samistheman79's blog: "blog"

To live by the sea and not die, means to trust the sea and know the sky. There was a multitude of clever sayings about life on the water, but being half of a two man crew under constant sail lent plenty of time to think of my own.Only fictional characters could be painted as accurate portrayals in the depth of solitude that was mine.

We fancied ourselves as the "fly by the seat of your pants" sort of men, who always find more trouble than that which was sought. Our attitudes would bring our adventure. Gods willing there was plenty of that.

The first major voyage on our homely vessel took us south along the Intracoastal Waterway into the West Coast of the Florida Keys. We were aboard an ancient 26 foot catalina with a 40 foot mast. The newest part of the ship was her engine which had been rendered obsolete before I was born.

We were too proud to rely on such trivial things as charts. Our navigational instrument was the compass, and our radio was used to request bridge openings. 

Jupiter Federal Bridge was one of several near fatal days that should have been my very demise. The first bridge we passed we called back on the radio to ask the name of the next bridge in line, so that we could call ahead to request an opening. This worked splendidly up until shortly after Fort Pierce. A bridge tender told us that the next bridge in line was called Lantana. We had a good wind that day and had little use for the motor as we were clipping along quite briskly. Once a spell passed that suggested we should be nearing a bridge around the next corner, we started calling ahead. "Lantana, this is sailing vessel 'first today' you should see us coming round the corner within the next few minutes, requesting draw-bridge opening as soon as we're in your sites." The call back was "10-4 first today, we are watching for you now."

As we neared the bend the current started to pick up. This was Jupiter Inlet, and the tide was incoming. We rounded the bend in a rush of white water less than twenty yards from the bridge.

With nary a spoken word from either of us, dad cranked the motor and gunned it in reverse, while I untied both sails and ran to leap from the bow of the boat onto the rapidly approaching pilings guarding the bridge.

If the ancient engine that had a foil-lined cardboard milk carton in place of a head gasket had failed to catch for even a nanosecond longer I would have been crushed on the piling by the weight of natures force in my half squatting attempt to save our ship.

Just as I felt myself reaching the bursting point my legs straightened out and I stood up against the boat and stepped back onto the deck as the bridge reached our minimal clearance requirement. We passed through with barely a hairs-breadth remaining.

The bridge tender called us on our way through and said "Hey 'first today', we just changed your name to last today, we're shutting it down now."

I didn't bother to radio back to remind him that its bad luck to change a ships name.