Month: January 2012

Anchorages left astern with the new moon’s crescent fall into shadow and sink below the headland.  Bells from distant harbors echo over the ocean.  Hails from pierhead throngs resound over the dim sea while courses drawn on a dog-eared, yellow chart note the progression of points that make up the perpetual departure of Old Hand.

“Hard to Starboard, mate!”
“Hard to starboard, Cap’n.”
Spray rises over the port bow as we lunge into the wake of a south bound ship steaming past Appletree Point. From below comes a clamor of pots and pans.
McWhirr broods over the chart.
“We should make Foulweather Bluff by nightfall.”
“Would you care for crumpets and tea, Captain?”
“Does the haddock fly? Make it nice and strong. We’ll need it for this night’s passage.”

The light on Sierra Echo buoy flashes a mile off to starboard.   I trim sails for a close reach with the wind on the starboard bow.

To the west, above Point no Point, the dark hills of the Kitsap Peninsula stand against a vivid red sky streaked with lime green and violet clouds.

The staysail draws us toward darkness, where sea lions bark from the bell buoy off Foulweather Bluff.  We pass the headland, ease sheets and fall a few points to the west northwest.  Old Hand pitches in the rut of  seas as the wind rises to force six.  A burst of spray strikes the jib with vehemence.

“Good job we tucked a reef in the main.”
“That it is.

Foulweather Bluff falls astern.  Rain pelts the wheel house window as we pass the rocking buoy and hear, over the wind, the mournful sound of the bell.  The confusion of cross seas make it hard to pick out the Kinney Point light off the south shore of Marristone Island.

McWhirr’s face is phosphorescent green in the radar screen’s light:
“Fall off  three points to west. There’s a deep draft bearing down from the north east.”
“Three points west it is, sir.

In the lee of Marristone Island, the wind suddenly falls off and we ghost into the peaceful waters of Oak Bay toward the canal. We steam through the cut and open Port Townsend Bay, sailing past shadowy fishing boats moored off Boathaven and drop anchor under the town’s dark towers.

After a stroll on the deck, I say:
“It’s a beautiful evening, Skipper.”
The golden glow of the oil lamp illuminates the hourglass while Saturnius McWhirr scans the chart, compass in his gaunt hand, sweeping vast arcs across the eastern straits.  He’s the very image of the leaden planet that circumscribes all our earthly endeavors.
“Best we were under weigh at 0800 hours.”
Though, at times, I am exasperated by McWhirr’s terse manner, we are of one mind about early departures.

An easy swell rocks Old Hand’s crew far into the night.
I wander over the Baja desert. My shadow rises before me as I ascend the moon bleached sand dunes and enter the rickety gate of a graveyard. The air is filled with breezes that tell of lost fishermen who mend starry nets and sing the old Mexican birthday song:
O, Lady Guadalupe
O, Lady Guadalupe…
It was your image, come in dreams, dear father, that set my course toward your dark habitation. I long to clasp your hand once more and learn the fate of our future clan.
Three times I have tried to nail this story. Three times it’s vain words have left me grasping at empty air. Like you I struggle to find expression of an ancient rage. Like you, I transmute the leaden ore of misshapen phrases– these avowals of love from the heart’s golden core

The flood lifted strange flotsam high on the foreshore.  It  inundated  manicured lawns and rose above  bulkheads like a subversive force to undermine the Savings and Loan. A flood of ileagal aliens piled sandbags around lofty mansions.   The tide lifted ships upon meadows where mountain goats serenely ruminated on the folly of man’s defiance of  time’s natural ebb and flow.

“The King Tides are upon us old son,”  said Saturnius McWhirr.
A north-west wind blew over the hills above the Canadian town of Ganges and funneled through the long Harbor entrance.
“I was wondering why we paid out all that chain,”   I said as I wearily stowed the last links into the anchor box and McWhirr steered south east toward Swanson Channel.

Back in the wheelhouse all was relatively calm.  Compass in hand, McWhirr brooded over the  chart as  if searching for sea marks amid the labyrinthine inlets of the soul.  He  hails from solid Quaker stock and little given to effusiveness.
“These flood waters are a sign,” he says.
“Indeed, sir?”  I said as I struggled with the wheel in the freshening wind.
“Aye, if seen in their true light, the minutiae of everyday life correspond to spiritual truths  which can be traced back to their origin in the higher spheres.  This is the ultimate meaning of scripture.  It is by these way points that ancient spiritual traditions have long oriented their secret cartography, and piloted man across time’s turbid seas.”

I was taken aback by these hermetic pronouncements from the normally reticent   Whirr.  The jib started to flog and I headed up toward Moresby’s Island’s north shore with the steep seas off the starboard quarter.
“Noah’s yarn has for too long been hijacked by literal fundamentalists,” says he.  “That esoteric shipwright, revered by Moslem, Christian and Jew for his devotion and navigational skills, sailed to  Ararat with remnants of the ancient, celestial teachings in stowage.  These teachings were anchored in the holding ground of love and charity.  Noah set those flukes high above the errant ways of the ruling Nephilim who, immersed in selfish desires, drowned in the waters of materialism and greed.  The waters that carried Noah safe to Ararat also dealt doom to the Nephilim.  The esoteric reading of scripture accords with the exoteric;  the environmental catastrophe now at hand.   Look ye: These are the very same waters that engulfed ancient cities!”
McWhirr dramatically swept his arms over the white-capped seas of the Channel.
I felt this was laying it on a bit thick.   After all, I hadn’t signed articles to get religion.  I held my tongue and braced against the wheelhouse as we rolled in the waves.

Astern, the northerly wind freshened to force 6 and  the sky looked like a wet dish-rag.  Even double-reefed  we were  over-canvased.
“Steady lad, surely your not afraid of a capfull of wind.  Come the day of reckoning, this gale will seem but a mild puff. Hand the main.”
McWhirr took the helm while I secured the lifeline and made my way forward to the  mast and lower the straining sail.
Old Hand settled down, but still made a good 6 knots under jib and stay sail, running steady across Boundary Pass.
McWhirr’s voice rose above the seas roar:
“It’s only by trial of such a stormy passage that man becomes spiritual,  liberated and ready to hear the call:  Go forth from the Ark!”  Eyes ablaze, McWhirr warmed to his theme with a passion I never knew possessed him.
The wind redoubled as Old Hand opened Haro Strait.
A large black hulk rolled in the waves ahead.
“Dead-head off the port bow!”
McWhirr turned the helm hard alee as we sailed past the log that had been set adrift by the King Tides; a cautionary sign to mariners and lubbers alike.