Main sail fully raised! Really Sailing! ...The motor is sinking

There was a small craft advisory on Lake Michigan on Labor Day, with waves up to seven feet. Because of this, when I met my dad to take the sailboat out, we decided it was best to go to Paw Paw Lake in Coloma instead of “The Big Lake.” Still wind gusts were expected to be near 20 mph. 

I have a lot of history at Paw Paw Lake. It’s where I first learned to Scuba Dive at age 14 and also where my High School Sailing Team practiced during the weeknights in the school year. I remembered as we drove out there and although the weather wasn’t ideal, I remembered how in High School we would sail in pretty rough waves and 40 degree weather, the winds high. Labor Day wasn’t that bad, but it reminded me that although Paw Paw is a pretty small, you can flip a boat if you do something wrong, or if a storm blows in.  

Finding the boat launch and rigging the boat were both more time consuming than it should have been. We missed the launch twice after getting bad directions from bikers, and when I started to rig the boat I realized the main sail line came out of the boom after the last sailing trip. We had to re-feed it back though the mast and that took a lot of energy. By the time I was ready to raise the mast, it would be dark in a few hours.

I haven’t written about how big the mast of a CL-16 is. It’s over 22 feet and is mostly solid steel weighing over a hundred pounds. What I have to do is lift this while in the boat from it resting on the ground to standing it straight up and putting it in a locked position in a small hole. After putting it into place (I’m at a loss for the technical names of everything right now for everything) you have to move a large bolt through it. If I wasn’t as strong as I am, there is no way it would be possible to rig the boat

The boat launch at Paw Paw Lake is in a small channel that a row of homes are built right by. These houses and trees mean that the wind here is pretty weak. Also on the way out to middle of the lake is a series of docks with boats tied to them. After my experience almost crushing the boat on the rocks in the St. Joseph River last time with the sail raised, we planned driving the boat out with the trolling motor and raising the sails when we were in open water. We got moving pretty good on the small electric motor with me skippering and we raised the jib sail.

The wind hit us as we took a turn around a small peninsula and as I tried to trim the sheet I realized that I fed the line through the sheet incorrectly. Dad was able to fix this before we crashed into a dock, and with his help and calmness (as compared to my brother who may have screamed about us being about ready to die) I was able get us back towards the center of the lake through a combination of motor and using the job.

Dad took over the tiller and faced the boat the wind so the job wouldn’t push us back to shore. I went to the front of the boat and went to work to raise the mainsail. It took me a moment because in our rush and also the slight disorganization of the boat some of the lines were tangled and the sail clumped together. After about 5 minutes I was able to raise the sail and thought I had to boom in place when the jury rigged bolt came undone. The sail was half raised so luckily it was still under control. Still, I had to lower the sail and try to attach the boom to the mast.

It took all my upper body strength to get the boom re-attached in the wind and on the waves. It’s a hard process to explain, but basically it’s like how it’s easy to thread a needle on land, but hard on a boat. Now imagine threading a needle that weighed 50 pounds and then tightening down a bolt as soon as you get it right through the hole.

The sail was half raised during this time and Dad steered. It’s ironic I didn’t realize that we were finally sailing by the wind alone. Dad was smiling though.

Finally it latched into to place and I raised the mainsail as high as it would go to take pressure of the bolt. I tightened it and sat down as we headed at a good clip towards the end of the lake. We were probably doing about 12 knots or more.

(Yes I just had to look up how fast a knot is, just FYI)

I sat down and looked up at the sail, amazed we were really going. Dad looked completely relaxed at the tiller. I adjusted job and we kept a steady pace for about five minutes. We didn’t talk much, but at one point I yelled over the wind.

“We’re really doing it!”

It was amazing to me, because with all the setbacks, part of me doubted that it was really going to work, that I was really going to be able to sail. Maybe that’s an analogy for life or finally graduating college. But to be honest that would be stretching thing a bit, and I’m not in that type of comparison  seeking mood right now.

When it came time to tack, Dad brought the boat to what I believe is called a close hull and we got a moving as fast as comfort possible. He then pushed off on the tiller and brought the boat into the wind.

The weather and trees on the coastline made the wind seem to change and we had a hard time getting the boat around the needed point.  I pulled the job over and we sat in the water like a dead duck until, with a little help from the motor, we straightened ourselves around.

We took off back towards the harbor again and sailed. I watched the shoreline as the boat sailed through the water. Once waves, from a nearby speed boat thumped into the hull and although it made a hollow thud, no water got into the boat.

On dad’s last hard turn he hit the electronic motors and it came loose a bit. We didn’t think about it much and tightened it back down as I moved to the stern of Pilar and started skippering the boat.

Dad though it was a good idea to get too far west side of  the lake, that way when we decided to go in we could ride the wind far into the channel and not have to worry about docks. I was starting to get the hang of things so we decided to tack going up wind.

I pulled the sails in tight and leaned on the port side so we were going as fast as we could. Quickly I started to tack by pushing the tiller away. I ducked and the boom went over my head. You have to duck, but not too much in a boat Pillar’s size.

I shot back up when I heard a clank from behind me and to my dismay (horror maybe?) I saw the motor sinking into the lake. I fought the urge to jump in after it.

Dad hadn’t noticed and was telling me good job when I broke the news that the motor had sunk.

“Like really sunk?” he said.

“Yea, pretty much. It must be at the bottom of the lake now.”

“Well we were going to get a bigger one anyway,” he said with a grin.

I forced a smile myself. “Looks like we’re going in than huh?” I said. 

He smiled slightly, I knew he upset that we lost the motor; but at the same time glad we had finally got hang of boat. It worked out that we got the hang of the boat right when needed to.

We were on the west side of the lake so we were able to ride the wind all the way back to the channel. The wind changed slightly so we were able to open the sails and ride with the air to our back.

Dad lowered the sails when we got to the channel the wind died, and he took out the oar we got in case of emergency and started rowing. I skippered while he rowed until the wind picked up and we almost ran into a dock; with the sails down the wind still moved us eastward in the water.

I grabbed the paddle and rowed hard, we went faster than with the motor and were able to get in pretty quickly. Rheila was reading on a blanket when as I got out of the boat and waded in the water. She came walking towards me a smile and she took a picture of dad and me. It was a good day to raise the sail, even if we lost the motor.   

Tough guys cry too, even if it's about a horse

I stood by a row of pickup trucks and cried. It was the first time I had seen a horse in three years.

BM Pack’s White Hawk isn’t my horse anymore. My mother sold him years ago because I was away at college and when I was in town, going to the beach or other things were far more tempting way to spend my time. It was a choice I wholeheartedly agreed with, a horse deserves to be shown affection and ridden, and his new owner is a little girl whose family rides him three times a week.

Still, when Rhelia and I pulled into the gates of the Berrien County Youth Fair that August day I was overcome by a wave of nostalgia. The fair and showing Hawk was always the culmination of a summer, of a whole year really, coming to an end and the realization I was growing older. School always started two weeks after the fair when I was kid bringing with it worries about classes, friends and football.

If I’m writing this for the blog it may be hard for some people to identify with owning a horse. Showing a horse is hard work, frustration and love meeting together. You spend days upon days in the heat on top of another creature trying to get a cantor right. Part of you is still holding on to that last daydream of being a cowboy. Nights are spent sitting on hay, playing cards for the first time with older boys. The first girls I had crushes on were 4-H girls, something that my friends made fun of me for when I was older.

In short, visiting the fair made me feel like a quote from Dickens in “A Christmas Carroll.”

He was conscious of a thousand odors floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares, long, long, forgotten.” 
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Rhelia and I walked up and down the same barns I used to sleep in hammocks tied to polls. With help from someone I recognized, my old 4-H club leader, I found where Hawk was.

I could have sworn I heard whinny as I walked in the barn. Each paint horse I saw my hopes jumped up and fell back down as I looked at brown eyes instead of his signature blue. Paint horses are in my mind, the way a horse should look. Close your eyes for a second and think of an Indian Warrior on a horse. What you see is a Paint, and hawk always seemed to have a bit of that vibe in him.  

So I was sad that when I saw him he looked tired. He had just been shown twice earlier that morning seemed half asleep. I don’t know if I had watched the Budweiser Clydesdale commercial too often or what, but I expected him to come up to me and somehow speak, somehow say he knew I was sorry for leaving him.

He stood a few feet back in the stall though. I was wearing sunglasses but it was obvious that tears were streaming down my face. I took them off and reached through the bars to touch him. He stayed silent. Finally he came forward and I rubbed his nose. He raised his lip, a bad habit but fun game I used to play with him. After a moment he went back and seemed to go back to sleep.

“We’ll come back later, I think he’s tired.” Rhelia said.

I nodded and we walked out the back of the barn and she asked me if I was ok before looking at my face. She hugged me and we started walking towards the parking lot. She asked me if I need a moment alone and I said yes and went off by myself for a moment.

I don’t know how certain places can kick start your brain. Nostalgia and melancholy are words that seem ugly to me, reminding of whiney emo bands that wear black or cry about not being loved enough. But what I was thinking as I rested on a strangers tailgate was that I was re-living events that at most times I could barely even remember. They smashed forward before my eyes like a mini movie projector.

All that sweet un-tampered feelings of hope and innocence seemed real again. I remembered my grandpa showing me the new horse while he sat on a John Deer riding tractor, and the excitement that I felt that day. I thought about riding Hawk next to a girl who liked me, afraid to hold her hand. Of daydreams I had a kid of playing pro football and reading Treasure Island. Back than playing for the Detroit Lions seemed that it would be easier than finding someone stand arm length apart from and shuffle feet with at an awkward middle school dance.

After I composed myself we walked to the sheep and swine barn. The night before I had dreamed that Rhelia and I lived in big house in the country and had a pig named Harrington. Sheep and goats have always been some of my favorite animals, the idea of farm life implanted in me by my grandfather. Sometimes I think maybe Rhelia and I should just pack up and rent a farmhouse somewhere.

Hawk was still on my mind, but I was happy I still knew all the best food stands. The Korn Dogs stand was the cheapest and best place to get food at, and the proceeds went to charity. After we stuffed ourselves with fried food we cooled ourselves off with lemonade at the 4-H stand, a place I worked summers as a kid.

The walk around the commercial buildings was about as boring as I remembered it, and when we went to the traveling carnival I was amazed at how little things had changed, the only difference being that things were a lot smaller now. Rhelia wanted to ride all the rides, but that would have cost $40, money we really didn’t have

“We’re too big to ride all the rides, we wouldn’t fit,” I said. “Let’s just ride two rides, and call it a day.” I wanted to take the Ferris wheel, because I had just read “Devil in the White City” about Chicago’s World Fair, when the first Ferris wheel was unveiled. I don’t really have a fear of heights, but I get dizzy when thinking about them and almost fall over. Still I wanted to face the fear.

It ended up Rhelia was really terrified of Ferris Wheels. It didn’t help that, the steel groaned when we first went around during a spin. Just for the record, traveling carnivals are not designed for people who are 6’2 and 250 pound like me. I almost hit my head and realized that most of the other people in the lines were kids. Although it was a nice view when we were stuck at the top, if I was a kid I might have screamed, but instead I just grabbed hold of the center of the ride and held on.

We were planning on going on another sky high ride afterwards, but after being afraid up in the air we decided to go on the artic rush or whatever it's called, a ride that goes around in a circle at high speed. I sat on the outside and when the speed kicked in, Rhelia slammed into me with inertia. My side went into the metal car and smashed my kidneys. It hurt a lot and I was in agony. When the ride was over, I had a large bruise on my side.

Sore, we walked back around and went to watch the We Can Ride 4-H club show class. It’s a group for people with disabilities to help them live more normal lives. The whole thing is a pretty nice organization. Finally we got ready to see Hawk before we left.

The second time we visited him I tried to keep my guard up, thinking he would be tired and ignore me again. So I had a big smile on my face when he came up and stuck his nose though the stall bars, before he couple of times he walked around the stall, but came back to see me. His owners were still gone so I didn’t go into the stall again. It seemed to go a lot better the second time.

I said goodbye again and when we were leaving I again ran into my Kay, who is still a leader in 4-H. She asked how it went and when she realized I was still upset she asked me if I went in the stall, I told her no.

“For Pete’s sake, why not,” she said. She is really the type of person to say that.

We walked back and Hawk right up to me when I walked in the stall. No one was around except for Rhelia, Kay, Hawk and I. Or at least it seemed that way. I hugged around the neck and he wrapped his head around me. He smelled that same, it felt the same. A couple of weeks later writing this down, I feel like I can still remember every second spending time in there.

I thanked Kay and said goodbye. Rhelia and I walked to the car and she said it really seemed that he remembered me that time and she thought he was glad that I came back and went in the stall.

Maybe it’s stupid to think that a horse has a memory like a people do. That’s a question better left to scientists. Maybe I was projecting all those thoughts and emotions I was feeling at that moment about my life that made me so emotional. But if I’, asked what my feelings about it is, than yes, I think Hawk remembered me.    

Endless Shrimp stress relief: Tigers on the Radio and Kalamazoo Nature Center hikes

Waiting tables during Endless shrimp is means more business and more much needed money this time of the year, even more so because my car needed new tires today. But it also can take a bit of a toll on the body carrying tray after tray of shrimp to your guests. To loosen up my aching shoulders today I listened to the Tigers on the radio and switched up my workout to in an effort little piece of mind hiking at the Kalamazoo Nature Center.

Jim Price and Dan Dickerson yelled  how great it was that the Tigers averted being swept by the Chicago White Sox today as I drove North of Kalamazoo in the Camry. Cabrera hit another home run in the third inning on a bum leg today and Benoit had five out save end the game. If they are going to win the World Series I feel that this is year.

After the game was over I got out of the car and headed out on the trails. The Kalamazoo Nature Center charges $7 to help with the upkeep of the trails so I don’t mind paying; still I wanted to get my money worth. I packed up a book and an extra shirt and took off.

To get to the trails on the west side, it’s best to pass by the main building. Outside they keep a Great Horned Owl and two Red Tailed Hawks in captivity. This isn’t a zoo however; the animals were rescued and have too many injuries to be released into the wild. All birds of prey have very intense mannerisms and I enjoy walking by them.

My goal was to walk to a pond located on the farthest western point of the trails. To get there you have to take three other trails throughout the Nature Center. I didn’t take a map because I’ve been to the spot before and I wanted to try to find the way by myself. After I had passed the Hawk and Owl and looked at a turtle and snake sunning themselves on rocks in a pond it occurred to me that maybe I should have at least brought my cell phone in case I got lost.

After about a half mile I was close to the road I scrabbled up a hill and heard the sound of rustling to my left. 

The noise was louder than a squirrel and then out of the corner of my eye I saw two white tails jumping farther south of the trail. They stopped for a moment and looked at me before disappearing into the thick. I smiled and kept going; it was ironic to me because I was just thinking about how I hoped to see a deer 30 seconds earlier.

At the road a tunnel lets a hiker get through without having to deal with traffic. Inside there are paintings on the walls of wetlands. When I came out on the other side I looked at a big map of the trails on that side. The pictures identifying the trails were a crane, a trout and a turtle. I planned out the route and walked for a while over mostly open ground.   

Without a cell phone, and not having something to watch or read I really tried to let my mind wander. It’s been a long since I’ve really given my mind a chance to do that. Normally I’m reading something or working on something at home. At work you have five plans you’ve set up for when someone gets their food, and that’s if it’s slow. When I wake up in the morning I go straight to my cell phone and check my emails, cnn.com and other things. Sometimes I worry that ADD might set in if I’m not careful.

I found myself thinking a lot about my relationship with my great girlfriend. Books I’ve read in the past and how everything around me looked like Lord of The Rings. Sometimes my mind wandered to unpleasant thoughts of people in the past, but I pushed those out pretty easy.

The bugs started bothering me as I walked by trout stream. A sign posted said that they had demolished a damn that had been there to allow fish to go upstream and mate. Later on during the walk I passed small ponds that were covered in Algae. The ground around here was wet and I swatted the back of my neck more often as I got to my destination.

The pond was very peaceful and as I sat and listened I realized I had seen no other people in more than 45 minutes. It was a nice change of pace from daily life. I walked back to the road through more bug infested land quickly and thought for a moment what would happen if I sprained an ankle. Luckily I’ve never had one in the past even after 10 years of football, hockey, boxing…

Back at the center of the Nature Center I planned to take the Blue Bird trail, a two and half mile loop through fields and valleys, with a tough climb in middle. The walk started with sore legs but I was determined to work though it. What ended it for me is that the trail was overgrown. I walked about 400 yards before stopping and heading back. It wasn’t that I was worried about my ankles or shoes, but instead my fear of ticks. Really ticks are the only thing I’m afraid of in the woods I was 6 –years-old and had one lodge into the back of my skull that summer. On the way back to my car I said hello to a father and his kids who were racing up a hill. I thought to myself that someday I hope to impact enjoyment of nature and exercise in my kids the same way.

I went home and Rhelia was already cooking dinner. I sat and read for bit, finishing George Washington: A Life finally and was much more relaxed than how I had started the day. I keep hoping to find a newspaper job, but in the meantime I need to work at finding healthy ways like that day to put behind difficult days at work.  

A George Washington Biography, beer, and why I hate the Squeakquel : Stuck happily on Land Part 1

The weather disagreed with sailing again on Tuesday. Since I’m trying to keep up the practice of publishing something that makes sense and is somewhat proofread the plan is to write about George Washington, beer, and the Detroit Tigers in some sort of order. In the end I hope to tie them together into something worthwhile to read.

Rhelia and I woke up to bad weather in St. Joseph. That combined with missing the trailer plate for the boat meant that we wouldn’t try to go out on the Lake. I hope that sometime next week I have the opportunity. This has been a strange summer in weather.

Instead we went out to breakfast at one of the best and cheapest place in St. Joseph eat in the morning, Thornton’s downtown café. We both had their breakfast burritos and hash browns with coffee and the total was less than $15. It’s located downtown and yet has a small town feel. Compared to other places that tuned so much to the tourist trade it really feels more like how my hometown used to be.

Jean Klock Park is the best kept secret for as beach in town. Years ago my family used to go there and it was sight of some my favorite memories from when we had our boat, The Bear Lady (mom had a sense of humor.). Whenever I used to have to donate Plasma for some extra money my first couple of years in Kalamazoo, I would think back laying in on the sandbar in the water by beach to keep my blood pressure down.

(Of course the blood pressure would shoot right back up again if the lab tech who loved the Alvin and the Chipmunks so much he was a fan club member was “sticking” me. One day he stabbed me four times as he talked about how much he loved the “Squeak-quel,” but really that is an another story completely)   

But to continue, Jean Clock Park is great. There are public restrooms and showers, great sand and very few people. It was run down years ago, but since the golf course was built nearby they have reshaped the sand. 

We sat by ourselves surrounded by seagulls that left us alone. In addition to getting sun and swimming this allowed me to get major work done in reading Ron Chernow’s Washington: A Life.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys biography like I do. In reading it, Chernow doesn’t sugarcoat Washington’s shortcomings as a slave master or failings as a general. However at the same time he doesn’t shoot for ruining completely the character of “The father of America.”

While movies, popular culture, and history channel documentaries have brought to life other historical figures such as John Adams with a HBO mini-series, Abe Lincoln winning an Oscar and as a Vampire Hunter, and FDR in movie starring Bill Murray, Washington has remained boring and someone I never really thought I could connect with. The image of Washington chopping down a cherry tree and “never telling a lie,” are ingrained in our culture, but if asked in present day who Americans feel the best Americans in History are, Washington has had a fall down the list for  a hundred years.  

This book has changed some of that for me. It is broken up into six parts concerning his youth, time in the French and Indian wars, Revolutionary War, time as a statesman, President Terms, and time retired before death. I am just getting to the parts before he is elected, and the Constitution goes into law.

The book is not the best Biography I have ever read, that would go to Edmond Morris’s The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. David McClullah’s John Adams would be second. However, so far in my reading I would put Washington: A Life third on my very informal list.   

The clouds broke around 2 p.m. Rhelia and I took a break from reading. She finished Devil in the White City yesterday and didn’t like it, I have to agree, while it was entertaining it was written too much like a novel and the combination of murder and Chicago architecture information while interesting, was clunky. We decided to take a walk on the beach.

For further reading check out part 2 of my blog about beer and the Tigers, coming soon.    

Crashing into rocks, under the boat, and fisherman are saviors

Thunderstorms were in the forecast again on Friday July 19, the last day I was 26. I woke up later than I intended to after Rhelia and I saw the late night opening showing of “The Conjuring” So I set off forSt. Joseph almost as soon as I rolled out of bed. It was sunny, but windy, and I was glad to have the day off work from Red Lobster. I kissed Rhelia goodbye and told her I would see her later on that night.

Alex wasn’t awake when I got there, so I took Thor and Simba out for a walk. The puppy loves to play and I enjoyed running with him. He will be a good exercise buddy when he’s older. Alex came downstairs and we set out to the boat launch almost directly from when I came back with the dogs.

Alex was concerned about how windy it was and asked if we really intended to sail that day. “Of course we are,” is all I said back.

Rigging the boat went much easier this time than the first trip to the boat launch. We backed in quick and I got the mast on pretty much by myself in one attempt. The sails went up easily and I wondered why the previous owner installed a wench to raise the sails. It went up pretty easy by itself. Alex took a picture of me right before we set off and I felt very confident about getting out to the lake.

We pushed off without raising the mainsail but just by using the trolling motor and the inertia from my push off to get to the middle of the river. It crossed my mind how crazy it was that we were really under way. Once we turned, the jib sail started fluttering. The wind was coming out of the northwest so I had Alex tighten the starboard cleat. The wind caught us and I turned off the motor. We were sailing again at high speed. Alex said he was a little scared however as we passed a sandbar.    

It felt great to be underway again. I’m going to try to be poetic here so humor me if this is corny. The thing I like most about sailing is that your working with the wind and water like a dance partner instead of slamming against it when your in a power boat.  

I wanted to raise the mainsail, but Alex thought we were going fast enough. On the Benton Harbor side there were rocks on along the shoreline. We were traveling fast enough and if the wind continued out of the east I figured we could make it past the bridge no problem.

We started talking confidently about being on Lake Michigan in no time as we glided past the public access at Benton Harbor and past Brian’s Marina, where my parents had kept the first boat I had ever know, a red Rinker, when I was a child.

So maybe the wind changed or maybe I got careless. But the wind bent down on Pilar pushing us against the rocks. Most likely I didn’t pay close enough attention to the tiller. But the wind didn’t help.

But the next thing I knew we were gliding towards the rocks.

About ten fee t away the rocks Alex said he got really scared . He didn’t scream but when I told him to loosen the job line it didn’t help us. I jumped, doing my best Spiderman impression to the front of Pilar and pushed my (thankfully) shoed foot on the rocks as a grinding came over the boat. The sound stopped when Alex hit the centerboard and it rose safely into position.

We struggled onto the rocks as I kept my hands on the mast. A pontoon boat drove by and acted oblivious to our struggles as the job sheet flapped in the wind. After catching my breath for a moment Alex said, and I had agree that the best idea was too push off and use the trolling motor to get away from shore.

Soaking wet I pushed as hard away from the Benton Harbor side. Alex kicked on the motor and we set off towards the lake again. I asked him to raise and tighten the mainsail as I pushed hard away and…

We did a 180 and went straight towards the rocks again. I again was lucky to jump in the front of the boat. Alex said that he thought the motor was dying and that we should head back in. The wind beat down on us harder and I cut my ankle on a rock trying to keep us away.

We pushed off again but couldn’t get away. We need to use the jib to sail back upstream. The motor just couldn’t cut it.

So I pushed off as hard as I could and swam in the river for several yards before I pulled myself on and scrabbled to take a hold of the job sheet. I raised it as Alex steered and I shouted directions for which way to turn.

“Fall back, head towards the port side,” I yelled.

“What the hell does that mean? Left or right,” he said back. “It was fun when we were doing well but now I have no idea what you mean and it makes me upset.”

I tried my best not to get upset. “It does too clarify because we might get turned around but left right now, left!.”

We gained speed again and it looked like we were going to make it back to the boat dock. But we were also heading somewhat close to the rocks.  Alex responded by letting up. I was holding the line to raise the sail in my right hand and was trying to trim the sail with my left. He turned directly into the wind and the sail died.  The current caught us, turning us sideways and running Pilar right towards boats docked on the Benton Harbor side.

Again I scrambled up on the front of the boat and jumped off in order to catch the boat from ramming into a fishing boat.

I stood there for second, unsure of what to do. I stood on the back of the fishing boat until the owner walked up with a tackle box. Before he had a chance to ask what I was doing I shouted to him a hello.

“We ran into a bit a trouble, the current is too strong.”

He seemed a little slow to catch on what type a state we were in. We hoped to get a tow back up river but he said he had trouble getting off the dock himself alone, let alone worry about trying to worry about towing a boat that was adrift in the current.

I said I understood and we would try to get back up ourselves. I was feeling pretty embarrassed for landing on his boat anyway. It was beginning to feel hopeless so I did the only thing I could think of, I took off my shirt and jumped in the river.

The plan in my mind was to swim to the next dock and pull the boat there with the anchor line that we were using to tie up the boat.  

I made it the next dock by swimming a freestyle but the current was pushing the Pilar right at me and a new boat docked. It looked like it would crush me against the propellers if I didn’t get out of the way.

By this time I had swallowed a large mouthful of river water and struggled for a second before I did the only thing possible. Calmly with the boat coming at me I took a deep breath and slid under Pilar, pausing underwater in the St. Joseph River for a second at the centerboard. Alex said later that this was the first time he really felt terrified because he couldn’t see me thought I’d drowned.

I didn’t drown of course, but popped up on the other side. My muscles ached but other than that I was fine. Also important, Pilar was fine. It didn’t crash on the other boat like I had thought it would but bumped against part of the dock softly. I swam around the side and rested on Pilar and the prop of a dingy hanging on the back of the much larger boat.

Alex and I argued (calmly, we still hadn’t got THAT angry at each other) what to do. I thought we should raise the mainsail because we couldn’t use the motor going upstream. He said that was a horrible idea. I was still in the water, maybe we could swim it the next two docks. I didn’t think it would work.

Thank god for the fisherman.  

Luckily, my actions in the water caused him to decide to help. Alex threw him a line and in a form of what seemed like divine intervention we were on the way back to the boat launch. I was still in the water, clinging to the hull of my boat as were pulled. Alex was holding onto the boat the line connecting us to the fishing boat.

I stayed in the water for a while. The adrenalin had left my veins and I thought for a moment about how when I was younger my parents would tow me behind out motor boat on a giant inflatable alligator. It was the most fun I could imagine life could be at six years old. After about two minutes I pulled myself back up into Pilar.

I grinned at Alex and he gave me a half-hearted smile back as I helped steer us behind the fishing boat. It was the look that said he was glad we were getting out of this alive.

The fishing boat was pulling us to the wrong boat launch, if we went there I would have to walk up river and jump in before swimming across in the fat current. Alex was able to get their attention and yelled over the engines of the fishing boat were to go. Thankfully we towed to the right launch.

They let go of the line a couple about 30 yards away from the dock figuring we had enough momentum to make it. I also kicked on the trolling motor to make sure we got there.

We glided into the dock and I jumped off to secure our lines to the dock. Alex said it was just scare him one more time, because he almost fell when the boat wobbled one last time. With the boat tied up we both had a deep sense of relief. We sat on the dock and drained bottle water bottles until I could catch my breath enough to take down the mast. We were laughing.

A storm was supposed to be rolling in later that day, but the skies were still bright blue. I DE rigged the boat without a problem and rather quickly before we towed it back up to my mom’s house. We moved the sails, motor and life jacket into the garage and I took an out my mom’s bottle of vodka wishing it was rum or whiskey instead.

Since it was still nice out Alex drove us down to the Silver Beach. I talked to dad on the phone before we walked down the bluff to the beach. It was a red flag, so we had to walk out Second Street Beach to swim and play catch with the football in the water. Afterwards we went to dinner with Mom and I had a blacked walleye at the Ideal Place in Benton Harbor and a glass of Pino Noir.

That was my last day of being 26.

Getting the boat, St. Joseph Wine and a thunderstorm

7/17/13 WINE, HEMINGWAY BOOKS, AND SAILING. A FATHERS GIFT, BACKGROUND 

AND POST 1 OF A PERSONAL WRITING FOR THE PUBLIC

Well I’ve been trying for a couple of days to get things down but I haven’t had much luck. I blame most of it on work and on account of the heat. I worked a really hard double yesterday at Red Lobster and I’m sore.

I thought I wrote this down already and then remembered I did some of it in a notebook last night, ha well that’s rum after a double for you. Ok, well here is what I did the other day sailing.

Pilar Log 7/15/13

Monday was the first day to launch boat and I was nervous about trying to learn which lines are which and how to fit the sail. It’s been approximately seven years since I’ve sailed, and nine years since I sailed with any regularity.

My father got me the boat for graduation last week from a farmer in the middle of nowhere by Port Huron. The man said he never sailed it, and the only reason he bought it was to help a friend of the family to help out after a divorce. It looks sharp, but I hope it floats as well as it looks.

The reasoning behind having the boat is hard to understand if you don’t know my dad. The quick rundown is that we used to have money, a boat and go to Jimmy Buffett concerts when I was a kid. I loved it and read all I could about sailboats. I took sailing lessons for several years on 420 racers and when I entered High School joined the sailing team.

We lost a lot of money and he went to jail for bank robbery. When he was in prison, my birthday cards covers where hand drawn pictures of sailboats, islands and other Jimmy Buffett type stuff my dad paid a friend to draw for me. They were beautifully drawn.  

I hate to be an armchair psychologist , but now that my dad is happy, well employed and doing better in many ways than he has done in years, he wanted to give me a piece back of what I loved at a kid.

But back to sailing.

The boats back then were small so if it was a heavy wind I would race well by hiking far out over the side of the boat and using my weight to my advantage. If the wind was dead, the boat sat down in water most of the time and could barely move. Small boat sailing and being over 250 pounds has its ups and downs.

I’ve decided to name boat Pilar after Ernest Hemmingway’s boat; she’s a CL 16, a Canadian sailboat made in 1991 that is similar to the 420’s I used to sail. She should be steadier in big water and be able to fit 5 people on board, but it will be more difficult to rig, and the main concern I had is how to figure out how to fit the heavier mast without breaking the boat.

(A side note if you have not read Paul Hendrickson’s“Biography” of Hemmingway and his life centered on his boat Pilar, go buy it. Although the chapters toward the end start to center around his youngest son’s transgender lifestyle a little too much, it’s a very rewarding read.)

The forecast for Monday was sunny with no wind all day, according to my girlfriend Rhelia’s cell phone on the way to St. Joseph. I wasn’t concerned about this though, less wind means less chance of making a mistake.

We got into town early, and in no rush due to the forecast and the whole day off, went downtown to pick up a couple bottles of wine for my mother’s birthday. We tasted five wines from White Pine Winery, which just set up in downtown St. Joseph, and bought her a Pino Grigo. My favorite was a Shiraz, but we also got her a portable wine cooler, so the white wine made more sense as a gift. I highly recommend anyone in downtown St. Joseph to check the place out.

When we got back my brother was in a bad mood, he had just broken up with his girlfriend. He agreed to help but I knew that the rigging could cause more anger if I let myself get frustrated. I promised myself that I wouldn’t get upset no matter what happened.    

I dropped Rhelia off at Lions Park Beach with the idea of sailing up to her after we got everything going smoothly on during the trip down the channel. My brother wasn’t the most optimistic person while we loaded up the car pulling the boat with life jackets and the tiller.

“This is going to end in disaster,” is the exact words he said.

No one was at the public boat launch when we got there around 2:30 in the afternoon. Shortly after we pulled up though, a guy I vaguely remembered from the bars in St. Joe (being a bouncer from 17 to 22 years old means a lot of this when I’m in town.) We tried to back the sailboat carefully into the water as the guy pretty much dumped his small fishing boat in and tied her up.

“You going out,” the guy asked in a cheerful voice. We replied that we were. He seemed the happiest person I had met in a while.

We got the boat and the trailer in the water, and I was happy to see that both were floating. The boat was in the water! I climbed on board with it still tied to the trailer and was happy to find that it was steady to walk around in.

The first thing to do was also the hardest. I had to put the mast up and secure it before we could hope to do anything else. This was not easy as the mast was 20 feet long and weighed over 100 pounds. I decided, strong that I am that I could pick it up myself and put it in the boat easily.

Not really the case.

With Alex’s help I was finally able to set the mast into its slot, what I must remember next time is two things. 

First I need to disconnect the boat from the car and do this on land. The second is that a pulley makes on the mainsail means I need to rotate the mast so it will fit in correctly.

After we finally got it in there after a lot of effort it was easy to screw in the blot that held it in there. I than went to work on connecting the boom while Alex helped the fisherman catch minnows for bait.

It took a while for me to get things right. In the heat I took my shirt off and had sweat dripping in my eyes. I had just fitted the mainsail when bad news hit.

In the form of thunder and lightning.

It looked like thee storm would pass over, but Alex wasn’t so sure. I stood for in the boat and debating what to do before we saw a far off lighting strike. Rhelia called from the beach and left a message saying I 

shouldn’t take it out, and Alex echoed the statement.

Before I took down the mast however I paused for a moment as Alex took a picture of me in the boat with the sail up so we could send it to Dad.

I didn’t get upset but kept a positive attitude, which I was proud of. We packed the boat back up and other than hitting my head getting into the car, the trip back to my mom’s place went smooth. I went and picked up Rhelia in town and got a cup of coffee.

Back at home I took a large shot of vodka to quell my disappointment  and Alex, Rhelia and I went and saw Pacific Rim, which was a great monster movie and one of the best films I’ve seen since The Dark Knight Rises. We had a birthday dinner with my mom and gave her the Wine backpack and Pino Grigo before we headed back to Kalamazoo at midnight with the dog fast asleep on Rhelia's lap as we hit I-94.

So that was the first time Pilar was in the water. Hopefully I will be able to try again to take her out soon.