by Mary South
When you're out in the ocean, with plenty of room around, you still give these giants as much leeway as possible. They throw off an enormous wake and they're very restricted in their ability to maneuver. Now I held us steady in the middle of the river as we were passed on either side by barges 600 feet long or more, passing on both sides of us and no more than 100 feet away.
There was really nothing I could do besides alter my course ever so slightly and get ready for the fallout. Nothing we studied could have prepared us for this, and I was vaguely aware that-in terms of channel traffic nightmares, at least we were being given a scenario about as bad as we were ever liable to meet. Still, after months of stressful study in a classroom, something in me rejoiced that we were out from behind our desks and books and actually doing it. I wasn't half as scared as I was thrilled.
The two long tows passed us simultaneously, and for a moment we were sandwiched between their hulls. Piled high with cargo, the ships caused a quick eclipse of the stars as they passed us. The channel waters they left in their wake were confused, meeting in the middle in a high swell that rolled us gently back and forth.
And then they were gone. And we were fine.
An hour or so later, we finally found a deserted dock to tie up at for the night and almost wept with relief. It was midnight, the end of a seventeen-hour day underway, and our first one out in the ocean. My body was absolutely exhausted but my heart ached with happiness. After giving the poor boys a quick walk, I fell into bed, fully clothed.
What seemed like minutes later, when I could no longer ignore the clamor chewing at the edges of my consciousness, I opened my eyes. It was 5:15. Where was I? Engines were coughing and catching, I heard the high-pitched beep-beep-beep of a forklift in reverse and someone shouting, "Back it up, back it up." Three boats in quick succession peeled away in loud, whiney flourishes. Was that diesel I smelled or testosterone? It was still gray out, but it was definitely time to get up.
It slowly came back to me. John and I had finally turned in about four hours earlier. We'd had a storm, a rough approach to the channel, and a cheek-to-cheek dance with two long tows. What we needed was four days of sleep, not four hours.
But we had tied up near the fuel dock of the only marina we could find and, of course, today had to be the day they were hosting their annual fishing tournament. I threw on shorts and a clean button-down and took the dogs for a walk to the office so I could pay for the overnight tie-up. A plump girl with freckles, maybe 10 years old, was handling the register like a pro, and a line of sunburned guys in shorts and grimy caps hustled through as she rang up their purchases. Everyone seemed a tad morose and hurried. The marina office looked and felt like any small-town gas station-minimart, except for the assortment of lures, baits, charts, boots, cheap sunglasses, spare starter batteries and fishing equipment that lined the shelves along the walls. All the other offerings were typical of a highway convenience store, right down to the beef jerky, snack cakes and pump canisters of coffee. I skipped the array of flavored nondairy creamers and had a sip of tepid coffee-flavored water from a Styrofoam cup while I waited in line. When it was my turn, the bubbly little girl said she didn't know how much to charge me and got on the VHF to someone named Randy.
"I've got someone here wants to pay for tying up last night. What do I charge her? Yeah, that big boat by the fuel dock. . . .Okay." The girl pulled a large ring binder from under the counter and handed me a slip of paper with questions: name of vessel, length, beam, date.
"Looks like it's going to be busy today," I offered while filling out my form. I'm a mistress of the obvious.
"Oh, jeez. You have no idea. And the worst thing is, a lot of people are pretty angry because we, like, ran out of diesel."
So, that was testosterone I had smelled! "Oh, dear. And you guys have a big tournament today, huh?"
"Yeah, and it's, like, a long way back to another place with fuel, so they're not too happy with us. And it's not so good for us either because lots of these people are our regular customers."
But she said all this with a cheery smile, took my paperwork, checked the binder and came up with a charge of $80.
Eighty dollars for about four hours: it seemed steep, but she was sweet and I was too tired to argue.
Back at the boat, John and I agreed we should get outside again as fast as we could. He went for ice and I put the water on for real coffee. This was before my life-changing purchase of the beautifully basic stovetop Bialetti Moka espresso maker, so I was still pouring boiling water over Bustelo through the wrong-size paper filter wedged in a small red plastic funnel I'd found in the engine room. It wasn't pretty but it did the job.
We were underway by 6:00 a.m. It was dawn as we passed between the jetties and the sun flashed patches of liquid gold on the dark Atlantic. It was a beautiful sight, though the noisy escort of center consoles on either side of us, opening their throttles to full drone as soon as they left the No Wake zone, pissed all over God's grandeur.
Once we were well offshore and headed north, John and I came up with the day's game plan. This would be our routine every morning. We'd roll out a paper chart and have a look at the coastal towns up ahead. Which one was the farthest away but still reachable in daylight and close to an inlet? We'd take a guess, then plot a line or series of lines along the coast and measure the distance using a compass divider, comparing it against the chart's distance key. Then we'd calculate how many hours it would take us at cruising speed and verify that we could, indeed, make our guessed-at arrival point by evening. If we had chosen a place that was a tad too far, we'd back up and find a closer destination. If we'd been under ambitious, we'd look for the next inlet up the coast and run calculations again to be sure we could make it by nightfall. Then we'd chart our first leg and put the coordinates in the GPS. The GPS would then show us a bearing and an expected time of arrival that confirmed our hand-drawn work. We'd then set the autopilot and make more coffee. This morning, we were exhausted but happy, and we spent the next few hours rehashing the previous night's incredible adventure.
After a second cup of coffee, we talked about the possibility of an overnight run to Charleston. We decided we'd go as far as we could by day and see if the weather held, and if we felt up to the challenge of navigating by night.
At noon, John donned his radio headphones and took his fishing pole to the stern of the boat to listen to a nationally syndicated sports radio show from his beloved Chicago as well as the latest in right-wing punditry. I stayed on the bridge and admired the unspoken separation of church and state that kept the crew of the motor vessel Bossanova fond of each other.
O N E T H I N G YO U H AV E on an ocean voyage is time. The sun goes in and out of a cloudy sky until it tires of the chase and declares itself against a bright blue ceiling. The waves get shorter, get taller, come at you from different directions, take on different gradations of blue and green. Every degree of latitude brings a slightly different feeling-new wildlife, a crisper light, a slightly different smell. The sea's surface mirrors heaven's every nuance. Watching this and not thinking about anything at all was what I loved best.
There was something about looking at the coast from a distance: an awareness that I was not-for now-a part of life on earth, an ant on the farm that toiled back there, that stopped to pump gas and get groceries, that had dentist appointments or social obligations. I felt apart, invigorated, clean. This was my life right now-standing at the helm, checking the GPS coordinates against the chart, keeping an eye on the radar and the autopilot, stepping outside with the binoculars to determine a far-off freighter's course switching to WX on the VHF for the weather report and turning up the volume every time I heard a Coast Guard bulletin. Just running my little ship.
But there was plenty of time, too, for thought. Mine is a restless mind, but the rhythms of life aboard seemed to quell that combustion chamber where compressed thoughts ignited worries. When I thought, I reflected idly. I didn't try to figure stuff out, resolve anything, ta
ke it apart and understand it-these were all hallmarks of my landlubber mind.
I have always been good at what I can understand. But who understands love or the reason it falters? My failure at that one thing I valued more than all others had played a big role in my decision to veer off a straight life course. And now, at sea, I found myself able to review pieces of my past without too much analysis. It was like throwing away the microscope and suddenly realizing you could see better with your naked eye.
When I was 24 I had a girlfriend named Maud. She was eight years older than I, but she was so young at heart that when she walked down 14th Street in New York City, 16-year-old homeys would come up to her and tell her she was dope.
She wore Converse high-tops almost every day, with jeans and one of those black-and-white tweedy windbreakers with leather sleeves. She had leopard patterns carved in the hair on the back of her head and she had faux-marbleized her old-model Volvo wagon. She was a very talented writer, photographer, and chef. She also drank a little too much and was truly agoraphobic. But what drew me to her was her almost pathological charm. She was always promising to call people or see people and then blowing them off but winning them back. She did that with me, too, and the power of her regret was always so much more endearing than her carelessness was painful.
We met when I was living in Nantucket, painting houses and trying to figure out what I really wanted to do. Maud and I developed a ritual of dinner and a movie once a week. I would ride my motorcycle to the Finast and pick up steaks and artichokes, get a bottle of red wine, and then rent a couple of movies she'd selected. I had watched very little television and seen very few movies during my childhood. Maud gave me a crash course in great films. We would drink wine and talk about art and literature and politics while she cooked. When dinner was ready, we'd sit in her darkened living room in Adirondack chairs with our plates on our laps and watch Mildred Pierce, followed by Double Indemnity. Or I Want to Live, followed by Hiroshima, Mon Amour.
After about a year, I felt discouraged by our intense yet casual relationship and by life on the island. I thought Maud didn't take me seriously because I was younger. In fact, she often pushed me away with the excuse that I shouldn't be weighed down by someone with as many problems as she had.
Eventually, I gave up and moved to New York. Within a few months, Maud surprised me by following. We shared a loft on 19th Street with the landlord's cat.
Maud, who let's not forget was agoraphobic, got a job at a sewing pattern company, where she had to ride an elevator every day and punch in and out, like a regular stiff. She was a trooper. I, meanwhile, had fallen into a highly coveted job as an editorial assistant at Houghton Mifflin. I worked with people my own age who were smart and funny and ambitious. I did well there, and when I came home flushed with my minor successes, the loft seemed dark and dreary. Maud was depressed and, increasingly, she depressed me.
I was offered the impossible after six months, a promotion to assistant editor, contingent on moving to the Boston offices for a year. It was a great opportunity, and I also suspected it was the only way I'd ever find to break free of my debilitating love for Maud.
My first month in Boston, I stayed in Cambridge, house-sitting for my new boss's neighbor while I hunted for an apartment. I still remember the smell of my landlord's perfume. It was cloyingly funereal and it seemed to have permeated everything, including my sinuses. Even when I left the house, that scent suffocated me. It also seemed like the snow never stopped falling that winter. All I did was work and come home, work and come home. I missed New York and I didn't like Boston. At night, I'd call Maud, who'd gone back to Nantucket. Each night our conversation would start off well and spiral into recriminations and despair. One night I couldn't stand it anymore and started to quietly cry.
"What's the matter?" Maud asked, suddenly alarmed.
"You know, I just can't take it anymore. I worry so much about you and about how depressed you are, and I just don't know what to do to help you. It makes me so sad."
There was a pause from her end, and then she said, with some exasperation, "Are you kidding? Come on. You know me. This is how I am. I'm always depressed."
And it was as though someone had lifted a rock off me.
She was right. But I had no idea that she knew that-and once I did, it made all the difference.
Twenty years later, hardly a day goes by that I don't think of her and our jokes and our movie nights. Part of me still feels guilty, like I abandoned her after she summoned the bravery to face New York.
But I look back on this relationship with the knowledge that having saved myself, I will have the luxury of adoring her forever.
DAY D R EA M I N G AT T H E H E LM didn't distract me from watching the instruments, checking the horizon and keeping an eye on the weather. Around 1:00 p.m., the sun faded and the direction of the wind changed. By 2:00 p.m. waves started to roll us gently from side to side and the autopilot required some attention to keep us on course but comfortable. Puffy cumulus clouds obscured most of the sky's bright blue by 3:00 p.m., and around 4:00 p.m. they had become more threatening cumulonimbus clouds. Another storm was on the way. This was a fairly predictable weather pattern each day, with a burst of rain and light wind moving through in the late afternoon and then dissipating. But today the skies got darker and darker, the wind got stronger and the rain didn't come.
We were in for some more serious weather. The cloud bank chasing our stern rolled ominously toward us as John took the helm and I went below to secure loose items: the television, some glasses, books. Tightening the portholes, I chuckled when it occurred to me that I was actually "battening down the hatches"-it was the first time I understood the urgency in a phrase I had used so thoughtlessly a million times before.
When I was satisfied that everything was as secure as possible, I went back to the helm with our foul-weather gear. The dogs had already taken up their anxious positions. I think both John and I felt a little giddy. Adrenaline flooded my system as I contemplated the unavoidable emergency that was blocking our way. It was as though we were preparing for a siege, since there wasn't much we could do but brace ourselves and forge ahead. Maybe that's why I didn't feel scared.
Fear comes with the knowledge that you can change your situation-get help, escape, overpower your attacker. We had no such options. We were about to practice the nautical equivalent of passive resistance. Our goal was not to overcome but to endure. I felt a sense of exhilarated fatalism. Hang on, here we go.
The sea was rough and the winds were blowing harder and harder, but the Bossanova was a champ. She held her own, bounding through the rough waves like an amphibious tank.
Though it was quickly clear that the boat could handle this weather, John and I had never seen lightning like this before.
Of course, the open horizon and dark sky provided a particularly ominous palette, and I couldn't shake childhood memories of grown-ups rushing us from the pool or pond when lightning started to flash. The dogs cowered in the corner:
Samba was shaking from head to toe and Heck's beard was damp, a sure sign he was nauseous. John and I jumped every time a flash illuminated how very small we were and how very big the sea was, all around us.
For an hour, we tossed up and down on the gray-green waves, deafened by the grumbling thunder and sharp cracks of terrifying lightning, which were dangerously in synch. Rationally, I felt that we would be okay, that we wouldn't be hit and that even if we were, we'd survive. But this lightning was huge and getting closer and closer.
There's something particularly rattling about being in a small steel boat in a very big body of water with no other targets around. I wasn't sure that rubber-soled deck shoes were going to help if nature decided to fling some pyrotechnics our way. What I didn't know was that a steel boat was the safest place to be. Since steel conducts electricity, a lightning bolt would run through the hull to the ground (the sea) with little resistance. A wooden or fiberglass boat was much more dangerous-if lightning
struck, the resistance of fiberglass or wood could potentially cause the bolt to blow a hole in the hull. In any event, a boat's electronics could be damaged by a strike. When lightning appeared on the horizon, a good emergency measure was to place a handheld VHF radio in your oven or microwave, which provided a natural faraday cage. If you were struck, your communications channel would still be working, making it possible to call out a Mayday as you sank.
Gradually, the waves calmed a little and the wind faded to a stiff breeze, even though the sea remained rough. The worst of the front just turned and wandered off, like an exhausted bully with attention deficit disorder. The only lingering threat was the lightning, and we watched a dazzling exhibit of it as we pulled into Obassaw Sound, Georgia, and dropped anchor.
The chart indicated that this was about the best we were going to do in terms of shelter. Charleston would have to wait one more day.
That night, the wind whipped the waves against the steel hull, and the master stateroom, where the dogs and I slept, rang like a kettledrum. I tossed and turned and worried vaguely about the alarm not going off if we dragged our anchor. Every now and then I'd go up to the pilothouse and check our position against lights on the shore to be sure we hadn't moved. I had never used this GPS function before and I didn't trust it.
It was a relief when the sun finally came up, though I had barely slept. The waves had died down toward sunrise and the water was still and bright. We hauled up the anchor and headed back out, aiming for Charleston and a little R&R with the son of a Chapman classmate who ran a marina there.
I suppose many people would find life aboard a boat boring. I think John, who liked his creature comforts and was more outgoing than I am, sometimes felt a little caged and anxious. But my normally restless mind was quieted aboard the Bossanova. The little tasks of running the boat-checking the water flow in the saltwater strainers, keeping an eye on the oil pressure, scanning the horizon with binoculars, keeping track of our position on the chart and listening for Coast Guard updates on the VHF-were enough for me. I was vaguely aware that I spent much of each day with a goofy grin on my face. (I remember Captain Bob had once laughed at my perpetual smile and said that this was why he taught-to see the joy that every now and then one made-for-the-sea student would show.) From time to time the thought would pass through my head that I had no right to be running a ship like this, but the realization that I was actually doing it made me feel accomplished and proud. So I would rarely read while underway, preferring to stay focused on my boat, my command of our journey.