(For those of you who follow my regular blog, you’ll forgive that this is simply a repost. For everyone else, what follows is a summary of a major step in the largest undertaking we’ve had on the ongoing elimination of leaks aboard Annabel Lee, replacing a massive section of delaminated ceiling/deck. For more information on what brought us to this point, as well as other work we’ve been doing aboard this collection of projects shaped like a boat, brace yourself and click here. Warning: it’s not for the faint of heart.)
Last week was a rough one that blindsided me, and home feels a lot emptier for it, but I’ve been dealing by lavishing attention onto the other four-footed residents and by keeping busy. And keeping busy at this time of year means boat work, in this case in the form of the salon ceiling/bridge deck, which is at long last securely in place.
When last I left off, we’d been prepping out the areas where the edges would join. This included the forward edge of the remaining deck, the salon bulkheads and underside of the bridge.
Think of it like a layer cake – one where the upper and lower layers are fixed in place, and the inner layer (the new laminate core) would be *very* carefully slide in between. Only this layer measures approximately 8’ x 8’, weighs I can only imagine how much, has a camber to match the original curves and exact dimensions of the opening with only millimeters to spare and would be eased in by two people, (one of which is only 5’2”.) Add into this equation that every edge, inner and outer, upper and lower, needed to be prepped in epoxy, and upon alignment, lagged into place before that epoxy set. In other words, there was zero margin for error.
Below: The space we need to slip the core through. (Small scrap piece of correct thickness in place to test clearance.)
Below: The Gazebo with the core on top — this made things much easier.
The key to pulling this off was tons of preparation and planning, repeated ‘dry-fit’ test runs, and everything coming together just right. We had everything in place. Resins, mixing pots and spreaders, fiberglass, brushes, hardware, tools, clamps, stands to support the wood, braces for alignment, etc. With the frame we’d used to originally laminate the wood set up on legs and looking like a gazebo in the cockpit, it supported the core at the right height and allowed us to slide it smoothly into the cabin.
Below: the view from the cockpit. This extends slightly further than the original bridge, which will provide more space above and more protection to the cockpit door below.
Once inside, we angled it down, braced it, wet out all areas that would meet with West System epoxy. We eased strips of pre-cut chop strand mat up from beneath where they would extend down, and smoothed the upper halves of these strips onto the top edges of the core.
Next, we quickly spread West, thickened to a peanut butter consistency with 406 filler, along the salon bulkheads and bridge underside. At this point I wasn’t taking pictures, as we were racing to cover large areas and get everything in place before the epoxy began to cure. That, and were I to pick up my camera it would likely still be covered in resin. Once everything was wetted out the core was raised into final position and screws went in to set it into position, joining it to the leading edge with clamps, the bridge, and temporary 2’x4’s shimmed and angled to match the final alignment.
And there you have it. Next round, screws out and we’ll be laminating ribs in. After that, we’ll re-glass the underside, then go above, fill all the screw holes with epoxy, and glass the bridge deck.
Since this blog is titled Write on the Water, I am calling all on the Water readers to help me Write.
For the past thirteen years, I have lived on the water on yachts of varying sizes as chef. We’ve had licensed first officers, engineers and deckhands to work the actual mechanics of cruising the boat. In fact, I’m married to the captain, so you can imagine how much practical boat experience I have. The standard belief is that as long as they are well fed, I need not worry about what is happening in the bridge or on deck. Which has been great for my culinary education where I can focus on going to the markets in Italy and Greece and learning local recipes, but not so much for my maritime knowledge.
Now, I find myself in the middle of writing a novel about a woman who just found out her father wasn’t dead for the past thirty years like she’d thought, but in the Caribbean searching for sunken treasure. She sails her father’s thirty-two foot boat to the islands in search of a man she’s never known. My knowledge of sailing is limited to Lasers and Hobie Cats, so I’d love to ask the sailing readers for their opinion and experience.
Does this scene seem authentic? Do I have the sailing technique correct? Has anyone ever hit a sunfish and would like to tell me about it?
* * *
The day passed quickly. Pleased with her progress, Kevyn headed down into the cabin, Athens following close behind. The radar was set to alert her with an alarm if any boat came within six miles of Wander. She grabbed the can opener out of her one drawer for utensils and opened a bowl of soup, which she dumped into one of her two pots onboard and set it on the gimbaled stove to heat.
She scrambled up the two wooden stairs and stuck her head out the hatch. She scanned the horizon quickly for boats and in seeing none retreated back into the cabin to make a sandwich.
She spread hummus on a slice of wheat bread and reached for a tomato in the vegetable basket.
Thud! A loud boom cracked throughout the cabin. The room shuddered and rose up under her feet, knocking Kevyn off balance. Her hips smashed into the stainless steel corner of the stove.
Wander’s forward motion slowed to a crawl while the pot flew across the counter and slammed into the bulkhead. Tomato soup sloshed up and out, splattering all over the wall.
Kevyn clung to the edge of the stove and tried to regain her balance. “What the hell?”
Athens hunched his back and hissed. His claws dug into the leather upholstery of the dining banquet.
This time, Kevyn bolted up the stairs and searched the horizon wildly. There was no boat in sight, but it felt like Wander had hit a brick wall.
“What happened?”
No one answered.
A gust of wind filled Wander’s sails and she picked up speed.
Out of the corner of her eye, Kevyn spotted a round shape half the size of Wander’s hull floating on the surface of the water. It looked like a huge flat fish head with a ruffled tail. Two fins stuck out like airplane wings on either side. One pitch-black, unblinking eye stared at Kevyn as Wander sailed past. Is that what she hit?
As if the prehistoric looking mass had awakened from being stunned, it flipped its flimsy body in a corkscrew and an elongated fin sliced out of the water like the menacing approach of Jaws in the movies.
Kevyn stumbled backwards and tripped over the tiller. She fell onto the port cushions as she watched the Jurassic fish submerge and swim away, seemingly unscathed.
Kevyn’s heart beat fast. Her palms sweat and her throat was dry.
She was only eight hours out of Savannah and all she wanted was to turn her boat around and go home.
* * *
I’d appreciate some advice from those with sailing knowledge if I’ve come close to having the boat react like it would or if I’ve mixed up sailing with motoring or with….
Thank you.
With a little help from my friends I might just be able to write on the water again.
Victoria Allman
author of: SEAsoned: A Chef’s Journey with Her Captain
We’re still in the yard, the leaky shaft connection has proven to be much more of an issue than we expected. After hours of drilling out the two stainless steel bolts and a couple of hundred dollars of carbide tipped drill bits, the shaft remained frozen to the shaft collar. Salt water, different metals and time will do that.
We ended up hiring someone to help and he was unable to loosen the shaft. Fortunately he was able to get the shaft collar loose from the transmission. He then cut the shaft just in front of the collar and we had to have a new shaft made and purchase a new shaft collar. Here’s a picture of the shaft collar and shaft before it was cut.
The biggest downside of all of this is that the shaft had to be made and the collar ordered. The parts will not be ready until Wednesday of this week so we’ll be lucky to be back in the water by next weekend. Hopefully my next post will be written where it should be written–on the water.
When I volunteered for this trip, I planned to help Bruce down the infamous “Thorny Path” to the Caribbean – typically a long beat to weather. I knew it would be a rough trip for a singlehander, and after spending many days of beating to weather in my life, I knew I could help him on the trip even if it wasn’t going to be fun.
So, I flew in to Staniel Cay and joined Wild Matilda where she was anchored behind Big Major’s Spot off what has come to be called “Pig’s Beach” after the swimming pigs that live on the island. After a few days of waiting for the right weather window, we departed the Exumas and sailed the rhumb line to the Turks & Caicos downwind with a poled-out jib. We were on the banks within 48 hours, and then clearing customs at Caicos Marina a few hours after that.
I figured we’d used up all our luck on that one, but we waited ten days for another weather window and sure enough, after one day’s long slog motoring into the wind across to the eastern edge of the bank, we anchored for the night off Big Sand Cay. But, the next morning, we set sail with a northeast wind and after 50 hours of beautiful sailing on a close reach, we dropped the anchor in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. It truly doesn’t get any better than that.
So, what I thought was going to be a sacrifice of my time and comfort in order to help a friend, has turned into a trip that looks like something out of the sailing magazines. I’m supposed to be working on my books – and it’s been looking a lot more like a vacation around here.
I’d originally intended to write something entirely different today, reflecting on how work aboard the boat has at last turned the corner from destruction to reconstruction, but instead life snuck up and yanked the rug out from under me. I was making good headway and I will again, but for the moment I’m still regrouping. I’d really rather write something humorous or odd, but it’s just not in me today.
Moxie lounging on her favorite bunk.
I’d always known I wasn’t far behind Christine with her Intrepid Seadog. At sixteen, my Moxie was getting shaky on her feet and I knew her liver was starting to fail. But she was as sharp and as stubborn as ever, still calling the shots and bossing around my two younger guys. We’d had her since my husband found her as a puppy, abandoned on the streets of Queens, and from day one she was a sassy handful, smart as hell and determined to speak her mind at every opportunity. She was the rude puppy compared to our two older, far more well-behaved and good-mannered dogs, Luna and Nova, but they taught that thick-headed little brat manners and she adored them. And when they both passed, it was Moxie who went on to show Rex and then Loki how to behave.
Moxie and Rex awaiting shore leave.
There’s so much I could write, yet my mind and heart lock up at the thought that she’s not shuffling around the house anymore or at my side when I’m outside. Rex and Loki keep searching for her, ears perked and tails high whenever the door opens or they go out to the yard, until they realize yet again she isn’t there. I know how they feel.
Want to stimulate diverging views? Ask a Northerner about Florida and you will be on your way.
The anti-Floridians usually start by telling you it’s too hot, then they might shift to saying that too many old people live in Florida, followed by the assertion that it’s one continuous run of Denny’s, Hooters, the Waffle House, Cracker Barrel, and Publix until you get to the next Denny’s and it starts all over again. In truth, these assertions are borne out by fact.
Conversely, Florida’s proponents come in a variety of flavors. First, you have the “everything Disney” folks. On this subject you can really get people talking, but nobody can dispute the fact that the mouse has dialed-in on making kids happy. If you’re a parent, that satisfaction delivers addictive qualities on par with crack cocaine.
There is another group of Northerners who have forsaken Florida for more southern climates that offer highly predictable warm weather. One too many chilly winter holidays led these people to places such as Cancun, Aruba, or the Caymans. These travelers don’t dislike Florida, they just don’t want to put their seven days of rest in the hands of a mid-winter eastern cold front.
Despite the above back-and-forth, Florida has its proponents and you can count me among them. And why not. Florida has been tempting Northerners for more than a century. Just consider the many writers on this blog who remind us of the state’s qualities.
Lots of other writers have been in on this, too. I love the old Crunch & Des stories by Philip Wylie. Those tales were written long before my time, first appearing in the Saturday Evening Post more than seventy years ago. And you can credit John MacDonald and his Travis McGee books with southward migration.
A friend of mine who grew up in Florida frequently says, “There’s a whole lot not to like about Florida and a good portion of what’s nice is manufactured reality. But there’s a lot to like about Florida, you just need to find it.” I think he is right.
As I write this blog I am sitting in a quiet spot along the coast of Southwest Florida. The State of Florida, it’s counties, private developers, and home owners may or may not have created or modified the scenery around me. I am quite certain, though, that their hand was not at work in creating the eagle’s nest above me or the blue heron working the area to my side. Nor were they involved with the massive tarpons that crashed the surface of the Gulf last night, or the sea turtles that will be soon coming up from the beach to nest, or the sea horse that we scooped up with our small net during the falling tide. No, not even Disney could orchestrate this show, or it’s frame of sun rises, sunsets, and star-filled nights.
Old timers say that the real Florida is largely gone and disappearing by the day. That may, unfortunately, be true. Yet, there’s a lot here. As my friend advised me, it’s all about going out and finding it.
Last Wednesday began a long weekend of music here in Key West with the 17th annual Key West Songwriters Festival. I don’t think anyone in the music business stayed in Nashville, they were all here! The music, a mixture of country and rock, interests me because, usually, the songwriter is not the one to record the song and to hear the writer sing it and then compare it to the recorded radio version is very interesting.
This week begins the new Key West Mystery Festival (if you care you’ll have to Google it to find out more). It’s all built around a premiere of a play by someone whose claim to fame is he wrote/produced Monk and White Collar TV shows. I thought Lee Goldberg did a lot of that.
I’ve been busy trying to keep up with all the music and now all the mystery and still write. I actually surprised myself by getting three chapters written last week. Beginning of the book, now titled Key West Latitude, is a lot darker than my other Mick Murphy books and short stories. Almost at 100 pages. I may actually make deadline and have it available by Dec. 2012! Maybe, if we don’t have a hurricane or too many more long-weekend festivals.
Back to the mystery festival, I somehow got on a panel to discuss location in writing along with two other local writers, Mike Dennis and Jonathan Woods. This part of the festival isn’t too well organized, so when MWA Fla. Pres. Neil Plakcy asked to get involved, I did and recruited Jerry Healy and Sandy Balzo to join the event. Don Bruns too, but Don backed out because of a biz emergency at home. Two of the original writers the event had scheduled backed out, so luckily Jerry and Sandy were already on board.
Jerry will be the moderator – he’s done it before – while the rest of us will talk about how and why location works for us.
If you’re on island this coming weekend, stop in at the Westin Hotel on Front Street, 7 p.m. on Friday and join us.
This is the first year of the festival and I’ve emailed the organizers and suggested they have me get more involved next year. This is a great island and with a handful of South Florida mystery writers, I could arrange meet-and-greets and panels at a number of location. Almost one a day for the week of the event and add more mystery writers to the mystery event.
I understand that the play is the centerpiece but panels and a variety of mystery writers – hardboiled, cozy, thriller writers – could add spice to the main dish. It has the possibility of becoming a good event. After all, Key West has a certain reputation when it comes to writers and it hasn’t been exploited as much as it could be. I used ‘exploited’ in a positive way. The most visited attraction on the island is the Hemingway Home and Museum.
Key West needs more events that celebrate its heritage of being a home to writers and I am glad to be involved in this event, even in the early stages.
FYI – you can order trade paperback copies of my books directly from my wwebsite: www.michaelhaskins.net
We’ve been in the yard for ten days now and we’re beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The bottom is painted–that’s good but we did find some blisters. We chose to put off fixing that problem until fall. We’ve had friends do the job in the summer here in Florida and they had problems with the blisters drying out to repair them. The humidity and rain can be a problem. We plan to have the boat in northern Florida or even Georgia by then and the yards are much cheaper up there.
I finally was able to finish drilling out the stainless steel bolt in the shaft coupling, now I’ve discovered a small set screw I missed under the grime and this also has to be drilled out. It also needed an allan wrench and when I tried to get it out it bent the wrench. Hopefully that will be done by later today and I can then pull the shaft and repair the torn stuffing box hose.
As for the engine. We’ve cleaned out the carburetor twice and found water and junk both times so I took another 18 gallons of gas from the tank, installed a new Racor filter, and hope we will be able to run the engine without problems. I am also going to sit down with a friend, Steve, who is a mechanic and learn how to rebuild the carb. That way if there are future problems I can take care of it myself.
Our trip to the Bahamas is dependant on our solving the fuel problem. If the problem persists I will have to pull the fuel tank and install a new tank. I checked around to see about having the tank pumped and cleaned and the price is around $500.00 and they couldn’t get to us right away. I can install a new tank for half that and feel confident that we will have fixed the problem.
So wish us luck. If all goes as planned we’ll be back in the water within the week and on our way to the Abacos a week or so after that, assuming the trial runs go well.
Huh? What’s that you’re asking about my watch? It’s on my wrist. Why are you asking? You want to know the time?
It’s dark and I’m confused. Where am I?
“Chris, wake up. It’s your watch.”
Dream separates from reality and starts to recede as the shapes of port lights and overhead hatches emerge from the haze of twilight sleep.
“Oh, okay. I’m awake.” He disappears.
I reach for my glasses and slide out from under the warm covers. You’d think that on a passage from the Exumas to the Turks & Caicos in late April it should be warmer than this. I didn’t even bring my foul weather gear pants or a sweatshirt. I pull on my jacket and shrug into my cool new Spinlock safety harness that fits so much more comfortably than my old West Marine pfd/harness. I actually don’t mind wearing this one. I pull the baseball cap down tight on my head and try to tuck the stray hairs up into the hat. Then it’s up the ladder and out into the night, bare legs and feet feeling the chill bite of the wind.
That same wind, carrying the strong smell of a smokey brush fire, nearly steals my hat as my head clears the dodger. Off to port I see lots of little lights. Mayaguana. The smell is so strong, you’d think we’d see the flames. That kind of brush fire keeps the mosquitos at bay.
“You got it?” he asks.
I nod as I scoot on my butt across the bridge deck to the steering cockpit. He disappears to find the warm spot I left in the bunk. Off the aft quarter, I see a glow above the dark horizon. I slide back behind the wheel to check the chart plotter. The AIS shows a ship eleven miles off. No real lights yet, just a glow. Closest point of approach eight miles. No problem. Reefed main, full jib and seventeen knots of wind on the beam. We’re cooking along at six and half to seven knots.
Rotating my head around in both directions, my neck cracks and pops. I bounce my shoulders up and down, rub at my eyes and try to push all remnants of sleep out of my head. Okay, three hours to go. Feeling in my jacket pocket for my iPhone and headphones, I go for what I know will do the trick. Wake-up sailing tunes.
Sail on Sailor – The Beach Boys. Spreading my feet on the cockpit floor, I grasp the rail around the binnacle with one hand. Bob my head to the beat. Swing my head from side to side to feel the apparent wind direction. Check the swells and waves. Memories flood in. I was fourteen years old, a Southern California beach girl and my mother drove us to Doheny Beach where we unloaded our surfboards and with our transistor radios tuned to the Beach Boys, we waxed our boards and prepared to paddle out to the two-foot high waves. My surfing career ended a couple of years later with sixteen scalp-stitches in an Oceanside Hospital.
Boats – Kenny Chesney – Crooning through my headphones – vessels of freedom, harbors of healing, boats. Freedom yes, and for me, healing too although, I know many who don’t see them that way. I think of all the folks I’ve met through the thirty plus years of hanging around boats. Many of them thought boats had ruined their lives. To others, they had been life-savers. I both lost myself and found myself on boats.
Come on Down to My Boat – Every Mother’s Son The beat to this one has me wiggling and shimmying and laughing at the waves. Dancing on a beam reach brings new meaning to the term rock and roll. I hope my feet that are tapping and sliding around the cockpit floor aren’t going to wake the skipper. But the music has driven off the cold. I’m having a great time trying out new steps and using the stainless tubing around binnacle as this foul-weather-gear-wearing pole dancer’s pole.
Into the Mystic – Van Morrison Rock my gypsy soul, guys. I’m dancing and waving my arms around as though conducting the back-up band here. Back in the days of old when this came out, I was a nomad hippie chick and we were all looking to go into our mystic souls.
Longer Boats – Cat Stevens I remember landing on Maui in 1975 with my 10-speed bicycle and a backpack and ending up spending a few days in an ashram. Then Cat Stevens became Yusuf and we were all searching for enlightenment in those days. Cat Stevens stopped his recording when took up the Qur’an, but here I was after all those years and wars and terrorist attacks and fatwas – a small speck on the huge ocean listening to his voice singing to me from that seemingly simpler time.
Sail Away – David Gray As this song begins, I throw back my head and laugh out loud. “Sail away with me, honey.” I’d heard those words for real back on Lahaina, Maui in 1975 when I met Jim Kling. He came into a store where I was sewing clothing as piece work, and he wanted a pair of shorts made out of sail cloth. He was “headed south” and looking for crew. I had just turned 21, and I left 3 days later aboard the Kathi II with Mark and Jim for a 48 hour sail through the wind and waves of the Alenuihaha Channel. They both thought I would puke and burn rubber as soon as we hit the dock in Hilo. When I didn’t, they didn’t know how to get rid of me, so I continued on with them for the 14-day passage to the Marquesas. Two years later, after sailing to New Zealand and back, we were married back in Lahaina.
Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald – Gordon Lightfoot I can’t help but strike up a little air-folk-guitar on this one. I still own the guitar I bought for $25 on the island of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, and I take it aboard my little Talespinner and sing a chantey or two when no one is around.
At the song’s end, I check the horizon, speed, position. Two ships in view, but neither is a problem. We are on course. I sit behind the wheel for a while enjoying the quiet and the sound of the water rushing past the hull. It looks like a predawn landfall. At some point we are going to have to slow this boat down, but who wants to do it now?
Sailing Life – Eric Stone I had twenty years of the sailing life with Jim from the South Pacific to Hawaii to California and down through the canal to the Caribbean. Lots and lots of rum and Coronas and boat drinks.
Boat Drinks – Jimmy Buffett We used to say we built our 55-foot boat on sweat and Buffett. We spent three years in the boatyard. It was like a long night watch. Now as then, I get through boredom by entertaining myself. I tell myself stories and listen to my tunes.
Vahevala – Loggins and Messina Songs of a sailor. I’m really working up a sweat inside my oilskins at this point. It sure is a good thing we aren’t passing any boats or they would see the crazy lady dancing up a storm in the cockpit. I remember from Tuesdays with Morrie how Morrie used to say “Dance like no one is watching.” That’s fairly easy to do at sea – even to not caring when I lose my balance and plunk down on the cockpit seat.
Navigating by the Stars at Night – Mike Doughty Stars. I mean STARS. It’s as though someone has thrown handfuls of glowing sand across the slate sky nearly obliterating the black. The beat is great and I’m bouncing my head and reveling in my own open-air disco that is more beautiful than any mirror-ball show out there.
Stretching my arms out, I reach up to the sky. Who are you? What are your names? Though I have been sailing most of my adult life, I can’t identify more than the Milky Way and the Big Dipper. Then I remember my iPad and I grab it out of the cockpit locker and fire up the Star Walk app. I want to know what I’m seeing. Holding the iPad up toward the north, I find Cassiopeia and Ursa Minor. I locate Polaris. Then I turn around and I hold the iPad up to the sky and there on the horizon to the south are the four stars. Starwalk identifies them as Crux. Could it be?
Southern Cross – Crosby, Stills & Nash Once again I am on a reach heading for the trades in the south. All the other boats at this time of year are headed up to the Chesapeake. I had fun last year on my trip north, but it is the Southern Cross that pulls at my heart.
A light clicks on down below at the chart table. I hear the skipper’s safety harness clanking as he gears up.
Really? Already? I’ve got to say these night watches pass fast with a night watch playlist. But there is still one more tune to go.
Sailing – Rod Stewart I listen to the opening bars of guitar plucking and I know I’m not ready to climb back into the bunk yet. I think I’ll make us a couple of cups of hot chocolate and show the skipper how much I know about the constellations from all my years of boring night watches (grin).
One of the things I’ve always enjoyed most about my home waters is swimming in them. Yes, swimming. In the Hudson River.
I know. People hear ‘Hudson River’ and they immediately imagine a stew of sewage and toxic waste, with mobster disposals, tires and God only knows what else floating in on the tide. But thanks to the efforts of the kind folks at Clearwater and Riverkeeper, along with countless other grass-roots environmental groups, the Hudson is a vibrant and healthy river, alive with blue crabs, record-setting striped bass, sturgeon, eels, and even sharks. During the winter it’s not unusual to see seals frolicking and basking on the vacant docks while bald eagles nest on the cliffs, osprey plunge down for fish, cormorants crowd the rocks and night herons patrol the shores. Occasionally deer decide the grass is greener on the other bank and you’ll see them swimming across. Foxes and coyotes are not uncommon, and Bear Mountain lives up to its name. But those unfamiliar with the area look at the brownish water, murky with natural silt in the same way as the Mississippi, and assume the coloration equals pollution. But I’ve long known, it’s some of the best swimming water you could imagine.
We have cool prehistoric fish! Photo from Hudsonriverkeeper Blog
Bear swimming at Bear Mountain - Image from http://hudsonriverkeeper.blogspot.com
First off, that silty water has many wonderful qualities. For one, it holds warmth, so the water reaches a pleasant bath-like temperature much earlier than the Atlantic, and retains it well into fall. It’s brackish, not quite as harsh as pure salt water, but still retains those wonderful buoyancy-enhancing abilities. And that silt seems to have a ‘clay bath’ quality; a nice soak in the river leaves skin feeling soft and rejuvenated. After a lifetime of swimming in that opaque water, I’ll admit I’m almost suspicious of any water I can’t see. But I still get odd looks from those who don’t ‘get it.’ I still recall the time a transient boater at our boatyard, heading up the brown river, regarded my daughter and I in horror when they discovered we’d actually been swimming. I told them we’d both been swimming in the Hudson for our entire lives with no ill effects, though they regarded us strangely and looked far convinced. It wasn’t until later that I realized why they might have been a bit skeptical. My daughter was in her teens, at a point where she had been dying her hair a lovely shade of vivid blue, and I even sported a few cobalt streaks for fun. We still laugh about that.
But the funniest ‘swimming in the Hudson’ story will always be the ‘dead baby’. Trust me, it’s not as bad as it sounds, in fact it has gone on to be a family joke. Just stay with me on this one… I can assure you no infants were harmed in any way. We had dropped the hook at Croton Point, one of the most popular anchorages in the area, and we had some guests aboard. It took some coaxing to convince them the water was indeed safe for swimming – they were certain it lived up to every horror story they’d ever heard. Finally they went below, changed into swim suits, then proceeded tentatively to the swim platform… and that’s when the screams of horror erupted. One of our guests was incoherent, she couldn’t even relay what had set her off, it was so unspeakable. But her companion pointed overboard to the oblong ten pound shape, clothed in sodden white fabric and gently bobbing, half submerged, a few feet astern of the boat. “Dead baby…” he stammered, clasping the transom to steady himself. “There’s a dead baby in the water!” At which point, my entire family began laughing.
Yes, I come from a warped background. Shocking, I know. But we’re not *that* bad! (Okay, maybe we are, but let’s stay on topic.) We reassured our guests it wasn’t a deceased infant floating on the tide – it was dessert. Let me rephrase that – it was a watermelon. With limited room in the icebox and no air conditioning aboard, we’d found the best way to keep the watermelon fresh and chilled (or at least somewhat cooler) was to place it in a laundry bag, secured by line to the boat, and float it in the river while at anchor. We’d done it for years, and never once thought about how it might appear to someone unfamiliar with the process. But from that day forward, that ritual was referred to as ‘floating the dead baby.’
