Yuppy Sailing

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#003333" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="12ad4c00dduajq.gif"> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="95" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 46 WIDTH="91"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="46" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="91" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <bR> <div> Peewit</div> <div> <IMG SRC="16ca46b0.jpg" border=0 width="164" height="107" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id61.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE=" selection of Short Stories"><U><B>More Stories</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="stan hedges homepage"><U><B>Homepage</B></U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <div> email: <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#A6CAF0" FACE="Arial" >sonoflawrence@yahoo.co.uk</FONT></div> <div> (Not live link. Cur & paste)</div> <bR> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFBF0" TEXT="#080000"> <div>     </div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Yuppy Sailing</B></div> <div> by</div> <div> S. T. Hedges</div> <bR> <div> <B>Boat Log</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Date:</B>            Friday October 21st.19...</div> <div> <B>Position:</B>      Onboard at Tollesbury Marina, Essex.</div> <div> <B>Time:</B>           2030 hrs (pm)</div> <div> <B>Weather:</B>     Calm but foggy. (Thick foggy). </div> <div> <B>Visibility</B>:      10 metres. (About). </div> <bR> <div> Left Hampstead 1845 hrs (pm).  Drove with hood down in new Porsche. (New car, new girl, can't be bad, you old devil you). Mind you, colder today, Indian summer must be over. </div> <div> Picked up the bella Belinda. (Can't remember last name.) Didn't realise how pretty she was - is!  Nice flat. Good-looking pair of mates too. (Could be regular stop-over with luck)! Odd though, thought her complexion darker last Saturday night. Then again, Jack's pad - all that smoke, just candles and joss-sticks - you do well to find the loo without barking your shins on some recumbent female's earrings, let alone make out a girl's complexion. </div> <div> Knew she smoked Benson's though. Made sure I had plenty. Could tell she was impressed with the new gold Dunhill. Bet her a fiver it'd light first time ten out of ten. Wouldn't take me on though.  Hope this doesn't mean she's another of those dead trees on the forest floor types. Be nice to have a girl who can take the intiative for a change.  On the way, tried getting to know her a bit better. Asked all usual questions. Mistake, in hindsight.  Said it was obvious I hadn't taken in a word last Saturday.  Spent rest of journey painting nails, mono answers, lots of nodding and shaking of head. Some girls are <I>so </I>touchy.  You have to watch every word these days. </div> <div> It's a real boring drive too, across country all round those narrow ghost-ridden roads and over these dreary marshes. Specially when it's foggy.  Like now. Impossible to open her up. Never got above eighty.  Had to talk about something though.  So now she knows who I am: a bloke who left school at sixteen with five GCEs at C grade and here I am, top-class future's broker, fifty grand a year, yacht, solid gold underwater watch, Gucci shoes, and now a Porsche! What more could a girl ask? </div> <div> Then I noticed she was wearing high heels. She took a dim view when I pointed out she'd be sailing in bare feet all day tomorrow. I did tell her to wear rubber soles, I know I did.  "Anything else," I said, "you're a danger to yourself and everyone around you." Made a big thing about it, like it says in the book. (Good buy that, 'Dinghy Sailing for Beginners'). "Make sure you dress appropriately," I said. "Rubber-soles, good thick pair of socks, three layers, all that."  I told her, "That's the first thing they taught us at sailing school that day. Have to be prepared for anything once we put to sea. Wind can get up any time." (Mind you, not much sign of that at the moment). "No," I said, "I'm sorry, but high heels just won't do - even if they do have rubber soles." </div> <div> Of course, not being able to get the hood back up when she asked didn't help.  Have to admit the wind did play merry hell with her hair.  Specially it being so damp and foggy and all that. Says it'll take hours - combing out the tangles. Which is where she is now - up the 'heads', as we sailors say - getting herself tidied up for a good old session up the club-house tonight. Then, boom! boom! (Gradually taking on board these nautical terms. `Heads' - I like that). I know I told her it'd seem a bit cramped in there at first, but she still managed to bang her head on the deck beam. Nasty bang by the sound of it. Found out something though: she knows how to swear. Always feel more comfortable with a girl who knows when and how to swear. </div> <div> When we arrived I could see by her expression she'd expected something bigger.  (In fairness, I suppose I did over-egg the 'yacht' bit a teeny weeny).  She must've expected private cabin, bo'sun, steward, all that stuff.  Her own common sense should've told her Peewit couldn't be that big, or she'd never get up a creek this size.  And I mean to say, it's not as if it's costing her anything, not as though I'm charging passage money!  "She may not be the biggest boat in the marina," I said, "but what's a few inches?  It's not size that counts, it's performance. I've had no complaints so far,' I said.  She gave me a look; said, "Yes, some things just take your breath away, don't they?" which I thought a tiny bit odd.</div> <div> "Don't worry. You'll forget all this tomorrow," I said, rubbing her head. "Once we've 'bent' on the sails, left the marina, and chugging up the creek to the Blackwater. Wait till you see all the different birds paddling about on the mud banks;  those moonscape marshes flat as a chocolate pancake - as far as the eye can see.  Then it'll be up with the sails, out of the Blackwater, and into the North Sea!  You'll love it. I've only been sailing a month and already I'm hooked.  Feel as though I was born to it, like I've been a sailor all my life.  Know what I mean?"   </div> <div> The forecast says fog will clear by early morning.  Planning to go on the 'flood' or just before.  High tide is 0630 hrs (a.m.). Some boring old fart reckons you need to watch out on the bends, keep to the marked channel. (Keep between the withies? I think he said). "Don't want to be going up there on a falling tide, never get off if you ground."  Just like showing off, some people. A bit of a know-all, I reckon. So I've set the alarm for five. Gives us a good hour to have breakfast and get tacked and out into the creek before 'slack water'. (That's a nice one, too). </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Date</B>:           Friday (still same day/night)</div> <div> <B>Position</B>:     Tollesbury Marina </div> <div> <B>Time</B>:          2345 hrs</div> <div> <B>Weather</B>:    Still calm and foggy.</div> <bR> <div> In all fairness, I can't say this first grand seduction on board has gone exactly to plan. For instance, I never expected to be making log entries at this time of night. By all that's right and wonderful I should be…. Well, let's just say I could certainly do without further mishap. Hey, ho! There's still time I suppose. The bella Belinda's bound to need a bit of company later. By the early hours she'll start to get chilly inside that sleeping bag all by herself.</div> <div> Yes, I suppose I should've taken a torch with us. But I could see the clubhouse lights plain enough through the fog when we started out. Blazing away through the mist they were, all fuzzy and everything. Different on the way back, of course. Nothing to aim for. (Hate to admit it, but I'd have been in the drink for sure if she hadn't grabbed me in time). She could be right though. A proper old salt would've realised that after 'eight bells' finding your way back along jetties and boardwalks in pitch black fog is a different kettle of fish. With crystal-clear hindsight, she says, "You might've tied a hurricane lamp to your rigging or something. That might've helped." "Okay, okay," I said, "keep your hair on. It's a learning curve, right? We all learn something new every day, don't we?" </div> <div> To mention hair was not good.</div> <div> Even so, if she hadn't walked into that greasy wire hawser, the one running down from the dry-dock, I bet I wouldn't be writing this now.  I'd be inside that bag of hers, with a nice warm belly warming my arse.  I owe her a new dress, she says. Reckons she'll never get the oil stains out. But she still fancies me. I can tell. Wouldn't mind betting she'll find an excuse to wake up before morning.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Date</B>:          Saturday, 22nd October. </div> <div> <B>Position</B>:     Tollesbury Creek. (Still)</div> <div> <B>Time</B>:          0400 hrs.</div> <div> <B>Weather</B>:    Still dark, but now cold, and still foggy.</div> <bR> <div> <U>To whom it may concern.</U>  It is only by giving the strictest attention to my duties as skipper of this vessel that obliges me to relate the following incident. </div> <div> The first thing I wish to record is that, in consideration of the weather conditions pertaining, (as already described), and in scrupulous adherence to obligations towards the safety and comfort of my passenger, I felt it incumbent upon me to close and tighten down all hatches once we returned onboard.  Anyway, with everything cosy, and what with the few drinks we'd had, after making the last entry I actually dosed off here at the chart table.  Needless to say, I soon woke up.  Pissed off, and still half asleep, I then tried to light up one of her Benson's. (Which just goes to show I wasn't in my right mind, because I much prefer my king-size Marlboroughs). But I couldn't light the bloody thing. There's me, spent two hundred a fifty quid on a lighter and the bloody thing's packed up on me in less than a week! I must've flicked away ten or twenty times before, all of a sudden, Madam unzips her sleeping bag, leaps off her bunk - just bra and pants (fantastic body) - and rushes to the hatch in a right old panic. And there she stands, stamping her feet and screaming blue murder and fighting with the bolts and latches! </div> <div> Finally she unlocks it, throws open the doors, and stands heaving in great gulps of air. (Actually, it was all rather pleasant really - breasts heaving up and down and all that). But for a minute there, I think I'm sharing berths with a lunatic. "You crazy fool!" she gasps.  "Don't you realise we're suffocating? Why d'you think your posh bloody lighter won't work?  Eh?  No bloody <I>air</I>!  <I>That's</I> why!"  (All as if I wouldn't have realised that myself in due course. Well, it stands to reason).</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Date</B>:            Still Saturday, 22nd October... </div> <div> <B>Position</B>:       Still onboard <I>Peewit,</I> Tollesbury.</div> <div> <B>Time</B>:            0700 hrs </div> <div> <B>Weather</B>:      Less foggy!  Daylight now. Visibility 50 metres. (Should be sufficient to pick out channel markers in the creek. Whoops! Withies!)</div> <bR> <div> We should have cast off moorings an hour ago. I find I have time to note our late departure while the bella Belinda puts finishing touches to hair, face, nails and feet. I can't believe it. This girl has taken two hours to get ready! Who does she think we're going to run into out there? Sir Walter Raleigh?  </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Date</B>:              Same day - still Saturday.</div> <div> <B>Position</B>:        On board <I>Peewit,</I> but now half-way along Tollesbury Creek.</div> <div> <B>Time</B>:             1100 hrs</div> <div> <B>Weather</B>:       Clear, bright and sunny. </div> <div> <B>Visibility        </B>Infinity. (!)  </div> <bR> <div> For reasons of insurance - just in case some unscrupulous salvage-hunter should suddenly appear and throw a line over - I wish to record that though we (that is, Peewit and myself) are aground, we are aground <I>under control</I>.  We have sent no distress signal, and we do not require assistance.  And if we'd left on time - referring to my previous entry you will remember I did intend slipping the mooring by six o'clock - we wouldn't be stranded here in the mud on the wrong side of Tollesbury Creek!!! </div> <div> No, I would've been cool and calm if that was the case, knowing that, even if we <I>were</I> to miss the channel and touch bottom with the port keel, it would've been no problem because, even on a slack tide it's possible to motor off.  But as it was, not leaving till 0830 hrs, after the dear Bella had practically rebuilt herself, and with the tide falling inches by the second, once we touched I just <I>knew</I> we had little chance. I knew that, and yet, amazingly, the sailor's instincts still took over.  </div> <div> Thinking it just possible I could push her back into deep water (without a moment's thought for my own personal safety, only the comfort of my passenger), I leapt over the side. And, may I<I> </I>add, had the mud been less deep, who knows, I might well have saved the day. But how was I to know I'd drop through the mud like an arrow? </div> <div> Once I was up to my armpits in mud it was always going to be hopeless but, all the same, I still gave it my best shot. (Thank goodness for a waterproof Rolex). And if only to prove I hadn't been foolhardy (in attempting to put to sea so late), let me here record that others more fortunate than myself were still passing seaward in the centre of the channel for a good fifteen minutes after that. Grinning and waving they were. Know-alls! But more importantly, and true to form, while all this is going on the rats are leaving the ship! Can you believe that after my totally altruistic gesture in trying to save her day, the bella Belinda actually, and unilaterally, accepted an offer of rescue from an incoming vessel?  The cow! </div> <div> A rather larger boat than Peewit, it was, with two highly bronzed crew delivering it from the south of France (and probably loaded to the gunwales with booze). So my assumption must be that I'm no longer responsible for that particular passenger. I cannot see how there can be any doubt as to her comfort and safety.  In fact, if the truth be told, she's probably double shipshape and extremely well satisfied by now.  </div> <div> I begin to wonder about women, though I think the lesson here is simple.  I obviously need a bigger boat. </div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Voyage aborted.</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id61.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE=" selection of Short Stories"><U><B>Return to index</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="stan hedges homepage"><U><B>Homepage</B></U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <div> Copyright is reserved on all personal creative material, which may not be copied for redistribution to third parties without prior written consent. </div> <div> ©<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#A6CAF0" FACE="Times New Roman" > S.T. Hedges 2006</FONT></div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>