I have a great view of the world. Not in a political or all-knowing sense, mind you. It’s the advantage of living on the 8th floor. This morning I was watching the guy in the park next door cleaning his sailboat. He hasn’t sailed it yet, as far as I can tell. But he was at least doing some much needed maintenance on it.
It reminded me of my seafaring years. It’s been a few years since I’ve seafared. But the call to take to the water still gets in my head now and again.
Coming from Seattle, it’s not hard to know someone who has a boat. There are boats everywhere and on the first weekend of May every year, they herald the arrival of boating season with a big parade of boats through The Cut.
My uncle had a boat. He would let me drive it out in the San Juans when I was 13 or so. But powerboats aren’t really me. I am hooked on sailboats.
I discovered this fact many years ago. The Seafair Pirates were aboard the Mallory Todd in the boat parade through The Cut. The parade ends in Lake Washington and you can’t just turn around and head back through The Cut. At least not while the parade is still going on.
I was standing next to the captain who was at the helm. He had the sails raised and we started to make our way to Kirkland on the east side of the lake. He cut the engine, the boat heeled over in the wind and he asked if I’d like to take the wheel. Boy, would I? I never let it go. While the rest of the pirates were more interested in drinking the booze aboard, I never left the wheel, taking her all the way to Kirkland.
I was hooked! I knew sailboats were my kind of boating. I loved the power of the wind and how when you got everything just right, the boat would heel over and lock in place. Porpoises would appear out of virtually nowhere and leap from the water near the bow. It was magic.
I was hooked enough to take sailing lessons. Three half-day lessons plus a classroom. I was really good. In fact, the instructor made me do the man overboard drill twice because I nailed the first one so easily, drifting to a dead stop within two feet of the marker buoy that served as the overboard victim. The next time we did the run he tossed it out while I was running a tack. He thought it would disorient me. Nope. I yelled man overboard, brought her around and stopped again, a couple feet from the buoy.
I did try to like power boating once more. We went out fishing on the open ocean. We departed Neah Bay at the tip of Washington State. The passage between the mainland and Tatoosh Island is always a bit rough. This particularly day, it was extremely rough. I was scared sh**less; I was going to die. The rest of the guys were just laughing. I held on tight to the bottom of the seat. We crashed into one wave, which went sailing over the top of the boat, landing right in my lap. The guy across from me looked over and said, “Got a little wet, eh?” I replied, “Yeah, and it’s warm and yellow.” It was. I discovered right then and there that fishing was just not for me, and power boats were temporarily on my list.
Now, I’m not about to own a boat. I know too much about having a “hole in the water that you pour money into.” As I said, I knew enough people with boats to know that they were a fool’s investment.
Fortunately, my ex-whatever knew Bill, and Bill had a gorgeous 37 foot boat that he lived aboard. I have always admired those who could live on a boat. You come home after a hard day, back your “home” out onto the Puget Sound and seek solace on the high seas. I have always owned too much stuff to fit it all on a boat. So, I go boatless.
We went with him one evening. Bill liked to drink more than sail, so I did most of the piloting. We sailed from Shilshole down to the Duwamish head, hailing an aircraft carrier along the way (this is when you could sail right next to them, not like now), and before we knew it, the sun had set and we were out there on the briny deep with nothing but the lights of Seattle painting the horizon beyond. It was absolutely amazing. The stars came out and we sailed back to port under a moonlit sky. Bill thanked me for the Sangster’s Old Jamaica Coconut Rum I had brought aboard and I thanked him for enjoying it enough and often enough to let me tool around in his boat all night.
This adventure paled in comparison to sailing aboard the Schooner WOLF in the harbor adjoining Port Royal, Jamaica. If you don’t know, it was once the Wickedest City on Earth. The trip aboard a real gaff-rigged schooner off a bonafide pirate town was incredible, at least until we ran aground. The local kids wanted to go sailing so that we didn’t have time to get a chart. $100 US later, we were pulled off by some fisherman. Somehow that made the adventure even more piratey, only we weren’t the pirates, the local boat captains were, who demanded the money (cash) before pulling us to freedom. Some things never change in the Third World.
Now, I don’t have anything against romping around in powered boats (just in case you were planning to invite me). I love all boating. It’s just something about the peace of sailing, where the only noise is the flapping of the sail, the creaking of the hull, the lapping waves and the whirring of the blender down in the galley.
I didn’t say I like to sail like the old salts. I’m not about to head out to sea without some rum and a blender or if I’m really roughing it, a cocktail shaker.
Out on the Treasure Coast, watching the sails on the horizon and trying to thumb a ride,
– Robb