It was 10 years ago this week that we first made the passage together.

I was on my boat, the Califia, on a Thursday morning. I was making ready to leave Muskegon Harbor for a 2-week vacation sail that would have its high point at Mackinaw Island, Michigan. I had just removed the sail cover from the mainsail and was folding it up to be stowed. She came out of nowhere. All of a sudden there she was, climbing over the starboard rail which was up against the pier at that time.

"Please hide me, mister!" was her request to me at the time.

I pointed to the companionway leading below. She literally jumped to the cabin sole. If it hurt her (it would have hurt me to do that) she didn't show it and quickly disappeared heading forward, backpack bobbing at her shoulders. All that I had seen was a small slim female passing out of view.

I finished my folding job and was removing the cover from the helm station when a man about my age (call it 35 at the time) came trotting down the main pier. He was a grungy looking character; hadn't shaved yet that day and looked to be fairly sloppily dressed. He stopped at my dock when he saw me back in the cockpit, and walked down the arm of the pier next to my boat.

"Hey! You see a girl, about 16, around here in the last few minutes?" he shouted.

I shook my head no and stayed with my folding.

"She's a runaway and the cops are looking for her! You sure you didn't see her?"

"Look, fella, I've been out here for the last hour cleaning up and I haven't been looking for anyone else that whole time. You're free to look around the rest of the pier, but I haven't seen anybody to tell you about!"

"You ready to tell that to the cops?"

"Well, if they get here in the next 15 minutes I will, but I'm on a schedule and I'm pulling in my lines at 0900 and heading out to the lake."

"You'd better be telling the truth, mister!" He was blustering.

About that time I set down the folded cover and moved toward the railing.

"You making threats, fella?"

He backed away down toward the main pier. "No, no, it's just that they're after her and you'd better be here to talk to them."

I put my foot up on the cockpit seat and looked at him. "Sounds like you're calling me a liar, mister! I'm just here mindin' my own business and you come bullin' in here for no reason! I'd suggest you go and peddle your business elsewhere!"

He kept backing down the walkway and as he turned to walk down the pier he shouted, "You'd better be ready to back that up!"

I watched him walk down the pier, looking every which way as he walked. I picked up my covers, opened the engine compartment and reached below to store them in one of the side lockers up above the engine well. As I came back up I could look down the length of the interior of the cabin for the girl. I didn't see her, but the curtain covering the forward berth was pulled across and I never left it that way when I was on board alone, so I figured that she had gone as far forward as possible and gone to earth, or in this case, to berth.

With my head in the engine compartment I checked the engine oil level and looked at all the connections, battery, steering and others, for anything unusual. After all, out on the lake is not the place to find a problem that should have been taken care of in harbor. Seeing nothing I knelt up and closed the engine compartment cover and stood up, grabbing the boom as I stood. About that time two cops came down the main pier, looking for something or someone.

"Good morning, sir! Have you seen a young lady or a man come down this way this morning?"

"I saw the man, I think. Is he a fairly obnoxious guy about your size?" pointing to one of the cops.

"That's a pretty good description of him," the cop at point agreed.

"What's up, guys? What did he do?"

"It's not him that did anything. He reported his stepdaughter as a runaway and is insistent that she headed down here toward the marina. Frankly we think that she headed to the park 'cause there's nothing out here to attract her."

"Why did he say she ran away?" I asked.

"He didn't say, but her mother died last week and he says she's pretty broke up about it."

"Leave her alone and she'll come home, dragging her tail behind her." I suggested.

"Probably, but we have to make a look for her anyway. So you haven't seen her?"

"I can't really say — but your pain-in-the-ass went that-away! Good luck, guys!"

"Thank you sir! Have a good day." And they headed down the pier toward the obnoxious guy.

I had killed enough time talking with the tourists so I started the diesel and let it warm up a bit while grabbing my hat from the shelf along the companionway. Then I cast off the mooring lines fore and aft and put the Cally into reverse and backed out of the slip, turning into the channel between the piers.

I motored over to the fuel dock to top up the diesel tank. I had already filled the freshwater tank and emptied the holding tank before all of this started.

Pulling up into the fuel dock I pulled the transmission into neutral and guided the boat up to the fueling station, grabbing the line passed over by the dock boy. Mooring the boat I killed the engine, took the fuel line from him and pushed it into the fuel port on the starboard side. Pulling the lever, I locked it into flow position and climbed below briefly.

Fairly quietly I said into the still cabin "If you want off, now's the time to be getting that way. When I leave this dock the next stop is about 30 hours north of here. No questions, no arguments, leave or not, it's up to you. OK?"

"OK," came the quiet response from nowhere in particular.

I regained the deck in time to finalize the fuel flow and hand the hose back to the dock boy, along with my credit card. When he brought it back I signed off, took my copy and handed everything that was his back to him. Starting the engine I moved forward and then aft casting off the fuel dock lines. Taking the helm I put the engine in gear and pulled away from the marina, catching, out of the corner of my eye, the cops and the obnoxious guy moving down another pier full of boats.

I headed out to the shipping channel and turned west toward the big lake, making a steady 4 knots according to the knotmeter. Putting my butt on the back rail and my feet down on the cockpit seat I slowly conned the Cally down the channel and into the big lake. I waved back to some of the tourists walking along the beach side of the channel and to some of the incoming boaters passing me on my port side on their way up to the 'little' lake.

Motoring for about 15 minutes after reaching the big water I eventually locked the helm and went to the front of the cockpit to raise the jib. That took about three minutes and then I cast off all the ties from the mainsail and hauled on the mainsheet. Cleating that line home I regained the helm just as the boat started to heel to the wind. I freed the wheel and at the same time dropped the engine out of gear. After about five minutes making sure that all the sheets were where I wanted them I headed the boat toward the northwest and killed the engine.

From below I heard a small plaintive voice, "Are we OK, is the boat supposed to tip this way?"

I spoke loud enough for her to hear me, "Yes, we're OK. Sailboats tip when they're under sail. Have you ever been out on the big lake before?"

"Nooo! And I'm not sure right now if this is a good idea!"

She sounded like a landlubber who was about to hurl. I didn't want that down in my cabin.

"If you're going to barf either get to the sink in the galley or the one forward in the head. Put it all in the sink! I don't want to be cleaning up the deck down there! If you're really desperate you can come up on deck and lean over the downwind side, but if you don't want anyone to see you stay down below. Just don't mess up my cabin!"

"I don't understand half of what you said, but I can see a sink here and I'm going..."

I saw her slim form pass into the galley area and then heard the sounds of someone being sick. It happened more often than one would think, and almost always at about the same point in the voyage — just after getting under sail out here on the deep water. After allowing about 40 minutes for her to empty herself out I'd go below and feed her a Dramamine with some crackers, and put a low dosage Scopolamine patch behind her ear. She wouldn't feel good for a few hours, but eventually the two acting together would remove that nauseous tendency to barf that often accompanies a first voyage.

I really had no choice of actions, unless I was going to cater to my uninvited seasick guest by going back into harbor. I set the course on the 'iron pilot' that served as my autopilot and went about checking lines and sheets. I adjusted sails, checked the wind, readjusted the sails a bit and then spent some time with the GPS that the marina had recently integrated with my autopilot. At least, that's what they said they did. I wouldn't trust this integration of new and older technologies until it had proven itself. I was expecting this passage north to do just that. I had already programmed the trip with waypoints and expected transit times. Now to see if it worked in reality as it did in advertisements and the installer's assurances

I had originally planned to make the passage to Mackinac Island without any stops along the way. But with my 'unknown' passenger that plan might change. There were other ports I could put into, from White Lake which was only a few hours up the coast now, all the way to Ludington, which would perhaps be a bit of a reach for a seasick landlubber. I was going to have to talk with her. Whoever 'her' was! Common sense would dictate that a discussion was needed. I had just lied to 'her father' and to the cops. I could be in a world of hurt if I got caught. But my brief glimpse of her fear-filled face and her absolute silence, even when sick, told me that this wasn't something she was joking about. Not at all!

Now all I had to do was figure out how deep into her problems I wanted to immerse myself.

Figuring I had baffled anyone who was watching us, since we were now almost out of sight of land, I went below. I found a fairly messed up young lady lying on the forward berth.

"So, how goes it?"

"Can I just die now instead of later?" was her unhappy response.

"No, you can't. But I've got a few things for you to try, to make this experience better."

I found the Dramamine and the rest of the stuff I wanted for her. She sat up, looking downright miserable, and I gave her two pills to swallow with a bit of water, which I offered her. She chose to chew them dry and quickly crammed in the three saltine crackers I offered her to follow them. I explained the Scop patch to her and gently applied it to the left side of her head, low and behind her ear.

Then, for the first time really, I sat back to examine my patient. She certainly looked older than the 15 or 16 that guy had claimed for her. She was a blond with shoulder length hair, now sticking out in every direction. She was sitting down so I couldn't judge her height exactly but she seemed to me to be fairly short. A fairly big bust under the tank top, a fairly narrow waist, and very good legs below her rather short shorts.

"So, what's your name?" I asked.

No response was made.

"Since I've put myself in jeopardy with the Muskegon cops I think that you at least owe me a name!

"I'm Nikki Glasman. My name is Nikki!"

"OK, Nikki, would you mind telling me why you're on board my boat on the way to Mackinac Island?"

"He tried to rape me!"

"Again, OK! Who tried to rape you? Your father? The guy who was looking for you back on the dock?"

"Yes, him! He's not my father! My father died six years ago. Ben is my stepfather! And when my mother died six days ago he started to tell me that I was going to have to replace her! He's crazy! He meant that he wanted me in his bed! Oh, God, I miss her so much! He wasn't like this before!"

"Well, you can settle down now, Nikki. He's a fair ways behind us and I don't think anybody saw you board the Cally. I think you're safe, right now."

"Oh, thank you! Thank you! It's embarrassing but I don't even know your name. I'm just so happy that you took me away from him!"

She didn't look very happy — she had an 'I'm almost sick' look about her that didn't go away for at least another hour.

"My name is Bill Poll, and you're on the Califia out on Lake Michigan and headed North at the moment. And I have to confess that I don't know what to do with you."

"Well..."

"First question — how old are you? I need to know how much trouble I'm likely to be in if they catch up with us."

"I'm seventeen — I'll be eighteen in ten days! I'm not going to get you in trouble, am I?"

"Well, if I get caught with a seventeen year-old runaway I might be! Let's see to it that they don't find you for the next ten days!"

"I can't stay here with you for that long! That wouldn't be fair to you! Can't you drop me someplace sorta safe and kinda forget about me?"

"Yeah, I could do that. But what would you do? If you're here I can keep an eye out for you and see that you get at least three squares a day. Could you do that if I dropped you in, say, Ludington? Do you have anybody there to help you?"

"Nooo. There's nobody there or anywhere. Mama was the last of my family! I'm all alone! I don't even know if I can trust you!"

At this point she broke out in sobs and all I could do was to take her in my arms and hug her until she stopped a bit. She was too miserable to resist the hug. I pulled out my handkerchief (clean at this point) and gave it to her to dry her tears. With a quick final hug I released her and sat back on the edge of the berth.

"Well, he said that you were sixteen, so he was lying to the cops. You're almost at that magic point where you can be responsible for yourself. In ten days you can do anything you want to do. Does he hold anything else over you? And can you prove to the cops, and to me, how old you are?"

"Well, he has anything that my mom probably left to me. I don't know what she might have done that way. I know she made a will, but I don't know what it said. And yes! I can prove how old I am. I have my driver's license with me. I suppose that my birth certificate is back at the house we lived in."

"Would you please let me see it so we can plan a defense if it's needed?"

She reached back into the berth and pulled out her backpack. Digging inside of it she pulled out a wallet, and digging in that she pulled out her license. It showed her photo (quite flattering, actually) and her birthdate. I had to do some quick math but she came up smelling like roses. She was just a bit short of eighteen and therefore, just short of being a legal adult. Her stepfather had no claim on her if we could keep her free from him for ten more days.

"Well, this says that all we have to do is keep you away from him for 10 days and you can do whatever you want. The question is, do you want to stay with me all the way to and back from Mackinaw to get to that point?"

"I guess so. I really don't know what to do anymore now that I'm away from him. He scared the shit out of me when he got drunk last night! He was grabbing at my tits and my ass! I pushed him down and ran! I was just lucky that I could grab my backpack before I ran away and that my wallet was in it. I just got paid last night. Otherwise I wouldn't have anything!"

"All right, you're free of him and the cops for the moment. How are you feeling now?"

She looked surprised as she sat back to answer that question. Obviously running through all of her systems, she responded, "Pretty well, right now, it's a lot better than before you gave me this stuff!"

"OK! Here's the deal. The cops, at least the state cops, have planes that they can fly over us. I don't want you showing yourself above board any time when you hear a plane, OK? You can stay down here most of the time and if you need to come up into the cockpit I want you ready to bail down below anytime we hear a plane! That should keep them from suspecting us of something funny. I'm just a guy, alone, heading north! I'm going to continue the passage north until you cave in and want to get back to dry land. If you really think you need to be back on land, we'll head to the nearest port although it may be quite a while before we reach it. We'll be heading into night after a bit and then you're welcome on deck as long as you want to be there. There's more Dramamine over there on the counter when you need it, but not for another three hours at least. The Scop patch won't need to be replaced until after we arrive at Mackinaw Island. All right? Oh, by the way, I'll be sleeping on deck tonight so you don't have to worry about me bothering you down here!"

"Actually, at the moment I trust you more than I ever trusted Ben, and with much better reason! You could have forced me to do something ever since you came down here, but all that you've done is shown me respect. I could love you for that after what he tried to do to me!"

"All right, the hard part of the time we're going into is that nothing happens. We're facing another full 24 hours of absolutely nothing! Can you handle that?"

"Yes, as long as you let me up by the steering wheel once in a while. I don't think that I can stay down here without being able to see anything!"

"You are welcome above, as long as you listen for airplanes. But you won't see much! We're almost out of sight of land and the only way we know where we are is by GPS or by the charts that I can show you. You won't see much up above! And always remember that you're probably safest down below here."

"Just let me up there, please!" She was starting to get a desperate look in her eyes.

"OK! I need to grab a sandwich and some chips before I go back to the wheel. You're welcome to some stuff from the fridge too!"

"No thanks! Don't even show me food! Just get me where I can see something besides this room!"

So I grabbed a sub and a Coke out of the fridge, a pack of chips from the cabinet and headed back to the helm station. Nikki followed me, carefully looking at the sky. She had gotten the necessary message.

Once on deck she seemed to be feeling some better. I also got a much better look at my passenger. She was rather pretty, with medium blond hair that she pulled back into a ponytail and tucked through the strap hole in the back of the baseball cap I gave her for some sun protection. She was wearing a yellow sleeveless T-shirt and a pair of short jean shorts that were rather tight around her well-shaped bottom. Her chest was impressive for a short woman; her attributes were high and large and apparently well supported because there was very little movement under her shirt. I looked! My guess is that she stood about 5'3" and weighed probably about 110 lbs. I showed her where the sunscreen was located and watched admiringly as she wiped it onto two very shapely legs.

Dramamine makes some people sleepy and she napped for the next couple of hours. When she was awake she protested a couple of times that she didn't want any food. She did go below at the appropriate time for her re-dose of Dramamine. While she didn't find exactly what she was looking for above deck in the line of a view, she was calmer and apparently happier than she had been below.

A passage like the one we were making is boring to many people. There appears to be nothing to do, or, as far out as we were, to see. There is just 'water, water all around'! On the other hand, I was somewhat busy at times. I was checking the set of the sails and making any needed adjustments. For quite a bit of the next while we were making a good five knots of speed, and I was always watching that. I was also checking where the GPS said we were as opposed to what I calculated at the chart table. (It ended up being more right than I was on this and later trips.)

As Nikki's stomach settled down she asked for and got a Coke to drink. She didn't eat anything for about six hours after we left harbor. While she was awake we talked a lot. She had questions about what I was watching and doing with the boat. She had questions about why I was going where I was going. She was curious about a lot of things that would make her understand me better. And that made some sense I suppose, because she was stuck with me at least until we made harbor somewhere up the coast.

We talked about her family, about her mom and her mom's death. This was difficult for her to do and she broke down a few times while we talked. We talked about her mom's marriage and her own relationship with her mother's husband, Ben. We talked about what he had said, done and implied to her that made her run away. (It certainly sounded as if she had the right of it all. She'd had to take off, in my humble opinion.) We talked about her mother's will — she knew nothing about it. We talked about what she would want that had belonged to her mother but was now in the possession of Ben.

I was used to long conversations while making a passage, but this one I found myself enjoying in a different fashion. It still struck me as strange to even be having it. Here I was in fairly deep conversation with a 17 year old young lady who had only by accident chosen my boat to hide on. I was having fun at the same time that I was becoming rather concerned for her welfare. I wasn't sure how far to take this business of hiding her that I had begun when her stepfather had come looking for her back at the pier.

Eventually we talked about what she could do. We walked through many possible future scenarios for her life in the short run. It turned out that she had already graduated high school and had been planning on going to the local Community College in our area while living at home. 'Home' was now out of the question for her but she still wanted to start college if at all possible.

All of the scenarios we discussed started ten days from right then. After she had reached legal majority. She could succeed at almost everything once she passed that birthday.

Where could she stay for those ten days? She'd have to hide out the whole time, just in case! In case of what? In case Ben had filed a missing persons report and she had all the cops in the state looking for her. She was getting quite frustrated as she eliminated option after option. It wasn't looking good for her as she had relatively little money with her and we had decided that using credit cards would leave too many trail markers for other people (cops) to follow straight to her.

Eventually I did what I had probably decided subconsciously quite a bit earlier. I invited her to stay with me on the boat. Her ten days was just a bit shorter than my intended vacation, but the extra few days before she reappeared wouldn't hurt anything either.

But now another whole list of options had to be explored and about this time I was getting hungry, and Nikki admitted that the treatments had helped stop her nausea and she was also beginning to feel rather empty. So, after a check of the rigging and the autopilot I headed below to get some supper type food. I gave her a couple of choices and she said that the hamburger choice sounded good. So I used the rail-mounted gas grill to burn the burgers while she got the buns, condiments, chips and Cokes up from the galley. Again she said that she felt better on deck than in the 'downstairs'.

I did advise her to go slowly with the food. She didn't want a reoccurrence of her earlier experience. Too much food too fast would bring the heaves back to haunt her. So we ate slowly and we talked as we ate. She seemed to enjoy the taste of the food despite her problems of several hours ago. She also seemed to be changing her emotional state as the sun moved closer to the western horizon. I'd say she was actually beginning to get angry about what had happened.

If she wanted to hide out on the Cally she would need to take precautions against being seen. I stressed the need to stay below decks, even if uncomfortable, when anyone else was around. We also talked about camouflaging her so that she could in fact leave the cabin. That would be more important when we made harbor at Mackinac Island.

She didn't have much with her in the line of clothes, and all of them would perhaps be recognizable as hers if her stepfather could figure out what she had taken when she ran off. So one of the things we had to do in order to help hide her was to get her some clothes that were quite different from what she usually wore. She suggested cutting her hair, which then was long enough to hang down her back several inches. Either or both of these changes took resources that we wouldn't easily find on Mackinac Island so I suggested that we put in first somewhere on Grand Traverse Bay. We could pick a place that had a Wal-Mart or something similar to get some different clothes and a ladies' hair place to get her hair reshaped.

It all sounded good to her, but she was a bit disappointed when I told her that we wouldn't get there until tomorrow morning sometime. I think she was kind of hoping to get off of the boat earlier than that.

By now the sun was setting to the west, so I took some time to do the necessaries. I dug out the radar reflector from under the companion way ladder and hauled it aloft. I turned on the lights and went and checked that they were all working properly. I rigged the lights below for red color so we wouldn't be blinded below by the usual white lights. And, after grabbing some blankets and a pillow I picked up my mag-light and rigged it with the red night lens. With my arms full I made it back to the cockpit and arranged my stuff on the windward side of the boat.

As the sun put on a beautiful show while slipping below the watery horizon the temperature began to fall. I had started the day in jeans and a T-shirt so I just pulled on my Yacht Club hoody which was usually stored in one of the cockpit lockers. Nikki on the other hand had been wearing that short pair of jeans shorts and sleeveless T-shirt top when she came aboard so she was getting cold quite rapidly.

She went below to switch into long pants and a long sleeved shirt from her backpack. I also suggested that she put on some socks and tennis shoes if she had any with her. She did and when she had changed in the head space she came back to the cockpit. "Well, that's just about it for my clothing options," she said. "I really didn't get to grab much before I took off. At least I've got some money to use at Wal-Mart."

"Look, I told you before that I'd lend you the money you need for the next ten days, so don't worry about that! If you want a sweat shirt to wear there's at least one of mine down below and maybe even something left by one of the people who've been out with me. They have a tendency to forget things like towels and sweatshirts, and sometimes even more. If I can't get the stuff back to them easily it just builds up in that bottom locker across from the head."

"The head? What's that? You guys sure have funny names for things on boats! What's 'the head'?"

"You'd call it the bathroom, but on a boat we call it 'the head', like the kitchen is the galley and a bed is a berth. We sailors have to have some ways to show our superiority to the rest of mankind."

"And womankind? OK, I'll go down and look through that locker. How do I see anything down there?"

It does get pretty dark pretty fast after the sun goes down out on the lake. So I told her where to find the switches that would turn on the red lights below and asked her to turn them off when she came topside again.

"Topside? See there you go again, Bill, with that fancy talk! OK, I'll be right back."

When she came back up she sat down next to me on the upwind side of the cockpit. Moving closer than she had been all day she put both arms around me from the side and gave a strong "Thank you, Bill! I know I've just pushed myself into your life, but I want you to know that I really appreciate the way you've been treating me since I became your stowaway! And I've made up my mind since this morning — I do think that I can trust you."

Releasing me, she moved to go back across the cockpit, but first I grabbed her into a big hug in return. "Nikki, I'm glad you came along on an otherwise boring passage. And I'm glad to have met you, I just wish it had been under different circumstances for you. I'd like to take a poke at that Ben for what he's making you go through. But if we can make it through ten more days together, you'll be home free from him. I hope that at the end of those ten days you'll still have trust in me!"

This time I released her from the hug. But she abandoned the idea of moving away and sat next to me for the next couple of hours as the stars came out and then the moon rose.

Out in the big lake the stars are fantastic to watch. They're there in their millions and if you know your constellations you can easily pick them out from the rest of the myriad. As the moon rose the starfield dimmed somewhat, but Nikki and I still spent time picking out the star pictures we knew.