Six Sentence Sunday: Cold Fog, Rising

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Hey there Sunday, Sunday Sixers! How are you all doing today? I admit, I have been absent more often than not these last few weeks. Today, I'll share a longer excerpt to make up for it. :) This is a whole scene, and the end of chapter 3 of The Days Adrift, my YA novel WIP. ->Last time the main character almost lost herself to the water, but Brita, one of the other two girls on board pulled her back into the boat at the very last second. This time, the protagonist struggles to find her place in this dire situation, being lost out at sea.
Your comments & criticisms are very helpful and precious to me, and I want to encourage you again to share each and any thought you have. Thank you.


There is no sign of an outpost, no sign of anything in the dense morning fog. Tams unscrews the last bottle of water and hands it over to me. 

"Here." 

I get feeling she knows as well as I that we are completely lost. She doesn't have as much sailing expertise on her back, but she still knows me.

The nagging look she gives me doesn't fail to remind me that there is something to be done about the situation, something on my part. I mean, what does she expect?

Oh my, poor little Brita sits at the bow and stares across the water like a watchdog, turning her head left and right, so as not to miss any signal above ocean level. 
There is none. There hasn't been one for over a week. 
After days without food we are narrowed to a weak signal ourselves.

Are we just waiting to die out here?

I remember, I was only five years old, when my father took me out boating for the very first time. I loved every minute of it. We went deep-sea fishing the following summer, and he let me help throw out the net. Back then I could barely reach the fiddle with my nose.

At the age of ten, I knew how to steer a motorized boat, with twelve I could easily find my way home without the help of the stars; he told me to keep an even keel to where the cold fog rises.

At fourteen he pronounced me seaworthy and presented me with my own captain’s hat. He would mess up my hair, and then put it on my head...

Dad... 

In a desperate maneuver I turn the cockleshell northeast, towards the soon to be rising sun; an even keel to where the cold fog rises.
It's a long shot, but it's the only chance we have.

"Let's head towards Old Venice." 

I barely recognize my own voice. 
Brita turns around in surprise and she claps her hands, cheering me on. "Old Venice, here we come!"  

Exude confidence when captaining -always.

How could I ever forget? 

My whole body shivers as I reach for the handle to resume my post. I can never tell whether it is from the cold or from hunger.

I look over at Tams and she smiles at me, through slight wafts of mist.