The Raft

When evening comes, Max sleeps again, and Robie stays awake. She is acclimating to the experience of raft-life, and she notes that, "I'd grown used to the motion. And the quiet. At first the quiet was so loud. There was so much nothing that I couldn't block out. But I was getting used to that too, the quiet" (133).

Robie then hears a plane. She tries to rouse Max, but does not succeed, so she tries to figure out the flares on her own. 

She succeeds in lighting one as the plane approaches, but quickly realizes, with the plane overhead, that she has lit a smoke flare, designed for daytime, and not one of the red flares intended for use at night. She manages to light a night flare, but the plane passes without seeing it. In the process, she also drops her flashlight over the edge of the raft. The chapter ends with Robie curled up, crying in despair. 

The next day, Robie catches sight of an island. At first, she is reluctant to let herself believe it, but as the day progresses, the raft draws nearer, and the sight of land is unmistakable. Robie figures that the island could be Lisianski, a small island most famous for its strange history involving cannibalistic rabbits: a visitor introduced them as a non-native species, and the rabbits multiplied like crazy because no creatures on Lisianski hunted them. Their population expanded until they ran out of foodand started eating each other. Robie notes that Lisianski is also famous for a history of bird poaching. She wonders, "if the women wearing feathered hats, or people sleeping on feather beds, resting their heads on down pillows ever wondered where the filler came from. How many birds went extinct just so they could have a soft place to lay their head?" (139).

As Robie instructs the reader on the history of Lisianski, the raft approaches the reef that surrounds the island's lagoon. She is concerned about making it over the reef in the raft, and wants to consult Max, but he is sleeping again. She considers the options on her own, and rejects the idea of ditching the raft, reasoning that she will want it on the other side of the reef. She stays in the raft as it approaches the coral, and the chapter ends as a wave lifts her up and pushes the raft towards the reef. 

Robie falls out of the raft as the wave carries it over the reef. She hits her head and slips into unconsciousness. 

Robie recovers consciousness to the sound of young goonie birds. She is on the beach at the island she presumes to be Lisianski. Her hair is tangled into some beach plants, and she has to yank out a few chunks of hair to get free, which she does in order to search for Max and the raft. Her left eye is swollen shut and she cannot see out of it, but she gets up and searches nonetheless. She finds the raft farther down the beach, but not Max. The vessel is tattered but she thinks it might be useful. She crawls onto the remains of the raft and sleeps. She looks around on the beach for food or water, but all she finds is junk, including dozens of plastic cigarette lighters. 

Robie's thoughts turn to her long-term goals. She asserts, "Although hungry and thirsty, I needed to prioritize. In case a plane flew over or a ship went by, I needed to be able to signal them" (146).

As she progresses down the beach, she finds some sea turtles, and even more cigarette lighters. It occurs to her that the lighters might offer her an easy way to start a signal fire. She walks down the beach testing each one she finds, hoping for a flame, which she calls, "a lottery ticket" (147). When she gets back to the raft, she finds Max waiting for her.

After marveling at the miracle of Max's survival, Robie is grateful for her own, and continues her search for a working lighter. As she looks, rain clouds gather in the sky. 

Down the beach she comes across a monk seal. The first sign of the seal is the sound of its croaking, which Robie describes as the sound of "a massive, low-toned frog" (150). Robie figures by the size of the seal that it is a female. Robie watches the seal for a while, when eventually, something changes: "the seal cried out again. But the cry held something else this time. It was hard to tell, but the sound that came out of her mouth sounded like pain. And then she rolled onto her back...her belly was slashed open, bleeding, with innards exposed and tumbling out" (150) The chapter ends with Robie noting that "the only thing that could do that kind of damage was a shark" (151).

As Robie continues to watch the injured seal, the sight affects her. She says, "Tears filled my right eye as I watched her suffer. There was nothing I could do. Even if we'd been closer to civilization, closer to a marine mammal facility with specialized vets and equipment, I don't know what they could do to help her" (153). 

The seal eventually succumbs to the pain to the point where she cannot cry out anymore. Robie cries, and says, "It wasn't in me to sit and watch her die" (154). She decides to put the seal out of her miseryand finds a heavy object with which to complete the mercy killing. She describes the last moments with the seal: "Just as I was ready to bring the board down, her head fell my way, both of her eyes looking up at mine. There was no surprise in her gaze. Like she expected me to be there. To help her. As she looked at me, I swear she was crying" (155). Robie apologizes to the seal and then kills it. 

It occurs to Robie that she has committed a crime by killing an endangered species. She lingers by the side of the seal, reflecting. The seal's "eyes were still open. Still full of tears. Still so sad. Still so...human. With gentle hands, I closed them for her" (157). Robie strokes the dead seal's fur for some time, reassuring the deceased seal that she has passed on to a better place. Then she sees something in the water, a round dark head, coming towards her and the dead seal. It soon becomes apparent that it is the dead seal's pup. 

Robie is horrified. She says, "In killing the mother, I'd killed the baby too. And I wept" (158).

Robie watches the seal try to reconnect with its mother. She takes some solace in the fact that the seal baby seems like it might be old enough to be weaned and thereforeperhaps old enough to survive without its mother. 

She goes back to check on Max. She temporarily considers whether he might like to eat seal, but then is horrified at even thinking that. She goes back to the seal again a bit later. She decides to push the dead seal into the sea, to spare the baby seal pup another visit to its dead mother, and to spare herself from memories of killing the seal mom. After some struggle with the corpse, she manages to roll it into the water. She is temporarily gratified with this success, but this changes when a fifteen-foot tiger shark snatches the body and eats it. 

That evening, with Robie was back at the tattered raft with Max, it rains. They drink the water that they can catch in their open mouths, then Robie props up the raft on some sticks to create a makeshift tent. She sleeps through the night under this shelter.

The next morning, determined to find food, she combs the beach. She comes across the baby seal she'd seen the day before, eating a cucumber. Robie is happy to see the baby, and names her Starbuck. She also says, as she watches the baby eat, "I had a good feeling. She was going to make it" (165).