Three Ways To Capsize A Boat Part 8

"Man, you never ate a lobster?" he questioned me in amazement. "Why, we'll have one right away. I got a whole heap of 'em in back of the truck." And there, on a warm late summer afternoon by the clear water of the Bras d'Or lakes, he persuaded a reluctant lobster to get into the cooking pot, and together we dismembered it with our pocket knives and devoured its sweet pink flesh.

I arrived in Lunenburg before Hirta Hirta did and checked into a white wooden hotel just behind the waterfront. I was the only guest in the place and it wasn't very big anyway, so I had the undivided attention of the beautiful Martha, who ran the place and exuded such a welcome aura of warm femininity and subtle scent that it quite befuddled my brain. It was then that I fell prey to homesickness; it came in waves, colored with tender thoughts of Ana. I didn't know how long I would have to wait for the boat, so I decided to channel my seething emotions into art. I bought a sketchbook and set about immortalizing the pretty little town in ink and wash. did and checked into a white wooden hotel just behind the waterfront. I was the only guest in the place and it wasn't very big anyway, so I had the undivided attention of the beautiful Martha, who ran the place and exuded such a welcome aura of warm femininity and subtle scent that it quite befuddled my brain. It was then that I fell prey to homesickness; it came in waves, colored with tender thoughts of Ana. I didn't know how long I would have to wait for the boat, so I decided to channel my seething emotions into art. I bought a sketchbook and set about immortalizing the pretty little town in ink and wash.

In the morning I would wander out to the rocks on the point and eagerly scan the sea for the sight of a red sail. Later I would walk on the hills around the town, sit in the street and sketch or play some guitar, until I could wander back for dinner. Ah, dinner ... I sat alone in the dining room with a candle on my table, freshly picked flowers, and a bottle of wine, and I swear I have never eaten such food. It was mostly the vegetables, the crisp pungent flavor of them, and their moist and glistening hues, but when the dessert arrived, creations of succulent berries gloriously enhanced by the products of the dairy cow and the humble hen, well, I was almost in heaven.

Perhaps Hirta Hirta would never come, and I would spend the rest of my days, sitting on the point watching for a sail, munching on exquisite vegetables. Half a week pa.s.sed and I became fretful, wandering out at first light to scan the horizon or distractedly penning portraits of the boat in small heroic sketches. would never come, and I would spend the rest of my days, sitting on the point watching for a sail, munching on exquisite vegetables. Half a week pa.s.sed and I became fretful, wandering out at first light to scan the horizon or distractedly penning portraits of the boat in small heroic sketches.

Then at last, on the seventh day, in the late afternoon light, Hirta Hirta appeared, cutting through the bay with all sails billowing, gleaming crimson in the low rays of the sun. I watched, entranced as she tacked in a graceful extended zigzag toward the harbor. They knew I would be watching from somewhere, so they were putting on a show, and I wasn't disappointed. I was so excited to see them again that I jumped up and down and hooted and hollered from the cliffs, but it was too far off, so I ran down to the dock, arriving just in time to take the lines. appeared, cutting through the bay with all sails billowing, gleaming crimson in the low rays of the sun. I watched, entranced as she tacked in a graceful extended zigzag toward the harbor. They knew I would be watching from somewhere, so they were putting on a show, and I wasn't disappointed. I was so excited to see them again that I jumped up and down and hooted and hollered from the cliffs, but it was too far off, so I ran down to the dock, arriving just in time to take the lines.

How strange they looked, my s.h.i.+pmates. We had been used to one another huge and amorphous, swaddled in layer upon layer of woolens, topped by s.h.i.+ny oilskins. But now we had been slipping down the lines of lat.i.tude toward the warmth of late summer, and bit by bit we had shed our protective clothing, revealing ourselves as less substantial beings. We had become etiolated, too, like plants growing beneath stones, denied the light and warmth of the sun. The skin that was on display shone in mottled shades of white and pink, with here and there a dash of livid red from the salt.w.a.ter boils. Hannah, who was cavorting around in red cotton shorts, giggled inexplicably when I strode up the gangplank wearing much the same.

"Tell us of the lakes and the Torrible Zone," demanded Tom, "and the hills of the Chankly Bore."

I was happy to be back on the boat. It gets to you like that. I had traveled on foot and in cars and trucks, and even once in a bus, but none of these conveyances made such marvelous use of the wind, that glorious resource that girdles the planet and takes you wherever you want to go, if you happen to have the skills and the time. And I hadn't been ready yet to leave my s.h.i.+pmates.

I could tell by the warmth of their welcome that everyone felt the same. We needed these few extra days...o...b..ard to take proper leave of each other and, most of all, of Hirta Hirta. So we hoisted the sails and sheeted them in, and again felt that thrill as the old boat shuddered with the wind and plunged her bow to the sea for this, my last trip in her. We could have gone anywhere, but Newport, Rhode Island, was where we headed. The America's Cup was taking place there and, although the world's wealthiest millionaires strutting their stuff held little appeal, Tom made a living out of yachting journalism and reckoned there would be a story or two to be had.

And then, Tom said, we would go on to Mystic Seaport: "A true sailor's port, with sailing museums and shrines and old boats." It seemed a good and fitting place to leave Hirta Hirta, the crew, and the sea. I phoned Ana with the news. I was on my way home.

Epilogue

FOWEY IS AS PRETTY as a place can be, the perfect Cornish harbor town with steep, wooded hills tumbling down to the still waters of its estuary. In the autumn, after I came back from the Americas, Ana and I drove there from Suss.e.x to spend a weekend with Patrick and his family. We had a notion about moving that way and starting again with the sheep, although in truth I was having a hard job wrenching my mind back from the sea. My brain seemed to have been so addled by salt water that it teemed with boats and nautical allusions. as a place can be, the perfect Cornish harbor town with steep, wooded hills tumbling down to the still waters of its estuary. In the autumn, after I came back from the Americas, Ana and I drove there from Suss.e.x to spend a weekend with Patrick and his family. We had a notion about moving that way and starting again with the sheep, although in truth I was having a hard job wrenching my mind back from the sea. My brain seemed to have been so addled by salt water that it teemed with boats and nautical allusions.

As we breasted the ridge above the harbor town, I was expounding a pet theory to Ana, that being an island race we have the sea embedded in our very language.

"Take the phrase 'To the bitter end,'" I told her. "You'd think it meant the conclusion of something pretty negative and drawn out but-hah!-no, it doesn't. The bitt, you see is a post for fastening the rope on a s.h.i.+p, so when you reach the bitter end it means the rope is all played out. Amazing, isn't it?"

A silence. Ana ignored me pointedly. Indeed, she stayed a bit quiet until she was introduced to Patrick's wife, Rosemary, and immediately recognized a fellow sufferer at the hands of the returned seadog, the transoceanic bore.

Ana was normally tolerant of my ways-after a few years of living with a person like me, you learn to make allowances-but I fear that this time my new obsession was getting beyond a joke. Perhaps I really was insufferable. I'm told I would walk with a roll, with what I took to be a seagoing sort of a gait, pepper my speech with nautical metaphors, and sigh at the merest thought of the sea.

Over breakfast of beans and eggs it occurred to Patrick that we might want to take his dinghy for a sail-"She's small, but she'll give you a feel of the wind and the water," he said. I looked across the table at Ana.

"Come on," I cajoled her. "You'll see what I've been going on about. It'll be a really nice morning's sail."

"It might be nice for you," she replied, "but I think it looks extremely unappetizing out there. Besides, it's hardly very warm, is it?"

"You'll be in good hands," Patrick a.s.sured her. "Your man knows his stuff. He's a good man in a tight spot."

This, from Patrick, was praise indeed. I strutted and preened a little and put a manly arm around my girlfriend's shoulder. "If we only ever put to sea on a sunny day, then where on earth would we be? What would have become of our island race?" I insisted. This ought to give you some indication of just how bad things had become.

With untypical forbearance, Ana denied herself the obvious retort. "Well, all right, if we must," she said. "We'll see what you've learned out on the high seas."

Patrick took us down to the dock where he kept his neat little fibergla.s.s dinghy and helped me prepare it for sea. It was the work of a few minutes-child's play after our Atlantic voyaging.

Ana, however, was wearing her womanly disapproval hat, the sort a woman wears when she can think of a dozen good reasons not to do a thing but knows you're going to do it anyway. But as we bounded across the wavelets of the sheltered harbor, the sheer exuberance of it all blew that expression away and she, too, was soon wreathed in smiles. I swelled a little with pleasure and pride as she smiled back at me, then I hardened up (which means here to turn toward the wind), tightened the sheet, and ran closer to the wind.

We rocketed across the open water toward the yacht club, where, in spite of the coolness of the morning, a small group of yachty-looking coves stood gathered on the terrace. They were certainly dressed for the part, in dapper yachting caps and blazers and white ducks, sipping gin and tonics and scanning the water with a hand s.h.i.+elding the brow. I hardened up a little more and then, to my dismay, realized that we were heading fast for the rocks beneath the terrace. "READY ABOUT?" I yelled.

"What on earth do you mean by that?" asked Ana. She stared at me in amazement, as if I'd shouted something mildly distasteful.

"It's what you say when you're going to go about," I explained quickly, with one eye on the rocks racing toward us. "I say, 'Ready about?' and then 'Lee ho,' and ..."

"Why can't you just say, 'We're going to turn now,' like you did in Greece?"

"Because it's not so concise and it's open to misinterpretation and also it's not what you're supposed to say ... right? And we'd better make this snappy now; the s.h.i.+t's about to hit the fan. READY ABOUT?"

"All right," Ana said begrudgingly. (Although "Ready about?" is in fact a rhetorical question and as such does not require an answer.) "LEE HO," I howled and whipped the tiller over.

"What the ...!" yelled Ana as the boom slammed across and smacked her hard on the ear. The boat tipped over, quick as a bucket, leaving Ana and me flailing about, half in and half out of the water. Thus discomposed, I lost control of the tiller and the boat kept on coming round.

"LET GO THE SHEETS!" I shouted.

"WHAT SHEETS?" Ana shouted straight back.

Then the wind burst into the sail on the other side and, with all our weight on the wrong side, we rolled into the water and the boat on top of us.

"b.u.g.g.e.r!" I burbled as the icy water closed over my head. I scrabbled my way out from beneath the sail and scanned the water for my girlfriend.

Before long she bobbed to the surface and we clung together to the upturned hull. I looked sheepishly over at her. She shook the water out of her hair and spat out a mouthful of sea. "I knew this was going to happen," she said and nodded toward her wrist. "Look, I even left my watch behind with Rosemary."

And as she said this she smiled-a big, broad, watery smile over the upturned bottom of the boat-and then laughed out loud. It was a moment of epiphany for me. This is a most singular woman This is a most singular woman, I thought to myself. There she is down on her beam ends, bobbing about in the water, and she's laughing There she is down on her beam ends, bobbing about in the water, and she's laughing. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the cut of her jib. I realized then, fully and emphatically, that I'd found the woman that I wanted to live the rest of my life with. You might even say-though perhaps best not in front of Ana-that I'd finally come ash.o.r.e.

The Jumblies

BY EDWARD LEAR

IThey went to sea in a Sieve, they did, In a Sieve they went to sea: In spite of all their friends could say, On a winter's morn, on a stormy day, In a Sieve they went to sea!

And when the Sieve turned round and round, And every one cried, "You'll all be drowned!"

They called aloud, "Our Sieve ain't big, But we don't care a b.u.t.ton! We don't care a fig!

In a Sieve we'll go to sea!"

Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.IIThey sailed away in a Sieve, they did, In a Sieve they sailed so fast, With only a beautiful pea-green veil Tied with a riband by way of a sail, To a small tobacco-pipe mast; And every one said, who saw them go, "O won't they be soon upset, you know!

For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long, And happen what may, it's extremely wrong In a Sieve to sail so fast!"

Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.IIIThe water it soon came in, it did, The water it soon came in; So to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet In a pinky paper all folded neat, And they fastened it down with a pin.

And they pa.s.sed the night in a crockery-jar, And each of them said, "How wise we are!

Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long, Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong, While round in our Sieve we spin!"

Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.IVAnd all night long they sailed away; And when the sun went down, They whistled and warbled a moony song To the echoing sound of a coppery gong, In the shade of the mountains brown.

"O Timballo! How happy we are, When we live in a Sieve and a crockery-jar, And all night long in the moonlight pale, We sail away with a pea-green sail, In the shade of the mountains brown!"

Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.VThey sailed to the Western Sea, they did, To a land all covered with trees, And they bought an Owl, and a useful Cart, And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart, And a hive of silvery Bees.

And they bought a Pig, and some green Jack-daws, And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws, And forty bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree, And no end of Stilton Cheese.

Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.VIAnd in twenty years they all came back, In twenty years or more, And every one said, "How tall they've grown!

For they've been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone, And the hills of the Chankly Bore!"

And they drank their health, and gave them a feast Of dumplings made of beautiful yeast; And every one said, "If we only live, We too will go to sea in a Sieve- To the hills of the Chankly Bore!"

Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.From Edward Lear's A Book of Nonsense A Book of Nonsense

Acknowledgments

I'D LIKE TO THANK Tom Cunliffe-and, of course, Ros and Hannah-for letting me go along with them to see the sea; Tim, for showing me the mountains of Greece; Florika, for much generosity and friends.h.i.+p; Nat and Mark at Sort Of, without whom the whole crazy episode would have been lost in the mists of oblivion; and, of course, Ana, the "girlfriend" in the book-and subsequently the wife-for putting up with me. Tom Cunliffe-and, of course, Ros and Hannah-for letting me go along with them to see the sea; Tim, for showing me the mountains of Greece; Florika, for much generosity and friends.h.i.+p; Nat and Mark at Sort Of, without whom the whole crazy episode would have been lost in the mists of oblivion; and, of course, Ana, the "girlfriend" in the book-and subsequently the wife-for putting up with me.

About the Author

CHRIS STEWART SHOT TO fame with fame with Driving over Lemons Driving over Lemons in 1999. Funny, insightful, and real, the book told the story of how he bought a peasant farm on the wrong side of the river, with its previous owner still a resident. It became an international bestseller, along with its sequels- in 1999. Funny, insightful, and real, the book told the story of how he bought a peasant farm on the wrong side of the river, with its previous owner still a resident. It became an international bestseller, along with its sequels-A Parrot in the Pepper Tree and and The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society.

In an earlier life, Chris was the original drummer in Genesis (he played on the first alb.u.m), then joined a circus, learned how to shear sheep, went to China to write the Rough Guide Rough Guide, gained a pilot's license in Los Angeles, and completed a course in French cooking.

Also by Chris Stewart

Driving over Lemons

A Parrot in the Pepper Tree

The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society