The Pulse

their passports in order. Normally, clearing back into St. Thomas as American citizens meant a brief visit to the U.S. Customs and Immigration offices at the western end of the harbor, but considering the circumstances, Larry wasn’t sure anyone would be there. Still, they had to try, and they had to go ashore anyway.

Larry did the rowing as Artie sat in the bow of the dinghy. Each time they passed another occupied vessel in the anchorage they were hit with the same barrage of questions about where they had come from, what they had seen, and what they might know of what was happening in the world beyond the harbor. When they reached the ferry dock near the government offices, Artie lost no time clambering up the ladder as Larry tied them off.

“Land!” Artie said. “At one point a couple of days ago, I swore I’d kiss it if I ever set foot on it again.”

“So go for it!” Larry said. “I’ve been waiting to see this.”

“What’s the point? At that time I thought I’d never have to get on a boat again if I ever got here. Now, this is just a temporary stop. I guess I shouldn’t get too excited about it or get too used to it.”

“Probably not, I don’t want to waste any time here; this place is gonna turn to shit in another day or two. It’s bad enough in normal times with all the cruise ship tourons and gangs of punk-assed dreads.”

As Larry suspected, they found the customs and immigration offices closed. Artie followed as Larry led the way back east along the waterfront to the Yacht Haven Marina and Hotel complex to see if the owner of Ibis had arrived before the pulse hit. If he had, he would be stranded among the thousands of other tourists stuck there in miserable conditions in hotels without lights or air conditioning. If not, it was certain that he wouldn’t be coming to the island until after power and communications were restored, and who knew how long that would be?

They found the hotel lobby full of frustrated guests unsure of what to do next, many of them killing time while they waited by drinking warm beer or the local Cruzan rum. The clerk behind the desk could not look for the name Larry gave him because all guest information from before the power outage was in their computer registry system. They went to the marina office and no one there remembered anyone asking about a yacht named Ibis. Larry said that most likely the owner was not on the island. There was nothing else to do but leave the yacht on the mooring as he had contracted to do, and hope that eventually her owner would be able to get to St. Thomas to claim her—if someone didn’t steal her first. But they had to get to Culebra, as there was a lot of work to do to get Larry’s boat and make it ready for the passage to New Orleans.

“I guess we’ll have to sail over there on Ibis and then sail both boats back here so we can leave her once we get Alegria shipshape,” Larry said, when Artie asked how they were going to get to Culebra.

“That’s going to take a lot of extra time, isn’t it—coming all the way back over here?”

“We’ll lose most of a day doing it, but it won’t make much difference in the end. What else can we do? Besides, my cat is a lot faster than Ibis. We’ll have the trade winds in our favor once we leave here for good, and we’ll make a fast passage to Florida. You’ll see.”

They left the exclusive Yacht Haven complex and Artie followed his brother to a seedier part of the waterfront, where they found his favorite bar still open for business, despite the lack of power. Larry was well acquainted with the owner from his many stops in the harbor taking yachts up and down the island chain.

“We’re open until we run out,” the man said. “At the rate people have been drinking since yesterday, that won’t be much longer. What are you two having?”

“Nothing,” Larry said. “It’s way too early for me. We’re getting out of here real soon, I hope. I just had to make a quick check and be sure my client wasn’t here.”

“Brought another boat in, huh?”

“Yeah, a pretty sweet little wooden schooner—new custom build and all that. Too bad the owner probably won’t get to see her any time soon.”

“If he wasn’t on the island before five minutes after ten yesterday, he won’t. Man, this is one bizarre scene. Nobody knows the extent of it. There’s just no way to get any news. We don’t know if anybody’s coming to help us get things back up and running or not.”

“We intend to find out, one way or the other,” Larry said. “We’re gonna sail to the mainland and try to get some answers. I hope you’re not staying around here yourself.”

“Liz and I have already talked about it. Our boat is pretty well stocked up all the time. We won’t stay in Charlotte Amalie more than another day or two. There’s already been some looting and a couple of house fires. It won’t be long before the gangs are running the streets with machetes, taking whatever they want. We’ve seen it before. We’re thinking of sailing over to the BVI and maybe hanging out at one of the out islands, maybe Peter Island.”

“Probably a good idea,” Larry said. “Good luck to you, man. We’ve gotta scoot. We’ve got a lot of work to do on my boat before we can leave.”

Outside the yacht club, Artie and Larry stood for a minute taking in the scene on the city streets leading up the slopes from the harbor. Throngs of pedestrians, locals and stranded tourists alike, were moving among the stalled cars that filled the roadways. Everything was in a state of chaos as people walked around looking for friends and family they couldn’t call on the phone, or for water or food they could no longer drive to get. The enormity of the disruption overwhelmed Artie as the reality before his eyes sunk in. It still didn’t seem possible that all the advanced communications and much of the machinery of modern civilization could just be turned off like flipping a switch. He watched for a few moments, and felt truly sorry for the thousands of vacationers who were caught on the island in this mess and had no idea how they would get home. At that moment, he began to realize that despite the fact that he too was a stranded tourist, he was lucky to have a brother like Larry and the prospect of a sure, even if somewhat slow, ride home.

It was shortly after noon when they left the ferry dock at St. Thomas and rowed back out to Ibis. Pete was in the cockpit of Celebration and saw them coming. He waved them over to talk for a few minutes. They sat bobbing in the dinghy while he held the bow painter to keep them from drifting away. Pete had the best news that Artie had heard since they made their decision to sail Larry’s boat back to the States. He said that while they were ashore, he and Maryanne had talked it over and decided that they didn’t really feel good about staying in Charlotte Amalie. They decided that Culebra would be a better place to hunker down for the time being, as the population was much smaller there, and they had liked it when they stopped there before. Since they were going back anyway, Pete wanted to offer Artie and Larry a ride with them on Celebration. That way, Larry could leave Ibis on her mooring as he was obliged to, and they could get going on Larry’s boat as soon as possible. Besides, Pete said he and Maryanne would have a hard time moving the big Tayana alone without the aid of her electric windlass, depth sounder, GPS, and all the other amenities they were so dependent upon to handle her.

Artie was delighted with this, as it meant they wouldn’t have to backtrack to St. Thomas later. Larry agreed that Pete and Maryanne would be safer in Culebra, and said he would introduce them to some of his friends there. It was already too late in the day to get underway, get there, and settle into the anchorage before dark, though, so Larry said they would have to wait until morning to sail. It wouldn’t be safe to enter Culebra’s reef-guarded harbor at night with all aids to navigation unlit—especially with Celebration’s seven-foot draft. But they could get their personal belongings and the remaining supplies off Ibis and move aboard the bigger yacht that afternoon.

“We’ll have dinner around five thirty,” Maryanne said. “It will be steaks on the grill tonight, if that’s all right with you guys. We’ve got to use up what’s in the freezer. It won’t stay cold much longer in this heat.”

Artie helped Larry finish the job of sorting out Ibis and stowing all her gear in preparation for leaving her. They carefully furled the mainsail and foresail, secured them to their booms with sail ties made of nylon webbing, and then buttoned on the canvas covers to shield the sails from the sun’s damaging UV light. They removed the big genoa from the forestay and bagged it to be stored below, and furled the smaller staysail, secured it in its fitted cover, and hoisted it just clear of the deck by its halyard. They folded up the cockpit Bimini and lashed it to the grab rails on the coach roof. They put all loose gear away in the cockpit lockers, and then Artie scooped up seawater in a canvas bucket attached to a line to rinse the decks as Larry scrubbed them with a long-handled brush. When they were done, Ibis was as neat and clean as any yacht Larry had ever left with her owner, even though he knew that she would likely remain unattended and unused for a long time to come.

They packed their clothes in their bags down below, and Larry cleaned out the ice boxes and lockers, bagging up all of the remaining food on board. He figured it was more than enough for the two of them to make the passage