Ten Degrees of Reckoning (9 page)

Annie had answered, “I don’t know, Mommy, because I always feel so happy.”

Ben had more complicated things on his mind. “I really want to know why songs get stuck in my head,” he said once, and another time, “Where does God come from?”

Thinking of this now, Judy gasped in anguish. Who would ask her all those questions now? She wondered, too, in the face of Ben’s death, if Annie’s once indestructible spirit would be muted. She wondered if any of them could ever return to their normal selves, their normal lives, their normal routines. Mike had always liked to be the first one awake when the family was in a pleasant anchorage with settled weather. He would stealthily get up from the forward berth, pull on his shorts, and make coffee. Then with his cup and a book, he would head out to the cockpit and sit under the awning. Even though he tried to get up without waking any of the others, Annie would always hear Mike and join him. Each morning they sat in the cockpit and watched the sun come up together.

On those same mornings, in the sheltered anchorages, Judy and Ben both loved sleeping late. When they awakened, they would make pancakes together, singing and planning the new day ahead. Ben was Judy’s “little man,” always wishing to emulate her. It was excruciating to be without him. And thoughts of Ben trapped in his cozy blanket, as the Mummy, unable to free himself, kept intruding and tormenting Judy. All Judy wanted at that moment was to wallow in her grief. But it was up to her to move on to the next step and make sure that the remaining family survived. She had to figure out why the dinghy kept flipping, so she could warm up Mike and Annie, and pass on some of her clothing to them.

It was a pitch-black night, but Judy’s eyes began to adjust to the darkness all around. She took a good look at the state of the dinghy. There was very little air in it, and Judy wondered if it could actually carry them toward land. She took off her sea boots and began bailing out the water in the dinghy when Mike turned his head, exclaiming, “Look! Judith, you were right. It was a hull you saw, and the ship is returning! It must be the bow wake that keeps flipping us.”

“Are you sure, Michael? How can you tell? I don’t see any lights,” Judy replied.

The ship’s silhouette could barely be seen, it was so dark. Then suddenly they saw faint lights and the shadowy side of a large ship, perhaps only seventy-five feet away. The lights were not the bright navigation ones they were used to observing on big ships, but three rows of dim lights like the accommodation lights of a passageway and crews’ quarters. On two of the upper decks they could see faces, perhaps nine or twelve of them, pressed against a large window. The faces appeared to be peering out and looking straight at them, but no one moved. There was no one on the bridge or at the bow of the ship using searchlights.

Mike, Judy, and Annie got on their knees in the shaky dinghy, waving madly and shouting, “Help us, help us, please help us!”

To their horror, the ship continued on. There was blackness again, the dark hull disappearing, no lights at the stern at all.

Seven

Rules of the Road

WHAT KIND OF SHIP WOULD LEAVE TWO ADULTS AND one tiny girl frantically waving and shouting for help? What kind of crew would fail to use the required navigation lights to be seen, then fail to use searchlights to discover what destruction they had wreaked? What kind of a captain would ignore the responsibility to assist by every possible means? What kind of shipping company might give instructions to continue on their way?

We presume a certain order in our lives, whether instituted by the rules and regulations of our respective governments or guided by human decency. We wouldn’t want to leave our homes for work or school if we didn’t think it possible to arrive safely and make it through the day alive. But if just one person in our path drives on the wrong side of the road or brings a weapon to school, then our chance of survival diminishes.

In the open ocean there is an established body of laws, the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (known as COLREGS). These regulations and agreements have evolved over centuries. As early as 1836, there were parliamentary committees appointed in England to inquire after the causes of shipwrecks, and the first international conference of maritime nations was held in Washington, D.C., in 1889. In 1914, two years after the loss of the
Titanic,
the first International Conference for Safety of Life at Sea convened.

It may seem in the vastness of the seas that there is unlimited visibility, but often ships just over the horizon cannot be seen because of the earth’s curvature. While there are no shipping lanes out at sea, there are advantageous navigation routes where it is likely that vessels will, and do, encounter one another. Consider that the oceans cover three-quarters of the globe, and it makes sense that shipping is the most practical way to transport most of our goods in this global economy, with an estimated fifty thousand ships out at any one time. In addition to the professional mariners and those sailors who choose to see life from a small yacht, there are approximately nine million cruise ship passengers a year who choose to take their vacations and explorations on the water.

The International Regulations, known informally as the Rules of the Road, apply to all types of watercraft and take into account every measure to avoid the chance of collision.

It is required that every vessel have a proper lookout at all times, by sight and by sound, as well as any other available means, so that early and substantial actions can be taken well ahead of time to avoid collisions.

Every vessel must proceed at a safe speed in order to be able to slow down or stop within a distance that will prevent a collision.

Every vessel must exhibit lights from sunset to sunrise, and in conditions of poor visibility. There are specific requirements for the location of lights, depending upon the type of vessel, and the distance and direction of visibility, depending upon the length of the vessel. To be seen calls attention not only to the vessel’s position but also to its direction of travel and whether it is under sail or power.

Every vessel must understand its obligations when one vessel is overtaking another, or when two vessels are meeting head-on, or when two vessels are in a crossing situation. At sea, where there is vast turning space, the responsibilities are determined by one vessel’s position relative to the other. For instance, in a crossing situation, the vessel that has the other on its starboard (right) side is obliged to keep out of the way, and is called the give-way, or burdened, vessel. The other vessel is obliged to hold course and speed, and is called the stand-on, or privileged, vessel. There are situations where it might be easier for the stand-on vessel to alter course, but only after a discussion on the radio between the two vessels, in order to understand the intention and thus avoid chaos and collision. In narrow channels or confined areas such as harbors where large ships have little maneuvering capability, recreational sailboats and powerboats must not impede their progress.

There are additional rules, including those applying to communication and sound signals, especially when there is danger of a close encounter.

If everything should fail, and two vessels are involved in a collision, there are separate regulations. Under international maritime law, vessel masters have an obligation to render assistance to those in peril at sea.

Without Ben, there is no argument: life could never be the same for the Sleavin family. But if the captain of the ship had provided assistance to two adults and one tiny girl in distress, the story would have ended here.

Eight

Grave Impact

THIS WAS NOT POSSIBLE. THE SHIP HAD DESTROYED their son and their home, and now it was continuing on without them. Mike started yelling as loudly as he could, “Damn you, you bastards, come back and get us!”

With no lights at the stern of the ship, it was difficult to see its course, but Judy knew it was moving farther away from them.

Mike waved his fist in the air and screamed more loudly, “Damn you to hell, you uncaring bastards! Come back and see what you’ve done!”

Judy said quietly, “Please don’t swear in front of Annie.” As she spoke, she was thinking about how irrational she sounded, how ridiculous to pretend that this was a casual remark in a regular everyday conversation. Here they were, without Ben, abandoned in a dinghy, and she was trying to protect her daughter’s ears from a slight profanity because she couldn’t protect her from this hideous, staggering ordeal.

Annie wasn’t paying attention to either of them.

“Where’s Ben? Where’s Ben?” she kept screaming.

Judy wrapped her arms around Annie, all of them sobbing now, and told her as soon as they were rescued they would talk about Ben always and forever.

Annie was cold. Judy took off her foul-weather jacket and put it on Annie. It was large, but she pulled the hood firmly around Annie’s head, and the Velcro cuffs around her small wrists. There was an elastic belt built into the jacket, and Judy cinched it tightly. She told Annie to keep her legs crossed like a pretzel.

Mike was shivering in his underwear and a sweatshirt. Judy wanted to give him her foul-weather pants. She thought she would be warm enough in her polar fleece layer, and she was worried about him. She tried to get her pants off, but her legs were numb and there was little room to maneuver in the dinghy.

“Give a tug, Michael. I can’t get these overalls off without your help. And you need them,” Judy insisted.

He refused. “I need the two of you to stay warm. Don’t even think of getting out of those pants,” Mike replied.

Judy had cause for concern. It was the end of November, the beginning of the summer months in New Zealand, and fortunately the water was warming up. Still, the temperature was probably about 14 degrees Celsius (57 degrees Fahrenheit) with stormy seas ahead. Given Mike’s state of undress, and the fact that he had been tossed into the ocean three times already, any prolonged exposure in these conditions could cause hypothermia.

The wake of the ship must have pushed the dinghy from the pool of diesel into the nearby waves, and they were moving with the seas. This was the inflatable dinghy that Mike and Judy had purchased in Venezuela just before they made their return Panama Canal transit. It had a hard fiberglass bottom in anticipation of all the coral reefs in the South Pacific. But it was woefully inadequate compared to the life raft that had been swept away. The life raft was well built, with a protective canopy and an effective ballast system. The life raft was stocked with food, a medical kit, fishing and safety equipment, paddles, flashlights, signaling mirrors and recently purchased flares, even a hand-operated watermaker. The inflatable dinghy they were left with was like a little rubber raft, meant for scooting around a harbor.

One side of the dinghy, the most deflated side, was almost flush with the surface of the waves and didn’t provide any barrier at all. Seawater poured in. Mike and Judy used her boots to bail vigorously, but they couldn’t keep up with the deluge. Rocked by the last of the ship’s wake and swamped with water, the dinghy flipped yet again, and tossed them into the freezing ocean. Instead of trying to get back in, they decided to leave the dinghy overturned. They would have a better chance of sitting or lying on top of the fiberglass bottom. Mike and Judy got on either side of Annie, and clinging to the upside-down pontoon area, they made their way around the perimeter. The painter, a long rope used for towing or securing a dinghy to a dock, was purposefully strong, and Mike pulled it across the bottom to the stainless steel eyebolt on the other side. Judy tied it securely and used it to pull herself up onto the hard bottom. With Mike pushing Annie from behind and Judy pulling under her arms, they got her out of the water. Judy made sure Annie was grasping the painter tightly, and then she helped Mike pull himself up. They had to sit low on the hard bottom in order not to slide off, but even with the pitch, it was preferable to the constant swamping. They had a tight grip on the painter, huddled together with their hands over each other’s for a bit of warmth and comfort. It was far from perfect, but it was their only means of reaching land—that is, if the current cooperated. The seat, the oars, and the outboard motor had all been stowed for the passage, so they had no means of propelling themselves in the right direction.

The dinghy was carrying them along despite the high seas, but Mike was shaking uncontrollably, and Judy was enormously concerned. It was a sign of his body’s futile attempt to produce heat, but it also foretold of worse signs of hypothermia: confusion, delusions, and mental impairment as the temperature in his brain cooled, and even heart failure if his deep-body temperature cooled down enough. He was such a responsible and protective husband and father; he couldn’t bear to take any of Judy’s clothes, whatever the consequences to him.

Mike was consumed with guilt about not grabbing the EPIRB. It was mounted in the aft cabin, easily reachable from the off-watch bunk. During their preparations, they had had so many discussions about where to place it, and had decided the children might accidentally activate it if it was mounted in the cockpit. Now the EPIRB was trapped in the submerged boat instead of broadcasting its distress signal.

In November 1995, there were three low-orbiting satellites in the COSPAS-SARSAT system. Had the
Melinda Lee
’s 406 EPIRB been activated, most likely within two hours the Local User Terminal near Wellington, New Zealand, would have received and processed the satellite downlink signal to generate distress alerts. This information would have been forwarded to the Australian Mission Control Center to organize the data about the registered owner and the vessel. New Zealand maritime authorities would have then been alerted to mobilize search-and-rescue efforts.

Over and over Mike kept muttering that he should have grabbed it.

Judy said, “You know what? We’re not going to talk about what we don’t have. It’s way more important that you grabbed Annie.”