I glance at the instruments.
The rain is pouring now, messing with visibility, so the radar is blazing away looking for the next squall to tear through and, more fearsome on a night like this, freighters.
Daisy wasn’t my ideal partner to have on a night like tonight. Not that she’s incapable, just that this is risky sailing and I’d rather have her below deck where she’s safe.
But with the autopilot out of commission and Richard needing his sleep, I don’t have a choice. I need her.
She seems to get that. She’s taking this seriously, if not fearfully.
“What else can I do?” she asks.
“Just be present,” I tell her. “Have a seat, hold on.”
She sits down beside me and I glance down the deck at the sails. They’re supposed to be halfway in, or reefed, in order to keep us from being where the wind wants to take us. But they aren’t quite there yet.
“Sorry, can you take over again?” I ask her. “Just keep it steady as you were before. You might be getting more resistance now.”
She nods, face grim and serious, and takes the wheel.
I head up to the front, carefully, taking slow steps and keeping low. The boat shudders with each slam of the waves and I train myself to walk in a similar rhythm. I’m almost at the bow when a wave comes over the side and soaks me, causing me to slip.
I hear Daisy yelp in the background and I reach out for a handle, holding on as my legs want to slip over the side of the boat. It takes a lot of upper body strength to pull me back up. I know I have the cable on, but they aren’t always foolproof. The last thing I want is to go overboard in a storm, the chances of me being brought back into the boat, even with a lifeline, are pretty slim.
Don’t focus on that, I tell myself.
I look back at Daisy who’s obviously freaking out. Luckily she’s still holding onto the wheel.
“I’m fine!” I yell at her. “Can you hit the deck lights?”
I glance back at the sail. It does seem to be stuck half-way but it’s too dark to make out. I’ll have to take some time to figure out what’s wrong.
“What?” Daisy yells, and it’s still dark.
I motion to where the switch is just as another wave nearly knocks me off balance. I grab onto the railing before I pitch over. “The deck lights, hit the deck lights, by your hand!”
“Okay!” she cries out uneasily, and hits the deck lights.
Except no lights come on.
Instead, there’s a terrible grinding noise audible beneath the roar of the ocean and the whipping wind.
And Atarangi immediately starts going to the right, to the direction I’ve been trying hard to keep her away from.
“What’s happening?” I yell at her, trying to make my way back to Daisy without falling overboard.
She’s frantically trying to spin the wheel but nothing’s happening.
The boat isn’t changing direction.
“I don’t know what happened,” Daisy says, her voice breaking. “I just…I hit the…”
She stares at the panels and she doesn’t have to say anything.
She slowly pushes a button and the deck lights go on.
Her eyes meet mine just as another wave crashes over me, but I hardly flinch.
Because I know what she’s done, and she knows it too.
She accidently hit the auto-pilot switch instead.
“No!’ the word explodes out of me and I start running down the deck, slipping and banging up my knees and scraping my hands, and I don’t care.
I fling myself into the cockpit and practically shove Daisy out of the way. She plunks down in the seat, staring at me with huge, frightened eyes.
I grab the wheel and attempt to correct the boat. The wheel gives easily, too easily, and it does nothing to change the direction. I can feel the electronic connection between the steering and the wheel has been severed, shorted out, broken by the use of the autopilot, this fucking autopilot!
“Fuck!” I roar, slamming my fist into the wheel. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I grab the wheel and throw my head and back and scream into the wind.
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” Daisy says.
“You idiot!” I scream at her. I don’t care if this hurts her fucking feelings. “Do you even know what you’ve done? Is there any room in your brain to comprehend it?”
Now she’s crying, her tears mixing with the rain falling off her hood.
“I’m sorry, I panicked, I thought I was hitting the deck lights!”
“You hit the autopilot!”
She presses her hands together in a praying manner. “I know,” she says in anguish. “I know, I didn’t mean to.”
“You know what it looks like, you’ve seen it before. It says fucking autopilot on it, it looks nothing like the light switch!” I am livid, I am pure, raw anger.
“I panicked!”
“You didn’t use your fucking head! Just out to fucking lunch, aren’t you?”
“Tai,” she sobs. “You don’t have to be so mean.”
“Be so mean?” I scream at her, spittle flying out. “This isn’t the time to protect your precious princess feelings, okay? Do you realize what’s going to happen now?”
She shakes her head. “No…no…can you, maybe you can fix it?”
“There is no fixing it right now! We are in the middle of a squall and we are drifting, okay?”
“Put the sails up! We can sail.”
“To the east! The wind is pushing us east and do you know what’s east of here? Land!”
She stops crying. “Really? That’s great! We can get help.”
She doesn’t get it.
“When I say land, I mean islands. Atolls. Mostly uninhibited. You tell me what we’re going to do in the dark, without any steering, huh? Let the wind magically push us into a harbor and right up to a fucking dock?”
A wave crashes over the side and into the cockpit as the boat continues to be pushed along. If I put the sail up now, we would be moving at breakneck speed but there’s no saying where we’d end up.
I glance at the GPS, see the radar flashing. We’re about 10 miles out from what looks to be an atoll, something small and without a name on the chart. And when I say 10 miles out, I mean we’re heading straight for it.
I look up at Daisy. She’s shaking slightly, staring at nothing. Perhaps she’s in shock. Perhaps I shouldn’t be yelling at her.
Even though it’s all her fucking fault.
You’re the one who put her in charge, I tell myself. Maybe this is your fucking fault. Just like so many other things are.
“What’s happening?” Richard appears at the top of the stairs, throwing on his lifejacket. “I woke up to yelling, and my internal compass says we’ve changed direction.”
“We’re fucked!” I yell at him, letting go of my confident captain persona. “Absolutely and completely fucked!”
Richard frowns and I don’t bother throwing Daisy under the bus. She can do that herself.
“I…” she begins, reluctantly looking at Richard. “I panicked, he was trying to get the sail in and I thought I hit the deck lights but…”
Richard’s eyes widen beneath his glasses. “No. Please don’t tell me you hit the autopilot.”