September 6, 2009
0630 hours
Awakened by a building wind and fierce gusts, I lay in bed now pondering the strength of our mooring buoy’s design to hold our swinging 12 ton, full keeled mass. The wind howled through the halyards and I burrowed deeper under the comforter. Then five short harsh blasts penetrated the morning air. All about the bay, heads popped up above gangway hatches like grounds hogs on alert. Off our port side the forty foot sailboat, Tahoo, was sliding backward precariously close to the bow of her neighbor astern. Having anchored in the calm of the evening before, her hook was unable to hold and had clearly given up its grip. A motor yacht skipper upwind had witnessed the drifter through the steam rising from his morning coffee and in a commendable gesture of “motors” reaching out to “sails”, he sounded the alarm. But there was little time to marvel at this brotherly love across the aisle. Action was imperative. The skipper of Tahoo was now visibly clamoring about his cockpit. He moved his head, thrusting his gaze to various points of the compass like a nervous cockatoo with a morning hairdo to match. I was pressed to grab the camcorder but remained entranced and otherwise available to assist. Now the skipper of the threatened sailboat, Serenity, was making his way forward along her deck. His tufted white hair stood upright by the wind as he assumed a watchful perch on his bowsprit. This unlikely pair of birds now faced each other gesturing, bobbing heads and waving arms as if in some rare and serious mating ritual. In fact, if action wasn’t taken soon their vessels would mate like two elephants in a wind storm and it would be a serious matter. Somehow, the skippers reached an understanding and Tahoo’s engine coughed to life, belching and farting like an old man begrudgingly accepting the start to another day of work. Slowly the Tahoo inched away leaving Serenity in peace.