PC to clr. Mod. S’ly swell.”

Rae rolled over and sat up, yawning. She brushed the tawny mane of hair back from her face and grinned. “Hi, Skipper.”

He perched on the side of the bunk and kissed her. “Hi, beautiful.”

She made a deprecating gesture. “Everybody’s beautiful when he first wakes up. It’s called the blotched, rumpled, and bleary-eyed look; beauty shops can’t duplicate it. Mmmmm, I was having a wonderful dream.”

“About what?” he asked.

“Fresh water. There was a sunken tub about the size of Rhode Island, with two hundred pounds of bath salts in it—”

“Miss all that too much?”

She rumpled his still-wet hair. “Silly. Who’d want to be a clean widow when she could be a dirty sailor’s wife?”

“Watch your language, Mate. I just bathed in the Pacific Ocean.”

“God, the English language, at seven o’clock in the morning. I mean the dirty wife of a clean sailor.”

“Okay, Moonbeam McSwine. How about a cup of coffee?”

“Love it.” She swung long bare legs off the bunk and disappeared into the head, which opened off the narrow passageway between the forward and after compartments. She came out a few minutes later, face washed and hair combed, and sat down on the bunk with her legs braced against the one opposite. He handed her the mug of coffee and a lighted cigarette. “We’ve got company.”

“You mean somebody else is using our ocean?”

He nodded. “I just sighted him.”

“Who? Where?”

“Three or four miles away, to the northwest. Looks like a yacht. Yawl or ketch.”

“Where do you suppose he’s going?”

He grinned. “Nowhere at the moment. He’s becalmed too.”

“If we could get together and all whistle for wind at the same time, like a grievance committee, or a delegation—”

“This won’t last much longer. We whittled off another twenty or thirty miles last night. In a few more days we ought to be picking up the Trades.”

“Oh, I’m not complaining. Being becalmed has its points.”

“It does?” he asked. “I can only think of one.”

“That’s the one. Nobody has to be at the wheel.”

“I thought you liked to steer.”

“I do.” She smiled roguishly. “And no further comment, not at this hour of the morning.”

“You’re a hard woman. Look, I intended to run the engine a few minutes today to dry it out; if you want to, after breakfast we could run over and hail our neighbor.