"Harv!" Frances screamed. Her arms full of the albatross they'd just rescued, she watched helplessly as a wave knocked her husband back onto the twisted plastic of the floating island the bird had been trapped on.

Moments before Harv, about to step from the plastic island to their boat, had been saying, "This is a record trip, Fran. A tern, a seagull, and an albatross." His eyes had widened and mouth stretched into a horrified O before the wave hit him.

Even over the roar of the wind she could hear his "oomph" as he landed. She breathed a sigh of relief when he sat up, only to watch another wave sweep him off the side of the island where he disappeared underneath it in the dark, roiling waters.

"Man overboard!" she screamed.

The rest of the crew leapt into action with cries of "Grab his lifeline!" "Get the cutters!" "Lights on the water!"

Frances gently lay the albatross inside a bench where it would be safe from the storm's waves that tossed the boat to and fro, then ran to the side and helped haul on Harv's lifeline. If they were lucky, they could pull him out without it getting caught on any of the treacherous snarls of plastic that hung below the island like hungry snakes

"It's caught!" Mike yelled.

Frances put one foot up on the side and said over her shoulder, "I'll go in and free it."

Mike pulled her back just as she started to launch herself over. "That's suicide in a storm, Fran! Harv has his knife. We just have to hope he can cut the line and follow it out from under the island." There were so many other dangers he didn't have to say: Harv being knocked unconscious. Harv getting tangled in a piece of hanging plastic. Harv losing the line and swimming farther under the island and running out of air. At least he didn't have to worry about a shark attack anymore since they were extinct.

Suddenly Harv's lifeline came flying loose.

After forty minutes, the crew finally got Frances to release her death grip on the side of the boat.

Since all the islands that made up the Northeast Atlantic Plastic Region looked almost identical, they'd stay close to the island to ensure they knew which one the divers should check to recover Harv's body at first light.

Frances opened the bench and looked at the albatross her husband had died to rescue. Numbly, she gently lifted it out and cradled it on her lap to examine it. Its leg was badly injured from where it had rubbed on the plastic that trapped it. Weak from dehydration and hunger it could barely open its bill. It must have been trapped in the plastic for days.

She stood to take it below decks where'd she'd tag it, paint a number on its bill and treat its wounds. "I'm going to name you Benny. And you're going to be alright."