Adam wound up staying with Audrey for an extra day while they packed up the rest of her apartment and loaded her car. On her last morning she dropped him off at the Knick-Knack, gave him a heartfelt kiss, and got back in the car to head for Toronto.

It was very disappointing for Adam. He was pretty sure by now that, like Carolyn, any hope of Audrey joining him on the Moonshadow for an extended period was pretty well gone, which was a shame, since he liked her a lot – more than any other woman he’d spent time with. They shared a lot of interests, and those they didn’t share they at least appreciated in the other. They were comfortable with each other, in bed and out, and in the weeks he’d been with her she’d brought a lot to his life, especially with her friendliness and outgoing nature that quickly made friends of anyone they happened to meet. He was going to miss that, and miss it a lot.

Once Audrey’s taillights were out of sight, there wasn’t much for him to do but get back on the Knick-Knack and point it north. It was still a long haul to get back to the truck and trailer at Jacksonville, and he wanted to be there well before the middle of the month. He still had to get back to Michigan with the Knick-Knack and wanted to be at Winchester Harbor when the crane showed up to put the Moonshadow in the water.

As he sailed the Knick-Knack out into the Indian River and headed north on the Intracoastal, he couldn’t get over the feeling that the trip was over with, and all that was left to do was to get back to Jacksonville to get on with the next thing. If he’d had Audrey with him, it would have put a totally different spin on things, even though he knew he was running out of time.

The Knick-Knack seemed lonelier than ever as he headed up the waterway. He thought he’d gotten used to cruising alone, and on the trip southward he had been pretty satisfied with it, but having her with him had made the last six weeks or so just incomparably more fun. He knew he’d be very happy to have her with him on the Moonshadow; it would be considerably better than being by himself – but the more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed like it wasn’t going to happen, at least for any length of time.

Very quickly the trip became one of getting it over with so he could get on to the next thing. He started early in the morning and only stopped to top off his fuel tanks. When it got dark he usually found quiet places to anchor for the night so he could be on the move again as it got light the next day.

That meant he spent a lot of time sitting at the tiller and thinking, and somewhere on the trip north his thoughts crystallized a little toward taking the trip to Blanche Tickle, and mostly for a negative reason. It was beginning to seem pretty likely that whichever he did, he would be making the trip alone. As big as the Moonshadow was, it didn’t seem like the best idea to be heading off into waters as tight and treacherous as the Thirty Thousand Islands without having someone along who knew what they were doing. He probably would have been willing to risk it in the smaller and lighter Knick-Knack, but what was the point of having the bigger boat if he wasn’t going to use it?

That didn’t mean he might not be willing to take the Moonshadow up there in future years, if he could find a sailing companion. Even though he’d enjoyed some good times with the Knick-Knack, especially the last few weeks with Audrey, it had only been a stopgap solution and his time with it was coming to an end. He was looking forward to making the larger and more comfortable boat his more or less permanent home, at least for the next few years. After that, well, who knew? The future was fuzzy, after all; three years ago, when Matt had still been alive, he would never have dreamed he’d be facing this decision at all.

He had to face facts: it seemed likely that he was going to be spending most of his time alone on the Moonshadow. That was the way to bet it, even though he thought he might as well put some time into finding a companion to share at least part of the trip with him. If Audrey didn’t go with him, which he had to believe she wouldn’t, perhaps Carolyn would be up for going with him for a few weeks. Or, possibly someone else; Beverly was a possibility, after all.

Even pushing hard it took him several days to get back to Jacksonville, but one afternoon he came up the bayou to Sid’s Boat Yard with the sails down and the Honda pushing him. He discovered the Rag Doll was still sitting there where it had been two months before, and it looked a lot better than it had then. Amanda had clearly put a lot of work into it, and he wondered a little if she’d even had it out of the slip in that time.

He wasn’t surprised to find Amanda there and working on the boat, but her father was there with her. “Hey there, stranger,” Jake called as he started to idle into the empty slip next to the Rag Doll. “Fancy meeting you here. Did you have a good trip?”

“Better than I expected,” Adam replied, although he decided to keep to himself the fact that the reason for his statement was that a woman had been with him so much of the time. “It sure beat sitting around the apartment and watching the snow fly.”

“Surprisingly enough, we didn’t get a lot of that,” Jake replied as he stepped onto the pier to get the lines from the Knick-Knack. “It’s been the warmest winter I can recall. The harbor only iced over once and then it was just a skim. It was back to open water in a couple of days.”

“It sounds as if you’ve been back, then,” Adam replied, tossing him a line.

“Yeah, I was back for about a month so Rachel could come down and help Amanda out some herself,” he replied as he caught the line and snubbed it to a dock post. “She wasn’t real hot about the idea of me being down here all winter and leaving her up there to freeze her butt.”

“So how’s it coming with the Rag Doll?”

“Getting there. Slowly, but getting there. We won’t quite have it licked when we have to head back north in a few days, but we should have it to the point where Amanda will only have piddly stuff to do when she gets back down here next winter. I haven’t made up my mind if I’m going to come back down to help her with it or not.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see him down here,” Amanda grinned. “I think he likes getting away from the cold weather. That’s why he and mom have come down here and used the Winter Haven for a month or so each year in the past.” Adam knew that Jake and Rachel owned a boat a little larger than the Knick-Knack with several other couples; they kept it on a trailer in the summer and only used it in the winter.

“Didn’t use it at all this year,” Jake smiled. “We wound up spending too much time on this thing, but it’s going to be a hell of a boat when it gets done. So how did the Knick-Knack work for you?”

“Surprisingly well. It gets very cramped inside, but I got used to it after a while. I picked up several things I’d like to do to the Moonshadow if we can before I head down the lakes with it.”

“Depends on what it is,” Jake replied. “Tell you what. I’m tired of messing around with this thing today. We’re going to get it up on the hard in the next couple days, give the hull a good cleaning, and that’ll be that for the winter. Let’s all sit down and have a beer. You can tell us about your trip, and tell me what you have in mind for the Moonshadow.”

It took them a while to get through everything that had happened in the past two months. Adam went over the list he had of changes to make to the Moonshadow, and Jake said it wouldn’t be any problem to do before Adam took the boat down the lakes for the start of his journey. In the interests of hurrying things along, Adam agreed to stick around Sid’s for a few days to help with the work on Amanda’s boat; it would get Jake back north that much sooner.

Two days later the Rag Doll was lifted from the water by an ancient and arthritic crane that looked like the brother of the one up in Blanche Tickle. As expected, the Rag Doll had a huge encrustation of marine growth several inches thick. Adam and Amanda were three days cleaning the hull down to the bare fiberglass; it would remain like that for the summer, and next winter Amanda would have to apply a fresh coat of anti-fouling paint and do a few other minor things before the boat went back in the water.

Finally they were done. Jake and Amanda helped Adam get the Knick-Knack back on the trailer and get the mast down and packed for travel. Adam hadn’t been clear on what he was going to do with the boat for the summer; he probably had no further use for it, and it was pointless to leave it sitting around Frenchtown Harbor, especially if he were going to be out sailing somewhere. Jake suggested that he bring it up to Winchester Harbor where he could keep an eye on it, and possibly sell it; it sounded like a good idea to Adam.

The next day Adam got on the road for Michigan, towing the Knick-Knack behind the pickup; Jake and Amanda would be following in a day or two, once they got done with getting the Rag Doll ready for the months of storage it faced.

As on the way down, it was a long, slow trip and Adam didn’t want to push very hard. A day out from home Jake passed him with a honk and a wave; a few minutes later he got a similar treatment from Amanda.

Adam couldn’t go right to Winchester Harbor; he had things to do around home, especially at the company. He didn’t have a good place to park the rig at the apartment, so decided that the parking lot at Frenchtown Harbor was the next best choice. The manager was willing to let him leave the Knick-Knack there for a few days, especially when he was told that Adam would need a slip for a few days later in the spring.

There were a few things that needed to be done at Caldwell-Deerfield after his long absence, but not very many. Over the past several months Adam had twice had to have phone conferences with Bob, and once had to sign some papers faxed to Florida, then fax them back. But for the most part he was learning to keep his fingers off the company, much more so than his father had done. Bob was a competent executive and there wasn’t much need to look over his shoulder. There were a few other chores that had to be done, along with some shopping, which included a visit to the marine store for some pieces needed for the changes he wanted to make to the Moonshadow.

For once, Adam didn’t bother with the car swap; the pickup could take him where he needed to go so he used it. There wasn’t any point in having two vehicles anymore, and the car was getting to be an unneeded extra. Although he didn’t do anything about it right then, Adam made up his mind to see about selling it when he was back in town. He also did put some thought into getting rid of the apartment; he’d used it very little in the last few months, and expected to be using it even less in the next year, possibly not at all after he left on the Moonshadow. Perhaps he could put a few things in storage and let the lease go, he thought; it was something he had to consider, but again, not this time. But in a couple of months it would be even more unnecessary.

After only three days there wasn’t much left to do in town; Adam packed some extra clothes for the cool spring, went back down to Frenchtown Harbor for the Knick-Knack, and started north. By the end of the day he was back in his motel room at the Channel Stop, a place that had more or less become his second home. Jake had finished the work he’d intended to do on the Moonshadow and left the boat outside on the cradle it had been on all winter. Adam parked the Knick-Knack right next to it, as close as he could get, with the intention of simplifying the transfer of gear and fittings from the old boat to the new one. Moving things over took most of a day, and it took another day to give the old boat a good cleaning and get it ready to be put on sale.

It was with a touch of sadness that Adam hooked up the Knick-Knack one last time, towed it around behind Jake’s boat shed and put a “For Sale” sign on it. Although the boat had come as a bit of a surprise to him, he’d learned a great deal on it in the less than a year he had owned it, and had some good sailing and good adventures with it. He could only hope that the bigger boat would work out as well for him.

By then Jake and Amanda were busy getting the charter boats ready for the summer. This summer would be different for them, since Amanda was now old enough for the license she needed to be a part-time captain on one of the fishing boats, and she’d gotten it over the winter while she’d been in Jacksonville. She was excited about that, and could hardly wait for fishing season to open.

While he was working on the Moonshadow, Adam was also doing what he could to help Jake get the other boats ready to go in the water for the summer. But they also took the time to make some serious plans about the things that Adam wanted to do to the boat before he took off on his long journey.

At the head of the list was a folding Bimini top that could be extended over the cockpit to shade the sun, especially when sitting at anchor. Adam and Audrey had spent some uncomfortable afternoons in the Florida winter sun without one, and at times had rigged an arrangement of tarps to keep the sun off them. After looking at some catalogues, Adam and Jake had settled on one that looked like it could work. It could be partly erected to serve as a dodger to deflect water from the cockpit when they were running hard to windward in large seas, something that also had been a nuisance on the Knick-Knack. It would be a couple weeks before the unit arrived, but it should be easy to install when it got there.

Nearly as important, in Adam’s mind at least, were several improvements to the electrical system of the boat. The one on the Knick-Knack was rudimentary at best, and only used for powering running lights, anchor lights, and some inside lights. The old boat didn’t have any refrigeration except for ice boxes, which meant Adam had to go hunting for ice every few days, or do without. He’d had to do without on several occasions, which was a pain in the neck.

Having a refrigeration system on the boat would do away with all that, at least for some periods, but it would also mean a much more complicated electrical system. The one the Moonshadow had was adequate for what it had been, but it had depended on several deep-cycle batteries.

The problem now lay in charging the batteries. In the past the Moonshadow’s batteries had been charged by a generator driven by the inboard engine, but to keep the batteries up the engine would have to be run for several hours daily in warm weather, even if the boat was at anchor. The alternative was to get a slip and plug into shore power – but slips often weren’t available. He’d bought a small generating set which could be set up on deck, but the thing was noisy and a pain in the neck to use.

But Jake had an answer: solar cells. It turned out he’d used them for several years on the original Pixie, so had some practical experience with what he was talking about. “They don’t put out a huge amount of power,” Jake said. “But if you’re really careful about power use you ought to be able to get by without having to run the engine or plug into shore power to recharge your batteries at all.”

“That would be a huge improvement,” Adam agreed. “Especially since there are other gadgets on this boat that need power from time to time, too.”

“True, so having some idea of your power state is going to be important to you. Really, it’s about like being sure you have enough gas in your car to get you where you want to go with some reserve. So we need to put in a good enough monitoring and battery control system to serve as a gas gauge for you.”

The necessary bits and pieces were soon on order. They were not cheap, but Adam had enough money for them and figured they were worth the effort.

While he had some other minor chores he could do on the Moonshadow over the next few weeks, Adam put in time on things around Winchester Harbor, too. The process of getting the two charter boats in the water, along with the Pixie and the Moonshadow ate up most of a day with the crane that came in twice a year to do the job. But, when it was over with, Adam had his new boat on the water.

Even though it was still cool, he moved aboard it almost immediately, if for no more reason than to work out where everything would have to go and get used to it. The electric heater that had occasionally been used to keep him warm in Florida was welcome here as well. Living aboard slowly began to make more sense, and it was a good deal more comfortable than living aboard the Knick-Knack had been.

A milestone day came right after the first of April, the first day Amanda took out the Chinook as captain. To make her feel she was a little more in control, both Jake and Rachel stayed ashore, and had Adam go along at the helm of the big charter boat, with Amanda actually running things. It turned out to be a fair day for fishing on the big lake, if a bit less fair weather-wise; all of the three customers came back with at least one fish big enough to keep, although none limited out for the day. It wasn’t a bad start, by any means.

The weather was mixed for early April; there were some good days and some bad ones. On several occasions, if Adam didn’t have anything else to do he took the Moonshadow out by himself, just to get a little more used to it. As he had noticed last fall, it handled considerably differently from the Knick-Knack, and some practice helped him learn how to better sail it.

By the second week of April some of the parts needed for the additions to the boat had started to arrive. Adam could do some of the work himself, but Jake’s help was needed for several of them. Jake couldn’t work on it every day, and sometimes Adam had to fill in for him on the Chinook so Jake could work on the Moonshadow.

The work was done as they got into the last part of the month. By now Adam was starting to get antsy about getting going; he was aware that Matt had left Frenchtown Harbor to go down the St. Lawrence early in May, and it had still taken him a month of hard pushing to make it to Newfoundland. Adam didn’t want to have to push that hard but was aware that he couldn’t dally, either; he felt he needed to be done exploring Newfoundland by early August, so he could be heading south before winter storms set in. He also knew he needed to spend several days in the Detroit area before he got moving, so the sooner he could head down the lake, the better.

Finally the day came when he felt he couldn’t put it off any longer. At breakfast up at the Channel Stop that morning, he announced to Jake, Rachel, and Amanda that the time had come for him to get out of there.

“No reason you couldn’t today,” Jake told him. “It’s going to be gray and snotty out there and blowing a bit, but it’ll be out of the northwest so that shouldn’t give you a bad ride. I wouldn’t try to stay out on the lake overnight, though.”

“I hadn’t planned on it,” Adam said. “I looked at the weather, too. It’s supposed to be semi-crappy for a while, but I agree that it shouldn’t be bad enough to keep me from going. I’ll pull in somewhere tonight, probably south of Alpena, and then go from there. If the weather looks too bad, I can always pull in a little early and sit it out.”

“Just don’t overdo it,” Jake warned. “It’s easy to do, but you’ve been out in marginal weather enough that you have some idea of what you’re getting yourself in for.”

“Look, Jake,” Adam said. “I just have to thank you for all the help you’ve been, this year and all the years in the past. I’ll be keeping in touch, and I’ll be seeing you again sometime. I don’t know for sure when, and it could be a year or more.”

“Make sure you keep in touch,” Amanda grinned. “Maybe you can meet up with the Rag Doll down in Florida somewhere next winter.”

“I’d like that,” Adam told her. “With any kind of luck I might have another story or two to tell by then.”

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