You know how sometimes the end of a book or the final episode of a TV show fast-forwards into the future so you know how everything turned out? Well, Herlong totally took a page out of the Mad Men/Six Feet Under playbook…because we get to see how the Byron family fares on dry land.
The answer? Way better than on the great, wide sea.
Ben tells us that, after the Byron boys went home with their dad, they bought a new house and resumed life as a family of landlubbers. Technically, they still go sailing sometimes—but we're talking lake, not ocean. (Good call, Byrons. Fewer sharks; fewer massive storms.)
Bonus tidbit: the last three lines of the book actually serve as a kinda-sorta summary for the book as a whole:
A boat. A dad. And three brothers. (42.46)
Although we're voting against this ever being the tagline of a The Great Wide Sea movie. It sounds way too peaceful. Maybe something along the lines of "A boat. A dad. Three brothers. And an insane storm. Plus: sharks."
There. We fixed it.