It’s a thirty-three-foot catamaran, big-hulled and slow as cats go, named Pride of Topeka. Solid teak paneling, dark blue hull and decking, rainbow sails, little auxiliary engines in each hull. They get it out of the slip and putter down the waterways of Newport harbor.

Past five thousand small boats.

Past Balboa Pavilion, and the ferry kept running for tourists.

Past the house split in two by feuding brothers. That’s History.

Past the buoy marking where John Wayne moored his yacht.

Past the Coast Guard station (look innocent).

Past the palm trees arched over Pirate’s Cove. That’s your childhood.

And out between the jetties. They’re caught in the five-mile-per-hour traffic jam of the busiest harbor on earth. Might as well be on the freeway. To their left over the jetty is Corona del Mar, where Duke Kahanamoko introduced surfing to California. To their right over the longer jetty is the Wedge, famous bodysurfing break. “I wonder where they got the boulders for the jetties,” Sandy says. “They sure aren’t local.”

“Ask Jim.”

“Remember when we were kids and we used to run out to the end?”

“Yeah.” They look at the metal tower at the end of the Corona del Mar jetty, the green light blinking on its top. Once it was one of their magic destinations. “We were crazy to run over those boulders.”

“I know!” Sandy laughs. “Just one slip and it’s all over! I wouldn’t do it now.”

“No. We’re a lot more sensible now.”

“Ahhh, hahaha. Speaking of which, it’s time for an eye-dropper, eh?”

“Let’s get the sails up first so we don’t forget how.”

They put up the mainsail, the boat heels over, they sail south.

Engines off. White wake spreading behind.

Sun on water. Wind pushing onshore.

The sail bellies

Full.

Sandy takes a big breath, lets it out. “Yes, yes, yes. Free at last. Let’s celebrate with that eyedropper.”

“Really change the routine.”

After a few blinks Sandy sighs. “This is the only way to travel. They should flood the streets, give everyone a little Hobie cat.”

“Good idea.”

They’re headed for the backside of San Clemente Island, some sixty miles off the north San Diego coast. It’s owned by the government, inhabited only by goats, and used by the Navy and the Marines to practice amphibious landings, helicopter attacks, parachuting, precision bombing, that sort of thing. Sandy and Tash are scheduled to rendezvous sometime the next day or night with the boat from Hawaii, off the west side of the island.

They sail in a comfortable silence, broken only occasionally by stretches of talk. It’s an old friendship, there’s no pressure to make conversation.