Float Plan - Trish Doller Page 0,39

friends and family, I’m kind of over being alone. I flag down the bartender.

“Hey, Leon,” I say. “I need something fun to do this afternoon. Something off the beaten path. Something adventurous.”

“I know just the place.” He grabs a paper napkin and talks while he draws a map. “It’s called Osprey Rock and it’s quite remote, so you need to be careful. Do you have a car?”

“Yes, a Jeep.”

“Good. The road is very rough,” he says. “Out there is a cove you can explore that pirates used as a hideaway, and if you’re feeling brave, you can cliff jump at Split Rock, but I don’t recommend doing that alone.”

“This is perfect. Thank you.”

On my way to the Jeep, I text Keane.

What you need: towels, swim trunks, water leg, lunch food, booze. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.

already mine (16)

“Anna, you have to tell me where we’re going,” Keane says as Leon’s directions take us down miles of bumpy dirt road, past salt flats and through scrubby vegetation that make it seem like we’re hopelessly lost. “What if it’s dangerous for a disabled man like me? It’s irresponsible for you not to tell me.”

He’s been trying to pry the secret from me since I got back to the marina and told him we were going somewhere cool. I laugh. “You’ll be able to do this. Trust me.”

After about five or six miles, when it feels like we are as far from civilization as we can possibly get, we reach a dusty parking lot beside a small beach. I glance over at Keane, who grins. “Oh, this is grand.”

“It gets better.”

We lock our valuables in the glove compartment and follow the curve of the beach toward the cliff path marked on Leon’s napkin map. As we’re walking, I notice a small white-and-brown dog sitting on the sand. There’s no one else on the beach—not a soul for miles—and I wonder if the dog is lost. It stands, tail wagging as we pass, but doesn’t try to follow us.

We hike up a path lined with cacti and other prickly windswept foliage that push stubbornly out from the cracks in the rocks, until we reach a series of large holes in the ground, one of which has a wooden ladder extending down into the cliff.

“So, according to my bartender, pirates used this cove as a hideout,” I say right as Keane says, “Anna, look at this.”

He’s pointing at a patch of rock carved with SHIP ST. LOUIS BURNT AT SEA 1842, the first S worn away with time and weather. There are other rocks with the names and dates of people and ships, some as old as the late 1700s. Most of the words have been weathered too smooth to read.

“I wonder if the Saint Louis was captured by pirates en route to its destination and was towed here,” I say.

“It’s possible,” Keane says. “Perhaps once they’d plundered the cargo hold, they set fire to the ship. Or it could have blown off course in a storm and got struck by lightning. But these carvings … they feel like graffiti. Or pirate bragging rights. This is brilliant.”

We climb down the ladder into the cave. The sun is high in the sky, drenching the space with light. The mouth of the cave overlooks a tiny sheltered cove. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the cave would have blended into the rocky coastline, rendering it practically invisible. I spread a blanket on the floor, where we eat sandwiches and drink Red Stripe. I snap dozens of pictures with my phone before snatching up a driftwood stick from the floor and holding it against Keane’s neck, like a sword. “Surrender all your treasure or I’ll slit your throat.”

He burrows his hand into the pocket of his shorts and produces a one-cent coin with a harp on one side and a Celtic bird on the reverse. “An Irish penny from my birth year,” he says, placing it in my palm. “It’s traveled the world with me.”

“You’d better keep it.” I hand him the coin. “It might be good luck.”

“You’d make a terrible pirate,” Keane says, but returns the penny to his pocket and smiles like he’s glad to have it back. “This place is fucking fantastic.”

“It gets better.”

“You’ve already said that.”

“I know.” I poke him lightly between the shoulder blades with the stick. “But back up the ladder you go.”

Leaving our clothes in the cave, we climb up to the top of the cliff and follow the