The Pulse

remote. Only thing is, you don’t have many choices with that seven-foot draft.”

“I don’t see how we could be in any danger out here,” Maryanne said. “There are so many other boats around. Who’s going to bother us?”

“Well,” said Larry, “to people ashore, especially the gangs that don’t need an excuse like this anyway, a boat like Celebration is a gold mine. They know it’s full of expensive hardware, not to mention the food and water everyone is soon going to be desperate for. Cruisers have been targeted here before, and especially in St. Croix after Hurricane Hugo and some of the other really bad ones. I’m talking robbery, murder, gang rape, you name it.”

Maryanne shuddered and looked at her husband. “Sounds like a realistic scenario to me,” Pete said. “The question is, where do we go? I thought we might be better off here than back home, depending on how big this thing really is. I mean, if the same pulse took out everything in the States, it might be even worse there. Look how dependent everything up there is on the power grid, not to mention transportation.”

“It’s hard to believe this has shut down automobiles,” Artie said. “I never would have thought about that. Of course, I never would have thought about it causing airplanes to crash either. I can’t believe I’m stuck here now with no way to get back to New Orleans or even to call Casey and check on her.”

“His daughter,” Larry explained. “Artie was just with me for a few days of vacation.”

“If you’re going to get back to the mainland, you’ll probably have to sail,” Pete told Artie.

“Sail? All the way back to America? How long would that take?”

“Not as long as it took us to get down here, that’s for sure,” Pete said, adding that going back to the mainland was a downwind run with the help of the trade winds, while getting to the islands from Florida was a difficult, upwind bash.

“He’s right about that,” Larry said. “I’ve done it both ways many times. It’s an easy run from here to Fort Lauderdale. If you don’t stop along the way, you can get there in a week or so, depending on the boat.”

“And your daughter is in New Orleans,” Pete said. “At least that’s a port city and you can sail there. You’re lucky she’s not at Kansas State or something. It might take another week or two to get around the Keys and across the Gulf, depending on the weather, but it could be a lot worse if she were inland. My guess is that a lot of people will be walking if they got the same effects up there that we got here.”

Artie was overwhelmed. He had never considered the possibility of having to sail all the way to New Orleans in order to get back to Casey. Despite what Larry and Pete said, a lot could happen in a matter of two weeks or longer. How could he live that long not knowing if she was okay? What would she do in the meantime? If her car wouldn’t start, she probably couldn’t leave, but what dangers would she face in a blacked-out New Orleans? Artie couldn’t believe the circumstances that could put him so out of touch with the person he loved most on this Earth. He knew Larry couldn’t fully understand, even if he thought he did, because he had never had children. Casey was the light of Artie’s life. He had to do whatever it took to get to her and protect her, even if it meant another voyage much longer than the one he’d just endured in miserable seasickness.

“If it’s going to take that long, then we need to leave immediately,” Artie said to Larry, his entire attitude about ocean voyaging completely changed now that he accepted the reality that it was the only way home and the only way back to his daughter.

“It’s not quite that simple, Doc. For one thing, we can’t take off on Ibis and leave the owner hanging, even if he is still in Tampa and has no way to get here. First, I have to make sure he’s not already here.”

“If he’s not here, then it won’t do him any good. Couldn’t you drop the boat off in Tampa later, after we go to New Orleans?”

“It’s a few hundred miles back to Tampa from New Orleans. I’ve done that crossing before. But no, I don’t want to risk his boat like that considering the conditions, and my contract was to deliver her here. I’ve met my obligation as far as that goes, but if he is here, I need to find out. Besides, my boat is better suited to the voyage.”

“But it’s not even finished, you said. Aren’t you still building it?”

“She’s built and could be launched as she is. The main thing I have left to do is step the mast and set up all the running rigging. She’s not painted yet, but that doesn’t matter, I’ve got a solid coat of gray primer on everything and we can slap a coat of bottom paint on right before we splash her.”

“You’ve built your own boat?” Maryanne asked. “What kind of boat is it?”

“A catamaran—a Wharram Tiki 36, to be exact.”

“I’ve heard of Wharrams,” Pete said. “We saw an old dilapidated one in Key Largo. They sure are funky- looking boats. Aren’t they homemade out of plywood?”

“A lot of them are homebuilt, and yeah, its plywood, but it’s a composite construction with everything laminated with epoxy resin and fiberglassed over. Some of them are built rough by people who don’t know what they’re doing, but I’ve taken my time with mine. All the materials are to Lloyd’s specs and I’ve cut no corners. She’ll look like a million-dollar yacht when she’s all painted up and fitted out.”

“Can a boat like that make it all the way to New Orleans?” Artie asked.

“Of course she can! You well know how long I’ve been sailing, Doc. I’ve sailed just about every kind of boat you can think of in my deliveries. Would I spend my hard-earned cash and most of my spare time building something that wasn’t seaworthy? Alegria will be at least as capable as Ibis there. These cats have crossed every ocean in the world. There’s no boat I would trust more when it gets really nasty out there. The big difference, though, is that she can go where almost no other sailboat can. She only draws two feet.”

“Two feet! Wow!” Pete said. “That’s like a dinghy.”

“Yep, I’ll be able to put her right on the beach if I need to. That’s the other thing—she’s light. No lead keel, and construction from the finest okoume marine plywood brought her in at less than four thousand pounds, ready to cruise.” Larry turned to Artie: “You see, Ibis is relatively shallow too, and she would get us there in a fine style, but we don’t know what we might encounter in all this mess with everything shut down. My boat will have a lot of advantages if we need to go up a river or get to other places regular boats can’t reach. And —she’s much faster than a monohull. And—you’re gonna love this, Doc—the motion of a catamaran is a lot different and a lot easier. None of that deep rolling that had you puking your guts out on the way here. You’re gonna like multihull sailing a lot better.”

“Where is your boat?” Pete asked. “I’d like to take a look; she sure sounds interesting. Is she close to the harbor?”

“Unfortunately no,” Larry said. “I did the building under a tarp shed on the beach at Culebra. I’m sure you’re familiar with it; it’s one of the islands between here and Puerto Rico.”

“Oh yes, there’s a lovely anchorage there,” Maryanne said. “We stayed there a couple of nights on the way here.”

“I like it,” Larry said. “It’s much more laid-back than St. Thomas. I can actually leave tools lying around without having to worry about them walking off when I turn my back.”

“How far is it from here?” Artie wanted to know.

“Not far at all, really,” Pete said, “about 20 nautical miles west. You can see the island once you get out of this harbor and past Water Island.”

“Still, if Culebra’s an island, even 20 miles is a long way. If we have to leave Ibis here, how are we supposed to get there so we can even get started?” Artie asked, unable to conceal his anxiety about each new obstacle that seemed to come between him and Casey.

“I’m thinking,” Larry said. “But first, I need to go ashore and ask around to make sure my client is not here.”

After inviting them to come back that afternoon for drinks, Pete took Artie and Larry back over to Ibis so Larry could offload the schooner’s dinghy for the trip to shore. Pete promised to keep an eye on Ibis while they were gone, so Larry could relax a bit about leaving her. Artie had question after question for his brother about their proposed voyage to New Orleans, and Larry did his best to answer each one as they lowered the sleek wooden dinghy into the water and Larry got the ship’s paperwork and