He pointed, and Gary followed the line out to a point about a mile away. A yellow object was waving in the breeze.
Except it was going back and forth rhythmically, not fluttering in the wind.
Gary picked up his binoculars to take a closer look.
He was shocked to see a man floating in the ocean. He was frantically trying to hail them with a yellow piece of clothing.
“Viv, get up,” Gary yelled, turning the yacht. “There’s a guy over there in the water.”
“What?” she said, sitting up. “You’re pulling my leg.”
“Cam spotted him. He must have eyes like a falcon. Come over here and take the wheel, so I can douse the sails. Cam, put down that phone and give me a hand.”
Cameron had started to film the rescue, but he pocketed the phone while they quickly took down the sails. Vivian started the motor and drove them full speed toward the yelling man. Cameron took his phone out again and continued the video recording.
As they got closer, Gary could tell that the man was Asian and yelling in a foreign language. The yellow item was a jacket, and he clung to a white piece of Styrofoam.
“Did he fall off a ship?” Cameron asked.
“Probably,” Gary answered. “He was a lucky bloke to find that piece of flotsam.” He retrieved their life preserver and tied it to a rope to haul the man on board when they got close enough.
As they approached, Gary saw a fin surface fifty meters behind the shouting man. It sliced through the water on a direct line toward him.
A shark.
Gary’s stomach went cold when he realized what had happened. The man had been floating motionless since the storm, drawing no notice to himself. But as soon as he started waving at the passing yacht, his thrashing and yelling simulated the movements and sounds of a fish in distress, exactly the kind of motion that would attract a nearby shark.
Gary waved his hands in what he hoped was a universal gesture to calm down.
“Stop moving. There’s a shark in the water.”
He pointed at the oncoming predator, but the man didn’t understand him and continued shouting, waving, and splashing the water with joy at having been saved.
The fin reached the man when they were within a boat length of him, and his joyous call turned to a bloodcurdling scream. He was yanked underwater for a moment, and then he surfaced amid a sea of crimson.
Gary threw out the life preserver, and the man desperately grabbed hold of it.
“Come on,” Gary cried out and pulled with all his might.
Vivian rushed toward him and gave him a hand. With their combined effort, they were able to get him up onto the boat.
One of the man’s legs had been bitten off mid-thigh. Blood cascaded across the deck.
“Whoa,” Cameron said breathlessly, though he didn’t stop filming.
“We need to put tourniquets on,” Vivian said, rushing below to get the medical kit. Gary was never more glad that she was an intensive care nurse, which also explained why Cameron wasn’t traumatized by such a horrific sight. He loved hearing her gruesome stories about car crash victims and lawn mower accidents.
The injured man was babbling, repeating the same words over and over, but Gary didn’t understand them.
“Do you speak English?” he asked.
The man shook his head and continued his chant, almost like a mantra. They got progressively softer until he went silent.
Vivian returned and saw that he was turning pale. She knelt and put her fingers to his neck. After a few seconds, she pulled them away slowly.
“He’s gone,” she said. “Poor fellow. He’s been floating out here in the ocean for who knows how long and then dies just as he’s being rescued.”
“I didn’t know someone could bleed that much,” Cameron said, lowering his phone.