Currently lying Newport Harbor Anchorage at Ida Lewis Yacht Club

 
Can you imagine life so content that nothing sloshes out to write about when I shake my head around, like shaking a fortune telling eight ball looking for the right answer?
 

Yet, there was the cliff walk and the mongoose, the all day exploration for a 88 cent tool, spending time with the Ron’s, the insular week of familial enjoyment with our youngest son, the predicted evening of box wine bashing (where the girls squeeze out every last drop), our battery and electrical issues, that darn Nevercold refrigerator (relatively easy to ignore with enough rum), the mansion tours, the speakeasy (wow, was she hot), the wonderful Fourth of July display at Fort Adams with guest appearance by the Queen Mary as a back drop, the walks to the grocery store and back through the neighborhoods,  Billy Goode’s, the best live music bar, Wickford, East Greenwich, rain enough to fill our water tanks, Providence, seeing the sun—three times in a month.  We may never share these tableaus of our life with you because contentment makes for poor stories.  It is all about drama, fear, adrenaline pumping adventure, sex, drugs, rock & roll blended with the extended foibles of human frailty that makes for good tales.
 
Then there was the guy last night in Zelda’s fine eating establishment and drinking forum that fell to the floor gasping for air, holding his throat.  Then after ‘heaving’ on my shoes and a certain amount of physically contorting spasms, he fell back and screamed with a believable amount of panic and fear “HELP ME, I’M DYING”.  I don’t think he ever did, but he did make a few believers out of some of the bar patrons.  However, after spitting up what looked like Bass Ale soaked peanuts the paramedics hauled his noisy, mood killing butt away and we all went back to our Lobster Bisque.  Jeez!  Thanks for a quiet night on the town fellow!  I keep trying to tell you folks, stay away from tourist town bars.  Nothing good can come of it.  The victim’s group went back to their gluttonous revelry, but we noticed they passed on more peanuts.  Pity.  They were the good well salted dry roasted variety.
 
There are also a variety of other flashing lights besides EMS vehicles in and around Narragansett Bay especially blue lights denoting enforcement vessels.   Under the lights are various sizes of intervention, policing and rescue boats belonging to a plethora of agencies, but mostly, here, it is Coast Guard and Harbor Master vessels ranging from large skiffs to what are locally know as the 41 footers of the Coast Guard.  Weekenders are the problem here as elsewhere.  Now is when the last of the winter crazed folks, who are just now launching their boats into the water for the first time, after dreaming for seven months of sallying forth, challenging the edges of the north Atlantic in those infernal sailing machines there are so many of up here.  They seem to be a little rusty in their navigation and at times pilot into submerged or partially hidden rocks.  Now growing up in Arizona as a child where there are mountains consisting of mostly rocks, I learned something.  Rocks are hard.  Landing on, throwing, running into them doesn’t make much difference; rocks break things.  In Florida there are no rocks, only mud and sand.  You run aground, you back off or have a rum and wait for the tide to float the boat off.  Not here.
 
Last Sunday, while scanning on the VHF, we followed the adventures of a 30’ plus catamaran sailing vessel.  The activities were hard to follow over the few minutes left to the existence of this boat, but the gist of it was the vessel either sailed into or drifted up on Kettle Bottom Rocks.  The seas were reported at 6’ by the Harbor Master on scene, who arrived to help pull the two member crew to safety.  When queried by the Coast Guard as to the health and welfare of the couple, the Harbor Master replied, “No physical damage—they are wrapped in blankets--they are in shock—just sitting staring at their boat—pieces of their boat really—Many, many pieces of their boat.” 
 
Last seen the many pieces were floating out to sea, relinquished mournfully by humans, taken without emotion or feeling by the whim of the North Atlantic.  This a sobering, cautionary tale for those of us that live in a people tank floating on this fish pond.
 
Nope, I don’t make this crap up folks, I just reports it as I sees it.  Mostly in our lives right now there is no drama, only the scent of wild roses, a comely wife and light rum.  But some days, in a few precious seconds of time that slow to a lifetime unto itself, we become embroiled with the pain, suffering and, at times, the almost black comedy of the human condition.
 
We survive the turmoil of others, safely, in the pilothouse. As they say—so far so good.
 

Capt'n Lynnie and Skinwalker