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| ==fire island==
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| The boat was already full of water. I felt like I was entering my nightmare from the night before. I hadn’t sleep well.
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| There was 600 hundred pounds of crap to load in the boat, if you include my 250 plus and Uli’s 80 pounds. The water was all the way up in the tall weeds; the dog had nowhere to sit. He likes sitting on the shore watching me in the water. I used the dog bowl to bail out the boat. I wasn’t sure about my fuel supply so didn’t want to take a run with the plug out to bail it.
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| Turns out there is no gas on Fire Island. The closest gas was where I had to get to. It is not really a ‘boaters paradise’ as the websites claim. The Great South Bay at this section of Long Island is a about 5 miles across. There are almost none of the small islands that are everywhere in the bay between Long Beach and West Islip so winds out of the north half of the compass have a lot of water to blow over. The water taxis that run between the towns have these blunt steel bows that press against the bulkheads, the props churning up the water behind to hold themselves in place long enough to pick up and discharge passengers. There are marinas in little islands of calm water almost completely enclosed by significant wharves or quays, expensive structures with narrow entrances designed to keep the waves at bay or in the bay, private enclaves that advertise their exclusivity with pointed notices to those not of their ilk. There are no bars, restaurants, moorings or public docks that you can pull your boat up to, none of the life on the waterfront you see in Freeport, LI or Vineyard Haven or Boothbay Harbor. I did go out one beautiful calm evening to pick up my sister and her family in the next town, but another trip with my son and his girl was less than wonderful, rough and windy. I think they were glad when I suggested they jump off for a nice walk back.
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| Today was another rough and windy one. Gale force winds out of the northwest. The winds were in the process of moving around the points of the compass as they do after a storm, back to where they prevail out of the southwest. I would never choose to go out on a day like this but the rental was over, everyone had gone home and Peri had to work the next day. So it was.
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| On the big waves the bow was plowing under water so I retied it to the eye closer to the waterline. I pulled up the chains and disconnected the heavy cinder block that was working with the big danforth anchor to hold fast to the sea bottom. I just dropped the cinder block back into the water. I pulled up the rear anchor and re-tied the kayaks to the stern. I hoped the boat wouldn’t pull free before I got loaded. If it did there would be no way to stop it from crashing into shore and little chance of ever making the journey. The tall weeds along the shore were littered with the remains of boat hulls. I had wondered what they were when I was on Google Earth.
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| I had dumped all the boxes and suitcases by the shore, using the wagon to move them from the rental house. Now, one by one, I had to carry them 100 yards down the shore over sinking seaweed and the remains of pipes and trash and anchorages other assholes had left behind. I had to go up to my shorts each time to get around a hobicat that had blown off its mooring in the night.
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| My foot still hurt from cutting myself on a rusted pipe a week before in this very location. Then I was so happy to be there, to be at the beach and to soon be seeing my kids that it didn’t really faze me. I couldn’t put me heel on the ground for the week but I didn’t care. It made body surfing all the more of an escape, I was carried by the waves.
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| Now I was in the water and it wasn’t too bad, still in the 70’s. I carried each container over my head, the water was up to my rib cage at the boat. First the suitcases, mine then Peri’s and then the one with the wedding clothes. Next the cooler with the food too expensive to leave behind and then the big crate with the un-drunk liquor and beach toys and dogfood and other stuff. After arranging the fishing poles, tying things down, putting the engine down and re-bailing the boat I was ready to go.
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| Ulysses bounded into the water and let me lasso his legs in my arms lifting and arching my back to set him on the deck. Things looked like shit. The boat was now down low in the water, in danger of sinking and the waves were still real bad. So bad that I couldn’t climb to the front of the boat without it going under. Once I untied it, one wave hitting us broadside would sink it.
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| I do stupid stuff with the boat all the time. Miss some important item on my mental checklist. I’ve gone down the ramp with the motor down, scraping along the concrete, gone out numerous times forgetting to put in the drain plug. I have driven miles on the highway wondering about the noise of the trailer ball, never locked in place and bouncing up and down. I don’t let on about how incompetent I can be. Maybe that makes me more of a jerk. So now was one of the the crucial moments I had played out over and over during my sleepless night. It was good, I think, to have obsessed since now a plan was crystallizing. Still in the water, I walked around to the bow of the boat. I yanked it forward against the force of the waves until the anchor line slackened. I rigged the rope so when it came untied I already had a loop through the eye. Keeping the boat from slipping away by squeezing the taut anchor end tight around the eye in one hand, I pulled the loose end through the eye, pulling more and more of the slack line through until I had a loop that was about 12′ long. Then I walked along the side of the boat holding the doubled up rope plus the free end of the anchor line against the stainless steel rails as I made my way to the helm. There I tied the loop and the free end off at a secure spot and took a breath.
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| The boat was still heading into the wind, still pulling on the anchor line from the bow of the boat. I hoisted myself into the boat, gave Uli a reassuring hug and started the engine. I loosened the loop knot but kept the free end tied fast. I finished untying the loop and let it go. Meanwhile I pulled on the remaining end of the line, pulling the loop through the eye, freeing the bow of the boat. Fast enough to get the bow out of the water I motored toward the anchor while furiously pulling in the line to keep it from fouling the propeller. The big danforth pulled free from the bottom and was soon in the boat. We were off.
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