The daily navigation check was not simply an exercise in applied mathematics; it was a test of whether she was going to survive. If the numbers showed she was making progress, the news was good. If the numbers showed she was falling behind, the news was bad, and the choices narrowed. For 41 days, the numbers showed progress. The sextant and the watch and the almanac and her arithmetic delivered her to Hawaii.
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## Edward Ashcraft and San Juan Island
Tami Oldham Ashcraft married Edward Ashcraft in 1994, eleven years after Hurricane Raymond. The marriage and the two children they had together — including Kelli, who died in 2017 — represent the domestic dimension of a life that the survival story can obscure.
The survival story is extraordinary. The marriage, the children, the house on San Juan Island, the professional life as a 100-ton captain — these are ordinary, in the sense that they are the ordinary constituents of a life: relationship, family, work, place. For someone whose existence was not guaranteed in October 1983, the ordinariness is part of the point.
San Juan Island, Washington, is one of a cluster of islands in the Salish Sea accessible by Washington State Ferry from Anacortes. It is a maritime community in the specific sense that the sea is immediately present: the ferry schedule structures life, the tidal currents and weather conditions are constant background considerations, and many residents work in some connection with the water. For a person who had spent her life in connection with the ocean and who held a captain’s license, it was an appropriate place.