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IT TOOK A LOT longer than I expected for the storm to completely die down enough for us to go outside. Even though the center had long since moved off to the north, the Keys continued to be hammered by wind and rain until well after noon. Most of the storm surge had receded, but pools of seawater still covered the ground in many places hours later. The hardest part about waiting was not knowing what we would find of our ship or Terry, if anything. We wouldn’t know until we made our way back to the lagoon, and it was obvious that getting there would not be easy. From what we could see from the school, the devastation on the island was unbelievable. The school itself was the only building around still standing intact. Without electricity, television or any kind of phone service, we couldn’t know how bad the damage was everywhere else, other than what the officials at the shelter were gathering from radio broadcasts.
But listening to a voice on the radio wasn’t the same as seeing actual footage on TV, the kind I had watched on the news at home of other disasters that happened to other people. Those had never seemed real, since they were far removed and involved people and places I didn’t know. But now, we were those victims you see on the evening news after something like this happens. We were the shattered, the dazed and the confused, left with nothing but the clothes we were wearing and what few extras we’d packed in our bags. Like so many others left in a disaster’s wake, we were unsure where to go or what to do next.
Mom was crying most of the time during the waiting, saying she wished she’d never let Terry talk us into such a crazy adventure and that if we’d just kept the boat on the coast and sailed on weekends or something, none of this would have happened. She said she shouldn’t have listened to all his nonsense about having to leave right away, and that she should have put her foot down and said we weren’t going.
“Terry was always talking about how there was so little time left and that if we didn’t go now, we weren’t going to get out in time before it was too late. I believed him because he was so convincing and because he had been so many more places than I had, and was so much more educated. We should have just taken the boat down to Mobile or Biloxi and kept it there while we waited to see. One time I asked him why we couldn’t do that and he said that when the poop did hit the fan, it was going to happen so fast that we’d never make it all the way to the coast from Calloway City. He said that even if we did, we’d get there to find our ship already gone, stolen by someone else just as desperate to get away. Terry was just so convincing. He had an argument for everything and he always won.”
Dean told her that we could have lost the boat to a hurricane just as easily if we had left it on the Mississippi or Alabama coast and never sailed anywhere. He said owning a boat in hurricane-prone areas always brought with it the risk of damage or loss and that over the years several of his friends had lost theirs in marinas and in boatyards. But he also said that just because everything looked so bad here, that didn’t mean that Terry and the Apocalypse could not have weathered the storm okay where they were.
“I think we can start heading that way now,” he said; when we were at last able to go outside again.
Dean didn’t even want to go look at the house beneath which he’d been living in the garage apartment. He said he didn’t have to because where it was situated facing Hawk Channel on the Atlantic side of the island, he already knew it couldn’t have survived getting swept off its foundation by the storm surge. The police were urging everyone at the shelter to stay put and wait for relief supplies to arrive, but when Dean explained to them that our stepfather might be hurt and in need of help, they didn’t try to stop us from going to see. They did warn us that we were on our own though and to be careful. They said there would be all kinds of hazards out there, from spilled chemicals and broken glass to displaced wildlife like snakes, alligators and crocodiles. They said that we should stay away from any structures still standing, because they could fall in at any minute, and that we should stay out of the water because there would be all kinds of debris in there that could cut or injure somebody. They also warned us that there would be a curfew after dark and that we’d better be back at the shelter by then and not caught out walking around on the island. They said there would be looters and that many of the local residents were armed and might shoot on sight at anything that moved after dark.
Hearing all this, Janie said maybe we ought to just wait at the shelter and see if Terry showed up, because he did say he was coming back here to check on us after the storm was over. Mom said she couldn’t stand to sit there and wait like that, knowing we were all fine but that almost anything could have happened to Terry. She said she just had to know, and not wanting to stay there with the other refugees by herself, Janie reluctantly agreed to come with us. We left our stuff in the shelter in our spaces on the floor where we’d been assigned to sleep, and set out walking, carrying only a few bottles of drinking water given to us by the officials, along with some snack foods we’d brought from the Apocalypse when we’d left her the day before.
I could tell that just getting back to the lagoon was going to be an adventure as soon as we left the school grounds. There was no way to walk in a straight line or even follow the road because of all the piles of debris. We had to work our way around them, cutting through yards and climbing over fallen tree trunks and all kinds of other stuff. People yelled at us several times for getting too close to their personal rubble that was all that remained of their houses or businesses. They were bent over searching the grounds of their property, picking through what little was left to try and salvage anything of value they could find. It was sad to see so much of the island torn up like that. Even all the awesome coconut palms that had given it such a tropical feel were either blown down or had their fronds stripped away by the wind from still-standing bare trunks. Dean said the big heavy coconuts that were on them before the storm tended to fly loose in a hurricane and become cannonballs hitting houses and stuff. That must have been true, because we saw them everywhere, mixed in with the rubble.
When we got to the bridge that connected Islamorada to the next island over, where the lagoon was, we were relieved to see that span was still intact and passable. The storm surge had washed over the highway and swept away big chunks of pavement, but the bridge itself was elevated so tall boats could pass under it, and as a result it was safe from the rising water. I was still a little nervous when we walked out on it, thinking maybe it could still fall in, but Dean said it probably wouldn’t. He said as soon as they inspected it, they would probably open it to traffic again once they cleared all the debris off the road and repaired the pavement.
From up on the bridge, you could see a lot more of just how bad the damage from the hurricane really was. We stopped and looked back at Islamorada before we got to the highest part and Dean said he would have never believed this could happen. He said it might be as bad as the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, except there wouldn’t be near as many people killed because of the warnings and evacuations that got most people out of the Keys before it hit. Looking down in the water, we could see all kinds of stuff floating: everything from furniture to toys to dead birds. I hoped I wouldn’t see any, but I figured there were dead bodies bobbing around out there too.
We all held our breath as we neared the crest of the bridge, knowing that from up there we would be able to see out over the green mangroves surrounding the lagoon where the Apocalypse was anchored. We were afraid of what that view would reveal, and our fears came true when we reached the top. The mangroves were still there, and for the most part didn’t look much different than they had before, except for all the bits of paper, plastic, clothing and other flotsam littering their branches. But nowhere in sight were the tall masts of the Apocalypse. Where yesterday they had been clearly visible from this vantage point, today they were simply gone!
“TERRY! Oh my poor Terry!”
“It’s okay, Mom. Maybe the masts just blew down, that’s all.”
“True enough,” Dean said. “His rigging may not have been able to stand those hundred and fifty mile-an-hour gusts, with the masts sticking up above the trees like they were. Just because we can’t see his sticks doesn’t mean the boat’s not there.”
I hoped he was right as we picked up the pace and rushed to the other end of the bridge. As soon as we came to the place where the path through the mangroves began, it became clear that getting through there was not going to be easy. The trail was choked with rubble and debris and the mangrove roots had caught so much of the floating junk that it was almost an impenetrable barrier. There was no way to traverse it without a lot of climbing and crawling, and Dean warned us to watch where we put our hands and feet to avoid getting cut on broken glass or torn metal.
Mom began calling out to Terry as soon as we left the road, but there was no answer from the lagoon. With no traffic noise to drown out the sound, I knew that if Terry was just sitting there on the ship waiting and unhurt, he should be able to hear her shouts. As we pushed through all the junk, we came across several of the old derelict boats that had been shoved into the mangroves by the storm surge, one of them a thirty-something-foot monohull sailboat that had been broken completely in half. When we finally came within sight of the main part of the lagoon, none of the vessels that had been floating at their moorings were still there, but you could see the top of the mast of one sailboat that had sank. I looked for the plywood houseboat Dean and I had taken the anchor from, but it was nowhere in sight. From this vantage point at the end of the path, you couldn’t see the spot where we’d secured the Apocalypse anyway, so we all shouted louder, hoping Terry would hear us and that he would be able to come pick us up in the dinghy. When he didn’t answer, we knew we were going to have to wade along the edge of the mangroves roots to try and reach the hideaway hole on foot.
Dean led the way, reminding us about the crocodiles and saying to watch out for snakes too. Mom and Janie were freaked about that but they followed us anyway, not being able to stand just waiting to see what Dean and I would find. It took twenty minutes to reach the entrance to the hole, and when we did, we saw that the Apocalypse was definitely not as we’d left her. It was hard to get a good view of her, because the old plywood houseboat and a couple of the other derelicts had washed into the hole practically on top of her, but it was clear that although our ship was still afloat, she was upside down! There was still no sign of Terry or anyone or anything moving in the tangled mess. Mom and Janie were crying and Dean and I were already wading and swimming, trying to get through all the boat parts to reach the overturned hulls and try and find Terry.
Somehow the whole catamaran had flipped end over end, so that it was now upside down and pushed to the far end of the hole, the bows facing out, opposite the way we had moored it. I noticed that stupid houseboat had broken about five feet of the port hull’s bow completely off when it hit, and I immediately regretted taking that big Manson anchor that had secured it before we came along. Dean said it didn’t make any difference and that if we hadn’t taken it, the hurricane would have broken the houseboat’s rotten anchor rode anyway. When we finally reached the side of the starboard hull where the nav station was located, we both yelled for Terry again and banged on the side. There was a moaning sound from somewhere inside and then a faint return knock in answer to ours.
“HE’S ALIVE!” I shouted to Mom and Janie. At that, they were both in the water and swimming over to join us.
* * *
Terry told us everything he’d experienced in the height of the storm and how the Apocalypse had seemed to be doing fine until the surge pushed up into the lagoon, causing the water to rise so high that the tops of the mangroves were barely above it. As a result, the once-sheltered lagoon was now exposed to the full brunt of the huge breaking seas created by the hurricane-force winds. He said they were rolling in like an angry surf break of churning water and that the wind was so strong it was tearing things like hatch covers right off the decks. He went below and tried to secure the main hatch so he wouldn’t lose it, but by that time the derelict boats in the lagoon began piling up against the Apocalypse, smashing her wood and fiberglass and threatening to break her to pieces. He said that damned plywood houseboat was the worst and that it was what broke the port bow off, and he cussed the idiot who left it out there on an inadequate anchor. Dean and I exchanged a quick glance but didn’t say anything about “borrowing” that Manson anchor.
Terry said he never dreamed the Apocalypse could be capsized because of her length and her twenty-four-foot beam, but that’s exactly what happened next. He wasn’t sure if it was an exceptionally big wave that did it or if it was a micro-burst of super-intense wind, powerful enough to simply lift her out of the water and flip her on her back. Whatever it was, all he remembered was a brief sensation of weightlessness inside the cabin and then he said he must have hit his head on the impact when she landed. He had barely regained consciousness when he heard us calling his name and knocking on the hull, and he had no idea how much time had passed since the storm.
He told us all this once we were all gathered on a small patch of muddy ground amidst the mangrove roots. Getting back aboard the Apocalypse was impossible, as there was no place to sit on the inverted V-hulls and the bridge deck between them was submerged under two feet of water. Dean had to swim underwater to enter the main hatch and drag Terry out when we first realized he was trapped inside. Dean said Terry was lucky he hadn’t drowned in the water that was in the cabin when he was knocked out. He said the only thing that saved him from that was that his head was resting on the bottom of a shelf that was high enough to remain dry when the hulls flooded.
Mom was fussing over his cuts and bruises and making sure nothing was broken while Terry told his story.
“I’m just glad you’re okay,” she said. “I was so worried that you couldn’t have survived this when we looked outside this morning and saw how bad it was.”
“I did though,” Terry said. “I told you I would be okay.”
“Too bad about your boat, though man,” Dean said. “I hate to see a cool Wharram like that just totally destroyed.”
“What do you mean, destroyed?” Terry asked, looking at him as if he had lost his mind. “The Apocalypse is hardly destroyed! We’ll have her out of here and sailing again in no time!”
I glanced over at the wreck of our ship when he said this and thought he must have hit his head hard enough to knock the sense out of his brain. This wasn’t minor damage or entropy. This was catastrophic! I figured fixing it would be harder than building a whole new boat.
“Terry, you know that’s unreasonable. The ship is upside down in the water! The masts and rigging are gone, and no telling what else. We’re on an island that’s been devastated by a hurricane, and who knows how long it will be until the power is restored and you can even buy something to eat here? We have no place to stay and nothing left but the things the kids and I took with us. We have to leave this place and go home to Calloway City. You know that as well as I do.”
Hearing this, Terry just looked at Mom like she was the biggest idiot he had ever met in his life. Then he looked at me and Janie to see if we had anything to say; to see if we were in agreement with Mom. He even looked at Dean before he spoke again, but Dean said nothing and neither did we. I didn’t know about Janie or Mom, but I was afraid to, because I knew what was coming next, and I was right:
“You mean you’re ready to just give up? You want to just give up and walk away from everything we’ve been working at for more than two years because of an inconvenience? A minor setback? I thought when I married into this family I was getting a crew that would stick with me through thick and thin! I thought we were in this together and that we would do whatever it took to accomplish our goals. We built our ship with our own hands. We sailed her this far, almost to the edge of the tropics already. But then, at the first threat of bad weather, the three of you bailed on me. You would have left the islands all together if you could have found a ride. And if you had, no one would have found me until I was dead and even then you wouldn’t have known about it for days—maybe weeks! Now, after all I did to try to protect our ship, you want to give up on her and on me too and run back to that stupid house in Calloway City! After all this, you want to go back to living on dirt with the rest of the shore bastards just like you were before. Well, you can do what you like, but I’m staying right here! I will rebuild the Apocalypse and I will resume this voyage as planned, with or without you—any of you—or all of you!”
Terry might have hit his head too hard, but if he did, it didn’t change his mind one bit or make him forget anything he had been talking and ranting about since we first met him. I knew after hearing him lay it out that there would be no talking him into walking away from the wreckage. He was determined to resurrect the Apocalypse, and even though I didn’t see how anybody could do it, I knew he would find a way if it could be done. If there was one thing Terry Bailey didn’t understand, it was when to quit.
Mom said she wasn’t staying here though and from the tone of her voice I could tell she was as adamant about that as Terry was about not leaving. Janie was pretty much on Mom’s side as usual and that left me wondering who was right. I could sure see Mom’s point in wanting to leave all this mess behind and go back home. I couldn’t imagine how much hard work it would be to get the Apocalypse turned back over and repaired. It would be a tremendous job even with a crane to flip it and a big workshop like the barn we had in Calloway City in which to do the repairs. But here in the middle of a mangrove lagoon, there would be no crane or other machinery to move it. And I didn’t know where we would find a workshop when there were barely any houses still standing, let alone any with a roof still on them. But Dean, hearing the determination in Terry’s voice, said that he would help, and that it might be possible to rebuild our ship if we didn’t mind the hard work and didn’t mind spending a few months here to do it.
“If we can get her turned over again, man, we can get her towed back over to Islamorada. I know just the place you can do the work. It’s a little waterfront lot a friend of mine owns. He won’t be using it because I know the bungalow he had there must have been wiped out in the storm. You can set up camp there and eventually get a generator to run your power tools.”
* * *
A week after the hurricane, we were still in Islamorada, even though Mom was ready to leave immediately after we found Terry in our upside-down ship. She didn’t let anything Terry or Dean said change her mind about going back to Calloway City; what kept her here this long was the reality that there simply was no way to get to the mainland and beyond. The hurricane had done so much damage throughout the Keys that the road remained closed except for emergency and relief vehicles bringing supplies in, and electrical and phone service would not be restored for weeks.
Terry retrieved the blue tarp awnings he stashed inside one of the cabins while preparing for the storm, and with Dean’s help we rigged them as a big open-sided tent on the little piece of waterfront property that belonged to his friend. The food and most of the other supplies we had on the boat before the hurricane were still inside, and over the course of several days we salvaged what we could and carried it all on foot across the bridge to our makeshift camp. We were as well off or better off than anyone else on the island, as all the survivors were living like us in tents or out in the open, most of them depending on relief supplies just to have something to eat.
The wheels never stopped turning in Terry’s mind the entire time. When we were at the wreck, swimming into the cabins and carrying stuff off, he would stop and sit there thinking, tossing around ideas for getting the Apocalypse right side up again.
“What we’ve got to do, Robbie, is disassemble her completely. First we need to get the bridge deck and crossbeams off so we can separate the hulls. That’s the beauty of a Wharram. Just like when we built her, each component is lighter and easier to manipulate separately than when assembled into the whole ship. If we can get that port hull pulled over to the water’s edge by the mangroves, we can temporarily patch up the hole where the bow broke off so it won’t fill with water. Then, if we can find a skiff with an outboard that we can rent or borrow, we can drag the hulls out of the lagoon one at and time and tow them to our camp. Once we get them to the beach, we can pull them out of the water with a come-along and then we can do the rest of the repairs right there under tarps.”
It sure sounded like a lot of work to me, but I still didn’t know if I was going to be helping him or not. Every day that went by though, it looked more likely that I would. Terry and Mom argued almost the whole time, but as usual, Terry was wearing her down with his persistence. If Mom could have found a way out of there that first day or two after the hurricane, I have no doubt that she and Janie and I would have been right back in Calloway City by now. Going back would have meant the end of her marriage to Terry though, because it wasn’t even an option in his mind. He kept telling her she needed to stick with him and do what she’d promised him she would do. He said when they got married she’d committed to his plan to build the Apocalypse and sail away, and that if she broke that commitment now it would be her fault they got divorced, not his. He reminded her that he was husband number four for her, and that if she didn’t do what it took to make this marriage last, she might as well give up at her age.
“We’re in the perfect place to build or rebuild a sailing ship! It never gets cold here and the sun shines most of the time. The epoxy will cure fast and working outside on the beach, we won’t have to waste money on heat, lighting or rent! There are probably thousands of boats here that’ll get written off by the insurance companies, leaving us a treasure trove of salvageable parts and equipment. When we sail out of here in a few months, the Apocalypse will be better equipped than she was when we launched!
“It’ll be like a new beginning. Our voyage is hardly over, in fact, it’s just getting started! Do you think real sailors quit just because they hit a little bad weather? Do you think they abandon and walk away from a ship just because she sustained some damage? Look at the great Bernard Moitessier—he lost not one, but no less than three of his vessels to shipwreck during his famous voyages around the world. Did he just give up and quit? Hell no! He started over from scratch right on the beach. Homeless and penniless each time, he set right to work designing and building his next vessel and soon put to sea again. If he could achieve so much working alone, we’d be total losers if the four of us couldn’t manage to fix up a little hurricane damage working together!”
Every day that went by, it looked more and more inevitable. I was going to be here living in a tent for no telling how long, and my life was going to be nothing but hard work, just like before when we were building the boat. But even though I knew I wouldn’t have much time to swim or explore the island or do other fun stuff, it still sounded better than going back to Calloway City. At least I wouldn’t have to go back to school and sit in a dumb classroom all day. No matter what happened next, it had to be better than that, and it was bound to be an adventure!
* * *
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