A LITTLE SAIL
A LITTLE SAIL
On Monday, November 28, 2005 I had breakfast at Surfside with my sweetheart. When a couple we knew came in, to what I mistakenly thought was a full house, I dreaded that which I was incapable of stopping or preventing, inviting them to join us. It would have been simply impossible not to have done so. I expressed my reluctance not to be reluctant while Elaine answered with imploring entreaties to be left alone during this last few minutes before the longest, by far, separation of our twenty-four years together. While we debated a table opened up and we enjoyed a few more precious moments together before My Great Adventure got underway. At 8:45 the ferry departed, and I was on it.
I had jumped at the chance to join three other guys in sailing a catamaran across the Atlantic. The boat was owned, and the invitation extended by John Osgood, a friend for whom I’d built a house here on Vinalhaven thirty years earlier. While building the house he’d nearly killed me by playfully buzzing the construction site in his airplane causing me to lose control of a backhoe which in turn rolled over and pinned me between it and a nearby ledge. Still, he’d calmed down some and was a very capable sailor.
I was to join him and two others a few days later for departure from the Canary Islands. Heading to London—in an aisle seat—for a stopover, I finally dozed off around mid-night but awoke again at four and headed back to the loo. I stayed aft and upright for a while because my legs were hard pressed to tolerate sitting any longer. I stood there and viewed the mass arousal that began with a slow stirring and then morphed into a flurry of toilet bound travelers responding with yawns and stretches to the captain’s cheery wake up call. An hour later we were on the ground wanting to still be asleep but having to go through customs. It wasn’t bad, over in an hour and when the lovely young woman who was my own interrogator asked my destination and the reason for it, she called me luv and asked if she could crew.
I took a bus to Gratwick where I was to catch a direct flight to Tenerife and, arriving with several hours to spare, arranged several pieces of chair cushioning and slept some more, my luggage stowed beneath my legs. I woke up around noon and had fish ‘n’ chips and a beer. Struggling with pounds and pence, I was apparently generous for the waitress was quite gleeful in accepting the offered tip.
I was keeping abreast of the weather because at that very moment Tropical Storm Delta was bearing down on the very Canary’s that were my destination. Although there’d been some warnings, I learned they’d gone largely unheeded because severe storms and high winds are nearly unknown in that relatively serene Spanish archipelago sixty miles or so northwest of mainland Africa. In fact, no communal storm warning system even existed there at the time.
The storm slammed into the islands with winds well over a hundred mph and at Tenerife, the largest of those and home to a million or so, passengers stranded at Santa Cruz airport dove for cover as much of the terminal roof was torn off and blown away leaving them exposed. I flew in the next day, November 29, 2005. Repair crews hadn't reached the marina. Broken water lines were spraying over and amidst similarly shredded but very alive and arcing power lines, all strewn amidst the wet wreckage of boats and floats. Characteristically oblivious, I was delivered by a taxi at dusk and high-stepped over all the havoc and peril to find SCOUT, a 42' catamaran clinging to the outermost slip; the captain confidently sequestered in the cabin enjoying a glass of wine. Confidant with good reason, for having kept a keen eye on the forecast and thus better informed than most, he had chosen what seemed like a very exposed position but was now in possession of a virtually unscathed vessel even though the finger-slip, nearly torn from its mooring and flung against all the inboard wreckage was nearly destroyed. SCOUT was bobbing in relative serenity just beyond the chaos. The following day the other two guys, Bill Rhoads and Hawk Anderburg, both experienced sailors who’d crewed with John before, arrived and we all jumped into the considerable void at the marina where might otherwise have been found emergency personnel and equipment but which, because greater Tenerife had suffered so much real and unexpected carnage, had been left to its own devices.
The Catamaran required only minor attention, there being a hole just above the waterline where an aft starboard rail had been torn off, so we directed our attention to the marina and the considerable challenge of shutting off errant electricity, removing wreckage and restoring water to the dockside laundry and showers, the latter of which was accomplished after three or four days of steady and inventive work and which earned us the fawning admiration of a lot of grubby sailors, particularly the women.
Tenerife is a wonderful place and a splendid venue, even torn asunder, in which to consume memorable late-night dinners and to become acquainted with one's new companions and plan an upcoming voyage. On the second night the captain presented the duty roster. I was to be cook, responsible—during the remainder of the time ashore—for provisioning liberally for a three-week passage, including seven cases of eight-ounce Spanish beers at two per day per man and forty two bottles of really good indigenous Canary Island Red table wine. During the voyage I was to be fully responsible for the galley, for its cleanliness, for preparation of every lunch and dinner, and for ensuring that each of those meals, particularly the evening repast, included suitable appetizers and atmosphere, an adjective not settled on lightly.
Thus it was that we set sail on December 4, just as another storm, Hurricane Epsilon, bore down on us from Portugal. We threaded a course just out of reach and south of the humbling and rumbling Mt. Tiede, third highest volcano in the world and our last landfall till the Caribbean. Tiede’s eventual and inevitable eruption is expected to deliver a historic tsunami to the U.S. east coast. I’d prefer it wait till I’m gone. As the setting sun illuminated only the column of smoke from its summit, we sat down in the cabin to a dinner of curried shrimp with braised Brussel sprouts in Dijon and Tarrigon, fresh green salad and dessert of pear and cheddar bread pudding.
My three companions had known their enjoyment of this voyage would hinge in large measure on the quality of these evening meals and the contrast between their barely concealed apprehension as they sat waiting for dinner and their great satisfaction as they consumed it is not likely to ever fade from my memory. Thenceforth and every night we took our dinner there in the cabin, four guys sitting way too close to one another, always in candlelight, with the most profoundly romantic musical accompaniment, increasingly mindful with the passing of each of successive day of how lonely one can become, even though we enjoyed ourselves tremendously, without the companionship of women, one in particular, in each case.