On the eleventh day out, in the morning, the Compound Interest crossed the twenty-seventh parallel at forty degrees west and passed from high winds and bright skies into the morass of seaweed and current-borne garbage known as the Sargasso Sea. The vessel sat becalmed, in the long hours after ten o’clock, awaiting the slightest wind. The beach umbrella sails flexed, found nothing, and settled back again with a mechanical sigh.
“I’ve never known the dirty stuff to come this far north,” Captain Amundsen said. His charts showed good winds at this latitude, clear sailing. Wilson looked up from the brightwork, laid chamois and saddle soap aside for a few minutes, and came into the navigational octagon for a cigar. The captain did not like to smoke alone. The sea makes some men quiet, others garrulous; the captain was one of the latter.
“In my lifetime, I’ve seen the ocean’s currents changing, the Sargasso getting nastier.” He poked his Cuban in Wilson’s direction. “Used to be just weeds. Now it’s full of junk. Petrochemical waste floating along in rusty fifty-gallon drums—you name it. Look at this shit. It’s the ocean’s toilet.”
Wilson shielded his eyes against the flat yellow sky. Gulls hung motionless above the masts. A powerful stench of dead fish filled his nostrils; clumps of tangled seaweed floated along like giant turds. The black water was foul with crumpled cans and plastic jugs, six-pack holders, and other bits of trash. A broken dining room chair floated by upright, its legs tangled in a clump of seaweed big as a traffic island.
“How does all this stuff get here?” Wilson said. “We’re in the middle of the ocean.”
“I’ve seen a busted piano, even the burnt-out hulk of a Volkswagen floating on the weeds,” the captain said, studying the distance for a gust of wind. “Once saw three sealed wooden coffins bobbing along like corks. The currents bring it in. Your garbage scows come out of the major cities and dump illegally, just beyond the twelve-mile limit. The stuff has to end up somewhere. Here it is.”
“Did you retrieve the coffins?” Wilson said, but didn’t wait for a reply. A whiff of something indescribably foul from the port side tied a knot in his stomach. “Jesus, Captain, you’ve got two good engines ready to go. Can’t we motor out of here?”
The captain shook his head. “Ackerman says no. He has some cockeyed notion about sailing round the world. And that means we sail; we don’t use the engines except in emergencies.”
“What’s this?” Wilson said.
“This is waiting,” the captain said, and went back to his charts.