Everyone probably
has had an embarrassing moment or two over the years. In my case, not so long
ago I made a spectacle of myself in full view of a group of friends. Here’s the
story.
Easter is
often the seasonal turning point in the San Juan Archipelago that graces the
sea between the US Mainland and Vancouver Island in British Columbia. On a
specific Sunday about ten years ago, the sun was shining, the world around was
green and fresh, and we boaters could at last do our thing after a long, gray
winter. Around Friday Harbor, our thing was usually an Easter potluck in
pristine, Parks Bay, a quiet, uninhabited notch in neighboring Shaw Island. The
Bay was part of a nature preserve.
A dozen
boats came to the party that Sunday. They rafted up side by side or tied to
what was left of an old pier that floated on an anchor about 10 yards from the
dense, south shore of the Bay. That Easter my wife and I took Spirit (picture above) and a recent
addition to our tiny fleet, a new, wooden skiff that I had built over the
winter. It was a lightweight, 14’ beauty with a touch of dark green trim and wonderful
lines (picture below). We towed the skiff to the Bay behind Spirit,
and we tied to the old pier even though I was a bit trepidatious about the water
shallowness in so close to land. My cadre of old salts assured me “no problem”
as they tied Spirit to the pier and
admired the skiff. Food and wine magically appeared from the various boats,
spring was toasted, and festivities commenced. It was a genial gathering of
genuine friends.
About twenty
minutes later another boat appeared at the entrance to the Bay and headed
toward us. It was a relatively large, white boat with black trim named Fun. It had a large assortment of aerials,
domes, and spotlights as well as a small, barking dog on the foredeck. So much
for quiet, Parks Bay with its blue herons, eagles, and jumping fish. At the upper
(flybridge) helm of Fun was the
skipper in a gold-braided hat. He was known to a few people present to be a
recent arrival to San Juan Island. The young lady in the bikini standing next
to the old boy was an unknown. Arne, our harbormaster who had Danish saltwater
for blood, whispered in an aside:
“That boat reminds
me of a tennis shoe!”
The skipper
of the boat signaled that he would like to raft up on the outside of Spirit. He had to signal with his hands
as he had rock and roll music playing full blast on his flybridge and couldn’t
be heard by us. I understood what he wanted, and I was not favorable to having
him tied outside of me so I was pinned to the flimsy pier in shallow water with
the tide starting to ebb. Besides, he might leave the music on.
I signaled
back to him to go around in a circle and that I was leaving. He could have my
place. With that, Judy and I boarded Spirit and I started the engines. A
couple of the guys untied us from the pier. I could depart going straight
ahead, so our little skiff just followed us along on its towline.
I made a
slow circle out into deeper water and dropped my anchor in about 15’. Once the
anchor was down, I started backing Spirit
to set the anchor—make it dig in. I was backing toward the crowded pier in full
view of everyone. Suddenly, one of my engine alarms started to scream and the
engine stopped. Judy yelled from the rear deck:
“You’ve
backed over the skiff!”
Friends were
shouting something from the pier and waving their arms.
I shut down
both engines completely and went to the rear deck to look over the transom
where Judy was staring down. It was an awful sight. Only the back half of my
skiff was visible above the water. The rest was under Spirit. I had backed over the skiff’s towline. The towline wound
around one of my propellers and the propeller shaft until it stopped the
engine—hence the alarm. And—as we would find out a bit later—as the towline
wound, it pulled the bow of my hand-made skiff into the propeller, which chopped
a huge hole in the shiny new skiff’s bow. I didn’t look up at the now-silent
crowd of observers. The only sound was the rock and roll music from the tennis
shoe.
The rest is
anti-climatic. I was able to phone a diver in Friday Harbor and he was willing
to come over to Parks Bay to cut away the towline and release the skiff with
the hole in it as well as the propeller and shaft. He arrived an hour later in his workboat.
Meanwhile, some friends rowed out to our anchored Spirit and talked Judy and I into coming back to the pier to join
in the festivities. We weren’t feeling festive. Once on the pier with some
wine, we heard several backing-over-towline stories from sympathetic friends.
The old salts were all smiles in an attempt to cheer me up. The party went on.
I did ask the gold-braided skipper to turn off his jarring music, which he did.
After the diver completed his work, we eventually returned home in Spirit on our own power—with the holed skiff
hoisted clear of the water.
For the next
several years I was asked to provide the entertainment at the Easter potluck.
Copyright ©
2013 by Steven C. Brandt
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