Mitchell looked at the sandwich. "Is this the apricot jam I like?"

"Yeah, the red kind," Andy said, watching the chop blow across the harbor.

"No sailing into this. How far to Newport?"

"Forty-five miles."

"Helluva long way to motor."

"Our course becomes westerly out of Buzzard’s Bay. We should be able to sail from there." Andy started the vents and strapped Mitchell’s hand to the tiller.

"What’s the alternative anchorage?"

"There’s nothing after New Bedford. The Elizabeth Islands to the south, maybe."

"Find something," Mitchell said.

"There’s nothing."

Mitchell took a bite of sandwich. "I’ll wait."

Andy stood motionless. Then he climbed below. Mitchell ate while the wind buried bread crumbs into the yellow gullies of his rain suit. Andy had insisted he wear it.

"There’s a place called Westport Harbor," Andy said, appearing in the companionway. "It’s not much more than a channel behind a beach but it’s something."

"Let’s go."

Andy ran the vents and started the engine. He hauled up the anchor rode and secured it to the pulpit then walked aft to shift the engine into gear.

"What’s the story on the current out there?"

Andy throttled ahead. "We’re late."

Mitchell shook his head. "The wind is in our teeth, the current is against us and we have to motor. What the hell, it beats mowing the lawn."

He steered southeast out of the bay, then southwest into Hog Island Channel where wind hit the sloop like a battering ram. A fast black current dragged on the hull and the knotmeter read seven but they were making only two.

"Crank it up," Mitchell hollered into the engine noise.

Andy advanced the throttle. To starboard the sand spit seemed almost stationary as the sloop struggled toward Buzzard’s Bay.

"We’re going nowhere. Let’s have all of it."

Andy pushed the throttle full ahead and the engine roared beneath the cockpit sole. Vibrations climbed up Mitchell’s legs as the sloop fought into the current. The knotmeter read ten. Andy watched the engine gauges for overheating. Ahead an ocean-going tug entered the channel with an enormous black iron barge in tow. Passing to port the tugboat captain looked down curiously at the sloop but Mitchell kept his eyes on the tug’s hawser, barbed and ominous, thick as an arm, pulling the barge. "We won’t get far against this current," he shouted.

"It’ll slow up in the bay," Andy hollered.

The sloop muscled past the sand spit. On the point kids were straddling their bicycles to wave. Andy waved back. Mitchell steered past a bell and a gong and the splintered coastline of Buzzards Bay raced away to the south and southwest, the coastline suddenly a mile off each beam as the sloop gained distance.