u 
Our amid s hip cabin was a snug fit for the seven of us, but all the 
more intimate for nibbing elbows, telling fish tales, talk of navigational 
hazards, and of the Boca de Paila can® over which Emmett presided on the 
mainland. Quite happily we had cos® to dessert and coffee, but just 
as the canned peaches were being passed, the gentle rhythm of the 
ship's riding at anchor was suddenly broken. From out of nowhere, It 
seemed, utterly without warning, a fiercely bitter gal© driving shore- 
ward bore down on us, one of those violent gusty westerlies with 40 -mi le- 
an-hour or better winds, a blow such as the native people hreaboute 
call u "bonanza . " 
Desert and coffee were forgotten in the urgency and commotion of the 
moment. The heaving and straining of Gowan ' s plexiglass twin-outboard 
threatened ary moment to enap its painter. There was not a second to lose. 
Without as much as by -your-leave , Gowan and Halik tumbled aboard their 
light motorboat , east off, and scudded down the coast for Caleta Bay, 
the only natural small boat shelter on the island, 4 miles to the south, 
shallow but safe and landlocked . 
Aboard the schooner, we too had to be on the Jump. There was the 
engine to start , and a dragging anchor, and two dinghies to get aboard. 
The violent on-shore gusts of wind threatened us with the same dire fate that 
a similar squall. Just a few months before, had meted out to an older and 
larger schooner now piled up with broken back on the shoals between our 
insecure anchorage and the shore. In calmer weather that grim reminder serves 
as the aquatic playground of the local youngsters. They love to swing out, and 
up on a line hanging from the masthead, to plummet down into the sea. 
