Free Once Upon a Gypsy Moon by Michael Hurley Page A

man what our depth should be at that part of the channel. “Twenty-two,” he shouted back. Fearing we were only a few seconds away from knee-deep mud, I grabbed the wheel from the helmsman and whirled the boat around 180 degrees to retrace the course over which we had just come, back to safe water. At that moment, a calm voice clearly spoke over channel 16 on the ship’s radio.
    The voice was addressing the crew of a boat heading through Snow’s Cut between markers that he numbered correctly, for our location, and he called for us to answer. He did not identify himself or ask us, as the coast guard would certainly do, to switch to a working channel. He simply instructed us what compass course to steer from our present location to return to the channel, and where to steer from there. His instructions were dead-on.
    When he signed off without further ado, I looked around the water, expecting to spot a shrimper or a workboat at anchor within visual range whose skipper had observed our error and called us on the radio to put us back on our way. The hair on the back of my neck stood up when I realized there was no one on the water that night but us.
    I called for the man on the radio to thank him for his assistance, but no one answered. I looked again, far out into the river that leads into Wilmington, and, again, saw not a soul.
    The coast guard trains all its radiomen in the same seamanlike elocution. They will hail only—never talk—on channel 16 before insisting that you switch to a working channel, 22 Alpha. This fellow was not coast guard, nor was he anywhere to be seen. We never heard from him again.
    As time went by, I surmised that the events of September 11, 2001, had brought many unseen changes to our nation’s borders, including the need to know who and what is riding around our coastlines. Perhaps nowhere was the need for these changes more acutely felt than close to Southport, next door to the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant. I could be wrong about that. What I do know is that the lone wolf who helped us that night had some awfully big eyes, the better to see us with.

Chapter 15
Thanksgiving
    On that blessedly fair Thanksgiving Day in 2009, I made good time coming down the waterway and was well past Snow’s Cut, nearly to the docks at Southport Marina, when the light started to fade. I arrived there after hours, tired and feeling more than a little sorry for myself for being alone on this sand spit of the Carolina coast with nothing much to eat on Thanksgiving.
    The marina staff had all gone home, so I brought the Gypsy Moon alongside the fuel dock. I planned to spend the night there and get my regular slip assignment in the morning. No sooner had I landed than I had to rodeo the boat around to a new location, because the space close to the fuel pumps had no electrical power—a fire precaution. Finally, I got the old girl all tucked in among some pretty fancy company, including a rather large and well-loved cabin cruiser directly abeam. It felt odd that my boat was no longer moving, as I certainly still was.
    After shaking off as much of the sea as I cared to, I set about the doleful task of inspecting the candidates for Thanksgiving dinner from the ship’s larder. A lovely can of Chef Boyardee Ravioli won the prize. With opener in hand, I was just about to do the honors when a knock came on the hull.
    I stepped outside and saw a woman standing on the dock beside my port lifelines. She asked me if I would care to have some of the Thanksgiving dinner she had prepared for herself and her husband aboard the shiny cabin cruiser next to me. More than a little astonished and wondering whether she might be the vanguard of an intervention team, I managed an enthusiastic acceptance. I returned Monsieur Boyardee safely to his locker, and my serendipitous host returned with a steaming plate of sliced turkey, homemade gravy, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, dinner rolls, and a side of pumpkin