Adrift But Hopeful

through wet binoculars he squints again, peers long and hard at where the waves snarl, leap and claw at the ashen clouds wafting much too low in this morning storm; yonder he glimpses at smudges of islets that bob and sway with the irate waters; with slow, heaving, agonizing strokes of a broken paddle, steers his canoe; through a maze of old, gnarled mangroves, there behind a white ribbon of coral reef, he drifts to a sheltered spot in a large cay, where he hopes to ride out the storm's fury.