I was still getting my breath back when a strange clatter started up around us. Little white balls bouncing about everywhere, pinging on my head and shoulders. What was . . . oh. Hail. Took me a minute. Like, when had I ever seen hail? At first it was a novelty. I caught a few in my palm and popped them into my mouth, caught a few more, offered Daniel some. He couldn’t suppress a grin, but soon the steady beating became annoying, and pretty quick, started to hurt. Daniel signaled me to shelter below.

“No way!”

He shrugged, raising the hood of his sou’wester. I did the same, and we hunkered down as best we could.

The pounding softened, but now the air was full of soft, wind-driven white stuff. Damn, it must be snowing! Was that even possible? Didn’t seem cold enough, but what else could it be? Friggin’ snow! Coating the tiller, the gunwales, the cabin roof, mixing with the melting hail to fill the stern pit with an inch of cold slime. We both struggled to keep our footing. My hands had gone stiff. Temp maybe 50 degrees and dropping? My body wasn’t used to this. And up above, it had to be a whole lot colder.

“Gonna freeze before we get there!” I yelled.

But suddenly, there it was. Melville climbed the face of a foam-edged wave and the stadium ghosted into view through a veil of frozen rain: a broad, stubby oval standing amidst the waves of the Great Bronx Bay like a fortress set on a lonely rock. Our fortress.

Daniel and I exploded with whoops of joy, loud enough to bring Breakers to the cabin door, gripping both jambs to keep her balance.

“What?”

“We’re there!”

By then, we were back in the trough, and Breakers saw nothing but a looming wall of water. She glanced around at the clingy white stuff, swore, and ducked back inside. The next broken swell lifted us in view of the cluster of boats backed up along the stadium’s curving wall of tall arched windows. The arches in one section were wider and glassless, with the water high enough above sill level to provide a water entrance into a covered atrium. The openings would be easy in calm weather, but the skippers were taking their time squeezing through, to keep from being crushed against the arch supports.

Daniel pointed out one set of arches where a central divider had broken away at sill level, leaving a much wider opening. “We’ll make for that one.”