This Side Up

Knowing when not to stretch your luck

By JOHN HOWELL
Posted 1/15/19

This is the time of year to be out on the bay if you're looking to be one with nature. Sure, there are the quahoggers and the occasional tug and barge or freighter. You want to stay out of their way. Sailors are rare and even rarer are the pleasure power

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This Side Up

Knowing when not to stretch your luck

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This is the time of year to be out on the bay if you’re looking to be one with nature.

Sure, there are the quahoggers and the occasional tug and barge or freighter. You want to stay out of their way. Sailors are rare and even rarer are the pleasure power boaters. Their craft are on the hard for the winter, snug in heat shrinkwrap and lined up like giant white dominoes. Most mooring balls have been replaced by winter sticks that will hold their positions should the bay freeze over. The bay is open with the exception of a hardy group of sea birds including Brant and Canada geese, ducks, a few swan and gulls. The kingfishers left with the schools of juvenile menhaden, as did the cormorants, egrets and terns. They won’t be back until late spring.

These are some of the best days to be on the water. I emphasize “some” because more frequently than not there’s a wind and even if it’s a sunny day, it can be bone chilling.

Wednesday morning was one of those occasions where everything lined up. It was calm, the bay was like glass and the half tide was perfect to launch my recreational rowing shell. She’s served me well for at least 15 years. The hull, barely two feet wide and 20 feet long, is really more of a platform than a conventional boat. Water can wash over the deck and fill the well that holds the foot rests. It’s not something that happens often but if it does you’re not going to sink. With a few hard pulls on the 10-foot oars, most of the water will spill out as you lurch forward.

As my routine, I carried the oars to the seawall and returned to get the boat. She felt a little heavier than usual which I chalked up to not having rowed in some time. Ice flecked the deck and the seat, not much bigger than a diner plate, was frozen in place. It rides on a pair of wheels set in tracks.

I left the boat and returned to the house.

Carol was surprised when I retrieved the watering can used for the Christmas tree and filled it with hot water. The rolling seat was freed and I poured the steaming water down the tracks. Then it was just a matter of dumping the water and ice chunks from the well. I was ready to launch.

A tug, its two mast lights bright, was alongside a barge on her way to Providence. From experience I knew it would be 19 minutes before the swells from her wake would reach shore. The southeastern horizon was aglow and the thin line of low hanging clouds burned red. The heavens were a dark blue and for a moment I thought I was looking at the distant landing light of an approaching aircraft. It was a star.

My presence troubled a flock of Canada geese that after honking and squawking took flight. Otherwise it was peaceful. There was even a lull in activity at Green Airport and the rhythmic thumping of the tug’s engine faded.

My hands cupped the oars through poggies, mittens designed for rowing. I was warm in a long sleeve shirt, running pants, a cap and booties. I was reveling in the day when I heard and felt simultaneously a banging from inside the hull as the boat pulled forward. It had to be ice, which explained why the boat was heavier than I remembered.

But if was ice, why had it suddenly become free and why was it sloshing about inside the enclosed hull? There had to be a crack allowing salt water into the hull.

I considered the options. Row for shore, get wet up to my knees and then carry the boat up an embankment, release the drain plug and then re-launch, or simply carry on. I looked over the side. The flakes of broken shells defining the bottom couldn’t have been five feet down. I chose to stay on course.

Surely I thought the leak is not new. I’ve had to drain the boat before but always thought the water was from an access port in the well. But this had to be coming from where the two sections of the hull were joined.

It was satisfactory having diagnosed the problem and concluding there was plenty of time to get back before sinking. It’s like knowing how far you can push yourself the older you get. Comparatively, the boat is just a kid. I wasn’t going to let it worry me.

I arrived at the seawall – yes, floating – just as the swells from the tug and barge swept in. They crashed and then rebounded, sending the water into confusion.

I’ve learned not to mess with waves in a rowing shell.

I paddled off shore and waited.

I wasn’t going to sink just yet, but I wasn’t going to tempt fate in the waves. That’s stretching luck too far.

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  • mthompsondc

    Brrrr! But a nice read for those of us now living far from the bay...

    Saturday, January 19, 2019 Report this