Calypso's Mast

Chapter 34 - Godzilla

"This thing is a work of art." Pitcher surveyed the raft. Banning eased the palm leaf sail slightly and the raft slowed and steadied.

"I'm surprised it floats so high," he said.

It was big enough to walk around. Banning had lashed poles of bamboo together to form the cylindrical hulls and then had created a deck between the two hulls. The makeshift mast and the sail were mounted mid-ships. The mast was stayed by ropes woven from husk fibres and the rudder was pieces of split bamboo lashed together.

Even so, it was still close to the water. There was about a half a metre of freeboard to the deck. Every now and again, a small wave that would wash gently over the deck.

"You do realise that I am going to have a hell of a story to write about when I get back," she said.

Banning was concentrating on keeping the sail full and grunted in a manner that would have made a Neanderthal jealous. Pitcher's eyes were sparkling at being out on the water again. The prospect of going home excited her.

"How would you like me to spin it?" she said. "As you being a dashing, heroic, knight in shining armour riding his glorious white steed? Or how about a hunky, strong, silent-type bushman that can do anything with anything and make MacGyver look like a kindergarten kid?"

"Who?"

"MacGyver, the guy on the TV series with the Swiss army knife," she said.

"Is that the guy who can make nitro-glycerine out of hair spray, an asthma puffer and a toilet brush?" he asked as he leaned back smiling, and looked at the position of the sun.

"That's him," she said. "He's my hero. I love him. I could lie in bed, eat chocolate and watch his shows for a week."

"Well," he said slowly. "You spin it how you want, Sonya. It doesn't matter to me. I don't think of myself as MacGyver. I just do what has to be done."

"I know. That's what makes you, so wonderful, Mitchell," she said. "You're so humble and non-assuming, yet are so self-confident. I think it's wonderful. I wish I could be like that."

He scanned the distant shore and then looked further out to sea.

"You know that finding your boat is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack," he said. "How far out do you think it was when it sank?"

Pitcher looked toward the shoreline, measuring, remembering.

"We're about the right distance but it was further south," she said.

'Are you sure?"

"Positive," she said. "After the boat sank, we drifted a long way north before we got to shore."

"Ok," he said as he swung the tiller and began to run with the northerly breeze. Pitcher stood up and worked her way forward until she was at the bow, hanging on to a mast stay and looking forward with the wind in her hair. She scanned the ocean carefully, and then turned around.

"Is that the dinghy again?"

She pointed ahead. Banning looked hard and shaded his eyes.

"It certainly looks like it," he said.

"What do we do?" Pitcher was worried. "If they're the drug people... I'm scared."

Banning didn't reply. Pitcher could tell by his manner that he had tensed up as he peered forward at the boat in the distance. He nudged the tiller a little and edged further downwind so that they would pass well behind the dinghy, which appeared to be heading slowly north. After a few moments, he spoke.