We’ve spent hours over the last couple of weeks studying the boats, working in makeshift classroom labs that served to simulate the vessels as best they could. Today we’re supposed to be ready to experience the real thing and be tested on what we’ve learned.
This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. This is only a test.
I stare at the first boat, a Colgate 26 daysailer, a standard boat used by the Navy to teach basic sailing skills. The second boat is bigger, a forty-three-foot fishing boat. Donated by one of the local families, it’s been refurbished with the latest navigational gear. We’ll focus on the equipment once we’re aboard. The wooden fishing boat is a troller, the kind I’ve been on a million times with Dad. That doesn’t make me feel any better.
There are five dinghies, three with oars, two with outboards, waiting to ferry us out to the boats. Floating in the pale-green shallows, the dinghies look small and insubstantial.
A girl from lab hands out orange life jackets as I look at the last of the large boats, a forty-foot fiberglass motorboat. It’s an Alliaura Marine Jeantot Euphorie power catamaran. The name sounds like poetry, but that’s the only good thing about the boat, about any of the boats. Twenty feet wide, the gleaming white vessel is crammed with state-of-the-art navigational gear and can hold over thirty people. Nearly new, it must have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where the catamaran came from, or the daysailer. OZI.
The scene is nothing less than picturesque, a postcard. Miss you. Wish you were here. The backside of the granite cliffs tapers gently down toward the water. Softly swaying pines and puffy white clouds complete the idyllic setting. My stomach is acid.
“You can do this.” Logan reaches for me, his palms warm and dry against the clammy skin of my upper arms. The warmth of his hands makes me realize how cold I am.
“My sweater.” Is that my voice so far away? “I left it in your car.”
“I’ll get it.” As he jogs off, Mary approaches.
“Arion, you’re super pale. Do you feel okay?” Mutely, I gaze at the water. She squeezes my hand. “I’ll go make sure we’re in the same group.”
“Your sweater, if that’s what it is.” Logan reappears next to me with the limp cardigan. “Here, take this too.” He gives me a faded blue sweatshirt.
Fingers fumbling, I take the heavy shirt, put it on over the sweater. “Thanks, Logan.”
“Sure thing,” he says. Then he purses his lips, looks at the sweatshirt. It’s thick and soft. The lettering across the chest reads, B LAINE . “Go ahead and keep it,” he says.
Before I can thank him, he ruffles my hair and turns away, heading over to the registration table. Mary gives me a little nudge, and, lifting the two anchors that are my feet, I tuck both hands into the kangaroo pocket of the sweatshirt and follow.
SWIM TEST
The morning actually passes. Mary stays by me the whole time.
At noon everyone gets a break. Seniors wearing name tags with the word M ENTOR written in thick black letters bring out coolers filled with sodas and brown-bag lunches from the deli in town.
Immensely grateful to be back on land, I stretch out on a sunbaked rock. All around me other students are doing the same. Mary comes over with a sandwich, Logan with a soda. But after being out on two boats and two dinghies—the dinghies scared me the most for some reason—I feel like any food that goes down is going to come back up. No lunch for me.
“Check out our girl Alyssa,” Pete says, as he and Bobby join us on the rocks.
Alyssa’s wearing a bikini and standing in the water with Bonfire Boy, who’s rubbing sunblock on her back. Sarah is trying to talk her into taking a plunge.
“She ought to go in now, while it’s still her choice,” Bobby says. “Have your suit on?” he asks me. I shake my head vigorously. Rumor has it that quite a few people go
This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. This is only a test.
I stare at the first boat, a Colgate 26 daysailer, a standard boat used by the Navy to teach basic sailing skills. The second boat is bigger, a forty-three-foot fishing boat. Donated by one of the local families, it’s been refurbished with the latest navigational gear. We’ll focus on the equipment once we’re aboard. The wooden fishing boat is a troller, the kind I’ve been on a million times with Dad. That doesn’t make me feel any better.
There are five dinghies, three with oars, two with outboards, waiting to ferry us out to the boats. Floating in the pale-green shallows, the dinghies look small and insubstantial.
A girl from lab hands out orange life jackets as I look at the last of the large boats, a forty-foot fiberglass motorboat. It’s an Alliaura Marine Jeantot Euphorie power catamaran. The name sounds like poetry, but that’s the only good thing about the boat, about any of the boats. Twenty feet wide, the gleaming white vessel is crammed with state-of-the-art navigational gear and can hold over thirty people. Nearly new, it must have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where the catamaran came from, or the daysailer. OZI.
The scene is nothing less than picturesque, a postcard. Miss you. Wish you were here. The backside of the granite cliffs tapers gently down toward the water. Softly swaying pines and puffy white clouds complete the idyllic setting. My stomach is acid.
“You can do this.” Logan reaches for me, his palms warm and dry against the clammy skin of my upper arms. The warmth of his hands makes me realize how cold I am.
“My sweater.” Is that my voice so far away? “I left it in your car.”
“I’ll get it.” As he jogs off, Mary approaches.
“Arion, you’re super pale. Do you feel okay?” Mutely, I gaze at the water. She squeezes my hand. “I’ll go make sure we’re in the same group.”
“Your sweater, if that’s what it is.” Logan reappears next to me with the limp cardigan. “Here, take this too.” He gives me a faded blue sweatshirt.
Fingers fumbling, I take the heavy shirt, put it on over the sweater. “Thanks, Logan.”
“Sure thing,” he says. Then he purses his lips, looks at the sweatshirt. It’s thick and soft. The lettering across the chest reads, B LAINE . “Go ahead and keep it,” he says.
Before I can thank him, he ruffles my hair and turns away, heading over to the registration table. Mary gives me a little nudge, and, lifting the two anchors that are my feet, I tuck both hands into the kangaroo pocket of the sweatshirt and follow.
SWIM TEST
The morning actually passes. Mary stays by me the whole time.
At noon everyone gets a break. Seniors wearing name tags with the word M ENTOR written in thick black letters bring out coolers filled with sodas and brown-bag lunches from the deli in town.
Immensely grateful to be back on land, I stretch out on a sunbaked rock. All around me other students are doing the same. Mary comes over with a sandwich, Logan with a soda. But after being out on two boats and two dinghies—the dinghies scared me the most for some reason—I feel like any food that goes down is going to come back up. No lunch for me.
“Check out our girl Alyssa,” Pete says, as he and Bobby join us on the rocks.
Alyssa’s wearing a bikini and standing in the water with Bonfire Boy, who’s rubbing sunblock on her back. Sarah is trying to talk her into taking a plunge.
“She ought to go in now, while it’s still her choice,” Bobby says. “Have your suit on?” he asks me. I shake my head vigorously. Rumor has it that quite a few people go
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