by Linda Kenyon
We had no equipment, so we rented the land out to a cash-cropper. Between that income and my job and the pigs and the sheep, it looked like it was going to work. And it did. For a while.
I watch the stars for a bit, look around halfheartedly — I’d be surprised to see another boat out here. Maybe I should read my book. But I’ve been reading all afternoon. I’m all read out.
Stephen and Jack don’t have to stand night watches. They have crew to do that. The two of them spend their evenings in Jack’s cabin, making music — Jack plays the violin, Stephen the cello — and eating toasted cheese.
I check our course and speed, look at the gauges.
Mmm. I could do with some toasted cheese right now. Where’s my steward?
I decide to check my email, creep below deck and log onto SailMail. To my great surprise and delight, Brenda has written back already. I do a quick look around, then settle in to read her message.
Dear Linda,
Isn’t it all so strange? You are far out in the Atlantic (or not so far, if the winds have remained light) and I am at work on holiday Monday (not so strange, actually.) But that’s fine because it’s raining and cool and everything I planted yesterday will be loving the rain. I am here trying to get my head around a semi-structured anxiety disorders interview schedule that I have to teach on Wednesday, and you are probably trying to get your head around the idea that you are out in the ocean, heading towards Bermuda and who-knows-where next.
I’m sure you didn’t mean to be funny, but your last letter made me laugh out loud. How can you doubt that you have the courage to sail across an ocean? You’re out there, aren’t you? That’s more than most people would be brave enough to do. And besides, at this point, what choice do you have? You will handle the challenges, I’m sure of it, and feel very proud of yourself when you reach the other side.
Finding the courage to be in a relationship again after all you’ve been through is the greater challenge, I would think. I remember you writing to me from the Dismal Swamp one evening to tell me that you had a miserable cold and Chris was in the galley cooking dinner, because you didn’t really feel like eating, never mind cooking. It astonished you. You were not used to being taken care of. His tenderness moved you to tears. Which is kind of sad, in a way. How did you get to such a ripe old age without knowing what it’s like to be looked after?
You’re already well on your way, my dear. Intimacy is something that builds over time, in the small moments. You can do it. You are doing it.
But enough of this. I hope you’re not rolling your eyes and saying if this is what passes for sisterly advice, thank god she’s 2,000 miles away.
I think I told you that Chuck and I are going on vacation for a week? Without Anna? This will be the first time we’ve left her for more than a few days, and I am having horribly anxious moments at night while in bed, about leaving her. Nothing logical (I know: separations are good; she and Peggy are a good match; all is arranged for her dance class, daycare trips, etc; a trip is important for Chuck and me; Anna handles separations well, she’s had practice, although we’ve never been away from her before for more than one or two days.)
Nope, nothing logical. Just a terrific aching in my heart, as though something is being ripped out. I feel as though I am abandoning the most fragile, precious thing I ever had to care for. I can see her face looking anxiously out the window, watching me as I go.
I feel acutely aware of the imbalance in our relationship with her, in that, while we understand that planes fly both ways, that there are logical physical connections between places in he world, and that if we needed to we could fly right back to her, she does not. She could not go to the airport and find us, if need be; she could not seek us out. Hell, she couldn’t even call us on the phone independently. Not that she would ever need to.
But imagine knowing — being acutely aware — that you cannot do any of these things, and that the people you need most in the world are voluntarily leaving you, without recourse, “for a little vacation.” It feels terrible.
She has been preparing in her way — making little ziplock bags of things for us to take (several pennies and a bus token; handmade cards with her name written all over them; a little travel soap; some pictures of her and us; two unmatched doll socks). She seems to be both protecting and preparing us, and afraid that we will forget her. It is breaking my heart. She is desperately trying to map out what this separation will be, in four-year-old-time. And she looks so serious, so afraid, and so angry when the numbers slowly go by: four, five six…
So how am I going to survive the vacation? Chuck says that wine and sun and a sandy beach will help, but I am a bit afraid. I am also a little afraid that I have let her take too big a space in my life. Does this mean I am too involved with her? Am I having an identity crisis at the thought of being away from her? Aren’t those things terrible pathological mothering errors? Or is it normal mother-of-a-preschooler stuff?
So it’s a weird twist, eh, that I am equally worried for her and me. Maybe I need a transitional object, a blankie, a soother… Sheesh. Or sixteen more years of therapy.
When you told me you were running away to sea, I wasn’t really angry, Linda. I was afraid, I think. Not for you, so much, but of losing you. I was settling into a life I really wanted, my home and husband, career, and now my new baby. But it was a huge step for me and one I had hoped to take with you. Then you changed.
In what seemed like a heartbeat you went from a sad, devastated middle-aged woman into something unfamiliar. Suddenly you were doing things you had never done before (“I’m off sailing with a friend for the weekend.”). Sailing? Friend? Instead of sitting alone in your condo, you started hiking in the woods for hours, by yourself, driving to Toronto — on the 401! And you began to look different. Have I ever told you that I once drove past you on King Street in Waterloo, looked right at you, but did not realize until a few blocks later that it was you? Short skirt, flirty blouse, long hair. Who was that?
You grew and flourished, and I panicked. I was losing the person who helped shape my life, who helped me understand things, the woman who showed up at my house one rainy day with a pair of new rubber boots for me, insisting we go to the conservation area to walk in the flooded creek. I loved that part of me, the part I was with you. Like the twin in The Orchid Hunter, who was so close to his brother that he never really had an experience until he had the chance to talk to his brother about it. The telling of it made it true. That was us. And then it wasn’t.
And I can’t say that I am proud of how I responded, with anger and accusations of irresponsibility and irrationality. How could you think of doing something so foolhardy with someone who, to my mind, was too handsome, too confident, and too flighty? How could you?
Now, a year later, I see that I was afraid of losing you, but I also recognize my fear of growing older and smaller in the world I was about to enter, while you grew younger and freer.
So a sad mix of jealousy and fear made me angry and unable to see how happy you were. I did not believe it. I think sometimes that it took me forever to really get that you were going (I am, in so many ways, painfully like a four-year-old), and now I alternate between great excitement for you and acute longing to cling to your leg and whine (see?).
But so far, it’s been fine. In fact, these letters make me feel closer to you than ever. I feel sure now that we can do more than just wave at each other across the distance.
Must go now. It’s time to take Anna to her riding lesson. Yes, we’ve given up on swimming and taken up horseback riding — both of us! See? You’re not the only one having adventures.
Love you,
Beek
May 25
Day 4
Our fourth day out and so far we’ve managed to make 100 miles a day, even in these light winds. We’ve both been secretly hoping for more, but 100 miles a day isn’t bad — it will get us to Bermu
da in ten days.
In the meantime, it’s sunny and warm, just a few fluffy clouds on the horizon. There’s a ten- to fifteen-knot wind from the east and we’re sailing steadily north, right where we want to go, on a comfortable beam reach. The seas are calm, the wind-driven waves less than a foot, backed by a gentle three- to four-foot swell. It’s all good.
Almost all. Just after lunch, I look up from my book and see something up ahead in the distance. The clouds on the horizon are bunching together and piling up — they’re still fluffy on top, but they’re flat on the bottom and getting darker. But that’s not what’s troubling me. It’s very faint, but it’s definitely there: a funnel rising from the surface of the water into the clouds. It doesn’t seem to be moving as a tornado would, it’s just sitting in one spot. But we’re sailing right towards it.
“Chris?” I say. “Better come have a look at this.”
“A waterspout,” he says calmly. Too calmly. Clearly this isn’t good.
“Get ready to tack,” he says.
He turns the boat into the wind, then across the wind. The genoa starts to backwind and I release the port sheet, pull the genoa in on the starboard side. The main tacks by itself. Chris keeps turning until we’re sailing steadily south, away from the waterspout. We both look back. It has already started to dissipate, and a minute later it’s gone. Cautiously, we tack again and resume our previous course.
“That was a bit surreal,” I say.
“Yeah,” says Chris. “I’ve never seen one that close.”
“Are we in for some bad weather?”
“Not necessarily. That was a fair-weather waterspout — I’ve seen them on the Great Lakes. The really dangerous ones form in thunderstorms, behave more like a tornado.”
I don’t much like the sound of that.
“I’ll take the helm for a while,” he says casually. “Why don’t you go down for a nap?”
But I can’t fall asleep. I try to think of the worst weather we’ve encountered so far. Surprisingly, it wasn’t in the ocean: it was in the Great Lakes.
We were at anchor one hot, sunny afternoon, in Lake Erie, just off Pelee Island. I was up in the cockpit, trimming my nails, when the sky suddenly clouded over, then turned a menacing shade of purple, then black.
“Chris?”
He came up from below, wiping his oily hands on a rag. We could see lightning coming our way, could hear the rumble of thunder, growing louder.
“Shouldn’t we go to shore?” I asked him.
“We won’t have that option in the ocean. Let’s pull anchor and see if we can get around Lighthouse Point before it hits.”
We didn’t quite make it. A wall of wind heeled us over just as we were rounding the point. Eight knots. Nine. It took all of Chris’s strength to keep the boat from turning up into the wind, which would have put us on the rocks. I ran forward to pull in the genoa, but I wasn’t able to: the furling gear had jammed. There was nothing to do but let the sheet go and spill the wind from the sail.
“Get back in here!” Chris shouted from the cockpit.
I was already on my way. The genoa was flailing around in the wind, could easily have knocked me overboard. Or out.
Suddenly we were in the lee of the point and I was able to take the wheel while Chris dealt with the furling gear.
The thunderstorm itself was nothing compared to the blast of wind that came before it. But I think both of us were shaken. Well, I was, at least. And even Chris was a little pale. He told me later that when we hit eleven knots, the bow started to dig in, something that had never happened before. Letting the sheet go was the right thing to do — we needed to slow the boat down, and fast.
We learned a few things that day: Never take your eye off the sky, even on a clear, sunny day. Reduce sail as soon as you see a weather system approaching.
And furling gear will always jam just when you need it the most.
May 26
Day 5
It’s mackerel with rice and peas tonight, a high-end version of boat gorp — rice cooked in canned mushroom soup with a tin of tuna and a can of peas thrown in.
From time to time, I look up from the simmering pot — I’m waiting till the rice is almost cooked to add the mackerel and peas. Outside the galley window, the sea is the most incredible shade of blue; I never get tired of looking at it. Sun sparkles on the water as far as the eye can see. We’re sailing in a sea of diamonds. I cut the mackerel into chunks, stir it into the rice, dump in the can of peas. When I look out again, a band of puffy white clouds has formed on the horizon.
By the time I emerge from below with two steaming bowls of gorp, they’ve turned into a band of dark clouds.
“I don’t think it’s going to rain,” Chris says. He digs in. “Mmm. This is great.”
As we eat our dinner, he checks our position. Another 100-mile day despite the light winds. So far so good. But the dark clouds are getting closer. They’re also getting darker.
They’re almost on us by the time we finish eating.
“Maybe we’d better tie in a couple of reefs,” he says, handing me his empty bowl. “Why don’t you go below and close up.”
When I get back, Chris has already shortened sail and zipped up the canvas around the cockpit.
“Maybe it is going to rain,” he says. Big drops of rain are splattering on the windscreen and there’s lightning in the distance. Not the pretty kind that dances around the tops of the clouds. Big, angry bolts of lightning are stabbing the water. And they’re getting closer.
We’ve never been struck by lightning, and may we never be, though they say that sooner or later, every voyaging sailboat gets hit. In theory, steel boats are rarely damaged by a lightning strike, and injuries or deaths by lightning are uncommon. With so much steel in contact with the water, the electrical charge just dissipates harmlessly into the surrounding water. In theory. But I check the abandon-ship kit just in case, make sure it’s zipped up, ready to go, in easy reach. My bigger fear is that we’ll get hit and Chris will be knocked unconscious — or worse. For the first time, I feel a long way from shore.
The wall of clouds is on us now, rain pelting, thunder crashing, lightning all around.
“Don’t touch the steel,” I remind Chris.
“You either.”
The wind heels us over, even with the tiny bit of sail we have up, burying the port rail in the water. Six knots, seven, seven and a half. Suddenly it begins to ease up.
“There,” Chris says. “I think that was the worst of it.” He switches on the radar to confirm that the bank of clouds is moving away, spends a little too long looking at the screen, zooms out, then out further.
“What’s wrong?”
“This squall is moving off, but there’s another one right behind it, and behind it, there’s something so big and black I can’t see the other side of it.”
I do the only sensible thing: I go below and put the spare GPS and the handheld radio in the oven, which is somehow isolated from the rest of the boat. That way, if we’re struck by lightning and all our electronics are knocked out, we’ll at least be able to tell where we are and call for help.
Bless this woman, I think.
I’d put it off as long as I could: it was time to do the wash. The sheets were grubby, the towels stiff with salt, and I was wearing Chris’s clothes because everything I owned was dirty. (All he ever wore in the Bahamas was his bathing suit, which got “clean” every time he went for a swim.) Our clothes weren’t “I think I may have worn this once” dirty — they were mustard-smear, lubricating-oil, sweat-stain, coffee-dribble dirty.
Finding a place to do the wash in a string of islands with no fresh water was a bit of a challenge. Fortunately, we weren’t far from Black Point Settlement, a small town that seems to have figured out how to desalinate ocean water on a large scale. There was free fresh water available at the to
wn tap — all you had to do was bring a wrench to turn the tap on and off — and wonder of wonders, there was a laundromat in town.
We were anchored at Staniel Cay, about five miles from Black Point, tucked in between two islands in a protected little spot. There was a front coming through that night, with strong winds that would clock around from the southwest to the northeast. We were pretty sure that if we pulled anchor and sailed to Black Point to do the wash, our spot would be gone when we returned. So we decided to dinghy there.
The seas were calm, the afternoon sunny and warm — no sign of the bad weather to come. We packed our clothes into plastic bags, loaded them into the dinghy, and headed out. The plan was that Chris would leave me in Black Point and return to Staniel to fill the diesel tanks, which involved lugging jerrycans of fuel from shore. I was pretty sure I had the better deal.
Chris helped me haul our stuff from the public dock to the laundromat, a distance of about three city blocks, a unit of measurement that would make no sense to the people of Black Point. There’s just one main road, running along the coast. There weren’t many boats in the harbour that day. Black Point is completely exposed to anything but an east wind, so the usually busy anchorage was empty except for a handful of local fishing boats that looked like they could weather just about anything — and probably had.
Chris helped me sort our clothes into washers — five of them — and pumped in quarters while I poured in the soap. Then I walked him back to the dock. Once he’d disappeared around the point, I turned and walked back through the town, feeling a little conspicuous. School had let out, and kids were straggling down the road in little groups, talking excitedly and calling to one another.