Legends of the Ghost Pirates by M.D. Lee

less
speed we seem to be moving. We're slowing down as the current nears
the end of its journey. It doesn't take too long before we're
harmlessly drifting almost at upper end of the cove.
    “We're safe now,” I call out. “Sara, see if you can
paddle us over to one of the other mooring balls.”
    Soon, it only takes a minute or two before we're
safely tied off again to the security of another mooring ball. Now
that we've stopped moving I begin to relax. It all happened so
fast; one minute we're out of the wind not moving, the next we're
in a crazy current shooting us straight for the rocks. And now here
we sit as if nothing had happened at all.
    Before we left Trent Harbor it never occurred to me
we'd need a way to get to shore. You can't just take a sailboat
like ours to the embankment; it'll get stuck on the bottom well
before getting close. Looking at the old dingy alongside our boat,
I realize we now have an easy way to get in. Maybe. Looking closer
at the rotting dingy, before we make it to shore, it may just
sink.
    What to do next? “We've got about an hour of
daylight left,” I call out to the girls. “Do you wanna go to shore
and do a little exploring? It's probably going to take all our time
just to figure out what 'Under the old man's nose' means.”
    Jo says, “I don't know about you, but I'm
starved.”
    “I'm pretty hungry too,” I say.
    Sara jumps below, and says, “Why don't I heat up a
can of beef stew. We can go to shore after we eat.” She pokes her
head back up and looks at me giggling. “And Fisher, just because
I'm cooking dinner doesn't mean I'm the head cook and cleaner.”
    While Sara's below heating up dinner, Jo and I are
sitting in the cockpit. I really don't have anything to say to her
and apparently she's got nothing to say to me, so we sit in silence
looking at the surrounding cove.
    Breaking the silence, I ask, “Can you hand me the
binoculars.”
    She pulls them from around her neck and gives them
to me.
    I put them to my eyes and have a look around. The
fog has cleared enough that I get a good view of the surrounding
shore. On this island there's not too much to look at. As far as I
can tell there are no trees. I wonder if that means in really bad
storms, ocean swells crash across the island taking trees with
them. Who knows. I also notice there are a few old lobster shacks
that could be abandoned. Back up the cove from where we came, one
of the shacks has a floating dock that, if needed, we could tie the
sailboat off to. Farther back toward the entrance, I get a good
view of the old Coast Guard life-saving station. That might be fun
to check out later. And past that I can see open-ocean with waves
crashing on the rocks. Beyond the rocks there are dark thunderheads
forming to the west silently approaching toward us. It's going to
be a wet and wild night.
    I put the binoculars down in my lap and look at Jo.
She's also looking at the surrounding shore. “That was a pretty
cool trick with the paddle,” I say.
    Not looking at me, just above a whisper, she says,
“Thanks.”
    “Where'd you learn to do that?” I ask.
    “I didn't.” She pauses for a moment. “I'm just good
at coming up with stuff like that.”
    Again, we sit in silence a little longer. I can
smell the beef stew coming up from the cabin which makes me even
hungrier. A couple of seagulls on shore cry out as they fight over
a crab.
    Jo turns and looks at me. “Fisher. Why don't you
like me?”
    Where did that come from? I'm about to say
something, but no words come out. I have no idea how to answer her.
I feel like I'm frozen in time and all I can do is look at her
watching me.
    “Dinners up!” Sara calls from below. Saved. I
quickly stand up, taking a quick glance at Jo, then climb down the
steps below.
    It's dark down here in the cabin, so I pull out some
matches and light the two oil lamps that are mounted on the sides.
With the yellow flickering light it gives a warm glow about the
cabin. When I sit down at