Rescue at Sea (17th in a Series)

Part 17. Night Time As we head for the Massachusetts coast 140 miles away, Restive rocks forlornly in the waves before disappearing into the evening gloom.

As night falls aboard Sparky, Fred, both injured and exhausted, is given the quarter berth, where he sleeps without moving – until he awakes eight hours later remembering he’d left two pieces of French toast in Restive’s oven. David and I squeeze among Sparky’s luggage in the forward bunk, listening to the waves beat loudly against the fiberglass sides, a discordant sound compared with Restive’s wooden hull. People come and go, getting dry clothes, telling stories. We feel like celebrities as they describe watching us jump into the raft. It’s a kind of theater – like being at a play, David says, where the actors come forward to interact briefly with the audience and then dissolve back onto the stage.

George can’t sleep. He gives his berth to Dave and goes up on deck, where “the full moon is almost dead astern, making a moon path along the water to Sparky – the seas churning, rough, wild, beautiful – as always . . . where I tell Rob that I am amused by myself – I have this sailing disease in a big way: I can love the ocean and the wind moments after abandoning Restive and being rescued from a life raft. Sick. He understands – he has the disease, too.”

At 02:30 that morning, Thursday, July 2^nd, a salvage crew sets off from Hyannis, Massachusetts, heading for Restive’s last known coordinates.