“The word adventure has gotten overused. For me, it’s not an adventure until something goes wrong – that’s when adventure starts.” (Yvon Chouinard)
Solo sailing from Thomaston, Maine to Portland to Portsmouth was rather idyllic with beautiful sunrises and sunset, fair winds and calm seas. I picked up my sister, Sue, in Portsmouth late Thursday afternoon after sailing up the mighty Piscataqua River, the third fastest flowing navigable river in the world. The outgoing current tossed Tusen Takk back and fourth as I tried to steer a straight course against the current. It took me 1.5 hours to sail 3 miles upstream, but it was fun to witness the sheer strength of this tidal river. I docked at the public landing on the southeast side of Memorial Bridge. I met my sister and we ordered dinner to go at Dos Amigos and walked down to the park to eat while the sun set and a golden full moon rose above the Piscataqua on a balmy 75 degree evening. Heaven.
The next day we sailed down the Piscataqua with the current (a lot more fun) on an early morning flood tide. When we reached open water, we sailed close-hauled most of the day from Portsmouth to Gloucester, Mass on a 10 knot southwesterly wind – a benign and welcoming breeze and smooth
sail for my sister. Arriving in Gloucester, we did some errands, went out for dinner and then sailed to Eastern Point Yacht Club which donated a free mooring for the night in a cozy mini-harbor protected by a quarter mile breakwater seaward of Gloucester. While sitting on Tusen Takk with a gentle breeze rocking the boat slightly back and fourth, we watched a brilliant sunset glistening over the ocean, and I thought: “This trip is going to be a breeze.”
The following morning, after taking a run around Eastern Point, a swim in the salt-water swimming pool and “hot” shower at Eastern Point Yacht Club, we took the dinghy back to Tusen Takk and had a leisurely breakfast of sailor’s eggs (loaded with onion, garlic, veggies, pepper and cheese) and bagels. We then headed out for what we thought would be an easy 24 nautical mile sail to Scituate, Mass…
As we headed outward bound, however, we were engulfed by dense pea-soup fog with 200 feet of visibility and a 10 knot southwest wind – the same direction we were sailing, so we would have to tack a bit to reach our destination. About 5 miles southwest of Gloucester the wind dropped, so we started the engine to give the sails a boost. Suddenly, I heard a clunking on the hull and a straining, whining sound of the engine. I knew immediately what had happened: we ran over a lobster pot and I suspected it was wrapped around the prop and shaft. Yvon Chouinard’s words (at the top of this blog) leaped into thought: “It’s not an adventure until something goes wrong.”
I quickly shut the engine off, looked over the stern and saw that we were in fact trailing a ½” line connecting the pick-up buoy to the 1” rope attached to the lobster trap 125 feet below. As we drifted, we were pulled stern first into the wind with 4 foot waves crashing over the transom in a cadence every 4 to 5 seconds. I dropped the sails looked at my sister and said: “Ok, something has gone wrong, so we must be having an adventure.”
As this was not my first lobster-trap-rodeo, I knew there was only one thing to do: I had to dive underneath the boat and cut the buoy line free from the prop. I donned a face mask, grabbed a docking line and tied a bowline loop around my waste, tied the other end to the railing, carefully timed the slack period in the waves to avoid being crashed onto the transom, and dove under. The lobster pick-up buoy was wedged snuggly between the prop and hull of the boat and the line was wrapped smartly around the prop shaft. It took 3 dives to cut the line and free the wedged buoy. What made it extra exciting was that I was bleeding slightly from a small cut on my finger and was imagining that all the great white sharks in the Cape Cod region suddenly turned making a bee-line for a late-morning snack (It’s a well known fact that Great Whites love Maine snacks). Isn’t our imagination a wonderful thing?
After getting back on board, I breathed a sigh of relief as we raised the sails and made way to Scituate Harbor and thinking about Yvon Chouinard and what makes for an adventure. I think we are meant to have adventures, however one defines the word. It’s part of our spirit, part of the DNA of what makes us human and what gives joy in being alive. When we cannot predict what is going to happen, our rational thinking can yield to the anticipation of child-like-wonder. And that wonder brings a smile to my face along with an extra heart-beat.
Note: The next day while sailing solo from Scituate to the Cape Cod Canal in Sandwich, Mass on a 25 knot wind gusting to 35 knots (my sister decided she had had enough of our fun and games and went home), I saw the black dorsal fin of a shark bobbing slowly around a lobster trap 10 yards off the port quarter. This validated my imagination of the day before. Needless to say, I was super diligent about avoiding lobster lines for the rest of the day!
Did you know that more people die each year by being kicked by a donkey than by being bitten by a shark? (The Blue Planet Seas of Life). Sharks are cool, and they are perhaps the most misunderstood and maligned creatures on the planet. Animals similar to the sharks of today roamed the oceans 100 million years ago. Their efficient, stream-line design has enabled them to survive for millions of years while other species have perished. Shark populations today, however, are under threat of needless slaughter from by-catch (caught in fishing nets), killing them to obtain their fin for shark-fin soup, pollution and other causes. They are an amazing creature and play an important role in maintaining a healthy ocean ecosystem. They deserve our respect, awe and protection!
For more information on sharks and shark conservation, check out the links below:
6 Shark Conservation Organizations
To subscribe to (or unsubscribe from) these blog posts, write to jonathan.oakes@cellonline.org to request blog alerts.
*CELL is currently accepting applications for college sustainability focused study abroad programs, to Iceland, Central America, Ecuador, and Scotland. Faculty may contact CELL regarding custom programs for your college. Go to cellonline.org for more information and to apply.”