- Karana begins making new canoes since they were all destroyed in the earthquake..
- She gathers up wreckage from the south cliffs and floats it to the cove, where she finds even more wreckage.
- Karana begins building a new canoe using pieces from the old broken canoes. By late spring, she's ready to seal the seams with pitch.
- One morning as she is gathering seaweed for a fire for the pitch, she sees something in the distance: a sail! A ship!
- The sails are not red like the Aleuts (phew!) and they do not look like the white man's ship. So who is it? Should she hide or show herself?
- Up on the headland Karana watches two men, one without a beard, come to the shore in a canoe. She hears one of them shout and knows they've found her fire and canoe.
- Karana runs home to put on her otter cape and cormorant skirt. She grabs her box with the earrings and necklace, and with Rontu-Aru, goes to Coral Cove to meet the men.
- She runs by the hill of her ancestors toward the men, but can no longer hear them. At her fire, there are footsteps but no people. At the cove, the canoe is gone. The men have gone back to the ship.
- Karana wades out into the waves, but the ship moves south, and then out of sight.