Ebb Tide: Book 1 of the South Wind Saga

Chapter 3

In the darkness comes a vision and a dream. A memory of the time before, floating off the timeline like a log drifting at sea. This is not my memory but it is my dream.

***

The sun was a falling ball of fire on the horizon when Art Bennett fired up the Yamaha outboard and headed back to the anchorage. The ocean was as flat as a billiard table and the sun painted a wide orange road across its glassy surface. The granite boulders of the headland that his daughter, Matai, had christened Lobster Point glowed pink with the sunset and peeled back, revealing the long deep bay into which he had brought Voodoo that morning.

The kids had spent the day with Cath onshore, several narrow beaches perfect jumping off points to snorkel the coral reefs that fringed the bay. He had taken the dinghy out to Lobster Point in the late afternoon; he had seen schooling pelagics feeding there on their last visit and he wanted to try out his new Black Widow fishing rod he had recently bought in Kudat. The two fat Golden Trevally lying in the bottom of the dinghy were a testament either to his skill or the fish's lack of distinction come feeding time. Not the best eating fish, but delicious when cooked in a light coconut broth. He was sure that Cath would work her usual magic in the galley.

A gentle breeze blew from the north, barely noticeable and he considered the coming monsoon. It was time for them to head around Malaysia to the west coast. Before the monsoon came in force and turned the South China Sea into a rolling mess, a thousand mile fetch allowing the winds, which blew all the way from southern China, to build up waves five metres high, that would march forward in ranks to flood the east coast of peninsula Malaysia. In a week or so, they would head south, down around Singapore and then up the Straits of Malacca to Langkawi where they would spend the next four months. Matai was five and, despite her protests otherwise, it was time for her to start school. But for now, they would enjoy the last days of the east coast cruising season.

Singapore and the Straits were some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world; hundreds of vessels transiting the narrow channel daily and many sailors spoke of the tides and the traffic with dread. It didn't bother Art much; provided you knew what you were doing, it was no more dangerous than walking along the side of a busy highway.

He came up to the stern of Voodoo, easing back on the throttle as he approached so he would glide to the stop and gently kiss the wooden swim platform with the dinghy's bow. His son Jayden sat there, dangling his long gangly legs in the water. The boy frowned as he studied the concentric rings rolling out from his own line, the reel gripped tightly in his left hand, his right jiggling the lure back and forth as he tried to tempt something hiding under the keel. When he saw his father approach, he rolled the line in smoothly and stood up, ready to grab the painter.

"Anything biting?" Art asked after he cut the engine and coasted in, handing his son the three braid nylon rope painter. On the boat, he could hear music. Cath listening to some early Tori Amos and, behind that, perched on the stainless steel bow pulpit, his daughters, Katie and Matty, singing some song, a French playground rhyme they must have learned from Calypso, that involved a complicated routine of claps and slapped palms.

"Nup. There's a rainbow runner down there but he ain't interested."

"'Isn't interested,' and what do you want to bother him for? Seems a bit rude, trying to catch a fish that's made a home under your house."

"How'd you go, Dad?"

Art grasped the fish by their tails and hefted them. Plump fish, each about three kilos in weight, their slick scales gleaming in the last of the day's light. "Check out these beauties."

"Whoa! Those are great!"

"Jump up and let your mother know I've got a pair of trevally."

The boy was gone in a flash, scampering into the cockpit and down the companion way with the fluid elegance of an orang-utan moving in the jungle. Utterly at home on the boat. Art realised he was smiling. A calm anchorage, happy children, fat fish for dinner. This was the way life was meant to be.