My earlier notes indicate that this particular trimaran was a gift to SOSM from a generous leftist entrepreneur who once used it to sail around the world in some manner of record time. It should be noted that he was assisted by a crew of six for this task, none of whom were journalists, teenagers, or dogs.
To keep the craft light, and the sport of racing pure, the Artemis does not have a motor. There is an engraving at the helm to remind us this (as if we could forget). In narrow calligraphy, it says “At the mercy of the winds and our wits. Godspeed.” Or, that’s what it used to say. Gideon has since destroyed the offending inscription, jabbing at it one night with a Bic pen until the letters began to chip away, the pen fell apart, and his own hands could do no more good. Now it is only a jagged wooden scar, streaked with black ink and knuckle blood. Our new motto. Our epitaph.
From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, February 17
My knowledge of oceanography is limited. Ditto for cartography, marine biology, maritime law, and even basic geography. Never before have I regretted my liberal arts education with such immediacy. Sailboats cannot be piloted by rigorous discourse on Kant or Wittgenstein.
Foucault would have loved this predicament, I like to think.
My fourth grade science book was called The Oceans and had a picture of a coral reef on the front with a single tropical fish. The fish was peeking out from behind the reef, like he’d just been caught in the act of something embarrassing. If only I could remember what was inside that tome so clearly.
What’s the difference between a dolphin and a porpoise? What makes phosphorescents light up? Is a shark a mammal or a fish? The Polynesians invented the sailboat. Somewhere near here is the world’s deepest ocean trench. Squid can hear through their eyes. Yes, that’s right, I know about the way you watch and listen at the same time.
From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, February 18
As a practical measure, Gideon and I have divided the Artemis in half. He gets the front with the crew’s quarters, galley, and navigation suite. I get the back with the captain’s berth, the head, and a room filled with various important-looking boat parts.
Plymouth is free to roam where he wants. Despite my threats, I wish him no harm. In fact, I like having him sleep in my cabin at night. He is pleasant company. And his breathing covers up other sounds—wave-lapping and ship-creaking and tentacle-suctioning and such.
Gideon and I are both guilty of trespassing, however. Early on after the storm, I snuck into the galley and took all of the Crystal Light lemonade packets in hopes of warding off scurvy. They are stashed beneath my (formerly C.J. Wyle’s) mattress. I’ve also gone through most of the crew’s footlockers and pilfered the items I like. Gideon appeared yesterday wearing a Panama hat I’d already taken from either Erica or Nelson, so clearly he’s been in here too. But I didn’t say anything about it. Thieves make terrible police.
Then, today, I caught Gideon in my own quarters. He was riffling about in the captain’s shelves. I grabbed him by his studded belt and threatened him with Court Martial.
“This is high treason, sailor,” I said.
He apologized and explained he was only looking for the manual.
I told him there was a manual for the espresso machine in the galley, and that I had last seen it under the cast iron skillet along with The Joy of Cooking.
“No,” he said, “the manual for the boat.”
From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, February 23
This ocean reminds me of someplace I’ve been before. I don’t want to give the impression that I am one of those worldly, traveling reporters, always on assignment to exotic locales. I’ve visited Hemingway’s Paris, yes, and hated it. I spent one semester during college in central northern Europe for my major in western studies. I’ve been to Trinidad, but not Tobago. And I’ve only seen one species of penguin in the wild.
But somehow this spot—this water and sky and nothing else—is so familiar. I’ve decided it’s not what’s here, but what is absent that I am recalling. Although that’s a depressing way to consider my life on the whole.
I hate to think I’ve always been this adrift.
I’ve just now remembered I have parents who are disappointed. I have a half-finished novel in a drawer. I have dirty dishes in a shallow apartment sink. A single neglected houseplant. A certificate that reads “One Year Sober.” A nug of hash I was too anxious to take on the plane, squirreled away in the glove compartment of my car in Lot C16 at Boston Logan. Unreturned phone calls. I have loans I’ll never pay back.
I’d gladly trade all my Crystal Light packets for that hash.
From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, February 25
Gideon has been feeding the squid. He drops overboard my post-meal scraps of fish that even Plymouth rejects.
“I’m trying to teach the octopus to eat out of my hand,” he explained when I questioned him about this behavior.
“I don’t think squid eat fish,” I told him. “I think they primarily eat plankton, which they suck in through their strainer-like teeth.”
But my doubt did nothing to discourage the boy and after a few moments, bubbles the size of dinner plates appeared at the surface. Something had taken Gideon’s offering.
From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, February 26
Have you ever seen a humpback whale? They are ugly as sin. Really and truly unattractive creatures. Not that this justifies their being shot at from boats and then hacked up and refined into restorative powders and sold by the ounce to Japanese businessmen. I’m just saying this cause might be easier to get behind if the animal in question were a bit cuddlier. Or at the very least, not covered in humps.
Yet, through it all, Gideon has remained loyal, insisting that his fellow crewmates perished in the name of maritime justice.
“But what about us, then?” I ask.
Gideon is not, as a general rule, tolerant of this style of questioning.
I worry I’ve ceased to be an objective observer of this trip and its crew (living and not). I feel badly about this. Clearly, I am in breach of my original contract with Popular Anarchist Quarterly, having become too personally involved with my subject matter. Yesterday, I got out my tape recorder and tried to interview Plymouth about the mission statement of the organization and its aims for the future. He chose not to speak on the record. Pity. I have been thinking that perhaps if I can make sense of my earlier notes, I could still file my story via message-in-a-bottle. But the words on those wrinkled yellow pages appear as hieroglyphics. They are from another time and make no sense in this new, modern world. My handwriting doesn’t even look like that anymore.
From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, February 27
I’d like to make an amendment to my last entry, if I may. The truth of it is, even if I could file my story, I wouldn’t want to. Because I didn’t do what I was supposed to do. I’m here on the Artemis, yes, but that wasn’t my assignment. My assignment was to follow Erica and her crew and report back on their vision, their methods, their passions, their most human moments. That’s what it means to be embedded.
I should have been on the Righteous Fury when it motored bravely into that storm. I should have been at the very front, camera and tape recorder at the ready.
But instead, when Erica handed me my life jacket, I handed it right back. Not because I knew anything about the impending storm, but simply and inexcusably because I was afraid. I didn’t even know what there was to be afraid of but I knew I was afraid and so I said, “No, I’ll be just fine watching from the boat with Gideon, thanks.” And off they went, without me, rendering my very being on the trip purposeless.
Of