Free The Great Wide Sea by M.H. Herlong Page A

sail flapped, and I rode on the life ring, feeling the cool, clear water around me and watching the bottom slip by. A great wad of seaweed floated by. Sargassum. Yellow-brown and knobby. It headed straight for me. I stuck out my arm and pushed it away. It floated stupidly toward the horizon. I pulled myself hand over hand along the trailing line back to the boat’s stern.
    Dylan was leaning over, watching the water run by the boat. “I think we’ve stopped now, Ben,” he said.
    I dove again. Under water was completely silent except for the trailing line slapping the surface and the whushing water moving around Chrysalis . I could see perfectly. There was the rudder, newly slimed since Dad had bought her with a clean bottom, and there was the prop with a huge ball of sargassum wrapped round and round it, trailing back toward the rudder. Then I was out of breath. I popped up to the surface.
    â€œSeaweed,” I gasped, and dove under again. This time I swam immediately for the prop with my hand outstretched. I touched the seaweed and grabbed. A handful pulled away from the blades. I was out of air. I surfaced. I gasped. I dove. I pulled. Five times. Down under the belly of the boat, a grab, and then up, gasping for air. Finally I grabbed the right strand and the seaweed pulled away completely. The prop was free.
    As I surfaced, I could feel my heart thudding in my ears. I eased up out of the water like a turtle poking up its head. I floated for just one second and then turned to Dad and Dylan. The boat was already twenty feet away. The wind on the mere sides of the boat, the tiny wisp of wind we were trying to catch in our sails, was moving the boat that fast. For a flash I imagined the boat sailing away and leaving me there, floating on the Great Bahama Bank. I could see the bottom, but it was too deep for me to stand on. Coral heads were somewhere, but they were invisible from here. Boats would sail by, but they wouldn’t see me. At night, they would assume my cries were the mysterious cries of the night sea. I would float and float and float. No one would ever find me.
    I shivered and grabbed the last foot of the line as it slid by. Dad reached out his hand to help me back on the boat, and I took it. He handed me a towel. “You called that one right,” he said, and squeezed my shoulder. When he started ordering us around again, I looked over the side and watched the water. His instructions, his complaints, his criticisms—I let them all go past me. Looking in the water, I felt sad for Dad.
    And a little sad for us too, I guess.
    The tiny breeze dried the salt water on my skin to a sticky film. Dylan handed me another cup of coffee. Twenty minutes later, Gerry spotted the light. We took a fix on it. When it was due north, we turned south, heading for Joulters Cay on our way to Andros.
    The wind picked up. We turned off the engine and raised the sails. I stood at the bow, balanced against the lift and fall of the waves, watching the flat, moving disk of ocean surrounding us. The water creamed under the bow and the boat bent into the taut pull of the wind across the curving sails.
    Then I was glad—glad that we were picking our way into Joulters Cay after a long night crossing the Bank. Glad that we could see the coral heads and that the chart was clear about where the shallows were. Glad as we curved around to the southern tip of the island and dropped our anchor into the clear, bright water that filled this new world around us.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    WHEN WE FINISHED anchoring at Joulters Cay that morning, I remembered that I had been up since four A.M. and climbed into my bunk to nap. Dad was under the boat, checking out the prop. Dylan was stationed at the rail to hand him tools as he needed them. Gerry was in the cockpit under the shade of the bimini. He had added acorns and coconut hulls to his car collection. The hulls were buildings. The acorns were bombs. I could hear the acorns hitting