(A Rescue)
Donna wetted a finger and stuck it up in the air. Regardless of satellites and everything else sometimes it was still the easiest and most certain way to determine which way the wind was coming from. She turned the tiller.
"Coming about," she called. Penny, Raj, Howard and to her surprise Sheldon sprang to the jury-rigged sail, pulling the ropes to bring the makeshift boom and sail to the other side of the boat. True Sheldon at first pulled the wrong way, barely dodged the boom and nearly fell overboard but he was trying. Perhaps Amy had a good talking to him. Perhaps he was starting to accept that this tiny universe at least did not revolve around him. But time would tell and in the meantime they needed to close on the craft Leslie had spotted.
It took about half an hour to reach the capsized boat. Leonard balanced on the bow, wielding a boat hook. Numerous lines and pieces of spars bobbed in the water around the upside down hull. Just about everyone else lined the deck, keeping an eye out for debris that might endanger their own boat.
"Got it," Leonard called out as he snagged a line that seemed to be wrapped firmly around the other craft's bow. Penny rushed to his side as the sail came down and they gently pulled until the two boats gently touched, with only a couple of old tires that had amazingly not been torn from their lashings during the storm used as bumpers to keep them apart.
The "John B" was longer than the other boat so Donna was able to look at the stern of the overturned derelict. She shook her head in sadness.
"What is it?" asked Bernadette who was closest to her.
"That name, the 'Yet Again'. It was the boat that was next to us at the marina. I guess they got out as well but they didn't ride out the storm last night."
The two hulls pumped together as the stern drifted away slightly, bringing the bows to touch for a moment. Donna opened her mouth to tell Leonard to be more careful and then shut it without saying a word for two reasons.
The first reason was that Leonard was trying as hard as he could and yelling wasn't going to help. It wasn't like Sheldon. He often needed to be brought back to the real world and his feet placed on the ground, although Amy was working very hard on that. Besides, she admitted to herself. Sometimes it was really fun pricking Sheldon's bubble of self-confidence when it was completely out of place.
The second and over-riding reason she shut up was because no sooner had the sound died away from the hulls tapping together than a muffled cry for help was heard through the bottom of the other craft.
"Oh my GOD," gasped Penny. "There's someone alive in there!"
For a few minutes there was chaos on board the "Sloop John B". Things calmed quickly though. The larger boat was slowly and oh so carefully pulled in tightly against the other one and secured. Penny made sure that the knots on the ropes fastening the two together could be released in a hurry if ("God forbid," she thought) the other craft started to sink. Under Howard's direction a few salvaged pieces of wood were used to construct a make-shift gangway between them. Once completed Penny and Bernadette crawled out on it to the other hull.
Penny tapped carefully on the slippery wood. "Hello?"
"We're here!" came a woman's voice. "We're in the cabin."
It turned out that the boat was indeed the one that had been docked beside theirs at the marina. The woman and her two sons had survived the storm but had failed to crest the wave and been capsized. Fortunately that had happened right at the crest so they had not been pulled under.
"But something seems to be blocking the cabin door. It opens out and we can't move it but a few inches. No more water floods in so apparently the air level is the same there as in here. But there air in here will only last so long. We were debating trying to cut through the hull somehow when we heard you."
"Don't do anything yet," Donna said. She rummaged through the lockers, coming out with one of the underwater flashlights that she and Penny had used before and a couple of emergency breathers. "Let's take a look."
"Not you," Penny said firmly. "You are too valuable. Without you this ocean becomes shit creek and all of us will be up it. I'll go."
"No you won't either. You're a brand new if unexpected mom," demurred Leslie. "I'll look. I'm the smallest and if there's anything that can be done I'll get a couple of the guys."
Donna nodded reluctantly. "Okay. Be careful. You have about fifteen minutes worth of oxygen in this canister. Watch out for the sail and cables. DON'T get stuck."
Leslie nodded. The petite physicist stripped down to her bra and panties and slipped into the water off the stern. She ducked under with the breather and a pair of goggles. Surfacing a few moments later she gave a thumbs up to indicate all the equipment was working. Bubbles marked her path until she went under the other boat. Everyone in unison chewed their nails, fidgeted or other wise acted nervously for the about five minutes that seemed like no more than an hour or two until Leslie surfaced again.
"Got it!" she called triumphantly. "A spar had got pinned across the hatch but when I pushed it down it slid from the rope holding it and drifted off. They should be good."
Donna leaned down while Penny and Bernadette passed on the good news to the trapped trio. She handed Leslie a belt with a wicked looking saw-backed knife in a scabbard attached to it. "Just in case you have to cut something. You never know when those ropes will drift BACK to where they were." After she had buckled it on Donna gave her another breather. "Shuttle them one at a time," she requested.
It wasn't long before Leslie appeared again, this time with a woman in tow. Donna recognized her, it definitely was the same woman who had called they were waiting for her husband. Eager hands pulled her into the boat and rushed her below where Amy was waiting with a blanket and Sheldon with hot beverages that for once were exactly what was needed. In short order the small woman appeared twice more each time with a teenaged boy. Both were also shivering from their hours' long dunk in the half-flooded cabin.
The trio was deeply thankful to the whole crew and even Sheldon held still for a hug from Sheila, the mom, who grabbed him as the nearest rescuer. Their story turned out pretty much as Donna had suspected.
"After you drove off those people with your rifle the surge from the landslides hurled us out of the harbor too. We had one line still attached to the dock but the force of the water simply tore the deck cleat loose." Tears filled her eyes. "I never heard from my husband. I guess he's gone."
Sheila and both of her boys, William and Harry, were all pretty fair weekend sailors and had managed to get out into deep water and safety. They had ridden the storm but their electronics were not the match of the ones Leonard had installed in the "John B" and the towering wave had caught them by surprise. They had nearly made the turn into it but had been caught and carried for nearly an hour before the boat turned turtle.
"Strangely enough being carried that far was a good thing," Donna commented. "You apparently were well north of us and had you capsized then we never would have found you."
The group remained fastened to the overturned craft while the rescued threesome rested and even slept. Then it was time for a serious discussion.
"Obviously there is no way we can repair your boat. But there is no question about abandoning you," Donna hastily reassured the trio. "At the same time though your being on board puts a strain on our supplies, much less the living space we all need."
"Nothing can be done about the last thing," Leonard pointed out, "but we need to augment our supplies with anything we can salvage from your boat."
"Of course," said Sheila. "We weren't nearly as prepared for what happened as you were but when we realized that something terrible was happening and decided to flee in the boat we stocked the car with all the canned food and bottled drinks we could grab. When you opened that gate we were right behind you and the boys loaded it as I tried to get us cast off ready. And we always kept some supplies, water and staples like crackers and peanut butter and such, on board."
The group went to work. Free swimming now the guys cleared the entrance to the cabin. Sheila told them where items had been stored but admitted that it was obvious that the boat's capsizing had dislodged everything. Still, careful searching recovered a fair amount of still sealed food and water as well as other supplies such as batteries and yet another solar still which was added to the two already set up and going on top of the deck of the "John B". Booms, spars and an extra jib were saved.
The crowning achievement belonged to Howard though. After numerous trips and with exquisite care he managed to run a hose between the fuel tanks and siphon the wreck's diesel to refill their own fuel supply. He also managed to detach two propane bottles from the other craft's stove, giving them more to cook with themselves. Even Sheldon admitted that "Perhaps Engineering was not such an unimportant skill after all".
Once the salvage was complete everyone cleaned up as best as they could and sat down to eat. The discussion turned to pretty much the favorite subjects; was the apocalypse over and if so where should they go?
"Not to mention where we are," added Donna, she and Raj having lost complete track of where they were when the storm knocked out the boat's GPS.
"We need to gather information," Leonard said.
"But we need to charge the laptops' batteries and the satellite receiver first," commented Leslie. "Howard are the engine's batteries strong enough for that or would it be better to run the engine first?"
Howard considered the question for a minute before replying. "We ran the engine during the storm and the batteries should be nearly fully charged. On the other hand we now have nearly full fuel tanks so we could spare some if needed."
"Why don't you check the state of the charge and then monitor it?" Sheldon suggested. "If the draw reaches a point you begin to think it might compromise our ability to instantly start the engines than you can warn us."
Everyone starred at Sheldon who simply shrugged. The science group pitched in while the rest went to work on the boat and the supplies. Raj shortly had their position.
"My Lord we're THAT far south and west?" marveled Penny. "That storm blew us farther than we could have imagined.
"Far enough that heading for America doesn't seem to be an option," put in Leonard who with Sheldon and Leslie had been up linking with various satellites to observe as much of the Earth as they could. "The flooding of North America seems to have stopped in the west at the Sierra Nevada Mountains and in the East by the Appalachian chain although gaps in both allowed the water to penetrate much farther in spots. But the center of the country was devastated by the Yellowstone Cauldron eruption."
"And as for South America," said Leslie, "well, the Andes are about all that's left."
"How about New Zealand or Australia? We know Asia took a tremendous beating but how about Africa?"
"We can't tell for sure right now because we're limited to satellites we have a line-of-sight with since the ground repeater stations all seem to be gone but it looks like the devastation is less the farther south you go in the Pacific. The wiping out of South America came from earthquakes and waves from the Atlantic."
"So we continue west." Donna looked around at the assembled group. "Are we agreed?"
Nods came from everyone. Suddenly, amazingly Sheldon grinned, a grin with no condescension or superiority in it. He held Amy's hand with his left and pointed at Donna with his right in a familiar gesture to the rest of the guys.
"Make it so!"
As everyone sprang to raise the sails Howard had a passing thought. Maybe he wouldn't need to finish making that crossbow after all.
(To be continued)
(My thanks to Robert12774 for reminding me about the crossbow Howard was building "Just in case" during "The Monopolar Expedition".)