Three Ways to Capsize a Boat - Chris Stewart [3]
After an eternity of fidgeting about with ropes and a bucket, Keith started the outboard motor. Pibble pibble ibble obble ibble obble, it went. We slipped the mooring lines and pottered out into the river, then down past the pier and out into the high sea. I stood half frozen by the mast, thinking of Odysseus leaving Ithaca, and trying to look important and knowledgable.
Two minutes after passing the head of the pier we were surrounded by mist. I forgot Odysseus and started to think of the Ancient Mariner. This, then, must be the sea, I thought. It was calm, with just a faintly disagreeable heaving about it, and you couldn’t see a thing. I shivered. Keith turned the engine off, which was a blessing as the sound it made was extremely irritating. Silence … apart from the slop of the waves against the side of the boat, and the drip, drip of the water condensing on the rigging.
“Right,” said Keith excitedly. “Time to get the sails up.”
I went below, where, confined in a tiny and evil-smelling space it was even more unpleasant than above, and passed the sails out to Keith. Then, with a mild feeling of nausea I helped him unfold them and fix them to the various shackles and stays. This was good, as it engaged me in meaningful occupation for a minute or two. We hoisted the sails, made fast their ropes, and, with Keith taking the tiller, sat back to watch what happened.
“We’re sailing!” cried Keith, beside himself with excitement. I couldn’t see it myself; as far as I could gather we were just bobbing up and down in a great wet white bowl of nothingness. It was chilly and damp and I was thinking to myself that perhaps I had made a terrible mistake, because if this was sailing, then I didn’t like it, not one little bit.
“Look, we’re actually making headway, we’re bowling along,” shouted Keith in an excess of misplaced euphoria. I licked my finger and held it up to see if I could detect any breeze, cat’s paw, zephyr, or other sign of movement. Nothing. He pulled the tiller over and shouted the words, “Ready about … LEE HO!” I stared at him incredulously. What sort of thing was that for one sensible adult to shout at another?
The boom swung gently toward us. It seemed we were supposed to duck under it and shuffle onto the other side of the cockpit, keeping the ropes in hand as we went. The boat apparently swung round but, although we were now ostensibly facing a different direction, nothing else seemed to have changed. Actually, it was impossible to be sure where you were facing, as the closeness of the thick white fog had a peculiarly disorientating effect. I no longer knew where the shore was, even though it couldn’t have been as much as a hundred yards off.
We ate our cheese and tomato sandwiches in silence, more as a way of relieving the monotony than because we were hungry. In a desultory fashion I read bits of my book about sailing, but if the truth be told, I was going off the whole thing fast. For most of that long, gloomy April day we went bobbing first this way, then that, in the middle of nowhere. Occasionally we would drag a finger in the water to see if we could perceive any sign of movement. The fog sat heavy on the sea and refused to lift. From somewhere came the mournful whooing of a foghorn buoy and the halfhearted clank of a bell. This was just about as depressing as a thing could be.
Finally Keith, too, decided that he’d had enough. He started the engine and we turned to where he reckoned the pier was. We were actually a fair way off; I suppose the tide must have taken us. The fog lifted just a little