Stella's Wake

A man on a fishing trip wakes to find his anchor cut, radio gone and compass missing while adrift in an impenetrable fog bank at sea.

The sun was setting and Robert Carver decided to drop the anchor on the Stella for the night.  Day one of what he had planned as a four day fishing expedition at sea, his first ever solo outing.  He was enjoying the solitude and the comfort of the sea.  He had fresh fish and plenty of beer.  It was the vacation he had dreamt of for months.

The coast was still within sight.  This being his first extended trip out alone, he was uneasy with the thought of losing site of land.

Carver switched off the cabin light, opened a chair on the deck, and watched the sun set and the stars glow.  He cracked open a beer and breathed the damp sea air.  This was his idea of paradise.  He hadn’t caught more than a small snapper, which he nearly destroyed while preparing to eat, but it was enough of an accomplishment to feel the day had been worthwhile.

He stared up at the stars for so long that he missed the sunset.  He didn’t care, but shivered when the air quickly dropped to a bone-chilling temperature. The night was pitch-black and the boat swayed and rocked on the low swells.

Carver nodded off after his third beer, then woke with a start when he felt the can tip down in his hand.  He laughed, having just saved the beer.  He sucked the rest down with relish and threw the can down.  He yawned out loud and took in a few more breathes.  He loved it out here.

He looked  back to the distant shore and could see the hazy glow of the city lights.  He saluted them and stumbled into the cabin, fumbling for the lights and crashed into bed.  With a few deep breaths he was out.

Carver woke to the blinding, pale white sky filling the cabin and blinding his dry tired eyes.  He turned over and covered his face.  His head hurt and his mouth was dry with the metallic taste of last nights beer still lingering on his tongue.  He looked at his watch, squinting and flexing his eyes until the watch face was in focus.  It was 8:15 in the morning.       Carver pulled himself up and belched.  He stumbled drowsily out onto the deck.  The sky was a blinding white haze.  The sea looked choppy and irritated compared to the night prior.  Carver spit over the edge and sat down.  The boat rocked and kicked as though pulling in several directions at once.  Carver looked around but the haze was too strong to be able to make out the shore.

He shuffled his way to the bow and looked out to the horizon.  Still no sign of land.  He figured a fog bank must have come in over night and would burn off later in the morning.  He sat down feeling a little nauseous.  He looked down at the water and could see the anchor line.  For a moment he thought nothing of it until he realized the line was not taught, which he found strange.  He looked over the edge to see better.  The line was definitely loose.  He reached down for the line but could not reach, so he grabbed a boat hook and snagged the line.  He pulled the line up and up and up until the end came out of the water, with no anchor attached.  Panic seized him for a moment.  “S**t!”

A cold sweat seeped out of his pores.  He around to every horizon and up at the sky but could see nothing.  He raced up to the wheel deck.  The wheel was spinning back and forth with the current.  The compass from atop the wheel box was gone.  Confused, Carver looked around, thinking it may have fallen off.  He could not find it anywhere.  He took a breath to calm himself and tried not to panic.  “Ok.  Ok.  Think.”

He looked up at the sky, thinking that it is still early enough that the direction of the sun would indicate East, but the location of the sun was still not visible, just a white haze.

He went back to the cabin and sat down to collect himself.  He chuckled at the strangeness of this and tried to recall any incidents of the night before.  “How could this happen?”, he thought.  

Radio, he then thought.  He’ll radio for help.  He knew where his exact coordinates were the night before.  With a calculation of the ocean currents someone ought to be able to find him out here.  But this optimism was quickly taken by the fact that the radio, too, was not where it was supposed to be.  It was, in fact, not there at all.

“This is un-f*****g believable!”, he thought.  Only option was to wait a few hours for the sun to burn off the remaining fog, and he could use the sun to navigate.

By the time the sky cleared, the sun was directly overhead and Carver couldn’t yet tell which direction it was moving.  He had drifted out to sea.  Not knowing how far he may have drifted, he did not want to burn any fuel and risk taking himself further from shore.  No land was visible in any direction.  The only thing that Carver could see at the horizon was another heavy fog bank, which appeared to be moving closer every minute.

The sun wasn’t moving, he thought.  How could it remain directly over head and not cast a shadow in any direction for so long?  The fog bank was only a few hundred yards away now, and Carver was growing frustrated.  He could do nothing except watch when, minutes later, the fog moved in, blocking out the sun and shadows.  The temperature dropped fast.  Carver punched the deck with his fist, but hurt himself more than the boards beneath him.

Carver’s stomach gurgled as he had not eaten all day, but he was too angry and frustrated to fish now.  He looked at his cooler of beer, and that made him angrier, the thought of drinking right now.  It would certainly help put his troubles out of his mind but in the end it would be useless because he’d be no better off.  He sulked, and paced the deck, psychically commanding the fog to lift.  It did not work.  The fog grew more and more dense until he could barely see beyond the boat’s hull.

Before he knew it, night was falling again, and the temperature continued to drop.  The fog had not ceased but held his boat in its void without mercy.  As the impenetrable darkness came, Carver sat angrily on the deck, refusing to give the fog bank the satisfaction of victory.  He was going to wait it out for as long as it took.  He grew more and more sad until be began to weep.  He thought how stupid he was to take the boat out alone.  He was frustrated because he knew that the compass and radio were on board when he left the harbor.  What could have happened?  That’s what caused him the most grief, that they were probably right here on board, in plain site, and he couldn’t find them.  How could things have gotten this bad?

Carver dozed off.  When he woke a few hours later, the boat was rolling heavily.  So much so that it startled Carver.  He looked over the edge.  The swells were definitely getting stronger.  Carver froze when he heard a distant rumbling, accompanied by a lot of chop.  He listened as the sound grew closer and closer.  He could see a light in the distance, rapidly approaching.  It was a freighter, heading right for him.

Carver’s eyes widened and he jumped up and ran to the wheel deck.  He tried to start the engine.   The lights and sound were getting closer.  The rolling swells nearly tumbled him over the edge a few times.  The engine turned over and Carver throttled forward.  The boat inched.  The lights were nearly atop him.

The impact was not direct, but swiped the Stella, and spun her stern around, grinding its hull into the massive freighter as it proceeded past.  Carver was thrown down and held on for dear life.  The Stella pitched to the side over 45 degrees as it drug along the side of the freighter.  Carver hear a lot of cracking, snapping and screeching but held onto the wheel box until the freighter was gone.  

The Stella bobbed and swayed in its wake, its battered hull creaking and grinding.  When the wake settled, the Stella didn’t level off.  Carver rose from the floor beneath the wheel box and looked back to the stern, which was twisted and broken and taking on water.

He quickly jumped down to inspect the damage.  To his horror, the damage was irreparable.  The Stella was going down.  Carver backed himself into the cabin and sat down.  His fear turned quickly to a total numbness and he sat for a very long time watching the boat sink until the swells were spilling over the transom.  By this time the light was beginning to fill the hazy skies.

Carver had been up all night but did not feel at all tired.  Nor did he feel any sense of urgency to escape.  In his mind he thought this has to be a dream.  There is just no way that this is actually happening.

The Stella groaned and began to pitch to the right as the water filled the hull.  This snapped Carver back to life.  Now the direness of his circumstances was apparent.  He gathered what he could but did not know where to locate his life raft.  He pull on a life jacket, threw some water bottles into his cooler, and walked toward the stern.  

He stood and watched, water up to his knees, then hips, then chest, until the boat sunk beneath his feet and he was floating at sea.  He watched as the sea gurgled up a few remains of his boat, while the rest was digested.

Hours passed and the fog never lifted.  Now the lack of sleep was catching up with Carver.  He was so tired by this point but the water was too cold to allow his body to relax enough to sleep.  He closed his eyes and waited to either sleep or wake from this horrible nightmare.

Carver woke when he accidentally inhaled some water after he had dozed off.  Something was wrong.  Something was missing.  The cooler!  He had been holding on to the handle.  He turned and looked around, knowing that when the fog lifted the temperature would rise, and there was no way he could survive without water.  The cooler was gone.  He looked at his watch, which was now broken.  The fog was still to thick to place where the sun was in the sky.  Carver laughed and cried.

But there was more.  He felt he was not alone.  The presence of someone, or something was in his midst.  He listened for a sound, but heard none.  He held himself still in the water and rode the swells.  He felt a brush on his leg and turned, startled.  He had an idea what it might be but didn’t want to think it.  He saw a shadow quickly turn a few feet from him.  His eyes scanned the surface and the depths for another glimpse.  Then he saw a small fin cut the water a short distance from him.  It was a shark, a blue shark about 6 feet in length.

“Oh no, oh no!”, Carver shouted.  He panted but couldn’t breathe.  He looked around for something he could use as a weapon, but there were only a few small pieces of wood broken from his boat.   He curled himself into a ball and watched for a sign of the shark again.  Carver clenched his jaw and wanted to scream out but nothing came out.  When his nerves settled he passed out.

When Carver woke it was to what felt like a firm bump against his leg.  He woke immediately, and reached down to touch his leg.  There was an intense burning sensation at the back of his calf.  He could feel that the flesh was torn, and he could feel warm blood spreading in the water.  He felt another bump against his back and turned quickly.  Out of his periphery he saw the sharks fin jet away and sink beneath the surface.  Carver clutched his leg wound with his hand.  He knew he was in trouble and it was only a matter of time before the shark returned.  

The sky was clear and the sun was oppressively hot.  It had to be about noon because the sun was directly over his head.  Carver lowered his face in the water to cool off.  He could see the streaks of light slanting downward into the abyss.  He raised his head up for some air, but as he did, he had a sense to look down again.  When he did, he saw movement, lots of movement.  As his eyes focused he could see the silhouettes of dozens of sharks circling beneath him.  He pulled his head up and cried.

In that moment he heard the distant honk of a freighter horn.  He could see it, directly ah

ead coming straight at him.  Carver waved and yelled.  The freighter continued right for him.  Carver thought, to hell with it.  He’ll signal them or they’ll run him over and kill him and that will be the end of it.  He yelled with all the sound and fury he could muster.  He splashed and kicked and tried everything he could think of.   He the realized the freighter was not stopping.  It passed by within 50 feet, the wake and swells tossing him around, nearly drowning him.  He let out one last yell.  The freighter honked and proceeded on until it was out of Carver’s sight.

Carver was at his wits end.  He’ll wait, he thought.  The passing freighter at least meant he was still in the shipping lanes.  He’ll wait until the next, and he’ll try again.  He just hoped the sharks wouldn’t get him first.