Seven at Sea

by Erik Orton

  We decided on White Bluff.

  We had another couple of hours of light, so we were in good shape. The beauty of the island began to unfold the closer we got. The palm trees continued in both directions as far as we could see. The beach had the whitest sand we had seen. The water beneath us was crystal clear. After over a hundred hours of nonstop sailing and worrying, we were almost there. We’d made it.

  That’s when I saw the teeth sticking out of the water. I had to check several times in the binoculars, but it definitely looked like teeth—a long, continuous row of them.

  “Emily, will you take a look at this?”

  “What is it?”

  “Do you see that?” She focused in. Then I saw her turn her head completely to the right, then back to center, and then completely to the left.

  “Yeah. I see it,” she said.

  “Does that look like a reef to you?”

  “I think so.”

  My mouth went dry. I called for spotters on the bow. Alison and Karina went up and began scouring the ocean surface with their eyes. Either option to the west or east would get us in after dark. Now there was an unmarked reef between us and White Bluff.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “The place is called White Bluff Harbour. They wouldn’t call it harbour if there wasn’t a way in.” But there it was: an unmarked reef continuing in both directions for miles. Behind the reef was a safe, flat, turquoise lagoon lapping up onto a white powder beach. We could see the white bluff now; a small cliff of white sandstone climbing directly up from the beach to a height of seventy or eighty feet.

  As we continued our slow, steady headway toward the island, I pulled up my charts on the iPad. I zoomed in as close as I could. I zoomed and looked, zoomed and looked. Then I saw it. A single, tiny dashed line followed the contour of the ocean and shore. At first I thought it was another contour line, showing the depth of the ocean floor, but upon closer inspection this was indeed a reef. It definitely showed a line of small but fiercely sharp rock that encircled the whole lagoon. It made sense. Why else would there be a pristine, protected body of water facing the ocean if there weren’t some barrier to keep the ocean waves out?

  I zoomed to 3000 percent and swiped left across my charts, slowly, slowly, slowly. Then I saw it: a small break in the dotted line. “I think I found the entrance!” I said, and I showed Emily. “Right here. There are still a few submerged rocks, but it looks wide enough and deep enough for us to squeak through.”

  “I think you’re right,” she said.

  “If we get there and it looks bad, we can keep sailing around to Matthew Town,” I added. What I didn’t add was we would likely sail in a circle until morning so we could come in with daylight. Another night at sea was not appealing to any of us. Okay, we had a goal.

  “Everyone come here and look at the chart,” I said. “We’ll have about two feet of clearance between us and these rocks.”

  “That’s tight,” Alison said. Everyone nodded.

  “For all we know, it will be low tide, which might mean we have even less clearance. Plus the channel will only leave about five or six feet on either side,” I added.

  “Dad’s boat is fat,” Jane said. Her siblings thought that was pretty funny.

  Everyone went to his or her post. I began calling out our depth so they could have a frame of reference. “Forty seven feet,” I said.

  “We can see everything!” Alison said from the bow.

  “Yeah, I can see rocks and the leaves on plants,” Karina beamed. Again, fifteen percent beauty. “We’re really at forty-seven feet?”

  “Yup.”

  “Wow.”

  Half an hour before, our depth gauge had been blank. We’d been in thousands of feet of water and our sounder wasn’t set up to handle reading that deep. But the ocean floor had come rushing up at us. We’d been at 300, then 200, 100, and now 47 feet of depth. It kept coming in fast: 40, 30, 20.

  “I think I see the break in the reef!” Alison called out.

  I scanned it with binoculars and confirmed there indeed was a break. But one mistake and we could tear a hole in the bottom of our fiberglass boat. Coral is a very unforgiving rock. It spends centuries and millennia keeping the ocean on one side and the land and lagoon on the other. It wasn’t going to make any exceptions for our little thirty-eight-foot sailboat.

  “Depth is seven feet,” I called out as I lightly touched the helm wheel. We needed four feet to clear our keel. The tide was anyone’s guess. That all affected the depth.

  Hours earlier we had been listless and exhausted. Now everyone was up. Alison and Karina on the bow; Jane, Eli, Lily, and Emily lining the beams looking at the ocean floor and horizon. After five days, safety was a few hundred yards away. If we didn’t make it in, it was either another night on the open ocean or a sunk boat on the rocks.

  “Six feet of depth,” I called.

  “I can see the boulders, one to port. The other to starboard,” Alison said.

  “Anything that’s going to pass beneath us?” I asked.

  “Not that I can see,” she added.

  “Me neither,” Karina called out.

  We’d taken down the sail to avoid being pushed to one side or the other and had the motors running but throttled all the way back. We moved forward at one to two miles per hour. We weren’t even at a walking pace. We’d saved our last gallons of fuel for a situation just like this. Then I saw the reef to my right and my left.

  “Five feet of depth,” I called.

  “The boulders are behind us,” Karina called out.

  “The reef is behind us,” Emily called out.

  “Six feet of depth,” I called. “Seven feet. Eight feet.” We’d passed the shallows and the boulders. We were inside the reef.

  We pulled up close to the beach, powered in reverse to set the anchor, and drifted until the chain went slack. After 104 hours of continuous motion, five days and four nights, I killed the motors. A silence and a peace descended on the boat. There were no sounds except the ocean pushing against the reef behind us and lapping up on the beach in front of us. The white, chalky cliffs climbed up from the beach. To our right a pristine powder beach ran until the island bent and we couldn’t see any further. To our left a blue lagoon sat against the setting sun. Two small, white, one-story shacks were the only evidence of humanity in sight. We saw no people, no lights. It was quiet, calm, and peaceful.

  As the sun set, the water turned from sparklingly clear to dark and opaque. Sitting on the side of the boat, Emily saw bioluminescent light flickering around our boat. Flashes of neon green, red, and purple. Fifteen percent poetic beauty. She then prepared a big, fat dinner: Indian tikka masala with chickpeas and corn, and homemade cinnamon rolls for dessert. All Karina’s favorites. We ate until we were stuffed. The sun went down and we all went to sleep, at the same time, for as long as we wanted.

  I think this was the first time the Orton adage, “It will emerge,” entered my head. I don’t know when it occurred to Emily—probably sooner, because she’s bright—but this concept eventually became bedrock for both of us. For so many weeks, I’d been trying to push and force the situation. I wanted the engine fixed on my timeline. I wanted to hustle off to the BVI. I wanted to know when and where we would arrive in the Bahamas. The truth is, there was no way of knowing. I would have to let it emerge. I could predict, plan, and hope, but in the end, the wind, sea, and a thousand other breezes would shape the unfolding of events. I had to wait, just like everyone else. No amount of planning or willpower could make it otherwise. I learned to become fairly zen about it. “It will emerge” was the yin to the yang of “trial and error works every time.” Tenacity has its place. But so does waiting; engaged, curious, and resourceful, but patient. White Bluff Harbour was nowhere in our plans, yet here we were.

  * * *

  1.Hispaniola: the
fancy term for the island of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Used in a sentence: “Hey, Columbus, should we call this island Hispaniola?”

  2.Luperón, used in a sentence: “Christopher Columbus, there’s a hurricane coming. Should we sail into Luperón?”

  3.Wagner’s Ring Cycle: if you don’t know what this is, you need more opera friends in your life. It’s the operatic equivalent of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. It’s a collection of four operas and takes about fifteen hours to perform the whole thing. Some people really like opera.

  4.Search YouTube for “Karina Orton Castles in My Sky (Original song)” You can also find her on Soundcloud and iTunes. #shameslessplug.

  Chapter 14

  It Will Emerge

  Great Inagua, Bahamas

  5 Months, 10 Days aboard Fezywig

  EMILY

  There was nothing in White Bluff Harbour. No pier. No shops. No people. No Wi-Fi. Nothing but safety and rest after a long journey. The whole Atlantic Ocean ebbed and flowed outside the blessed reef. Miles of white, sandy beach spread before us. Erik and I lay still until the kids woke up.

  In a moment of passage-making bleariness, Erik had told them, “You can do whatever you want when we get to the Bahamas.”

  “Anything?” Jane double-checked. As soon as we set anchor, she climbed the shrouds.1 Now she and Alison wanted to swim in to shore to explore.

  As soon as we set anchor she climbed the shrouds.

  “Dad and I are going to scout it first. You guys watch Eli and Lily until we get back.” Karina was getting the whole day off for her birthday.

  We drove along the lagoon, pulled the dinghy ashore, and started exploring. “Look how pink it is inside this conch shell,” I said, showing Erik one of dozens of large conch shells scattered in the wet sand.

  “I’m guessing this place is a fried conch bar,” Erik said, gesturing to two one-story structures farther down the beach. “It looks like there are piles of conch over there.”

  I knocked on the door and peeked in the windows. Nobody was there. It didn’t look like anyone had been there for a while. There were a couple other bungalows back farther from the beach; four wooden walls with a tin roof and a door and a window. Anywhere else I would guess they were storage units, but here it could be an artists’ colony—a place to write or paint in isolation and solitude. It was quiet and peaceful.

  “This place seems pretty private,” Erik raised his eyebrows at me.

  “Excellent point,” I said.

  Erik found a shaded spot out of sight of Fezywig and we made love. It had been a long week, but the Bahamas were off to a good start.

  “Check out these conch shells,” I called as we pulled up to Fezywig.

  “Those are huge,” Alison said. “Can we go now?” She and Jane hopped into the water and swam to shore. I left my stash of sandy conch shells in the cockpit and helped Lily into the dinghy. Erik called Eli, and we were ready to go.

  “You sure you don’t want anything else?” I asked Karina.

  “I want Wi-Fi,” she said. I shrugged and hugged her. There was nothing I could do about that.

  “I’m sorry you can’t get your birthday messages from Facebook. We’ll try again in Matthew Town. Good luck making your music video. We’ll keep the kids out of the way for a few hours. I love you,” I said.

  I’d never seen finer sand. It was like powdered sugar, and the girls were covered in it.

  “Hey, Mom,” Alison said. “Isn’t this place like being on set for The Pirates of Penzance? I thought the palm trees were really tall like the other ones we’ve seen, but everything is really short—like this cliff.” From sea, Erik had estimated the sandy bluff to be about seventy feet tall. It was half that height.

  “It’s a little disorienting, like Gulliver’s Travels,” I said.

  “We found all this washed-up trash. Me and SJ are digging up a buried net. Then we’re gonna make a fort,” Alison said.

  “Look at these glass bottles I found,” SJ said, pointing to a small collection at the base of the cliff. By this time, Lily had stripped off her swimsuit. I didn’t worry about sunscreen because she was covered in the powdery sand. Alison and Jane ran off to write messages in the sand for some sky viewer to read while Eli worked on a sandcastle. These guys were having a party. I hoped Karina was having fun too.

  Erik and I sat side by side on the beach, the ocean horizon wrapping up our whole field of sight. The waves came in quietly and then went out again just as quietly. We swayed ever so slightly, even though we sat perfectly still in the sand. Five days at sea can do that to you.

  “I never thought we’d make it this far,” Erik said.

  “Really?”

  “I hoped we would, but I didn’t know for sure,” he said.

  “You were great out there.”

  “Thank you.” He looked out over the ocean. “I needed to hear that.”

  The Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Turks, and Caicos were all behind us. We sat there as the trade winds came up to meet us and then continued on their journey west. We would follow them soon enough.

  Sarah Jane came running up, her white hair flinging and flopping from side to side, her white teeth gleaming a huge grin, and her eyes sparkling like a Bahamian lagoon.

  “Dad, can we have a fire tonight!?”

  “We need more fire in our life,” Erik said. He always said that, but this was the first place remote enough to have one. “Gather up some wood and we’ll build it right there.” He pointed to a spot a few feet away by a big log near the cliff.

  Erik went to check on Karina’s project and returned with her a few minutes later.

  “The cable for the microphone isn’t working,” she said. “It won’t record. I’ve tried so many times. I can’t even do this one simple thing for my birthday.” She was close to tears. “I have all the cloud footage.” She hadn’t asked for much—a little time alone to record her beautiful song about dreams for the future. She didn’t feel like singing anymore. She sat in the shade of the cliff and poked at the sand with a stick.

  “I offered to help troubleshoot,” Erik told me. “She said, ‘I just want to get off this stupid boat.’” Karina still needed some space, so we gave her the beach. Erik and I went back to Fezywig to work on a few things that had been too arduous to look at while underway.

  With the sail down for the first time in six days, we fixed the fiberglass rods that held the lazy jack open. The lazy jack is a canvas taco that holds the mainsail when it’s lowered, protecting it from the punishing Caribbean sun. We opened the lower hatches that remained closed during the crossing and gave them their first breath in nearly a week. We hung sheets and clothes in the sun. I love the fresh feeling of tidying up. When I got to Eli and Lily’s cabin, the hatch was already open. I wailed.

  “What is it?” Erik asked. I could hear him making his way to the starboard pontoon. I held up a picture book. The pages were puffed and wilted with saltwater. Black speckles of mold were already growing on the cover.

  “They’re all like this. Eli must’ve opened the side hatch days ago. After all the trouble picking out our favorites . . . ” I caught myself. “Sorry. That was a dramatic response. It’s only stuff. They’re all replaceable.” We knew all the books were ruined, but Erik helped me set them out to dry anyway.

  Erik pulled out his guitar and went to the bow. He hadn’t played since Fajardo with Ike. He played for the ocean, the sky, and me. Then he rested. The world of news, information, banks, and email awaited around the bend at Matthew Town.

  That evening we gathered around the fire as the sun set into the ocean. God doesn’t disappoint in the Caribbean sunset department. Karina mellowed.

  “I know it sounds ridiculous to complain about having my birthday on some remote island in the Bahamas . . .” she started.

/>   “I get it,” I said. “You only wanted one simple thing and it didn’t work out. It’s frustrating. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” We all talked about our friends back in Saint Martin. We missed them. We talked about our friends back in NYC. We missed them, too. We talked about being together. Despite being completely bored out of our skulls for five days dying to talk to other people, we sat around the fire content to be just us.

  I want to capture my family as we were that night. Eli wore his felt Indiana Jones hat, the same one we’d almost lost overboard in the Florida Keys. A red bandanna hung triangled around his neck. His baggy black clamdiggers flapped around his skinny legs as he picked up driftwood and smacked it against anything hard. Lily had run naked all afternoon, sand sticking to her whole body and her tan lines on full display. Alison’s copper hair was growing out. The sun-bleached tips hung over her tanned face in stark contrast to the black rash guard she’d paired with her orange swimsuit. In her green T-shirt, Karina’s eyes looked like the sea and she was patient against the backdrop of frustration. I wore an aqua tank top and cutoff black Dickies. Forty was probably too old for pigtails in New York, but here they made sense. We were all sun-bleached and faded.

  Erik’s gray-blue Patagonia board shorts were a running gag as they slung ever lower around his shrinking waist. A pale yellow T-shirt provided some protection from the sun, but now the sun was sinking into the ocean.

  SJ streaked her face with the beach sand. It was fine enough to simply stick to her skin. She squatted by the fire with a large stick next to her. With a patch of white sand on her chin, and the rest of her covered in the same white powder, she looked aboriginal. The fire flickered in the blacks of her eyes.

  There was something new about each of these kids. As we sat in a circle watching the fire burn to embers, I noticed something in their eyes and in their shoulders: night watches, sheet lightning, miles of ocean depth beneath their feet, the Mona Passage, doldrums, watching the ocean floor and spotting the reef as we laced through to the safety of the lagoon. They were still children. We hadn’t had any tragedies, but they knew they could do something they didn’t know they could do before. We all did. As the fire burned down, the conversation gave way to watching embers. Erik threw sand on the fire. We walked to the dinghy, untied it, and rode the short distance to Fezywig.