The river mouth opened to the sea but the channel funneled between two seawalls of gigantic storm-smooth granite blocks awash with sea foam. Sea of antiquity. Timelessness quickened Mitchell’s blood. He aimed his vision over the foredeck to discover a white wall where the horizon had been. "What the hell? Fog. Coming fast. Son of a bitch," he almost spit. "Calm. Stay calm," he whispered. "Remember to breathe."

Visibility beyond the mast was suddenly obliterated as huge strands of dense condensation smothered the boat. Andy hurried aft to the cockpit, he grabbed the signal horn from the starboard cubbyhole and straight as a bugler, unperturbed by the shrouds of mist, he pierced the fog with five flat metallic yaps. He checked his watch to time the next warning.

It impressed Mitchell. He had made their course on the compass before the fog. He saw the foredeck then it was gone into layers of vapor. The vague shape of a lighthouse off the starboard bow. It disappeared. He glanced at the compass. The engine droned and water slapped the hull. "We’re too long in the narrows," he said and the fog vanished like a spell lifted. The sloop was in the Sound, vast and bright beneath an immense sky.

Mitchell gazed across the lit sea, touching it with his vision, and it reached for him, remembered him, he thought. Tears wet his eyes. Years of yearning. Always for this, the knowing it would be unchanged here. Unlike me, he thought, a man older and torn and more than a little uncertain this sea will have me back. I have to do this. There is no other place.

"Let’s look at the chart," he said and Andy ducked under the boom to swing below off the sides of the hatch opening. Quick again up into the cockpit he unrolled the chart across Mitchell’s left leg, extended on the bench over three life-jackets piled under his knee. His boot was braced on the cabin bulkhead under the compass.

Andy combed a hand through wild black hair. "Do you think we should eat before we try this with the sails?"

Mitchell was anxious to get under sail, he felt himself hostage to the engine’s loudness, cut off from the sea-calm. It was like this now, subtle cruelties reminding him that freedom was just out of reach, up ahead somewhere. He wondered where in his mind the torment had formed itself and how much of him it would take to tear it out and if he had that kind of strength. We should have the food he thought. "You’re doing the anchoring. Pick a spot."

Andy pointed an arm. "Over there," he said and hustled to the foredeck. He faked out the anchor chain and the hemp rode in uniform lengths across the deck and then he walked aft to kill the engine and instantly the day was hotter. And quiet finally. Mitchell held their course while Andy hurried back to the foredeck. Sea water slushed along the six-ton fiberglass hull, still cruising ahead but slowing. The knotmeter on the cabin bulkhead fell to three knots, two, one.

Mitchell pulled the tiller to his chest. "Drop the hook," he called and Andy leaned over the side under the lifeline to deliver the anchor into the sea. Fakes of rode sizzling overboard disappeared into silvery reflections on the surface shine. The hull backed, the anchor grabbed and the sloop swung before the wind.

"Beautiful. You’ve got the knack for that anchor." Mitchell swayed in an easy counter-balance to the sloop’s rolling on the surface undulations.