We lifted anchor in the predawn darkness and raised the sails, turning Amaya around. It was chilly. I had fur at least. The sky was unusually bright, and the water sounded somehow muffled past the hull. Indigo was stretched out on the port bench, fiddling with her camera.

“You know, I know it was only one night, but it seems like weeks since we’ve been here last,” I chuckled. “Look how much things have changed.”

Indigo looked up. “What do you mean, cat?” She was eying my tail. She wanted to pull that. Why did she want to pull my tail?

I nodded, tacking the boat back downriver, into the wind. “Look, the one galleon is gone and they’ve completely rebuilt the Black Spot.”

We circled Treasure Island in silence, then turned back out towards open water. Sails trimmed, Amaya skimmed along the blue-green Adriatic, mist flying, the furry and the redhead sitting up on the port rail. I was excited to see the sunrise. I love sunrises. I have a good reason to love sunrises… but that’s neither here nor there. I was rambling about my first sail and pointing out one of the buoys when I realized Indigo was gone.

Panic, barely restrained. I turned into the wind, then kept turning, leaving the jib slack, then bore back over towards where I thought she’d disappeared, letting more and more sheet out until Amaya crept to a virtual stop. No Indigo. I brought down the sails and crawled up to drop anchor…

“What was that?” said a voice from behind me. I jumped, fur fluffed. But it was only Indigo.

“Where were you?”

“I was right here, You were silent.”

We eyed each other warily for a moment, then I restowed the anchor and quietly paw-over-pawed the halyards, turning us back onto the reach towards Caddo.

“Doesn’t it seem weird how fast we’re going? I can’t feel wind.”

I froze at her words. I’d been too distracted fighting the bit of odd lee helm that Amaya seemed to have, and watching the lemon sherbet sky brighten in the east, to notice the motionlessness of my fur and whiskers. I stared at the sails, shimmying and full. I looked at the waves. Flat as glass.

Open your eyes, girl…

“This is too weird.” I deliberately turned Amaya into irons and brought the sails back down. No wind. None. The sun began to peek out over the edge of the horizon…

I raised the sails. No motion. I lowered them. It felt like hours….

“Motor?” Indigo suggested. I nodded. Calms were… possible… but I’d never, ever experienced one. I coerced life into the lawnmower… what was the other nickname I’d heard? Iron spinnaker? Well that was about right:

We flew.

I held on for sheer terror for a few moments, claws digging into the wood of the rail and the tiller. The sky was a uniform shade of milk white (what happened to the sunrise?) and the sea was a blur. Sails in the distance. Only survival instinct made me cut the motor and yank hard on the wood in my paw to avoid plowing into the docks ahead as we swerved crazily, in a fashion no boat has any sane reason to do so. The world was acting weird, going black in spots, like I was fainting… Amaya looped erratically around onto the landside basin of Suz’s docks….

“Aren’t we going unnaturally fast?” Indigo’s voice sounded distant and flatly calm. I turned to her…

The world went black.

I woke up, heart racing in the darkness, hanging half off my bed. What the…

The phone rang. I picked it up, staring out my bedroom window at the night-darkened countryside.

“Hi, Elisha. It’s Indigo. Are you ready to go sailing?”

(a cat’s SL-flavored mishap in sailing, based on a true story)