Mitchell turned the boat into Cleveland Ledge Channel and spray from the surface chop flew across the decks. Current dragged at the hull but their speed was increasing. Andy eased the throttle and swung below. Engulfed in the loud grinding of the old Atomic Four, Mitchell steered the sloop past a solitary bell chained to the depth. It was familiar to him. The sloop churned past a green can.

"We’re clear of the channel," he called.

Andy climbed up the ladder until his chin was level with the cabin top, he looked around like a gopher in a hole. "Come to two-thirty-two," he said and disappeared below again.

The wind backed. The current changed. The hours passed and Mitchell relaxed deeper and deeper into the helmchair. He drank warm water from the jug while his vision roamed the snowy mountains of cumulus clouds rolling golden in the luminous blue altitude. The old four cylinder pushed the sloop through timeless sea. These were the dull days, the sea monotony. Mitchell took a deep breath and gas fumes stung his nose and throat. "Beautiful," he said, his gaze like hands felt the graceful curve of the sloop’s rails to the prow, dipping under and rising above the long radiant horizon.

Mitchell followed Andy’s course changes through the afternoon. Andy climbed up often to shoot bearings on the coasts, far away now. He stood in the bow pulpit to watch the distance ahead, or he prowled the decks in silence, a man returning from exile. The land was calling him. Wandering the starboard deck he stopped to renew his vigil ahead, leaning with a hand on the mast. His back stiffened. Mitchell picked up Andy’s line of sight into the distance where a solid wall of dense white fog was closing fast.

"We must have been having too much fun," Mitchell called. "Make a plot and bring the chart up." The sea was disappearing between the bow and the fog, taking with it his physical comfort and peace of mind

Andy climbed up and laid the chart on Mitchell’s lap. "We’re four miles from the open ocean. Here." Andy tapped his index finger on the chart.

Mitchell rubbed his knuckles on a marker illustration. "I’ll steer south to find this bell. Figure a course west to the next marker. Keep us away from the coast."

Andy took the chart. Glancing ahead he stepped into the companionway as the sloop glided into the fog. The mast disappeared then the hatch opening and moisture pressed Mitchell’s cheeks. He glanced at the knotmeter and pictured the chart in his mind to dead reckon the bell. "Half a mile at five knots. Ten minutes," he said, forcing rational thought through his fear. "Hell, I know what ten minutes is. Just feel it and find that bell."

The cockpit seemed afloat in the haze. The boom hung from fog. Mitchell felt strangely at ease. "Don’t get comfortable," he told himself. "Let your heart beat the seconds. Count the minutes like fingers. Concentrate."

He looked down at the condensation running through the contours of his jacket. "Pick up your head for Christ sake. Look around and don’t slam into that marker." It almost startled him. "I have it! Andy! What’s the course to the next marker?"

Andy climbed halfway up the ladder then stopped, his eyes locked with Mitchell’s. Explosions of a diesel engine close-by in the fog overwhelmed the sloop’s engine. It grew louder then leveled and then subsided and disappeared.

Mitchell exhaled, smiled. "What’s the course?"

"Two-fifty-five." Andy laid the chart on the ladder top. "Three and a half miles to the next marker."

"We can’t miss it," Mitchell reassured himself. "Come up and steer. I’ll keep the lookout."

Andy laid the chart on Mitchell’s lap. He sat to starboard and took the tiller with his arm extended stiffly for the helm while he stared at the compass. He looked uncomfortable as hell. Mitchell wiped condensation from the chart’s plastic envelope and committed the illustrations to memory. Andy used the bottom of his tee shirt to wipe the moisture dripping from his face.