CHAPTER NINE: The Iron Bite and the Salty Dog

After twenty hours of being tossed like a cork, the transition into the lee of the island was jarringly peaceful.The roar of the wind died down, and the Morgan 51 began to glide over water that looked like liquid glass.

We were land-starved, salt-crusted, and ready to stop moving.But the Captain wasn’t done yet. The anchorage was dotted with other boats—sleek catamarans and rugged cruisers that had already claimed their spots.

“I don’t want to be near ’em,” Moe said, her voice firm. She’d spent twenty hours trusting the ocean, but she wasn’t about to trust another sailor’s knots. “If the wind kicks up and their anchor doesn’t hold, I don’t want ’em sliding into us. Give me space.”The Captain nodded, steering the Morgan toward a lonely patch of turquoise sand a good distance from the crowd.

He signaled to the first mate at the bow.”DROP IT!”The sound of the heavy iron anchor plunging into the water was the most beautiful music Moe had heard all day. We watched as the chain rattled out, sinking through the crystal-clear water until the anchor bit deep into the white sand below.

The Captain backed down on the engine, setting the hook until the boat snubbed tight.Silence.It was silence so heavy you could almost feel it. No engine rumble, no crashing waves, no whistling rigging.

Just the sound of our own breathing. And then, there was Yote. Our scrub dog had been a champion through the crossing, but she was done with the “Indigo Void.” She stood at the lifeline, her fur crusted white with salt, her nose twitching as she caught the scent of the dry ground just a few hundred yards away.

She let out a low, impatient whine, looking from the Fort to the Captain as if to say, “I’ve done my time. Get me to the Stone.”She was a “Salty Dog” now, a survivor of the Gulf, but like Moe, she was a creature of the earth. We lowered the dinghy into the water, the first step in our transition from mariners back to land-dwellers. We had crossed the desert of the sea, and now, the red bricks and the white sand were calling our names.