Going to sea has always been a dream. The very thought of warm breezes and sun, spray and freedom gets us through the workweek and sustains us through icy winters. But boats are more than just pipe dreams: they can be our deliverance. Let me tell you how two men showed me very specific examples of this escape.
My wife and I were Med-moored to a quay in the harbor of Hydra, deep in the Greek Isles, on a charter. Nearby was a small sloop, and we soon met the young man we thought to be the owner.
It turned out the boat was his father’s, and he had come to take him home. Over ouzo one evening, we listened to his plan. His father was nearing 80, and the son was concerned that he might hurt himself or the boat. His plan was to list the boat with a broker, and settle his father in a home for the elderly.
You can see where this is going: The father was adamantly opposed to giving up his boating lifestyle, and his arguments were seemingly good ones.
“It’s my life.”
“I’m not a danger to anyone.”
“So what if I kill myself? We’re all going sometime.”
One afternoon, a meltemi wind blew up with hot ferocity, and the boats in the harbor started to bang around in the surge. Suddenly, a small armada of men arrived at the old man’s boat, hopped aboard, reset his anchor, added fenders and made things right.
The son stopped by our boat the next day to say goodbye. His mind was at ease after he saw his father’s many friends watching over him, and he realized that taking his father away from the sea would probably kill him. The two hugged for a long time on the quay as they parted.
Boats are our deliverance.
Years later, we were sitting at anchor in the British Virgin Islands, enjoying the warm sunset and savoring a planter’s punch or, perhaps, my wife’s lethal Brain Dead cocktail.
Watching boats anchor, especially in a bareboat paradise like the BVI, is a spectator sport for those already anchored. And so we watched this latecomer, a decent-sized yacht. It became clear that the man at the wheel was alone. This could be interesting, we thought.
He picked his spot not far from us, probably assuming we would pass out early and he would have quiet. He placed the bow where he wanted, sauntered to the bow to release a clatter of chain, and then stood as it drifted with the wind. Strolling back to the helm, he gave a short burst of reverse to set the hook, and shut the engine down. No shouting, no trauma, and so boringly perfect that I found myself intrigued.
The next morning, I jumped in our tender. I’m a dedicated harbor cruiser, and I find great amusement wandering busy anchorages, just looking at boats. Some great friendships have been formed with two sentences: “Great-looking boat. What is she?”
As I neared our solitary skipper, he was settled comfortably in the cockpit with a book. He looked up as I drew close, and I said, “You gave a great lesson in single-handed anchoring to all the bareboaters yesterday. It was totally uninteresting.”
He laughed and said modestly, “Well, I’ve been doin’ it long enough.” And thus was launched a fascinating conversation.
He looked like any other boater: khaki cargo shorts, faded T-shirt and battered deck shoes. I guessed him well into his 70s, but clearly fit and tanned. A boater all his life, from racing dinghies to comfortable trawlers, he’d looked forward to cruising with his wife when he retired. It was their dream, he said, but his wife had died before it could be fulfilled.
Their kids were grown with their own families, and his friends were couples with little interest in him as a single. He was at loose ends and depressed.
“And then I said to myself, ‘What the hell? Go by yourself.’” He grinned as he recalled not just that turning point, but also the rebirth of his enthusiasm. He threw himself into fitting out a suitable yacht and was ready to cast off.
“But, my God, there were so many naysayers,” he recalled. How silly he is, they’d say. How dangerous. What if something happens to him? What about his kids?
“I thought, ‘Phooey on the kids. This is about me. They’re in the will, and now is my time.’”
He’d been cruising for five years when I met him. He started in the Great Lakes and was then island-hopping in the Caribbean. Some excitement, a few storms, but mostly pure pleasure. His salon was stacked with paperbacks so he wouldn’t run short of reading, and he seemed supremely happy.
“If I hadn’t gone, I’d be long dead,” he said. “I would have let my grief give me dry rot of the soul. But this renewed me.”
Boats are our deliverance.
This article was originally published in the April 2023 issue.
