by David Jurk
For the next hour, I sailed her, the sun rising warmly at my back. I played with the sails and the tiller as I would’ve played with the gearshift and accelerator on a new car, trying different positions, different angles into the wind, steering between the building waves at different angles - across the faces, into them, between them. I began, just a little, to get to know her.
Curiosity drove me to tell Ray to set the autopilot, watching for a moment as the tiller made minute corrections, working as well with the sails as it had with the drive system. It was enormously satisfying to see the batteries at seventy-nine percent and rising, knowing they weren’t needed.
I stayed in the cockpit watching the sea, feeling the wind, savoring the sunlight. On the GPS monitor, I could see we were no more than fifteen kilometers east of a substantial island, one I’d not even been aware was there. I’d never heard it; a place called San Clemente. Our drift north during the night must’ve brought it along our adjusted course line. I measured the projected line; we’d be it at its southern tip in about ten kilometers.
“Ray, pull up detail on San Clemente.” The response came in seconds.
“A bodgy place, mate. All military, hey? It’s rubbish, but regulations say we’re not to land. They’ll throw a wobbly if we try.” I thought this over for a moment.
“Is there a distance limit around it?” I asked. “Do we need to stand off?”
“Nah, mate – it’s all good; close as we want. Says we can’t go ashore is all, right?”
Well, great – not that I was planning a stop but had there been a decent sand beach and easy landing conditions, I might’ve considered it. Still, no worries – it’d be fun to pass alongside it, my first island.
We ran on, and I thought of a thousand things I should do – check the through-hulls again, toss the hydro-generator overboard and make sure it’s working, check the aka mounting pins, check the standing rigging, check the stores, check the stowage, check the head, check the kerosene tank, check for areas where the mainsail could chafe – and on and on; the endless vigilance of a sailor at sea, where the constant motion wore things down, frayed things, loosened things.
Instead, first things being first, I asked Ray to take over the steering and made myself some lunch. Smoked salmon again; I loved smoked salmon.
In an hour, the island had not only risen into view, but presented an imposing picture – green saw-backed hills high above the ocean formed a backdrop to a craggy coastline that looked entirely unappealing as a place to land. We were approaching from the southeast and I had a good perspective of the length of it. The map showed it to be more than thirty kilometers long, its orientation running off northward of our course. As we passed, we’d be alongside it for no more than half an hour before we left it behind us to continue our westward course.
Another ten minutes and we were abreast of it. I canceled the autopilot and took the tiller, closing to within a few hundred meters of it, seeing no signs of civilization whatsoever. No buildings, no roads; nothing but the very rugged hills.
It was fun actually, skirting so close to the land, watching it slide by while I looked for animals or signs of people. There was also a vague sense of comfort in being close to land again after two days in the open ocean. Still, I knew I needed to stay vigilant – the chart showed shallow water along this southern shore and we were well into it. It wasn’t the water depth itself that worries me – Windswept with her shallow draft could easily handle that – but rocky spires protruded from the bottom unpredictably. The ones above the surface were avoidable, but the ones just below it were a threat. Any impact with rock at the speeds we were traveling would rip the bottom of the hulls open – and that would be that. So, out of caution, I began gradually veering us further out, heading for deeper water, away from any possibility of collision.
I had just begun bearing away when I heard the abrupt scream of outboard motors, large ones, approaching from behind, and whirled around to see a boat heading straight at us. It sped toward us like a freight train going downhill and as it neared to within a hundred meters, I could see it was a military-style rigid inflatable, painted in camouflage. It had to be doing fifty or sixty knots, occasionally flying the hull as it slammed through wave tops. It sped to within twenty meters of us – close enough that I could clearly see two men in fatigues, helmeted, weapons strapped to their chests, before abruptly veering off. It executed a tight circle and stopped dead in the water, thirty or forty meters away, pointed directly at us. I saw motion on board, then heard a voice booming through a loudspeaker.
“Sailing craft, bear away, bear away.”
There was a momentary pause, then a sound like a giant zipper coming undone and the water in front of us erupted in a line of small geysers, starting dead abeam of us and running off twenty meters before our bow.
“Sailing craft, bear away now. There will be no second warning.”
Christ almighty! I pushed the tiller hard to starboard. With wind out of the south, we immediately went dead in the water as soon the bow passed directly into the wind.
I slammed the throttles forward, hearing the complaint from the controller as Windswept accelerated, water churning into foam behind us. Struggling to stay upright as we banged over waves, I kept my eyes on the inflatable, fearing more gunfire. None came, though the boat stayed with us, maintaining their distance. What in bloody hell did these people think they were doing? Fury, raw unfettered anger, replaced the shock I felt.
Keeping the tiller wedged against my legs I turned completely around, facing the inflatable and raised a fist.
“You FUCKERS!” I screamed. I knew they couldn’t hear me; I didn’t care.
I eased off the throttles a bit, letting our speed drop to six knots. How far, I wondered, is far enough? A kilometer? Two?
“Ray,” I called. “Engage autopilot. Take us two kilometers off shore, come no closer, and resume course.”
“Aye, aye, cap. She’ll be right.”
With shaking hands, I went forward and lowered and stowed all sail, turning back every few seconds to glare at the trailing boat.
The inflatable shadowed us for the next hour. We were never threatened again, though there was no doubt in my mind that, had I turned back, the promise of no second warning would’ve been kept. I sat the entire time in the cockpit, watching the island fading away to starboard, trying to come to grips with what had just happened. I’d been fired on – presumably by my own government, and with no explanation. And for what? I’d not even come close to attempting a landing.
Far to starboard, barely visible, the northwestern end of the island finally came into view and I took up the binoculars and tried to make out what I could. Even from this distance I was able to see several buildings and paved roads making up what seemed almost a small city. Boats scurried about a large harbor and the surrounding sea like bees to a hive, and even in the few minutes that I watched, two mammoth air tankers approached, switched to vertical flight, and eased to the ground. It seemed an amazing amount of activity for a small island a hundred kilometers off the coast of Southern California.
What the hell was all this? This was no normal security – live ammo being used to keep a civilian boat away? It made no sense at all. With Ray driving, I continued to watch through the binoculars as long as I could make out any detail at all, growing more and more troubled.
Finally, around eleven in the morning, as the island faded into the haze, so did the inflatable. Alone on the sea again, I raised sail, cut the motors and left Ray to maintain the autopilot. I stayed in the cockpit, mulling over the insanity that had just happened.
Was it possible that things had deteriorated so badly over the past couple of days that the military had taken things into its own hands? Were these patrols not about security at all, but developing some form of quarantine? It seemed to me to be the only rational explanation; extreme measures for extreme circumstances. Laws be damned if you’re the military, right? Use your weaponry and superior force to pr
otect yourself first, worry about civilian laws later. Especially if civilian laws were failing; I had to consider the possibility that marshal law had been declared. And if it had, then it meant the Python was getting the upper hand.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LONG AFTER THE shock of seeing bullets trace along the water in front of me had faded, the implications of the encounter continued to haunt me. The anger and resentment that had energized me as we’d been followed by the patrol boat melted into uncertainty and then into a growing fear that the whole journey was a mistake. The experience at San Clemente Island had cast a shadow over me; it seemed a depressingly bad omen.
As we continued westward under full sail, the darkness of doubt continued to grow and with a heavy heart, I began considering the possibility of abandoning the whole idea of Hawaii. I knew there was a naval base on Kauai, at Barking Sands, a large missile facility bristling with fighter jets and a full contingent of warships, including submarines. After the reception I’d gotten at San Clemente, what sort of complete lunacy might I be facing when I reached Kauai? With all the resources there, wasn’t it possible they might try to blockade the entire island? Wasn’t it entirely possible the military, in a panic, could just go rogue? I imagined sailing four thousand kilometers, arriving low on food, only to find a Naval frigate or destroyer blocking me. Warning rounds zipping into the water, loud speakers blaring – turn around or be sunk. And then what? What would there be for me then? Better to turn back now, I thought, while I still had provisions to make my way somewhere else.
And I nearly did.
“Ray.”
“Here, mate.”
“Change course.”
“Wha’dya like then, hey?”
Well, that was the question, wasn’t it? If not Hawaii, then where? Turn south for Polynesia? Try hiding out in the Gulf of California? Turn back to San Diego? I began replaying all the arguments I’d already spent hours agonizing over – and I just couldn’t stand it. I was sick of debating it, sick of the nagging indecision. And the scale began tilting back. Kauai wasn’t San Clemente; there were civilians everywhere. There were marinas and pleasure boat traffic everywhere – a quarantine wouldn’t be possible, no matter what the military might want to do. I was overreacting. I had a plan, we were making progress, and I should stick to it. If it proved to be a mistake, then it’d just have to be a mistake. Whatever I encountered when I got there, I’d deal with it then. Goddamn it, I was going to Hawaii.
“Fuck it,” I said.
“Sorry, mate?”
I sighed.
“Belay the course change, Ray.”
“Aye, Cap’n.”
I stood staring out over the bow as we continued on course. Crisis averted, a weight lifted. Time to go eat.
I went below and bent to the cooking. I enjoyed being in the galley, standing braced against the rails, adjusting to the quick movements of the boat, taking satisfaction in the efficiency of cooking with everything so close to hand. Stores, water, seasoning, cutlery, pots and pans – I needn’t move, just reach. And when I had everything prepared, sitting down to eat and watching the sea go by through the port holes was immensely pleasurable to me. There was the sense of being self-contained, as though cocooned in my own small world here on the sea, complete. There was great comfort in it.
And then, wash up the few dishes and back out on deck. It was still mostly sunny, but high, thin cirrus had crept across the sky and the wind was building. Seas were rising with it – short steep waves, though not yet hardly more than a meter, and no breaking crests. Wind speed was at twelve knots steady now, fifteen to eighteen in gusts; this was still solid sailing weather, and with the increased wind we were making twelve knots easily, at times fifteen. It felt effortless, if perhaps not a bit rambunctious; Windswept just beginning to take the bit in her teeth. I was still new at this, still a bit anxious about the sails and thought for a while about putting a reef in the mainsail, reducing its size. It would lower our speed but reduce risk, reduce the need for wariness. I came to my feet to do it as we heeled from a gust, then settled back down in my seat as the wind eased, and in the end, I just left it.
Feeling restless, I pulled out my journal and began planning a watch schedule, and a checklist I’d use each time a watch started. The checklist was easy, though it ended up longer than I’d expected as I kept thinking of things that should be done routinely. Check for water tightness, of course; assess drive and navigation systems, including the autopilot. Food stores – keep an eye out for bugs, or leaks or open containers. Rigging, both standing and running, because now that we were sailing, chafe was a serious threat. And radar – I’d not even turned it on, but it was another critical piece of gear – it would be my eyes while I slept.
And as for sleeping, I needed to set a strict schedule. Being alone presented special problems. Obviously, I couldn’t stay awake constantly, and with only myself to do it, that meant the boat must go unwatched at times. The question was, for how long, and how often? My greatest fear was hitting something while I slept - the seas were full of trash; large, heavy trash that could punch through Windswept’s eggshell-thin hulls in an instant. A small hole was one thing; I had patches and epoxy. A large gash, or the entire end of a hull smashed off was a different thing entirely. It would be the end of us. This was where the radar would be so valuable – its proximity alarm, once set, would alert me if we approached something large enough to be a danger.
Eventually, I decided to try a rotating schedule of six hours awake followed by two hours of sleep. That would give me six hours of sleep every twenty-four hours, with Windswept never going more than two hours unattended. It wasn’t optimal, but it was the best I could do. I wondered what it would be like to be here with someone else; anyone else, really – the relief of being able to share the worry, the relief of having someone help. But the one I wanted wasn’t here, other than in my head. But I could at least hear other people, couldn’t I?
I set the notebook down and looked at the monitor.
“Ray, bring up CNN Global.”
“Right-o, mate.”
A hesitation, a brief spark of white noise, then a young woman appeared on the screen, pale and nervous, obviously reading from her own monitor.
“…are telling CNN that the outbreaks in Austin are very similar to what is being seen in New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Miami – and of course, what everyone knows has occurred in San Francisco, where the first cases in the U.S. appeared. Despite concerns over the surprising speed with which the virus seems to be spreading, authorities are assuring the public that these are isolated outbreaks, traceable to individuals who have recently visited Asia, particularly China.
Independent virologists contacted by CNN, however, are warning that if this is indeed the same virus that has been decimating entire regions of China, these outbreaks are nothing more than the tip of the iceberg. They tell us that the real impact will be felt when the secondary spread of infection passes beyond the incubation stage and symptoms begin appearing. The fear is that the pattern of exponential spread occurring in China awaits not only America, but the world.
The CDC remain cautiously optimistic, telling CNN that no hard facts support any conjecture that we would experience the kind of uncontrolled infection that has occurred in China. Privately, however, sources are admitting that the unprecedented incubation period, combined with the apparent mutation rate of the virus, presents scientists with unprecedented challenges. Officially, the CDC remains confident that a viral test protocol, and of course a vaccine, can be quickly developed. Privately, however, there seems to be growing belief that the virus itself was engineered. Several virologists we’ve spoken to tell us that if this is indeed the case, finding a cure may be impossible.
In related news, police in San Francisco are still searching for the group of vigilantes that set fire to an entire block of houses on the city’s northwest side, where the first family fell ill. Initial reports that this was an ethnic crime are now a
ssumed to be false, as police are now saying a group of ethnic Chinese from the same area was responsible. They are apparently not receiving cooperation from the community at large and are asking the public for assistance in tracking these people down.
The city’s mayor, Nancy Linn, held a press conference this morning, decrying…”
“Ray, cancel.”
Two days, I thought. Two days and there are outbreaks in five more cities? I corrected myself – no, there are five known outbreaks.
I looked around, the empty ocean stretching to the horizon in all directions. The afternoon sun, filtered by the thin gauze of clouds, lent the sea an azure tint that lightened to translucent blue in wave crests. All in all, I thought, to be alone here was vastly preferable to being on land, fearing contact, fearing every person you met. I couldn’t imagine what was going on in the cities where people were dying. It must be… insane. Humanity at its worst.
No, not quite. Setting fire to your neighbors – that’d be about the worst, I’d imagine. And then again, maybe not. Perhaps we haven’t seen anything yet.
Over the next several hours, the wind grew steadily and finally became too worrisome to just do nothing, so I brought us up into the wind, the sails whipping and snapping. Loosening the main halyard, I lowered the sail a couple of meters, then went to the end of the boom and reached up for the first row of ties, pulling them down to the boom, shortening the sail, and tied it off securely. Then back to the winch to re-tighten the halyard, tautening the luff along the mast. I stood back with a critical eye; that had gone well, I thought. We were reefed to our #1 position, with a second and third level of reef points yet to go to if I needed them. If conditions rose beyond three reefs, I’d need to take the main down completely and put up a storm sail. At the moment, envisioning the conditions I’d have to be facing to need that – well, it wasn’t something I wanted to think about just then.
