The Cure for Anything Is Salt Water Part 4

T H E N E X T D AY T H E weather was better, and we continued through North Carolina, up the ICW past Morehead City and Beaufort, which both teemed with small watercraft. My good friends Frank and Barbara Sain had offered me a free mooring in Beaufort and I'd heard it was a wonderful town to explore. But we pa.s.sed by far too early in the day to justify stopping, especially after two days off. We'd now been underway for twelve days and we weren't even halfway to Sag Harbor. North Carolina was starting to seem endless.

We took Adams Creek, the cut that runs between Beaufort and the Neuse River, and enjoyed the smooth ride of the big channel. We saw two huge tugs with barges, but almost n.o.body else. Toward the end of the afternoon, we opted for an anchorage that one of the smaller guidebooks mentioned. It was off Adams Creek, at Green Marker 9. The channel markers in that area had been moved around, but a range marker was clearly indicated on the chart and still exactly where it should be. So we knew we were in roughly the right place.

The anchorage was tricky to get into. No one else was there, and it was littered with fishermen's floats, so we proceeded carefully, checking the chart and choosing a bearing off the lower range marker that showed plenty of depth. Once in, we tried repeatedly to anchor but the bottom was nothing but a powdery silt that wouldn't hold our hook. Defeated, we decided to get back into the ICW and head for Oriental, since we still had plenty of time before dark.

I was at the helm. As I turned us around, I glanced at the crab pots again, looked for the range marker and angled back the same way we had come in. Or so I thought. We were making our way out slowly but confidently when I suddenly thought, Uh-oh. Did I choose my bearing off the low range marker or the high range marker? Unfortunately, the nearly simultaneous shudder beneath our boat indicated that I had aimed for the high range marker. We were aground. Really aground.

And this time, no amount of powerful maneuvering could free us. For fifteen minutes I revved the engine and turned the rudder-hoping that what had worked in New Smyrna would work again, but we were well and truly stuck. Overconfidence had made me casual in a situation where I should have known better.

At first, I kicked myself. Part of it was ruining a good record. Of course, we could sit and wait for the tide to come back and float us free but the days off had put us behind schedule and we didn't want to lose more time or end up trying to find a safe anchorage in the middle of the night. I called Towboat U.S. on the VHF, and John and I decided to relax while we waited. I was only mildly annoyed with myself. n.o.body's perfect and I had been a little careless. It was a very valuable lesson learned and luckily no harm had been done.

As we waited, a rowboat with an old man and a teenage boy approached us and circled curiously. "Hey, you run aground?" the younger of the two occupants called out.

"Yup, looks that way," replied John good-naturedly. "Our own fault."

"Yeah, well, happens all the time in here. You need a tow?"

"We do but we've already called Towboat U.S. Thanks a lot, though" said John.

"You sure?" The young guy in the rowboat tried again.

"We could pull you off faster in Shrimpboat U.S.," he said, flas.h.i.+ng a gap-toothed grin, "probably cheaper too. $50. How 'bout that? We could do it right now, no problem. You'd be on your way."

John and I had seen a fleet of big shrimp boats, lined up in the adjoining cove. But I was glad I'd already called Towboat U.S. For once, I hadn't let my optimism get the better of me-I had chosen the unlimited tow option on my insurance, so being pulled off wouldn't cost me an extra dime. But more meaningful than the money, Chapman had drilled into us the danger of offering or accepting a tow from another vessel. In the wrong hands, it could turn into a disaster. A poorly chosen line will sometimes break under pressure and cause a serious injury when it snaps. Or a cleat will tear loose, damaging the boat and hurling a metal object with great speed and force at the nearest bystander. If you're a good Samaritan who tows a boat in trouble, you could nonetheless wind up with a lawsuit for any injuries to the other guy's boat or pa.s.sengers, whether you caused them or not. The same is true if you accept a tow from a friendly bypa.s.ser, of course.

And that's even before you got into the issues of salvage towing. Under maritime law, there are incidents in which a troubled vessel at sea becomes the property of its rescuer. Likewise, a s.h.i.+p that has been abandoned-even for reasons of life and death-can become the property of whoever tows it to sh.o.r.e. Some boaters vacationing in less developed parts of the world have gone ash.o.r.e for lunch only to return and find their unattended boat has been cut from its anchor line and set adrift so it can be "salvaged." It's always better to use a professional towing service if you aren't in dire trouble.

We waved as our locals rowed off in disappointment. And I wondered if they had perhaps moved the markers around to bring a little extra business into their part of Adam's Creek.

Was that banjo music I heard? Before my imagination could get too carried away by what a night trapped aboard in this anchorage might be like, we heard Towboat U.S. calling to say they were a mile away.

A few minutes later a red towboat entered the cove and circled us. The mustachioed driver introduced himself as John Deaton and explained how he intended to get us off the bottom. At first we were incredulous. I had given the dispatcher the Bossanova's measurements, emphasizing that she was steel and weighed 30 tons. But the boat that circled us now looked tiny-more like a ski boat than a tow boat. It was about 20 feet long, fibergla.s.s, with a covered center console and big twin engines. A large stainless steel pole was set through the aft deck, obviously for tying to a tow.

I expressed some doubt, and Deaton grinned. "Don't you worry," he said. "These engines are very powerful, and before I tow you, I'm going to use them to float you loose. Watch this."

He tied us to his tow pole and backed right up alongside us. With expert turns of his boat and big engines, Deaton started blowing sand out from underneath the Bossanova. It was not, I suppose, unlike how I'd gotten us off the shoal in New Smyrna, but the engines were much more powerful and directed. Deaton worked for about five minutes, and then we felt ourselves floating free again. He pulled us forward about 100 yards, and then had us cast off the tow line.

"Ok," he said. "You follow me out of here. Where you folks going anyway?"

We said we intended to stop in Oriental for the night.

"Good idea," he said. " That's not far, about 5 miles ahead.

There's a big fireworks display tonight for the Fourth of July. We do ours a night early. It's going to be awfully crowded, but you can probably find a spot to anchor and watch. I'll make sure you're okay getting out of here, then I've got to run on back to town. I'll have a look and let you know if I see any s.p.a.ce for you. We can handle the paperwork for the tow back in town, okay?"

It was fineby us. As we approached Oriental about 45 minutes later, John Deaton came back on the VHF. "Bossanova, Bossanova this is Towboat U.S. Come back."

"Towboat U.S., Towboat U.S. This is Bossanova."

"Yeah, Bossanova. Switch and answer Channel 9."

"This is Bossanova, switching to Channel 9."

Once we were on a less-trafficked frequency, John Deaton came back and said, "Yeah, Bossanova. Here's what's happening. There doesn't look to be any s.p.a.ce at all in the harbor. But me and my brother have a marina, and we have a spot for you for tonight if you want to tie up there. There's no toilet or shower, though. Just a place to dock."

We had a shower and toilets with holding tanks aboard, so there was no problem. I hoped it wouldn't cost us a fortune, but I didn't feel like we had a lot of options this late in the day.

Deaton gave us directions. We had to look for a narrow channel off to port, shortly after we entered the harbor. Follow the markers carefully, staying to the starboard side because it was a little deeper there and we were just going to make it, with our 4-foot 9-inch draft. At the end of the channel was a kind of tricky turn to starboard and then almost immediately after that another hard to port. We should take the third slip on the right.

His directions were good and the channel was exactly as he described. At the end, where the short tricky turns began, was a clubhouse of some sort with a big deck. There were plenty of observers celebrating Sat.u.r.day afternoon on the Fourth of July weekend as I brought my little s.h.i.+p perfectly through the turns and smoothly into the dock. Even I was a little impressed with myself as people shouted out Beautiful job! Nice work! It was one of several moments on the trip when I recognized the pride I felt at becoming competent. (Of course, these people didn't know I had run us aground about two hours earlier.) Over the years, I'd seen books I edited stay on the New York Times bestseller list, get great reviews, sell as many as 10 million copies. This satisfaction I felt from bringing the boat in flawlessly was infinitely more real and thrilling. It seemed perverse, but as Emily d.i.c.kinson first said, and Woody Allen said much more infamously, the heart wants what it wants. We tied up in our slip across from the clubhouse, and a whole new group of onlookers approached to congratulate me on my boat handling and to ooh and ahh over the Bossanova.

We were essentially bow-to John Deaton's brother's backyard, and he was having a big party. Children were running around playing hide-and-seek, a group of guys stood around the barbecue, women were going in and out with covered dishes. Everyone was holding a beer. The scene was very Americana and oddly soothing, though far from my idea of family. It was too traditional: the men were relaxing in a kind of macho way, talking about NASCAR and swearing frequently. The woman all looked a little damp and harried as they cooked and supervised the kids. John was right at home though, drinking beer with the guys in no time flat. I sat with Deaton while he filled out the towing paperwork.

When he handed it to me, I had to stifle a gasp. That grounding and short tow had cost Boat-U.S. $750. Wow! The towing business was all right. I signed, handed the clipboard back, and thanked him again for finding us this spot. What did we owe him for the night?

"Oh, there's no charge," Deaton said. "Slip would just be sitting here empty, and it's not like we have any services to offer you. Just enjoy the fireworks."

That was a generous gesture and a nice surprise. I smiled when a gang of kids showed up and piled into the boat next to us. They were lugging a big picnic basket and shooed ahead by a pretty woman who turned out to be Deaton's wife. Yeah, we thought we'd take dinner, anchor out and watch the fireworks from a less crowded place, Deaton explained. That was the family I'd want to belong to.

John and I did indeed sit on the stern and enjoy the fireworks. They weren't much, actually, but we were as happy as could be seeing the colors explode against a sky full of stars while we held paper plates on our laps, piled with barbecued chicken and baked beans. This wasn't too bad at all.

The next morning, we decided to head for Ocrac.o.ke Island, part of North Carolina's famed Outer Banks and home of Edward Teach, the fiercest pirate of them all, better known as Blackbeard. Actually, Blackbeard's legend may be a good deal fiercer than he was, but that's the way he wanted it. With long dark hair, a bushy beard and an array of daggers and pistols swinging from his bandolier, Blackbeard projected an intentionally savage image. He was often seen with smoke curling from his ears-said to be the result of slow-burning matches he placed in his braided facial hair before a battle. Legend has it that on the last night of his life, Blackbeard learned that the British Navy was coming to the island to capture him. Unable to navigate the treacherous shoals in the dark, Blackbeard paced the night away, yelling, "Oh, c.o.c.k crow! Oh, c.o.c.k crow!" willing daylight to come and thus giving the island its name. Daylight did not arrive soon enough for Blackbeard. He was captured and beheaded by the British. Legend has it that his headless body circled the British Navy's boat many times before he died, though many hold that he did not, as they say, give up the ghost. There are reports that his spirit body is often seen swimming in Ocrac.o.ke Inlet, searching for his head.

Luckily, we didn't see it on our way in but we did witness the famously tricky shoals that spelled his doom. We had planned what seemed a safe route through, but as we approached we saw a large pa.s.senger ferry coming up behind us. "Hey, John. I'm sure our route is fine, but why don't we take advantage of this guy's local knowledge and see if he'll let us follow him in?" I suggested.

John got on the VHF and offered to pull over and let the ferry pa.s.s if we could follow him in. No problem, said the ferry captain. And we did. The ferry took the exact same route we had planned, though it was faster than we were-who wasn't?-and we lost sight of it as we neared the harbor. I'd read something in one of the guides about overshooting the obvious entrance and then doubling back at a sharp angle to avoid some new shoaling. But John suggested I should just turn and make a straight approach at the entrance. I'm pretty sure that's the way the ferry went in, said John. It'll probably be fine, I lied to myself.

We touched ground for a second but I powered us off. I left a big billow of red behind and panicked, wondering if I had chopped a nurse shark or sting ray or some other large marine mammal. It was much later that I realized that the fancy bottom paint that's designed to shed barnacles and marine growth with ease sheds itself as easily. That had been a big billow of expensive bottom paint I felt terrible about killing. I had a good laugh, and not for the last time, at what I still didn't know about boating.

Once in Ocrac.o.ke, we found the munic.i.p.al marina right next to the ferry dock. We sat in the busy harbor and tried repeatedly to raise a park ranger for an indication of where to pull up, but we got no response. Well, I figured, let's just go in and tie up anywhere, and we can move after that. Bobbing where we were unnerved me, particularly as I did not have a chart with enough detail to indicate water depth inside the harbor, though boats buzzed by all around us. Touching ground on the way in had made me a tad paranoid about taking anything for granted.

We entered the munic.i.p.al docks and I began to turn toward a temporary spot alongside the long pier when a berthed trawler hailed us on the VHF.

"There's a spot over here that's free if you head straight back and then turn to port. You won't be allowed to stay alongside that pier," he offered.

"Thanks for the info," John called back. "We'll give it a try."

There wasn't a lot of room to turn once we were in the dock area and I had already started angling us toward the pier. Now I tried to turn us back in the other direction, but the wind was against us. The Bossanova was a great s.h.i.+p, but she had a big profile, a lot of windage, and she was tough to dock in a stiff breeze. After a moment, I realized I was going to have to make a very tight turn to port and go back to the original plan.

It went smoothly enough with me using the technique Captain Bob Swindell had drilled into me: big, short surges of power. But the turn I needed to make today was difficult with the wind pus.h.i.+ng us forward, so I had to alternate between surging ahead and surging back to keep us pivoting in a small enough s.p.a.ce. What I was trying to do was wind up with my stern toward the dock so the wind could push us in and alongside. Anyway, that was the idea.

I was controlled but tense as I executed this plan since there was absolutely no margin for error in such a tight s.p.a.ce. Also, docking the Bossanova always created a bit of a spectacle. She was a unique little s.h.i.+p and her drystack exhaust gave her a throaty, chugging sound that I loved. Using a lot of power tended to amplify that, and it was hard not to attract attention. I loved it when people stared appreciatively at my boat, but not while I was docking. It made me much more nervous. What had happened in Oriental with the cheering onlookers had been a lovely exception-the last thing I needed in this tight, windy situation was people watching me.

Adding to my stress level was a bright red fibergla.s.s sailboat, about 26 feet long, also tied alongside the pier and directly in front of my bow as I worked on the turn. Every time I surged forward I came unavoidably close to the little boat. I wasn't worried about what would happen if I hit a dock or piling with the Bossanova. She was a tank. But the last thing I wanted to do was crush a small sailboat while her two owners looked on, terrified, from her deck.

But luck was with me. I slowly powered us around, then the wind caught us and pushed us right up against the dock. Before we could even tie up, and well before a sense of relief overtook the adrenaline that still coursed through my veins, Heck and Samba leapt from the boat onto the dock. On more than one occasion, they had pulled this escape trick. I had much better visibility with the pilothouse doors open, but if I tied them up they'd become hysterically excited and yappy, which made concentrating completely impossible. So I left them loose, and though I kept netting across the gap in the railings, they sometimes leapt right from the side of the boat. It made me want to strangle them because the last thing I needed to think about was chasing those two down when I had a 30-ton boat to finish securing. But I tried to see it from their perspective: the sea was not their friend. They saw a chance and seized it. My advice: never make the mistake of getting dogs that are smarter than you are.

A couple of bystanders grabbed my furry fugitives and the park ranger finally appeared to say we were welcome to stay where we were for a few hours, but then we'd have to move. The new spot we were a.s.signed was pretty easy to get to, so we untied and reberthed immediately, then hit the town.

Ocrac.o.ke was hopping. The outermost of North Carolina's barrier islands, Ocrac.o.ke is only accessible by ferry or private plane, and its population swells from about 750 in the winter to more than 7,000 each summer. At one end of the island there's an adorable, historic village full of cafes and shops, but the main draw is the 16 miles of windswept Atlantic beaches, with plenty of room for both wild ponies and tourists. Despite a relaxed atmosphere that suggests time has pa.s.sed it by, Ocrac.o.ke is under a lot of strain, and not just from the ma.s.sive influx of visitors: the beaches are eroding at a rate of 10 feet per year and the small island would more or less disappear if hit by a large enough hurricane.

But today, Ocrac.o.ke's worries are invisible: a raucous Fourth of July parade with a half-dozen floats had just made its way up the main street. Kids chased the end of the parade, honking horns, waving American flags and cheering. As I walked the dogs along the dock, an older boater who was sitting on the flybridge with his wife called out that I had done a beautiful job of docking. I was appreciative but admitted my anxiety about such a tight turn in that wind. Well, he said, it didn't show.

When the dogs were back aboard, John and I decided to look for a fun place to celebrate. On the way up the sandy main street that runs along Silver Lake Harbor, we decided to stop at the beautiful British cemetery.

Ocrac.o.ke's history dates back to 1500, when the Ocrac.o.ke Inlet was first used as the lane to Pamlico Sound and the North Carolina coast. But it has an interesting modern history, too. In 1942, American s.h.i.+ps were busy patrolling the eastern seaboard, but only one American s.h.i.+p was sent to protect the southeast coast. Eager to defend important supplies bound for England through U.S. s.h.i.+pping lanes, Churchill sent a flotilla of antisubmarine craft. The HMS Bedfords.h.i.+re was torpedoed by a German U-boat on May 11, 1942, and all hands were lost. The bodies of four British sailors washed up on the island, and the people of Ocrac.o.ke declared the land where they are buried to be British soil. Each year in May there is a ceremony to honor these dead, attended by officers of the British Royal Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard. The famous Rupert Brooke quote marks the spot: "If I should die think only this of me: that there is some corner of a foreign field that is forever England."

The sound of Independence Day on the Outer Banks firecrackers exploding, kids yelling, horns honking-sucked us back to the present once again. We returned to Harbor Road, with its cute cottages and restaurants, in pursuit of a cold adult beverage.

We decided to try the first waterside joint we stumbled across, where the Jolly Roger flapped in the soft breeze. The proprietor should have been keel-hauled for the bad crab cakes, but we had a great time relaxing with cold beers, and then crossed the sandy street to a little upstairs bar that had been furnished like somebody's idea of a living room in Tiki paradise. It was kitschy and cool, but it must have drawn a late night crowd because absolutely no one was there. We had a drink and chatted with the bartender, then tried a tropical-looking but dark bar that advertised a dozen shrimp for $3 at Happy Hour. As we sat with drinks and waited for our order, John braced himself against the bar with both arms and said, "Whoa. This is very weird, Mare. I can't stop the sensation that I'm rocking." I can testify that his sense of undulation was not at that time related to overindulgence. I'd heard of this happening to sailors before.

I left John after a couple of iffy shrimp and started back to the boat, noting on my walk that what the town lacked in haute cuisine, it more than made up for in old-fas.h.i.+oned charm. Since it was almost dark, I took the dogs up to the park, and we sat on the gra.s.s to watch the Ocrac.o.ke fireworks display that their historical society sponsors each year. They were absolutely gorgeous. There were about six surges toward the end, each one worthy of being the grand finale, but every time I thought it was finally over, there would be yet another spectacular display. I wondered how a little town like this could fund such an extravaganza-it was one of the best pyrotechnic displays I'd ever seen, and I'd seen some George Plimpton-narrated Grucci Brother beauties. Maybe it was just the setting, but I had to give it to Ocrac.o.ke Island: they know how to celebrate the Fourth of July better than anywhere I'd ever been.

The next morning, we got underway fairly early, but we couldn't get the computer to work once we'd left the dock. Loaded with digital charts and navigation software, it was our lifeline. And to make things worse, I soon discovered that this was the one portion of our trip for which I did not have a paper chart backup. It was not until after we'd arrived and were wandering through some T-s.h.i.+rt shops that I learned that the water off Ocrac.o.ke's coast is nicknamed the "Graveyard of the Atlantic." Over a thousand s.h.i.+ps have sunk in the waters off North Carolina. In other words, there are better places to discover you don't have a nautical chart.

The computer had been working fine before we left the dock, but nothing I did now could get the display working again. There was no choice but to turn around and go back. I wasn't going to risk running these treacherous waters without a chart. Hopefully, I'd be able to find one back in town. It was blisteringly hot outside and I noticed that John was looking a little green around the gills after his extended Fourth of July celebration. When we were once again tied to the dock, we walked up to the air-conditioned splendor of the nearby tourism office to use the soda machine and ask for some advice. The attendant looked doubtful but mentioned a few places that might carry charts. John went back to the boat, and I walked into town with my fingers crossed. I wistfully eyed a couple of $3 laminated placemats with maps of the island on them, but I was pretty sure that points marked "Here be treasure" and "Thar be sea monsters" were indications that these might not be accurate enough for navigational purposes. I wound up paying $45 for a paper chart that would be useless once we were 5 miles offsh.o.r.e, not to mention $30 cheaper anywhere else.

Back at the boat, and already drenched in perspiration at 10:00 A.M., I fired up the engine again and for the heck of it tried rebooting the computer one more time. It worked, of course. I decided I could have a temper tantrum about wasted time and money or I could just be grateful that I had my software and charts back and wouldn't have to replace the whole shebang. I loved it when I talked some sense into myself. We were now ready to go and I asked John to prepare to cast off the bow line. I heard a groan.

"Cap, I'm sorry. I don't think I can do it. I just threw up over the side. I was fine when we went out this morning, but when I got back aboard, everything started rocking again." John turned and heaved over the railing again just to drive his point home.

I was disappointed, but there was no doubt in my mind we should stay. John was making this long trip for the sea time, without pay, and I knew he was getting more than he'd bargained for. The least I could do was wait for him to feel better. I was pretty sure that a ma.s.sive hangover and the disgustingly hot day were adding to his rocking sensation, and I suggested he indulge himself in some creature comforts. I didn't have to ask twice. John promptly headed to a nearby hotel for air conditioning, ESPN and lots of Coca-Cola. The boys and I paid for another day at the dock (which was delightfully inexpensive!) and made the best of it with open portholes and multiple fans.

The next morning, John showed up in excellent spirits and we set our course for Oregon Inlet, the next good place for us to get to the outside again. We were following the almost universal advice to run inside Cape Hatteras, not out-side, where the weather could be dangerously unpredictable.

Oregon Inlet was at the northernmost end of Cape Hatteras, though, and seemed like a safe place for us to exit back into the Atlantic.

Shortly after we were underway, we heard the Coast Guard broadcasting to all mariners to be alert for a man overboard. He'd gone over the side of a vessel called Wild Man, 37 miles southeast of the Oregon Inlet at approximately 0630 hours. All day long, we listened to the same information, repeated every half hour or so. Our hearts sank as the day wore on and the search continued. When we tied up at 1800 hours, the Coast Guard was still broadcasting the same information.

We motored in to Oregon Inlet Fis.h.i.+ng Center as the sun was starting to sink. The entire marina was already full of big, beautiful sport fishers -a fleet of boats with tuna towers and fighting chairs, charter boats for those seeking big fish. They glistened in the tawny twilight, all lined up and tucked in for bed. We got the very last berth. When I took the dogs for a walk and glanced back at Bossanova in her slip, it was hard not to play "Which of these things is not like the other?"

I'm not a big fan of sport fishers, but I had to admit these boats were s.e.xy. Sleek and s.h.i.+ny, with a dramatic curve where the hull meets the deck known as a Carolina flare, each of them cost well over $1 million. The fis.h.i.+ng center was where the entire charter fleet docked, about fifty boats, I'd guess, and where they sold their extra catch at the end of the day. We watched as local people pulled off to the side of the road and ran across to the dock. A man was bent over a large fish with a flas.h.i.+ng blade and a small throng waited to pick up dinner. When he finished cutting, the crowd had dispersed and the entire fish had vanished in under three minutes, except for a slick of blood that was soon hosed off the dock.

The next morning was beautiful, and John and I were dying to get back outside and make up for lost time. We'd spent the better part of a week in North Carolina and-no offense to the tarheels or their lovely state-we were sick of it. Some of the joy had gone out of the journey in the last week, but I realized later that, for me, the frustration was due to not being offsh.o.r.e or underway. There'd been too many days off, punctuated by the bad weather that forced us into the ICW. Today, we were rarin' to go and determined to leave North Carolina and our malaise in the Bossanova's wake.

Yesterday's man overboard was still on our minds, and we monitored the VHF all day, hoping to hear some news. When we didn't, we decided that maybe it was a good sign-they'd stopped looking for him because he'd been found. But months later, as I read Soundings magazine on a Maine fall day, I saw a short item. The Coast Guard reported a man overboard off Oregon Inlet who was never recovered. I didn't really need to, but I checked the dates against my logbook. That was our guy It still made me sad.

Our run toward Virginia was uneventful until mid afternoon. Ten miles south of Virginia Beach, we watched a wall of dark purple clouds turning black. It stretched from the gunmetal gray of the ocean's surface endlessly into the sky. And it was coming for us.

We'd been monitoring Channel 16 as well as the marine weather channels and there had been absolutely no warning of a change in the weather. This looked much, much worse than the storm we'd encountered just past Jacksonville.

With exquisite comic timing, a young and nearly unintelligible Coast Guard voice called out from the VHF: John and I had already observed that these young Coasties tended to read their bulletins as fast as they could, usually in a heavy regional accent and with as little modulation or enunciation as possible. Kind of amazing, given the importance of the information they conveyed.

'Tention all stations, tention all stations. This is U.S. Custard, Ginia Beach Station. U.S. Custard, Ginia Beach Station. A seveah storm warning has been sued for the area between noath thitysixdegreesfittyzerominutesandzerothreahseconds and we-ehst sentyfivedegreesfittysenminutesandzeroayuhtseconds and will be mvving into this ayah in the next teun to fifteun minutes. There will be heavy rains and lightnin. Windsill be from thirty to fohty miles per hour with gustsupto fitty five miles per hour. All mahriners are advised to seek safe harbor immedletly.

We had to laugh. Nervously, of course. Yeah, sure, the storm is coming in ten to fifteen minutes and we're supposed to find a safe harbor when we're 5 nautical miles offsh.o.r.e and our cruising speed is under 8 knots. We were clearly not going to outrun this storm, but maybe we could outsmart it.

John and I agreed that the first thing we should try to do is get out of the way. Since the storm was coming at us head-on, we turned and ran south and east, away from it and off its leading edge.

We both gazed with real awe at the ma.s.sive thunderheads behind us, and I kicked myself for not buying a video camera.

Our marine weather teacher at Chapman had been an enthusiastic young guy, new to teaching, who loved his subject and delighted in bringing in great weather photos and satellite images to enliven the cla.s.s. We had seen some amazing pictures of storms in action. But this looked as bad as any cloud he'd ever shown us, if not worse. Maybe it just had a lot more immediacy while stalking us at sea than it had when projected onto a slide screen in Johnson Hall, but this was very, very ugly. Huge, gunmetal gray and violet, it rolled toward us, doubling over on itself like some kind of diseased cell, spreading its contagion.

The rain started in slow, fat drops that turned to a downpour within seconds. It tattooed the surface of the sea, changing it from green to gray and drawing a blurry curtain across our visibility.

Our escape strategy was at least partially working, however. We had managed to skirt a good chunk of the early part of the storm, but it was blossoming now, billowing eastward across the dark seas and definitely gaining on us.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" I asked John. "I have this crazy idea."

"Wait," said John. "Are you thinking that we should turn and run into the storm now? I was just wondering about that, too."

It really wasn't as foolhardy as it sounds. It was clear that as the storm spread out, we were not going to outrun it. The mouth of this monster-led by a solid black pillar of rain was now nipping at our heels. And it was going to catch us soon. If it continued at its current pace, but we ran directly into it at our current pace, we'd effectively halve the duration of our suffering-and that seemed about all we could hope for.

We turned and headed Bossanova back toward Virginia Beach and into the belly of the beast. Samba, already in trauma mode, had gone below to hide in my stateroom, shaking uncontrollably. Heck was wedged into the corner of the pilothouse settee, curled in a tight ball and visibly nauseated. The wind was fierce now and we were heeled over about 15 degrees and being pushed off-course by about 15 degrees, too. Waves were between 6 and 8 feet, but we were taking them head-on with no problems at all. Thank G.o.d we'd taught ourselves the good habit of entering our destination coordinates on the GPS, because it continued to feed us course correction data while our visibility deteriorated to almost nothing. The radar also continued to flash a rea.s.suring outline of the coast, but nothing else in the vicinity. We could see nothing at all-we were running blind except for our electronics.

The worst of the storm must have lasted about two hours, though time seemed to stand still while we were in the thick of it. I suppose we were completely focused on the here and now, utterly absorbed in surviving the moment. When you think about it, there are very few occasions in life when the mind isn't free to roam forward or backward at least a little bit, while the present is briefly put on autopilot. Pitching around in roaring winds and high seas, the future and the past no longer exist.

Being trapped in a storm at sea is somewhat like being involved in a very prolonged accident. If you're good in that sort of situation, your senses are sharp and you feel calm and focused. If you're not good in crises and tend to panic or become hysterical, avoid a storm at sea. It's essentially a sustained emergency that will make you (and therefore your s.h.i.+pmates) miserable.

Amazingly, John and I were unafraid-maybe even a little excited. We felt very safe in the Bossanova. It seemed as though this was the weather she was built for, and though we were eager for the storm to end-no one wants to push his luck at sea-we felt a kind of cozy thrill when we had enough visibility to see the patches of fine white spray blowing off the surface of the ocean. It looked like snow being whipped across a wide field by a bitter wind.

Especially in periods of zero visibility, I was very conscious of how alone we were, trapped in our own world of weather. The air had become white with sea foam, whipped by a wind so loud it had overpowered every other sound and become its own eerie kind of quiet.

And just as suddenly as we had entered the storm, we exited. It was dusk and we were only minutes away from our destination. The waves died down, the wind petered out, the sky was streaked with a deep sherbet orange by the fading sun. As we pa.s.sed through Rudee Inlet, the water was gla.s.sy, reflecting the beautiful sky like a mirror. Their very last slip waited for us, and as we pulled up to the dock, it was hard to believe what we'd just been through. The dockhand who greeted us shook his head in disbelief that we'd been out in that and made it back unscathed.

John found the bar while I took the dogs for a very long walk around the suburbs of Virginia Beach. I was relieved to be safe and felt the tension draining from my muscles. I noticed something different in the air, too-in the way the twilight played across the gra.s.s, the bushes, the ditches of wet weeds. I had skipped spring that year; I'd gone directly from snowy Pennsylvania to hot Florida. It was the only time I could remember that I hadn't been around to rejoice when the first brave crocus peeked out from beneath a hat of snow. Now, I could suddenly smell summer and it reminded me of my childhood. In the northeast, summer is much more than another season-it is the sweet, soft answer to your frigid winter prayers.

On my way to the nearby restaurant, the skies opened up with another torrential downpour. I didn't mind a bit. John and I sat at the bar with good vodka and oysters Rockefeller and toasted the end of North Carolina, the beginning of the mid-Atlantic and, most of all, the mercy of Poseidon.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me) It's always ourselves we find in the sea.

-E. E. c.u.mMINGS.

We left Rudee Inlet at 0730 hours the next morning. Looking back, it's clear that this day, Thursday, July 8, was a subtle turning point.

Although our first week had included three of our toughest days, our spirits had been up. We were excited to be out of the cla.s.sroom and underway. We were resilient in the face of adversity. We were salty dogs, d.a.m.n it.