Black Swan (2 page)

    As we rode the hurtling seas, I felt almost airborne. I stole a glance at the GPS, which showed a speed over ground of nine-and-a-half knots, with a fleeting moment at ten point two. That the boat's maximum theoretical hull speed was eight point five told me something.

    The handle of the emergency tiller was about half the length it should have been to provide the necessary leverage

to steer a 46' custom sloop in ideal conditions. Based on the tidy, elegant way it was stowed inside the lazarette, the boat designer had probably seen it as a cute accessory that would look good in the brochure under the heading: STANDARD SAFETY EQUIPMENT.

    The other challenge was to adjust to the ass-backwards logic of a tiller, wherein pulling to the right makes the boat go left. The boat flirted with another knockdown as I reconciled a few thousand new operational variables, but eventually I regained the mental state that had almost brought us to safety, back in the good old days before we lost the wheel.

    As the struggle continued, I was again haunted by the notion that a boat can always handle more abuse than its human cargo. I was feeling the evidence of that, in my arms, back and hands, which were steadily losing their grip. I was in fairly good shape for a fifty-seven-year-old, and working as a carpenter had actually improved my hand strength. But manhandling 32,000 pounds of displacement through the agitator cycle of a giant washing machine, for ten hours straight, would eventually take its toll on anybody.

    I was fading.

    My first thought was to have Amanda relieve me, but that wasn't a possibility. She was a strong girl, and ever willing to tackle whatever came her way, but this was technical sailing at its most extreme. Even I wasn't qualified to deal with conditions like this. She was just learning how to steer a sailboat, which every novice instantly learns is nothing like steering a car. And now we were running with an inadequate tiller that would have tested the patience and resolve of Bernard Moitessier. It wasn't going to happen. But there was something she could do.

    "Hey, good looking," I yelled to her.

    "Yeah?"

    "Come over here and cozy up to me."

"Anytime, sailor."

"Stay clipped."

    I switched over to the port side of the helmsman's seat and asked her to sit on the starboard. Then I explained the basic concept.

    "When I tell you, push like hell against the tiller. When I tell you to stop, stop. When I tell you to pull, pull. Etcetera."

    "I think I can follow that."

    "I apologize in advance for yelling," I said. "Timing is crucial here."

    "I won't hold it against you. As long as you don't yell, like, at me."

    "Never, darling," I yelled.

    This worked reasonably well, though I had to add a command, "Hands off," since she had the natural tendency to grip the tiller in anticipation of the next maneuver. The command was actually "Hands off, gorgeous" as a way of preserving civility, a prerequisite for our delicately maintained romantic entanglement.

    And thus we found an effective rhythm, and Amanda earned a priceless insight into the Zen of steering a sailboat through heavy weather, a matter defined more by instinct than conscious thought.

    There's no better proof that time can be slowed to a crawl. Time and space, as I watched the northern coast of Fishers Island seemingly fixed in place as we roared through the wrathful seas.

    "When do I get to ask 'Are we there yet?'" Amanda asked.

"When we're there. Pull."

    Soon after that exchange, I realized the grey green hump I thought was a piece of the distant Connecticut shoreline was North Dumpling, a small island just past the mouth of West Harbor. I told Amanda to keep the tiller right in the middle no matter what happened, and checked the GPS.

    We were less than twenty feet from a cluster of rocks. I snatched the tiller back and shoved us hard to port. The
Carpe Mañana
groaned under the strain of the sudden course change, but then catching the thrust of the next wave, she shot off in the new direction like it was all her idea. I reminded myself that Fishers Island Sound was full of lethal obstructions, above and below water, and that God had given the world GPS so fools like me had an easy way to avoid catastrophe. All I had to do was check it once in a while.

    As we passed the rocky shoal, I saw the white buoy that under normal circumstances would have given even the unobservant fair warning. It was only visible for a few seconds at a time, helpless against the battering of the big water.

    Now thoroughly oriented, I looked for the giant red bell buoy that marked the beginning of the channel into West Harbor. That is, I looked when we were at the top of a wave, with a quarter-mile view across the white and grey chop. Seconds later we'd be down in a trough, facing a wall of water that any rational person would presume was within an instant of smashing us into oblivion. But then the next second we'd be aloft again, on top of a world gone mad.

    I checked the GPS again, wondering if I was seeing things clearly through my exhaustion and the spray of saltwater and pelting rain.

    "Where is that goddamned buoy?"

    "Don't goddamned know, Captain," said Amanda. "I don't goddamn know where any goddamn thing is anymore."

    So often on the water you come to doubt the evidence of your own eyes, or the accuracy of your electronics, or the reckoning of your navigation. It's not like the reality of hard ground, where things are usually where they're supposed to be, and the surface isn't a sickening mass of unpredictable undulations.

"No," I said to my senses. "It's there ahead. It has to be."

"Maybe somebody moved it," said Amanda, trying to help.

    "Impossible," I said, and to prove the point, there it was, suddenly directly in front of our boat, rising up through the foam like a watery red demon, having been knocked over and drowned momentarily in the churning waves.

    This time I chose to go to starboard, for no other reason than I was afraid the opposite thrust of the tiller would crush Amanda. Either way, it didn't seem possible that we could avoid crashing into the buoy. I started to make a silent accounting of life preservers, what clothing would have to come off to maintain buoyancy and how I'd keep Eddie's snout above the water. Also, calculating the odds that any of us could swim in the cold, lunatic waters to Flat Hammock, another island that helped define West Harbor, and once there, manage our way through the rocky shore to terra firma.

    I closed my eyes under the strain of the tiller, and then opened them moments later to see in front of me the familiar surf, but no big red buoy. It had moved off our port stern, quickly left behind to attend to its own battles.

    That was the good news. The bad news was the shoal the red buoy was in place to mark was now below the boat. I made another reckless, but essential, pull of the tiller, forcing the bow back into the channel leading to the harbor.

    Moments later, the sea conditions suddenly downshifted into the merely uncomfortable. And now I could see where I wanted to be, with all the familiar landmarks, however obscured by rain and swirling wind. I knew we'd made it.

    I shared that with Amanda.

    "And was there ever any doubt?" she asked.

    "Certainty's a rare thing here on the high seas," I said. "There's only one thing that would insure survival."

    I'd relieved her of her tiller duty, and she was back in her spot wedged against the bulkhead, her proud mane of

auburn hair pasted to her scalp and trailing in sodden ribbons over her shoulders and down the front of her orange foulies. Her face, daubed with rain droplets, filled with anxious wonder.

    "What would that be?" she asked.

    "The vodka's in a cabinet next to the galley sink. There's plenty of ice in the cooler. You know where the plastic cups are. Don't be stingy."

    Amanda had wine. Eddie woke up in time to join us as we passed into West Harbor. The wind was still at our backs, but the waves had been further tamed by the surrounding land and Flat Hammock. I muscled the boat into the wind and we dropped the mainsail and fired up the motor, and the
Carpe Mañana
limped past the breakwater and into the Inner Harbor, finally safe and secure.

    At least from the sea.

B
eing October, I knew I'd find plenty of empty moorings in the Inner Harbor. Grabbing one was theft, pure and simple, but no decent person would begrudge a boatful of battered refugees from a stormy sea.

    Since Amanda had little experience snagging moorings, it took a few passes for her to secure the buoy connected to a line that ran to the concrete mushroom sitting immovable on the seafloor.

    The wind, though substantially abated, was still enough to add to the challenge. But we did it, with little damage to the boat or our social equanimity.

    We were soon a pair of lumps sitting in the cockpit, drinking heavily and commenting on the beauty of the surrounding harbor. The rain stopped and blue patches opened up in the sky, allowing the sun to light up the autumnal trees, waterside homes, flagpoles, and the remaining small craft—motorized and sail—all graceful, waiting to be hauled for the winter.

    Amanda wanted to discuss the fortunes of the last twelve hours, good and bad. I did my best.

    "And you call that fun?" she asked.

    "Fun is a wimp of a word. Doesn't describe meaningful human experience. Except those involving full body contact."

    "Did you think at any time we might not make it?" she asked.

    "I might have. So what? We made it. By the way, you look like a drowned Airedale."

    "How many Airedales wear orange jump suits?"

    I slumped down in the cockpit seat and counted my blessings to the beat of my thumping heart. I had wondered more than once if I'd be able to bring the boat safely to shore, and while I cared somewhat for my own survival, the thought of having put Amanda and Eddie at risk was unbearable. And consequently inconceivable, until we were all safe and sound, and mortal danger once again a theoretical construct.

    The sun had begun to dip behind a stand of trees, backlighting the leafy red, orange and green palette. The sky above was the color of faded blue jeans, soon to be purple and rose. Typical of October, frenzied wind and sea con- ditions didn't always correlate with precipitation. A sailor could be consumed by a raging maelstrom, while the folks on shore enjoyed a sunny, breezy day.

    "You should call Burton," said Amanda. "His boatbuilder's got some explaining to do."

    I unzipped a pocket on the sleeve of my foulie and pulled out my cell phone. There was plenty of battery power, but no signal. I flipped it closed and refocused on my drink.

    "I'll dinghy in and find a pay phone," I said. "After I purge about a gallon of adrenalin and bring my heart rate down closer to a hummingbird's."

    Even wet and bedraggled, Amanda's essential beauty fought through. In the waning light of day, and the calming of the sea, the tone of her green eyes and olive skin had deepened, and her smile regained its brilliance.

    "I think I just heard an admission of weakness," she said. "It's becoming."

    "Don't pull that gender sensitivity falderal on me, young lady. I'm college trained. MIT."

    "How's your hand?" she asked.

    "Broken. Not yet hurting in earnest. Too much adrenalin. Though a screwdriver might have been a better idea. In retrospect."

    "I should wrap it up with something," she said.

    "First aid kit's below."

    I've often marveled at a human's ability to move on from severe stress, at least while still in the moment. The ultimate consequences were usually held in abeyance, shoved snarling into a dark corner, ready to bust loose just when everyone thinks the coast is clear.

    Amanda brought up a handful of stuff from the first aid kit to make a solid, functional brace for my damaged hand, which responded with sudden, throbbing pain.

    "Perfect," I said.

    "You need to call Burton. Can you manage the dinghy?"

    With one hand tied behind my back, I told her. Which was more or less how it went.

    All I had to do was pull the fifty-pound deflated dinghy out of the cockpit lazarette, inflate it, drop it over the side, lower the saltwater-soaked outboard from the transom mount and attach it to the back of the dinghy, hook up the gas tank and start her up.

    Piece of cake.

    "I'll offer encouraging words," said Amanda, always ready to do her part.

    An hour later, the task was accomplished, much to Eddie's relief. He'd already lifted his leg on the mast, though with more complex ambitions in mind. It took some awkward, fur flying effort to get him down the swim ladder and into the

dinghy, achieved with less eager barking and fewer bloodletting claw scratches than one might have expected.

    Once in the dinghy, he scrambled to the bow and stood with head held high and tongue flapping in the breeze, a living figurehead, all prior difficulty completely forgotten.

    "Pain in the ass," I said, as I clamored into the wobbly little boat.