Night aboard the Tara Lee

I wake up several times as the little fishing boat tosses in the waves, engine whining. Midnight, maybe, to crawl out of the lower bunk I’m sharing with Rick and monkey above the narrow walkway where Deven and Eldin are sleeping, to find the bathroom bucket and tiptoe back. Three in the morning, the crew is casting baited long line off the stern into the black void of the ocean, and I roll over. My legs mostly stretch out, but I have to keep from melting my pants on some hot pipes on the hull wall. Rick and I silently negotiate for foot space at the point of the triangular bunk. Someone makes coffee in the cabin above our faces. Ryan is asleep across the upper bunk, his 6’3" height doing him no favors in the cramped space.

When it gets light, I get up, eat something, then go back to bed. I'm so tired. Deven is drooping too, and I don't think Charley slept at all, manning the helm through the night.

I fall asleep but Rick wakes me up because we still don't know where we're going. Now it's a choice between camping in the rain for a week in Dundas Bay or spending that time at our cabin in Sunnyside. I pick Sunnyside, no question. We've barely slept since Friday night and I feel terrible. I don't have the physical resources to enjoy a bad weather adventure. I go back to sleep, counting my breaths against the rolling of the boat.

Waking up is deeply disorienting. In my head, in the dark, I've got the boat's direction flipped around. But the engine noise has gone down to idle, so I think I'm supposed to be ready: warmest clothes on, bag packed. In the daylight, I blink to register the mouth of Lisianski Inlet. We're here, and Bonnie is pulling up a skiff alongside: our ride to a familiar cabin with a fireplace, food cache, and beds.

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