A Smug Mug Wiped Clean

From the Log . . .

We then set sail for Ensenada Bay, which is a distance of about 45 miles from the Coronados Islands. We had a nice breeze and sailed until about midnight, when the breeze dropped and the motor was turned on for a period of about four hours. At about 4:00 o’clock in the morning, when I came on watch, the light of Todos Santos Island, seemed rather close to us and in as much as we did not which to make the port of Ensenada before 9:00 am, we cut off our motor and sat there until daylight, when Marilyn came up and we fixed up some trolling lines to do a little fishing. I do not know what is the matter with my fishing, I have never been in southern waters so long before without catching a fish, but we trolled back and forth around the Todos Santos Islands for an hour or two and never got a strike. You could see fish jumping here and there, but still, we had no bites on the lures that we trolled astern.

Usually in this bay, the fish are voracious and all you have to do is put out a line of any kind in order to catch a fish. I am told by the people ashore that the weather has not been satisfactory and that we are in the wrong season for good fishing. There are a number of sports fishermen that go out here and se saw, yesterday, some fish that they brought in, but not very many.

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‘Skipper’ doesn’t seem to have any trouble enticing Lobsters from traps. ‘Comeuppance’ was a phrase that was used a lot during dinner table conversations at my grandfather’s table with parties and drinks afterwards.

But on to present day concerns.

I was feeling a bit smug. I’d figured out an effective way to force my way against the current as I attempt to read Tillerman’s Proper Course Blog from start to finish.

I just finished reading his 168(!) and final post of 2005 - his 'Tillerman's Top Twenty Stories of 2005'

I'm still laughing from the 167th post of 2005 - 100 things about me.

And my practice of reading a book at lunch (thankfully I eat slowly and read fastly) has been enhanced by a life long ambition I've just begun to fulfill.

As a young lad, I’d always appreciated the heft of Chapman Piloting and Seamanship. I’d visit chandeliers (yeah, I am and old bugger) and gaze longingly at the thick volume on the shelves. My longing to understand everything about ships and the sea was perhaps at its peak when I was a student at CAL. I passed over the bridge between Alameda and the hook of Ballena Bay one day. To my left was a Gaff Rigged Schooner. I couldn't resist. I knocked on the door of the house it was behind, and explained my passion for sailing originated on the deck of my grandfather’s Marconi rigged schooner. Could I perhaps take a closer look?

I signed aboard as a crew member, sanding varnishing, tarring rigging, and helping sail Brigadoon for a few years after that.

Had the great honor of being on board during the Master Mariner’s Regatta. Something I’d missed out on during my early childhood.

But I could not afford the high cost of my own copy of Chapman. I was a starving student. I was going to CAL, racing my own Tornado out of RYC, even though I had no car.

If you’ve made it this far, you now know my brain wanders the spectrum of thought. Who would believe that someone racing a Tornado, enrolled as a dual major at CAL (Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering) and preparing for the 1980 phantom Olympics would be a deck hand on a gaff rigged schooner brought to the west coast by none other than Sterling Hayden, best know for his performance in ‘Dr. Strangelove, or how I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb.’

Back to the Present.

As an old bugger I was prompted by my second interesting encounter with the Larkspur Ferry to buy a copy of Chapman.

There’ll be posts about ‘How many ferries does it take to right a Tornado imitating a turtle’, and ‘rush hour on San Francisco Bay’ . . . one of these days.

I can’t help but tease. The ‘Ferries’ post involves a woman in half a wet suit, an exacto knife and the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard got their woman, I got to single hand my craft back to RYC with a broken rudder fitting. Good thing Catamarans have a 'spare' rudder. This youtube video demonstrates why Tornados only use one rudder at the time. So to this day, I still get a smug feeling about single handing my boat back to the yacht club on one rudder, and beating the coast guard boat to the dock.

Lucky for me, I broke the starboard rudder fitting - it was a Starboard tack on a close reach all the way back in 20 knot winds. Since Tornado class rules limited you to a single trapeze in those days, I forgot all about my lovely half dressed crew in the clutches of the coasties. I was by my lonely, blissful self hanging it all out as I flew above the waves on the circle.

When sailing with women on board, I learned that exciting rides in fast wet boats sometimes lose out to Coast Guard Vessels with heaters on board after a swim in the bay. There was no second date for me, perhaps one of the coasties got lucky.

But back to Chapman: The 65th edition is 928 pages long. I couldn't wait. As I read the history of the book, the forward, the preface, the flyleaf’s, I came upon a description of someone who had the distinguished honor to be among the few who had read ‘Chapman’ cover to cover.

That is like a carrot on a stick to a mule like me. – I’m on page 333, Anchoring Techniques.

The humor inherent in Tillerman’s writing is like carrot cake to an overweight diabetic.

Not an apt description for me, thank God, it’s just that I don’t want to reuse a metaphor.

So back to the inspiration for this post.

The smugness on my mug was wiped clean as I turned the corner on reading the last of Tillerman’s posts for 2005, returned to his home page and went down the incredibly long sidebar. I noticed for the first time he had 376 posts in 2006 – groan.

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P.S. Me and my Tornado were only a trial horse for a friend who seriously had a chance in the Phantom 1980 Olympics - Damn you!, Damn you all to Hell! Mr. Carter! - But I got married and discovered sex, so I guess it all worked out in the end.