Adam was willing to feel sorry for himself for a couple days, but let it go after that. After all, things were a lot better than they had been with Brittany a few years ago; it was close to night and day. He’d had new things to interest him, and developed new goals that could never have been developed when he’d been with her. The fact that he’d had more sex this summer than he’d had in the last twenty and more years only went to show it, and better sex than ever before only added to it. If nothing else, that told him that there was the potential for a life ahead of him.

Along in the middle of the week, with nothing in particular to do at the company, he decided to go out on the Knick-Knack just to think things out. In fact, he decided to stay gone for a few days to work on it, so he loaded some spare clothes and food, then headed for Put-In-Bay, a place he’d often heard talked about and even sailed past a couple of times, even though he’d never been there. It turned out to be a nice sail before a cool September breeze that carried with it the promise of an oncoming winter, and he enjoyed it.

Now that Labor Day was past, the season was essentially over with at the island resort. Many of the shops and bars were closed for the season, the crowds were gone, and there was room in the marina. He rented a slip, walked around town a little bit to say he’d been there, and sort of wished that he’d dropped in when the place was busy. He found one restaurant that was still open, had dinner, then walked back to the Knick-Knack to have a couple beers before he turned in for the night.

That night he gave some consideration to loading the boat back on the trailer and heading up to Georgian Bay again, but he rejected the idea about as soon as he had it. The weather was iffy up there this time of year; he’d learned that the year before with Jake on the Pixie. The fact that he’d be by himself hardly entered into the equation. This was not the time of year to be heading north for an extended stay, and it wouldn’t solve his long-range problem anyway.

The next morning a strong northwest wind was blowing, and weather reports told him that worse weather was to come. If he didn’t want to be stuck here, it was time to get moving. He was soon heading out of the harbor, sailing close-hauled to get back to the west. It was a thrilling ride, enough that it scared him a little; for the first time he reefed the mainsail, which was a bit of an adventure by itself until he got things back under control. He went flying across the western part of the lake, spray splashing over him as the bow crashed into the building waves.

He made it back to Frenchtown Harbor in good order, and after having made good time, and along the way a decision had been made – or at least, an idea generated, and right now that was as good as anything else.

The next morning he packed his bags for what could be a short stay or an extended one, called Marcia and Deke to let them know he’d be gone for a while and he’d check in if it went beyond a few days. With that done, he got in the sedan and headed for Winchester Harbor. It was clear he needed to discuss this with someone who knew what he was talking about, and Jake was really the best choice.

It had been a while since he’d talked with Jake, at least at any length. Mostly it was because of Carolyn, because he didn’t want to let anything slip about the time he’d been spending with her – or how it had been spent; it was what she had wanted, after all. But he’d just have to be careful about what he said, not that it was anything new; he’d had to be careful with what he said to various people for a couple years now, ever since the decision to divorce Brittany. Sometimes it had been hard to juggle who knew what, and who didn’t need to know it, but at least it had given him practice.

Four months had passed since he’d last been to Winchester Harbor, the trip to pick up the Knick-Knack. All in all it had worked out incredibly well; Jake’s advice had been good then, and he hoped it would be good again.

By mid-afternoon he was driving into the familiar parking lot of the Channel Stop. The place seemed fairly busy, but nothing like as busy as he knew it could get at the height of the summer; there were a few customers hanging around the snack bar, and Rachel was the waitress today. “Adam!” she said when she saw him. “We’ve been wondering what happened to you. How’s it been going with the boat you bought from Amanda?”

“Just fine, been having a good time with it,” he said. “But I can see why she didn’t want to keep it, either. Has she been having any luck on finding the boat she wants?”

“Not really,” she replied, leaning back against the counter. “She keeps looking, but let’s face it, she’s looking for everything for the price of nothing. The boats that she likes are way out of her price range, and the boats she can afford are either pieces of crap or not what she wants. So I guess she’s not going to be sailing south this winter.”

“Sorry to hear that,” he said. “I know she was getting a little antsy about it.”

“You think it was bad last spring, you ought to see her now. I’ll tell you what, she’s been searching up and down the East Coast on the Internet. I think she’d be just as happy to find a fixer-upper down south somewhere and spend the winter working on it.”

“At least it would be warm. When you look at it like that, maybe it’s not such a bad idea.”

“I agree, she might have a point, although she wouldn’t have her dad around to help her rebuild a boat this winter. But it’s all air right now, nothing is settled. So what brings you up here?”

“Actually, just to get away for a while. I need to talk to Jake a bit.”

“He and Amanda are out on the Chinook,” Rachel reported. “Jake is letting her be the de facto captain while he just sits back and steers the boat. They’ve limited out three days out of the last five they’ve been out together, so it must be working. I don’t think they did it today, it’s pretty rough out there and I saw them head back in half an hour or so ago, so they ought to be up here pretty quickly. Can I get you anything?”

“Yeah, how about a burger, a cola, and an order of fries? I haven’t gotten around to eating lunch yet. I just didn’t feel like stopping for it.”

“Sure, I’ll get it going for you. I’m handling the place myself this afternoon. It usually doesn’t get very busy in the afternoons this time of year.”

She headed back to get his order going, while he settled in at one of the tables, feeling better already. The Lewis family rarely had to worry about what to do next, except maybe in the depths of winter; maybe he could take some inspiration from them.

Rachel was soon back with his order. She sat down at another chair at the table and said, “It’s good to be off my feet for a while. It’s finally slowed down to where I can get time to relax. So how long are you up for?”

“Don’t know yet,” he said. “Probably a few days, but there’s no way of telling.”

“Well, there’s no problem finding space in the motel for you. Things are starting to slow down for the season now.”

Adam was just finishing his burger when Jake and Amanda showed up in the snack bar. “Good grief, what a day,” Jake said as he walked in the door. “Total waste of time on everybody’s part.”

“Did you catch anything?” Rachel asked.

“Just totally skunked. Too rough, we caught a few on the fish finder pretty shallow but everything is all roiled up. All the barfing going on didn’t help anything, either. It’s supposed to be worse tomorrow, and I think I’m just going to call up and cancel now before we waste any more time. I don’t think I want to go through another day like that twice in a row, anyway.”

“That’s probably not a bad idea,” she agreed.

“I think so,” Jake replied. “Anyway, hello, Adam. Good to see you again. What brings you up here?”

“Mostly I wanted to bounce a couple ideas off you, but there’s no rush.”

“Well, I’m always good for listening, but whether my replies make any sense or not is another question. Have you heard anything from Mary and Matty?”

“I was up to see them about a month ago,” he reported. “That, of course, is news I don’t want to go any further than you three. They all are doing fine, and the art colony project is going pretty well.”

“I’ve heard a little about that, but not enough to make sense of it.”

Adam spent the next few minutes telling them about the art colony, the new sewer system, and about his getting to sail the Mary Sue – just passing along the news to someone he knew he could talk to about it was something of a relief. “Well, it’s good to know things are going good for them,” Jake said after Adam summed up the story. “I’d like to get up there again but I don’t see how I can do it till the salmon season is closed.”

“I’m sure she’d be glad to see you. The place has changed a little, and I think for the better.”

“Adam,” Amanda asked. “How’s that boat I sold you working out for you?”

“Just fine. I’ve been out with it any number of times, and last month I trailered it up to Georgian Bay and spent a couple weeks poking around here and there. There are sure a lot of places to poke around. You could blow a summer at it easily.”

“Didn’t it get a little cramped?” she asked.

“Well, yes, but I tried to overlook it. That’s such a good boat for a place like that it wasn’t hard to do. But you were right, it isn’t a boat for long-term cruising. You might have been able to get along with it better than I would, but after a couple weeks it felt good to get home, too.”

“So you like the cruising life, huh?” Jake smiled. “I sort of thought you might, especially after we went to the North Channel last fall.”

“Yeah, I do. In fact, that’s the big thing I wanted to talk to you about. You’ve told me that fall is a good time to look for boats, and I’m thinking about looking.”

“It is a good time for it, but a lot of the boats you’re probably interested in are going to be taken out of the water and going up on the hard for the winter pretty quick. But after a summer on that boat, I’ll bet you have some good ideas about what you want next.”

“Some ideas, true. Whether they’re good ones or not, I can’t tell. I want a boat that’s, oh, about the size of the Pixie, give or take. It needs to be big enough in the cabin that I could live aboard for an extended period, maybe with someone with me, and it needs to be comfortable enough that I don’t feel like I’m camping out in a fiberglass tent like I do in the Knick-Knack. It needs to be simple enough and set up so I can single-hand it if I have to. It would be nice if it was a long-keel boat like the Mary Sue, with a lot of ballast so it doesn’t bounce all over the place and roll down to the rail in more than ten knots of wind. And, realistically, it needs to be a boat I could go offshore in if I felt like it.”

“Sounds like you have some pretty ambitious plans.”

“I can’t call them plans at this point, but Mary made the suggestion I might like to sail up to Blanche Tickle someday, and well, I’m thinking I need a boat capable of that. And then, maybe if I do it, I could work my way down the East Coast to Florida or something. But that’s just kicking it around, it’s not like I have plans to do it. I don’t think I need a new boat, but I can afford to spend money on a good one.”

“Adam, Dad,” Amanda piped up. “That sounds just like the Moonshadow.”

“You might have a point there,” Jake said. “I haven’t seen the boat but I sure remember how much you were lusting after it.”

“What’s this?” Adam asked.

“It’s a boat I looked at over in Traverse City a month or so ago,” Amanda told them. “It’s a Walton 36, kinda like the Pixie, a bit bigger but built and fitted out a little more for offshore. Actually I didn’t go over to look at it but instead at a Cape Dory that turned out to be an overpriced piece of shit, but the Moonshadow was in the next slip, and as long as I was there the broker gave me the nickel tour. It looked like a real good boat, and it was really a fairly good price for what it is, but there was no way in hell I could afford it.”

“Sounds like it might be a possible,” Adam smiled.

“Yeah, it might be,” she replied. “I’m not a marine surveyor like Dad is, but I know a little about boats and it seemed to be in real good shape. The guy said it was set up for a couple who mostly sailed by themselves, and had hankerings to go to the Caribbean, but they never got to do it. It’s a touch on the old-fashioned side, and doesn’t have every electronic gadget known to man like some of the stuff we see coming in here. I’d have bought it on the spot if I could have afforded it, because it’s just about the boat I’m looking for.”

“Might be worth a look,” Adam smiled. “If you guys aren’t going out fishing tomorrow, would you be up for a run to Traverse City?”

“Sounds better than going out in the Chinook, getting blown all over the place, and watching the customer’s asses as they hang over the side to puke,” Jake smiled. “But maybe we better call over there and make sure this boat is still in the water, and not on the hard already. I guess I’d better go make some phone calls. Amanda, what was that place in Traverse City, anyway?”

She told him the name of the brokerage, and he said he could look it up, and headed to the back to use the phone there. “Adam, I’m really glad the Knick-Knack worked out well for you,” she said. “When I bought it I was thinking about doing something like Dad and Mom did when they had the original Pixie years ago. But after I got it I started to realize it would restrict me to coastal waters and wouldn’t be that comfortable anyway.”

“So how’s the search for a new boat been going?”

“Not at all well, but that’s not surprising. I’ve checked out a few, but there always has been something wrong with them, usually overpriced for what they are. I’m really on a pretty tight budget, although I’m better off now than I was when I bought the Knick-Knack. If I don’t turn up something pretty quickly, I’m probably going to head south when the season is over with anyway. There’s bound to be the right boat somewhere.”

“Heading south, with or without a boat, has to be warmer than spending the winter in Winchester Harbor.”

“That’s my thinking. It’s getting a little too late to be sailing south anyway, even if I found the right boat in the next ten minutes. And besides, if I did find a boat in the next ten minutes I’d probably have to spend all winter working on it. If I have to do that, I’d just as soon do it where it’s warm.”

“You might have an idea there,” he grinned. “And I’d guess you have an advantage over me in that you know what you’re doing around boat work anyway.”

They talked for a few minutes about what she wanted in a boat. Actually, the list she had was pretty close to Adam’s, except that she was on a very tight budget, and didn’t mind the thought of having to fix up a boat that wasn’t too badly decayed. Adam wouldn’t have minded spending a winter working on a boat if he had to, since it would give him something to do – but at the same time he thought he’d really rather not do it if he could find something else to do.

Jake came back after a while. “It’s still in the water,” he reported. “The guy said it was going onto the hard in the next few days, though, so I guess we caught them in time. I got a few more details about the boat, and while it sounds like a good deal I don’t think it’s something you’d want to buy sight unseen. Anyway, I dumped the trip for tomorrow. Let’s plan on getting an early start, since if this boat looks like a keeper I probably should go through it pretty thoroughly.”

They spent a fun evening sitting around the Lewis living room, just talking about this and that. Adam told them of some of his adventures in the Knick-Knack, but had to be careful to keep from involving Carolyn. They went to bed early, and after a quick breakfast in the snack bar, the three of them were on the road very early.

It was a couple hours’ drive over to the brokerage in Traverse City, and they got there just as the place opened up. The broker was one of those salesmen who think they have to run their mouths all the time to make a sale, and it was irritating, but the Moonshadow at first glance looked like it had a lot of possibilities. A quick sail around the harbor indicated that the boat handled well, even though it wasn’t a long enough trip to find out everything they would have liked.

“Not a bad boat on the surface,” Jake summed up. “And it would probably do about what you want it to do. But the devil is in the details, and there are a few things I’ve noticed I’d be concerned about. I sure wouldn’t buy it without a thorough marine survey.”

“I can call in our surveyor,” the boat salesman offered. “He probably could get to it the first of the week.”

“I can call in my surveyor,” Adam smiled, a little tired of the continual talking from the salesman. “And unless he needs a cup of coffee, he can get to it right now.”

“Look,” the salesman said. “Maybe we don’t need to go to the effort. If you want to go without a survey, I can knock off five thousand dollars.”

“Hey,” Adam said. “I’ve been given that line of bull by experts, and you just told me it really needs a survey. I’m definitely interested in this boat, but I want Jake to go through it thoroughly. When he’s done, we can sit down and talk price.”

Adam learned a lot about boats in the next few hours, because Jake and Amanda went through the boat inch by inch, finding several things he didn’t like, pointing out to Adam why he didn’t like them, and gave a cost estimate to fix them. That lasted up through lunch; they told the talkative salesman they wanted to see it out of the water, and arranged for a travel lift to take it out of the water for a while that afternoon. After lunch, Jake went over the boat outside as well, adding to his list. At least the salesman wasn’t hovering around all the time, and that made things go better, but he was around when Jake finished up and told him to have the boat put back in the water.

“So what do you think?” the salesman said, still selling hard. “Pretty good boat, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s a pretty good boat,” Jake told him. “But if you don’t mind, I need to have a private word with my client.”

There was a chill wind blowing out there that day, and it felt good to get in the car. “So what do you think?” Adam asked.

“To be honest, it’s not a bad boat for the price, but there are things wrong with it he didn’t tell us about. Most of them are pretty minor. There are a couple soft spots in the deck where fittings have been put in and not properly bedded, but those can be fixed in a few hours.” He went on through a list of a dozen items, most of which he said were minor, but then dropped the bomb. “The engine is a piece of shit,” he said. “It’s an Atomic 4, which was a good engine in its day, but this one hasn’t had its day in a long time. It won’t even turn over, and I tried it. Worse, it’s gas, and I don’t like gas inboards on a boat. If I were the one buying it, I’d just yank the damn thing out of there. It’s ballast, nothing more than that. I’ll bet it hasn’t worked in years. That’s probably why there’s an outboard motor mount on the stern that looks like it’s been used a bit, even though there’s no outboard on it.”

“What would you do for a motor?”

“The best bet would be to replace it. There’s a small Volvo diesel that will drop right into the spot left by an Atomic 4, and that would get you away from all the hazards you get with gas engines. Replacing it would be a hassle since there’s not a lot of room to work, and the Volvo wouldn’t be cheap, either.”

“Is that something you can do? And deal with the other stuff on your list?”

“Oh, yeah, no problem. I don’t have any major boat projects lined up for the winter, unless I have to spend most of the winter down in Gator Breath, Florida working on whatever piece of crap Amanda winds up buying. I figured I’d find myself working on her boat anyway, and it is warmer than Winchester Harbor. I’ll have to yank the stick out of this thing to get it inside, but I can do some of the work around the edges.”

“So you’re saying buy it?”

“It’s not a bad boat for the price. You can do a lot worse. But if I were you, I’d beat that dead engine around the ears of that smart-ass young punk just on general principles. Mention that soft deck, too. If you can’t beat him down by ten big ones, you’re not half trying.”

“I’ll bet I can,” Adam grinned. “He may think he’s tough, but I’ll bet he’s never negotiated with Ford over a parts contract.”

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