DestinationPart IISid had said it. " I feel so lost ". She had that right. I felt the same way. The grayness of the day, now turning into darkness of the evening, had "disconnected " us from the world. But there was more to it. It was more than just a feeling of depression. It was a sense that things weren’t quite right. That somehow we were in the WRONG place. At first I didn’t say anything to Gordy or Sid. But, I couldn’t help thinking that Sid has figured it out. Something was happening to us, or was about to. We’d been plotting our position and the " Made Goods" every hour. Marking our Fix by GPS on the charts and in the log. For the last couple of days everything was as we had planned and expected. L’Espoir was approximately 50 miles off coast on a course of 140º Magnetic. We’d been averaging 6 knots, so our paper chart had a nearly straight line plot with little diamonds at each fix. So why did I (and apparently Sid) feel like we were lost? I just had to look at the GPS to see if it read OK. It did. It said we were at W 125º 42.0 N 42º 50.0 . There, right off Cape Blanco where we were where we were supposed to be. But it still felt like, like I was someplace else. Finally, I asked Gordy if he felt the same way. He didn’t answer my question. He just stood there staring at me ….My god! His eyes, it was his eyes. I had noticed how bright Blue they were when we’d first met. But now, they were the same Dirty Gray as the sky, water and haze that was around us. I swear, his eyes had changed color! He turned, without speaking and stepped out of the cockpit onto the deck and walked forward to the bow. It was then I noticed that the haze following us had closed in and was thicker. A dirty gray wall of fog and smoke that was shutting the rest of the world away from us. Now standing at the bow, Gordy had become covered with the stuff and was almost lost from sight out there. The old Kinescope Radar showed a blank screen. I thought to myself, " Well at least it’s Green". A patch of color in this dingy portrait of the sea. A spot of something not the color of dirt. My watch had begun at 1900 and now, an hour later, what feeble light had lit us, was now almost gone. The haze and fog had turned into a muddy blue black. If you’ve ever awakened in a darkened room in a panic because you don’t know where you are. It was that kind of darkness that was flowing in around us. More time had slipped away, it could have been hours, I’d lost track. Out of that "Cave" of dark and dirty fog, Gordy came. He walked back aft to the cockpit. Moving slowly, bent with an unseen weight pressing him down. In the dim light of the binnacle and the bluish white light of the GPS screen I saw a man I no longer knew. He had changed! Not only his eyes, but Oh my lord!… Gone was the tan laid on from years of sun and the sea. His skin was now the color of ash! The ash of fires long since burned, now cold. His face was like the sea around us, without texture and grimy gray. He spoke but his voice was a kind of a sigh. A sound so thin, without the deep and musical note he’d had before. I heard his words but I couldn’t understand the faint and wispy message. I moved closer to him to better hear. Difficult to understand at first. But, getting closer, I heard his voice, a whimper, repeat. "It’s all wrong, it’s all wrong, it’s all wrong…" I shook him and the wail stopped. I looked into those colorless eyes and asked, "What’s all wrong"? For a very long time he said nothing. Then the thin gray lips barely moving, he said. " The compass is wrong, the ship is …..". He never finished. His voice had trailed off into little gasps of air. The compass wrong? Wrong what? Reading incorrectly? I ran through the possible meanings in my mind. Now quickly looking at the dimly light binnacle compass. What the hell? It read 053º. Almost 100 degrees off our track. Steady now! There’s got to be a reason. It’s a problem that likely has a solution. Had some iron object moved close to the compass causing a major deviation? It certainly was possible. A knife in the pocket of a crewmember standing next to the compass had set many ships off course. But it’s an easy thing to confirm. Close by was a hand held Digital compass puck. Doing a quick check of it far away from the other compass should show a correct reading. We all will feel better when I show the.. "Correct" heading. I held it up to my eye, pressed the illumination lamp button. The faint red light that backlights the tiny screen seemed as bright as a headlight. It startled me. But there was the numbers, it read 235º ! It was reading all WRONG! It said our heading was 235º . Not the planned 140º that would take us close off San Diego and then off this old boat and home.. But how could both compasses read wrong? Well, take it easy, I reassured myself. That’s not a problem either. The running compass in the GPS will clear this up! "Check the GPS" my senses told me. Quickly I moved to the chart plotter LCD screen. There in the middle of the screen was the icon of our boat. Trailing behind was the "bread crumb" track. Our Latitude and Longitude read out in big numbers. The GPS was working, It showed our track, each little black mark of the plot showing the way we had come.. Telling us that we were on a correct course. We’d set waypoints. WAIT a second! The running compass on the GPS says our heading is…….. 352º ! According to it, we’re headed BACK North! But there was the little ship Icon.. Tracking, tracking its way… South! 140 degrees South! Hot, "electric" jolts ran through me. I looked again at the Lat / Lon. Readings.. Sweet Jesus! They were the SAME as they were hours ago.. 42º 50.0 North, 125º 32.0 West ! The realization hit me hard. This sailing vessel L’Espoir and her 3 souls is headed in FOUR different directions, with an SOG of 6 knots,…. going NOWHERE ! He had known, Gordy had known. All his years at sea told him what was happening and it had scared him. It had scared him so badly that he had become a broken and colorless man. Up close to me, he sighed the words "It’s all wrong" over and over until they faded into sobs. Then he turned and descended into the cabin below. We never saw Gordy again! … To Continue…. |