It’s good to be home, but I will always laugh at our time away, and remember it with fondness. There’s really no place quite like Yaris, and we had stayed longer than planned. It is not easy to get there, and harder still to leave.
To say that our visit was eventful is a bit like saying an explosion is loud, though that’s more expected from pyrotechnics than a comfortably indifferent paradise.
Lola quickly fell in with a group of local women entrepreneurs; I focused on rum and boats, and in spite of my protests, became editor of Scow News, which is sort of a gossip sheet/newsletter about scows, scow racing, and scowboys.
Too soon, I was dragooned into working for an outrageous rag, The One & Only Lava Lampoon, commonly called “Tool.” Journalism often does not pay well, and that’s true in Yaris. It sure was fun, though.
There was time to explore, invent, work on boats, even design and build one. And there was sailing—sweet and often. And a guru.
Local tradition avoids and even frowns on making anything more complicated or difficult. Sailing is a matter of wind and tide, and sometimes what the fish are doing. A good watch is just not much use, a clock irrelevant. Outsiders are often irked by this—locals say that watching the sky, the hills, or the sea is not waiting or wasting time, it is living well.
We are back now. It’s good to be home, to see old friends and familiar faces, but clocks, calendars, and deadlines are a struggle. Once familiar things seem odd and superfluous.
The boat barn—always a haven—is more a sanctuary than ever. The dust had kept at its work, finding new crannies; when the doors opened, dirt danced, happy for the light. I coughed and fitted glasses and a mask. Starting with the rafters and working down, it took hours for me to peek under Elsie’s cover.
Elsie is a scaled-down Bolger Manatee, one of two that I know of. The other Ferdinand, identical except for a longer bowsprit, befitting a boat named after a bull. Both are stout and fit for their intended purposes. Elsie is forgiving, and has suffered my foolishness lightly more than once. She deserves better, but is stuck with me.
The walk-around was slow, looking at dings and dock rash, sometimes with a chuckle, sometimes with a nod. At the stern, site of Elsie’s most serious damage, the repairs were nearly invisible. These were from a crash with a Fast and Furious car during the Gilroy Garlic Festival. My jaws tightened, but I shook my head, reminded of the hazards of trailering and boneheads.
Finishing my topside inspection I creaked and groaned to the floor to inspect the bottom and the trailer. Though the trailer was on blocks, so as to unload the springs and tires, it seemed a long way down, and the floor was cold. Everything looked as it should, so I didn’t stay long;. Getting up reminded me that the ship of youth has sailed, and that warm weather agrees with me.
The Mercury DeSade sat by its water barrel. Shaking my head, thinking about inspecting it—maybe giving it a test run—I stopped. DeSade was silent, defiant, maybe imperious, challenging me to a starting duel. The day had been good, too good to ruin by losing to a frustrating outboard.
Stepping away, I was reminded of my love/hate relationship with this motor, and how effortlessly the scowboys had sailed without them. Outboards are viewed as luxuries, ostentatious and unnecessary. In Yaris, outboards make a statement: “I am lazy, and not a good sailor.”
There is a saying there to the effect that only a fool or a foreigner would spend money on an outboard. A bit harsh maybe, but true for these people who live closer to nature than most of us.
I am lazy, and maybe a middling sailor, fated to think of outboards as a part of sailing any boat much larger than a dinghy—but recalling outings spoiled or delayed by vexatious outboards, sore shoulders, banged knuckles and creative language gave me pause. This is something to think about, but it’s important, involves safety, and is not to be hurried, nor a wild hare to be run.
Next to DeSade’s barrel sat the anchor I designed in Yaris. It is cross-shaped, and I originally called it the Steel Cross, but Lola pointed out the similarity to a historically significant label, so I suggested Christopher Cross, but that one is taken.
I thought Cruise-A-Fix was great, but Lola not only frowned, but put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot, so that wouldn’t work either. I am open to suggestions for this as yet unnamed anchor.
The dog startled me. Prince Henry The Navigator—we call him Hank—is an upland cane hound, renowned for his skill in finding sugar cane in difficult country. This is no small thing, as cane is essential to making rum, a common thing in Yaris. Hank got his name by being very good at his job. He was a parting gift from our friends, an honor, and the newest member of our family. Big Buoy and Robbie would have liked him.
My phone pinged. Though we’ve been home for a bit, we’ve been away from electronic stuff long enough that they still seem intrusive and peculiar. It was Lola, fetching me to the house.
Hank led the way, stopping with me to look back. And ahead. •SCA•
Cruisiform
Welcome back to the world.