![[Photo: Dinghy]](dinghy.jpg)
In which Larry suffers a loss for words and is so embarassed that he subjects the reader to another poem (sorry about that)... The steering is great, the radio not so... Larry suffers steering mishaps...
Anacortes 1998 Aug 02 Sunday
We then proceeded to load up the boat with our provisions, which suddenly made the thirty foot boat look a lot smaller than we thought it would. By the time we were done we were all exhausted and hungry, but there were still a few things left to buy: propane, a crabbing license (since Scarlet wanted to try hunting them) and lunch. We were hungry enough to eat at Burger King (which Larry had never been to before), went back to the boat, tied the dinghy to the stern, and started on our way.
Tying the dinghy to the Healer was a long and tangled literary excursion. Along with the sailboat, we were also renting a dinghy for the week. We would tow it behind the boat. It wasn't yet attached, so Scarlet and I got into the dinghy--I would row it into position, and Scarlet would tie the dinghy's tow line to the back of the Healer. As I figured out the oars, Scarlet stepped past me, asking me if I shouldn't be professing my undying love for her right now.
We actually could have rented an outboard motor to go with the dinghy. When Scarlet and I first discussed this, we decided against it because we were being cheap and we thought that rowing would be easy. If I had known that Larry would end up doing all the rowing, I would probably have felt bad about it and gone for the outboard, but Larry seemed to enjoy rowing anyway so I guess things turned out for the best.
My friend Arlene has taken a class in journal-writing. This class says that the creative journal writer shouldn't rely solely on first-person narrative, but should experiment with other forms. One suggestion: try an internal dialog. Let your reader know what your legs had to say to your lungs as you hiked up that mountain. To make clear just what my thought processes were during the seconds that followed, I will now present an internal dialog between various pieces of my mind. I thank you for your patience in this regard.
Conversation Central: Hey, she just asked for a profession of undying love. Standard cynicism suggests that I tell her to go ask the dock boy. Commencing...
Wordplay Annex: Belay that. I think I feel a poem coming on.
Conversation Central: You're going to ad lib a poem? Doesn't it usually take you a while to come up with those things?
Wordplay Annex: Hey, I was reading Byron for more than a week! I think I can come up with a quatrain, at least. Hang on...
Just as expanded this dinghy inflatable,
So does my love for you grow insatiable...Hmm. That doesn't actually rhyme, does it? Never mind.
Conversation Central: What do you mean, "never mind"? You've messed up the timing. It's been too long for me to deliver the dock boy rejoinder now. We've been sitting here thinking for a second. I have to come up with something clever. Can you at least give me some arch-sounding prose?
Wordplay Annex: Okay. I'm going to lay a cliché on you for now. Pronounce it. While you're doing that, I'll figure out where to go from there.
Conversation Central: Whatever. Just hurry.
Wordplay Annex: Okay: O, Scarlet, these last few days have been like a whirlwind.
Conversation Central: Redirecting to vocal cords. Stand by.
Larynx: "O, Scarlet, these last few days have been like a whirlwind."
Continuity: What do you jokers think you're doing? "Few days?" Scarlet's been around for less than 24 hours.
Larynx: "Uh..."
Conversation Central: Jeezis. That's right. Time to cut losses. Reverting to straightforward statements of truth.
Larynx: "I don't actually have a speech prepared or nothing."
Wordplay Annex: Hey, you know? "Glib" is almost "bilge" spelled backwards.
Conversation Central: Hey, you know? You're almost very clever.
This isn't a canoe,
Nor are we on a punt,
The usual love-declaration models of craft.
Yet my love, it's for you.
Don't dare think it izzunt,
Though you're up fore, and I'm facing aft.You're by my side, though I
may be facing backwards, and
Can't see you--thus are seats on this dinghy.
Must I see you? No, I
need but touch of your hand,
For love is a many-splendored thingy.
I'm not sure it was worth the wait. Anyhow, Scarlet tied up the dinghy using one of those knots that she, an experienced sailor, knew.
The start of a trip (for me), is always filled with anticipation, disbelief (at having gotten away from work, and at the complete crew), and joy at being outside again. I don't understand people who don't take vacations to places they've never been to before, or have never tried something adventurous on a vacation. How can you not do that? It was a hot, clear day, and I was eager to get the sails up, so as soon as I felt a light breeze blowing and identifier the surrounds, I asked for the sails to go up.
I announced that as ship's behemoth, I would winch up the mainsail. And I did. I know so little about boating, it's nice that I can still be useful through my sheer mass, throwing my weight against a winch to pull a rope to pull up a huge piece of canvas. It's good to be a behemoth.
Sailboats don't use canvas anymore. It's too darn heavy, for one thing, and it'll rot or mildew, for another. Nowadays, they use Dacron, a high tech fabric that they use in shower curtains.
The Healer sailed like a dream, handling so much better under sail than under power, even in a light wind, that I was delighted. We handed the tiller around so everyone could rave about it.
I didn't want to steer. In fact, I'd only steered before for minutes at a time to allow people time to put on gloves and things. But I didn't want Piaw getting all tired out from steering all the time, and how hard could it be, right? Ha. I started out all right. I was able to watch the windvane up at the top of the mast, and steer by it. I couldn't watch both the weathervane and the water, but we didn't run into anything, so I guess the traffic was light.
Then we had to change tack. You know how tacking works, right? You can't sail directly into the wind., but if your sails are set up correctly, you can sail about 45 degrees into the wind. If you want to sail into the wind, you take a sawtooth course going first 45 degrees to the left, then to the right. Each time you change direction, you change "tack."
As I said, we changed tack. Now the main sail was blocking my view of the weather vane. Now I had to judge the wind by looking at the "tell-tales," fluttery pieces of cloth attached to the sails. I was pretty mystified. Suddenly, the boat, which had been heeling over on one side, straightened out. There was a wham of things falling inside the cabin of the boat. The boat was turning! Our momentum was making us change tack. While I held the tiller, gazing around in horror, everyone else was scrambling with ropes to bring the gib sail around so that we could recover from my error. My nerves were a contiguous mass of janglage. I kept steering for a while after that, just to prove to myself that it wasn't impossible, but I soon asked for someone else to take over.
Once out onto the Rosario Straits, however, the wind died, forcing us to turn on the motor and power through into the Islands. As we neared Friday harbor, the winds came back again and we tried sailing again, though at this time it was getting late. We also tried using the VHF to radio Friday Harbor, but found that the VHF simply did not reach. Calling Friday Harbor on the cell phone didn't work, since the Harbormaster would not take reservations over the phone.
I was again on the tiller, having a much easier time now that we weren't under sail. Lea was sleeping on a couch down in the main cabin. I saw a mountain in pastels against evening clouds. (Later, I would learn this was Mount Baker.) I pointed it out to Piaw, who immediately leapt to his feet, ready to scurry downstairs to fetch up his camera equipment. "Uhm, before you get too far into that," I said, "Which way are we going? Down this strait?" "Yeah, yeah." He soon emerged with a camera and snapped a few pictures. Scarlet, who had been sleeping, woke up. We pointed out the pretty mountain. Scarlet admired it for a bit, and then asked a question--where were we? I didn't know. My navigation skills are, to put it kindly, undeveloped. Piaw pointed out our location on the chart. Oops. We didn't want to be head down this strait, after all.
I cussed, leaned hard on the tiller so that we could turn into the correct strait. We turned sharply. From down in the cabin, there was the wham of something hitting the ground. There was the thud of something else hitting the ground. I looked down into the cabin. Lea sat on the floor, blinking unhappily. It occurred to me that I was very possibly the world's biggest loser. "Hey, aren't you glad I woke you up in time to see this pretty mountain?" She gave me an unreadable look.
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