They brought a portable radio on deck and listened to it throughout most of the morning, but the static was very bad and they finally gave up. After several unsuccessful attempts at playing a losing game of gin rummy against the wind, the boys decided it was easier just to watch the sea and the dark clouds as they scudded across the sky.
Another meal was eaten under conditions similar to those of the breakfast, and the sail continued. The day was dark and the sky threatening, and Don thought seriously of running inshore and tying up at a dock until the blow was over. Late in the afternoon they decided to swim.
“Want to go in for a real swim?” Jim asked Terry.
Terry looked toward the shore. “Where is a beach?” he asked.
“Jim doesn’t mean at a beach,” Don supplied. “He means to go swimming from the boat. Like to try it?”
“With the waves running like that?” Terry demanded.
“Sure thing. It will be the best swim you ever had.”
Terry was not sure, but as the Mercer boys got into their trunks he slowly followed, secretly appalled at the size of the waves that broke against the side of the sloop. Don was first to go over. Poised for an instant on the cabin roof, he suddenly launched out into a splendid curving dive. Right into the heart of a wave he went, to reappear some yards away, puffing.
“Oh, boy!” he called. “Get in, it’s great.”
Jim followed his brother, and Terry, whose swimming had been confined to quiet water all his life, hesitated for a few minutes before he made his plunge. Then, standing on the stern, he shot himself forward into a smother of gray-green water, instantly shooting below a small, churning mountain. An instant later he came to the surface, bobbing up and down on the waves.