Henry and Tom: Ocean Adventure Series Book 1: Rescue (Ocean Adventures Series)

by Michael Atkins

  When he turned off the light and closed his eyes to go to sleep, Tom saw Henry as he saw him last, spinning in the water and swimming away after he had been rescued.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tom decided to leave the Farallons the next day. He could have easily spent another day there, even a week, but they were not his destination. He was sailing to Hawaii. The excitement of beginning his journey across the Pacific outweighed the appeal of familiar territory.

  Before he left the Farallons, Tom saw a couple of grey whales swimming in the distance. These creatures were even larger than sperm whales. He had never seen one up close, but that would have to wait for another day. He was headed southwest, the greys were moving north.

  The wind was cooperating, so Tom was able to move along at a steady six knot clip. Three other sailboats were also headed in his general direction and for a couple of hours Tom wondered if he would have some company on his trip to Hawaii, but mid-afternoon they turned and tacked back towards California.

  Now Tom was where he always wanted to be, alone on the Pacific sailing towards the tropics. He could see nothing around him but blue water. He knew that many people, perhaps most people, would be scared to death to be out on the ocean all by themselves. While he was not ignorant of the potential dangers, he was overwhelmed by the beauty and serenity of the experience.

  For the first time in his life, Tom was truly disconnected from the rest of the planet. He was now out of range of anything except for his ship to shore radio and soon even that would be useless until he neared Hawaii. With every mile of ocean he crossed, Tom felt more relaxed. His mind was liberated. He allowed his thoughts to wander wherever they wanted to go.

  Last month Tom celebrated his fiftieth birthday. Jonas and Jessica made a big deal of it. He shared cake and gifts with them at his condo. He put on a happy face for his children and made the day about them, not about him. But when he dropped them off at Syd’s house later that evening Tom did not go straight home. He went to a bar he knew well on Union Street and sat down to have a couple of drinks.

  Tom wasn’t feeling sorry for himself, not exactly. He was very aware how fortunate he was, and in so many ways. Tom was a casual drinker at best; he was not there to get drunk, only to reflect for a few minutes and for a change of scenery before he went home for the night.

  As he sat on his stool sipping his Glenlivet, Tom considered his good fortune. How many people in this room, in the city for that matter, could say that they were basically set for life financially? While he was not rich, at least by his definition of rich, Tom knew that after the divorce he would be worth in excess of a couple of million bucks. Most of his net worth was liquid, or soon would be once the house was sold or refinanced.

  He was in great health and decent physical condition. While he was not the gym rat that he once was, he vowed to work out at least four days per week from this point on. He still had his hair, for which he was very thankful. From the occasional glances and even stares he got from women, he figured that he had not yet reached the stage of being totally invisible to the opposite sex.

  His children were great – not perfect, but budding human beings on their way to becoming what he hoped were two happy adults. He knew that he had to re-focus on being a better father, but he gave himself some credit in the parent department. He tried to be a good dad because he loved his kids. Was that enough? He asked himself.

  As Tom drank and listened to the blues music, he watched as a couple that were about his age or perhaps a little younger walk into the bar and sit at a table. They were clearly very into each other – touching hands and looking into each other’s eyes. They were in love, but Tom noticed that there were no rings on their fingers.

  He assumed that they were still dating and not yet married. How long had they been a couple, he wondered. Would they stay together? He knew that the odds were at best 50-50 that they would go the distance. And even if they did remain married all of their lives, would they be happy? What was “happy” when it came to marriage? Was staying married in the twenty first century just too difficult of a proposition?

  The truth was Tom missed not only being in love, but even more so having a companion. Sydney had ceased being his companion years ago. She was a fantastic business partner and a great mother, but the intimacy they once took for granted had just faded away. Tom knew that he was as much, or more, to blame for that than Sydney was.

  Tom finished his Scotch and went home. He watched a few minutes of the late show on TV and went to sleep. He was happy as hell that his fiftieth birthday was over.

  The sun was getting lower on the horizon. It was time to stop for the night. There was no place to drop anchor here, unless the anchor had thousands of feet of chain. So Tom took down his sail and dropped a sea anchor. The sea anchor would keep his boat from drifting too far off course during the night.

  The second dinner of his trip was a hamburger. Tom knew that he should probably not eat burgers, but he loved them.

  The stove sprang to life on command. Most of the boat was powered by a diesel engine, directly or indirectly. The engine recharged the batteries and it also ran the main heater, if heat was required. But the stove was a propane burner as was a small space heater in the galley. Tom installed the galley heater because most of the time it was simply a waste of diesel to heat both the berth and main cabin; the small propane heater was usually all that he needed.

  As the meat sizzled in the pan, Tom pulled out one of his duffels. Inside was a plastic box. Inside the box was unopened mail.

  Tomorrow, he vowed, I’ll get to that.

  After eating and securing Sydney for the night, Tom went to bed. There was no need for an alarm clock. When he got up, he got up. He might get underway at dawn or not until noon. Out here he was free to make choices, to do what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tom’s parents were not wealthy. His father was a journeyman carpenter who worked mostly on industrial sites, often on marine projects. He was a veteran of the Second World War and a “Humphrey Bogart” type of guy. He drank beer and smoked cigarettes. While the beer did him no harm, the smokes did. Lance Campbell died of lung cancer in 1981.

  A year before his death Lance took his two sons, Gabriel and Tom, to Hawaii. Lance had been to Pearl Harbor once during the war on his way to fight the Japanese, but he had not been back to Hawaii since. Lance was not a hundred percent physically; he suspected that that there was something wrong with him, but the cancer had yet to be diagnosed.

  They visited Oahu, but they spent most of their three week vacation on the Big Island, on the dry side. They rented a condo and snorkeled every day. Still in high school, Tom was already in love with the water – he spent most of his free time in San Diego either diving or surfing. Gabriel was in college, a year away from graduation. While Gabe liked the ocean, he was not as crazy about it as his brother was.

  On the trip, Tom’s father took his boys deep sea fishing. They caught Ahi and Ono and had a great time with their dad, but the highlight of the fishing excursion for Tom was the whales. Humpbacks were numerous in the waters off Hawaii in the summer. This was the first time he had seen a humpback up close.

  For a year or so after his trip to Hawaii Tom read everything he could about whales. After graduation, he enrolled at UC San Diego majoring in Marine Biology. He envisioned himself becoming the next Jacques Cousteau, traveling around the world on an expensive, ultra sleek dive boat making underwater documentaries and exploring the sea.

  How long it’s been since I’ve had those dreams, Tom thought as he sailed. Somewhere along the way Jacques Cousteau got replaced by Jacques Paycheck. One thing led to another. Tom gravitated toward the communications end of the scientific career spectrum. This move was also initially made with grandiose intent – he had to have a great on camera presence if he was going to dazzle the viewing audience as he recounted the details of his latest deep sea adventure.

  When it came time to
join the real world after getting his college degree, Tom’s options were limited. The Cousteau people simply were not hiring. So he went to UCLA and got his Master’s degree in communications. He never gave up his love for the ocean, but now he reasoned that his entry into marine science might have to be made through the back door.

  Scripps was hiring when Tom finished his program at UCLA. He created a clever video portfolio of himself as a faux public relations rep for a made up major marine institution. Scripps was impressed by Tom’s burning desire to work for them, his media savvy and undergrad background in marine science. Over five hundred people competed for the entry level job Tom won to become the lowest person on the totem pole in the public relations department at Scripps.

  I still had my dreams back then, Tom thought as he adjusted his heading to stay on course. When I lost my dreams, part of me died too. The winds were stronger today so he was making great time. The only sound Tom heard was the gentle thumping of the waves against the bow as Sydney continued on her southwest course.

  Tom didn’t lose his dreams as much as he kept postponing them. He rose quickly through the ranks at Scripps and was fortunate to benefit from a number of timely retirements. Within a few years he was promoted to the head of the public relations department. He was making six figures.

  When he met Sydney Rogers, Tom was thinking about leaving Scripps and joining a film crew. It would have been a huge step down in terms of pay, but the documentary film company wanted Tom to be their on air voice for a cable television series about sharks. Just as he had a few years earlier when he took a job at Scripps, Tom had romantic ideas about where this job might lead him. Suddenly, becoming Jacques Cousteau was back in the picture.

  Sydney changed all that.

  When Tom met Syd he fell in love, for the first and only time in his life. Literally from the instant he met her, his priorities, his dreams, changed. He still wanted to be Jacques Cousteau, but now that goal would have to be accomplished within a marriage. He went from thinking about leaving San Diego for Los Angeles and a spot on a globetrotting film crew to how he might swing a down payment on a larger home and deciding which engagement ring to buy.

  Tom never told Syd about the job he turned down with the film crew. She was his life now and all he wanted to do was make her happy. Living his life for her was personally fulfilling for Tom, at least for a time. When the kids came along, Tom fell in love all over again. Having children was a miraculous, wonderful thing.

  Looking back, Tom could clearly see the turning point in his marriage. Sydney wanted to move back to San Francisco, her home town. Her writing career was taking off – she was making a name for herself as a nationally known addiction/recovery guru. With Tom’s help and coaching, Sydney was now very comfortable in front of the camera and the camera certainly loved her.

  The economics of the decision were straightforward. Sydney was making in excess of $350,000 per year with the potential to make much more. For many reasons, it was better for her career to live in Northern California. At the same time Syd was pushing Tom to move, Pioneer Insurance reached out to Tom through one of Sydney’s publishing connections. They made him a very attractive offer to be their chief spokesperson.

  Sydney denied being behind the job offer from Pioneer, but the timing seemed more than convenient to Tom. He certainly would not have been angry with her if she was, except that she was using the job offer as an incentive to get Tom to agree to live in San Francisco. Tom did not want to leave San Diego.

  At the same time Sydney made her desire known to leave So Cal, Tom was considering approaching his wife with a bold idea. A friend of his from Scripps, an oceanographer, was set to receive a huge government grant within six months to research climate change. A decade earlier climate change was a very new and hot topic. The grant was huge, five million plus, and it was being matched by a similar amount of funding from the private sector.

  Tom’s friend wanted Tom on board as the face and voice of the new firm. In addition to his media/PR duties, Tom would also be given a role in the field. That meant that Tom could spend considerable time on the water, perhaps as much as two months a year.

  I should have told Syd about that opportunity, Tom thought. Replaying the events in his mind, and he hadn’t really thought about this in depth for years, this was when their intimacy really began to disintegrate. Rather than discussing each other’s hopes and dreams, Tom just said yes to Sydney. She was delighted, he was deflated. This was the beginning of a serious resentment Tom would build towards his wife over the coming years.

  While Syd would probably have said no, Tom did not give her the chance to say yes. Tom knew that wasn’t fair to Sydney. While he was a man with few regrets, the regrets he did have were substantial.

  But now when Tom thought about the what ifs he did so with a different perspective. The ocean cleared his mind and opened his heart. Life is not lived through a rear view mirror; it is lived moving forward one day at a time.

  Hawaii was ahead for Tom, along with a chance to rekindle his old dreams, at least to some degree. The Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology was not the Cousteau Society, but Tom wasn’t chasing that dream anymore. He wanted to get back into the marine world, but he also wanted to be a father to his kids.

  Tom smiled. He was thankful that he was out here on the water, grateful that even after a few days he was already feeling much more comfortable in his own skin. This trip was exactly what he needed at just the right time.

  As sunset approached, he lowered his sail. The wind was brisk, so the sea would likely provide a swaying bed for the night. Tom was looking forward to that. Being rocked to sleep by the waves had a very definite appeal.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The days seemed to run together now. Tom’s new routine was far simpler than the one he had back in California – get up whenever, but usually no later than seven thirty or so, start the coffee and make a simple breakfast. Check the satellite weather information system to be sure that he wasn’t sailing into something foul, raise the sail and keep moving towards Hawaii.

  Tom had been blessed with near perfect weather conditions. The wind was just enough at twenty knots or so to propel Sydney along at a nice clip. So far, the storms were staying to the north. As he moved south, the weather got warmer. Temperatures in the daytime now approached seventy five degrees. He gave up his jeans for shorts, his collared shirt for a t-shirt.

  At night when he stopped to eat and sleep Tom would sometimes read, sometimes listen to music and occasionally tap into his plastic box. Inside the box were a variety of items – unopened mail, old letters, legal documents, his resume and professional background papers, video clips of him that needed to be transferred to digital and electronically filed according to some yet to be devised semi-cogent system and a couple of old style paper photo albums.

  Because he did not have a place to live yet on Oahu other than his boat, Tom left all of his furniture and ninety five percent of his belongings in the condo. When he got a place on land, although part of him kept arguing that he could just as easily live on the boat, he planned on flying back to San Francisco, packing everything up and shipping it to the islands.

  For whatever reason, “just because” being paramount, tonight was the night he chose to go through some unopened mail.

  He really didn’t want to think too much about his fiftieth birthday. Yes, Tom admitted to himself as he sipped his black tea and opened the box, that was silly. But silly or not, it was real.

  In one sense age is just a number but in another sense, which was far more important to Tom at the moment, age represented a ticking clock on his dreams. He was no longer twenty five, full of endless energy and wild imaginings. He missed the freedom of those days and while if he had it to do all over again he would marry Syd if for no other reason than it meant Jonas and Jessica were in the world, he wanted to be young and free and full of promise again.

  He had only opened five birthday cards from the more than a hundred h
e had received. He started to go through them now, carefully placing the ones he’d reviewed in a neat pile that would soon become part of the boat’s trash. Through his job at Pioneer, Tom met and regularly interacted with some important, high profile people. His cards reflected his old profession.

  The mayor of San Francisco, well not the mayor personally but one of his staff, sent him a card that appeared to be personalized but was in fact cookie cutter. The Congressman from his district sent his best wishes. And so on…

  Tom missed his kids. He knew that he would. If he didn’t miss them, then something was wrong. He knew that they were missing him too, especially Jonas. He wondered how angry his son would be at him for not taking him along on the trip. He guessed that whatever anger Jonas was feeling it would pass, especially when he brought him out to Hawaii.

  For sure Jonas was coming to live with him. Tom would simply not back down from that happening no matter what Syd said. In general, while it was more his fault than hers that he almost always gave into her, Tom was resolved to be more emotionally honest and firm with Sydney from now on. Not to be cruel, but to be genuine. She needed to understand that the old Tom who gave into almost every request she made had been reborn.

  The Pacific had taken Tom Campbell into her arms and cocooned him, and given him the time required to transform. When he arrived in Hawaii in many ways Tom knew that he would not be the same man. He wanted to emerge as someone who was more confident, more whole and better able to make decisions.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Tom woke up, looked out the porthole in his berth and saw a dead calm sea. There was not a breath of wind. This was new – until now he had always enjoyed at least a light breeze every morning and stronger winds in the afternoon.