INNER PASSAGES

CHAPTER 1

They were all three up at dawn, inhaling the still, salt-laden air, gazing in delight at the pale sky overhead and listening to the scree of the gulls that circled 'round the masthead and swooped across the deck to land gracefully on the blue water. It was a perfect day to go to sea, even if, as in this case, it was not the Pacific Ocean, but only the Inside Passage. High over the dark green mountains behind them tendrils of golden-rose clouds hung suspended. Michael Tanner hummed a silent tune and bent his slender six foot frame over the bow of the Queen Anne. He hauled the dripping anchor out of the bottom and secured it to the rail. His bright yellow sea jacket rustled and sent nearby birds swirling up off the water. They quickly settled again, their round dark eyes ever watchful. Tanner went back along the deck of the Queen Anne to the mast where he hauled the mainsail taut. The little sloop slowly sailed away from Garden Bay on the British Columbia coast, her sail barely drawing in the almost non-existent breeze. Tanner dropped into the cockpit and grinned at the woman holding the tiller.

Alice George, graphic artist and long-time friend, grinned back. "Where away, O Captain, my Captain?"

"Just keep her pointed in that general direction." Tanner inhaled and the tang of fresh brewed coffee mixed with the sea air teased his nose. He glanced down the hatch and met the warm gaze of his wife, Elizabeth. She rose, like Venus from the sea, only here fully dressed and carrying a steaming mug of coffee in each hand. Tanner took the mugs.

Elizabeth brought her own mug and they settled on the cockpit cushions. Elizabeth Tanner -- Beth to her close friends and family -- leaned down and rubbed her ankle. Watching, Tanner remembered the day years ago, when she'd injured that ankle. He'd been in Redmond, making a final presentation to a potential client when a call had come from the hospital in Seattle. Mrs. Tanner had fallen and an ambulance had brought her to the hospital. It was feared her ankle was broken. Tanner had abruptly terminated the meeting to rush to her side, leaving a board room full of open-mouthed executives.

That story, along with others of a similar nature over the twenty years of their marriage, still made the rounds of the advertising community in King County and enhanced the reputation of Tanner and Associates. Beth straightened and shook her auburn curls. "Well, well. It looks like we may have a nice day. After breakfast, I'll bring the log up to date."

"Here," said Alice, "you know I hate steering. One of you take over and I'll go make breakfast."

Tanner smiled and shook his head, then reached for the tiller. Alice was game for any task on the little boat except steering. He waggled the tiller and glanced around. They were alone on the still water, Garden Bay still just off their stern. An hour later the day had changed.

"What's your course, Michael?" Beth called from her place at the table in the tiny main cabin of the Queen Anne, where she was writing in their trip log.

Tanner looked down at the top of her head and smiled. He always smiled when he looked at Beth. Tanner had two enduring loves in his life, his wife and his successful public relations agency. He looked at the compass fixed to the side of the cockpit in front of him. "Hey, Beth, we're only going over there." Tanner pointed west, over the bow. "No need to be so precise."

"C'mon, Michael, humor me. For the journal." Beth looked up through the hatch.

Tanner shrugged. "Well, toots, the compass says due west, give or take a point."

"Two-seventy degrees, right?"

"You got it." Tanner rubbed his head and ran his fingers through his hair. When they'd started across Malaspina Strait from Garden Bay, Texada Island was easily distinguishable. The distance wasn't great and they could even make out individual trees against the morning sky. But now the island was indistinct, a dark wavering mass. Mists rose and fell, sometimes obscuring the outlines of the distant shore. Clouds had moved in, changing the sky from blue to gray and driving away the sun and its warmth. Tanner dropped the sail and switched on the engine. With the fog, the light breeze had died away to nothing but occasional puffs. Now the Queen Anne puttered along at a steady pace in a gradually shrinking gray world.

Alice George appeared from below and flopped down beside Tanner. "Things getting a little boring up here, Mikey?"

Tanner sighed. "Just a little fog, nothing to worry about. But I'd rather sail than motor."

"Oh, I'm not worried." She waved a negligent hand. "I have complete faith in the two of you to get us to -- where?"

"Texada Island. We should be there in another three or four of hours at this pace. Less if we get some wind."

"What happened to all the scenic beauty, the grand sweeping vistas you promised me?" She waved her hand. "All I see here is fog."

"Sweeping vistas? We said that?" He laughed. "Hey, they're out there somewhere, you'll see." Tanner looked around. She was right. It was as if the fog -- dank and cottony -- had been waiting for their inattention. The hills and trees of Texada were entirely gone, as if wiped away by a giant hand. Now they were surrounded by unrelieved gray.

They were all natives of Seattle and fog in the city was common enough. But this fog was different, alarming in some way they couldn't quite describe. They'd encountered other natural phenomena as well that they hadn't bargained for. Tides.

The ocean tides were well known to people on seacoasts anywhere. The daily newspaper routinely published tide tables but before this sailing jaunt, the Tanners had never dealt directly with the immense power of the ocean. It wasn't just the moon-influenced rising and falling of the tides. Currents caused by the tides were often powerful, demanding forces. The force of a falling tide was something they'd discovered early in the trip. For hours, one day, they'd struggled trying to go against the tide outside Campbell River, but the engine wasn't big enough to get them back to port. There were warnings printed on their chart where small boats had been swamped when wind and tide opposed each other.

At home they'd never paid more than cursory attention to weather reports, but here on the sea, wind direction, temperature and the silent, stealthy, ocean currents became important factors in their daily lives.

They had planned to make an easy, short passage from Garden Bay to Lasqueti, a small island in the Strait of Georgia just west of Texada. According to their chart, there was a small deep harbor on the island's western side where they could anchor for the night. Since the beginning of their charter they'd been skirting the continental shore of the Inside Passage, skipping into the little bays and inlets, reveling in the scenery, and plucking fresh oysters off the tidal beaches. But Tanner wanted the experience of sailing on some big water. So they headed for Lasqueti.

Tanner wasn't worried, but he knew that if they missed the island, they'd face thirty-plus miles of open water before they reached shelter on Vancouver Island. On a good day, with air pollution blown off-shore and the sea mists burned away by a hot sun, it would be a grand trip with the huge white-capped crown of Mount Rainier dominating the southern horizon. They'd had such days, of course, when the thirty-foot Cal sliced through the chop with exhilarating speed, leaving a creamy white wake behind them. But not today. Today thick fog surrounded and blinded them. They couldn't see other boats on the water, and they couldn't be seen.

"Maybe we should turn back," said Alice.

Beth peered up at the masthead which sometimes disappeared in the overhead fog. At times their horizon was limited to mere feet. Everywhere they looked, there was fog. Silently, inexorably, it had swept down and turned a bright day of promise into a gloomy, dripping cocoon.

"God, it's getting thicker," Tanner murmured, peering ahead. "I can hardly see the forestay shackle at the bow and it's only thirty feet away." He tried to focus his hearing as well. Few pleasure boats would be out today, but the commercial traffic never stopped. He knew their little yacht would hardly be noticed if they ran afoul of one of the big freighters that traveled the Inside Passage.

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