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THE WILDERNESS COAST
by Jack Rudloe
CHAPTER 5. NIGHT OF THE ELECTRIC RAY" (continued) |
"Making a run for the Pass to sheltered water was impossible now. We would just have to weather the storm because we were under tow. Enviously I watched two other trawlers fighting the seas back to the safety of Apalachicola Bay. They would be inside and anchored down in an hour while we and a few other boats that were caught by the storm stayed in the teeth of the wind. The whole cabin was shaking and reverberating, but the old boat moved steadily ahead, dragging the nets. "Look at that," said Edward with some amazement. "The wind is so strong we're not moving. I been watching the loran; there's hardly been any headway. We've made three microseconds in the past ten minutes."
Suddenly the auxiliary pump down below spluttered, faltered, and died. Edward cursed and told Frenchie to go down below and start it again. He thrust open the door and the winds burst in on us. It took all our strength to shove it behind him. After ten minutes, Frenchie returned. "Pumps died," he announced. "I tried to start it but I couldn't."
"Hold the wheel," Edward ordered his deckhand. "I'm going down and fix it."
Edward Keith was a master of putting junk and worn-out equipment together and making it get by for another time. However, sometimes his repairs worked and sometimes they didn't.
"This is a hell of a note," Anne muttered after Edward had slipped on his slicker and pushed out the door. "I'm not prepared to drown for these damn electric rays."
We stood in the pilothouse with only the dim red light of the loran and the green glow of the radar flickering on the soiled paneled walls. The empty pilot's chair, which Edward had custom built from an old car seat and a pole, looked vaguely gruesome with its stuffing hanging out as the vessel rocked to and fro.
"Don't worry; we're not going to drown," I said, trying to reassure her. But my voice lacked conviction. "This boat has been all the way to Key West and back in worse weather than this."
Edward came back. "I can't start it; the carburetor must have stopped up. But we're OK; the main pump is holding it down. She ain't gaining much."
His explanation was interrupted by a loud crunch that shuddered throughout the whole vessel. Edward and Frenchie looked a little more worried. "That was a 'crunch,' not a 'crack.' I'm waiting for that any minute," he said in an unsuccessful attempt to reassure.
Seeing our worried expressions, he added, "But don't worry, we ain't gonna sink. If she goes to taking on too much water, we'll just plow her up on the beach and walk home."
I tried to ignore the image of the Dena Dini aground on the barrier beach of St. Vincent Island with her bottom pounded out by the breakers, the vicious undertows and the sharks, and us trying to get off and swim to shore.
The safest thing to do was get into bed and hope to stay there and wait it out. I lay there wondering why I didn't have an office job somewhere. Finally, though, the storm diminished and passed on. As the seas quieted, it was as if nothing had ever happened.
Trying to get my mind off the near-disaster, I left Anne sleeping in the bunk and went out on deck, to check on the electric rays and see how they fared in the storm. They were fine; the baffled tank kept them from becoming too beaten up.
Then I glanced over the stern and had a sudden start. There were sharks swimming all around us, illuminated beneath the deck lights-only they weren't frightening any more; they were fascinating. Peaceful and beautiful in form and essence they swam among the luminescent plankton glowing like eerie spirits. They were much more in harmony with their watery environment than the porpoises that came speeding in, dropping back, and bobbing up to puff and blow and partake of the atmosphere as we do.
What magnificent creatures these elasmobranch fish were, totally in tune with their world. They were part of an arms race that had been going on almost since the beginning of life, hundreds of millions of years. A sleek body, razor-sharp teeth, and electrosensory devices enabled them to feed on their cousins the rays.
But rays in turn evolved defenses. The stingray had a poisonous tail. The spotted eagle ray had speed and grace and could leap high out of the water and sail through the air, landing with a spectacular explosion. The bat rays and butterfly rays glided over the sand bottom like magic carpets with a sweep of their wings to escape with firm muscle and vigor.
But the electric ray had traded away grace and muscle for power. Its body had become rounded, soft, and flabby to support the electric organs. Its swimming motion was awkward and slow, almost a waddle. It had to push itself along the bottom with its broad pectoral fins while it searched for worms. And when it swam, it sculled along with its sharklike tail in a slow sinuous motion and no shark bothered it. Yet locked away in that flabby fish's body were mysteries, secrets of energy and magnetics and the working of the central nervous system, and perhaps a cure for human diseases.
