Marooned
Sylvie looked over the side of the sailboat at the water. It was so shallow that it was clear with only a hint of greenish-blue, and the tiny, even wind-ripples were the only evidence that there was water there at all.
Andre had sailed them into this bay on the morning tide, threading through the cut in the barrier reef with an escort of blacktip sharks that swam in for their morning hunt. Sylvie had watched as the squadron of five large gray shapes swam in formation until they had entered the calm waters of Leeward Bay, and then the outer ones had peeled off to patrol the top of the inner reef alert to any unwary fish they could devour. Andre had heard that the shallows of this remote bay had good fishing and insisted that they stop so he could see for himself.
She put two liters of water and a bag of watermelon chunks into her bag and pulled on a T-shirt dress over her bikini bottoms. She grabbed a hat and her beach shoes, then she slid over the side into the knee-deep water to wade to shore. After a walk around the perimeter of the two-acre island, she planned to read and doze in the sun while Andre fished.
At the end of an easy stroll around the island at the waterline, she was staggered to come back to her bag only to find an empty bay before her. No sailboat was in sight, no sails on the horizon, no laughing Andre casting his line into the water. She was alone.
Sylvie stood looking out across the empty lagoon. She hadn’t been gone that long, maybe an hour and a half. Where would Andre have gone—and why?
The breaking waves at the reef cut reminded her they had waited for an incoming tide to sail into the lagoon. He shouldn’t have been able to get back out so quickly. Had he dumped her here and waited just until she was out of sight to turn around and sail away? If he was so eager to be rid of her, he could have left her in Taveuni. She could have hooked up with another yacht or worked her way home on a tramp steamer.
****
“Andre,” she said, her voice brittle with disuse. She smiled a bit sadly at the memory of his face and the way they would sit on the deck of the Ariadne in the moonlight of the Caribbean night.
But now she had the harsh Pacific sun to deal with, her water to transfer from the carry-cans yoked across her shoulders, and then she needed to swim out to check her newest fish trap. She had to find a scrap of fabric to patch her tattered dress. It was her only protection from the sun and the sharp edges of the grasses she had to go through to get to the little spring in the center of the island. Maybe something she could use had washed ashore overnight.
My titles are available online in eBook, paperback, and audiobook formats and in select independent bookstores. Visit my website for event dates and links to my books.
I want to know.......before and after the sail.