Black waves, wind-feathered. White birds, dark birds. The trade winds freshen at first light, and the sea rises in long ridges, rolling west. Sunrise at longitude 77. Sunrise at the lesser Caymans.
Horizon rises from horizon.
At dawn, in the harbor of Georgetown, Grand Cayman island, the sixty-foot schooner Lillias Eden is preparing to get under way for the turtling grounds of the western Caribbean. It is April, late in the season to set out, for the green turtle has already commenced its seasonal migration to the southerly extremities of Central America. A one-eyed psychic from the island's interior. A black Honduran from the Bay Islands. The Eden is without life jackets or fire equipment.