ISLANDS IN THE STREAM

In the morning light they could see four terns and two gulls working around the shoal. They had found something and were diving. The terns were crying and the gulls were screaming.

“What are they into, Tom?” Henry asked.

“I don’t know. It looks like a school of bait fish that is too deep for them to work.”

“Those poor bastard birds have to get up earlier in the morning than we do to make a living,” Willie said. “People don’t appreciate the work they put in.”

“How are you going to run, Tom?” Ara asked.

“Just as close in to the bank as I can and right up to the head of the key.”

“Are you going to check that half-moon key with the wreck?”

“I’ll make a turn around it close in and everybody glass it. Then I’ll anchor in the bight inside the tip of Guillermo.”

“We’ll anchor,” Willie said.

“That’s implied. Why do you get so ornery this early in the morning?”

“I’m not ornery. I’m just admiring the ocean and this beautiful coast Columbus first cast his eyes on. I’m lucky I didn’t serve under that Columbus.”

“I always thought you did,” Thomas Hudson said.

“I read a book about him in the hospital at San Diego,” Willie said. “I’m an authority on him and he had a worse fucked-up outfit than this one.”

“This isn’t a fucked-up outfit.”

“No,” said Willie. “Not yet.”

“OK, Columbus boy. Do you see that wreck that bears about twenty degrees to starboard?”

“That’s for your starboard watch to see,” Willie said. “But I can see it OK with my one eye that works and there is a booby bird from the Bahamas perched on it. He’s probably come to reinforce us.”

“Good,” said Thomas Hudson. “He’s what we need.”

“I probably could have been a great ornithologist,” Willie said. “Grandma used to raise chickens.”

“Tom,” Ara said. “Do you think we can work a little closer in? The tide is high now.”

“Sure,” Thomas Hudson answered. “Ask Antonio to get up in the bow and let me know how much water I have.”

“You’ve got plenty of water, Tom,” Antonio called. Right in to shore. You know this channel.”

“I know. I just wanted to be sure.”

“Do you want me to take her?”

“Thanks,” said Thomas Hudson. “I do not.”

“Now we can see the high ground beautifully,” Ara said. “You take all of her, Gil. I’ll just back you up. Glass her really well.”

“Who takes the first quarter of the sea?” Willie asked. “How come you switched on me, anyway?”

“When Tom asked you to look at the wreck. We switch automatically. When you went to starboard I went to port.”

“That’s too nautical for me,” Willie said. “When you want to be nautical, be right or not at all. Why don’t you say right or left the same as in steering?”

“It was you who said the starboard watch,” Henry said.

“That’s right. And from now on I’m going to say downstairs and upstairs and the front and the back of the boat.”

“Willie, get over with Gil and Ara and glass the beach, will you please?” Thomas Hudson said. “The beach and carry it up to the first third of the key.”

“Yes, Tom,” Willie said.

It was easy to see if there was anyone living on Cayo Guillermo on this which was the windward side for nearly all of the year. But there was nothing showing as they moved close in along the coast. They came abeam of the point and Thomas Hudson said, “I’ll circle the half-moon key as close as I can and you all glass it. If you notice anything we can stand by and put the dinghy in.”

The breeze was starting to rise and the sea was beginning to move but it did not break yet on the shoals because of the high tide. Thomas Hudson looked ahead at the small rocky key. He knew there was a sunken wreck at the western end of it but it showed only as a red brown bulge with this high tide. There was a shallow bank and a sandy beach on the inside of this key but he would not see the beach until he had rounded the wreck.

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