Hanalei

It was to be a long beat to weather, Michael knew, tacking up the meridian at least a week before moving into the Trades. There little Drum would fly into a  northerly--lighter that year than others but enough to raise her windward amma--commencing her slow skate back across the Pacific. The journey home required an endurance peculiar to Michael, Cordelia and Drum. Their love had grown, Jade did not doubt. She understood the world aboard, knew the ways of the trimaran even if she did not understand those of her occupants. Every sailor is possessed by his vessel; he may finess the craft to the wind, but he is hers to protect and deliver.

It is May 10th, 1976. Drum is anchored in the darker blue water out some distance from the other boats. She is riding low at the waterline, holds packed for the voyage. Michael's on deck sweating the final details, hunched over some knot or cleat, crouched at the bow inspecting a shackle, or perhaps standing and peering up the mast for a fray in the halyards. Drum is a sound boat, a boat of sound, of soundness. Drum is a beat away from all that Jade has grown to speculate and conjure in these years of loss and recovery. She herself is a beat away from Drum.