CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE: SUNDAY BOATING

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE: SUNDAY BOATING

Sunday boating is different from boating any other day of the week. Crazier, faster, rule breaking, more inattentive, less considerate – like Sunday drivers on the roadways. This morning we got a head start on the late risers by leaving River Dunes at 7:30 a.m. We didn’t run into the craziness until about five hours later. So here’s to all the Sunday boaters who sleep in! Keep doing it, please. We shared the quiet morning moments with porpoises who came at Slow Motion from both sides or swam in front of us or behind us. Some day I’ll be quick enough to make a video of their dives and re-surfacings. They make the waterway a special place to be, when they’re out there welcoming us and showing off their many talented moves.  Sure, you can see porpoises at Sea World or at some aquariums, but it’s not like traveling along with them on the Neuse River or Bogue Sound in North Carolina.

Today we had some courteous boaters – “Slow Motion, Sir Galahad behind you, and I would like to pass on your portside. “I’ll slow down so that there is little wake.” Really, a few cruisers actually said that, and they glided by at a low speed, so we were not rocked at all, not even one sideways tilt.  And we had the crashing boars again – but fewer of them, since the Annapolis Boat Show (October 11-14) monsters have already waked us. It’s October 21 and they’re probably in Rio or Buenos Aires by now. They know who they are, because once they “wake” one boat, the word goes out on the radio to watch out for the speedster who rudely passes at his highest wake capacity without any warning or apology.  So what is their reaction to hearing themselves described on the radio (Channel 16 -- heard by all boaters) as cretins? If they are really cretins, they’re probably chuckling and they most likely increase their speed for their next victim. But if they have one ounce of decency, maybe, just maybe, they slow down once or twice during the day when passing a slower boat. Nah – it’s that testosterone; it won’t permit a slowing down.

The Neuse River takes you past Oriental, a town we have yet to visit, and to a narrow channel on the way to Beaufort and Morehead City.  We got close to Oriental the day before, when we borrowed the “courtesy van” from River Dunes and drove to the one grocery store near Oriental called “Town and Country.” What a surprise and what a treat that store was! It was small in terms of square footage, but was packed with some items you just can’t get at any of the huge chain grocery stores. And the prices were amazingly good – not Wal-Mart, but damn close. This store had the Admiral’s Crystal Lite peach iced tea; it had Snow’s clams (nearly the same price as Wal-Mart); it had my Honey Crisp cereal, which I haven’t found anywhere else for a few years. And it had butterscotch Tasty Cakes. Sure, we got apples, raspberries and plums, and celery and carrots, but you can get those things at most stores.  Next time we stay at River Dunes, we’ll definitely return to Town and Country. A good grocery store is always a highlight for us, especially since we had to leave Publix behind in Florida and settle for sloppy seconds with Harris Teeter, Piggly Wiggly, Giant and “the Lion”.

One good thing about the narrow channel we traveled after leaving the Neuse River is that it’s too narrow for a big motor boat to pass, so they just have to travel at a sane speed, if they get stuck behind Slow Motion or another cruiser going a normal speed. I’m sure this rankles, but hey, they could have chosen to travel on the ocean. It looked pretty calm today. Even more than the crashing boars, the Sunday fishers were out in force – whole flotillas filling the Intracoastal Waterway Channel in some spots. Fishing boats are not supposed to fish in the channel – something about blocking traffic. It’s like having a bunch of car drivers park their cars sideways in both lanes of a two way highway to wash their cars. Maybe there are now “flash mobs” of fishing boaters, who get the call on Sundays to race out and clog the ICW lanes for a few hours, while pretending to fish. The Coast Guard is supposed to break up these fishing armadas when they block the ICW, but like most of law enforcement, their area is too big for the personnel they still have.  We reported a fishing boat that had tied up to an ICW navigation marker – a no-no that is pretty bold. We called the Coast Guard as soon as we passed this scofflaw, and an hour later, we saw their enforcement boat. They said the fishing boat was no long hugging the ICW marker when they went by. It must have been the disapproving look the Admiral gave the two fishermen, as we passed by, that drove them away.

Finally, about my progress in handling the boating duties assigned to me. As the Admiral constantly says: “You’ve got to get your head into the game!” I have to admit that sometimes I daydream, sometimes I read, sometimes I fall asleep while we’re cruising along. But when Nature calls the Admiral, I always take over the helm. Now that we’re on automatic pilot 90% of the time, this means looking for debris or floating objects in the water (dead bodies always come to mind – too many mysteries under my belt). I do a pretty good job watching out for these things, but sometimes the Admiral catches me looking at my I Phone when I’m on duty. He’s right – I need to give 100% when I’m called on to be Slow Motion’s surrogate captain and watchdog. Today I must report that I had a “lapse” when we were docking at Casper’s in Swansboro, NC. I had gone out to the bow of the boat, taken the forward spring line (not the bow line) and made sure it had no kinks or knots, but was ready to be thrown to the dock hand. As I was doing this, I realized that I had not prepared the stern line, which I knew was a knotty mess from when we tossed it back on to Slow Motion, upon leaving River Dunes. I did not have time to go back and smooth out the stern line. “Uh-oh”, I thought, but maybe I could get the stern line to the dock person without the Admiral noticing my poor preparation. Not a chance. I gave the messed up stern line to the dock hand, and he tied it around the post. It looked sort of okay to me. But then the Admiral came to the stern: “What’s that messed up stern line? Why is it wrapped around the cleat in the cockpit?” I mean, he wasn’t at the stern of Slow Motion more than a second before he saw my screw up. “You’ve got to get your head in the game”, the Admiral reiterated sternly (yes, pun intended). I vowed to myself, right on the spot, not to make this rookie mistake again. So please, if you write any comments to me on this Blog, remind me to straighten out all the lines and put them in working order BEFORE we pull up to the dock to tie up.

We are safely ensconced at Casper’s, a marina where we had to spend a few weeks in July because of constant threat of thunderstorms and high winds. This time we’re scheduled to stay two days – this lovely Sunday and tomorrow, when I mail my absentee ballot back to Monterey County from the Swansboro Post Office. Now if you were planning to vote for the one per cent, and you’re not even in the one per cent, think about that really long and hard. And if you have daughters, sisters, granddaughters, nieces, mothers, aunts, grandmothers, women friends, spouses – you get the picture – vote for our right to choose and for keeping government out of our bedrooms. I fought too long and too hard for reproductive freedom – one candidate has promised to “repeal” Roe v. Wade. Do not vote for him, please. I worked on the briefs for Abele v. Markle, Connecticut’s Roe v. Wade, and I wrote the briefs for Roe v. Maher, when Chief Justice Rehnquist (in 1976) denied poor women the same fundamental right to control their bodies that had been recognized in Roe v. Wade in 1973. Women worked for this change for more than a century. I worked for it throughout the late sixties and into the mid-seventies. We’re not going back to coat hangers – not on my watch. I respect all religious beliefs on this subject. I would like some respect for my right to privacy and to make my own decisions regarding reproduction without government interference. We have a clear choice for our futures – don’t muck it up.

Happy Sunday, everyone!