The man from the pier cast off the painters and vaulted aboard. Another 
functionary had taken the controls and gently accelerated into the current, 
cutting the throttle at one point and swinging her about into an oncoming wake. 
When the boat entered the main channel and came up to speed, it very quickly 
became chilly, and all the passengers murmured, demanding more warmth from 
their thermogenic clothing. The Afro-Caribbean man made a circuit lugging a 
heavy chest stocked with cans of lager and splits of pinot noir. Conversation 
stopped for several minutes as the passengers, all driven by the same primal 
impulses, turned their faces into the cool wind and relaxed into the gentle 
thumping of hull against waves.