"Seems like a wise thing to do," I mumble, grateful that James knows what he’s doing, especially when, clearly, I have no idea.
Through the opening, I can see that my beach bag spilled its contents inside the boat. My suntan lotion rolls from one side of the boat to the other. A tampon makes a similar round-trip journey. I want to slip down the ladder and tidy up my belongings, but another gust of wind bum-rushes us.
"Hang on!" James cries.
I hang on, mostly to my big fat baby tears, and ride it out, thinking about my other problems. My queasy stomach, for one, feeling worse every time boaty smells waft up from down below. I stare at the horizon alongside Nikki and pull in deep breaths. Except it isn’t helping. It’s making me cold. Shivering, I look down at the rattling sleeves of my cute pink ‘wind breaker’ that breaks exactly zero force wind.
I hadn’t bothered my head about performance when I bought it. It was cute, on sale, and had a sufficiently technical sounding name. The flimsy jacket was really built for a pleasant afternoon breeze, not Cyclone Mary here bearing down on us.
It’ll be fun, Nikki had said. This is not fun. And I think Nikki would agree. She leans over the cockpit railing and dry heaves.
"Are you okay?" I ask, moving over to her. I put my arm around her, holding her hair away from her face, doing my level best to keep my stomach contents down where they belong.
"I’m fine," she mumbles.
"Nikki, take in deep breaths," James calls out. "That should help."
"Did you hear that, Nik?"
"Yeah," she says, "I think I need to lay down though . . ." And she settles her head onto my lap.
"Is it going to get worse?" I ask James, not sure if Nikki and I can take much more.
"It’s just a squall," he replies, strong hands on the big wheel he calls the helm, steering us out to sea. He points toward a lighter area in the sky, past a dark shelf-like cloud that hovers overhead." See that? It’s called a squall line. Once we pass it, the wind should calm down."
Thank God for small mercies. Literally.
"When will we pass it?" I ask.
"Soon! Let’s just hope I’m reading those clouds wrong,"—he motions toward a billowing cloud mass on the distant horizon, dark on the underside, puffy and white on top—"cuz that looks like lightning and thunder to me."
Well, James must be a weather genius because the next thing that arrives after the wind dies down some is thunder and lightning. This makes him nervous.
I nearly jump out of my seat when the first bolt thunders out of the sky. It’s one thing to sit in the comfort of your own home, watching Mother Nature in her full glory. It’s quite another to have a front row seat to her fury, while sitting on bobbing little cork in the vast churning ocean.
"Is that bad?" I ask.
He nods. Affirmative. "A direct hit can take out all the electrical equipment. The maps, the navigation instruments . . . everything."
"Everything?" I ask, looking around. I gaze out at the steely gray horizon, and for once in my life, I pray for bland weather.
We sail on for another half an hour or so, while I hang onto the dodger frame for dear life, watching the lightning spark on distant whitecaps. Then one strikes pretty darn close to home.
We’ve all heard stories of people getting struck by lightning. Those are the types of things that happen to the unfortunate segment of society called Other People. Not me. I’m not Other People. I’m me. Gia Eastland, the—
Crack!
The mast sparks, and a faint current of electricity races through the palm of my hand. Was that a direct hit? Lightning kills people, but here I am, pretty much alive. It must have been a trick of the eye, I reason. Nothing to worry about. Nothing—
"Shit," James says, tapping on a screen mounted on the helm station. He doesn’t need to say any more. I already know. The lightning struck, frying all the electronics, ushering us into the terrible calamity that he just detailed.
Looks like we’re about to spend much more time together than we originally planned.
"Can you go down below and flip the master circuit breaker?"
I stare at James, aghast. "What? Are you off your nut? I don’t know anything about boats!"
"OK. You can either flip the circuit breaker or steer. But I can’t do both." I think about it for a second. How hard can it be to steer a boat? It’s not like we’re going to hit anything.
"You ready?" James motions me over to helm. "Make sure you drive up on a wave or else we can capsize."
Never mind. "Where’s the circuit breaker?"
"It’s behind a panel underneath the nav station."
I blink.
"The nav station is where all the maps and crap are. The panel is below the table. It’s white. You can’t miss it."
"Maps and crap," I mumble. And to Nikki, "Hang on, Nik. I’ll be right back."
I much prefer James to handle all the circuitry, but he’s busy manhandling the helm, driving up waves, making sure we don’t capsize. And Nikki is out of commission, so I make my way down the ladder and inside the boat.
Electricity makes me nervous. I’m not sure how much this little boat carries, but I’m pretty sure it’s enough to make my hair stand on end. Plus, there’s the problem of the thick malodor inside the boat, smelling of dried saliva, old fish, and diesel. The diesel part is especially hard to handle for some reason.
I descend the short ladder and I find the maps and crap on a little wooden table on the side of the cramped cabin. The boat pitches and bucks. I wobble over, landing a good handhold on the desk ledge. Made it.
I pause for a moment and hold my breath, trying to calm my stomach. Focus, I tell myself. Just open the panel, flip the switch, and get out of here pronto before something embarrassing happens.
I grab a flashlight rolling side to side on the nav station and turn it on. Thank God it works. Sorta. I point the dim beam of light at the panel and tug on the handle until the door pops open.
Inside I find our salvation: the master circuit breaker. It’s a circular switch with a lever that twists to the position at three o’clock marked ON. Right now it’s tripped to the twelve o’clock position marked OFF.
"Did you find it?" James yells from outside.
"Yeah," I call back, staring at the mechanism. I swallow and reach into the murky darkness as careful as a kid playing Operation.
You’ve done this before, I tell myself, thinking about the time my banker’s lamp blew a bulb and plunged my apartment into darkness. I remember the jolt when I flipped the circuit breaker. But I survived, as I will now. I hope.
I grit my teeth and twist.
Nothing.
"It’s stuck!" I call out.
"Try harder!"
Harder. Okay. I stick the end of the flashlight in my mouth, keeping the dimming beam of light on the switch so I can kind of see what I’m doing. With both hands now, I twist the lever as hard as I can, but still it won’t budge.
"Anytime now . . ." I hear James grumble.
My initial trepidation fades. Instead, I feel a surge of frustration tinged with my old friend Fear. If I can’t get this stupid switch back into the Action Jackson position, we’re going spend the entire night out here getting thrashed around. And how much more can this floating can of beans take? Right now, there isn’t anything I want more than to get off this beater of a boat.