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.