“Looking good,” John Cavanagh said in a voice loud enough to be heard across Warwick Cove.

The skipper of the 40-foot sailboat passing to our starboard looked over at John’s diminutive power boat and the 19-foot day sailor under tow. We were less than 70 feet apart. The skipper and the woman under a broad-brimmed hat sitting with her back to us didn’t acknowledge John’s compliment. Not even a wave on this Saturday morning, the first full day of summer.

The cove was alive with outbound traffic and more was on the way. Trailers backed small craft and jetskis onto the Oakland Beach boat ramp. A couple of vessels including a sailboat with mast strapped to its cabin top waited for the incoming tide to access the ramp. They were looking to get out of the water.

I have navigated the cove on similar seasonal deliveries for years now. Longtime sailing friend Claude Bergeron and I own Rhodes 19 sailboats. Claude also owns a powerboat that he keeps in the cove. At the end of the season we would power over to Bullock’s Cove in East Providence to pick up his boat, make a stop at my Conimicut Point mooring to get mine and tow them over to Pleasure Marina in Warwick Cove. There, Joe DiCenzo lifted them to trailers that we drove to my yard where they spent the winter under tarps. The process would be reversed in the spring after the boats were painted and polished.

The boats didn’t go into the water last year. Claude sold his to a co-worker, Faye, who spent most of the summer on business trips, and I was out of commission following several back operations. The boats sat in the yard for the summer.

I hadn’t been on the Bay for more than a year, and it didn’t look like that would happen for months to come. Further prolonging that prospect, Claude’s outboard was out of commission.

That’s where Cavanagh comes in. He’s another sailor and like Claude also owns a power boat that he berths in Bullock’s Cove. The strategy was simple: Pick a good day when the wind and temperature were agreeable.

Claude and Faye would meet Cavanagh and his wife, Karen, at Bullock’s, power over to Warwick Cove and then tow the Rhodes back. I would get to ride with the Cavanaghs for the trip and drive back with Claude.

As Cavanagh would say, “easy peasy.” It was. It was a drama-free trip with plenty of sun and a gorgeous day on the water. But Cavanagh’s salutation, “looking good,” which was perhaps over-the-top for the haughty boater to our starboard, got me thinking: why is it so difficult for many of us to accept a compliment from a total stranger? I’ve seen it on multiple occasions.

Cavanagh is generous with his compliments even while racing, when skipper and crew are intent on eking out every inch on a competitor. “Looking good,” he’d yell as the boat behind us whispered past under spinnaker. I’m not sure the overpassing crew took it as Cavanagh intended, but more likely interpreted it as a snide way of saying “F-You.” Cavanagh was equally flattering when it came to his own crew: After getting the jib hung up on a tack that could decide the outcome of a race, he’d declare, “good one, good one.”

The crew would exchange glances, knowing full well that we’d screwed up and thankful not to be subjected to the avalanche of expletives occasionally heard from other skippers on the course. Of course we weren’t racing on Saturday. Nobody was on edge. It was a beautiful start to the summer.

And indeed, the boat that motored past us, albeit on the close side, was an attractive vessel; Cavanagh wasn’t thumbing his nose at the apparent owner of a high-priced yacht. It is his way of saying “what a wonderful day.”

And why is it that some people can’t accept that?