Off Kilter (27 page)

“This is risky. Are you sure you want to do it?” asked the Captain.

“I’m sure I don’t want to put you and the crew in further danger. I also don’t want to be stuck in that compartment in these conditions,” he said, motioning at the high waves.

“You’re a brave man, Collin Cook. God’s speed,” said the Captain as he clasped Collin’s shoulder.

With that, Collin gazed pensively out at the angry sea. Wind and waves tossed the boat to and fro while rain slashed at him. Butterflies spun like a tornado in his gut. He steeled himself, grasped the railing, and stepped toward the two men holding the raft at the side of the boat.

Gulf of Mexico, West of the Florida Coast

June 6

The cover had been unzipped just enough to allow Collin a place to sit in the rear of the raft where the outboard motor was mounted. The
Admiral Risty
and the dinghy slammed into each other as angry waves heaved the two vessels up and down and side to side. Rain slashed in diagonal sheets, carried by the increasingly powerful winds coming from the southeast. Collin crouched next to Rojas holding the railing, surveying his options and planning his exit onto the dinghy. Without warning, a towering wave crested and broke over the side of the boat, knocking everyone off their feet. Collin lost his grip and went skittering across the deck, grabbing hold of the main mast as he did. Rojas and Jaime let go of the dinghy’s side ropes as they grabbed the railing and struggled to stay aboard the
Admiral Risty
.

Collin scrambled back to his feet. The dinghy was slipping away as the wind propelled the
Admiral Risty
one way and the waves carried the dinghy another. Knowing his time was up, he took one giant step and launched himself over the side, hurling his body toward his escape vessel. He struck the side of the dinghy near the bow with his chest, arms extended. With the tarp covering the entire bow, his arms couldn’t wrap around the tubular side. There was nothing to hold. The tarp was wet and slick. He bounced off, stunned by the sudden burst of pain from his ribs. He forgot about his ribs. He sank into the water, doubled over with his arms wrapped around his torso. Bubbles erupted around him as he screamed underwater. His instincts kicked into gear, playing out the scenario around him, reminding him that his ride was moving away from him. His eyes shot open. He ignored the pain. He had to get on that dinghy or he’d die.

As he kicked his way to the surface, he caught a glimpse of something slithering in the water nearby. It was moving away from him unsteadily, jerking up and down. He reached for it, but it slipped through his grasp. He kicked with his legs and pulled through the water with his arms until it was close again. This time he focused on grabbing it and holding on tightly. With a firm hold on the rope, he pulled himself upward, breached the surface, and refilled his burning lungs with air. He had the bow rope clutched tightly in his hand. He wasn’t about to let go.

Struggling to keep his head above water, Collin pulled the raft closer. As he did, he surveyed his surroundings. Through the sheets of rain and wind-tossed waves, he could make out the whitish form of the sailboat bobbing violently in the growing swells, accented by five dark, apprehensive figures bunched along the closest railing, peering desperately in his direction. He pushed the matted strands of hair from his eyes as he clung to the rope, rising with another wave. He mustered the strength to thrust his left arm high above his head to give them the thumbs up. Whistles and shouts, muffled and unintelligible, erupted from the distance as he struggled to maneuver himself along the side of the dinghy toward the stern.

By the time he reached the back of the boat, still holding the bow rope, he could see the sixty-foot mainsail of the
Admiral Risty
in the distance, surging westward. The crew had no time to help him; they had a Navy rescue ship to outrun. And so did Collin.

As he and the dinghy slid down the face of a swell, Collin used the momentum from the wave to swing his right leg over the rear gunwale, his right hand braced against the side of the outboard engine. Collin kept his head low in the water and swung the rest of his body around clockwise to avoid the propeller and outdrive. His legs found purchase so he could leverage the rest of his body into the boat.

He knew he had no time to spare. He pushed through exhaustion and pain that shot like bolts of lightning through his body, starting at his ribs. The boat was unstable with too much weight in the back and heavy seas tossing it about. Ignoring the searing pain, Collin maneuvered himself into a position where he could kneel in front of the rear bench and still reach the motor. Hoping and praying for a miracle, he yanked on the pull cord to start the engine. Nothing. Exerting all of his strength, he yanked again and again and again, until the motor finally turned over once, then died. He tried again. It turned over once more. Then, with one more mighty pull, the little motor spit and coughed and came to life.

Collin jammed it into gear and twisted the throttle hard. The little engine whined and screamed, but the boat hardly moved. Collin repositioned his hand on the throttle and twisted more, giving it all the gas the throttle would allow. The propeller started to gain traction, and the little boat began to plow its way forward. Water flowed to the rear of the boat. Even with the tarp covering the bow, the dinghy had taken on a substantial amount of water, the weight of which was creating drag and throwing the center of balance too far aft. The nose of the dinghy bobbed precariously out of the water as it climbed up the face of a swell. Collin leaned as far forward as he could while still holding the throttle. The dinghy crested the wave; Collin’s weight was just enough to keep it from flipping over backward. He had no time to improve his center of balance before the next wave hit. All he could do was ease off the throttle before he reached the top and lean forward. In the troughs, he scooped and paddled with his free hand, but that did little to solve his weight imbalance.

After several minutes, he realized he had no idea what direction he was headed. He had to stabilize the boat first, then worry about navigating. If he didn’t, he would capsize and have little hope of surviving. Desperately, Collin struggled to keep the little boat from turning over. Between waves, he checked the water level at the back. That’s when he saw it. His salvation in the form of a white, one-gallon bucket tied to a string, floating in the back of the boat. Collin grabbed it and scooped as fast as he could with his free hand until he neared the top of a wave, then he pitched his body forward on top of the cover to hold the nose down. On the back side of the wave, he bailed out as much water as he could. He repeated this process until the boat was stable enough to ride the waves without fear of being blown over backward.

As he maneuvered through the waves, he managed to pull out the encased GPS unit from the Velcro pocket of his cargo shorts and tighten the strap to his wrist. “Spit 3” was already highlighted, so he punched “Go.” The map resolved and showed his location as a blinking red dot with a line jutting out from it at the eight o’clock position, behind and to the left of his current course. He turned the dinghy gradually until he pointed in the right direction. The danger now was it required traveling crosswise to the waves, but he soon figured out how to negotiate the swells to prevent being flipped over by pointing the nose of the dinghy into the crest of each wave, then toward his destination on the downhill side until he was halfway up the next one.

He made slow and steady progress, inching ever closer to spit 3, as the storm intensified. The spit displayed as a lone speck at the bottom of a steel-gray screen. The GPS said he was nine miles away, traveling at a speed of 3.8 knots. Over two hours to get there. He’d never make it in time. The storm would sink him for sure. Collin decided to risk it and increase his speed. With less weight in the boat and more stability, he found he could manage 6.5 knots without too much trouble. Now he had a better chance of arriving on the tiny island before the front edge of the storm hit full-force, he hoped.

With the increased speed, the stronger wind, and more rain, Collin’s core temperature was dropping. The cotton T-shirt and cargo shorts not only didn’t insulate, they sucked the heat from his body. His teeth clattered as his jaw quivered uncontrollably. The hand on the throttle was now a pasty white, and he could barely move his fingers. He switched hands frequently, keeping the free hand in his crotch for warmth, though there was little to be found anywhere on his body.

His whole frame convulsed. He recognized this as the onset of hypothermia and followed his Boy Scout training, tensing every muscle in his body and holding it for ten seconds, releasing, then tensing again. This got his blood flowing to his muscles, preventing him from losing cognitive function and large motor skills.

As he continued the regimen of tensing and flexing, Collin focused on preventing a capsize and staying on course. With the heavy rain and rough seas, all he could see in front of him was the next wave he had to surmount. This went on for what felt like hours. Checking the GPS, he was relieved to see that he had a mile and a half to go. The relief would have been greater were it not for the driving headwind keeping his speed under six knots.
Another twenty minutes
, he thought.
That’s all
.

His relief and optimism were short-lived. A quarter mile later, the engine conked out and wouldn’t restart. He had run out of gas. He remembered the canister tied to the front bench, under the cover, but with the wind gusts and the crashing waves, Collin knew he was in peril. Working as fast as his cold, stiff muscles could work, he fumbled at the zipper. His fingers had so little feeling, let alone strength, the zipper tab kept slipping through their grasp. Each attempt gained him only inches of access. Waves continued to pound the dinghy, pushing it backward and tossing it about like the tiny object it was on this vast, surging sea. Fighting to keep his weight close to the center for maximum stability, Collin’s efforts with the zipper were fruitless. The activity was frustrating but had engaged his brain. He remembered seeing Rojas put a screwdriver in a clear, zippered pouch under the bench behind him. He fought the swells that threatened to capsize his little raft and struggled to get at the long, thin tool. Once he did, his fingers didn’t grip it well enough, and it dropped to the floor, and disappeared under several inches of water. Collin lunged into the rear of the dinghy, flailing wildly through the flooded bottom, shouting his frustration until he found it. With his weight in the back, the nose of the dinghy tipped upward as it was thrown to the top of another wave. Again, Collin lurched toward the center to prevent the boat from flipping backward. His heat-starved body lacked its usual coordination, and he landed awkwardly on the tarp, banging his shins on the aluminum bench. He had nothing to hold. The nose of the boat slapped into the water just as the dinghy reached the top of the wave. Collin bounced and skidded across the slick tarp and over the edge at the front left quarter of the raft. As he slid, his hands flailed in all directions; the three longest fingers of his right hand snagged and wrapped around one of the safety ropes that ran along the top of the dinghy’s inflated side tubes. His weight pulled him down as the sea pushed the boat up, shooting sharp pain through his fingers, tearing skin, and causing friction burns on the sensitive flesh underneath. A tearing sensation coursed through his upper arm and shoulder. Despite the pain, his survival instincts demanded he not let go. Like a rodeo cowboy, Collin held on as the boat bucked. His left hand still clutched the screwdriver.

Kicking his legs and left hand—screwdriver, GPS, and all—he worked to turn his body until he could grasp the safety rope with both hands. He pulled his head out of the water and gasped for breath, sucking in rain and sea spray as he did. He sputtered and choked and coughed it out. Panicked like never before, Collin tried to pull his body onboard from the side. As he did, he felt the boat ready to flip on top of him. He relaxed his arms, letting his body slump back into the water. Instead, he shimmied along, hand to hand, to the nose of the boat and waited until a swell pushed him upward. Ignoring the stinging in his hand and the torn muscles in his arm, he pulled with all his might until he got one arm across the pointed front end and heaved his upper body onto the gunwale. The boat nosed up another wave, pushing his body upward until he sprawled out across the tarp, still holding the safety rope with one hand. He spun on his stomach to get his legs toward the aft. From there he inched backward until he was on his knees in front of the rear bench, where he had started.

Wasting no time, Collin inserted the thin end of screwdriver through the eye of the jumbo zipper tab and tugged it open until he saw the gas can. A yank on the end of the knot loosened the can. Still fighting waves and wind and with rain lashing his face, Collin pulled the can to the rear of the boat and fumbled with the screw top on the floor-mounted tank. He fought to stay balanced. Gasoline splashed out of the spout of the gas can as he jarred it open. Waves threatened to overturn the dinghy, so he steadied himself against the bench. Settling his weight on the floor as close to the center of the boat as he could, he angled the spout of the can toward the tiny opening as the sea continued to jostle him violently. Gas spilled all over until he was able to jam the spout into the opening of the tank. Collin leaned forward to cup his hand over the opening and around the spout as he poured to prevent water entering the gas tank.

When he had gotten what he deemed would be enough in the tank, he closed the spout and screwed the fuel tank cap back on. He dragged the half full can back to the front of the boat and pulled the zipper as far as he could in one effort, bracing for another wave as he did. He turned back to the pull cord starter. Fortunately, the engine started on the second pull. He revved the throttle and engaged the gear just in time to push up the face of a monster wave and avoid getting overturned by it. After stabilizing the boat, he checked the GPS attached to his left wrist and discovered that he had been pushed back two tenths of a mile. Steeling himself, he twisted the throttle and leaned into the wind and waves, fighting every moment to remain balanced and steady.