When he replotted the sunline it was very close to his track and when he dropped a perpendicular to his track, the new estimated position lay within two miles of his dead-reckoning. He placed a tiny square around it and labeled it with the local time.

He picked off the latitude and longitude with dividers and wrote that on the chart, too, then moved to the radio. He let the transmitter warm up and began to call Mahina Radio, then Navy Papeete, then any ship or station, on the emergency frequency. He called in English and French, and ended with another blind Mayday to any ship or station.

No one answered.

She saw the white speck miles away, and lost it instantly as she sank into the next undulating valley. She felt that it was a sail, that it was Mitch, and that she was too far from him to be seen. She lost the speck each time she dipped into a trough, and most of the peaks were not high enough to bring it back into view, but every time she thought that it was gone, it would appear. Its reappearances were growing more frequent.

It was far past whistling range, but she began to wave the jug, which at least was white, as violently as she could, whenever she would crest a wave and see the boat. Now the low, massive lines of Linda Lee were unmistakable; she could see not only the mainsail but the mizzen. He was probably on the spreader, sweeping the seas with binoculars.

She could not actually see him there, but she was sure that he had seen her. She forced herself to relax. If the boat was approaching, her best chance was to save her strength to help him get her aboard. She lay back and rested. She had already forgotten chilled legs, fevered head, cracked lips, chafed armpits, and the awful thirst.

When there was no answer from Mahina Radio or Papeete he grew desperate and switched to the yachting channels, ship-to-ship. There were always twenty or thirty yachts along the Papeete quay and anchored off the Protestant Church. Those which were American, at least, would carry his frequencies if they had radios. The odds were almost zero that anyone would have his set turned on in the morning, but he tried anyway.

When a general call seemed to do no good, he began them by name, those he hoped might still be in the area: Puffin II, Windrift, Kaiola, and Winston Churchill. He called a trimaran named Howler, owned by a New Zealander they all detested. He called a German ketch, Kormorant, and two island schooners, just in case, and a boat he remembered vaguely as having the amazing homeport of Las Vegas, Nevada.

There was no answer. He was simply not getting through. He jigged indecisively. He had to get topside, make his turn, backtrack the course again. Finally he hung up the mike.