No Bottom Here

Johnny was in the galley trying to feed us.

The northern coast of Queensland, Australia.
Last port hundreds of miles behind us.

The screecher full with wind.
Seven knots through black water.
Port engine turning to recharge the batteries.

Earlier that afternoon we had launched the drone over a feeding frenzy.

A bait ball boiling on the surface.
Birds screaming overhead.
Diving.
Stealing scraps from the mouths below.

Bull sharks.
Dozens of them.
Moving in circles.

By nightfall we had lost the protection of the Great Barrier Reef.

The ocean turned black.
Short uneven chop hitting the hull from the side.

Tom’s face at the helm glowed pale from the dimmed chart plotter.
His eyes fixed into the moonless night searching for a horizon.

In the galley, the slow sound of potatoes being mashed.

One hundred feet of water below us.
A shipping lane.

Then the sound.

Three.
Maybe four.
Heavy thuds against the port side.

A potato half mashed.
A sentence unfinished.

Tom’s head snapped toward port.

The hair on my arms rose.
I stopped thinking about tubers.
My tongue stuck dry.

We ran aground, I thought.

I was already outside before the thought finished forming.

Tom turned toward me.
Jaw locked.
Eyes wide, fixed on mine, searching for an answer we didn’t have.

Neither of us spoke.

Impossible.
There is no bottom here.

Another alarm.

The saildrive.

Stop engine.

Furl screecher.

We opened the rudder hatch.

Tom leaned down with the flashlight.
Silent.
The light beam shaking against the fiberglass.

The port rudder bent backward.

Checked the daggerboard.
Jammed.

Open the bilges.

Dry.

No water ingress.
Still afloat.

Nobody cheered.

Our shoulders lowered just a fraction.
Some air left our lungs.

Damage control.

Eyes locked on the next task.

Pull the rudder cassette.

Start the starboard engine.

Hands moving in the dark.
Following instructions.

Manoeuvres Kristin and I had rehearsed together.

She was always calm during damage control.

No panic.
No noise.
No questioning the checklist halfway through.

Just movement.
No useless words.

Outside, black water slid along the hull.

Beneath us crocodiles,
bull sharks,
and whatever we had just hit.

No sense in asking what.

Getting in was not an option.

So we pointed Wanderlust toward Thursday Island.

Limping.

One rudder.
One engine.
Potatoes still sitting in the galley.

And Darwin six hundred miles beyond the dark.