Having been on boats my entire life, I didn’t have that problem. Grasping the hand of one of the crew of the tiny ship, I easily hopped from dock to deck. My hand curled around the railing to steady myself as it rocked with the motion, then finally settled. I worked my way to the stern and the seats there, falling quickly into steadying myself against the rising and falling of the boat in the choppy waters.
A stiff breeze was blowing from the north, and it was chilly on the water even at the height of summer. I pulled the collar of my jacket up around my neck, nodding politely to the two other passengers as I dropped into one of the seats. Dropping my bags beside me, I wriggled to find as much comfort as possible—I was going to be here for a while.
The boat would take me to the island off the coast, one of the many that formed the disputed territory between Russia and Japan. My international team and I had been assigned to study the migration patterns of the marine life of one such island. They had been acting strangely—all the cyber research told us the tagged animals had been behaving in ways that were wildly inconsistent with the typical models.
My team of marine biologists consisted of only three people, but I was going alone today. Coming from California, my plane had arrived before anyone else’s. And also, a part of me was eager to begin, despite my misgivings. The scientist in me had to know what was causing these anomalies. I could think of many things, none of them good, but what I didn’t understand was the suddenness of it. Usually, when you saw a change in a pattern, it was slow, over months, years, even decades. But this was unusual even outside of the inconsistency.
I had to know, and I didn’t want to wait for the few days it would take the rest of the team to follow. My contact on the island was waiting for me, anyway.
The boat’s engine rumbled to life with a growl and a burbling of water. The other person in the two-person crew untied the moorings from the dock and coiled the ropes onto the deck before leaping on himself, and we were off.
I watched Japan drop away, the town of Nemuro and the flat coast with its coastline that looked like someone had taken a rake to a square of dirt fading into the haze of summer hanging over the water. In the winter, the land would be frozen and covered by feet of snow, but for now, it was bright green.
Settling back into my seat, I watched the wake behind the boat, the white froth and churning of the water, and the wind blowing the whisps of hair that had escaped my bun. I breathed in the spray and the air, sea salt in my nose and on my tongue.
This was my life, the life of a marine biologist. I traveled the world, following in the footsteps of my father. He, too, had traveled the world, bringing back with him fantastical tales of the creatures he’d seen on his research trips. I’d even gone with him when I was old enough, acting as a small, unpaid intern. But I’d loved every exciting, exhausting, sun-burnt, sea salt-encrusted minute of it. When he died, I had vowed to continue his work.
It was a very different life than the one my mother had led and still led, thriving with the family seafood restaurant nestled between Berkley, where my dad had worked, and now I worked, and Oakland, where I’d grown up.
My young adventures with my father had shown me that staying put just wasn’t for me. I’d wanted to see the world, surf in the waters of the Pacific in the summer, and huddle in a hut with a roaring fire in the winter, saving the world one research paper at a time.
Okay, maybe not saving the world, but if I could help marine life in any way, I would do it.
At a noise above the boat, I looked up to see military planes flying overhead. I knew the Japanese Self-Defense Force was playing war games off the coast, and I wondered if that had anything to do with my mission. That was one scenario that had been playing in my head, and at least it was easily fixable—a short-term problem with an easy solution that would fade when the war games ended.
Beyond that, international politics were not my concern—my work was beyond politics. I was here for the facts and the animals.
The sun was nearing its zenith several hours later when the boat docked. The mid-day summer sun was hot without the ocean breeze, and I peeled off my jacket and stuffed it into my bag.
Pacing up the gangplank and off the dock, I pulled the printed directions to the place I was supposed to go from my pack as the three other passengers went their own ways. When I pulled out my mobile phone to check the time, no bars blinked back at me—the device was only functional for pictures now.
My mind flashed back to the conversation I’d had with my mother, and for a moment, I felt a strange panic welling in my gut.
But this wasn’t anything new. The small cabin where I was supposed to stay even had a generator for electricity, which was more than I’d had on many of my research trips. Forcing the odd panic and the memory of my conversation down, I stowed the phone back into my bag and took off for the rest of the docks.
The research station was halfway around the island, which was large, and a hike either around the coast or over the craggy mountain peaks in the distance would take a few days. Instead, I’d been instructed to hire someone to take me around by boat, which was a matter of another few hours but better than multiple days, and meant I hadn’t had to pack that many supplies.
The docks were quiet this time of day, with most boats out fishing, less the fishermen who had already finished their work and gone home for the day.
I saw a woman unloading fish from a bucket, and she looked up as I approached. I used what limited Russian I had to ask about someone to take me to the research station. The woman stared at me through hard, narrowed eyes, her gaze sweeping me up and down, her mouth drawn into a thin line. I was sure she was wondering what a strange, foreign woman was doing asking around for a ride to an uninhabited part of the island, but I didn’t have the language skills to explain.
After a moment, she seemed to deem the issue not her problem because she waved me further down the docks. It was vague, but a direction, and I thanked her before moving that way.
I managed to find several fishermen, some working on their boats, others offloading their catches. When I inquired, though, I received an almost universal no. And it was a no despite the money I offered. Stranger yet, the no was often emphatic, with a rough shake of the head followed by an even harsher, angry-sounding, second no, one that seemed to have an edge of fear to it. I didn’t miss the way their eyes darted in the direction of the coast, then back to me, before they would confirm their rejection.
No matter how much I cajoled or added my own cash to the pot, I was turned down, until I found a woman, still in fishing gear, the only crew of her small boat. Just like the first woman had, she looked me up and down before her gaze came to rest on the cash in my hand, then she nodded. As I clambered on board among the scattered fishing gear, machine parts, and puddles of briny water, I even heard her mutter something about the other fishermen being “cowards,” which made me smile. But I stopped just short of laughing.
Something about the anxiety, even fear I’d seen from the others, made my stomach clench again. I nearly jumped off the boat, intuition poking at the back of my mind telling me something was off about this entire thing.
But I didn’t. I watched as the engine started up with a rumble I could feel through my feet, and we pulled away from the dock.
The ride took several hours, and I watched in silence as the coastline drifted by. The island wasn’t as brightly green as Japan had been. It was rockier, grass-covered, with heavy forests further inland, primarily flat with some hills that rolled up to the base of the mountains with those jagged peaks.
A word from the captain—the first word I’d heard from her since we’d left—and I looked back over my shoulder. She pointed to a bay, a small half-circle, ahead of us, before steering the boat towards land. A small cabin made of industrial corrugated steel was the only building in the area, about half a mile from the beach.
Once on shore, I watched the boat pull away, headed back where it had come from, the engine's noise fading with the distance. Then it was quiet—eerily quiet, save for the sounds of the waves lapping at the shore, the calls of sea birds, and the wind.
Suppressing a shiver, I hauled my bags towards the research station. My arms were screaming with strain by the time I reached it.
It was still quiet, and I looked around for any signs of life before knocking. No one answered.
Someone was supposed to meet me here, but the door swung open to more silence and an interior empty of other life. A search around the building and a small foray into the forest beyond found nothing and no one else.
Maybe the caretaker or whoever was supposed to meet me here had gone out for the day to do whatever it was he did, and he would be back before nightfall.
That was what I told myself, anyway.
But as I started the process of settling in and arranging my gear and instruments for use, a feeling settled in the pit of my stomach, and I tried to ignore the fact that it was anxiety.