It was two in the morning when she bumped into me. I didn't know it was two in the morning for a few minutes. I didn't know that it was her until some time later.
Maybe I should explain.
I had been fishing for the last three days and my freezer was full. I had decided that I should get some sleep before I headed back to the mainland. There were two reasons for this decision, I had to navigate through the reef, not an easy task on a pitch black night like tonight, and I was tired.
I had just completed one of my regular trips to the seaward side of the outer Great Barrier Reef where there were still plenty of fish to be caught. I supplied several fish shops along the coast within some thirty kilometres of home, as well as the one run by my sister and brother-in-law. The owners chipped in for the cost of fuel and I sold to them at a price commensurately lower than the fish wholesalers in the city.
There I was, fast asleep, not even dreaming, when I felt a huge bump on my boat. Debating for half a second whether I should put something on over my jocks, I scrambled out of my bunk, into my jocks and up onto the deck. There was a yacht, it's sails hanging limply, slowly sliding along my hull, so my first task was to secure her. That done I stepped over onto her and called out. There was no response. I checked the door into the cabin, it was locked. I went back to my boat and got myself a powerful torch, this I shined through the cabin window. That was when I saw her, laying on the cabin floor and not moving.
I went back for some tools and before long, I had the door open, it appeared to have been locked from the outside, strange, and was bending over her body, she was breathing. I shook her, thinking that she was asleep, no response. I noticed a fairly large lump on the side of her head.
I carried her to a bunk and got a wet cloth to wipe her face and lay over her forehead. She groaned softly as she began to join the land of the living. "Who, who are you?"
"Just someone you ran into. Who are you and what are you doing sailing around on your own?"
"On my own, where's my partner?"
"I haven't searched all of this yacht, but you are the only person I've come across so far. Your partner, what does he or she look like?"
"He's tall, good looking in an athletic way."
"I'll have another quick look to see if he's around, and then I'll make a drink for you, you look thirsty."
"That would be nice."
"It'll mean jumping onto my boat. I'll be right back." I did a quick search of the yacht and found nothing and no-one.
She was sitting up when I returned. "Well?"
"Nothing, no sign of him or anyone else."
"So, what happens now?"
"First things first. What day is it?" An easy question to check if she's thinking straight.
"I don't know, Saturday I think."
"Try Monday. You have obviously been out to it for a while and need to get out of those clothes and clean up. I don't want to sound rude, but you're not nice to be near. Do you feel up to jumping over the side and getting out of those soiled clothes, you can rinse as much of the muck from them and chuck them onto the boarding platform hanging from the stern of my boat before you climb out, we'll dispose of them correctly."
"Only if you promise not to look."
"Spoilsport. Okay, I promise, while you're doing that I'll find you a change of clothes."
She jumped in and swam around to the stern of my boat.
I rummaged around and found no clothes, this was getting stranger. I didn't find any form of ID, or money.
Okay, I know that I promised not to look, but I'm a normal, red blooded bloke and I didn't have the willpower to avoid looking. Part of me was remorseful, and part of me wasn't. "I can't find any clothes, and I looked everywhere. I'll find something that will cover you sufficiently for the trip back to Mackay."
I jumped back onto my boat and found a tee shirt that would cover most of her, and a pair of budgey smugglers that would, at a pinch, take care of the rest. I hid behind my hand as I dropped the clothes onto the platform and went back into the cabin. I had the kettle on and it reached the boil as she came into the cabin. "Somehow I wish that I had weakened and grabbed a look, it would have been worth it."
"Bullshit, I saw you taking a sneaky peek."
"Okay, mea culpa, but you can't blame me."
"I forgive you, after all, it appears as if I owe you my life."
I handed her a cup of coffee. "Do you think that you can steer your yacht?"
"Yes."
"Good, this is going to be a bit tricky. I have to plot a course through the reef and it's up to you to keep her right behind me. Any deviation could see you hitting the reef. If the coral holes your hull we could lose her."
"Not to mention the damage to the coral."
"There's that to take into consideration as well. I'll pull your boat alongside so that you can step over, then I'll play the line out until we have enough clearance. I'll take it steady until we're inside the reef and then, if you want, we can lash your wheel and you can ride with me."
"Sounds like a plan. By the way, we haven't been formally introduced, I'm Marcia, Marcia Gorman."
"I'm Rob Brinkworth, pleased to meet you Marcia." We shook formal hands before I pulled Windrush alongside.
Marcia decided that she would ride with me. She had nothing to bring with her. "Where were you headed?" I asked.
"Eventually to Tahiti, we were going to island hop and take our time."
"Was there any reason for the trip or was it some sort of vacation?"
"A bit of both. I needed to get away from work, I discovered something that I was not supposed to know and Benson, my work partner, decided that we should make ourselves scarce for a while."
"This Benson guy, is he your boyfriend or is it more serious than that, like husband?"
"He's a guy I met though work, my boss in fact. I told him what I had found and he took it to his boss. Next thing I knew was that I was told that what I had seen did not exist and, if I were to pursue the matter further there would be dire, unspecified but hinted at, consequences."
"I don't think that we should notify the authorities just yet. I need to speak to a mate to see if they have a search party out scouring the ocean looking for you." I picked up the my satellite phone. "By the way, when I was going through the gear I couldn't find your EPIRB, I thought that to be a little odd."
"It should have been there, right beside the chart table."
I dialled a number. "Bruce, Rob here."
"Where's here?"
"You know I won't divulge where here is. Listen, a yacht bumped into me a while ago, there was a woman on board, it would seem that someone doesn't want her found before something bad happens to her. I'll bring her and the yacht in, it will be dark when we arrive. We need to secrete her, the yacht that is, somewhere out of the way. I'll explain all when we get in."
"That doesn't sound good." Marcia said.
"I think that, for the time being, we should keep this our secret."
"So you think something is not right."
"Yes, a missing partner and no EPIRB leads me to believe that to be the case."
We had just enough steerage way for her to get through the reef without incident. The gaps were small and the GPS tracker wasn't accurate enough to rely on, a couple of metres out and we could have hit the reef.
"Are you a professional fisherman?" She asked as I plotted the course through the inner reef and home.
"No, I have a half share in a Fish and Chip shop and I go out to the reef every few weeks to catch enough to supply our shop and a couple of others. The other guys chip in for the fuel, so it costs little more than my time."
"How long have you been doing this?"