A slow warm salty sea: dark. The log drifts, surrounded by small fish nibbling on its soft bark. Occasionally it dips in a wave; a faint flash of phosphorescence lights up the darkness. Very rarely a wave breaks with the same momentary flash of light. There appears to be nothing there at all, no land, lighthouses or ships or planes to drift across the sky.
Except a green light and red light getting closer and the masthead light of a yacht steaming at sea, a bow wave and the soft thrum of the engine, the even softer thrum of small voices talking on board.
Ship and log meet unexpectedly when the propeller chews into the wood splintering it, sending it dipping a little; fraying its integrity just that tiny bit more; making the small fish dart away in all directions.
The propellor of the yacht, halted in mid pulse sends an unbearable tension into the boat along the shaft to its seal with the sea. The metal twists and breaks, the prop falls back abruptly and the engine screeches for a moment before being turned off.
The people on board look around them anxiously as the yacht slows down abruptly and the mainsail takes the weight of the small amount of wind that there is. They look over the side of the boat, wonder if they have hit a whale, or uncharted rock or indeed, one of the many trees that can be found floating in this, to them, obscure region.
From below someone shouts out that there is water pouring into the boat. They gather, frightened, at the engine room. The remaining end of the propellor shaft moves to tighten against the hull, stops turning. The water coming in around it slows down. Someone binds the shaft with cloth and tape and ties it fast. There is a feeling of slight relief.
The owner panics a little; says they should make a mayday call, that they have miles and miles to go and what if the water starts coming in again? He relaxes when he is told there is no immediate danger and that even if there was, there is no one around to come to the rescue so really, there is no point.
Slightly sick in their stomachs the crew unfurl the genoa. The yacht settles into a steady but slow movement forward.
The owner is persuaded to try to go to sleep. People share sweets and lukewarm drinks; a new course is plotted to the port they were intending to go to; one that involves lots of tacking into the wind and ultimately a course between the oil installations off shore and the coral reefs closer to land.
The moon appears, the wind freshens a bit but the propeller shaft remains resolutely and reassuringly solid.
The crew decide it must have been a submerged log that caused the collision. They don’t ever see it but it is now a mile behind them, strands of ripped wood and bark dangling from it; the small fish venturing back to carry on with their nibbling.
They cautiously ask whether it is safe to sail in this sea at night, where there is no way of seeing the results of the forest logging that so often bob silent in the water. As they can’t cover the distance they have to go just in daylight, they agree that the only thing they can do is to carry on sailing and hope there is no unseen tree destined to collide with them again but this time breaching the hull that keeps everyone safe.
Some of them can’t sleep that night, as the sun rises, they make sure someone is always on watch looking at the silver sea. They are quieter than usual; slightly subdued.
The log carries on drifting; hardly moving, just bobbing sluggishly in the sea.
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