lives.
After cleanup, at about two every afternoon, Wilson went topside and assumed the role of ordinary seaman. His hours on deck beneath the spreading Mylar and the bright sky more than made up for the heated torment of the galley. The ocean was a great field of poppies whose colors changed with the changing light: ultramarine at three, iris blue at five, lavender at sunset, then black with the darkness that dropped down above the masts like velvet cloth over a parrot cage. There seemed no end to the water and sky, the horizon a pale demarcation at the farthest distance.
Wilson was speechless in the face of this severe beauty, dazzled by wind and sun and stars, by the immense, lovely emptiness of the waves. When on watch in the bow cage, his rapt attention to the simplicity of his new environment achieved something like the intensity of meditation, and it seemed that the old fearful, dread-haunted Wilson was emptying out at last, filling up with someone new. An untested person forming like a golem out of ocean air and the common mulch of experience and dreams.
Ten days passed like this. The
Compound Interest
cut like an arrow through the brightness, sails folding and unfolding in the wind, meal following meal in the cramped galley below. Wilson and Cricket rarely exchanged a single word. He had her promise that things would change after the Azores and didnât worry. She bunked in separate quarters, kept up a sisterly demeanor. But there wasnât much time to think about the situationâalways something to do on board ship.
The good sailing held, the following winds and fast seas. Wilson slept the deep sleep of sailors that comes from weary limbs and sea air. The ocean lulled and unwound itself on all sides. Beneath the keel, the sand and shells of the continental shelf gave way to the dark, pure water, unimaginably deep.
8
On the eleventh day out, in the morning, the
Compound Interest
crossed the twenty-seventh parallel at forty degrees west and passed from high winds and bright skies into the morass of seaweed and current-borne garbage known as the Sargasso Sea. The vessel sat becalmed, in the long hours after ten oâclock, awaiting the slightest wind. The beach umbrella sails flexed, found nothing, and settled back again with a mechanical sigh.
âIâve never known the dirty stuff to come this far north,â Captain Amundsen said. His charts showed good winds at this latitude, clear sailing. Wilson looked up from the brightwork, laid chamois and saddle soap aside for a few minutes, and came into the navigational octagon for a cigar. The captain did not like to smoke alone. The sea makes some men quiet, others garrulous; the captain was one of the latter.
âIn my lifetime, Iâve seen the oceanâs currents changing, the Sargasso getting nastier.â He poked his Cuban in Wilsonâs direction. âUsed to be just weeds. Now itâs full of junk. Petrochemical waste floating along in rusty fifty-gallon drumsâyou name it. Look at this shit. Itâs the oceanâs toilet.â
Wilson shielded his eyes against the flat yellow sky. Gulls hung motionless above the masts. A powerful stench of dead fish filled his nostrils; clumps of tangled seaweed floated along like giant turds. The black water was foul with crumpled cans and plastic jugs, six-pack holders, and other bits of trash. A broken dining room chair floated by upright, its legs tangled in a clump of seaweed big as a traffic island.
âHow does all this stuff get here?â Wilson said. âWeâre in the middle of the ocean.â
âIâve seen a busted piano, even the burnt-out hulk of a Volkswagen floating on the weeds,â the captain said, studying the distancefor a gust of wind. âOnce saw three sealed wooden coffins bobbing along like corks. The currents bring it in. Your garbage scows come out of the major cities and dump illegally, just beyond the twelve-mile limit. The stuff has
After cleanup, at about two every afternoon, Wilson went topside and assumed the role of ordinary seaman. His hours on deck beneath the spreading Mylar and the bright sky more than made up for the heated torment of the galley. The ocean was a great field of poppies whose colors changed with the changing light: ultramarine at three, iris blue at five, lavender at sunset, then black with the darkness that dropped down above the masts like velvet cloth over a parrot cage. There seemed no end to the water and sky, the horizon a pale demarcation at the farthest distance.
Wilson was speechless in the face of this severe beauty, dazzled by wind and sun and stars, by the immense, lovely emptiness of the waves. When on watch in the bow cage, his rapt attention to the simplicity of his new environment achieved something like the intensity of meditation, and it seemed that the old fearful, dread-haunted Wilson was emptying out at last, filling up with someone new. An untested person forming like a golem out of ocean air and the common mulch of experience and dreams.
Ten days passed like this. The
Compound Interest
cut like an arrow through the brightness, sails folding and unfolding in the wind, meal following meal in the cramped galley below. Wilson and Cricket rarely exchanged a single word. He had her promise that things would change after the Azores and didnât worry. She bunked in separate quarters, kept up a sisterly demeanor. But there wasnât much time to think about the situationâalways something to do on board ship.
The good sailing held, the following winds and fast seas. Wilson slept the deep sleep of sailors that comes from weary limbs and sea air. The ocean lulled and unwound itself on all sides. Beneath the keel, the sand and shells of the continental shelf gave way to the dark, pure water, unimaginably deep.
8
On the eleventh day out, in the morning, the
Compound Interest
crossed the twenty-seventh parallel at forty degrees west and passed from high winds and bright skies into the morass of seaweed and current-borne garbage known as the Sargasso Sea. The vessel sat becalmed, in the long hours after ten oâclock, awaiting the slightest wind. The beach umbrella sails flexed, found nothing, and settled back again with a mechanical sigh.
âIâve never known the dirty stuff to come this far north,â Captain Amundsen said. His charts showed good winds at this latitude, clear sailing. Wilson looked up from the brightwork, laid chamois and saddle soap aside for a few minutes, and came into the navigational octagon for a cigar. The captain did not like to smoke alone. The sea makes some men quiet, others garrulous; the captain was one of the latter.
âIn my lifetime, Iâve seen the oceanâs currents changing, the Sargasso getting nastier.â He poked his Cuban in Wilsonâs direction. âUsed to be just weeds. Now itâs full of junk. Petrochemical waste floating along in rusty fifty-gallon drumsâyou name it. Look at this shit. Itâs the oceanâs toilet.â
Wilson shielded his eyes against the flat yellow sky. Gulls hung motionless above the masts. A powerful stench of dead fish filled his nostrils; clumps of tangled seaweed floated along like giant turds. The black water was foul with crumpled cans and plastic jugs, six-pack holders, and other bits of trash. A broken dining room chair floated by upright, its legs tangled in a clump of seaweed big as a traffic island.
âHow does all this stuff get here?â Wilson said. âWeâre in the middle of the ocean.â
âIâve seen a busted piano, even the burnt-out hulk of a Volkswagen floating on the weeds,â the captain said, studying the distancefor a gust of wind. âOnce saw three sealed wooden coffins bobbing along like corks. The currents bring it in. Your garbage scows come out of the major cities and dump illegally, just beyond the twelve-mile limit. The stuff has
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