1993

BUDDY BOATING

So it’s ’93 and I’ve gotten down to the Florida Keys, amazed that being a “Newbie” I’m still alive and that Thalia is still afloat. But now I have to leave Marathon, where I’ve been working in an effort to punch up the cruising kitty. A recurring problem based on, I believe, the hospital mixing up babies and sending me home with poor white trash instead of my wealthy, generous, biological parents. I’ll bet I’m not the only one experiencing this problem. My sister and brother-in-law are arriving in the Bahamas expecting to spend a week of sun, surf and sailing aboard Thalia. I’ve got to get it in gear. So despite my fears I go to Key Largo, the logical place to jump off for Bimini. I arrive in Key Largo and am just finishing anchoring when a dinghy roars up, “How are you doing, want to come up for a beer?”, my standard greeting, “I’ll have to pass on the beer, but are you heading for Bimini?” asks my new acquaintance, “Yeah, going to go tonight” exclaims the “Newbie”, “Single handing?” he asks “Yeah” comes my response, starting to succumb to my fears. “When were you going to up anchor?” around 5 pm I stutter, “Yeah, that’s our plan as well, would you like to sail with us?” he says pointing to a group of 5 boats. Like he needed to ask, melting with relief, I blurt “God, yes, I’ve never actually singlehanded at night out of sight of land” to my new best friend, who has just achieved the status of a deity. “Hell, we’ve all done this passage lots of times, it’s easy and the weather forecast is good” clearly I’m in the presence of an experienced mariner, “We’ll start out on vhf 16 and go to a working channel once we clear the coast.” Blandly states the master mariner. “Cool” I say with an attempt at nonchalance and the effort of not wetting myself with pure relief. “See you at 5” I stammer, completely prepared to put my life in his obviously capable hands.

Five pm arrives and the group of now 6 boats depart, 5 obviously experienced and competently crewed, immaculately equipped boats and Gilligan aboard the sailing version of the SS Minnow, I could hear the theme song in my head as we motored out of Rock Harbor. Key Largo has a large reef with an enormous light station, which has to be left, I think, to starboard on exit, it’s been a lot of years and I can’t remember the name of the reef and I’m far too lazy to look it up, but for the sake of this article, let’s just call it Buttf##k Reef. Ok? There’s 15 – 20 kts of wind right on the nose on exit, it’ll be a reach once we got around the reef. At 38’ and 9 tons Thalia is blessed with a Yanmar 3gm 20 hp continuous, a great motor, but it does not make for a motoring machine. Let’s face it she’s slow under power. My new friends are motoring easily at 5+ kts and Thalia and I are struggling to attain 2 ½ kts and not lose the leadership of my saviors. “Thalia, is everything alright?” crackles the radio,” Yeah, this is the best I can do, she’s a trifle underpowered” “No problem, we’ll wait for you” says the radio, “No, just keep going, I’ll catch you out there” says Gilligan, terrified of losing the beneficence of THE GROUP. “Ok, if you’re sure, see you soon.” In fairly short order they are about 1 ½ mi ahead and I am struggling to figure out why they appear to be heading for the wrong side of the light station, at least to my “Newbie” eyes and binoculars, armed with binoculars and a chart I’m trying to resolve what I’m seeing. I’d pretty much written it off to parallax and my own inexperience, after all I’m the only one out here with no experience, when the radio goes off and what sounds like the voice of God after an eternity of rum and cigarettes says “All you boats, you’re all headed for the wrong side of Buttf##k Reef, the water’s pretty thin over there.” There’s about 5 seconds of ominous silence and the radio bursts to life in a confused cluster of calls “I’m 8 ft” “I’m in 9” “Port” “Starboard” and what had looked like an orderly procession resembling Mama goose and her goslings devolved into a mindless melee and a series of dangerous maneuvers as they sought deeper water, it’s amazing that there wasn’t a collision. Back comes the voice of God “Gawdamn, it’s a good thing you idiots don’t have real motors in those things, y’all’d be dangerous.” After that radio silence reigned, funny about that. No? No proposed working channel, nothing.

There’s an obvious lesson to be learned here, and belaboring the point would be a waste of time. Suffice to say I learned an important lesson for free early on. When we met up in Bimini there was a spirit of camaraderie that refused to be recaptured.

“If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’” (Clete Purcell, James Lee Burke series of Robicheaux crime fiction novels, I think)