The sea, the sea, the sea. It rolls and rolls and calls to me! All day long it changes color, from blue to black to gray and all the shades in between, and I love the sea, I love the sea!
The Wanderer has been keeping good speed so far, and we’re now on a good beam reach straight ahead—across we go! Most of our watch time is taken up with trimming sails and keeping a steady course, and our off-watch time is filled with cleaning and cooking and keeping things in order (this makes Brian and Uncle Stew happy).
Last night we spoke with another vessel on the radio; it was a lone sailor having electrical trouble and he needed to know where he was. He didn’t need other assistance, but all night I kept thinking about him out there on his own. Was he glad to be on his own, or was he afraid?
When I came off watch, Uncle Stew was talking to the sailor on the radio again.
“Didn’t you sleep?” I asked Uncle Stew.
“Naw—just trying to figure out how this thing works, that’s all.”
He didn’t fool me. He was worried about the sailor too.
I said, “If you think this is too nosy, you don’t have to answer, but I was wondering. What do you do—what’s your job—when you’re working?”
He didn’t look up at me. “When I’m working, I sell insurance.”
“You mean like life insurance and car insurance and stuff like that?”
“Yes,” he said. “You can never have too much insurance.”
“I don’t get how that life insurance works,” I said. “You pay money to insure what—that you stay alive? How is paying money going to help you stay alive? And if you don’t stay alive—well, what good is the insurance?”
Uncle Stew rubbed his forehead. I was probably giving him a headache. “It’s kind of complicated,” he said. “The insurance helps the people who are left behind.”
“So do you like doing that?” I asked.
“Doing what?”
“Selling insurance.”
“Not really. Anyway, I got fired.”
“Well, maybe that’s a good thing,” I said. “Now you can do what you really want.”
“Huh,” he said.
“What would that be?” I asked. “What do you really really want to do?”
“You know what, Sophie?” Uncle Stew said. “I have no idea. No idea whatsoever. Isn’t that pitiful?”
“Yep,” I said. Well, it was true. It sounded really pitiful to me.
The waves have been slowly getting bigger, and the forecabin bounces around like a roller coaster. When I was asleep in there, I dreamed I was not yet born and my mother was running a marathon. All this rocking motion makes me so sleepy, and it is tempting to spend all my off-watch time snuggled up in my narrow bunk, but I’d get in trouble if I did. Brian or Uncle Stew would be jabbing me and telling me about my assignments.
Cody has been learning about ham radio, and Uncle Dock surprised me by saying that my father was trying to get a single sideband antenna hooked up, and if he did, we could be in touch with him via the ham radio. In a way, I loved that idea, thinking that I’d still be in touch, but I was also disappointed because it seemed as if it would be cheating, as if I’d be getting extra help or something.
I’ve been thinking about Bompie, carrying on conversations with him in my head. “Here we come, Bompie! Sailing over the mighty seas to the rolling green hills of England. Here we come!”