Red sky in the morning...
It was my worst nightmare. My worst nightmare.
The skeptical among you are suspecting that little more than dramatic hyperbole is on display here, and it is true that I have a dangerously active imagination, one that seems to loiter on the dark side. I’m also a light sleeper prone to some pretty strange phantasms. Let’s put it this way then, though it sounds a bit like an SUV commercial: It was the likeliest horrible boating scenario I most commonly and frequently obsess over. I was now in the middle of it, most definitely wide awake, and buck naked to boot.
My wife Deb and I were homeward bound on our yearlong “seabattical”, having quit our New York City based careers to stretch our wings while we still had the ability to flap. Folks thought we were courageous. Folks thought we were audacious. Folks thought we were nuts.
Our sailing experience prior to the trip consisted of fair-weather daysailing on the Long Island Sound in and around our home waters of Manhasset Bay. We’d also survived three bareboat charters, twice to the bathtub that is the BVIs, and once to the Leewards, all on well-appointed modern yachts with plenty of gadgetry and headroom. Not much to prepare us for a year of living on a seventies era sloop with fairly Spartan accommodations.
We were just looking for something we could tool around in locally when we stumbled on the Morgan 34. Deb knew she wanted the boat the moment she spied her classic lines. I was less sure, as is always the case with me. I knew nothing about Morgans. I knew this one had an impressively shallow draft with a retractable centerboard because the broker told me so. What to make of that spiffy accessory I had no idea. Research, my favorite hobby, was in order.
Deb is the mover-shaker of this crew. I come along for the ride. Left to my own devices I’d have been content to prepare for a trip the length of the Long Island Sound till the day I was deposited in an assisted living facility. Deb sees the big picture. I see the demons lying in wait for those who follow their dreams. Deb suggested as an alternative to my proposed Block Island odyssey (a trip, mind you, of over a hundred miles, and some of it in open water, for gosh sakes) that we instead head to the Bahamas.
Did I mention that Deb is an excellent salesperson? Which is why, I pondered only for an instant, I was now standing in my birthday suit in the middle of the night with a howling, wind-driven rain pelting my privates, attempting to start a recalcitrant engine as our Laura Lynn dragged anchor toward the military base off of which we’d anchored at the end of our day’s run. We appeared to be commencing our assault on a civilian boat immediately downwind. After that strike I assumed we’d proceed to somewhere along the shore at Camp Lejune in North Carolina. Were I to daydream further, though technically it was nighttime, and there being no time for such reverie, I might have imagined the local military opening up with a defensive barrage, thus putting to an end the nude terrorist menace attempting to infiltrate their encampment, and putting me out of my wretched misery once and for all.
I do not mesh well with stress. Occasionally I catch health professionals referring to beneficial forms of the affliction. What a bunch of hokum. Now hear this: stress is always bad. I don’t need the character it is purported to build. If you ask me, all it builds is plaque on my artery walls. Ironic then to find myself in such a predicament, on such a trip, in what had been a campaign to purge all the seething bile formed by a quarter century of big city angst harbored in a small town boy's heart. Here on this ancient, leaking tub, stripped like a Perdue chicken waiting for his trip through the rotisserie.
When stressful events occur I become agitated and, worse still, tongue-tied. Every part of the boat becomes a thing-a-ma-jig. Deb is left to wondering if I want her to rig a spring line or put on her life vest and jump overboard. So there I was, screaming at her over the din for my "eye things". She’s thinking my glasses (which isn’t a bad guess) but I mean ski goggles, which I still consider one of my grand ideas for the trip, because my corneas feel like a couple of over-easy eggs getting a Tabasco basting.
Next I want something to put on, because rather remarkably in the few moments it’s taken me to get relative control of the boat I’ve taken to shuddering from a pervasive chill. I have no idea what I might have said by way of clothing request as Deb arrived at the companionway offering up a pair of gym shorts. I must have been an embarrassing sight for her in consideration of our fellow boaters, who I assumed were all certainly underdressed and in the midst of saving their own hides. What a sight for the heavens to behold, this navy of scampering bodies caught under the illumination of nature’s monumental strobe lights. It was as if soon-to-be-fallen angels were taking photos of the circus they’d incited.
Having finally worked out the wardrobe issue, with each of us in our foul weather gear, I prepared myself to babble incoherently about the present need to somehow retrieve our anchor, and then reset it, with the various crew duties and logistical considerations to follow forthwith. I hoped I might be given the momentary gift of tongues, and that all would be clear to Deb. Instead she disappeared toward the foredeck, into the blackened night. All was lost.
How so, mightn't one ask? Here's why I was convinced. This old boat of ours has no windlass. We’ve always raised anchor by hand, which has never been a problem with the lightweight “lunch hook” used on our regular day trips. When, however, we upgraded to a heavy primary anchor, and added through ignorance oversized chain to the equation the resulting loads proved too much for Deb’s physique. While my dime store back, an ancestral bequest, makes it no more pleasurable for me, the task of weighing anchor had since fallen exclusively to the guy onboard. Look forward to my next article, “Things Our Next Boat Must Have” hopefully in the near future.
So you see, all was now lost. We were dragging anchor, I was stuck at the wheel playing dodge-boat, with Deb at the bow attempting who-knew-what-all somewhere in the bowels of the tempest. All I could do was carry on with the task I would have assigned her, that of getting the boat positioned for as easy an anchor retrieval as possible, hoping the rode wouldn’t somehow foul the prop in the process. And wish for a miracle.
While contemplating the inscription for my gravestone (Here Lies the Ship’s Fool, He Who Never Had a Prayer) I began to hear mingled with the wind, rain and incessant peals of thunder the sound of chain rattling down the hawsehole. Interesting. This was a task Deb couldn’t do on a still bay on a calm summer day. Yet from a pitch black heaving deck (after a time no man in turmoil has ever accurately gauged) and over the roar of the heavens I heard her scream, “It’s up!”
She hadn’t broken a nail. My eyes water now at the memory of my mate staring at her hands, wondering how she’d done it. They were sore, as was her own back now, but so much worse could have happened to her, to us that night. I delineated each and every calamity I could imagine in the ensuing days. Instead, we’d reset the anchor and it had held the rest of the night, through a lightning storm of startling beauty that was wasted on us.
I am not a religious man, but frequently when pangs of doubt gnaw at me I’ve pleaded with vague, foggy deities to spare me certain contests of human will. To boaters so inclined, I’d suggest you save yourself the trouble of such entreaties. Pray instead, when the inevitable visits, for fortitude, clarity of mind, and perhaps a little luck.
My wife Deb and I were homeward bound on our yearlong “seabattical”, having quit our New York City based careers to stretch our wings while we still had the ability to flap. Folks thought we were courageous. Folks thought we were audacious. Folks thought we were nuts.
Our sailing experience prior to the trip consisted of fair-weather daysailing on the Long Island Sound in and around our home waters of Manhasset Bay. We’d also survived three bareboat charters, twice to the bathtub that is the BVIs, and once to the Leewards, all on well-appointed modern yachts with plenty of gadgetry and headroom. Not much to prepare us for a year of living on a seventies era sloop with fairly Spartan accommodations.
We were just looking for something we could tool around in locally when we stumbled on the Morgan 34. Deb knew she wanted the boat the moment she spied her classic lines. I was less sure, as is always the case with me. I knew nothing about Morgans. I knew this one had an impressively shallow draft with a retractable centerboard because the broker told me so. What to make of that spiffy accessory I had no idea. Research, my favorite hobby, was in order.
Deb is the mover-shaker of this crew. I come along for the ride. Left to my own devices I’d have been content to prepare for a trip the length of the Long Island Sound till the day I was deposited in an assisted living facility. Deb sees the big picture. I see the demons lying in wait for those who follow their dreams. Deb suggested as an alternative to my proposed Block Island odyssey (a trip, mind you, of over a hundred miles, and some of it in open water, for gosh sakes) that we instead head to the Bahamas.
Did I mention that Deb is an excellent salesperson? Which is why, I pondered only for an instant, I was now standing in my birthday suit in the middle of the night with a howling, wind-driven rain pelting my privates, attempting to start a recalcitrant engine as our Laura Lynn dragged anchor toward the military base off of which we’d anchored at the end of our day’s run. We appeared to be commencing our assault on a civilian boat immediately downwind. After that strike I assumed we’d proceed to somewhere along the shore at Camp Lejune in North Carolina. Were I to daydream further, though technically it was nighttime, and there being no time for such reverie, I might have imagined the local military opening up with a defensive barrage, thus putting to an end the nude terrorist menace attempting to infiltrate their encampment, and putting me out of my wretched misery once and for all.
I do not mesh well with stress. Occasionally I catch health professionals referring to beneficial forms of the affliction. What a bunch of hokum. Now hear this: stress is always bad. I don’t need the character it is purported to build. If you ask me, all it builds is plaque on my artery walls. Ironic then to find myself in such a predicament, on such a trip, in what had been a campaign to purge all the seething bile formed by a quarter century of big city angst harbored in a small town boy's heart. Here on this ancient, leaking tub, stripped like a Perdue chicken waiting for his trip through the rotisserie.
When stressful events occur I become agitated and, worse still, tongue-tied. Every part of the boat becomes a thing-a-ma-jig. Deb is left to wondering if I want her to rig a spring line or put on her life vest and jump overboard. So there I was, screaming at her over the din for my "eye things". She’s thinking my glasses (which isn’t a bad guess) but I mean ski goggles, which I still consider one of my grand ideas for the trip, because my corneas feel like a couple of over-easy eggs getting a Tabasco basting.
Next I want something to put on, because rather remarkably in the few moments it’s taken me to get relative control of the boat I’ve taken to shuddering from a pervasive chill. I have no idea what I might have said by way of clothing request as Deb arrived at the companionway offering up a pair of gym shorts. I must have been an embarrassing sight for her in consideration of our fellow boaters, who I assumed were all certainly underdressed and in the midst of saving their own hides. What a sight for the heavens to behold, this navy of scampering bodies caught under the illumination of nature’s monumental strobe lights. It was as if soon-to-be-fallen angels were taking photos of the circus they’d incited.
Having finally worked out the wardrobe issue, with each of us in our foul weather gear, I prepared myself to babble incoherently about the present need to somehow retrieve our anchor, and then reset it, with the various crew duties and logistical considerations to follow forthwith. I hoped I might be given the momentary gift of tongues, and that all would be clear to Deb. Instead she disappeared toward the foredeck, into the blackened night. All was lost.
How so, mightn't one ask? Here's why I was convinced. This old boat of ours has no windlass. We’ve always raised anchor by hand, which has never been a problem with the lightweight “lunch hook” used on our regular day trips. When, however, we upgraded to a heavy primary anchor, and added through ignorance oversized chain to the equation the resulting loads proved too much for Deb’s physique. While my dime store back, an ancestral bequest, makes it no more pleasurable for me, the task of weighing anchor had since fallen exclusively to the guy onboard. Look forward to my next article, “Things Our Next Boat Must Have” hopefully in the near future.
So you see, all was now lost. We were dragging anchor, I was stuck at the wheel playing dodge-boat, with Deb at the bow attempting who-knew-what-all somewhere in the bowels of the tempest. All I could do was carry on with the task I would have assigned her, that of getting the boat positioned for as easy an anchor retrieval as possible, hoping the rode wouldn’t somehow foul the prop in the process. And wish for a miracle.
While contemplating the inscription for my gravestone (Here Lies the Ship’s Fool, He Who Never Had a Prayer) I began to hear mingled with the wind, rain and incessant peals of thunder the sound of chain rattling down the hawsehole. Interesting. This was a task Deb couldn’t do on a still bay on a calm summer day. Yet from a pitch black heaving deck (after a time no man in turmoil has ever accurately gauged) and over the roar of the heavens I heard her scream, “It’s up!”
She hadn’t broken a nail. My eyes water now at the memory of my mate staring at her hands, wondering how she’d done it. They were sore, as was her own back now, but so much worse could have happened to her, to us that night. I delineated each and every calamity I could imagine in the ensuing days. Instead, we’d reset the anchor and it had held the rest of the night, through a lightning storm of startling beauty that was wasted on us.
I am not a religious man, but frequently when pangs of doubt gnaw at me I’ve pleaded with vague, foggy deities to spare me certain contests of human will. To boaters so inclined, I’d suggest you save yourself the trouble of such entreaties. Pray instead, when the inevitable visits, for fortitude, clarity of mind, and perhaps a little luck.
Oh my aching back!
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