Scott Williams - The Pulse

“Yeah, Ibis is pretty sweet,” Larry said. “I wish she were mine, but as usual, I’m just doing a delivery.”

“We thought we were doing the right thing,” Pete said, “setting the boat up for our retirement with all those gadgets to do the work for us. You know, when you’re an old fart like me, cranking a sheet winch by hand ain’t the fun it looks to be. Now all this technology has come back to bite us on the ass, now that it won’t work anymore. Maryanne’s not taking it too well, but I told her, at least we’re safe out here on the boat, even if we just stay here in the harbor.”

“So nothing is working on the island?” Larry asked.

“As far as we can tell, no. We went to town several times yesterday, talked to a lot of people, tried to find out what we could. There’s no contact with the outside world at all. And no way to get off the island, unless you’re among the lucky few like us out here who have our own boats.”

“What about the airport?” Artie was almost afraid to ask.

“Burned all day and into the night yesterday. People on that end of the island say that right after the power went out, a Delta flight coming in from Fort Lauderdale crashed right into the terminal. Nothing has flown over here since.”

Artie’s hopeful expression upon asking the question faded to a blank look of solemn acceptance. “I was afraid of that,” he said.

Larry told Pete about the wreckage they had discovered late yesterday.

“This isn’t gonna fix itself,” Pete said. “Hell, even most cars are shut down because of their electronic ignitions, just like my Honda outboard. People around here are saying that if that surge was strong enough to knock out practically everything with any kind of electrical or electronic circuit, then there won’t be any way to fix the damage for a long time.”

“I guess it depends on how far-reaching the damage actually was,” Larry said, as he and Artie climbed into the dinghy for the short row back over to Celebration.

“That’s the real question, isn’t it?” Pete agreed.

Pete secured the dinghy to the stern platform of the gleaming yacht and they all climbed into the cockpit, greeted by Maryanne, who had brought out a tray with four cups of coffee and a loaf of fresh-baked local bread along with a knife and butter dish.

“We bought as much bread and fresh fruits and vegetables as we could find in the market yesterday,” she said. “The lines were already getting long and they were selling out fast.”

“This is wonderful!” Artie said as he took a seat in the plush cockpit and reached for his coffee. I’ve barely eaten for the past three days.”

“Offshore sailing didn’t agree too well with my brother,” Larry said. “But the light show he saw the other night cured him.”

“So you saw it yourself?” Pete asked Artie.

“Oh yeah. I was on watch when it happened. Couldn’t have missed it if I tried. The whole sky just lit up like daylight, except that there were all these different colors.”

“We slept right through it, regrettably,” Maryanne said.

“Yeah, that’s another thing about a boat like Celebration ,” Pete said. “Our stateroom is so well insulated down there that half the time you couldn’t tell if there was a hurricane blowing topsides.”

“So this is a Tayana 54?” Larry asked. “First one I’ve been aboard, but I delivered a Tayana 42 Cutter from Annapolis to Antigua once. Solid boat.”

“She’s comfortable, for sure,” Pete said. “Probably more boat than two people need for a retirement home, but you know, everybody is cruising bigger boats these days. You don’t see many people out cruising the world on anything under 45 feet anymore.”

“I do,” Larry said, “but not in the popular anchorages. You probably can’t get into many of the out-of-the-way places. What does she draw, anyway?”

“Seven feet, two inches,” Pete said.

Larry whistled. Artie was just listening, not knowing enough about boats to really have an opinion. “I guess you didn’t see much of the Bahamas then. Not many anchorages there that carry seven feet of water.”

“No, but our goal was to get down here to the Virgins first,” Pete said. “Then we were talking about trying to do a passage over to the Med if everything worked out. Out there in the Atlantic, draft doesn’t matter, does it?”

“That sure is a pretty little schooner you guys are sailing,” Maryanne said, “It’s amazing how well-maintained it is. How old is it?”

“Less than a year,” Larry said. “She looks like an old-time classic, but she’s really a new custom build, a Reuel Parker design. She only draws four feet. It’s all cold-molded wood-epoxy construction. The owner was supposed to meet me here tomorrow, but I guess that isn’t going to happen. He lives in Tampa, so unless he changed his plans and flew in early, it’s doubtful he’ll be picking up his boat.”

“Tampa? Was he planning to sail her all the way home from here?” Pete asked.

“No, he’s apparently got another boat he keeps there. He had this one built to keep here for cruising around the islands. She was built in Trinidad. I picked her up there and did a shakedown cruise through the Grenadines before my landlubber big brother here came down to meet me in Martinique.”

“It wasn’t so bad, after I got my sea legs,” Artie said, the memory of the awful seasickness already fading to the back of his mind.

Larry changed the subject back to the power outage as he stared across the harbor to the island. “I wonder how long it will be before people start to panic. If what we typically see after a big hurricane is any indication, it won’t be much longer.”

“We haven’t been here for one of those yet,” Pete said. “This is our first year of cruising since we both retired and bought the boat. We just got here right after Christmas. We spent the fall in Key West.”

“I’ve been down in these islands long enough to see it all. You’re right to say all of us out here on boats are better off. It’s probably going to get ugly ashore pretty quick. Especially here in Charlotte Amalie and the other crowded places. Even this harbor probably won’t be safe, so you ought to think about moving somewhere more remote. Only thing is, you don’t have many choices with that seven-foot draft.”

“I don’t see how we could be in any danger out here,” Maryanne said. “There are so many other boats around. Who’s going to bother us?”

“Well,” said Larry, “to people ashore, especially the gangs that don’t need an excuse like this anyway, a boat like Celebration is a gold mine. They know it’s full of expensive hardware, not to mention the food and water everyone is soon going to be desperate for. Cruisers have been targeted here before, and especially in St. Croix after Hurricane Hugo and some of the other really bad ones. I’m talking robbery, murder, gang rape, you name it.”

Maryanne shuddered and looked at her husband. “Sounds like a realistic scenario to me,” Pete said. “The question is, where do we go? I thought we might be better off here than back home, depending on how big this thing really is. I mean, if the same pulse took out everything in the States, it might be even worse there. Look how dependent everything up there is on the power grid, not to mention transportation.”

“It’s hard to believe this has shut down automobiles,” Artie said. “I never would have thought about that. Of course, I never would have thought about it causing airplanes to crash either. I can’t believe I’m stuck here now with no way to get back to New Orleans or even to call Casey and check on her.”

“His daughter,” Larry explained. “Artie was just with me for a few days of vacation.”