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hear. She looked back at me and yelled, “You’d better know what you’re doing lady.”
    I was already wondering the same thing when Mar – tha, who looked completely unruffled by the series of events, screamed at the whole boat. “Course she can drive this thing. She’s been doing it for years. Trust me. She’s the best and she’s one of crew.”
    Neither of which was quite accurate. Martha con – veniently forgot to mention that my years of experience were with much smaller Zodiacs in much smaller and warmer seas, but what the heck, a boat is a boat. And technically I was one of the crew.
    I watched carefully as the Zodiac ahead of us nosed up to the side of the ship at a small metal platform and threw a rope to a crew member crouched on the wave drenched dock. I could make out metal stairs snaking up at a forty-five degree angle from the water to the deck of the ship. Passengers were drunkenly weaving their way up the stairs.
    Suddenly it was our turn. I kept the Zodiac pointed into the waves as we headed for the ship, aware that seven pairs of eyes anxiously watched my every move. Only Martha seemed unconcerned. What was it about her that made her so oblivious to potential danger?
    We were heading straight into the wind, parallel to the ship, which was lying at anchor. I kept the throt – tle at full bore until we were twenty yards away and then eased back as we shot toward the dock. At the last moment I throttled way back, and the lack of power and the strength of the wind allowed the boat to float toward the dock — theoretically. Instead, we rammed the dock from the crest of a wave and my passengers tumbled around like bingo balls. Terry crashed against Arthur, her head ramming his hard camera case. Arthur scowled as another man picked her up, just as a deckhand grabbed the bow rope of the bucking boat and secured it to the heaving metal dock.
    The boat, finally secured, was now tied to the energy of the ship, which was straining at its anchor and riding the waves differently from the little Zodiac hugging its side. The male passengers struggled to get the helmsman into the arms of the crewmen and to safety. He was start – ing to come to and was moaning as he was carried up the gangway. One by one the passengers slid their bottoms down the side of the pontoons to the two crewmen — their bright orange slickers like beacons of safety — who held out their hands to grip each passenger by the arm and swing them to safety between waves.
    When it was Terry’s turn she turned and smiled.
    â€œYou’re one lucky, lady.”
    I had the unpleasant feeling that she could see into the quiet depths of my own mind where my fears roiled and laboured, and that she had known the extent of my inexperience just by watching me. But what else could I do? No one else could drive the thing. The coldness in her voice went red hot as she took the arm of a deck man and yelled, “Luke, you old bastard. How are the ladies?”
    I watched the man’s face break into a huge scowl and he almost threw her out of the boat as he grunted, “Welcome back, Terry,” in a voice that said just the oppo – site. Welcome back? She’d been here before? I looked at Martha, whose turn was next, but she obviously hadn’t heard the exchange.
    Martha tried to swing her leg over but the design of the Zodiac and the design of her round body didn’t mesh. She sat there, stranded, one leg going one way and the other leg going another, just as a wave hit and bounced her painfully on the spot. Duncan reached over and grabbed her trailing leg, hauling it over. Suddenly I was alone in the boat.
    As I started to move toward the starboard side to get out, one of the crewmen looked at me, a puzzled look on his face, and then glanced behind him at another crewmember on deck. I saw some communication pass between them, but before he could turn back the other guy threw the