Where wind and tide play tag beyond Seal Rocks
Issue 126: May/June 2019
The sail hangs limp. The tiller swings free. I let the mainsheet slither out of my fingers to the deck. My wife, Ellen, yawns and stretches and closes her eyes; nothing to do, now that the breeze has quit, but wait. We’ve made it all the way out to Seal Rocks, at low tide a scattering of broken black teeth off Scraggy Neck. I scan the water to gauge the direction and speed of our drift. Beside us, the buoy tilts as though powering through the lens-like surface, curlicues of current unfurling around it. I can tell we’ll float past it fast, outward. Miles beyond, on the widening silver blue of Buzzards Bay, Cleveland Ledge Light juts from the expanse of water like a castle tower in a dreamscape, a structure surreal enough to have been painted by de Chirico.
We ghost beyond the buoy, listening, watching, waiting: The rustle and slap of the sail, the yaw of the boat, the air infused with the smell of salt and seaweed, the long view across the water to the opposite shore, the open horizon beyond the lighthouse, the wheel of sky spreading into infinity . . . all of it has draped a hush over us.
“Look where we’re drifting,” I say. “Tide’s setting us.” El nods, a shadow of concern crossing her face. The words sound loud for a moment, but the vastness gulps them before they can echo, showing us how minuscule our boat is, balanced between sea and sky. We rock softly on a slow heave, and I can feel it flutter inside me, a swoop in my stomach: a pulse of fear, elation, and wonder. The current carries us outward, faster — I see dimples on the water behind us and hear an occasional lapping — and now the buoy drops farther astern.
I sit up.
“Better head back,” I say, working the rudder back and forth like a sweep to bring our bow around to point for home. Still we drift outward, now stern-first, the bay widening, the sun lowering, our boat shrinking, the buoy receding. I know what El is thinking: What will we do if we keep drifting out, out into the shipping lanes?
From the corner of my eye, I catch her glancing at me. I can always paddle, and I think that maybe I should fish the paddle out, just in case. But would that be an admission, the first step into panic?
We bob. I look around. The sail slats. In the distance, I see a barge, riding high, pushed by a tugboat, outbound from the canal. The paddle crosses my mind again. I check the sail, then look back out at the barge.
In those few seconds, it has taken on substance, and now I see the white mustache of its bow wave. Is that its splash and swish I hear, the grumble of its engines? I glance at El and make up my mind: Time to paddle.
But when I lean forward to reach under the foredeck for it, I feel a caress on my cheek. I turn to see behind us a patch of water stippled like gooseflesh. I look up at the masthead: Our wind indicator pivots one way, then the other, as if on the scent. Then it spins around and rivets on a point just off our stern. I push the boom out with a clatter of rigging, take up the sheet, and grip the tiller as the breeze breathes over us.
The hands of the wind take hold of our boat and push us ahead, heavily at first until we gain momentum. Soon we’re slipping over the ripples, our wake burbling behind us, the barge and tugboat far astern. El settles back against the coaming and smiles to the sky. The boat embraces the
breeze and, lines taut, our sail belling out, we pass the buoy, regaining ground, the rocks safely off to port. El keeps her eyes closed. Is she asleep, relieved and rocked by the cradle of the boat? I look back at the lighthouse in its lonesome strangeness, the sun settling behind it.
Thankful as I am for the homeward breeze, a wave of longing comes over me. Out there is where I secretly want to be, out there and beyond, where the pulse, the wingbeats of my sea-swept dreams await.
Craig Moodie lives with his wife, Ellen, in Massachusetts. His work includes A Sailor’s Valentine and Other Stories and, under the name John Macfarlane, the middle-grade novel Stormstruck!, a Kirkus Best Book.
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