Free 09-Twelve Mile Limit by Randy Wayne White

the water, drifting away. They both had their BCD vests inflated, with the tanks still attached, but they weren’t wearing them; they were using them as floats. They couldn’t get back to the boat because they weren’t wearing flippers, and the waves were pushing them farther and farther away. It was awful.”
    Gardner told us that she and Janet swam to Michael and Grace, grabbed them, and helped the two jettison the tanks from their backpacks and get into their inflated vests. They then swam back to the boat, jettisoned their own weight belts, and hung on to the exposed length of the anchor line that was attached to the bow. There, Amelia said, she checked her watch. It was 3 P.M.
    I didn’t want to interrupt, but had to. It was an important point. I asked her, “What color was your weight belt?”
    She looked at me oddly. “Orange,” she said. “Why do you ask?”
    I said, “Janet’s weight belt was a kind of blue-green. Teal, I guess you’d call it. Were the weight belts found? Did anyone go down and look?”
    Now she was nodding, realized the implications. “Weight belts are so heavy, they would have dropped like rocks. If my story’s true, they’d be side by side. That’s what you’re saying. Maybe on top of one another.” She paused, still staring at me. “No. No one has gone down to confirm my story.”
    I knew she was thinking about what we’d discussed earlier, but she didn’t say anything about it. Instead, she continued.
    “So … after we surfaced, and when things settled down, our first question, of course, was, what happened? Michael said he didn’t know. He said that he and Grace climbed up the dive ladder at the back of the boat and took off their vests and fins. Then he went to the front to take off the rest of his stuff. When he looked back, he said he was shocked to see water coming in over the transom where the engines were attached. The salvage divers told me later that, when they found the boat, it was still in gear. What must have happened was, Michael had Grace run the boat while he set the anchor, and she must have switched off the engines while they were still in forward. As most of you know a lot better than me, a boat won’t start when it’s in gear.
    “But that still doesn’t explain why the boat was sinking, of course. Michael couldn’t figure it out. He talked a lot about that later, when it was dark. He said maybe the bilge pumps weren’t working, maybe one of the scuppers got plugged or something. He just didn’t know. With water flooding over the transom, he said the boat immediately started to tip sideways. He said it happened so fast, just like that, and that he and Grace jumped overboard. They didn’t have time to make a call on the radio, nothing. I remember thinking to myself that, when we were back on land, we’d find out exactly what happened.”
    As Gardner spoke, I was calculating in my own mind what might have happened. My guess was, the boat was already sinking when they arrived at the Baja California. Or, at the very least, already had water in the inner hull. Why else would it have turned turtle after only a few minutes of inattention? If someone had stayed aboard, the results might have been very different.
    I listened to Gardner say, in a weary, weary voice, “When we came up, though, and saw that the boat had capsized… it was awful. That began the longest night of my life.”
    The four of them floated there, hanging on to a rope that was connected to the swamped boat, which, in turn, was held fast by several hundred feet of anchor line. The wind had picked up even more, and the waves, Amelia said, seemed a lot bigger than they had that morning.
    Their plan was simple because they had no alternatives: to hang on to the rope, stay close to the boat, and wait for the Coast Guard to come and get them. Back on Marco, Sherry Meyer knew where they planned to dive and was expecting them back in time for dinner. She’d figure out soon enough that something was wrong and call for help.
    For