Days of the Python (Python Trilogy Book 1)

by David Jurk

  But Christ, how could I do that? Where would I go to? And even if I knew the answers, would I be able to? It would mean thousands of kilometers across the Pacific, by myself. I haven’t even put the sails up yet! And all I’ve done is putter around the marina using the motors. Head out on the Pacific? That was insane; I’d surely do something stupid, make some novice mistake and capsize – and then I’d just die by drowning instead of the plague. I needed more time to learn, to take this in small steps. That had been the plan – we’d learn as we went; there was no rush, no need to take chances.

  There won’t be time for you to get as comfortable as you’d like…

  No, apparently there wouldn’t. No time to shake things out, no time for sea trials. But a bit of a compromise occurred to me; I had the motors. If I got mostly sunshine, the batteries would stay charged and I could just leave the sails down until I was out and away and found conditions that were easy and safe for me to gradually work into actually sailing. A nice bright sunny day, out in the middle of the ocean, with a gentle breeze and flat seas; I’d slowly raise the main and unfurl the jib and it would all under control. Sure, OK, maybe that’d work.

  It wouldn’t matter that I wouldn’t get the speed she’s capable of right away – all I really needed at the moment was to get away from shore, away from people. There was plenty of food on board if I were careful, and as for water – well, with the water maker I had a theoretically endless supply. If I could keep enough charge in the batteries to drive Windswept at say, an average of five knots for eighteen hours a day, I could make one hundred and fifty kilometers every day. Admittedly, this was a stretch; it assumed perfect weather, favorable currents, no mechanical breakdowns, no electrical issues and no leaks. It meant, in short, that nothing - absolutely nothing – went wrong. And if one truism exists about boats, it’s this; things always go wrong.

  But I didn’t need things to be perfect forever; just long enough to get my feet under me, long enough to learn to sail her. And though I sat for the next half hour trying to poke holes in this fledgling plan, I couldn’t. Or maybe I was just becoming morbidly fascinated with the whole idea. I sat and looked out toward the Pacific and tried to picture myself casting the mooring off, pushing the throttles forward, steering out between the other boats and making my way to the harbor mouth. I imagined the expanse in front of me, the endlessness of the ocean, and pictured myself heading straight out into it. Could I really do it?

  And it seemed in that moment that it’d gotten beyond the simple question of could. There were no alternatives anymore; I was leaving. Maybe it was Rachel’s message to me or maybe the deaths in San Francisco, or maybe it was both. The reality was that the question of doing it or not doing it was answered. I was doing it.

  Which left, of course, only the question of where. I looked around the cockpit, found the monitor, dark and sleek, before me.

  “Uh, Ray,” I said tentatively.

  “Here, mate,” came the reply. The monitor brightened, displaying a satellite image of our position.

  “Ray, I need some routes analyzed.”

  “Sounds bonza, mate. Parameters, then, if you would.”

  For the next three hours, I suggested routes for every conceivable destination, feeding Ray the same variables: six weeks of provisions, a gradual start that allowed me to get up to speed slowly, and a route that gave me favorable currents and the best chance of good weather.

  For that set of conditions, Ray identified two possible options; a straight run southwest to Tahiti and Polynesia or a trans-Pacific run due west to Hawaii. Anything else was either so distant that food would become an issue, or the weather risk was unacceptable. Choosing Polynesia meant roughly a five thousand kilometer voyage, Hawaii a bit over four. Both of those numbers seemed impossibly huge.

  And either way, what would I find when I got there? How would sailing across the Pacific be any different than the old guy in the café wanting to motor down to Baja? Compared to Baja, Tahiti and Hawaii were absolute tourist meccas; international airports existed on even on very remote islands in Polynesia, and as for Hawaii – well, the islands were inundated with thousands of tourists every day. The question was then, why head out across thousands of kilometers of open ocean just to reach a place as likely to be infected as here?

  But the more I thought about the dynamics of this plague, the more I came to see that it wasn’t so much a question of where I went as when – and for how long I was out there alone. If the virus was as deadly, and as infectious as in China, then people in both places were – in all likelihood – already sick, but still in incubation. In fact, given the international travel involved, it was a little surprising the first case hadn’t appeared in Hawaii instead of San Francisco. And people would go to bed - tonight perhaps, tomorrow night or the next - and wake up unable to breathe and then they’d die. And wherever death began to appear, it would spread as fast as the infection itself had and in short order, Hawaii and Tahiti would be emptied of people. Maybe there’d be a few pockets of people that for whatever reason were infected late, but they’d eventually die - they’d all die. I had a sudden vision of the city of San Francisco in On the Beach, its streets empty of traffic and people, the population all dead from radiation. Would a city emptied of souls by the plague be any different than one left empty by radiation? Yes, I realized; once everyone was dead from the plague, the city would be left livable.

  Ultimately, then, these weeks at sea were critical – not to get somewhere necessarily, but to be away from people. Until the infection ran its course. I focused on this thought, turned it into a mantra; survive until enough time goes by. It was a draconian, Faustian strategy, horrifying in its implications; buy my survival by waiting out the deaths of millions, perhaps billions, of people.

  So, there it was, and without thinking too much more about it, the decision was made - it would be Hawaii. If it didn’t matter where I went, if the important thing was getting away from people until this thing had burnt itself out, then I’d rather end up there. Rachel and I had taken our honeymoon on Kauai and had returned twice. The memories there with her were the best of my life.

  I looked out over the ocean, to the faded remnants of the sunset. Out there, Kauai still lay in mid-day sunshine, lush and verdant – as beautiful an island as any place on Earth. I suppose I was choosing it based as much on memories and emotion as cold logic, but really, what ultimately it came to was this; Kauai seemed at least real to me. I could imagine making it. Tahiti, on the other hand, seemed as far away – and as impossible – as Mars. I knew in my heart this was a decision that had life or death consequences, but I had to make it based on the means available to me and all I had was my own thoughts and fears. I raised my glass with the last swallow of whiskey in it, held it out to the darkening western sky. I’m coming back, I whispered aloud.

  My sleep was full of nightmarish images that woke me twice in the night, sweaty and heavy, tangled in the sleeping bag. At four in the morning, blaming the whiskey, I gave up and made coffee. There were a few boats, probably heading out to fish, idling around me, preparing their own departures. I readied everything below I could think of – made sure everything was stowed and secured. There were still items remaining on the list and I thought about the risk of taking time to get them. I wanted a second gun, a hand gun, to have a backup to the Winchester; something that could be carried more easily. But I would have to go into town and the paperwork and a background check could take hours, and in the meantime, I would be encountering people. If I were not infected already, would having a second gun be worth risking my life? I could almost feel the dark progress of the plague making its way over the land, coursing southward person by person, toward me from San Francisco.

  There simply was no more time.

  And as the horizon behind me began to lighten and the red eye rose sullenly above the skyline behind me, the pressure inside my chest became unbearable. My heart pounding, I reached over the gunwale and unhooked the aft line from th
e mooring ball with an unsteady hand. The tide was slack and Windswept rocked lightly in the chop from a passing boat. I took the tiller in one hand and flipped on the auxiliary with the other, gently nudging the starboard throttle forward. I stood up to get a good view, needing to maneuver through the dozens of moorings, then out and around a jetty to the main harbor channel, and from there, south to the tip of Point Loma before finding the open sea. I cursed as a large fishing boat, impatient with my crawling pace, accelerated around me, leaving me slewing in their wake dangerously close to another boat. But Emma had taught me well, and I used the two props to countermand the slewing, straightening us. I got past the jetty and into the main channel, far wider, and nudged the throttles forward a bit, heard the rising pitch from the controller as the props bit deeper, faster. I watched Point Loma sliding by to starboard and in minutes it fell behind us and I shoved the tiller to port and pushed both throttles another centimeter forward. Windswept answered and I marveled at the smooth, effortless force. With the increased speed, the tiller became light as a feather, and I took a deep breath and nudged them again, another centimeter, and we were up to six knots. It felt like sixty; both exhilarating and frightening.

  The western sky loomed grey, lightened only indirectly by a mauve reflection from the sunrise behind us. Spread before me, endlessly, infinitely, was the vastness of the Pacific. I glanced at my watch; it was just past six. Rachel, I thought, I’m doing it; stay with me.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ONE MINUTE YOU’RE tethered to land in some fashion – a dock, an anchor, a mooring perhaps – and you can feel it, feel the gravity of it, the safe familiarity. And then you release yourself to the sea, and at once you’re in a different world. We were hardly out of the harbor, surrounded by the sounds and smells of dozens of fishing boats and yet the feeling of entering a strange realm, of being subject to new laws, of facing a new reckoning, was overwhelming. A feeling of nearly unbearable expectancy rose in me and I waited for what must be coming; some unknown but certain catastrophe.

  But nothing happened; the sea was calm, the winds light. The sun rose behind me and morning gradually spread westward, illuminating the sea and sky before us. There was the soft pitching of Windswept as we rose and fell over the chop created by boats around us. It was all benign, uneventful; surely safer than driving the pickup through San Diego streets. You can’t stay wound tight forever. This was no different than sailing in Casco Bay, other than going a wee bit further out.

  Right.

  Four thousand kilometers further, on a boat that not only had I never sailed, but that had just been launched.

  Which, of course, now that we were moving, meant I needed – immediately – to check every opening, every seacock, every seam for water tightness. All three hulls had automatic bilge pumps, and backups for the bilge pumps, to protect against the slightest leak. I saw in my mind’s eye all the joins in the hulls where I’d fitted the two hull-halves together, then taped, epoxied and filleted them into a whole; had I done each one well enough to keep all water out, had I done well enough to structurally hold her against the power of the sea?

  Time to check.

  Meaning I needed to set the autopilot so that I could let go of the rudder for more than a few minutes. Where – and how – did I do that? Then, thanking the gods for Emma, I remembered her telling me with a giggle; “When in doubt, ask Ray”. I glanced at the monitor.

  “Ray?” I called out, hesitant.

  “Aye, mate,” came the prompt and cheery response.

  “Ray, uh, set the autopilot, please.”

  “Good on ya! Just need to know the course, yeah?”

  “Right, yes. Kauai. Nawiliwili Bay.”

  “That’s back o’ Bourke, that is! Course confirmed for Nawiliwili. I’ve got the helm.”

  Back of Bourke? Where do they come up with this shit?

  I felt the pressure on the tiller firm as the autopilot assumed control and released it. Still, it nagged at me that I’d forgotten how to set the autopilot myself. I’d built the boat, I’d installed the systems, and I’d forgotten how to engage the autopilot? If I’d fumbled something like that, what would it be like setting the sails for the first time? This was a sail boat – the motors were called auxiliaries for a reason. And what else would I forget about completely? And there, in a nutshell, was my albatross; the weakness that hung around my neck like a millstone. In all the time building her and in the two years after she’d been completed and left waiting in the barn – in all that time, not once had I completely assembled her. Heading out to cross an ocean under those circumstances was akin to building an airplane then just taking off without checking to see if the wings would stay on. Sure, you might be just fine, but it wasn’t a risk I’d be comfortable taking.

  And I’ve known it, really, I’ve known it. I knew I should have pulled everything from the barn, all the pieces, and set up the rigging as if she were going into the water. I should’ve tested the sails and turned on all the systems, worked out the kinks, resolved all the bugs.

  But then Rachel died.

  Enough; worrying about it wouldn’t change a damn thing. I was out on the ocean and I just needed to break it down to the immediate – we needed to keep moving; simple as that. Keep the motors going and make sure we’re pointed in the right direction, which was pretty much due west. Just do that much.

  And, obviously, we needed to stay afloat. Sinking would definitely be a problem. And there are lots of ways to sink a boat, most of them involving nothing more than human carelessness. So, there were checks to do – lots of them. And they needed to happen now. I had to trust Ray to steer, and I needed to get moving. Taking a deep breath, I ducked down the hatchway into the cabin.

  Checking began with the driveshafts, and the holes in the hull where they penetrated. These openings have to be tight enough around the shafts not to let water leak in, yet still allow them to turn easily. An ancient problem with boats, it was solved in the old days with something called a stuffing box. These were, paradoxically, a mechanism that was designed to slowly leak – just enough of a leak to lubricate the shaft, allowing it to turn. The bit of water that did the lubricating slowly accumulated in the bilge, and eventually got pumped out.

  But Windswept had no real bilge, there was nowhere for the water to drip to. And there were far more modern materials these days; gel-like polymers that formed a ring, creating a seal so tight against the shafts that not a drop of water could get through. Yet they were so slippery there was no friction. Still – a hole in the hull was a hole in the hull and I needed to check. I did - they were bone dry.

  Next, I thought I’d look at the through-hulls for the two sinks – one in the galley and one in the head. I started forward, intending to check the galley first. But I wasn’t used to moving about the boat while it was underway and just as I was mid-step, we lurched into the trough of a shallow wave. It wasn’t much movement, but enough to cause me to lose my balance, and I fell hard against the aka housing, the sharp end of one of the holding pins slicing a gash in my shoulder. Swearing in irritation and pain, I dug out the first aid kit, using surgical glue to close the wound. Well, I wouldn’t do that again. But it occurred to me that having that pin in a position where it could cut me at all was stupid, and I began to critically examine some of my construction decisions from the new perspective of actually being at sea. It was sobering to now see some of my short sightedness, and as it turned out, the gash in my shoulder was only the first of a half-dozen bruises, scrapes and cuts that I gave myself in those first hours before I began obeying the old sailor’s adage; one hand for the boat, one for yourself. And where I could, I began devising fixes for those aspects of boat design that had, at the time, seemed so benign and inconsequential.

  All of this brought to mind a greater fear – what was to prevent me from falling overboard? I imagined an innocent slip, my hands scrabbling helplessly for the lifelines as I plunged off the boat, looking up out of the water as she sailed on without me, n
o one on board to turn about and come back for me. It was a terrifying scenario, and I spent an hour rigging up a “jack line” – a carbon fiber cable that ran from the bow to the stern, onto which I could clip a line that was attached to a safety harness. This clip allowed the line to easily slide along the cable, so I could travel anywhere on deck – and no matter what the conditions, never fear going over. It was hard not to feel silly using it in calm conditions, and after a while it became such a nuisance that I clipped into it only when I left the cockpit.

  The good news after these first few painful hours was that other than a minor drip from the depth transponder through-hull – something I managed to easily re-seal – there were no leaks.

  Until the sails went up then, the only other thing needing immediate looking after was the provision for drinking water. With the design of the hulls, there simply had been no capacity for carrying water, with room for only a single small tank of twenty liters built beneath the cabin sole. The water itself was provided by a water maker, a device that used hydraulic pressure to force seawater through a filter fine enough to remove the salt and all impurities. There were two on board – one mounted in the galley which ran off the ‘house’ batteries, and the other stored with emergency provisions; a portable model that was pumped manually. Neither was very fast – it took the electric version over two hours to fill the twenty-liter tank - but that was enough to provide for the daily water needs of at least four people, showers excluded. And for me alone – well, I’d be in fresh water heaven.

  Aside from when I’d first bought them, they’d never been tested. If they didn’t produce now, there’d be no point in continuing. I went to the galley and turned the water pump on and opened the faucet, immediately hearing the pump. A long pause – enough that I began to wonder – then water, cool and sweet from the tap. Once the small tank had filled, the pump would only need to come on when water levels dropped to the ten-liter mark.