![[Photo: the Healer]](rhealer.jpg)
In which the crew discovers that it's harder to pull an anchor up than to drop it... Larry (a man egotistical enough to maintain a vanity web page) resists his show-offy nature... A surprise appearance by Walter Mondale...
Reid Harbor Stuart Island 1998 Aug 04 Tuesday
Not much to do now but to return to the boat. A quick breakfast of bread and jam. I describe the procedure by which we shall weigh anchor, complete with protocols. Every time I've weighed anchor it's been an incredibly hard thing.
It did sound like it would be hard. I decided to have another sandwich and started going after the cantaloupe chunks in a big way.
But the anchor on this boat is a Bruce anchor, a different design than the usual Danforth anchors that I frequently see on other boats. Bruce anchors are designed to be easier to raise than Danforths, had good holding power even under relatively little scope, but had the disadvantage that the anchor could drag more easily if not dug in well. Once we're all above deck, I show Larry how to yank on the line, and how easy it is to do it by hand initially. I went back to start the engine in preparation for weighing anchor.
Have I made clear by now that I, while a behemoth, am not an athlete? I am good with winches because one can apply mass to winches. Mass isn't so useful for pulling in a rope with one's arms. Still, as Piaw demonstrated, pulling in the rope was pretty easy. In fact, I was feeling pretty good, lying on my back on the deck, hauling up the anchor-line over the front of the boat, stowing the line in the anchor-chain-locker.
I've heard that the way the Nautilus system works is that the machines are adjustable. You can fit them to provide just enough tension to pull against to get a good workout without straining yourself. Pulling in anchor line is like that. Except that you aren't feeling like some damned fool sitting in an icky gym attached to an intrinsically dorky workout machine: You are outside, laying on the deck of a boat, and thoroughly enjoying yourself.
Then the first link of chain hit the edge of the boat. Though I put all of my arm strength into it, I couldn't get that first link past the lip. I was all set to put my back into it--then hesitated. That seemed like a pretty good way to wrench my back. Someone asked, "Would you like some help?" I was thinking pretty hard. I'd really liked pulling in that line. It didn't seem fair that I'd have to stop just because the chain was too bumpy to pull over the lip. Maybe I could give an extra hard jerk with my arms and... I realized I was being an idiot. "Yeah, help would be great." Scarlet and Lea got ahold of the line behind me.
With a one, two, three, pull and a one, two, three, pull, we pulled in the chain. It wasn't quite that simple. I mean, Lea pulled so hard that Scarlet almost fell over. Eventually we got our act together, and made quick progress.
Larry must have hauled the line in at a ferocious rate, because the next thing I heard, the line was all on deck and there was only anchor left. The three crew grabbed the line simultaneously and hauled on it, and then I heard the clink of chain on the boat. Pretty soon after that I heard "anchor's aweigh" and kicked the boat into reverse gently. The anchor was hauled up and placed on the bow spit, and away we went. "Is there anything for us to do?" someone said after washing the anchor and chain off. "Not that I can think of." I gave the tiller to Lea and went forward to look. Oh yeah, it might be a nice thing to tie the anchor down so it didn't slide off, and here's the line I untied yesterday that was for that. I tied a bowline and went back to take the tiller.
Men: have you ever found yourself between two cute girls who are cooing over what they suppose to be your great feat of strength? What exactly happens to your brain under these circumstances? I'd never had anything like that happen to me, and certainly didn't handle it well. I was back in the cockpit when Lea and Scarlet started going on about how I'd hauled in the anchor. My ego lit up. I was basking, feeling pretty good, so good that it was a while before I remembered that they were saying that I'd done the whole thing. I stopped basking, shook my head. I reminded them that there was no way I could have hauled in the chain on my own--that while it was okay pulling the chain when it was already moving, I couldn't get it moving without them. "Thanks for supplying jerk force," I said. And then I had to explain that I was talking physics, not being insulting. We talked about physics and the dimensional nature of reality for a while, and I was able to re-bury that preening macho fellow.
We motored out of Reid Harbor at 9:30. Once out into the straits we headed towards Vancouver Island and Sidney. The sails went up, and the winds, though feeble, tugged us along at a gentle rate. I was confident of hitting Sidney by 12:00pm. Well, I'd always wanted to know what it was like to get towed in the dinghy while the boat was under sail, so I handed the tiller over to Lea and climbed into the dinghy. A couple of knots feels really slow aboard The Healer, but from a smaller vessel, the boat feels mighty fast. There was some bantering about how the crew could untie me so I could row to Sidney, but after staring a bit at the transom of The Healer, I got bored at the situation really quickly and went back aboard.
While he was in the dinghy, Piaw checked out the side of the boat to see the hole where the contents of the ship's icky holding tank went when it was dumped. He talked about the stain around it. He kept going on about it. I changed the subject, but within a minute he was back to talking about the hole. I began to hum to myself.
Once across the border, it was legal to dump the contents of the holding tanks overboard, so we proceeded to do so to avoid another accident at a pump-out station.
Ah, the donations of nitrogen from American vessels into Canada must be amazing. Naturally, as we approached land the wind died down again. We puttered around for a bit, and then I gave in to the inevitable and turned the engine back on. This was getting to be a bad habit.
So here I was, boating to Canada. When the trip had been in the planning stages, this had all seemed very exotic--boating to a foreign country. Then, when I thought about it, I realized that I'd boated to Canada before. In fact, I'd boated to Canada more times than I'd gone there any other way.
Flashback: c. 1972
Wait. Can I claim this is a "Flashback" if I don't remember anything about the event itself?
Flashback: Lake of the Woods, 1984
In 1984, Walter Mondale was finding out just how difficult it was to get elected president of the United States of America. He and Geraldine Ferraro were going up against the Beelzebubbian menace of Ronald Reagan. Reagan was telling the American people that everything was fine; if he was re-elected, then everything would continue to be fine. The American people wanted to hear that everything was fine. Mondale was getting tired of telling the American people that everything was not fine. He was ready for a little mid-campaign rest.
Mondale was from Minnesota, and it was to Minnesota that he returned now. Up at the Northern edge of Minnesota is the Lake of the Woods, a place where one can unwind, maybe do a little fishing. He settled in at a resort on the lake, taking over a large cabin. The cabin had two floors--Mondale took over one floor, and the secret service took over the other. When he'd rested up a bit, Mondale went forth from the Lake of the Woods, and continued in his doomed assault upon Reagan's lies.
The next group to stay in that cabin was the Hoskens. This was an extended family reunion. The Illinois Hoskens were there, the Wisconsin Duckarts. The San Francisco Hoskens were there: thus, I was there. Me. At a midwest fishing lodge. We found traces of Mondale: cigar butts. At one point I stepped on a fishhook, which was anchored in the rug; as a grown-up helped me to free my foot, I tearfully wondered if this hook had been dropped by a secret service agent.
Mondale had done some fishing at the lake; that was pretty much it in terms of the local activities. In the evening, I played cards with some of my cousins. Daylight was for fishing.
I dare say that I like the smell of rotten fish guts more than most people do. I have pleasant childhood memories of walking past the fish markets of San Francisco's Clement Street. At the end of the day, these places would toss their old fish-water onto the sidewalk, and the resulting smell will stay in my mind forever. I know some people who grew up in farm country; they have pleasant associations with the smell of cow manure. I'm like that, but with old fish.
Still, the idea of spending a day out in the sun in a boat catching fish didn't really appeal to me. I watched uncles, cousins head off in boats, and soon found myself stranded on shore with nothing to do. I tried spending some time with some of my fellow non-fishing relatives, but soon became restless. I forget who suggested that I try canoeing. And thus I found myself just off the shore of a huge lake in a little canoe, holding a paddle, wondering what to do next.
A paddle here, a paddle there, and pretty soon I figured I had the hang of things. I was wearing a flotation vest and there were boats full of fishing people all around, so I figured I was pretty safe. I paddled out a ways from shore. The lake was full of boats, but no-one wanted to scare the fish, and things were pretty quiet. I paddled a bit more. I don't know how far I was from shore when I saw the shiny thing glinting a ways away. It was on the surface of the water, but wasn't bobbing up and down. I couldn't tell how it was staying motionless. I decided to paddle closer.
My arms have never been strong. Back when I was 14 years old, I suppose I had more energy than I do now; still, this was slow going. I was not what you call an efficient paddler by any stretch of the imagination. Still, as I applied the paddle, the shiny thing drew near. Finally, I was right up next to it. It was a square metal spike, mounted on a stone which extended down into the lake's depths. There was carving on the spike. I forget exactly what it said. I think it said, "USA". Curious, I paddled around the spike; on its other side, I saw more carving: it said "Canada". I had paddled to Canada. I hadn't brought my passport or anything. I quickly looked around: were Canadian border police coming to get me? As casually as I could, I paddled back to the USA side of the spike. Later on, I would find out that the Lake of the Woods straddled the international boundary. Later, I would find out that it was okay to go into Canada without a passport. Later, Mondale would lose the election, and Reagan would continue to run the United States of America into the ground. Maybe I should have stayed in Canada.
Flashback:
A few years later
As part of the spiel, the boat person explained that we were not on a ferry boat but a ferry ship; the distinction being one of length. Vessels over a certain length were ships; the others were boats. As I listened to this, my first thought was phooey. Everyone knew that vessels with sails were ships, and motor-driven ones were boats. For wasn't "ship" a graceful word, as befitted sparkling sails arching in the wind? And wasn't "boat" a drab word, fitting for frowsy cargo vessels and dowdy cruise liners?
A moment's concentration swamped this thought. I mean, I know what a "sailboat" is called.
The Canadian side of the lakes was no more scenic than the American side; however, it did have biting flies.
Okay, so maybe boating to Canada isn't so exotic. Still, we were going to have to deal with customs.
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