Out to Sea

Whit, Eugene, and Wooton arrive at the docks in the Florida Keys, where Wooton has chartered an afternoon of deep-sea fishing to follow the conference where Whit demonstrated his new portable Imagination Station. Whit admits he is surprised Eugene agreed to come along at all, since Wooton was already helping and Eugene could have stayed home with Katrina and Buck. Eugene insists he is happy to be of service, and besides, the ocean is the perfect place to test the electronic fish finder he and Buck designed. But when the friends reach boat slip 39, they find that their chartered vessel, the Penny's Worth, is a battered old tub that looks older than fiberglass itself. Every other boat is booked for a fishing event, so Eugene throws caution to the wind, declaring, "If adventure has a name, let it be Eugene Meltsner."

The boat's captain is an eccentric old sailor named Melville A. Quidd, a self-described survivor of two wars, three root canals, and last night's five-alarm burrito. He wears an eye patch, though not from battle; a shopper poked him in the eye during a secret sale at an Indianapolis mall. He scorns modern navigation, steers by the stars, and warns everyone that Quidd's Penny's Worth assumes no responsibility for fish that don't bite. As Eugene soon discovers, none of them do. Three hours pass without a nibble, and Whit spots storm clouds gathering on the horizon.

Then trouble arrives in waves. Eugene's fish finder picks up something big, and Whit identifies a shark's dorsal fin just as a mighty splash sounds from the bow. To everyone's relief, Wooton has not fallen in; he only knocked the cooler overboard while celebrating a successful knot, sadly reporting that the tuna salad is now sleeping with the fishes. When the group decides to head for shore, the anchor won't budge, the radio turns out to be dead, and a signal flare sputters out with no one near enough to see it. Wooton bravely scuba dives down to investigate while Eugene tracks him and a circling shark on the fish finder, hauling him aboard just in time. Wooton brings back astonishing news: the anchor is snagged on a sunken ship called the Okra, which Quidd cheerfully admits was one of his own. Bringing boats back, he explains, is the tricky part.

Ignoring the warning that the anchor chain has shifted against the propeller, Quidd guns the engine to tug the anchor loose and wrecks the propeller instead. Now the friends have no food, no radio, no phone, and no propeller, they are chained to a shipwreck, and the storm is closing in fast. Quidd inflates the boat's only life raft and rows away, calling back that he's going for help and that, besides, he doesn't want to lose his two-star rating online. As water pours in faster than Eugene can pump it out, Whit hammers uselessly at the rusted anchor plate while Wooton dives once more to search the wreck for a flare gun or another raft. The fish finder suddenly shows a shark bearing down on him, the meters ticking away, and as the crisis spirals, Eugene cries out that this is all wrong, that he only wanted to get away for a bit. Then a towering wave crashes over everything.

The lights come up, and Eugene is sitting safely in the Room of Consequence back at Whit's End. The entire voyage has been a simulation. Eugene, it turns out, programmed the machine with a simple question: whether he should accompany Whit and Wooton on their trip to Florida. Whit gently points out that the room responds to a person's feelings, and Eugene must be conflicted about something. Eugene finally confesses what has been troubling him: he feels as if his life is speeding by, that he blinked and his carefree youth was gone, replaced by marriage and growing family responsibilities that sometimes overwhelm him. He wonders if he was pulling a Jonah, but Whit says Jonah ran from God, while Eugene just wanted a break. Whit tells Eugene how he has watched him grow from a brash, cocky youngster into a kind and respectable young man who has given his life to Christ, and says he is as proud of Eugene as he is of his own children. Christ, Whit reminds him, can help him embrace everything happening in his life and find joy in it. Touched, Eugene accepts Whit's offer of a Wod-Fam-Choc-Sod, and though Whit renews the invitation to Florida, Eugene decides his adventure has taught him not to run from his responsibilities. Whit smiles at one last difference between Eugene and Jonah: "It only took you a few hours in the Room of Consequence."