REPORTER: Latha Laghari was seventy-one years old when she was invited onto Jason Lambert’s yacht for the star-crossed Grand Idea voyage. She leaves behind a grieving family, a Fortune 500 company, and a Center for Women’s Education that she created in Calcutta. In an interview, Laghari once said that, for all the schooling she experienced later in life, her first six years in the Basanti slums taught her the most important life lesson. When asked what that was, she said: “Survive until tomorrow.”

Sea

Day nine, Annabelle. It is dark, and I am very tired. I tried twice to write you but failed. I am still in shock from earlier today. Death has struck again.

I was resting in the back of the raft when Geri crawled over on her knees. “As long as you have that notebook, Benji,” she said, “why don’t you make an inventory? We need to keep tight track of our rations.”

I nodded OK. Then she turned and asked everyone to bring what we had and lay it out in the middle of the raft. Before long, we were staring at the meager spread of our possessions.

For water, we had only half a can left.

For food, we had three protein bars from the ditch bag, plus items we had pulled from the ocean the night the Galaxy sank, four bags of cookies, two boxes of cornflakes, three apples, and the remnants of a box of peanut butter crackers that Geri had thrown into her backpack before jumping ship.

For survival gear, again from the ditch bag, we had two paddles, a flashlight, a throwing line, a knife, a small pump, a bailer, a flare gun, three flares, binoculars, and repair patching kits. Also, one seasickness pill. We’d swallowed the rest in our first two days.

Geri’s backpack added a first-aid kit, a small tube of aloe, several T-shirts and shorts, a pair of scissors, sunglasses, her little motorized fan, and a floppy hat.

Finally, there were the random items that we plucked from the waves: a tray, a tennis ball, a seat cushion, a yoga mat, a plastic tub of pens and notebooks—which is how I am able to write you right now—and a car magazine, which, despite having been soaked and dried many times, has been read by nearly everyone in the raft. It reminds us of the world we left behind.

We also had the clothes we were wearing when we escaped the sinking ship: long pants, button-down shirts, Mrs. Laghari’s blue gown. Perhaps the material will prove useful.