A Wild Wind at Midnight

“Where are we now?”

Lorna turned her body around to face Luo Jun, who was lying flat on his back observing the starry sky, and softly asked into his ear.

“If I’m not mistaken, we should be near the Tropic of Cancer. Adding to that the temperature of the seawater and the direction of the ocean currents, we most likely are in the California Current.”

Luo Jun took a deep breath and said.

“Does that mean we’re very close to the California Peninsula?” Lorna excitedly asked.

“It’s not as optimistic as you imagine. We don’t have any tools to measure exactly what longitude we’re at. I’m just guessing based on the direction of the currents and how the seawater feels on my hand.”

Luo Jun paused for a moment, swallowed his parched throat, and continued:

“We crashed three hours after takeoff. Normally, our crash site should be closest to the Hawaii Islands, and it’s impossible for us to be in this position now, otherwise search and rescue would have appeared in the skies above us these past four days.”

“Is it possible you guessed wrong?”

Lorna asked with knitted brows.

Luo Jun shook his head: “If we were in the waters east of the Hawaii Islands, the currents should be flowing west, but now they’re flowing south. Also, that area is warm currents, and the nighttime temperature wouldn’t be this low.”

Hearing this, Lorna was speechless for a moment.

“There’s only one possibility – our plane changed course mid-flight for some reason we can no longer ascertain.”

Luo Jun said this then let out a sigh: “There are very few islands in this region, and the currents are flowing south. Just drifting like this, we’ll never be able to reach Mexico, and the chances of encountering an island are extremely low.”

“Then we...”

Lorna couldn’t get out the rest of what she wanted to say.

“How much longer can we survive?” It took Lorna quite some time to get the question out.

“There’s nothing on this life raft. Fishing is difficult. With drinking water like this, at most we can last another three days. But we shouldn’t be too pessimistic either, because there are many international shipping lanes in this region. If we’re lucky we might encounter a patrol ship.” Luo Jun said.

“And fishing boats too!” At this time the listless young girl spoke up excitedly.

“Unfortunately, fishing is banned in California this year. We probably won’t run into any fishing boats.”

Luo Jun’s reply instantly dashed the hopes of the young girl who had just adopted an optimistic attitude.

Jenny next to Jack started sobbing again. Jack comforted her saying they would definitely find a way off this raft, but he didn’t have much confidence inside either.

Lorna also became quiet now. She seemed to be lost in thought about something.

Midnight.

The violent winds suddenly picked up, the chill jolting everyone awake from their light sleep.

“Such strong winds! How could this be?” The young girl cried out in alarm. She and Lorna huddled together, one hand gripped tightly to the waterproof tarp.

Jack and Jenny were the same.

The gusts of wind tangled up the women’s hair, making it impossible for them to open their eyes.

“Everyone stay still, be careful not to capsize the raft!”

Luo Jun ordered. He crouched up halfway, gripping both sides of the life raft, trying hard to steady his center of gravity to prevent the raft from tilting.

As the winds intensified, waves crashed in from all directions.

Large amounts of icy seawater splashed onto the raft, drenching everyone and chilling them to shivers.

Luo Jun looked in the direction the winds were coming from and quickly realized these winds had no fixed direction. It was a maritime cyclone. Normally, cyclones wouldn’t blow with this much force.

These winds were at least Force 10.

But after gusting for some twenty minutes, it gradually died down, and soon a dense fog rose over the sea.

“How bizarre!”

Luo Jun sniffed forcefully. The humidity in the air carried the reek of fish.

He suddenly widened his eyes, a look of extreme excitement in them!

“Could it be...”

Luo Jun couldn’t believe it. He inhaled the smell in the air again!

This stench wasn’t just the smell of the ocean. There was a muddy odor mixed in.

Muddy smells were often soaked into rotting leaves and other vegetation, and the decaying leaves produced an acidic smell that blended into the mix, giving it a unique signature.

Luo Jun’s heart started racing. To confirm he hadn’t imagined it, he held his nose over his arm and breathed in his own body odor to reset his sense of smell.

This method allowed his olfactory sense to return to baseline. Smelling something again after this would make the scents clearer and more accurate.

“That’s right, it’s the smell of a marsh!”

Luo Jun could barely keep himself from shouting out loud.

Marshy areas accumulate lots of marine life among the mangroves when the tides are in. When the tides go out, the death of these marine organisms produces a strong fishy odor. And with the carcasses soaking in the mud along with decaying leaves, a very distinctive smell of a mangrove swamp is created.

If you’re too far from shore, the ocean’s fishy smell isn’t very strong, sometimes imperceptible.

People living by the ocean know you can often smell a heavy stench by the shore for the same reasons as the mangrove swamps.

“Mr. Luo, what are you saying?”

Lorna looked at Luo Jun’s excitement disbelief.

Li Shi and Jack and Jenny also turned their gazes toward Luo Jun’s exhilarated expression.

In the moonlight they couldn’t make out his face clearly either, but they could sense his excitement from his silhouette and tone of voice.

“There’s an island near us, no more than 3 nautical miles away!”

As soon as Luo Jun said this, everyone was stunned for a moment, then their expressions turned excited.

“How do you know?”

“The smell! The wind smells. You won’t smell a stench this strong in the middle of the ocean. Only by the shore will you get this!” Luo Jun explained.

“What if it’s a dead big fish nearby?” Li Shi said.

Clearly her disappointment this morning made her afraid to get her hopes up too high. Luo Jun smiled.

“If it was just a fishy smell of course that wouldn’t prove anything. There’s also a muddy odor mixed in that you all may not pick up. But it’s not important now. We need to pinpoint the island’s direction first. If the winds blow us too far away, then come daylight we’ll have lost our final thread of hope!”

Luo Jun’s words put everyone’s nerves on edge again.

“Then what do we do? We can’t see anything around us in the dark!” The usually morose Jenny spoke up.

Despite being young and beautiful, Jenny had confided to Luo Jun during the flight that she and Li Shi attended the same university, just different years. She was originally on track for a bright future, but going through this was undoubtedly a walk through hell.

Everyone looked around at the pitch black surroundings.

Originally it had been a clear night, but after the maritime cyclone stirred up, the moonlight was obscured by cloud cover. Everyone could only make out each other’s silhouettes bobbing up and down in the cold.

Let alone glimpse the island’s shadow – they could barely see anything as they shivered in the swaying raft.

“Wait for the winds to stop. It should be low tide now. The waves will be going against the island, and our original current was flowing south. If the island is directly south, then our raft’s speed will slow down a lot, and there will be oncoming ripples of small waves. It’ll be easier to deduce the other directions. Against the waves they’ll come one after another, crashing toward us. At the same time, watch for floating debris from each direction. At low tide, vegetation from the marshes or shores gets carried out to sea.” Luo Jun said.

Everyone grew excited, and were thankful Luo Jun, an expert in survival, happened to be on the raft with them.

Otherwise, the consequences were unimaginable.