Suddenly Overboard (21 page)

He thought again of the canvas boat bag beneath the catamaran. Maybe he should check it again for his compass. Maybe it was wedged in a fold at the bottom and he had missed it yesterday.

Then he got angry at himself. What good was a compass? He was not going anywhere.

He realized that with his eyes so low to the water he could not see far, and then only for a moment on each wave crest. He had to get higher to see farther. But he did not want to get back out in the sun.

Maybe he should try again to right the catamaran. There must be something more that he could try. By himself he was not heavy
enough to push one hull far enough down to lever the other up. Think! But he could not think of how, and he was too tired to make the effort.

He climbed out and crouched as high as he could on the hull, balancing with one hand on the rudder, and looked around.

Back in the water. Back up to look. The last of his water was long gone. A dull lethargy settled in, his thoughts drifting, until suddenly he would remember to look again.

He saw boats sometimes, a long way off. Late in the day a big sport fisherman with a high flying bridge seemed closer and he tried to stand to his full height and wave his arms, but he slipped and fell into the water. Stupid! he tried to shout at himself, hearing only a dry croak that startled him. But it made him realize he needed some way to signal a passing boat. He thought for a while, then dived under the boat and removed the tiller extension to use as a pole that he could tie his shirt to. It took him several attempts to get it free, but eventually he sat again on the hull with the pole across his lap, panting, his head aching, but feeling more hopeful for a time. He looked for boats again.

Then the sun went down.

During the night he had strange thoughts and wondered if he was asleep and dreaming of stars or was still awake. How could he tell the difference? When the first light of dawn showed him the sea around him, at first he wasn't sure where he was.

He found the tiller extension pole still wedged tightly through his belt and stared at it. What was that doing there?

He was beyond thirst now, his mouth a clot and his lips stuck together, though he thought of water continually in an abstract way. Like the sea. Like boats. Like the sun. All just vague abstractions. He numbly went in and out of the water to stay cool, but he had all but forgotten why he got back out.

This last time he had great difficulty climbing out, and he felt dizzy as soon as he sat up. His head throbbed with a fast beat, and
his heart raced in his ears and throat. Nausea and cramps bent him double; he just wanted to drop back into the water.

Maybe he could tie himself to the hull with his belt and close his eyes for a while.

Maybe he could just let go and drift away peacefully. But he did not feel peaceful. He felt dizzy, sick, and angry.

Then the sun went down.

He dreamed of being lost in the stars, swimming in the Milky Way. The stars were bright all around him, and the giant moon at his side was so bright he narrowed his eyes. He heard music above the slapping waves, music like heaven. The moon was so close he could touch it.

He raised one hand toward the moon and saw it silhouetted in the light, many lights all along the water, lights between his spread fingers. He felt a deep throbbing in the water as if his heart had swollen and was beating so fast it was a continual thrumming. The sound grew suddenly louder and startled him, and then his eyes focused and he saw row after row of lights past his hand—a ship!

It was approaching obliquely, a massive ship, so lit up it looked like a ship of souls bound for heaven. Then recognition: it was a cruise ship. Coming almost right at him!

Adrenaline shot through him as he ripped off his shirt and hastily tied it to the pole and began waving it as high as he could. Surely they would see him; the ship was so close he was bathed in its light. He saw shapes of people behind the windows.

He tried to shout but his throat was too dry. He cupped a hand in the sea and splashed it into his mouth, then spat. “Help!” he screamed into the roar of passing engines. He waved his shirt frantically and searched the empty deck rail for someone to see him.

As the ship passed he slipped and fell back in the water. By the time he climbed back up and discovered he had lost the pole with his shirt, it was already moving away.

The stars all went out as the music faded.

Much later, they told him it had been only another hour before the helicopter found him, but he had no memory of it. They said he looked straight up into the searchlight but did not wave, did not even move his mouth or blink. Where had he been?

He did not remember the helicopter and only barely recalled the rescue boat. What he remembered best was waking in the hospital and being given a single ice chip to suck on.

You were very lucky, they told him still later. A passenger saw you as the ship passed, but no one believed him until they reviewed the security camera tapes, which showed a quick flicker in the dark waves. By then it was too late to turn back, but the captain radioed the Coast Guard.

They showed him the chart and where they had found him, 8 kilometers north of Loiza. Loiza! That was 30 kilometers beyond Fajardo and far to the north, over 50 kilometers from where he had capsized.

“The current,” they told him. In a week he might have washed up in the Bahamas. He had been very lucky.

Hog Neck Bay, New York, August 2011
. A brother and sister in their early twenties were sailing their Sunfish offshore when it capsized. They were wearing life jackets and stayed afloat but were unable to right the boat. They had no way to call for help. They stayed with the overturned hull for a time but eventually decided the odds were against anyone happening upon them. Although they were at least 2 miles from shore, they set off swimming. Soon they were exhausted and cold, but good luck was with them. Their mother had gotten worried and called the police. They were found still a mile and a half offshore.

Lake Huron, Michigan, March 2010
. The Coast Guard always urges boaters to carry a VHF radio rather than a cell phone in case of an emergency, but these three girls, ages 12 and 13, apparently weren't thinking much about safety issues when they “borrowed”
a small sailboat from the beach and went out on Lake Huron without PFDs or oars. They were blown a mile into the frigid lake and were unable to sail back. Lucky that her cell phone was still dry, the 13-year-old called 911 for help moments before the boat capsized on a wave and her wet phone died. They clung to the capsized hull and were rescued before hypothermia set in.

Little Sister Bay, Wisconsin, June 2007
. A solo sailor capsized and stayed with his boat as long as he could, but he had no way to call for help. No one saw him or the boat. The next day his granddaughter reported him missing, and the following day another boater discovered and reported his overturned boat. His body was later found.

York River, Yorktown, Virginia, July 2012
. Two sailors in a 14-foot sailboat capsized while sailing on the York River. They wore life jackets and clung to the overturned boat, but they were scared to try swimming the distance to shore and had no way to call for help. By chance, a Coast Guardsman from the West Coast, who had been attending a search-and-rescue school in Yorktown, was riding his bicycle along the river at dusk when he spotted the capsized sailboat and quickly telephoned for help. They were rescued before dark as a result of the kind of luck we all hope for but can scarcely expect.

St. Petersburg, Florida, February 2012
. Two men in their midtwenties were sailing a 16-foot Hobie Cat off Pinellas Point when the boat capsized on a gust. They were unable to right the catamaran, and there were no other boats nearby to hail for help. They did have a submersible handheld VHF radio and were able to call the Coast Guard on channel 16. Twenty-five minutes later a rescue boat arrived, took the two aboard, and towed the Hobie back to port.

W
hen boaters are asked in surveys about their use of PFDs, the largest group answers “Sometimes.” A minority always wear one and a few admit to never using one, but most feel confident they will be able to put one on when conditions worsen. Still, statistics reveal the huge majority of boating fatalities involve drownings when the person was not wearing a life jacket, suggesting he or she had little fear of suddenly ending up in the water. But even in calm conditions—the time most fatalities occur—there are a thousand ways to unexpectedly end up in the water
.

From the day they'd rescued Pepper, a mixed-breed puppy, from the local pound, Nick and Pepper were inseparable, to the point that Nick's father, Scott, worried Nick wasn't even trying to make friends at his new school. Every day Nick rushed home from middle school to play with the puppy in their backyard in a Houston suburb. It's just a phase he's going through, Scott told himself. Sooner or later he'll find other interests and start making friends. But for now the most they could get Nick to do was take weekly swimming lessons at the local pool, and he'd gotten pretty good at it. As a bonus, he seemed to really enjoy the water.

On Saturday morning when Scott suggested they go for a sail at a nearby lake, he asked Nick if he wanted to ask a friend to come along.

“Can I bring Pepper instead?” the boy asked.

Scott sighed. “I guess so,” he said at last. “As long as you take care of him. I'll be busy with the boat.”

Nick grinned. “Of course I will!”

It was a sunny day with light winds, a perfect day for an easy sail around the lake. Too bad his wife had to work, because she enjoyed sailing as much as he did. In fact, she was the one who had talked him into buying their used sailboat earlier in the spring.

He made sandwiches, packed a cooler, and hitched the trailer to his pickup, and they set off for the lake.

While Scott launched the boat, Nick and Pepper ran around on the shore. “Think I can teach Pepper to swim?” Nick called.

“Most dogs figure it out on their own.”

“I know, I can teach him to dog-paddle!” Nick shouted. He threw a stick in the water, but Pepper stopped at the water's edge.

“Maybe when he's bigger,” Scott said.

When the 14-foot daysailer was rigged and tied up to the dock alongside the boat ramp, they stowed their gear and Nick put Pepper in the cockpit. Scott surveyed the treetops along shore, looking for wind. They'd have to stay close in, he thought, in case the light breeze died; otherwise it would be a slow trip back. They'd never been becalmed out on the lake before, but he'd been thinking about buying a trolling motor for the boat just in case they were. He should get some life jackets too.

Once they'd ghosted a few hundred yards from shore, the wind was better and soon they were sailing along just fine on a beam reach.

After a while Pepper got used to the boat and was trying to explore, climbing up onto the cockpit seats. “Better keep a hand on him,” Scott told Nick. “He's still young and foolish.”

Nick tried to keep the puppy on his lap and hold on to the
cockpit coaming at the same time. Pepper was just big enough to be hard to control with one hand.

Near the center of the mile-wide lake, Scott turned the boat to sail downwind, letting out the sails. As he'd learned, he raised the centerboard to reduce drag. As he was adjusting the sails he caught movement in the corner of his eye and turned to see Pepper claw free from Nick's grasp, haul himself over the coaming, and promptly topple overboard with a splash.

“Dad!”

Nick had stood up and was reaching for the puppy, but already the boat had moved on.

“I'll get him!” Nick said and stood on the seat.

“Wait!” Scott said, but Nick had already jumped in.

Scott froze for several seconds, watching. His first impulse was to jump in after Nick, but the boat was moving steadily away and it might be tough to swim back to it. He scanned the water all around; there was only one fishing boat against the far shore, too far away to hear him shout. He looked back to Nick, who had easily swum to Pepper and seemed to be treading water okay. “Got him, Dad!” he yelled.

So Scott sat back down, swung the tiller over all the way, and began trimming in the sails to return to Nick. The problem, he saw immediately, was that Nick was directly upwind; he would have to tack back.

The boat felt infuriatingly slow but at least it was moving, although not as much in the right direction as he wanted it to. He looked at Nick, who was trying to hold Pepper out of the water some 40 yards away, apparently treading water with just his legs.

The sailboat was being blown sideways as it angled back, so he turned the tiller more and hauled the sheets tighter, almost stalling the boat. Then he remembered the centerboard was still up.

“Dad! Help!” Nick shouted.

He looked and saw Nick splashing but couldn't tell exactly what was happening.

Quickly he locked the helm with one knee over the tiller and fumbled with the centerboard line. The board hung up for a moment, then went down, and he checked that the sails were still drawing and got a hand back on the tiller to try to head up. The boat was moving better now. Nick was still splashing. Another minute and he could tack, then a minute more and he'd reach Nick, still faster than he could swim to him.

He couldn't stand the wait. He pushed the tiller across, and the bow swung slowly over and into the wind. He let the jib back for a moment to help blow the bow across, then quickly released the sheet and hauled in the other.

He was watching ahead as the bow fell off onto the other tack, but he couldn't see Nick where he thought he should be. He stood and surveyed the water all about—nothing.