velocity increases.”
“That’s precisely what happens in the Gulf. The arrows here tell the whole story. The equatorial current and the Guiana current come flowing into Cuba, get squeezed between Cuba and the Yucatan, then blast into the Gulf, directly toward Louisiana, the Mississippi River Delta country. The current’s so strong that it ricochets off the southern shallows and breaks into two great looping currents. Those currents break into a series of crazy spirals, smaller loops, like gyres.”
He began to tap the chart with his finger. “There’s one here… a gyre here… here. They’re all over the place. One side of the gyre flows more or less south, the other side flows more or less north. They’re like big, slow-motion whirlpools floating around out there at sea. Oval-shaped rivers that, in the fall and winter, flow at one, maybe even two knots, and faster in summer. Ultimately, most of them exit and gain speed at the stricture between Key West and Cuba.”
“The Gulf Stream,” I said. “That’s what you’re describing. The source of the Gulf Stream.”
He said, “It all contributes, yeah, the Gulf Stream. But do you see what I’m getting at?”
Tomlinson is a teacher with extraordinary gifts, and now, for the first time, I could see that what, at first, appeared to be a random but consistent flow of water was, actually, a series of symmetrical loops. According to the pilot chart, in November, historically, a particularly small but strong gyre existed between Sanibel at the northerly extreme and Flamingo to the south. Offshore, water flowed southeast. Inshore, water spiraled northward.
“Datum marker buoys can’t swim,” Tomlinson said softly. “Janet, Michael, and Grace could. I think that accounts for the difference, and why we didn’t find them. Remember the big charter boat that Amelia told us she saw that night or whose lights she saw, anyway. The Ellen Clair? The captain, Ken Peterson, told her later that he’d anchored over the Baja California.
“I called him this afternoon, Doc. I told him what we plan to do. Find the Seminole Wind and figure out why she sank. Dive the Baja and collect anything we can that corroborates Amelia’s story. We talked for maybe half an hour. Nice guy. Feels terrible that his boat was so close and he couldn’t find them. Just like the rest of us.
“So I was asking him how it went once he got to the Dry Tortugas, how the fishing was, and he said something that made all the little lights come on. He said the trip back to Fort Myers Beach was a lot faster than the trip out because he ran closer to shore where there wasn’t as much wind… and there was a hell of a strong northerly current pushing him along.”
I’d stopped eating. Did not feel like eating anymore. “So they swam east toward the flashing light, Janet, Michael, and Grace,” I said, “just like Amelia. They probably got close to the tower. Maybe real close. But then they stopped swimming for some reason.”
Tomlinson walked to the window above the little ship’s stove. Stood there staring at the lights of the marina. People moving around out there on the docks. Silhouettes, shadows, and muted voices. All Sundays dampen noise, particularly a memorial service Sunday. “I’ve thought and thought about it,” he said. “It’s plausible, possible, maybe even probable… and it’s so goddamn sad I can barely stand it.”
He continued, “We assume that Amelia’s story is mostly true. So why didn’t we find them? If the three hooked up, stayed together, they would have been a larger mass, easier to see. If they separated, the chances of spotting at least one of them increase proportionally. The Coast Guard was using forward-looking infrared radar; those things register body heat from a mile away. So it’s damn unlikely we could have missed them unless I’m right. They swam east toward the tower but stopped. They got caught on the edge of the gyre. Just like Peterson told me: where there was a hell of a strong current pushing them north. At one, maybe two knots, they’d have been off Marco by first light, fifteen maybe twenty miles away. Way the hell north of the Baja California. ”
I said, “I wouldn’t call a two-knot current that strong. Those were his words?”
“‘A hell of a strong northerly current.’ That’s what he said. I agree with you. The pilot chart for November shows one to two knots for this particular gyre, but maybe it was stronger. Who knows? Things change fast out there, you know that. But that’s what the man said, and he’s been captaining for fifteen years.”
Now I was feeling sick. The Coast Guard, all of us, we’d all searched from a few miles north of the wreck site, then forty miles and more to the south and southwest.
Tomlinson said, “Powerboats are machines, but a fine sailboat has more in common with a divining rod. The No Mas kept trying to take me north. My sailboat, the wheel, she tried and tried to turn, to show me the way. I was a fool. I wouldn’t let her.
“Our last three days out there, alone, that’s when I finally let the No Mas take control. I gave her the wheel, just like you sometimes give a horse free rein, and she took me way north and west, far out to sea. But it was too late. Too late.”
His voice became a whisper as he added, “At night, when I meditated, I could see what happened, how it happened, everything. Their voices, I could hear their words, see their faces, could feel Janet’s fear, her horror. What Janet saw, I saw, and I knew then just what I know now. They were still alive. They may still be alive.”
Part Two
13
Stars, planets, streaking satellites fell toward her, propelled by the buoyancy of each cresting wave, then stars were yanked skyward again as the wave collapsed, dropping her body into a black valley.. .
Floating on her back, eyes focused overhead and clinging to a universe of blazing starlight, Janet Mueller used her left hand to grip a section of anchor line hitched to the bow of the Seminole Wind while the fingers of her right hand touched the thin gold crucifix she was never without. It was a gift from her late husband, Roger, who’d been killed in a car accident years ago, only three months before their first baby was to be born.
They were to have a boy. They knew it from the first ultrasound-an infant so obviously a boy that it was the subject of many whispered bedtime jokes. Thomas Roger Mueller.
Janet barely survived the shock of her husband’s death. Their child did not. She went into labor prematurely, and the doctors could not save the boy, though young Thomas fought valiantly to live for three nights and four days, rabbit-sized, tiny fists clenched, lying inside the oxygen spherical in the preemie ward, Toledo General Hospital.
Her husband was killed the day after Thanksgiving. Thomas Roger died one week later, the first day of December. That was seven years and a different lifetime ago, it had come to seem. Almost as if it had happened to another person, a person with her name and face who’d dreamed all those peaceful times with Roger, and then, still sleeping, slipped into a nightmare that was the deepest of horrors.
That was Ohio. This was Florida. Her new life. The elementary school teacher who, to save her own sanity, traded in expectations of a suburban house and conventional family for a quirky little houseboat at a quirky little marina. Her new life in the tropics with parties, devoted friends, great sunsets, and, finally, a second good man-though she and Jeth had had their problems. Everyone did.
Once browsing through the library of her friend, Marion Ford, she’d found a chapter in a book about certain lizards, members of the Iguanid family, that could change colors as required, even grow new tails if they’d been injured-chromatic transformation and cellular regeneration. Janet felt an unexpected kinship with those creatures because she had learned that, if sufficiently traumatized, a woman must employ chameleon capabilities to endure.
Janet Mueller had lost her heart but was slowly growing a new one in this, the life of her own invention. A good life, too. Until this day. Until this dive trip.
She would survive it. She had to. She’d survived worse.
Now, holding on to the rope, frightened to the point o
f emotional exhaustion, Janet repeated the prayer that had become her bedtime mantra, her savior during those worst of times: I am strong. My faith is stronger. I am strong. My faith is stronger. Over and over in her mind, she spoke the words by rote. There was another mantra that she’d sometimes used during the day when the pain threatened to overwhelm her. It was one of her favorites because it was both reassuring and assertive: This evil stands no chance against my prayers.
She switched to that mantra now, finding comfort in the old, familiar rhythm of the words, repeating the phrase silently as all four of them clung to the rope in single file.
This evil stands no chance against my prayers!
She’d been in the water now for nearly four hours, and her body was beginning to complain, give her little signals that it was time to step back on to the dock, get into a hot freshwater shower, then change into clean clothes, something dry and warm.
If only she could!
Janet wore a pink neoprene shorty wet suit. Beneath that, she wore what divers call a “body skin,” a one-piece undergarment made of nylon and lycra that’s soft and stretchable. Even so, the wet suit was beginning to chafe at the ridged areas where the seams were glued, under her arms and on the inside of her thighs. The nylon was also beginning to chafe around, her nipples, which were naturally supersensitive, anyway.
Salt water made the chafed areas burn. Janet’s neck-length, chestnut hair was caked with salt, too, and salt was so heavy on her tongue that her breath now had a metallic odor, which she could taste when she swallowed.
Still, she repeated her strong assertion: This evil stands no chance against my prayers!
Janet was closest to the bow of the boat. Holding on to the line behind her were Grace, then Michael, then Amelia. Amelia had volunteered to take the end of the rope because she said she’d been a competitive swimmer in high school, and so was probably the best swimmer of the group. Plus she, like Janet, still had her fins. If a wave knocked her away from the rope, she’d have the best chance of making it back without requiring someone else to release the rope to help her.
For Amelia to volunteer to do such a thing, when they were all so frightened and in such danger, impressed Janet tremendously. She’d known Amelia for only a few days but liked her, trusted her on a level of perception that was qualitative, and now her trust was confirmed. Amelia was a strong woman who felt an obligation to the welfare of others. Someone who could be relied on to act and who wasn’t afraid to take charge.
When Amelia made the offer to take the last space, Michael protested, but in a way that said he was actually grateful. He still seemed to be in shock. It was his boat that had sunk; his responsibility, not to mention what had to be a terrible financial loss. Janet had known Michael for more than a year. They’d had a brief sexual fling-which was very unlike her, but Michael was gorgeous; no one could argue that-and she still enjoyed his company because he was sociable, quick to laugh, and thoughtful in ways that she sometimes found touching. Plus, remaining friends mitigated the probable remorse of a one-night stand-something she’d never done before and would never risk again.
Janet had never seen Michael like this, though. In the nearly three hours of daylight after the Seminole Wind first swamped, the fear in the man’s face was unmistakable in the mottled skin, the glazed eyes. Every few minutes, it seemed, he’d mutter, “I can’t believe this is happening. This can’t really be happening, can it?” When he did try to make conversation, his voice was strained. He couldn’t seem to concentrate or complete a sentence.
None of them, however, was more frightened than Grace. Janet had known Grace for nearly as long as she’d known Michael. He always introduced her as “my closest lady friend” and she almost certainly was. The only thing they didn’t do together was dating and sex-or so they joked-and they were hilarious when they’d get into one of their black woman versus white male mock bickering matches, which had become a kind of shtick, they were so good at it. It was like a comedy routine, they were so darn funny, him the big jock football coach-teacher and not the smartest guy in the world, Grace the successful realtor and black community activist.
It was a friendship that seemed unlikely but really wasn’t. Five years earlier, only a month or so apart, they’d coincidentally bought adjoining duplexes on Avenida del Mare, just across the canal from Palm Island and only a couple of blocks from Siesta Key Beach. Both were trying to restart their lives after ending ugly, destructive marriages. Both were wary of beginning new relationships, both loved cooking, fitness training, lived far from their own families, and each owned a dog-Grace, a miniature Doberman; Michael, a yellow lab named Coach.
After a wary few months, they entered into a mutually beneficial acquaintanceship that began with dog-sitting and gradually became a more dependent and far more complex friendship. By the time Janet met them, Michael and Grace had become indispensable, each to the other, as confidant, advisor, protector, and as the quick and dependable judge of potential lovers who circulated in and out of their own small, stable orbit. They were workout partners, swing dance partners, and safe, steadfast escorts in those social situations when an escort was needed but a decent date couldn’t be found.
The two were so clearly at home with each other that they quickly put people around them at ease. Almost everyone they allowed to be a part of their friendship said variations of the same: You two should form a comedy team. You two should have your own television show, because you’re such a riot!
Grace and Michael hadn’t made any jokes in the last few hours, though. Soon after leaving to make the dive, Janet knew it had been a mistake to bring Grace. A mistake for any of them to come so far offshore, probably. Especially, though, for the Sarasota realtor.
What was immediately evident as they headed out Marco Island Pass, into the rolling seas, was that Grace was nervous and uncomfortable in a boat. It was plainly seen in the way she hung next to Michael Sanford, often grabbing his arm when jolted by an unusually big wave, and in her repeated questions: “Are you sure it’s okay for us to be out here, Sandman? You sure it’s safe? You get the Princess Grace hurt, Sandman, the Princess is going to open up a can of whoop-ass on you, my friend.”
Despite Grace’s use of the pet names reserved for their private use, as if making light of their situation she was scared, no disguising that. A couple of times, Janet and Amelia made eye contact, eyebrows raised, both acknowledging that Grace was frightened, didn’t like boats, didn’t like water. She wouldn’t be here at all if Michael hadn’t made it his special project to teach her to SCUBA dive. He’d taken her through the PADI classes, then on a couple of dives to the Dry Tortugas, and recently a weeklong trip to Key West and the reefs of American Shoals.
That had been her favorite dive trip, American Shoals. All the great coral heads and big fish at Looe Key and Western Sambo, then eating and drinking at the Green Parrot in Key West, that old pirate town, with its shipwright houses and widows’ walks. On the charter boat to Looe Key, they’d met Amelia and formed a diving friendship. American Shoals was where their little group started. That kind of diving, she liked: glassy, flat seas, and water so clear it was like looking down into outer space, a whole aqua-bright universe of color and light.
This, though, Grace hated. Big waves, gray water. Too much wind and salt. This wasn’t like the Keys where there were lots of boats, lots of fun. This water was wilderness, alone and open to the sky. It terrified her.
Her discomfort was even more obvious when she got into her dive gear and jumped off the boat. Grace not only wasn’t a good swimmer, she didn’t enjoy being in the water, all those waves lifting and rolling, spraying salt water into her face, beading in her African hair, causing her to squinch her eyes tight, this tall, muscular woman making faces like a little girl.
Once again, Amelia had demonstrated her strength by risking offense when she tapped Michael on the shoulder and said, “Are you sure Grace is up to this? Maybe she should stay on the boat and just the three of us dive.�
�� But Grace interceded immediately, saying, “I’m not staying up here on the boat alone. No way, sister! Big wave could come along and suck me right outta there!” And Michael had agreed, laughing, saying, “You think I’m going to let anything happen to the Princess? Where I go, she goes.” Waiting while Grace rinsed her face mask and pulled it on, Michael had shouted, “We’re a team, right, Gracie?”
Once again, Janet and Amelia communicated via eye contact only: No way was Grace going to complete this dive.
They were right. Pulling themselves in single file down the anchor line, into the green dusk below, Grace had stopped at about thirty feet. She knew the hand signs from her classes: Her ears wouldn’t clear. She’d have to go back up. She wanted to go back up.
Michael returned to the boat with her, of course. On the buddy system, buddies stick together.
The two of them were still together when Amelia and Janet surfaced nineteen minutes later to find the Seminole Wind upside-down, floating bow-high on its taut anchor line, wind sharpening out of an afternoon sky with a horizon the color of winter clouds, like moonlight on ice.
During hurricane season in that year, July through November, there was less activity than usual in the southern meridians. There were seven tropical storms but only two became hurricanes, which is significantly below the average of ten tropical storms and six hurricanes during that five-month window. Also, there were no major hurricanes (category three or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale, meaning winds greater than 110 mph), which is also unusual-though one storm did approach that strength, Hurricane Gordon.
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