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The little boat’s weary electric motor whined in protest. Its long duty only to a propeller that had tasted all the waters of this coastline. Mechanisms onboard had monitored the heart of this machine for a century, and knew well that it could beat these waters for only a few hours more.
No one had ever sailed the oceans in this little tub. There was no need. Once set to its task by ingenious engineers now long gone, it’s entire operation was automated.
As the little boat headed out to sea, it turned it sensors back to home to record forever those who waved it off. Recording those upon whose dreams this little craft, and so many others like it, depended.
What had once been a barren desert beneath the swell, was now a lush forest of life. By pushing this little mechanism out to sea, those engineers had planted a seed that would regrow a reef they would never enjoy.
Decades on this reef was its final service. Its first journey, long ago, saw it stand sentinel out in the deep ocean to monitor currents, salinity and the diversity of life out in that blue expanse. This little floating robot had puttered across the pacific and back again. Now, as the horizon was nearly caught, it attended to the corals of this coastline.
Nature still bore the scars and bruises inflicted by the makers of this little machine. She had punished this mechanical interloper throughout a century of lonely operation. A witness to this conflict and its subsequent reparations, the little boat soldiered on, suffering the worst that storm, squall and searing sun could throw at it.
Dirty, battered, lashed by wind, rain and sea. Over the decades barnacles had found a home on its once smooth hull, and the encrusted drag had gradually slowed progress. The ecosystem that now travelled with this device enjoyed ever easier rest in the shadow cast by this hull.
The little boat had on occasion met with kindness. A length of rope lashed together a broken mast that sprouted antenna and sensors. Once a proud spire, this vital link to the wider world had been snapped in a storm. The remains dragged behind the little craft beneath the water, only retained by electrical wires that digital monitors interpreted as a screech of pain. Its terminus submerged, a screech that no-one would hear.
Struck blind, deaf and dumb, the little boat had wandered, lost in the vast ocean, dragged far beyond help by the very currents it had hoped to map and master.
A young man, keen to test himself, found the helpless machine mid way through his own epic journey. His small yacht slid up to the stricken device. Its captain and only crew broke the monotony of his journey by attending to that broken mast for some hours.
The mast now drawn from the water and lashed in place, the little boat could once more call to the world and continue on its way, as did its saviour. Each set course for opposite horizons, never to meet again. Today, that young man’s odyssey has long ended. His kindness recorded and long stored by the little boat.
Back in touch with the world, but aging, the device was called to service closer to home. What began as a slick machine with fine nautical lines to sell a dream, now a piece of driftwood. A Sargassum mat. Not yet mere flotsam, but jetsam now at home in this ocean.
As did William Bligh once cast from the Bounty with only a rowing boat for rescue, this automated device slowly navigated its way back from the far reaches of the ocean.
The solar panels that had powered the little boat were ageing. But luck followed the device. The coastline selected for its senior service amongst the coral was bright and sunny. It could take the time required to bask in the sun and gather the power it needed to continue its work.
Even that slow service was now at an end. The little boat that had seen the world puttered back to the wharf from which it had been released.
The aged hull bumped gently against the dock, and the little boat recorded a new team of engineers who retained the old dream. Many hands joined to lift this hull from the waters, with reverence.
The machine was ready. Ready to be dismantled, recycled, repaired and sent back out into the oceans, renewed.