Chicken Soup for the Ocean Lover's Soul

  As I stepped on the boat I saw Alan through the window, his head bent over a chart. He looked worried. The National Weather Service marine forecast scratched over the VHF radio, a flat voice repeating the local conditions: Area 3A, winds Easterly at fifteen knots, increasing to thirty-five by Tuesday night. Not good.

  When Alan saw us his face transformed. His furrowed brow and intense concentration melted into an open and affectionate smile. He always had a wonderful smile for me, but it was even more wonderful for the baby. I loved the unaffected joy that flowed from him in her presence.

  “Well, I guess we’re ready,” he said.

  “Knock ’em dead, honey,” I said, then more softly, “. . . and be careful.”

  Two nights later I lay in bed at home listening to the wind howl at the predicted thirty-five knots. Our cabin was nestled in tall spruces a half-mile from the sea, but I could still hear the buoys moaning off the point. I wondered where Alan had chosen to go. Knowing him, he’d find his own patch of ocean to fish and wouldn’t follow anyone’s advice. The baby cried out in her sleep, and I murmured not to worry. I thought about all the boats scattered off the coast at this moment, working through the night in the waves and wind. All out in the same ocean, yet each one alone and vulnerable to an indifferent sea. I fell asleep praying for all of them to come home safely.

  The next evening I walked to the high bridge that spanned the channel entrance to town to watch for returning boats, but only a few came back. The Valiant wasn’t among them. I went home and waited another night. The storm was still with us, and I comforted myself with the knowledge that they weren’t out fishing in it. They were most likely anchored, safely waiting out the weather.

  In the morning I went looking again. Boats offloading fish lined the cannery docks, and the harbor was nearly full. But still no Valiant. I went to the cannery where we sold our fish and saw one of Alan’s buddies in the middle of unloading. Bags full of huge fish were being lifted out of his hold with a crane. I called down to him, had he seen Alan?

  “Saw him the morning before it opened, up by Black Cape, but I don’t know where he ended up. He’s not back yet?”

  I shook my head, no.

  “Oh, you know Alan. Don’t worry. He’ll turn up.”

  But he didn’t turn up all that day, and I was beginning to worry. I spent a sleepless night waiting for the phone to ring and imagining my own call to the Coast Guard. When the baby woke in the morning, I headed back to the bridge. The sun flared over the edge of the sea. A light fog wisped between the islands to the east and turned golden as sunlight spread horizontal across the sea. I was filled with sudden hope that Alan would be safely in the harbor, that my nightmare would be over instead of just beginning. But when I got there I saw that the slip was empty. The last empty slip in the harbor.

  I walked back to the bridge and breathed in the cool sharp air carried in on the tide. It smelled of salt and kelp and an ocean full of life. The baby must have smelled it, too, and laughed, squirming in the pack. On the horizon was a boat, too far away to identify. I watched it until I noticed how it zigged and zagged its way slowly up the bay and toward the channel. There was only one boat like that in the fleet, and my heart was on it.

  I could see that the Valiant’s waterline was as high as when she’d left port, and I knew what that meant. There was no load of halibut from this trip. No fifty thousand or thirty or even five thousand dollars. While I was disappointed, I could only imagine what Alan and his crew had been through during the last three days. Three days of fighting wind and tide, equipment failure and God knows what other disasters.

  I waited until the Valiant was tied up before approaching the slip. I stepped quietly onto the deck as Alan emerged from the engine room, and we stood much as we had three days, a lifetime, before. He looked exhausted, shell-shocked, his face streaked with grease. He wiped his hands with a rag and managed a small smile. “Bad weather out there,” he said, unable to hide his disappointment. He’d wanted this load as bad as anyone. “We tried everything we could, but . . .”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”

  He didn’t answer. There was nothing else to say. He’d made it through his three days of hell, and I’d made it through my own. The harbor was calm, and the boat was still floating. The baby reached out, laughing, for her father. “Are you ready to go home?” I asked.

  “More than you can imagine.”

  Leslie Smith

  Sea Turtle Reef

  Original painting by Wyland © 2003.

  7

  ON COURAGE

  AND

  ADVENTURE

  A life on the ocean wave!

  A home on the rolling deep,

  Where the scattered waters rave,

  And the winds their revels keep!

  Epes Sargent

  Life on the Ocean Wave

  Lost in the Atlantic

  “Matthew, see how the water is lighter around the island, where it’s shallow?” Mike Sperber said to his fourteen-year-old son. “In a while the bottom will drop off, and you’ll see a color change.”

  Matthew obediently pressed his face against the window of the twin-engine Aero Commander 500 and watched the Atlantic Ocean below change abruptly from light blue to almost black. He’d enjoyed fishing in the Bahamas with his dad and his dad’s friend, J. B. Stephens, but he sometimes wished his dad wouldn’t push so hard. Everything was “see this” or “do that.” Still, he wasn’t ready to go home to Florida yet.

  “That’s where the really big fish are,” Sperber continued, pointing down. “Tuna, marlin—even sharks.” Seated next to pilot Jerry Langford, Sperber glanced back at his son. It was 5:20 P.M. on Sunday, August 4, 1991.

  Suddenly, a loud bang made them jump. “Dad?” Matthew said. “What’s—”

  A second loud bang drowned out his voice. The plane’s engines fell silent. Matthew gripped the sides of his seat as the plane shuddered, then started dropping.

  Langford desperately turned to the radio’s emergency frequency. “Mayday! Mayday!” he shouted. “We’re going down!”

  The stunned passengers strapped on life jackets. “Matthew!” his father said. “When we hit the water, don’t wait for me. Get out fast. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” Matthew’s heart pounded, making it hard to breathe. His seat was dropping out from under him like a runaway roller coaster. Seconds before the plane hit the water, he screamed, “Dad, I love you!”

  At home in West Palm Beach, Florida, Betty Sperber was baking a chocolate cake. The dark-haired nurse expected Mike and Matthew for dinner around five-thirty.

  Six o’clock came and went. Just before seven P.M., a friend of J. B. Stephens called with the news: “Their plane went down in the ocean!”

  Betty listened in disbelief. When she hung up, nightmarish images rose before her eyes. She moaned and covered her face. “Don’t let them be dead,” she sobbed.

  The plane hit the water with an explosive roar, smacking across the surface like a skipping rock. Matthew was tossed forward as the fuselage ripped apart and water rushed in.

  “Get the door open!” Sperber yelled to Stephens, who was closest to the exit. Stephens, a big, bearlike man, began shoving outward with all his strength.

  “It’s jammed, Mike!” he yelled. Sperber struggled back through the rising water to help. Matthew reached down to unfasten his seat belt. To his horror, it, too, was jammed. “Dad!” he screamed. “I can’t get my seat belt off.”

  As Stephens continued to ram his massive shoulder against the now-submerged door, Sperber turned to help Matthew. The pilot was out of his seat, his life jacket hanging loosely around his neck. He was holding the back of his head. Only a small pocket of air remained near the cabin’s ceiling. If they didn’t find a way out within seconds, they were all going down with the plane.

  Water was lapping over Matthew’s chin when his father’s desperate effort to free him finally worked. At the same moment, Stephens punc
hed the door out against the pressing sea, then reached back to grab his friend’s son. Without hesitating, he dived out, dragging the teenager along.

  The swim to the surface seemed to take forever. When Matthew finally burst through the water, he drew a deep, gasping breath. Air!

  Stephens pulled Matthew to the plane’s wing. “Hang on!” he said, and started back to help the others. Seconds later, Sperber popped up in the water and joined his son by the wing. Finally, the pilot surfaced. He looked dazed, and his life jacket was gone. Stephens grabbed his arm and helped him over to the others.

  The plane was slipping below the water. “We need to get away from here!” Sperber said. They dog-paddled furiously, taking turns helping the injured pilot.

  About twenty feet away, the four looked back. The plane was hovering just beneath the surface. After a long moment’s hesitation, it tilted down and slid through the crystal-clear water into the black depths.

  Soon Sperber took charge. “Let’s hook our life jackets together,” he suggested. “The current here is strong. We don’t want to get separated.”

  Stephens was still supporting the injured pilot in his arms. “Jerry here is bleeding pretty bad,” he said. “He’s going to need some help to stay afloat.”

  Matthew looked over at the pilot, noticing that his hair was matted with blood. His father glanced over, too, then asked Stephens quietly, “What about the graycoats?”

  Matthew frowned, puzzled. What was he talking about? Then, with a chill, he understood. Sharks! Sharks could sense blood in the water.

  “Uh, Mike,” Stephens said, “I think we’d best not talk about that. What can we do about Jerry?”

  After trying several arrangements, they used Langford’s pants to make a kind of hammock, tying the legs to Matthew’s and Stephens’s life jackets. The pilot lay between them, resting his head on Mike Sperber’s jacket.

  The sun edged lower in the sky, sending brilliant orange and red reflections across the water. The four drifted in silence, pushed along by the Gulf Stream. Finally, Matthew heard a faint, rhythmic thup-thup-thup. “What’s that sound?”

  The others heard nothing. “Look!” Matthew said excitedly, pointing south. “A helicopter!”

  Flying at low speed, the helicopter made a beeline for them. They yelled and waved, then watched in stunned disbelief as it kept going. “Why didn’t they see us?” Matthew demanded. “They were right on top of us!”

  “From the air, we’re just little specks,” Sperber said slowly.

  The night passed slowly. Searchlights from aircraft and boats crisscrossed the dark water to the south and east, but none came close.

  Matthew was growing sleepy when his father said quietly, “Try to stay awake, Matthew. Your eyes and ears are sharper than ours. We need you.”

  Matthew was surprised, but pleased. “Okay, Dad. I’ll do it.” The water grew cool, then cold. Matthew shivered, fighting to keep his eyes open. It took an effort not to think about the huge predators that moved through those dark waters.

  Dawn brought warmth and light. But as the morning wore on, they all began to blister in the sweltering sun. To shield themselves from the sun, they ripped off their T-shirt pockets and plastered them across their foreheads.

  Matthew licked his dry lips. He was thirsty and hungry. His life jacket had rubbed the skin on his neck till it was raw.

  It was nearly noon when he heard something again. “Dad! A plane!” They soon spotted it—a Coast Guard jet. As it got closer, they splashed and waved.

  The jet was about a mile away when it abruptly banked to the west. Sperber lowered his arms. “It didn’t see us,” he said flatly. “It’s just flying a grid pattern.”

  Matthew’s heart sank. Then his father shouted, “Look! A boat!”

  A huge sport-fishing boat was cruising toward them, sending a faint sound of music across the water. Soon it was close enough for them to see a man and woman relaxing in lounge chairs, drinks in hand.

  “Over here!” Stephens bellowed.

  Matthew put his fingers in his mouth and let loose an ear-splitting whistle. If they didn’t hear that, he thought, they’re deaf!

  The boat, now just one hundred yards away, showed no signs of slowing down. “Stop!” the four screamed. “Help us!” The couple never looked up as the boat cruised away.

  They fell silent after that, too miserable even to talk. No other planes or boats came near. As the sun dipped below the horizon and the ocean cooled, they all started shivering uncontrollably. The night before, they had still had energy to fight the cold; now they were weak and dehydrated. How could they stand another night in the dark water?

  Matthew was drifting along, only half-awake, when something hit his left arm like a hot razor blade. He screamed as slick, stringy tentacles drifted across his arm—a Portuguese man-of-war! The purplish, balloonlike creature floated along, trailing poisonous tentacles to sting and paralyze its prey. Matthew sobbed with fear and pain as his father and the other men pulled him away.

  “Dad,” he cried hysterically, “I’m cold. I’m tired. I want to go home. I don’t want to die!”

  Sperber pulled him close. “None of us is going to die. They’re going to find us. You hear me?”

  Matthew looked up. In the moonlight, his father’s face was tinged with blue. “Matthew, I . . .” Sperber’s voice faltered. “I never really tell you, but I hope you know I love you.”

  Matthew drew a shaky breath. “I know,” he said, calmer now. No matter what happened, at least they’d be together.

  Over the next few hours, they drifted in and out of a miserable half-dozing state, too cold to sleep and too exhausted to stay awake. Langford, the weakest of the four, wasn’t going to last much longer.

  Early Tuesday morning, the sun peeped weakly from behind dark storm clouds. Soon the wind picked up, and the sky darkened. Whitecaps began to form, leaving them bobbing in increasingly rough seas. Matthew got a better grip on the injured pilot.

  Langford turned his blistered face toward the others. “Maybe we ought to pray,” he said hoarsely. As the storm swept upon them, the frail pilot offered a simple prayer for their rescue.

  Betty Sperber woke Tuesday morning, feeling a restless urge to get out of the house. She dressed quickly and called a neighbor. “I want to go to church,” she blurted out.

  A few minutes later they pulled up to the church, and Betty quickly found the pastor. “I’ve been praying at home,” she said, “but I just feel it isn’t good enough.”

  The minister took her hand and bowed his head. “Lord, you see the tiniest sparrow that falls from the sky,” he prayed. “I ask that your eyes will be on Mrs. Sperber’s loved ones, wherever they are.”

  The storm burst in all its fury upon the four in the water. As heavy raindrops pelted them and cold waves tossed them up and down, they clung together. Desperate for a drink, they tried to catch rain in their mouths.

  At last the storm swept past, and the sun appeared. Suddenly, Matthew’s head jerked up. “I hear a plane,” he announced. Search planes were returning to the area.

  They tensed. This might be their last chance. Sperber collected watches and other metal objects, hoping they might be picked up by radar.

  The jet was almost upon them. Sperber held the metal bunched in one hand and used his other hand to tilt his credit card, hoping the shiny hologram might reflect the sun. Yelling, Stephens also flashed his credit card. Langford used both hands to wave. Matthew thrashed the water with his life jacket. Maybe, he thought, the white foam would catch the pilot’s eye.

  Seconds later the jet screamed above them and disappeared. Two minutes passed, then three. Nothing.

  “It’s coming back!” Matthew yelled. “Everybody splash!”

  Once again, he thrashed the water into a white foam. The others joined in. When the jet got closer, Sperber cried out triumphantly, “They see us!”

  The four erupted in cheers as the jet dropped a canister that hit the waves and sent a streame
r of smoke into the sky. Soon a helicopter raced toward them. It landed on the surface about fifty feet away. A crew member held a chalkboard with the words, “ONE AT A TIME!”

  Slowly, they swam toward the helicopter, the two men helping the injured Langford along. After two long days, it was over.

  The sun-blistered survivors were taken to St. Mary’s Hospital in West Palm Beach. Betty Sperber greeted her husband and son with a joyful cry. “Thank God you’re alive!” she sobbed. “I’ve been praying . . .”

  Mike Sperber smiled. “We did some praying out there, too,” he admitted. “And this kid—he really handled himself out there.” He looked at Matthew. “I’m proud of you, son.”

  Deborah Morris

  Adapted from Real Kids Real Adventures series

  One Hundred and One Atlantic Nights

  Courage is like love; it must have hope to nourish it.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  I arrived home to a message light flashing on the answering machine. Nothing really out of the ordinary, and yet I had an uneasy sense about it. I pushed the button and listened to the devastated voice of my twenty-one-year-old son, Daniel: