Under a bright morning sun, the Easy Action got under way again. Biff was at the tiller. His father and Hank Mahenili, tired from their early morning watch, dozed on the foredeck in comfortable captain’s chairs.
Biff and Li had their work cut out for them. The course set was a zigzag one. They wanted to cruise as much of the coastline as possible in the hope of spotting some sign of Huntington’s sunken sloop.
Biff would head the Easy Action off shore, run out nearly ten miles, then tack back in. For every three miles they progressed down the coast toward Ka Lae, the southern tip of Hawaii, they covered nearly twenty miles out and back from the coast.
A stiff morning breeze sent the Easy Action skipping briskly over the waves. They had covered a good distance by eight bells, twelve o’clock noon.
Biff and Li took turns at the tiller. When Li was the steerer, Biff stood on the highest point of the foredeck, near the ship’s bow, scanning the waters on either side with powerful binoculars. When it was his time to take over the wheel, Li took up the vigil.
They reached Kailua on the Kona coast as the sun, like a blazing ball, settled into the Pacific Ocean to the west. They were halfway to Ka Lae, the southern cape.
The party went ashore for a steak dinner at the famous Kona Steak House, then came back to their boat filled with food and tired. All turned in at once. No watch was set. None of them saw the black-hulled power cruiser come in and drop its anchor nearby. Then the captain of the cruiser, having spotted the Easy Action, weighed anchor and moved off to an anchorage out of sight from the crew of the yawl.
The next morning the search was continued, the yawl weaving its way in and out along the coast, drawing nearer to Ka Lae, nearer to the position at which Huntington had last been heard from.
“I’ll take the tiller now, Biff,’” his father said. “Hank and I will alternate. I want you and Li to keep a constant watch. Your young eyes are sharper than ours.”
The Easy Action spent the day crisscrossing a wide area of water between the shore line and a distance outside the coral shoals, varying from five to twelve miles.