and the passing of the storm, the fog lifting slowly to reveal a waiting sun, we leave the village to cross the rocks, to walk the beach, most in search of flotsam and jetsam for profit or use, my nurse and I looking for surviving sailors and those lost but safe in Heaven’s embrace. On a bad day, the last mark the tide line, perhaps floating indistinguishable from a spar trailing seaweed, the fluke shape of another’s leg or arm raised above the sand, while a better day finds, instead or in addition, the cast-up living, succorable, reparable. The best, of course, are uneventful walks on a perfect day, nothing uncovered but chanteys echoing from well beyond the reef.