The four of them sat around talking in the snack bar until well after closing time, then went across the parking lot to the Lewis house and continued talking. Adam was a friend, after all – and more than that, he was Amanda’s half-brother Matt’s stepfather; that made him an uncle or something although she’d never used the term with him. Adam had gone through some tough times following Matt’s death, then the death of his father a year and a half afterward, with a moderately nasty divorce coming between the two. He hadn’t had any interest in sailing until recently, but had grasped at it as a way to restore some interest to his life. It was very clear that he’d gotten good use out of the Knick-Knack, but it was also clear that he’d reached the limits of what the boat could do for him, too. A bigger, more capable boat seemed to be a good idea, and there was no question that he could afford it.

Days around the Lewis family started early, so it was well before midnight when both Adam and Amanda headed out to their rooms. The Lewis house was very small – it was limited by the lot size – so ever since she’d become a teenager Amanda had lived in one of the motel rooms in the off-season when the room wasn’t likely to be rented anyway. It gave her a bit of a feeling of being on her own; it wasn’t quite the real thing but was on the way since she didn’t have her parents looking over her shoulder as much as she would have if she’d been living in the crowded house.

All in all, she thought it was better than living in a college dorm, with all the hassles that would involve. Like her mother and father before her, Amanda had less than no interest in going to college, since it wouldn’t do anything to help her out with what she really wanted to do with her life, which was to run one of the family fishing boats. Perhaps, she thought, in the distant future she might wind up being the third generation to run the business. In the meantime, she was perfectly happy with the idea of working on the boats and at the Channel Stop part of the year, and having a few adventures in the off season – again, just like her parents had done.

She had good reason to believe that college wouldn’t do much good for her. The winter before last, she’d decided to spread her wings just a little bit. Shannon, a high school friend, had an apartment where she was attending a community college, and had lost her roommate. After some discussion, Amanda had moved in with her for a few months and got a job at a fast food joint to pay her share, and maybe put a few bucks in her boat fund with what was left over.

Although Amanda knew her way around short-order cooking – she was often in the rotation in the snack bar kitchen at the Channel Stop – working on a very mechanical and repetitive job with greasy fast food burgers and very little else just plain took the fun out of the job. Worse, she soon realized that she was working with several college graduates. Just what good had all the expense and effort of college done for them?

She had been overjoyed to have spring come, and with it the time to get back to work on the boats. She hadn’t even saved that much money over the winter, so all in all it hadn’t been worth the effort. She didn’t plan on making that mistake again.

Though she liked her family and liked Adam too, she was glad to be alone as she got her clothes off and headed for the shower. That was another lesson she’d learned from her winter of living with Shannon – while she didn’t think of herself as a loner, she’d discovered that she’d rather be alone than living with an incompatible roommate. It might have been better, she’d conceded to herself, if her roommate had been a guy, but based on the guys she knew it could easily have been worse, too. Several of the kids she’d gone to high school with were already married, and from what she heard through what was left of her old high school gossip net, some of those marriages weren’t going very well.

It was entirely possible, she reasoned, that she might get married sooner or later, but it was clear that she would want to be pretty careful about it. Along with that, she realized that whoever she married would have to be satisfied with a wife who spent her days on a charter fishing boat, rather than standing at a hot stove with a couple kids tugging at her jeans. At this point it was just something to think about, since she had no prospects of anything like that happening anytime soon. Other things came first, like sailing and having a little adventure in her life. Things like husbands and babies could come later if they came at all.

Once her shower was over she was soon in bed, feeling a little satisfied with herself. The Knick-Knack had worked well for Adam, so she hadn’t led him astray. She hoped that would be the case with the Moonshadow

The way the family rotation worked, the next day Amanda was scheduled to work the snack bar, rather than going out on the Chinook. However, her mother had given her a break on it, since Amanda had been the one to find the Moonshadow in the first place, with the stipulation that Amanda had to go and get the snack bar going in the morning for the few early morning breakfast regulars. It was a chore she had often done, even as a little girl on school days, so it was no big deal.

Adam was soon sitting at a table, working on a cup of coffee, but Amanda was a little too busy to talk to him very much. Still, he seemed excited to be thinking about the new boat he hadn’t seen yet. As it happened there was a bit of a slack time about the time her parents came in, so she joined Adam and them for a quick breakfast. Soon, her mother was left behind in the snack bar while the other three were on the road for Traverse City with the sun barely up.

The boat was about as she remembered it. While it was a little bigger than ideal for what she wanted, she sure wouldn’t have turned it down if she could get it for the price she’d paid for the Knick-Knack. That wasn’t going to happen, though; it was listed at what she thought was a fair price even though it wasn’t a small one.

Although the price was negotiable to a degree, Adam was interested in the boat enough to ask Jake to do a formal marine survey on it. The salesman, a rather talkative high-pressure sort, seemed a little deflated at that so it was clear that there were things wrong with the boat that didn’t meet the eye.

Amanda helped her father with the survey, of course; it wasn’t the first time she’d done it and she knew there were things that she could learn by helping out that would be useful the next time or whenever she bought a boat. There proved to be a number of little things wrong that would need to be fixed, but that was to be expected. The big thing they discovered, though, was that the inboard gas engine, an old Atomic 4, was worthless for anything but ballast – it was thoroughly frozen up and hadn’t been used for years, as evidenced by a well-worn outboard motor mount on the stern. That, of course, was something that the salesman hadn’t mentioned.

Watching Adam beat the salesman around the ears with the report on the dead engine was an education in itself. While Amanda’s father may have known his way around boats, Adam had a talent for negotiation; by the time it was done the price of the boat had been beaten down considerably and from what Amanda could tell the salesman wasn’t sure what had hit him.

“Well, that was short and sweet,” Adam said as the three of them drove off after he’d made the deal on the boat.

“It took all day, what with everything, the survey and negotiation and all,” Amanda protested.

“That’s the point,” Adam shook his head. “I expected I’d be half the winter finding a boat and buying it. It almost takes the fun out of looking, but I think the Moonshadow is going to be everything I hoped it would be. The motor concerns me, though.”

“Like I told you,” Amanda’s father said, “the best thing to do is to yank it out of there and replace it with a diesel.”

“I guess I have to defer to your expertise on that,” Adam said. “That’s something you can do this winter, can’t you?”

“Yeah, it’s not a big deal. It’ll take a few days but I ought to have all winter, unless Amanda decides to buy something that’s going to take a ton of work.”

“That involves finding it first,” Amanda pointed out. “I sure haven’t been having much luck. Of course, it’s hard to go prowling around boatyards when I’m working most days.”

“That’s what the Internet is for,” her father smiled. “That’s how you found the Knick-Knack, after all. But we’re going to have to get the boat back over to Winchester Harbor for me to work on it at all, and the season is getting pretty late. Adam, considering that, maybe it would be a good idea if you didn’t try single-handing it back. After all, it’s going to be a new boat for you, so it’d be a good idea to have an extra set of hands just on general principles.”

“I don’t disagree in the slightest. It’s a lot bigger boat than the Knick-Knack and I’m going to be a little intimidated by it until I get used to it. Can you go with me?”

“I’d better not. The only reason I could get away today is that the weather sucks and I cancelled the charter for today. It’s easing up some and I’m going to be busy. On the other hand, I could probably get along without Amanda for a day or two. It’ll involve a little juggling to make everything work, but we can do it for a short time.”

“Amanda,” Adam asked. “Are you up for sailing it back to Winchester Harbor with me?”

“Darn right!” she grinned. She’d been hoping the offer would be made; it would be nice to get out sailing a bit, since there had been darn little of it over the summer. Working on the Chinook just wasn’t the same thing. “When can we do it?”

“It’s not going to be for a couple days,” Adam told her. “I’m going to have to run back downstate to shuffle some money around and pick up some gear off the Knick-Knack.”

“Adam, I don’t know how to say this, but I’m a little concerned about our coming back with no motor this time of year.”

“Your dad and I talked about that while you were prowling around the boatyard looking for bargains,” he smiled. “The Knick-Knack is down at Frenchtown Harbor. I’m going to yank the outboard off of it and load it in the trunk.”

“That might be a little small for a boat as big as the Moonshadow.”

“It’s not going to be a permanent solution,” her father pointed out. “But it’ll do for one trip if you’re a little careful with it.”

They spent most of the trip back to Winchester Harbor talking about the Moonshadow and some of the things that would have to be done to it. The motor was the big issue, but there was also a long list of little things that would eat up some of the dull days of winter down in the boat shed near the dock. While Amanda looked forward to working on the boat in a way, she still wished it were her own boat she was working on. Once again, she had mixed emotions about selling Adam the Knick-Knack; if she hadn’t done it she could be heading south to warmer weather in a few weeks, looking for new adventures.

Adam was excited enough about the Moonshadow that he all but decided to head back to the metro area that evening, even though it was getting close to dark before the three of them pulled into the Channel Stop. Eventually he realized that it had been a long, full day and it was pointless to drive another four or five hours; he could accomplish everything he needed to after leaving in the morning.

Since the family duty schedule had gotten messed up with Amanda going to look at the Moonshadow, the next morning she had to work the snack bar while her mother and father went out on the Chinook. Normally she didn’t mind working in the snack bar although she would rather have been out on the lake, but this time of year things had slowed down enough that she’d be stuck with working as both the waitress and the cook. It really wasn’t that bad if it turned out to be a slow day, but sometimes it got busy in the mornings as some of the locals came in for breakfast. Thus it was that she didn’t get much time to talk to Adam when he came in for a quick breakfast not long after the snack bar opened, and he was soon heading south.

As the day grew lighter, it became clear that the storm that had been bothering them for the last several days had blown through; it was a clear day, the wind was down, and it obviously was going to be a nice day to be out on the lake. On top of that, with the salmon not feeding very well in the rough waters, it seemed likely that the fishing was going to be good today. That meant she felt a little trapped by being stuck inside on what could be one of the last really nice days of the tag end of summer. Though color season was still a few weeks off, she could see through the front windows of the snack bar that the leaves on the trees were starting to look aged, and that winter wouldn’t be all that far away.

While the morning in the snack bar had been busy enough to keep her occupied, the afternoon was as dead as dead could be. She decided to spend the time getting a wax job on the floor, a little of the room at a time. It was one of those things that needed to be done but that no one had gotten around to doing since the end of the busy season at Labor Day. At least it would keep her mind occupied a little bit, she thought as she got mops and tools out of the utility room.

She started by moving tables and chairs so she could get to a part of the room, then giving the floor a good mopping. She was waiting for it to dry a little when the phone rang. It was a good reason to take a break, so she stood the mop to the side and answered the phone, “Winchester Harbor Fishing Charters and the Channel Stop. How can I help you?”

“Hi, Sis!” she heard her brother Ron’s voice. “What’s happening at home today?”

“It’s a beautiful day, warm, calm, and sunny, so naturally I’m stuck in the snack bar while Mom and Dad are out on the Chinook,” she replied.

“Well, into each life some rain must fall,” he replied. “Or something like that. It’s warm and sunny down here, maybe a little too warm, but at least it’ll be warmer than home when winter rolls around.” She knew he was assigned to the Coast Guard station in Jacksonville, Florida, and it looked like he was going to be there for a while.

“Don’t remind me of that,” she sighed. “The last few days I’ve been kicking myself for selling the boat I was working on last winter. If I hadn’t done that I might be heading your way in six weeks or two months.”

“Yeah, I know you were planning on dorking around down here like Dad and Mom did years ago. At least I get paid for being down here.”

“You’re there now,” she teased him. She liked her brother a lot, but they liked to needle each other a little, too. It was a darn shame that she didn’t see him very often, but she’d known that was going to happen when he decided to join the Coast Guard. “But don’t they have Coast Guard stations in places like Alaska they could send you to?”

“It could happen sooner or later,” he admitted. “But hopefully it won’t be before I get tired of looking at girls in tiny bikinis out on the beach. Hopefully by the time that happens I’ll have my twenty in and can retire instead. So are you looking for another boat to work on this winter?”

“Yeah, but I’m not finding much of anything. What I can find is too much money, or not worth the effort. I’ve decided I don’t want to have another trailer boat like I had last winter. I’m looking for something more like the boat Matt and Mary used to have, the Mary Sue, although I wouldn’t mind if it was enough bigger to have standing headroom.”

“You’re looking for another fixer-upper, I take it?”

“Well, not necessarily,” she told him. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind if I found a boat that was all spiffed up and ready to go and cost next to nothing. But if there are any out there they get gone so quickly that I’d never have a chance at it. I really wouldn’t mind finding another fixer-upper and selling it at a profit. It would give me something to do this winter.”

“Maybe I ought to keep my eyes open around here for you,” he suggested. “I mean, it would involve you having to come down here to work on it, but at least it would be warmer than freezing your butt off up there.”

“Well, that’s a thought,” she said, liking the sound of the idea. “I’d have to be a little careful about getting a boat down there. It would have to be something where it would be more a case of cleaning it up and doing stuff I could handle without having Dad’s boat shed and shop right next door.”

“Well, yeah. I’ll tell you what. I’ll look around a bit and see what I see. With what I do I sometimes see things that most people wouldn’t hear about. You never know what’ll turn up if you’re not in a rush.”

“Yeah, that’s true. I guess if you hear something, let me know.”

“Will do. There’s a good chance it’ll come to nothing since I don’t get around as much as I’d like to. I mean, it’s going to have to be right around this area or I’m not likely to hear about it.”

“It would be nice if one or the other of us were to come up with something,” she said. “Otherwise it’s going to be a long, boring, cold winter around here. So is there any reason you called, or was it just to shoot the bull with me?”

“Mostly just to shoot the bull and find out what’s going on at home. I’m finally off that oil spill cleanup detail and just doing normal station duties and working on navaids, so things ought to be a little quieter for me for a while. I ought to be back to normal duty rotation for a while, but then you never know what’s going to come up. We could still have a hurricane head this way and I’d be back to long days and no time off.”

“Well, what’s going on at home is pretty much normal. We’ve been having a pretty good fall season, except for the fact we had a storm for a couple days coming into today. Dad and I were out in it the day before yesterday and the customers were barfing up their spleens. After it was over with Dad and I pretty much agreed it wasn’t worth the effort.”

“Could be worse,” he told her. “They tell us, ‘You have to go out. You don’t have to come back.’ It’s not like that for you.”

“Oh, it wasn’t so bad for Dad and me, but it was hell on the customers.”

Amanda and Ron wound up talking for about twenty minutes, not exactly passing on much in the way of news, but keeping up with each other. He promised to call back and talk to the folks sometime, and finally they hung up.

By now the floor was dry enough to get the wax down, so Amanda turned to that, thinking about the conversation. She really missed her brother; although they’d had the normal sibling squabbles over the years they had been close, and she’d missed him a lot since he’d headed off to the Coast Guard four years before, right out of high school. He’d decided he liked it and planned on staying in; it seemed like it suited him a good deal. Maybe, she thought, he’d be hanging it up about the time the folks retired, and the two of them could handle the fishing business and the Channel Stop when that happened.

For all of his teasing about the warmth of Florida, she knew he missed home at least to some degree. She knew that before getting assigned to Jacksonville he’d tried to get assigned to the Mackinaw, the icebreaking Coast Guard cutter home-ported up the coast at Cheboygan. That hadn’t come through, but she expected that he’d be trying it again. Maybe he could at least get assigned somewhere around the Great Lakes sooner or later, and that could at least mean she’d get to see him a little more often.

There was a spark of inspiration in the conversation she’d had with him, though. Maybe the idea of heading to Florida to look for a boat wasn’t the dumbest idea she’d ever heard of. The boating season down there was virtually year around, although from what she knew the winters could get to be a little on the cool side in Jacksonville although nothing like the frozen wasteland that Winchester Harbor could be.

Maybe, she thought as she spread the wax around, it would be worthwhile to take off for a while, head to Florida, and look around for a boat. She might even find something she could live aboard cheaply and wouldn’t require a great gob of fixing up, just cleaning and routine boat maintenance. After all, her boat fund was in pretty good shape – nothing like good enough to buy something like the Moonshadow, of course – but good enough to buy something cheap and cover her living expenses.

Suppose she were to find something like the Moonshadow, or even the Mary Sue around here. That would be much too big to trailer to Florida, so she’d have to take it there on its own bottom. It wasn’t impossible, since there were several routes she could take to get there, and if she could get a good start in the fall she might be able to get far enough south before the weather got too impossible. She remembered her father’s story of taking a big power cruiser down the Mississippi on a delivery with her grandfather, years before she’d been born. It had been a quick trip but quite an adventure, too. Her father hadn’t been much older than she was now when it had happened. It would be fun to take a trip like that, but at that time of the year it could be less than fun, too.

On the other hand, if she had a boat that was already in Florida, there wouldn’t be the hassle of taking it there. Not that she’d mind doing it but it would most likely have to be done outside the Great Lakes salmon fishing season, which limited her options considerably.

Besides, if she were to spend even part of the winter in Florida it would give her the chance to hang out with Ron a bit to make up for missing him so much the last few years.

Yeah, she thought as she finished waxing that section of the snack bar floor. That’s definitely something to think about.

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.