Every Crossing has a story.
“He’s not paddling.”
We all saw it: the chief mate, the quartermaster, and myself, but it was the tone in Walter’s voice that made the kayaker in our path real.
It was Salish’s final trip of the night, during the same week in August that had haunted her sistership, all those years ago. I could see her sister, Kennewick, in the distance, twin decks illuminated; looking like an office building that has stumbled and now lays prone, tied up for the night.
The full moon was working its magic. Rita and I had been at it all the day before, over her dangerous action, and my mansplaining it to death. Crew drama over the coming labor action (in solidarity with command,) had everyone mentally exhausted.
Now drunk passengers were jousting on the sundeck, smacking into the railings, and we had already done our rescue boat drill for the week.
Everyone just wanted to go home.
“Get off him… and stop being so stupid!” Chief Mate Howard bellowed out the pilothouse’s aft door, before slamming it shut.
The cadence of his pacing was reminiscent of a black and white puffer fish trapped in a bowl.
It felt good to laugh.
Howard glared at me, turned… took a long stride, looked daggers at Walter, and landed with a huff in the pilot chair, before glowering at the radar.
“That’s not right…” he fumed, got up, and grudgingly started twisting knobs.
They say a sailor’s life is weeks, days, and hours of boredom… interspersed with moments of terror.
That moment had arrived.
I straightened my body, (the fastest way out of any lookout chair,) and stepped forward to my console, “Going bright,” was my only warning, as I hit the ferry’s landing lights.
Howard’s searchlight controls are between his radars. He matched the blip on its screen to his searchlight’s steering toggle before I could find my redundant controls, and in doing so, saved the kayaker’s life.
The friction of turning does slow a boat, but all that momentum has to go somewhere. Walter didn’t fall into the trap of spinning the wheel and slamming on the brakes. There are no brakes. It’s a ferry, not a car. Water must flow over the rudder to steer the ship.
Your only option is to go around.
Which is why the sailor driving a boat is paid more than the one who is scrubbing tables, and the reason that Walter, (the guy driving,) sped up, swerved, all while saying, “He’s not paddling,” so that the rest of us would cover his blind spots RIGHT NOW and verbally guide him around the stationary contact.
We have a small crew so everyone can do most everything.
Once Salish was half way through her emergency maneuver, Captain Jeff had slipped in, given Howard a nod, got up to speed, and sent me below to tie-up for the night.
Ten minutes later, we were unloaded, and Salish was all fast, with her engines idling.
Ben and I threw on PFDs and climbed into the offshore rescue boat. Our Cabin team, Joey, Matt, and Walker acted as an extension of Rita’s voice, as we launched, beginning a night search pattern.
Ben and I pounded over two square miles of water, then ghosted into Hudson marina, shining a light into every slip, before streaking down half a mile of shoreline, finding nothing.
Not one kayak.
We had not expected to.
So why go?
We knew he was high and dry before we even started searching, because those checking Walter’s blind spots had seen the Kayaker come out of his trance and begin paddling for shore. He was nearly there as Salish turned for the dock.
So why bother holding a tired crew into overtime hours and send a team over the side, (the single most dangerous thing a sailor does?)
Because a person had been directly in the path of a ferry, well after dark, during a scheduled run: a kayak with no lights, whose sole occupant wasn’t paddling.
A crow stands on the highway, intent on the nut it hopes to crack, but instead is swept into the wake of a truck that nearly ends its life.
What does that bird think after the driver stops and goes back to check on it, even after the bird awkwardly flaps away?
I’d like to think the kayaker watched as we stayed late… that he noticed the searchlights, and that what we did changed his mind.
Or perhaps he was just like those drunk idiots, jousting on the sundeck.
Either way, so far, Salish does not share her sister’s haunted fate.