LeRoy Clary - Humanaty's Blight

On the shore of the island a hundred yards away, a man and a black dog walked along the pebbled beach and tossed us a friendly wave as if all was right in the world. I waved back but watched for a rifle to appear. It was that sort of world now.

The dog leaped, chased sticks and returned them. Watching let me escape the depression for a few precious moments. It had been building for days—actually since meeting Sue and taking on the responsibility of caring for another human. I wondered if she felt the same about taking care of me.

As if knowing I thought of her, she called, “Hey, can I tell you a few things?” Her head protruded from the little door to the cabin, a smile from ear to ear.

“Sure, what’s up?”

She climbed the ladder with the exaggerated swaying of her hips, an insolent and knowing attitude if I had ever seen one. Her playful mood was infectious.

Sue came to stand directly behind, watching me as I studied the cockpit, a name I’d learned from the book on basic sailing I’d found on a little shelf inside. The seaman vocabulary confused me, as well as the information. The difference between the speed of the boat and ground speed still eluded me. It sounded reasonable they were the same. If so, why differentiate between them?

The book title said it was for beginners and had explained that a boat could go three miles per hour against a tide going five miles per hour and actually be going backward two miles an hour. That concept made me doubt a sailboat was a good choice because virtually everything that I knew, or thought I knew, failed to help. Of course, it measured the distance in knots instead of miles, without explaining what the difference in them was. I guess a later chapter would explain that, but it seemed the whole thing would be easier if sailors used normal language.

Sue still wore the impish grin when I turned to face her. She tilted her head and said, “I know something.”

Already tired of her teasing, I asked, “What?”

She pointed to a panel behind the stainless-steel wheel, set amongst dials, meters, gauges, and indicators I knew nothing about. The panel had a logo emblazoned on it. “I vaguely recognize the name and logo.”

“So?”

“Open it,” she giggled as if a toy snake was going to leap out at me.

I thumbed the latch and the cover swung back. A magnet held it open. Inside was a computer screen about a foot square. She reached past me and pushed the button at the bottom, obviously the power. The screen came on.

It was a blue background, a row of options down the left side, but on the left edge of the blue background was a green and brown jagged line. It was the coastline, and there was a little boat on the blue. A trail behind the icon showed where the boat had been. It was a maritime version of a GPS and the little boat was us.

Within a minute, we’d enlarged the view, shrank it again, determined the depth of the water we were in, and where nearby hazards were. “This is amazing,” I muttered.

“How does it still work when everything else is dead? The Internet, I mean.” Her question gave me only a moment of pause.

My mind went to work. “The onboard computer memory stores the maps and other information, the satellites in space give it the coordinates for where we are. The system will work as long as we provide power and there are satellites whizzing around the planet.”

“How do we do that? Provide power, I mean.”

I shrugged. “I assume when the engine runs, it also charges the batteries, and the solar panels on the roof do, too. One of us needs to research that.”

“Not me,” she said. “I’m too busy with important things. I found rolls of duct tape and a sheet of heavy plastic that will cover that window someone broke while stealing the boat. It needs to be done before it rains. And… “she paused for effect. “I found five fishing poles and lures. I’m going to catch us a fish right after we have a cup of coffee.”

“Do you know how to catch them?” I’d never fished in my life but hoped she had.

“Dangle the right bait and reel them in when they take it.”

It sounded like she didn’t know how to fish either. Her ideas might work, and besides, it would give us something other than canned food if it worked. More than that, catching a fish of any sort would indicate we were working our way to self-sufficiency.

She changed the subject as she asked with an impish grin, “Did you know there are instructions on how to use the toilet printed on a little plastic piece on the wall?”

I didn’t tell her that I’d taken a leak over the side a couple of times. So, no, I hadn’t known, but now I did. Sort of. You do your business in the toilet and flush. That’s how I was taught and wondered why it would be different on a boat. Obviously, there was more to it, but somehow asking about it would make me feel weak or stupid—or both. I’d just read the instructions the next time I needed to go. I acted like I already knew and gave her a vague shrug as an answer.

That was also a weakness in me. Admitting I didn’t know something when others did, irked me. In trying to bluff my way past a problem, others often saw right through me.

“What are you going to do now?” Sue asked, undeterred in her good mood.

“Learn to sail.”

She looked impressed. “Really?”

I held up my basic sailing book with the large print and lots of pictures, which drew a hoot of laughter from her. It only had about a hundred pages and the cover looked like it was intended for middle-school kids or younger. I looked back to the island shore where the man on the beach with his dog had been. They were gone. I wished we could change places so I could escape my embarrassment.

She bounced below as I made another circle-check of the water around the boat. We didn’t need another boat sneaking up on us like the ski boat earlier, especially if it was a quiet one. To my surprise, a boat moved along the coast of the mainland far away, the white wake clear in the distance. It was too far off to make out what kind, but it had no sails raised.

A glance at the GPS indicated we had lost a little ground if that’s the right term. We were being pushed backward by a gentle wind from directly ahead and maybe the tide as well. The nearest land was a half-mile away and we were drifting away from it.

With my little book on sailing in hand, I started at the left-rear side of the boat and worked my way forward, slowly inspecting everything along the way and reading what the book said about it. The hull, I found, was gleaming white with dark blue trim. The lack of rust and general appearance made me believe it was a newer boat, no more than a few years old, but that was an impression, not a fact. None of the chrome had corrosion. There was little rust. Every fitting was expensive.

My satisfaction with the choice of boats to steal grew as I moved. At the bow, a hatch drew my attention. Inside were buttons covered in rubber for protection against moisture. The labels were Up, down, stop, and manual. The compartment held the anchor, chain, and rope. An electric motor controlled it for as long as we had power. The need for power seemed to dictate everything on the boat.

The manual setting told me there were ways around having power, but they were secondary. The boat was built to consume power, from the GPS to the anchor and all in between. I was going to have to learn about power, as well as sailing. I was not sure which took on the most importance.

The kayaks were in my way time and again. I climbed to the side of the cabin and lifted them until they were stacked and tied in place over the roof of the cabin where they wouldn’t shield the solar cells too much. We had far more room in the steering area the book called the cockpit.