Yesterday evening, as the sun was setting, the water was easy to navigate, its soft rolling waves giving no concern to a seasoned boat captain, like me. My boat may be small, but it has traversed these waters from the island back to the mainland on dozens of trips without incident.
It was time to pick up another month’s supplies. I do it twelve times a year; could do it with my eyes closed; no reason to think of potential danger out on that water. Not much daylight left when I tied up to the dock and headed toward town. I picked up my check at the post office, collected some of my supplies, and spent most of the night having a little fun. Okay, I might have gotten a bit drunk, played a little poker, and lost my limit. I got a limit; I ain’t no idiot. I did get in a fight; beat the crap out of that guy. But he knew he was in the wrong and didn’t say nothing to nobody. If I’da been cheating, I’da been winning (at least, as far as he knew).
Like always, I slept down below on my boat. I know that because that’s where I woke up; don’t remember how I got there.
This morning, me and my hangover gathered up the rest of my supplies at the 24-hour Bilo, got a ride back down to the dock, and loaded up, ready to head out toward home. Didn’t get a chance to drop by Sally’s trailer this time. I know I’m gonna hear about that. But a month from now it probably ain’t gonna matter anyhow. Her memory ain’t no better than mine. I’ll just tell her we had a grand old time. Hell, for all I know, we did.
The sea seemed a little lower than normal for this time of day. But the water was still and clear. It was about to turn into a beautiful day. The morning sun was just beginning to light up the sky above those low hanging clouds. The old motor was sounding smooth, like she always does. I pushed off and cracked open a warm beer. I always heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
It would take an hour or so to get back to the island. That’s fine with me. I don’t look forward to dragging that two-wheeled wooden cart over those trails and up that mountainside. That’s gonna be the hard part. There ain’t no other way to get up there, not with five armloads of supplies. At least I only have to do it once a month, after I get that check. Not sure what I’m going to do when I get too old to make it back up that mountain. Guess I’ll deal with that when the time comes.
Folks in town think I’m nuts for living out there. What do they know? None of ‘um ever even been there. Town’s okay, but the mainland is flat for miles. There ain’t no beach. I don’t think nobody even fishes off of that dock anymore. If it ain’t Saturday night, they just go to their jobs, work themselves to death, then spend the rest of their time watching TV. They ain’t ever seen what I see every morning: blue ocean as far as the eye can see, massive and barren, not a thing out there trying to tell you what to think about. I got plenty of thinking to catch up on, plenty of writing to do. Damn! I forgot paper again.
I built that cabin up there with my own two hands. Had to live in a tent for about six months. It ain’t got but one room and a outhouse over there on the side, near the cliff. But it’s everything I need. And it’s so quiet, so peaceful, you can hear a turd roll down the mountainside.
Some other folk live there but I never see’um. Don’t wanna. This is how I like it. Nobody around to yell at you because you ain’t done something they think you ought to do.
I guess I might’ve dozed off a bit, while I was resting my eyes from this here headache. Well, it ain’t like I’m gonna hit something out there. But the water was getting choppy. Where in the hell was that coming from? I was still about one-half hour out. Damn. Some of those waves are high. Mist Opportunity never had to sail through water like this.
One of those waves crashed against the side of the boat. Made me drop my beer. Almost fell overboard trying to catch it.
Holy crap! We’re taking on water.
Then I noticed it. The engine had stopped running. We were floating.
That ain’t good.
Can’t steer into the waves if I ain’t got no power. And here comes another one, three times as big as the first one. The engine’s flooded out; it ain’t gonna crank. My old heart is beating so fast it’s about to jump out of my chest. I get the feeling I’m about to regret never having learned how to swim.
“Hey there. How you doing? … Oh, sorry about that. I guess I snuck up on you.”
“That’s okay. I was pretty deep in thought. Didn’t hear you walking up.”
“Nice camera there. Been taking pictures?”
“Yeah. See how that heavy fog is interacting with those dark rolling hills out there? If you squint your eyes a little bit, it looks like waves on a rough sea.”