Adrift Near the Target Ship Off Eastham

In 1978, I was 16 and dead set on catching a bluefish with my bare hands. One afternoon, my friend Darcy rowed me out in the little metal dinghy behind her family cottage, oars creaking in the locks, water sloshing over our bare feet.

Mrs. Reed (some names have been changed to protect privacy) hollered from the yard, “Beth, you better not jump!” 

The pogies were already slapping the surface, baitfish exploding into silver chaos. When they churned like that, everybody knew predators were not far: bluefish or stripers waiting to strike from below. 

“I’m gonna grab one, don’t worry,” I shouted, staring into the froth. 

I bent my knees, toes gripping the narrow bench, and dove—short and awkward, legs and arms bent so I wouldn’t go too deep. Cold green closed over me. Fish slid past like wet muscle, slimy and thrilling. Something hard bumped my arm. Definitely a blue. I kicked up, coughing and laughing, hair plastered to my face. 

Darcy yelled, “You get one?” 

“Next time.” 

I dragged myself onto the marsh grass and lay there dripping in the sun, watching wispy clouds while the last pogies flashed under Uncle Tim’s bridge. Mrs. Reed shook her head. “You. Are. Touched.” 

I grinned. I had been called “touched” before. I took it as a compliment. 

My first glimpse of Wellfleet two summers earlier had felt like a perfect fit. The family wagon turned off Route 6 onto narrow, winding lanes edged with drifting sand and wild beach grass. No curbs, no sidewalks boxing anything in. The car windows were down; I heard the crunch of sand and shells under the tires and leaves rustling in the trees and hedges as we brushed past. The roads curved lazily around low hills and pine thickets, hugging the land as if they had grown there. My hometown of Longmeadow finally slipped away.

We rolled through downtown, and there was a townie in front of Wellfleet Spirits Shoppe, thick, salty-blond hair to his shoulders, late teens, cool as hell. He hoisted a case of beer onto his motorcycle seat, kicked the engine alive, and puttered off like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Yeah. This was my kind of town.

By age seven back home, I was already skipping school, smoking cigs, and on weekends crawling out of the second-story window, crossing the garage roof, and shimmying down the maple tree at midnight. My parents gave us tons of freedom, typical for the ’70s when kids pretty much ran wild, but I wanted more. Hitchhiking at 11, forging notes, pranking anyone in authority—you get the picture. I was a plain-looking tomboy with thick straight hair, mostly in my brother’s hand-me-downs, including my favorite golden-brown Rawhide Lacer, a cool faux-suede shirt with rawhide lacing at the neck. I did not fit the preppy, athletic town of Longmeadow.

In Wellfleet I found new places and people to love every day: the way the light changed 10 times before lunch, osprey nests on the channel markers, the dunes at Great Island rolling forever with grasses whispering in the wind. Even the mosquitoes at dusk were mellow, circling slow, like they knew this was Wellfleet and there was no rush. Longmeadow was trimmed and polite. Wellfleet’s edges were raw. A loose-knit tribe of artists, chefs, fishermen, and free souls moved to the slow pulse of the tides and the light.

Since the summer of ’76, our family owned and ran the Harbour Inne on Mayo Beach, a midcentury relic looming over Wellfleet Harbor like an old, sturdy ship. Despite its name, the Harbour Inne was mostly a bar and restaurant. Brick below, sea-worn shingles above, music drifting from the windows: R & B, early disco, folk. Our family lived upstairs in the summer, six of us plus friends, helpers, and drifters, all circling the wide deck with its views of the harbor, Great Island, and the jetty. The air smelled of beer, sugar, and salt.

My parents fit Longmeadow with their athletic confidence and traditional values, but they carried a looseness underneath it all. Mom, Pat McCullough, was the French teacher everybody adored. She could tie a silk scarf and wear heels like she’d grown up in Paris, but the minute school let out she kicked them off, let the Cape wind wreck her hair, and would dig for clams at low tide with the biggest smile I ever saw.

Dad, Coach Mac, had pulled off the impossible: coaching Longmeadow’s first-year varsity lacrosse team, the ragtag “Longmeadow Longshots,” to the State Championship with ancient, mismatched, slightly moldy football and hockey gear. Most days I felt like a Longshot, too.

In Wellfleet, nobody cared much who you were supposed to be. The weird kids, the artists, the drifters, the fishermen, the sunburned locals—they all mixed together out there by the harbor or the town “cennah.” For the first time, I felt there were places in this world for all kinds of people.

The first morning on the deck—tide way out, flats shining silver and rose, herons standing like old men waiting for coffee, low tide, stale beer, diesel drifting up—was the most alive a place had ever felt.

Jay Holsing was with us the summer of ’78, tall and gangly with bushy reddish-blond hair and an ease I did not have. He was my brother Kevin’s best friend—smart, funny, never missed a day of school. Dad had promised him a summer of adventure. 

An hour after the bluefish hunt, the four of us—me, Darcy, her younger sister Denise, and Jay—walked barefoot to the harbor, warm road and sand beneath our feet. The Reeds owned the cottage in Wellfleet and came every summer. Both sisters had the thick Boston accent, broad ah’s and dropped r’s. Darcy wore a cute bikini top and denim shorts with an open, buttoned-down shirt fluttering in the wind. She smiled easily and always reminded me of a wild pony—bold, full of restless energy that matched the Cape wind. Denise, 15, was quieter, steadier. Her voice had a tough, no-nonsense edge that somehow felt reassuring. I liked having pretty friends. We’d had a good time the summer before and were looking for more. 

I pointed south. “Target Ship. Today.” Everyone was up for it.

About 4 miles off Eastham sat the rusted hulk the Navy had been bombing for decades. I had watched the night shows from Eastham beaches plenty of times when I was younger—the sky lighting up like the Fourth of July, those deep booms rolling across the water. They had stopped the live fire a few years earlier, so by this summer the old ship was just a quiet wreck. Now I wanted to see the damage up close.

We found the family runabout, affectionately named Spot, 15 feet of old, soggy wood with one tiller-driven 35-horsepower Mercury that had just been fixed. Coach Mac kept an old oyster sack full of sand in the bow to help her plane; the motor was too powerful for the little boat, and without the sandbag, she’d point forever at the sky. There were two tattered life jackets that smelled like a cellar, and the usual cut-up Clorox bailer rolling in the bottom.

It was 3 o’clock. The ocean looked choppy but manageable, sea-glass green. I was pissed I’d lost my comb in the swim with the pogies, so I dragged my fingers through my hair, still matted. At least I had my cigs. We’d be back by supper. 

Jay yanked the cord, and we eased out past the moorings, wind in our hair, Wellfleet shrinking behind us.

It took a while before the ship appeared, her rusted silhouette rising only after we’d cleared the harbor and swung south past Lieutenant Island. 

Up close, the ship was a wreck—hull punched full of holes, rust bleeding down the sides, gulls ruling the twisted railings. The Coast Guard had a lighted buoy: “DANGER UNEXPLODED ORDNANCE.” Loose markers showed a no-go zone, but in bright sunlight, it all looked harmless. We circled her, checking out the wildest scars: bullet holes, bomb holes, graffiti, cuts from locals stealing scrap. Roughly 420 feet of rusted steel, half-sunk but still throwing a long, dark shadow. She had taken hit after hit and was still there.

Jay cut the engine. We floated, quiet for a while, lying on our backs, soaking up the sun, chatting when we spotted a bird or a fin. A breeze picked up as the sun dropped lower.

I leaned over and let my hands be pulled by the current. Water lapped the wooden hull in a slow rhythm. I dried my hands on my jeans, grabbed my smokes, leaned forward, and tried to light a much-needed Marlboro. I cupped a match…and kerplunk, my only matchbook tumbled to the bottom of the boat, soaked. Figures.

Time to head back. Jay pulled the cord. Nothing. Pulled again. Dead.

Jay and I estimated that M1 put the wrong oil in the engine when he “fixed” it. M1, real name Jeff, lived in the transient part of the Harbour Inne, a.k.a. the Armpit of Arms. Coach Mac had named him Maintenance One. Coach had nicknames for everyone: Agent Double-O Jay, the Count of No Account, Dr. Libation, Cash-Flow Jones, to name a few. M1 helped around the place in exchange for a room, and yeah, there was an M2.

The tide and wind had their own plans now. The boat began drifting backward toward the wreck, slow and easy, as if the ship and the dark water around it were magnetic.

We took inventory: one oar, two moldy life jackets, no radio, no running lights, one bailer, nothing to drink or eat, and about 3 inches of saltwater sloshing in the bottom.

We took turns with the oar and bailer until our hands blistered. Eastham stayed 4 miles off. The sun dropped behind the dunes. We were getting hungry, thirsty, cold, and cranky.

Boats in the distance all headed in. None close enough to hear us yelling or see us waving. 

Light thinned from gold to violet to black. Stars came out. The bay went quiet. 

By then the current had pushed us away from the wreck and into rougher water. We named constellations, pretending we weren’t drifting aimlessly while the cold gnawed deeper. Jay stayed calm and resourceful. He wanted to jump overboard with the frayed rope and tow us. We begged him not to—sharks, currents, and the impossible distance.

Around midnight, we were chilled to the bone, hands tucked in armpits or groins. We took turns curling up around the soaked burlap sandbag in the dank cuddy, two at a time, knees to chests, spooning for warmth. It smelled like low tide and old oysters, but it blocked the wind. 

Then it hit me. My family’s boat. My stupid idea. And now look at us. I loved chaos for myself, but I tried not to drag my friends into harm’s way. The loss of control, the night being in charge—it got to me. I screamed once, pure frustration, then felt embarrassed. I picked at the skin around my fingernails, same old habit.

To kill time and stay warm, I started imagining the bombers coming back and blasting us. “Target Ship in sight,” I yelled.

Jay jumped in: “Duck for cover!” 

We kept it going for a while—sound effects, arm gestures, imaginary bombs walking the length of the ship. It made the cold feel less intense.

Denise and Darcy were quieter than usual. Their Boston banter was replaced by worried glances. When we asked if they were okay, their thick accents cut through the night. Their uncle, a Wellfleet fisherman, had died two years earlier, dragged under while hauling in his nets, waders full of water. Their parents would be losing their minds right about now, imagining the worst. We told them we were really sorry. Then Jay and I shut up.

Darkness rushed back thicker than before. Four kids in a wooden boat, soaked and shaking, waiting to see what the ocean would ask of us next.

Sometime around 4 a.m., a searchlight swept the water—slow, methodical, human. We were shivering, teeth chattering. Jay stood tallest, life jacket lashed to the top of the oar, waving it in big arcs. We yelled ourselves hoarse. The light blinked twice. Blue light washed over everything. 

“THIS IS THE UNITED STATES COAST GUARD. WE SEE YOU. REMAIN CALM.” 

The cutter came alongside—big, white, engine rumbling. After hours of darkness and drifting, it seemed so bright and loud. Lines dropped. Hands pulled us aboard, wrapped us in diesel-smelling blankets, and handed out saltines and water. I asked for a comb and cigs. They had a tiny black dime-store comb and Marlboro Lights—anything in a pinch. I was grateful.

Questions started. I stayed on guard. Uniforms asking questions always made me careful. 

“Life jackets for everyone?” 

“Two went overboard.” 

“Second oar?” 

“Went over with the life jackets.” 

“Running lights? Fire extinguisher?” 

“Well, we left at daylight and thought we’d be back by daylight, so I wasn’t worried about running lights. Fire extinguisher, overboard.” I said it as sweetly as I could. “Pretty much everything, overboard.” 

He wrote a lot. 

We slid into the harbor at daybreak. Wharf lights and news-crew lights were blinding. Townspeople and families waited in coats and pajamas, arms open. Mom grabbed me so hard I couldn’t breathe. Coach’s hand landed warm on the back of my neck.

“Don’t ever do that again.” 

“Working on it.” 

My brother Kevin, wired like me, punched me in the arm. At 15, he had “borrowed” the family car at midnight to search every Eastham beach looking for us. Big brother Rick had worked the dinner rush and was almost asleep on his feet. Little sister Megan hugged me tight. I snuck home with her while the cameramen and newspeople circled the others.

Mom told me later that around 9 o’clock, Darcy and Denise’s parents walked into the bar looking for them, and somebody mentioned they had seen us pile into the runabout headed for the Target Ship. Word spread fast. By the time the Coast Guard started searching, half the town had gathered on the deck of the Harbour Inne—parents, townies, friends, even some summer people, all holding a vigil out there in sweaters and blankets, staring south across the black bay, watching for any sign of us. They kept the deck lights off so they could see better, passing cigarettes and thermoses of coffee, jumping every time they thought they heard a motor. The same deck where my parents had eaten breakfast that morning felt like the edge of the world.

Three months later, a letter arrived: I owed $1,500 to the United States Coast Guard. 

Coach read it at breakfast and laughed once. “Write ’em back. Tell ’em you’re indigent.” 

I looked it up. Poor. 

I wrote in my best handwriting. Apologized. Said I knew the rules. Mentioned Mom and Coach taught school. Said the restaurant barely broke even. A few weeks later, the fine vanished. 

Out on the shoal, the old ship still sits in 25 feet of water—bent, rusting, sunken. When I walk the harbor now and look south, past the moorings and marshes, to where she keeps watch, I breathe in salt, coffee, low tide. I think: Still here.

This essay first appeared in the print edition of the August 2026 issue, with the headline, “Adrift.”