Zircon and Scotty joined forces to prepare lunch. The temperature had dropped sharply, and hot soup and hamburger sandwiches were welcome.
After lunch, Rick braved the storm long enough to go to the Water Witch for his camera. He returned to the cottage soaked to the skin. "We'll need diving equipment to go outside if this keeps up," he announced.
He took the camera case apart and disconnected his circuits, then he went outside again with tools in hand and got into the Sky Wagon. The plane had a heater switch that would do. He removed it, leaving the wires to dangle for the moment. If the heater was needed he could put the wires together.
That done, he sat in the plane and racked his memory for a source of sheet rubber. There was none, but he recalled a repair kit for the plastic floats in their tool supply. He found it and took it back to the house.
Using the awl blade on his scout knife, he bored a hole through the plastic back of the case and installed the switch. Then he reconnected his circuits so the new switch would turn on only the infrared light. He waterproofed the switch as best he could, making gaskets from a rubber jar ring he found in the kitchen.
He knew, however, that the switch wouldn't be waterproof under pressure. He took a sheet of plastic repair material from the float repair kit and shaped it carefully with his knife. After much trial and error he succeeded in cementing it onto the case so that it would protect the switch from the outside, but left enough slack for the switch to be operated through the flexible patch. Satisfied, he put it aside to dry.
It was nearly time for dinner when he finished. He took a hand in cooking ham and eggs with fried potatoes, while Tony prepared a salad and made coffee.
As they ate, Zircon gestured toward the front of the house. "Getting worse instead of letting up. This must be a hurricane, although I've never heard of one quite this early in the season."
"If it gets much worse we'll have to anchor the cottage," Scotty observed.
They finished just in time to tune in for the weather forecast from St. Thomas. According to the announcer, the storm was now centered off the island of St. Croix, moving in a northwesterly direction. That meant it would pass St. Thomas, and perhaps come very close to them. The announcer said, "While the storm has many of the characteristics of a hurricane, including the general form and wind velocities, we hesitate to designate it as one."