The Great Wide Sea

by M. H. Herlong

  “Your turn,” he said. “I’ll show you how we’ve been tracking ourselves.”

  I barely heard Dad’s explanation. I stood holding the companionway ladder and sorting through the facts. I am fifteen now. I used to be five. I am hungry. Mom is not here. Dad is talking. A red light is glowing on a map. I mean a chart. A chart. This is a boat. Chrysalis. A boat. We live on a boat.

  “Ben!” Dad spoke sharply. “Wake up. Listen. It’s your watch now.”

  I turned slowly to take my position at the helm.

  “Ben,” Dad snarled. He was tired. “Life jacket and safety harness. Always. When you’re alone on deck at night, we’d never know if you fell off. You’d be left behind. We’d never find you.”

  “Doesn’t sound so bad,” I said, and shrugged into the hot, heavy gear. The safety harness was like a leash that moms put on two-year-olds at the mall, except you were hooked to a boat, not a mom. If I fell off it would be a pretty wild ride until somebody dragged me out.

  As I sat down at the helm, I searched for the horizon I had been watching before dinner, but it had disappeared in the darkness. The stars were brilliant in the black sky, but I didn’t remember any of their names. When Dad was finally quiet down below, I heard no sounds except the slap of the waves against the hull and the whine of the autopilot. There was nothing for me to do, and I felt sleep creeping over me again.

  Suddenly a splash right beside the boat set my heart pounding. I sat up and looked, but if there had been a monster, I couldn’t have seen it in the black night. Then I heard a cry. A voice called out. One hail from the darkness. Did it say “help”? Was it “ahoy”? Why not a second shout? I sat tense on the seat as my ears filled with the sound of my own blood. Then while I thought I was listening for the voice, I fell into a dream—running and falling, running and falling—until I shook myself awake, only to fall asleep once more. An hour later, when we were miles away from where we had been before, I heard the call again. I wanted to scream back, “Who are you? Where are you?” But there was only a single cry and then silence.

  Then heat crackled through my body as an island appeared dead ahead. I could see its silhouette clearly—a gentle hill with two trees on top. We were much too close. A thin, white line divided it from the sea. That was a beach—or—I sat down. I held my head in my hands. It wasn’t an island. It was a cloud. It wasn’t a beach. It was the faint glow of the rising sun on the horizon just below the cloud.

  When I lifted my head, the island was slowly changing. The thin, white line wasn’t quite as thin, and the trees were slowly drifting away. Overhead, the stars were disappearing as the curve of our sails solidified to gray against the paling sky. Then far ahead of us, I saw the tiny ghost of another sailboat making its way to Bimini too.

  My cheeks felt hollow, my skin dirty, and my stomach empty. I lay back on the cushions as the wind grew lighter and lighter. I looked out to the horizon, a place you never get to, and I closed my eyes against the hot pink ball of the new sun.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “WAKE UP!”

  I sat up straight. Dad was standing in the companionway.

  “I wasn’t sleeping.”

  Dad jerked himself into the cockpit. He motioned me aside. “When did the wind die?’

  I saw the sails hanging loose in the dead air. “Just now,” I said.

  “What’s our speed been?”

  “I’m not sure.” I paused. “The wind’s been getting lighter for a while.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since the sun started coming up.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Ben, how are we going to calculate where we are if we don’t know how fast we’ve been going? Do you want to ram into a marker or run up on a reef?”

  I snatched off the safety harness. “It hasn’t been long.”

  “Time passes quickly when you’re sleeping.”

  “I wasn’t asleep.” I threw the safety harness down.

  “Pick it up,” Dad said. “Put it where it belongs, then take down the sails. We’ll have to motor the rest of the way.”

  “It’s not my fault the wind died.”

  “Do what I said. Then keep a lookout for Bimini.”

  I followed his orders, then stomped to the bow, where I saw a dark streak growing on the horizon. Hours of sailing in the dark with no land in sight, and then there was an island. We’d found it after all.

  “Bimini,” I shouted to Dad, and he nodded.

  I sat down forward of the mast, feeling the deck vibrate with the engine and watching the streak shifting shape every few minutes as we grew closer. When it had separated into two islands just like it was supposed to—North and South Bimini—Dylan and Gerry finally got up and joined me.

  “I’m hungry,” Gerry said as he sat down beside me.

  “We have to wait,” I said.

  “Ben!” It was Dad’s voice. “The engine.”

  I looked back and realized we weren’t vibrating anymore and the world was quiet. The engine had stopped. I left Dylan and Gerry keeping watch and climbed down below. There was air in the fuel line. I didn’t need the book to handle that one. You just loosen the bleed screw and pump until you get fuel coming clean. It takes time, though. By the time I climbed out of the engine compartment, Gerry was eating a breakfast bar quietly in the cabin and Dad had had Dylan raise the sails again.

  “The wind came back up,” Dad said. “We can shut down the engine.”

  “But I just got it going.”

  “We don’t need it. Shut it down.”

  I did what he said, then sat in the cockpit with my arms crossed over my chest. I clenched my jaw. A slow pound started in my head. The island developed trees and buildings and a beach. When Gerry climbed back out into the cockpit, Dad started yelling at us to help him spot the markers. We squeezed between two sandbars, heading north to the harbor while Dad kept quadruple-checking the depth and looking over to port, where the chart said the water was two feet deep and we could see the bottom shining up from the sandbar just under the waves.

  A seaplane landed in the harbor just as we slid in. “Dylan!” Dad shouted. “Check the chart. We can’t anchor in the run-way—or whatever you call it.”

  “Splashway?” I offered.

  “Be quiet,” he snapped.

  “Fine.” I stood up. “I’ll go get something to eat.”

  “You can wait.”

  “I can’t.”

  “When we’re anchoring, we’re all on duty. We’ll eat when we’re done.”

  “But Gerry—”

  “Gerry is five.”

  I sat. I stared at this place, which wasn’t at all what I had imagined. This was just a flat little island scattered with a collection of ragged buildings and old docks limping into the water. I turned my face into the hint of breeze. Gerry shifted as he rolled Blankie into a ball clutched under his chin. Dylan sat by the depth finder and called out changes. The sun got hotter. My stomach got hungrier. Chrysalis inched farther into the harbor. Then Dad said, “Here.”

  We knew how to anchor. We each had an assigned job. Gerry went below. Dylan watched the depth finder. I let out the anchor. Dad handled the engine and did the yelling. We all did our jobs pretty well that morning, especially Dad. He did some outstanding yelling on our first morning in the Bahamas.

  When we finally got the anchor down to suit him, I headed straight to the galley to find something to eat. My hands were shaking when I ripped open a package of crackers. Then he was calling for me again.

  I dragged myself halfway up the companionway ladder. The pain swelled in my head. Dad and Dylan had launched the dinghy and Dad was on his knees in it, trying to get the motor started.

  “What do you want?”

  “Come help me with this anchor.”

  “We already set the anchor,” I said.

  “We need another one at a hundred-and-eighty-degree angle to the first. The current runs through these harbors. W
e can’t trust just one.”

  I dragged myself into the dinghy, still clutching the package of crackers. Dad motored us to a spot maybe 150 feet from where our first anchor had dug into the bottom. He dropped the second anchor overboard into the milky harbor water. It sank in a rustle of bubbles and hissing of line.

  “Now,” Dad said, “dive down and make sure it’s secure.”

  “You think I’m just going to jump over and swim to the bottom right here in the middle of the harbor?”

  “I know you are,” Dad said. “I told you to.” He reached out and took the crackers. “Go.”

  The rush of blood to my brain made me dizzy and hot. I couldn’t look at Dad. We were about two swimming-pool lengths from shore where there was an old marina. A wooden dinghy drifted on a slime-browned towline next to a finger pier rotting into the water. The island looked no wider than the row of tall casuarina trees growing behind the peeling cinder-block building that must have been the marina office.

  I sat for a second, then rolled backwards into the water. I held on to the anchor line and pulled myself down. The water was full of light all around me. The anchor was easy to reach where it lay in less than nine feet of water. I felt the flukes quickly where they dug into the sand and pushed myself straight back up.

  Dad was looking at me as I broke the surface of the water. “Well?” he said.

  “It’s set.”

  “You actually touched it?”

  “I touched it.”

  Dad grabbed the anchor line and tugged. The anchor held tight. He held out his hand to help me back on board. I looked at it for a second, then swam around to the other side of the dinghy and climbed on by myself.

  I heard Dad drop his hand down on his thigh. I heard the silence while he looked at my back. I heard the motor start and the slap of waves against the dinghy bow. But I didn’t turn around. I didn’t want to see Dad. I couldn’t stand to look at him anymore.

  CHAPTER TEN

  IT’S HARD TO live with someone you can’t stand. Everything he does makes you mad—the way he drinks his coffee or the way every once in a while he takes a deep breath and then puffs it out through his lips. You can’t watch him yawn or stretch or scratch. You can’t stand to be close enough that you might touch.

  And on the boat, we were always close. Chrysalis was just over thirty feet long. When we were all down below, only one person at a time could walk around without creating traffic jams. You had to claim your personal parking space. Dad either lay on his bunk reading poetry or sat at the navigation table working with charts. Dylan liked the port settee. Gerry and I went for our bunks. We stayed away from each other as much as we could. It was too tight. Too close. There was no place to go.

  And it wasn’t just the space that cramped you. It was also the work. Even normal things were hard to do. How do you cook dinner on a swinging stove or wash dishes in a sink the size of a mixing bowl? How do you get clean clothes when you’re surrounded by seawater? Then there was the boat work. Every morning it was the same routine. When we woke up, Dad made us take the sheets off our beds, fold them, and stow them in our pillowcases. Next I had to haul up buckets of seawater so Dylan and Gerry could swab the decks while Dad cooked breakfast. After breakfast, Dylan and Gerry cleaned the galley while I took care of the head.

  Once Dad was satisfied that everything was shipshape, we did whatever schoolwork he had set out for us and then started on his list of special chores. We spent hours rearranging the gear in the boat because every other day Dad came up with another brilliant idea about how to make it better. He made us check all the safety gear—the life jackets, the harnesses, even the man-overboard pole. He had us take everything out of the emergency pack and lay it out for inspection. We held our breath while he tested the EPIRB. You flip a switch, it beeps loudly for a minute, and then if it’s working correctly it turns itself off. Otherwise, it starts broadcasting its exact GPS location, signaling the Coast Guard and the Bahamian Defense Force that the idiots on sailing vessel Chrysalis are in trouble and need rescue. I thought for sure the helicopters would appear any minute, but it turned itself off just like it was supposed to, and we weren’t saved after all.

  Every day it was exactly the same. Dad never let up.

  After lunch and when the sun had eased off a bit, he let us do what we wanted. While he talked at the marina or studied charts or read books, we explored the harbor or the island and swam in the ocean.

  When we explored the harbor, we took our snorkels and fishing gear. We thought we needed the masks to see what was on the bottom, but we were wrong. In the Bahamas the water was clear. From a distance it looked turquoise or royal blue, but when we were in it or looking straight down, it was as clear as a swimming pool. Everything was there for us to see. We might be skimming along in the dinghy when suddenly we would look down on a patch of turtle grass and several conch nestled against the sand. Or maybe we’d see an old engine sparkled with tiny fish. Or maybe the worst—a black plastic trash bag, flapping open and slowly losing its guts into the sea.

  When we saw big fish, we tried to catch them. We used a pole or trolled a line the way we did on the lake. I told Gerry about when Dylan and I were very small and Dad let us put his trolling motor on my baby sailboat and go puttering around the cove. I got so excited about a fish that I forgot to steer, and we ran the boat right into the shore. Dad didn’t even get mad. He just laughed at us and told Mom we should stick to sailing. When I told that story, Dylan laughed, but Gerry said he didn’t believe me. “It’s true,” I said. “He really didn’t get mad.” Then I pretended I was going to ram the dinghy into a pier and Gerry pretended he wasn’t scared.

  A few times we explored the island. The houses were so small. Cinder blocks—always with peeling paint. Trash and weeds in the yard. Through the windows, nothing but darkness and quiet. An occasional brilliant burst of flowers. Boo-gin—something. Mom would know the word.

  Every day when we finished exploring, we walked across the narrow island to the ocean beaches. Dylan and I swam, but Gerry wouldn’t even come in the water. Dylan and I put on our snorkels and masks and called to him, “Are you sure?” and he nodded. He sat on the beach, gathering shells and casuarina acorns and lining them up to make forts or armies or boats. Dylan and I waded into the water, watching our feet and the little puffs of sand we kicked up with each step. The schools of fish parted in front of us and the blue crabs scurried along the bottom. We laid ourselves out to float on the salty water and the warm swells lifted us toward the sun then eased us down again. When we came back to the beach, we helped Gerry build a sand castle. In the evening, when it was time to leave, Gerry stashed his acorns and shells near the roots of a tree.

  We went back to the same spot every day. We liked it there. It was ours.

  Then one day after we had finished up chores and schoolwork and lunch, Dad announced that this would be a short afternoon. “We’ll all go in together. I have to shop,” he said. “But we won’t stay long. We need to get ready for tomorrow.”

  “What’s tomorrow?” I asked.

  “We’re moving on,” he said.

  “Leaving Bimini?”

  He nodded.

  “But we like it here.”

  “It’s time to go.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you just decide and we all have to go?”

  “Well, you can’t stay here alone,” he said. “Come on. Everybody in the dinghy.”

  When the dinghy touched the dock, Dylan, Gerry, and I got out and left Dad to tie up by himself. We crossed the island without speaking. For a moment we all stood on the beach looking at the water.

  “Gerry,” I said, “the water is warm here. Not cold like the lake. And it’s salty. You float better. You ought to try.”

  “No,” he said, and scooped up his stash of acorns and shells.

  “We can teach you,” I said.

  “I can’t learn,” he answered, and sat down beside
the remains of yesterday’s castle. The wind had softened all the edges. The water had collapsed one side. He started making repairs, and Dylan and I waded into the water.

  Dylan put on his snorkel and mask and started puttering around looking at the bottom. I floated on my back and closed my eyes against the sun. I swam back and forth a few times and dove through some waves. Then I stood up, slung the water out of my hair, and waded back out. Gerry was not at his castle. I looked at the trees edging the beach and saw him sitting beside the tree where he stashed his acorns. He had pulled Blankie completely over his head.

  I walked up to him and sat down. “I must have been swimming a long time,” I said. “It’s Halloween already and Gerry’s a ghost.”

  He didn’t move.

  I started tickling up his spine. “Spider crawling up your back—”

  He shook my fingers off. “Stop,” he said, and hiccupped.

  I pulled Blankie off his head. He was crying. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer. He just looked at me then carefully arranged Blankie over his head once more.

  I started to pull at the edge to slide it off again, but he grabbed it. “Stop,” he said, so I stopped.

  “Come on, buddy. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  He drew in a deep breath and sat up straighter so Blankie seemed taller. “I don’t want to go away again,” he said.

  I turned and saw Dylan just coming out of the water. He walked up to where Gerry and I were sitting. “Gerry doesn’t want to leave,” I said. Dylan nodded and sat down with us, the water dripping off the ends of his hair.

  Then Dad came tromping through the trees to where we were sitting. “There you are,” he said. “I wondered where you’d gone. Ready to head back?”

  We didn’t say anything.

  “Gerry,” Dad said. “What are you doing under Blankie?”