Mitchell hooked the armrests with his wrists, pulling his shoulders forward and lowering his head to block the wind with his visor so Andy would hear when he shouted, "What are you up for?"

Andy looked for a moment at the cockpit sole. It was the engine underneath he was seeing. He took a backward step into the cabin to look through the ladder rungs at the cover on the engine locker, wondering what he might have forgotten. He wiped his hands with an oily rag and stepped onto the ladder and leaned into the cockpit. "Lets go sailing. There’s no sense charging the batteries. What do you want to do?"

Mitchell looked at the boats in the anchorage. Men and women were out on the multitudes of foredecks adding slide-weights to their anchor rodes, or setting second anchors. Others were increasing the scope on their rodes where space between vessels allowed. A lithe woman with short black hair was playing with two small boys on the deck of a red-hulled Canadian sloop.

"Let's go sailing," Mitchell said. "I'm tired of getting my ass kicked."

Andy found his windbreaker in the vee berth and climbed up through the forehatch. On deck he rigged jack-lines stem to stern along both decks while Mitchell pulled on a sweater.

"Are you fellows sailing?"

Mitchell looked over his shoulder across the sloop’s stern to find a big man standing in a blue inflatable, he was tying off to the blue-hulled sloop to starboard. A woman was climbing their stern ladder. "You’ve got some brass to head out in this wind," the man called and a smile crossed his heavy face under the visor of his green cap. His eyes were smiling, too. The woman crossed the cockpit without looking over and climbed below. "Where’re you from?" The casualness of the man’s tone, his flannel shirt and open canvas jacket reminded Mitchell of the men in the big mechanic’s garage in the mountains.

Andy secured the starboard jack-line and sat on deck with his feet down on the bench. "We’re out of Essex. On the Connecticut."

"We sailed down from Pawtuxet last weekend," the man said. "You know it?"

Andy shook his head.

The man climbed aboard his sloop. "I’m on vacation." He stood in the cockpit with his hands clasped and his forearms resting on his sloop’s lifeline. "We like it down here. Days like this." He looked up at the sky’s blueness. "What does your boat draw?"

"Five feet," Andy said.

"Full keel?"

Andy nodded.

"You’ll need it out there today." The man looked down at his feet and laughed. "We’ve got a centerboard. We can snoop around in lots of places most boats can’t get in." His face was suddenly serious. "You’ll have to do something with your dinghy. But you know that." He smiled again. "Well, I’m heading down to get some lunch. Good luck."

Watching the man climb below, Mitchell realized he hadn’t said a word. He liked just listening to some people and he was wondering what the man had meant about the dinghy. He pulled on his safety harness and Andy slid the three foot nylon lanyard through the chest ring for him. Andy clipped the lanyard to the port jack-line. Then he pulled on the other harness and clipped on.

"Make the main then raise the anchor," Mitchell said. "I'll back us out of here."