Bloody Tuesday
by Tom Parker "The interesting part of this yarn is how it ends, so I’ll be brief with the back story. "
*Although the author (if indeed he even used his real name) calls this story “fiction,” we aren’t so sure. You be the judge.—Eds
The interesting part of this yarn is how it ends, so I’ll be brief with the back story. Details are taken almost verbatim from cryptic log entries jotted down at the halfway point of the voyage, which included lunch.
We arrived at the boat ramp just before dawn. Rigged the SeaPearl 21 in the usual half hour and loaded the forward hold with what we’d need for lunch at the island. Included was a small charcoal cooker, charcoal, the kitchen kit, and finally a cooler with all food and drink items for a two-person lunch. The centerpiece of the food assortment was a pound of organic ground sirloin, vine-ripe tomatoes, onions to slice, buns and all the trimmings, with a bottle of decent red wine. My wife and I planned this for weeks because we both saw it as a celebration of ten reasonably beautiful years of marriage.
We launched, parked the truck and trailer in the lot ,and shoved off shortly after 6 a.m. Our favorite island is 6 miles and about 5 hours up the lake to the south. The wind was variable, averaging 10 knots—perfect sailing conditions. It was hot but mercifully overcast, and forecasters predicted the haze would clear mid-morning. With the early breeze, and a single-tack reach most of the way, our ETA was somewhere around 11a.m.
As the morning progressed, the haze did clear, leaving us with bright morning sun on our backs while the day was relatively cool. Very nice. Arrived at the island at 11:20 a.m. and beached the Pearl on the island’s only tiny beach (clean sand; no traffic on weekdays). Made a nice little camp, started the charcoal, set up the small camp table. Wow! This is what SeaPearls were designed to do! It wasn’t epic, but we were alone on a nice beach.
The lunch was fantastic: Grilled burgers with everything, ice-cold potato salad, chips, cold Chianti, a smoke and a 20-minute snooze. This day was turning out memorably well. The nap ended with a decision to head back, as the wind had changed direction and dropped just a bit. I could foresee making most of the trip back on a single close reach (approximately due north). No problems, until…
After about an hour of sailing with the midday sun directly in my face, I asked my wife to grab my wide brimmed sailing hat out of a forward hold. After 10 minutes of searching, we concluded the hat had been left in the truck, along with hers. “OK, please throw me the sunscreen,” I said. “I’m burning up!” (I’m a fair-skinned guy and burn easily.) Another 5 minutes passed and she emerged empty handed. “I think we left it in the truck with the hats.” “Great!—this is a bit of a crisis,” I said. “No hats, no umbrella, no sunscreen, nothing!”
Five more hours of it, I figured, would cook me crisp. “What can we do to save you?”, she chided. “Do we have toothpaste on board?” “No…” “Well, how about some mayonnaise?” My wife sometimes displays a dark sense of humor. I had no choice but to disarm the barb. “What a good idea!” She headed straight to the cooler for the mayo as I reflected on the prospect. Mayo might feel great and actually work, and it would be nice and cool. “Sorry,” she said, “no mayo,” as she tossed me a full squeeze bottle of ketchup. Once again, I bravely called her bluff, covering my arms, lower legs, head, neck and hands with cool, soothing organic ketchup…in the process soaking my clean white t-shirt with a ghastly amount. I then sailed on as if there had been no attempted murder, and all was perfect. (In truth, it felt pretty good and smelled even better.)
In the moderate breeze, the ketchup dried pretty well (gruesome, but I wasn’t suffering from the sun). Then I saw what looked like a Hunter ahead of us, on the same tack. I simply cannot resist passing bigger boats, preferably to their leeward. “Are you completely crazy?” my wife asked. “Are you actually going to sail past that boat looking like a freaking bloody zombie? They aren’t going to think you’re that funny!”
It is uncool to look directly into the eyes of guys when you pass them, so I can’t tell you exactly, but they sounded alarmed at what they were seeing. I ignored them and sailed by, like everything was normal and had them far astern when the police patrol arrived—a small, open boat with a sharp metal rail and huge outboard.
They pulled up on my lee rail and handed me their mooring painter, which I dutifully secured to a cleat in the cockpit. They ordered my wife into their boat—ostensibly for questioning—and then told me to do the same. Well, I wasn’t about to abandon my vessel on the lake, or my wife for that matter. Their rail was banging dangerously into my raised windward leeboard; our sails were making a huge racket, and then the breeze picked up. Too much! Sometimes when sailing, one is required to make fast decisions and take decisive action. I hand signaled my wife, who was now sitting in the stern of the police boat, suggesting she get back aboard the Pearl, which she gracefully did without hesitation. (Very well-trained crew!) We un-cleated and sailed away smartly on starboard tack. Free at last!
We held our course briefly, but decided to start our little Honda outboard and put some distance between us and the police boat. “Here is the kill lanyard,” said my wife. “I’ve already got it,” I answered. “Are there two of them?” she asked…. “No!” I answered, as we realized she’d accidentally hooked the other boat’s ignition key and lanyard while jumping back on our boat. At that moment we noticed the police boat hadn’t moved and was now just a distant speck. “My God, Lady! What do we do now?,” I asked. “Well, it was an accident—I’d hold your course!” said my crewmate. And so I did.
Presently, we arrived back at our dock and loaded the Pearl onto the trailer. You can douse the rig of a SeaPearl 21 in a remarkably short time and that is what we did. We weren’t interested in talking with cops who had paddled a mile and a half in the hot sun. My lovely wife was facing a key-theft rap, not to mention suspicion of elder-abuse, or worse. We left their lanyard and key in the fee box at the ramp and hit the road.
Now, I’d happily mention my name and where this took place, but I can’t for obvious legal reasons. There may be a warrant. And, what of the requisite postmortem? What did we learn? Probably nothing, but maybe dinner and a show would have been easier.