‘Wind — light; sea state — moderate; cloud — broken layer of stratus to the southwest; temperature — probably going to be hot.’ She reached for a bottle as the sun cleared the horizon and drank a quarter litre of water, then tensed her stomach muscles in anticipation of painful cramps. After a few minutes she relaxed and said ‘Well I seem to have got away with that; now what shall I wear today? Smelly underwear, sweaty and salty trousers, shirt and sweater slightly washed in rainwater or maybe nothing at all?’ She looked down at her body. Her skin was a strange mixture of even suntan and blotchy red sunburn, decorated further by fading bruises. Her face still ached dully where she had been hit. She ran her tongue over her missing tooth and felt the crusty scab where her lip had been split. Then with misplaced satisfaction she saw that she had lost fat over her stomach and her abdominal muscles were once again displayed with a definition she had not shown for many years. Apart from that she felt physically in fairly good shape, apart from one small problem. She squatted down and tried peeing; she groaned but then on reflection decided the stinging pain had subsided. ‘Thank heaven for small mercies,’ she muttered.
She prodded the sides of the raft and decided that she could afford to work up a sweat using the hand pump to get it fully inflated again and afterwards she felt better for the twenty minutes of physical effort required. She lay back on the canopy and as the body heat generated by her exertion subsided she folded the fabric back over herself for warmth and watched the dawn’s progress. After an hour the sun rose further until it began to shine into her eyes. She closed them and settled back further under the canopy and tried to decide if she should get dressed or raise the canopy into position and then she fell into a deep sleep.
The raft plunged down the side of a wave and Gerry rolled out of the folded canopy and slid down towards the end of the raft.
‘Help me Ali!’ she called out as she thudded against the side and grabbed for one of the straps. She looked around to check that he was alright until the last remnant of her dream was chased away by the memory of his death. The sea was behaving strangely; it was no longer the gentle swell of the last two days which she now barely noticed, neither was it the flat calm of her first day or the white capped spray of the storm. Instead the waves seemed shorter and steeper. It felt like the sea sucked out from under the raft and then thrust it back upwards. She looked around to see from which direction the waves were coming and they seemed to be coming from two directions at right angles to each other. The clouds were a continuous layer of stratus that seemed to be moving with some speed overhead. Just then the wind tore a ragged split in the low cloud and through it she saw a chain of vast thunderheads with black centres split by lightning flashes. She stared up at them until the rip in the clouds passed by.
The raft lurched and she was thrown off balance even from her seated position. Spray crashed against the side, shot upwards and then drenched her as it fell. ‘Shit,’ she mumbled. A cold gust of wind lifted the loose edge of the canopy and she flung herself across and grabbed the flapping sheet before it could be carried away. Where were her bottles? By some good fortune still wedged in the corner. Where were her clothes? There, the soggy mass floating on the floor. She struggled into them. A sharp gust nearly pulled the sweater from her grasp as she lifted it over her head but eventually she was clammily dressed. She gathered one water bottle and the other raft equipment and then tucked them inside the canopy which she rolled up as tightly as she could and then secured to the raft with the straps. Then she tied herself on and clutched the other bottle tight just as the raft began to climb the side of a wave. She looked up to see the crest begin to roll towards her but the raft crashed through it before it broke. She wondered what would happen if the raft was tossed upside down. Maybe there would be some air trapped underneath and she would hang down from the straps until she got a chance to climb back on top. Most likely she would drown. Oh well, who would miss her? ‘Nobody really,’ she muttered.
The raft began to climb the next wave and she felt her stomach heave, despite being empty. She felt a sudden looseness in her bowels; she gave way to it and briefly felt a new liquid warmth soaking the seat of her trousers. ‘Mostly water; should wash out with some bio powder,’ she mumbled. There was a sudden cold gust of wind that pulled her hair across her face. She swept it aside, looked up and saw the sky had turned black overhead. There was a blinding flash followed almost instantly by a huge crash of thunder and moments later she was pounded by heavy rain. The raft began its ascent up the next wave.
For hour after hour she lay there, alternately clutching a water bottle and a strap with each hand and trying to ignore the pain as her palms were rubbed raw. Quite suddenly it seemed to her fatigued mind that the wind had eased and the sky cleared to the west where the sun now hung quite low in the sky. The sea still tossed the raft around but she presumed it would take some time after the storm front passed by before the sea settled. She uncapped the bottle she had been clutching for hours and had a good drink of water. She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Well Ali, apparently we’re no worse off than we were before,’ she announced. She gazed around the horizon but there was nothing to be seen in any direction apart from the waves.
‘I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky, and all I ask is a tall ship and a what the fuck is that?’
A pale, sunlit orange triangle appeared briefly above the waves, disappeared, and then reappeared.
Part Three: Found
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The bright sun softened as it sunk towards the western horizon. It was surrounded by a dull red sky that contrasted with the deep blue of the sea and the dark clouds overhead. Steven Morris stared at the scene and then inspected the weather maps of the north Atlantic that he had just downloaded from passageweather.com. He glanced quickly but thoroughly around his sixteen metre yacht for any signs of storm damage, stuffed the map into the front pocket of his jacket and then hauled the mainsail back up to its full height. He waited for the yacht to heel as the sail took the wind and thought about setting the jib. The craft crested a wave and then pitched down into the next trough, the sea broke heavily against the fore peak sending a drenching mass of spray crashing down on top of the bows. Perhaps he should wait until the morning when the sea should have moderated. He ducked back down into the cockpit, checked that the global positioning satellite signal was good and adjusted the automatic steering so that his yacht was once more heading towards his destination on the east coast of the United States.
He was hungry. He pulled off his waterproof clothing and thrust it into the locker. He took one more look at the sky beyond the yacht’s stern. He could see distant flickers of lightning as the storm blew away to the east but according to the latest weather forecast he could anticipate at least four days of good weather before the next front would blow in from the west to offer a fresh challenge to his seamanship.