I lift my gaze to Russell. “Is there any way we can make contact with other boats through this?”
He shakes his head, gesturing to the empty mouthpiece holder on the side of the mounted screen. “Not without the radio mic.”
I tilt my head, squinting to assess the Starlink satellite. It’s facing down, hanging by a cord more than halfway up the mast. “Check your phones.” I fumble for my device inside my sweatshirt pocket. “Does anyone have a Starlink signal?”
“My phone’s dead,” Russell says.
“Mine too,” Beth adds. “I should go charge it.”
My phone screen lights up in my hand. Relief floods my insides as I tap the internet icon at the top left of my screen to connect to Starlink. If I can contact my sister, the Coast Guard could be on their way to us within a matter of minutes.
I bite my lip, willing my phone to connect faster. After a moment, two words appear.No signal.
“It’s not working,” Emma says, staring at her phone.
I drop my phone to my side and look up at the clank the satellite dish makes as it smacks against the metal mast. Russell turns and then disappears below deck, returning less than a minute later with a pair of binoculars.
He aims the lenses at the dish as Emma takes a photo of the navigation display.
“What are you doing?” I ask her.
“I’m noting our location. We should write it down also, in case we lose power again.”
Beth frowns, furrowing her brows at Emma. “Why would we lose power again?”
I turn to Russell. “How’d you get the power back on?”
Russell squints into the binoculars. “The battery-selector switch for the two battery banks in the engine room had been switched off, so I turned them back on.”
I study him, wondering if that was true. It seems too easy of a fix. Unless he caused the power outage, then knew exactly how to fix it.
Russell lowers the binoculars. “I think I can see the problem. There’s one cord hanging loose. The wires may have gotten torn, or it may just need to get plugged back in. Then we need to resecure it to the mast with a bungee cord to get the dish facing back toward the sky.”
My confidence evaporates like mist in the sun. I stare at the top of the mast, towering taller than the length of the boat. “There’s no way we can get up there.”
“Actually,” Russell says, “we can climb it.”
“Climb it?” My jaw drops as I stare at the pole. “With no steps?”
“We’ll use a bosun’s chair,” Russell says. “We have one on board. Nojan showed me how to use it before we set sail. We can secure it to the spinnaker halyards and use the winches to crank someone to the top of the mast.”
I swallow, tearing my gaze from the tip of the mast, which tilts at a sharp angle with every roll of the boat. “Sounds dangerous.”
“It is,” Emma says. “Especially in this weather. I’ve watched my grandparents do it, but only when the boat was docked on a calm day.”
“I don’t think any of us should risk going up there.” Beside Russell, Beth stares up with her hand shading her eyes. She turns to Emma. “We have the power back on. Why don’t we use the navigation to get back to the mainland? We have plenty of food for three more days.”
Russell folds his arms, turning to Beth. “The covering I attached over the broken window isn’t watertight. All it would take is one more knockdown to flood the boat.”
“He’s right,” Emma says, her eyes darkly serious. “If we can get the Starlink working, we can call for help now, before something else goes wrong—or we get knocked down a second time.” Her gaze drifts to the boom. “Plus, if we can’t get the mainsail unjammed, we might not haveenough sail to make it back to the coast, depending on the wind. We could get stuck out here and run out of food and water. The weather could also get worse before it gets better. There are a thousand things that could go wrong if we stay out here.”
I look up at the mast tip again as it sways with each swell that rocks the boat. It must be at least fifty feet high.
“One of us has to go up there,” Emma says. “We don’t have a choice.”
“I’ll go,” Russell says.
“It would be safer to have Beth or Palmer go up the mast,” Emma says. “You and I have more experience using the winches and steering the boat.”
