They were abeam the village now, and all at once he was moving into the strength of the current. It almost stopped them dead. The channel had narrowed. He could never get her turned around in the tidal race. He wondered if he could pick up a native from the quay to pilot him. But he was sure he could never make the dock. Besides, “local knowledge,” extolled enthusiastically in the Sailing Directions, seemed here represented by a lethargic adult studying the water and a small black child trying to play a guitar. If they managed to make the wharf without tearing their hull in half, there was no assurance that the native would know any more about piloting a keel-draft vessel up the channel than he did. The locals were reputedly always quite surprised when a yacht they were conning hung up on a reef they had been paddling over all their lives.

He tapped the throttle forward and inched past the quay. Aloft, Lindy raised her arm, then sliced it down, a little to port. He eased the wheel to the left, waited until her hand pointed amidships, and met the swing. Her eyes still on the channel, she raised her hand and gave him an OK signal, forefinger and thumb just-so.

The village drifted aft. The little black boy bounced excitedly, beckoning them. Or warning them? Mitch hoped not, but they were well into the chute now and committed.

From his angle, with the sun low at his back, he could see nothing below the swirling surface. When they made the left turn at the far end of the pass, the sun would be glancing into Lindy’s eyes and she would see nothing even from aloft. The branch of a coconut palm swished past, bound for sea. It was moving very swiftly. He added another hundred r.p.m. The smell of hot oil drifted from below.

Lindy began to point toward a danger to starboard, calmly enough at first, then in a violent, jerky motion. He swung to port and the current caught him. He forced the bow back. There were eddies in the pass he had not dreamed of. He came hard right, and even from his low vantage he could see the huge gnarled hunk of brown coral that had frightened her. Streams of bubbles flowed from its peaks and crevices.

He got the boat back to midstream and found that at two-thirds power he was utterly halted. He jammed the throttle forward to its stops. They might as well burn up the engine as be swept backward into the surf.

Imperceptibly, they drew up the channel. Around the turn the lagoon shimmered invitingly, but the turn was the thing, and that was up to Lindy. She signaled him to ease to starboard, then back amidships.

He flashed her a smile and the OK signal. She grinned back down.