The skipper, Vern, met me at the airport Sunday night. “We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready,” he said.
Give me half an hour to unpack and repack and I’ll be with you,” I replied.
Vern Koepsel and his son, Ed, had the boat almost ready to go by the time I dragged my dock cart alongside and unloaded my sleeping bag, pillow, and duffle into the cockpit. We’d be racing the Malabar Star in the Newport Beach to Ensenada Race, in the Ancient Mariner’s class, appropriate for a heavy wooden boat being used as a live-aboard. We’d need a lot of wind to move her through the water, but if the winds blew, we could be competitive. If not, we’d have a nice cruise from Newport Beach to Ensenada. First we had to get to Newport Beach.
We cast off at midnight, powered by the diesel engine, the sailor’s iron mainsail. This is an unromantic way to travel, but practical if you’re attempting an upwind passage. Only a masochist would have insisted on sailing to Newport from San Diego.
The bay at night is the same noisy, smelly place it is in the day, but there’s less traffic. Jets took off from Lindbergh and North Island, pouring noise and smog into the atmosphere. Traffic roared by on nearby streets. Even the buildings downtown seemed to add the sounds of their air conditioners and elevators.
Passing Shelter Island, I imagined someone standing there and watching us—wondering as I have at others—“What are those fools doings starting a voyage at this time of night?”
We passed North Island and the submarine base, still lighted and active, and finally reached Point Loma. But we couldn’t turn north yet. The kelp beds are invisible at night. We prudently turned south and west and stayed in the channel until we reached buoy number one, our first way point and the start of our ded reckoning for the run north.
Outside of the sheltering bay the wind blew in our faces at about ten knots; four foot swells pushed up our bow and challenged our steering. The boat rolled and pitched and yawed.
“If it blows like this at night during the race,” Ed grinned, “we’ll stand a good chance of getting a trophy.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. But I didn’t care right then. The air I was breathing was off the open ocean, salty and clean. I stood and filled my lungs with the joy of it. My body was countering each motion of the boat to keep me upright and I felt I was dancing in place. The sea lay before me, a boundless expanse of unlimited possibilities. Of all the places I have been on this planet, only the ocean feels like home to me.
In a while Vern walked away from the tiller and asked me to take over. The boat swung 10 degrees off course as I scrambled around to a position from which I could both steer the boat and see the compass. Soon I had learned the rhythms of the other three dancers, the boat, the wind, and the sea, and was able to join in, anticipating their moves, swaying from side to side with the tiller to keep us on course.
As we left behind the loom of San Diego’s lights, stars popped into the black of a clear, cold sky, sparkled off the waves, and formed a guard of honor for a maiden moon shyly making her debut.
Ed dragged out an ancient auto-pilot. “Want to try this thing, Dad? It did work once.”
“And it drove us in circles the rest of the time,” Vern replied, “but might as well.” They tinkered for an hour before the auto-pilot was able to relieve me at the helm, its tendency to do donuts resolved, and it proved the best helmsman of us all. We were in awe as the lubber line held to within a degree of our course. I ducked below and covered the warm clothes I was wearing with my foul weather gear. Brrrrrr.
“Lynn,” Ed asked later, “is that the Milky Way? I’ve never seen it.”
I studied the sky and blinked and stared some more. “No, Ed, that’s a long, skinny cloud hanging out where the Milky Way’s supposed to be, an imposter. But it’s almost clear enough tonight we should see it. I’ll keep a watch and let you know.”
In the hour before dawn, a kind of stillness descended on the world; the wind dropped; the white caps slumbered, and the sky turned to black liquid crystal a billion light years deep. All the stars that ever were for eons shone on us and as I struggled to catch my breath from the beauty of it so I could speak to Ed…
“Ah, the Milky Way,” Vern said, poking his head out of the hatch after a nap. “Where are we?”
The sky started to lighten and my yawn reminded me that I’m not a morning person. I rearranged some cockpit cushions, pulled my watch cap over my eyes and went to sleep.
~~~~~~~~
“Wake up!” my bladder yelled.
“No, not yet; I just got to sleep. Wait a while.”
“You get up right now or I’m not making any promises.”
“Do you know how many layers of clothing I’ve got to take off? No, forget it. I’m not waking up.”
“Dad,” Ed hollered, “we’re taking on water. The floor boards are awash.”
Vern grabbed the tiller from the auto pilot and swung the boat toward the shore, a good six miles away. I sat up and looked into the cabin. Floor boards had been flung everywhere and Ed was upended over the bilge, swinging the handle of the manual pump through desperate arcs. Water was climbing up his feet.
“Take the helm,” Vern said. “I’ve got to help Ed. Head for that light on shore.” He was below before I was all the way to my feet.
“Yipe! Now I’ve really got to go,” my bladder said.
“We can’t go now. We’ve got to steer the boat,” I pleaded.
I thought to myself, “The hull’s sound; we haven’t hit anything. Probably a through-hull fitting gave. Ed must have tasted that water; it must be salt or he wouldn’t be so frantic.”
“It’s going to have another flavor and color too if you don’t get me to the head in the next minute,” my bladder chimed in.
“Don’t even think about it,” I told it. “Besides this is a self draining cockpit; it would go into the ocean, not the bilge.”
“Well, in that case…”
“No.”
“Well, at least you could cross our legs.”
Ed remembered the automatic bilge pump and turned it on to help fight the deluge. The water receded slightly.
“On the deck of a rolling boat?” I asked my bladder. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Look, Dad, the hose has come of the through-hull for the manual bilge pump. No wonder it wasn’t doing any good.”
“Can you jam it back on?”
“Think so. There. Do you see a hose clamp?”
In a moment Vern climbed out into the cockpit. “Hose came off the bilge pump’s through-hull. It’s below waterline.”
“I heard,” I said. “Could you take the helm for a minute? I’ve really got to use the head.” I was steering the boat back around on course and as it steadied there I handed the tiller to Vern and started below. No matter there was no floor. I was going to walk on the walls like a fly if that’s what it took to get to the head.
“Dad, I’m not sure we got it.”
Vern shoved me out of the entry and leapt below. I clenched my teeth and my sphincter and turned back to the helm. “Any nice beach will do,” I thought, as I scanned the shoreline and saw nothing but cliffs. The sun had fully risen and my guiding light had been extinguished.”This is a full keel boat, I’ll just drive her up on a beach and we’ll careen her. No problem. Ah, that looks like a little notch. Must be some sort of a beach below it. Soft I hope, sand or gravel, not big rocks.”
“You were going to take me to the head,” my bladder whined.
“Shut up!” I told it.
I steadied myself down into a little meditation. “All you have to do,” I told myself, “is get the boat to a beach and don’t pee. Those are simple things. Don’t pee. Get the boat to a beach. And don’t pee.”
Many subjective hours passed during the next few minutes until finally the silence of the two men seeped into my awareness. “…boat to the beach and don’t…huh? What are they doing down there? They’re just standing, staring at the bilge.”
More minutes passed as the three of us stood stupefied, the two men staring at the wedge in the hull that might tell our fortune in a swirl of bilge water, me staring at the wedge in the cliffs that might hold hope or horror if we ever got there.
Finally I roused myself with a little shudder. “Vern?”
“Looks like that was it. We’re not taking on any more water.”
“Oh, good. In that case, could you take the helm? I’ve really…”
“Oh yeah. I forgot.” He grinned.
I didn’t hand him the helm. I abandoned it, l pushed past him while he was still in the hatch. A foot on the sink, hand on Ed’s shoulder, a race along the settee moldings and I was in the head. On the way I’d shed my foul weather jacket and got the bib overalls down to my knees. This is completely impossible to do in a rolling boat, I realize as I write, but the fact seemed to have slipped my mind at the time. Then only four layers to go. My fingers flew as I untied, unbuckled, unhooked and unzipped.
“Bladder?” I queried. “It’s OK. You can go now.”
But my bladder remained frozen in sullen, reprimanding silence for a full three minutes as I sat, desperately bracing myself in the small quarters against the pitch and roll of the boat, until it finally deigned to respond.
Sloop Photo Credit: Luxuryatch.com / Boats for Sale & Yatchs