Текст книги "Cross Current"

Автор книги: Christine Kling

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Текущая страница: 24 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

The bridge was about twelve hundred yards off, and I didn’t hear any bells or see any movement in the bridge tender’s tower. I reached for the tug’s horn and blew five short blasts, waited about five seconds, and blew another five.

Gorda had plenty of clearance without a bridge opening, but the Hatteras stood tall. I looked back at her and reckoned that, at worst, she’d lose the hard top over the flybridge, and that was an acceptable loss. If we stopped now, I thought, as I checked Gorda’s gauges, we’d lose the whole vessel.

At last, bells started ringing, the traffic gates went down, and the bridge had just started to open when Gorda slid under. By the time the Hatteras slipped through, she cleared by mere inches. I doubt she would have made it if she hadn’t already been a foot down on her lines.

As we plowed our way up the New River, past Sailboat Bend, under the Davie Bridge, and through the Citrus Isles canals, we were throwing up an atrocious wake. Waterlogged as that fifty-footer was, I was still pulling her at better than six knots, though I’d had to slow her down some as we rounded the hairpin bend at Little Florida. Masts danced and lines groaned as the boats tied up in front of the luxury homes bucked and rolled. One fellow ran out across his pool deck, coffee mug in hand, shaking his fist at me and screaming curses. I knew I’d be responsible for any damage I caused, but I also knew that the Hatteras was sinking fast, and I had only minutes to get her to the slip.

I switched channels and tried to hail River Bend Marine, hoping like hell that someone was in the office at this early hour and had turned on the radio. No luck. After calling three times, I switched to channel 16, the emergency and hailing frequency, and began calling any vessel in River Bend Marine. I finally got an answer from a cruiser, an older fellow who told me after we’d switched frequencies that he’d round up some yard guys and they’d be waiting with the Travel Lift when I got there. I thanked him, and as we ended our conversation, the Fort Lauderdale Marine Patrol broke in, calling Gorda. I glanced back at my tow as she swung to starboard, and I tried to correct. The radio crackled again, the officer’s irritation growing more apparent. I didn’t have time to deal with them. I switched off the VHF and got back to the business of trying to keep my tug and waterlogged tow under control as we steamed upriver at a speed that made control purely an illusion.

As I swung round the bend and headed into boatyard row, it looked like an entire fleet of small vessels was there to greet me. Every yachtie in the area who had been listening in on channel 16 had jumped into his dinghy and come out to assist in getting the sinking yacht into the slipway. Charlie, the boatyard foreman, was in the yard launch, and he pulled alongside the aft port quarter of the wallowing sport fisherman to help slow her down. In the basin off the slipway, out of the current, I shortened up my towlines, got Gorda back off the starboard quarter, and, together, we eased Mykonos into the slings that dangled deep in the slip. The Travel Lift engine blew off a puff of exhaust and the slings tightened under the Hatteras just as the Fort Lauderdale Marine Patrol boat came screaming around the bend, blue lights flashing in the gilded morning light.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christine Kling has spent more than thirty years messing about with boats. Her articles and stories have appeared in many boating publications including Sailing, Cruising World, and Motor Boating & Sailing and her short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. It was her sailing experience that led her to set her first nautical suspense novel, SURFACE TENSION (2002), on the New River in Fort Lauderdale. Featuring Florida female tug and salvage captain, Seychelle Sullivan, the first book was followed by CROSS CURRENT (2004), BITTER END (2005), and WRECKERS’ KEY (2007). Her latest book CIRCLE OF BONES (2011) is Christine’s first stand-alone sailing thriller. Having retired from her job as an English professor at Broward College in Fort Lauderdale, Christine lives aboard her 33-foot boat Talespinner and goes wherever the wind and free wifi may take her.

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ALSO AVAILABLE

In the Seychelle Sullivan Series

Surface Tension

Bitter End

Wreckers’ Key

The Short Story Collection

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Available in both print and ebook format

Circle of Bones: a Caribbean thriller