Chapter 9Emil's unmistakable steel-grey eyes peered out through the pilothouse windshield as the Steel Monohull sliced steadily south through four-foot swells. He could vaguely make out the shore, a hazy white line of pounding surf below a grayish band of sandstone cliffs. Above the shoreline were the huge dark coastal mountains, the peaks of which were barely discernable from the sky.
The Pacific was rougher than Emil had expected, and with the hull nearly empty and the pilothouse riding high, he was feeling the full effect of it. Not that it bothered him much. He was no stranger to rough seas. As a young man he had seen his fair share of squalls. Long ago, on the Red Sea, he was among the crew of an Egyptian ferry which capsized when the captain failed to heed the weather warnings, drow
