CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN: BACK TO SCHOOL WEEK

CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN: BACK TO SCHOOL WEEK

For the past week, minus a Monday all day visit to Dr. Sokol in Tampa, I have gone back to school – Trawler University, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida – to learn how to pilot, navigate, dock, steer, turn and otherwise control Slow Motion, our 50 foot motor vessel. The first two days back at school I joined a group of 15 other women to take a two day seminar called “Women Only Boat Handling”. We were divided into two groups: single screw and twin screw. It’s not what you’re thinking, probably. The number of “screws” is the number of engines and propellers on the boat. Slow Motion is a ‘twin screw’ motor vessel. So I was in the twin screw group with Captain Andrea Gaines. We held our class mostly on a forty foot twin screw catamaran that is awkwardly named “Grampster’s Endeavor”. Go figure. And we cruised around the Ft. Lauderdale Harbor, leaving our dock at Bahia Mar Marina and heading for the many bridges in this area that require an opening for any boat with a height of more than 23 feet. Each of the eight of us with Captain Andrea took our turn at steering “Grampster”, and we all learned how to turn the boat around in fairly tight quarters. We also learned what to say when we hail a bridge tender and we learned the rudest bridge tender in the world is the guy who was tending the Sunrise Avenue bridge around 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 29. Yes, you know who you are. And we DID contact you before you opened the bridge and asked for the 2:30 opening. But with your short term memory loss and/or misogyny, you claimed you did not hear us and lowered the bridge just as we were ready to pass under. No hard feelings. Really.

The Goddess of our group is Patricia, who has owned four different motor boats (with her doctor husband) in her life, all while they lived in the boating capital of the desert, Henderson, Nevada. When we introduced ourselves and our reasons for taking this class, almost everyone said she had performed some functions on her boat, mostly handling the lines and fenders and helping with the docking. But Patricia told us that she had not done anything at all on any of the four boats, except wash the dishes. Her husband not only did all the piloting and docking work by himself, but he also did all the cooking. Captain Gaines asked her why she wanted to change what appeared to be a great situation. And Patricia admitted to being a little bit embarrassed that she knew nothing about how a boat operates and she actually was afraid of handling such a heavy piece of machinery, especially going under bridges. This is a woman who has run her own businesses, managed the family accounts and run the household on land. She is not afraid of work; she just thought that boating was her husband’s thing and wasn’t really interested – for the past thirty years!

What a difference the two day class made for Patricia! The first day at the helm she was scared and kept pointing the boat toward the shore. When asked why, she said she wanted to see the houses on shore better – like from the inside! By the second day, she was steering the boat under bridges and learning all the technical stuff like she was going to head up the next America’s Cup challenge. We had a quiz at the end of two days and she got every answer right. It was such a remarkable transformation in such a short period of time. Hats off to Patricia and to Captain Andrea and the rest of us for giving Patricia the confidence she needed to play a “hands on” role in running the boat(s) in her life.

This seminar was really good for me too. I learned how to turn the boat using the gears and the throttles, without even touching the wheel. I learned that once you turn to the right or to the left, as soon as possible, you need to return the rudder to center to correct your course. I learned that docking can be fun, even in fairly high winds and stiff current. And I realized that I have actually been learning quite a lot these past 8 months on Slow Motion with the Admiral as my teacher, but what I was missing, just like Patricia, was confidence. So I developed a healthy dose of confidence during this two day seminar too. Can I tie a bowline? You betcha! Can I tie a clove hitch? Most of the time. Can I tie the lines to the cleats on the dock? Some of the time. But I know I can do this now. Nothing can stop me – not even a rude bridge tender. Isn’t that the best thing you can take away from a course – both the knowledge of how to do something and the confidence to actually apply that knowledge to “get ‘er done”?

On Thursday I moved right on to classes on the VHF radio on the boat and the electrical systems on a trawler. Yes, these can be mind-numbing subjects, but not when you’re motivated to learn everything you possibly can, in case the Admiral becomes ill or goes on strike, and the responsibility for communicating with the bridges, locks, marinas and other boaters falls on me or we have an electrical problem out on the water and I have to try to figure out what it is, while the Admiral is steering Slow Motion. One class in the radio and one class on the electrical systems did not provide me with everything I need to know. But they’re a start – a very good start to help me “keep my head in the game”, as the Admiral is always asking me to do. Today I attended the class on tides and currents – not as informational as the classes on Thursday, but somewhat helpful in stressing the importance of knowing the tide range and the currents in the area where we’re cruising, so that we know when to leave a marina and whether to take a particular route. The Admiral is an expert at this stuff, and I know I’m playing catch up, but with renewed vigor and purpose, as a result of this week of classes.

We’re staying at the Bahia Mar Hotel, a Hilton Hotel, which is sponsoring the Trawler Fest. Passage Maker, the magazine for trawlers is the presenter. The teachers come from the boating community. They have been very good, but the written materials are zilch during the sessions. Afterwards, you can pay $20 for a pamphlet of the power point slides you just watched. And what’s the deal with the U.S. Power Squadron? They ask you to “register” for each course, so that they have a record of your having taken it. But they have no sign in and sign out sheet, so all you have to do is fill out the registration form and leave. Not that any boater would ever do that, for insurance purposes or otherwise. But the administration of this conference is a little slack. Tomorrow is my last seminar “Bahama Bound”, a course that will prepare me for cruising with the Admiral in the Bahamas this spring – I hope.

During the hours that I have been learning how to handle Slow Motion, the Admiral has been driving back and forth from Key Largo, visiting his lobster fishing buddies and checking out the Key Largo marinas for a month’s stay starting the third week of February. Somehow he’s also managed to squeeze in just a few visits to West Marine, CostCo and WalMart. Tomorrow after my last class, we’re heading back to Key Largo so I can check out the marinas and we can have our traditional meal at Mrs. Mac’s. No doubt about it, the Admiral loves Key Largo and all the memories of his past exploits as a lobster fisherman as well as his family vacations when his daughters learned how to swim and put on aquatics shows for posterity. The films are great!

We have also enjoyed some of the finest restaurants in the Ft. Lauderdale area, including Li’l Red’s Barbecue on Route 84, where the barbecued ribs make the Admiral swoon. We returned to Primanti Brothers Restaurant last night for our Pittsburgh pizza, which has the freshest tomatoes and cheese, plus enough sausage for two pizzas. It’s right next to the tattoo parlor and up the street from Yo Mama’s Ice Cream. Don’t forget to bring quarters for the meters. Tonight, if I play my cards right, it’s Lenny’s Subs. Who needs to get all dressed up to go out, when these proletarian purveyors of fine foods welcome us in our jeans and tees?

It’s been eye opening to see so many cruisers in one place. They’re from California, Canada, New England, New Jersey, the Midwest, Florida and the South. Some folks don’t even have a boat, but are in the market to buy one so they can do the Great Loop and mark that off their “bucket list”. Yes, despite the fact that I insisted that this phrase be banished from further use, a lot of cruisers introduced themselves using it. “The Great Loop is on our bucket list.” The Admiral and I are getting a bit disenchanted with the  Great Loop as a be-all and end-all goal. There is a least one bridge along the Loop that is too low for Slow Motion, no matter what the tide is. And now the Mighty Mississippi has become the shallow Muddy Mississippi after these last few years of drought along its shores. We’re reading how hard it is for the commercial boats to get through. And they always have the right of way over us pleasure seekers. Idling bow to stern for hours or days with a bunch of boats on the Mississippi, waiting for the commercial traffic to go ahead, is not my idea of pleasure boating. So we’ll see. Right now, we’re facing a huge challenge with the100 plus miles day of cruising from Marco Island to Key West. Let’s see how we do on that, after we take off from Ft. Myers in mid-February.

As I enjoyed my learning experiences at Trawler U this week, I was always mindful of Sondra’s “date” with the interventionist who does angioplasty on February 1. I know she’ll sail through the procedure with flying colors, and the interventionist will learn a lot from her, as he does the procedure. This is one procedure where you remain conscious and get to participate in the decision-making, I think. Well, with Sondra, she will play a very active role in deciding what to do. She is a dream patient in many ways, because she gets as fully informed as possible and knows what questions to ask. She also has a strong B.S. detector, which works all the time. I’m pulling for you, Sondra! You can do it!