by Landon Beach
10
JUNE 1995
It had taken three full summers to restore the boat. The odds had been that it would never make it out of the harbor, let alone sail again. Robin Norris tried to explain the importance to Trist: the opportunity to refinish, refurbish, and restore a wooden boat was the opportunity to discover the boat. Trist didn’t buy it. He wondered why they just didn’t get a fiberglass boat. It was then that Robin had brought in the heavy ammo, “To quote from the greatest novel ever written about sailing, ‘Plastic is dead. Wood is alive,’” he had stated.
“What novel is that?” Trist had scoffed.
“Overboard, by Hank Searls. A book you need to read before we head out. Plus, you still haven’t finished your voyage with Captain Slocum.”
Trist had just frowned.
Almost one-quarter of the hull had to be replaced due to rot, neglect, and damage from the grounding on a reef that had almost sunk her off of Florida. Ralph Shelby had purchased it from a boat yard in Key West where he had worked one summer during college. The yard manager had remembered the young man’s enthusiasm for wooden boats and had called Shelby after he couldn’t sell it. In a test of trust, Ralph had sent his then fifteen-year-old son Kevin with extra gas, food, and lodging money, a truck, and a trailer to pick up the boat and bring it to Michigan. He estimated two weeks for the round trip as long as his son didn’t get pulled over and asked for his non-existent driver’s license. Kevin returned with the boat almost a month later with no money left and the truck littered with empty beer cans and McDonald’s wrappers.
When the replacement wood for the hull arrived, Robin and Trist unloaded the shipment into their pole barn. As soon as the delivery truck disappeared down the winding driveway, the measuring, cutting, sanding, mixing and applying epoxy, then fitting, more sanding, and more mixing began. At one point, it seemed like he would be having his retirement party in the pole barn while he finished caulking the boat. Nevertheless, the work went on for hours a day until they finally were able to apply the gel coat finish.
The inside of the boat was where the real work had been needed. Everywhere Robin looked was chewed up, splintered, and dominated by rotten, gray-colored wood. The shame was that the majority of it was African mahogany, the best in the world. The rest was Philippine mahogany, and the deck was teak. Day by day and hour by hour, Robin unscrewed, pried, and removed each piece of wood. With the pieces laid in rows on bed sheets on the pole barn floor like soldiers in formation, Robin brought Trist to his workbench. An orbit sander, belt sander, two masks, and two-foot-high stacks of sandpaper—coarse paper with medium grit in one and fine grit in the other—sat on top of the bench. On the floor was a five-gallon bucket that contained new cutting brushes, a box of assorted screws, a bundle of soft cloths, and plastic sheets. Next to the bucket was a perfect cube-shaped stack of 64-quart cans of Marine Spar clear gloss varnish. Ralph Shelby had recommended that he use Sikkens varnish, but Sikkens could run over fifty bucks a gallon.
While Robin sanded the entire hull, Trist worked on the interior pieces. First, he would put a strip of paper on the sander and sand the piece of mahogany or teak down to a bare finish, which took forever since most pieces were old and torn up. Once this was accomplished, he would use one of the cutting brushes to apply the varnish. He would have to wait twenty-four hours, and then he would sand the piece, wipe it with a soft cloth, and apply another coat of varnish. Robin’s standard was seven coats.
By the middle of the third summer, every piece glowed on the white bed sheets as Robin inspected them. He patted Trist on the back before sending him to return to the boat’s interior. Piece by piece, screw by screw, the salon, v-berth, and galley came alive again. The teak decking now shimmered from Trist’s long hours of varnishing. After that, decisions had to be made about how to refit the boat.
Her overall length was thirty-six feet, and Robin had decided to go with simplicity—she’d be comfortable but also practical. He’d economized where he could, but had also pulled money from the raises and bonuses that he had stashed away in a no-load mutual fund for the past dozen years. Levity would have what he wanted—even if, now, he would only get her for a short while. The five Great Lakes were known by the acronym “HOMES” (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior). His goal had been to complete the ‘HOMES Feat’—circumnavigating each Great Lake—by fifty. He’d only bag one leg; Trist would have to tackle the other four.
Instead of a traditional setup in the v-berth, he went with an enormous gear and sail locker where the berth would have gone and one hammock on the starboard side with the mounted Coleman coolers beneath. On the port side were the beer kegs filled with water and their supply locker. Moving aft, there was the head with soft white towels and a new sink and shower on the port side of the passageway and a complete bulkhead of storage compartments on the starboard side. The salon had a long couch with storage underneath to port and across from it was a u-shaped couch around the salon table, which doubled as an additional bunk for two people when the table was lowered. The cushion fabric was navy and the throw pillows were cream colored. Aft of the long couch to port was the navigation station with a cushioned seat behind the mahogany nav table. The bulkhead next to the table had a built-in bookshelf that contained Chapman Piloting, Bowditch, The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Navigational Rules, and the manuals for every system on the boat. Wiring the entire boat had been beyond his capability, which diminished a bit of his pride as he had wanted to restore the entire boat himself. But after consulting with a boat electrician referred to him by Shelby, he was thankful that he had not tried. His first three suggestions to the electrician were met with: ‘That would start a fire—’
Aft of the couches to starboard was the galley with elderberry-colored Corian countertops. The sink, refrigerator, freezer, and gimbaled stove were stainless steel. Aft of the companionway was the owner’s suite where Levana had made a burgundy quilt that fit snugly over the double berth. A family picture from a few years back rested on the starboard bulkhead bookshelf along with twenty or so paperbacks wedged in next to a dictionary and atlas. Under the companionway steps was the engine he had overhauled.
Topside, her rigging, lines, and sails were classic. In order to single-hand the boat, he had special modifications made that ran all of the sheets back near the helm console. The wheel was stainless steel, and the helm seat and rail unlocked behind and swung open to give access to the swim step behind the transom. He had teared up when the mast was first raised and the shrouds, forestay, and backstay tightened. The only aspect that, perhaps, dulled the sleek figure the boat cut was the large pulpit he had specially built off the bow that extended beyond where the anchor deployed from—a childhood obsession from watching Jaws one too many times. However, it was Trist’s favorite place to be when the boat was at sea. He had also installed a new vertical windlass and built a larger chain locker to hold the all-chain rode he had purchased.
✽✽✽
“Trist, dinner!” Levana yelled from the kitchen. A moment later she could hear his footsteps going across the floor upstairs. Her eyes traced the sound along the ceiling, down the stairs, and finally into the doorway as he entered from the dining room.
“What are we having?” Trist said.
“Dad is surprising us,” she said while placing a stack of napkins on the table, “I’m just setting. Grab a pop from the fridge for yourself and two beers please.”
Trist walked toward the refrigerator. Then, the door to the deck opened.
“Here we are, team,” Robin said, entering the room with a large plate covered in tin foil.
The smell of barbeque chicken wafted across the room, and Trist’s mouth started to water. He pulled the drinks from the fridge and then sat down at the table.
Robin uncovered the chicken and dashed outside where he grabbed another plate full of French fries and a large can of his homemade barbeque sauce—honey, lemons, and sugar mixed in secret amounts with the base sauce. It wa
s so good that friends and family would beg for the recipe, but he would not surrender.
“We haven’t had this in ages,” Trist said.
“Guess he’s trying to give you one last nice meal on dry land before you head out tomorrow morning,” Levana said.
Robin brought in the fries and barbeque sauce and sat down. “Thought this would do the trick for tonight. What do you say, Trist?”
No amount of teenage angst could wedge itself into this meal. “Lovin’ it. Thanks, Dad.”
There were some meals that just made you feel good to be at home. Levana’s lasagna was a strong contender in the race, but Robin’s barbeque chicken was the ship he was ready to go down with. He gave Levana’s hand a squeeze and Trist a loving pat to the shoulder.
✽✽✽
Levana’s grin was full—of gratitude, of memories, and already full of longing for the remaining dinners that they would be able to have like this. The doctors couldn’t predict when his appetite might change, but they all knew it could happen soon. Her eyes welled up, and her mind wandered back as Robin and Trist attacked their plates.
✽✽✽
Her husband sat in a hospital gown at the edge of the examination table in a room where normally he was the one taking patients’ blood pressure, temperature, and pulse before the doctor arrived. Levana watched him. For the first time in her life, she saw her husband nervous. She inched her chair closer and held his hand, which was warm and sweaty. Whatever news they were about to receive, they would figure it out together. They had already figured out so much—pregnancy in college, loss of parents, loss of a child... She steeled herself: bring it on, we will survive.
The door opened, and Doctor Marcus Henry Jacobsen entered with his team of nurses—Betsy Pickford, Karen McManus, and Audrey Knight, all good nurses, all four good friends. From hospital holiday parties and fundraisers and long Saturday night dinners with wine and jazz music, they had become a tight-knit group. It was hard not to in a small town hospital; it was also hard not to because Robin always made everyone feel like he or she was valued.
The hospital team assumed the notifying-a-patient-of-his-condition formation, Doc Jacobsen forward on the level of the patient, the nurses in the wings. If the patient is standing, the doc stands; if the patient is seated, the doc sits. Robin had told her about this procedure a thousand times. It was unusual to experience it, now, from the other side.
She scanned the eyes of the nurses for signs. Karen looked down, Betsy looked at Robin’s chart, and Audrey just looked like she might cry. Levana looked at Doc Jacobsen—poker face. How many patients had he calmed down with his baritone voice and easy smile? Robin said that it was like a spell the man cast when he walked into a hospital room—‘He even calms me down, and I’m the goddamn nurse.’ It was more than that, though. On Jacobsen’s first day at work, Robin had noticed how nervous the young doctor was and had pulled him inside a room and steadied him—“I’ve got your back. No patient wants to be here, Doc. Together, we have to keep him calm.” And Robin hadn’t told her about this; it had been Jacobsen who confided it years ago as they sat alone at a bonfire on the Norris’s beach while Robin went to get more wood.
And here they were now. Jacobsen took her hand, gave it a squeeze, and then looked into Robin’s eyes. He sat down next to him on the bed. “Robin, you have pancreatic cancer, and it is very advanced.”
Tears started to run down her face.
Jacobsen paused.
Robin nodded. “Give me the rest straight, Marcus.”
“We found exocrine tumors—adenocarcinoma—in the ducts of your pancreas.” Jacobsen looked to the ceiling for answers. “If they were endocrine tumors and we had found them earlier, then maybe we would have had an outside chance at beating it. But because this type of cancer can form before someone has any symptoms, it’s almost always too late to treat when the symptoms do show up.” He took a breath, his face a mixture of guilt and bewilderment. “You’re thirty-five...it’s almost unheard of for someone to have this type of cancer at that age.”
“You know I pride myself on staying in shape,” Robin said. “When I started having back pain, I thought I pulled a muscle; I never thought it would be something else.” He looked at Levana and then back at Jacobsen. “Surgery?”
“It would have been an option if we had found it early. In fact, it’s the only real option to treat this type of cancer—when the tumors are treatable.” He paused. “But it has already spread to your liver. Your back pain started when the tumors began to block the ducts from it.”
“How long?”
“No way to know for sure. We’ll go the pain management route where some pancreatic cancer patients have carried on normally for a few months, but the end is usually quick. It’s just difficult to nail down when that transition will take place.”
Robin closed his eyes. Then, he leaned over and gave Jacobsen a hug and Jacobsen’s eyes let loose. “Dammit, Robin, I’m the one who’s supposed to be there for you right now.”
With a reserve of stoicism unknown even to her, she watched and listened as Robin said into Jacobsen’s ear, “I know how difficult that was for you, Doctor.” He let go of his old friend.
Jacobsen gathered himself and gave Levana a hug—holding her for a long time.
They released, and he stood up. “We’ll talk palliative care when I come back,” he said and then exited.
Karen and Audrey sniffled. But the lead nurse—a surrogate mother to every nurse in the hospital, including Robin—seventy-one-year-old Betsy Pickford summoned the courage to carry out the rest of the routine. “Is there anyone I can call for you both?”
Two head shakes ‘no.’
“Anything I can do to make you more comfortable before we leave?”
Two head shakes ‘no.’
Betsy walked forward and placed one hand on Levana’s shoulder and her other on Robin’s right knee. “I’ll give you some time and then I’ll come back and check on you. If you need me there’s a call bell and I’ll—”
“—come back right away,” Robin finished her sentence.
Their eyes met, and suddenly Betsy turned and motioned the nurses out of the room before tears started to stream down her cheeks.
The door opened. Levana heard the sound of a bed being wheeled past the room, an announcement on the intercom system, the murmur of voices in the hallway, a man saying, “Nurse?” before the door closed, leaving them in silence.
Robin leaned back on the bed and rested his head on the pillow. He stared at the ceiling and then closed his eyes. She caressed his head from forehead to hair to ear to cheek and then repeated the movement again, and again, and again.
✽✽✽
“Lost my touch?” Robin said to Levana.
She stared down at her full plate and then looked at Trist who was already starting to dish up seconds. “Absolutely not,” she said, “just taking it all in before I start.” She dipped a piece of chicken in a pool of barbeque sauce and then savored the bite in her mouth before swallowing and washing it down with a sip of ice-cold beer.
“That’s more like it,” Robin said as he dished up another plate for himself. He turned to Trist. “Figured out our dive plan.”
Trist finished his coke in one giant gulp and got up to get another. “Let’s hear it.”
Robin pulled a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket. “Well, we’re putting the boat in at Munising, so I figure we’ll hit the Bermuda first. Plus, we’ll get treated to some of the best scenery the earth has to offer there when we see the different-colored cliffs, fine beaches, sea caves, and the pictured rocks: Chapel Rock, Indian Head, Miners Castle, and Lovers Leap.” He rubbed his neck. “There’s just nothing like it.”
“I’ve seen pictures, but the way Uncle Tyee talks, nothing beats seeing it in person,” Trist said.
“Your Uncle is right. We used to go fishing up there together.”
Levana gave a tortured smile—so many memories erupted with each word—and tried t
o focus as Robin continued.
“After that I think we can get in five more wrecks as we make our way counter-clockwise around Superior until we end with the most advanced dive on Mesquite.”
Trist opened the fridge. “Seven dives huh? I’m game.” He grabbed a coke from the top shelf and closed the door. “What makes Mesquite the highlight?”
“Mesquite is a Coast Guard cutter that grounded off the Keweenaw Peninsula in December of 1989. The crew made it safely away on lifeboats, and the ship was later determined to be unsalvageable. Then, as what happens to some ships that can’t be fixed but are still afloat, a bidding war started over who would get to sink her and where.”
“Bidding war?” Trist said as he returned to the table, cracked open his coke, and dug back into his food.
“Well, when a ship can’t be saved, it usually becomes a shipwreck and part of an underwater preserve. Naturally, specific groups want the ship sunk in their area, where it will attract more scuba divers and drive the tourist economy. After months of haggling, Mesquite was scuttled in July of 1990 in 115 feet of water a little over a mile from where she hit the rocks.”
Trist nodded.
“Is the depth what makes it an advanced dive?” Levana asked.
“The wreck rests between 80 and 110 feet. So, you’ve got hypothermia risks, it’s dark and we’ll need dive lights, but also it is a wreck that can be penetrated—and that’s the most dangerous part because of the silt that can be stirred up. It’s dangerous to go inside any wreck, but if you penetrate one like the Mesquite, take a wrong turn and stir up a lot of silt, then you can be blinded inside the wreck in a few seconds and not be able to find your way out.” Robin took a pull on his beer. “We’ll have to be careful if we go inside.”
Levana looked uneasy. “Uh, yeah. No shipwreck is worth losing your life over.”