I guess it was about 3am or so. I can’t be totally sure because I was blind drunk and disorientated. I sort of half hung by one arm from the for-stay (a wire which runs from the front of a sail boat up to the top of the mast there-by preventing it from falling down on your head or the heads of your loved ones. By all accounts, a very useful wire) of my friends boat. The rest of me, I guess the other half, was resting on my knees which were wedged against the bow pulpit (a short, solid railing like affair which wraps around the bow of a sail boat and is used to pee from in heavy weather, preferably when people ashore are commenting on how picturesque a scene your boat makes. By all accounts, a wonderful thing to attach to the front of a boat) in what was, I would later discover, an extraordinarily uncomfortable position. My knees hurt for weeks. But that is beside the point.
The point, to my rum-dipped head, was that the guy who owned the boat had just out drank me. Heartily. I had, in fact, been solidly passed out in the cabin but a few minutes before. Have you ever been woken up by a 1 MILLION-candle power lamp? It hurts. The rum didn’t help. I thought it might, but I am young and foolish, and I can admit when I’m wrong.
In my other hand, the one which wasn’t clinging to the thin steel wire, I held a miniscule yellow flashlight. The batteries were dying, not that it mattered, and after turning it on several seconds passed before I noticed I was holding it backwards. Its feeble, yellowish, “beam” sunk into the night and was never seen again. The Great Lamp couldn’t be used now as the drain it created on the already overloaded battery might kill the motor after more then a few seconds of head shattering illumination. And since the wind had died, the motor was the only way we were going to get anywhere – not typically a matter of any great standing with me, except I had to work in the morning.
With this flickering joke I was to look out for other boats - long since anchored by their sane, respectable owners - within the little harbor we were about to enter. The harbor; a lush, small cove veiled with a delicate but vexing mist, choked with boats of various size and insurance rates, was fought with more categories of Things to Run Into then the Coast Guard ever dreamed of.
It was of the utmost importance that we not hit anything. Having grown up in the sailing culture I have learned that smashing in to Baron von Winthop’s privet yacht the S.S. Gadimrich is usually a poor way to gain the esteem of one’s peers. It’s also bloody expensive and we, apparently, could not even afford flashlight batteries. There were also many countless other perils; half submurged logs, sand bars, mourings and lines to name a few. Through this i was to guide us to a small floating jetty at the other end of the inlet where we could stay and sleep.
We had sailed all night upon the Fake Lake, the head pond of an ageing and decrepit hydro-electrical dam of the sort thought to be a great idea before people started to think maybe drowning thousands of creatures’ homes under one-hundred and fifty feet of water was a bad idea. Built also, apparently, before the properties of cement were fully understood by our civil engineers as large sections of the dam could be seen to be crumbling. With this as our backdrop, we began to sally forth into the darkness of the cove. The first chorus of Dark Side of the Moon ran on repeat though my head: “And if the dam breaks open many years too soon, and if there is no room upon the hill… and if you head explodes with dark forebodings too, I’ll see you on the Dark Side of the Moon”. It sounded like a good place to be right about then.
The night was cool, the air was light and everything was spinning slowly in a counter-clockwise ballet of doom. Our vessel began to nose its way into port under the angry protest of the single cylinder, two-stroke inboard marine engine. The cove lay in shadows beneath its misty shroud, and I felt as though it might be time to start paying attention.
Alright, lets have us a little fun. Did we:
A. Plow directly into the broadside of the 60 foot cabin cruiser directly infront of us causing thousands of dollars in damage to either vessel?
B. Do something much, much to terrible to discuss here resulting in lengthy and messy legal problems and finally resolved when i agreed to move far away and change my name to Maria?
C. Make it to the jetty perfectly fine, sleep the rest of the night peacefully away until being picked up by a lovely young lady the next morning?
D. Combust?
E. Suddenly hear the dam crumble with a terrific roar and regain conciousness only after the ensueing tidal wave washed us up somewhere near Boston?
F. Have a nice cup of Chamomile tea and think things over?
G. Get our propellor stuck in a length of loose line and drift to shore where we ran solidly aground and were stuck until late the next afternoon when several burly men assisted us in pushing?
Isn’t this fun?
