Float Plan - Trish Doller Page 0,36

A chemineau, if you will.”

“Is that what it means?”

He nods. “I looked it up.”

“Do you ever get lonely?”

Keane is quiet for a few beats. “Sometimes, especially when I’m at home in Ireland, when I see my siblings with their families. I wonder if I’m missing out.” He adjusts the trim on the spinnaker. “But companionship is easy enough to find, especially for a handsome bastard like me.” He glances at his watch. “You’ve still got about an hour before my shift ends.”

I don’t have anything to do, but I feel like I’ve been dismissed. I go down into the cabin, grab my comforter from Keane’s bunk, and crawl into the V-berth. Once I’m stretched out, the wind and waves send me straight to sleep.

* * *

“Anna.” Keane’s voice burrows into my sleeping brain. It’s time to wake up, but I’m not ready. After a long night of sailing, it feels as if I’ve only been asleep for a few minutes. “Anna.” His voice is low, but there’s an urgency that pulls me upright. “Come here. There’s something you need to see.”

I climb up on deck, expecting dolphins or sea turtles, but we’re being followed by a small pod of humpback whales. Keane turns the boat into the wind, bringing us to a stop, and the whales surface a few yards from the boat. A large barnacle-crusted head rises out of the water and pushes air from its blowhole, sending a puff of salty spray over us like a misty rain.

“Oh my God.”

The whale holds there, watching us until it sinks below the surface. We scramble to the foredeck and sit on the port rail while the boat drifts. The dark bumpy bodies arc through the water, their stubby dorsal fins appearing and disappearing. The large whale moves closer to the boat, rolling over to reveal its white underside and long pectoral fins.

“I think it’s showing off.” I don’t know why I’m whispering, but there are no other sounds except the splash of their huge bodies, and the moment feels too sacred to disturb.

“I reckon you’re right.”

“This is”—I push away a tear with the heel of my hand—“this is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I have a mate who lived in Martinique for a time.” I appreciate that Keane keeps his voice low too. “A few years back we were hanging out on the beach after doing some surfing when a pod of about four humpbacks happened past. They were breaching and lobtailing—that thing where they slap their tails against the water—and it was a spectacular sight, but nothing like being this close.”

Two smaller whales seem to be playing a game of how close they can come to the boat, swimming right below our dangling feet, but the large whale is nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, in the distance, the surface explodes, and the large whale leaps out of the sea. The huge body crashes back into the water, sending an enormous white spray up and out, in every direction. The boat dances on the ripples, but neither of us speaks. I don’t even know what to say. We sit in silent awe. And when the whales are gone, we let the boat drift.

“I wish—” I stop myself from saying Ben’s name, and feel conflicted about that. I still wish he were here, but this experience is perfect without him. It belongs to us—to Keane and me—and all the wishing in the world can’t make Ben part of this. “I wish they’d stayed a little longer.”

“We could linger a bit,” Keane says. “See if they come back.”

I shake my head. “That wouldn’t make this any more perfect.”

He douses the sagging spinnaker and unfurls the jib as I bring the boat back on course for Providenciales. We’re still about four hours from the island, but we’re in the home stretch.

“I’m going to have a short sleep,” he says. “And after, I’ll make breakfast, okay?”

“That would be great. And thank you for not letting me miss the whales.”

“Seeing them without you wouldn’t have been nearly as good.”

the next anna (15)

Providenciales brings a dock and real showers. It brings a break from sailing. Dry land for legs that have forgotten how to walk. I head to the customs office at the marina for a new round of paperwork, and my bank account shrinks as I pay the cruising fee and dockage. When I get back, Keane raises the Turks and Caicos courtesy flag and we collapse. Even though we took turns sleeping on