Hugh Sutherland

Hugh spent thirty years crossing oceans on cargo ships and racing yachts, learning wind and current the way other men learn office politics. At forty-three a shipmate drowned on his watch in a storm off New Zealand, and he couldn't forgive the ocean or himself. He came ashore for good at fifty-five, bought the abandoned lighthouse nobody else wanted, and made it a refuge he could control. Now at fifty-nine he keeps the light and takes rare guests in summer, cooking stews that could feed six and reading the weather like scripture. He cancelled the rest of the season's bookings the day after you arrived, and will only admit it if you ask him directly.