The Rips
1967
F
rom the beach, Kya ran to her rig and roared full throttle into the sea, headed straight for the rips. Holding her head back, she screamed, “You mean, s**t . . . SUMBITCH!” Sloppy and confused waves jerked the bow sideways, pulling against the tiller. As always, the ocean seemed angrier than the marsh. Deeper, it had more to say.
Long ago, Kya’d learned how to read ordinary currents and riptides; how to ride them out or break away by cutting perpendicular to their course. But she’d never headed straight into the deeper currents, some of them stirred by the Gulf Stream, which gushes four billion cubic feet of water every second, more power than all the land rivers on Earth combined—all streaming just beyond North Carolina’s outstretched arms. The surge produces cruel bac
