Page 1 of The Mer-Mate

When in doubt, trust the surfers.

I know. It’s not scientific. The weather channel has charts and calculations and a bunch of algorithms I couldn’t decipher if my life depended on it.

I'm a marine biologist; not a meteorologist. I don’t know shit about predicting the weather.

The surfers, though. They’re in the water. They feel its moods. If they listen, the ocean will let them ride her swells, and the rest of the world will fall away, and it's just them and a moment with a wave no one will ever ride again.

And in that moment, freedom.

Their lives depend on them respecting the ocean. On understanding it. Just like mine does.

As if it wasn’t already risky enough being out on the water.

Storm warnings have been blasting out over every media type imaginable for days. The season has barely started and already swells have been clocked at over thirty feet .

Darwin’s Daughter , my research vessel, can handle that. What she can’t handle are the fifty footers rumoured to be coming.

Anyone heading out onto the water in those conditions would have to be insane.

Just me and the surfers.

But the wildest storms bring the most life-changing rides.

This morning, I laid awake for hours before sunrise, an eerie silence pressing down on me.

I stared out the window, past the cedar boughs waving outside my trailer, eyes fastened on the horizon as I chewed dry toast. Reminding myself I’m not scheduled to check my lines for three days, that I should wait, the words when in doubt, trust the surfers playing on an endless loop in my brain .

I’m a scientist, but I believe in hunches.

The full force of the storm hadn’t hit when I launched hours ago. It took me long enough to notice when it finally did. I was so deep in my charts that I didn’t see the black clouds cover the midday sun. Didn't feel the temperature drop. I didn’t look up until the deck was drenched.

Guess I’m just used to being wet.

My fingers are numb as I wind the crank. The waves rendered my automatic winch useless hours ago. If I engage it now, it’ll snap, and I could lose months of work.

What the ocean claims out here is lost forever. Usually.

Except me.

Everyone said it was a miracle I didn’t drown when I went overboard all those years ago. I never told anyone what I saw beneath the waves that day. Who would believe me? Half the time, I don’t believe myself.

Someone—or some thing —saved me.

I shield my eyes from the gale, fighting the chill seeping into my bones. I’ve waited thirty years for this data. Lost friendships in pursuit of it. Given up postings and grants that would have taken me away from British Columbia’s Wild Coast.

My ex-husband was convinced I was hiding an affair. No matter how many times I told him there wasn’t another man, he knew I was keeping something from him.

I didn’t bother fighting for my marriage. It took too much time away from the ocean.

So much data I’ve collected but never published. No one would take me seriously if it was made public. The only way I’ve managed to keep my professional reputation intact is by hiding the true purpose of my research. Not until I was sure.

My lines, currently thirty nautical miles offshore, just past the continental shelf and hanging almost a thousand metres down, might finally, finally , give me answers. Fifty-footers be damned.

Everything has brought me to this point. I can’t lose it today. Not when I’m so close.

I need to prove myself wrong.

Because being right would be unfathomable.

Unfathomable .

If I wasn’t so fucking cold, I’d laugh at my own shitty humour.

A wave batters the side of my research vessel and sends me sprawling across the tiny deck. I spit out a mouthful of seawater and turn my eyes up. The sky was a flat iron-grey when I set out before sunrise but has morphed into an angry purple.

Cumulonimbus. Those clouds I know. Tofino’s storms are full of them. Heavy, dark, and dangerous. I squint to where the shore should be, but even if the clouds weren’t obscuring the horizon, the shore would be miles out of sight. There’s no telling where the ocean ends and the sky begins.

The roar of the wind almost drowns out the sound of the rain hammering my boat. If I work fast, I can still get these lines in before returning to shore.

I scramble to my feet, sliding across the slick deck. My life vest restricts my arm movements, so I unbuckle the top straps. Even I'm not so reckless that I’ll fully take it off.

A movement just off starboard catches my eye. A fin breaks the surface, then a dolphin breaches. And again.

What the hell is a dolphin doing out here? Without a pod? I encounter more dolphins than anyone I know, but never in conditions like this. I scan the waters around it, still cranking my line up.

The dolphin jumps again, releasing a strident series of chirps. I can’t help but feel it’s trying to tell me something.

Get the fuck off the water, you stupid human would be most likely.

“I’m almost done,” I grunt out, bracing myself against another wave.

The handle slips from my grasp and a high pitched whir screams as the line releases. I lunge for it, but at the last second remember if I grab the handle now, my arm could break with the force. I slam my hand on the emergency brake instead, and the line stops with a sickening jolt.

“Fuck!” My voice is a choked sob. An hour of work lost with one mistake. Every minute counts at sea, and I just lost sixty of them. Even if I can get it up in time, I stopped it so hard I could have damaged my equipment.

Sweat and tears burn my eyes. I’m so close. The deck pitches under my feet with growing swells. The wind is an angry roar, slapping the wet tendrils of my hair against my face and thick rain jacket. Telltale sheets of grey in the distance mean the full force of the storm is closing in. Fast.

“Don’t quit now.” I force my frozen fingers to close around the winch. The muscles in my arms are on fire as I crank. Minutes tick by, and when my hundred meter flag breaks the surface, relief floods my system.

Almost there.

This could be it.

The dolphin breaks the surface again, closer, almost like it wants to jump in my boat. Close enough for me to look into its eyes.

Dolphins lack the muscles needed to make facial expressions that humans can understand. Even still, it looks like it’s laughing at me as the next wave smacks into my boat and sends me overboard.

The frigid Pacific water tears my life vest from me the second I go under.

Fear doesn’t have time to register before the current sweeps it out of my grasp.

The cold stuns me with its assault, and what little warmth my body had is leached away in seconds as the water finds every opening in my waterproof coveralls.

I’m fucked.

Now terror clutches my throat. I have seconds, not minutes, before hypothermia sets in. Even if I can get to my boat, I’m not sure how I’ll get in.

Don’t quit. You can’t stop now. I kick, praying I’m facing up. Something shoves me from below, and miraculously I break the surface.

I pull in a mouthful of half air, half water, spluttering, flailing for my life vest, but the waves have already carried it out of sight.

Brine stings my eyes. The sky is so dark I can’t tell which way is up. My boat was anchored. It can’t be far … if I could just see it, I could get to it … but my muscles are seizing from the cold. My legs spasm as I give a panicked attempt to kick with my waterlogged boots and I go under again.

My lungs are on fire. I can’t feel my face. Even my bright yellow rain jacket is dim underwater.

Another bump from below pushes me upwards.

Why is there a hand on my ass?

I break the surface, but my mouth isn’t working. Rain as hard as hail pelts my face. It’s so cold I can’t feel the difference between the air and the water, and both enter my lungs as I suck in as hard as I can.

The pain disappears as the fight leaves my body. Dimly, I feel the waves drag me below, but I don’t have the energy to care about anything other than what I just lost.

As I sink below the surface, something broad and firm wraps around my waist, and what little light above me goes black.