To talk of many
things: Of boats and rats and tickle sticks,
of motorbikes and bees...
Gary from the Owner's Manual sent me a link to a funny story , which put me in mind
of something that happened once when I was stationed in Key West,
Florida.
Key West was great duty of
course - we lived in base housing by the water, which essentially meant that you
had year 'round resort living on a lieutenant's salary, something that would
not, without the slightest risk of exageration, be otherwise possible.
Nearly all recreation that did not
explicitly require and entail public intoxication or lewdness in Key West took
the shape of water sports: deep sea fishing, tarpon in the flats, water skiing
in the bay, lobsters on the reef, and diving pretty much everywhere. All of
these activities were made vastly simpler and more enjoyable through the
ownership of a boat.
Now anyone who has
actually owned a boat can tell you that it is little more than a hole in the
water, into which money is poured. I bought a 21 foot, cutty cabin Answer Marine
sport fisher, which had a perfectly enormous 225 horsepower Evinrude engine on
the transom. This monstrous (when attached to a 21 foot boat) engine was
accompanied by a rather ridiculous looking 7.5 hp "kicker." The kicker was
started by a pull cord, like your dad's old lawn mower, and steered with a
tiller, rather than the wheel up in the cabin. Although it could not push the
boat more than 5 kts or so, was awkward to steer from, and brought a sensation
not unlike a Turkish sauna when starting in those tropic climes, I was
nevertheless very happy to have it on board, on several occasions.
But it was a fast boat, fastest in the
squadron, if by no possible stretch of the imagination the most reliable. I had
customized it with a pair of outrigger poles on the gunnels and a bimini top,
and I acknowledged no man as master when she was up on the plane - 55 mph or
more, no problem. It was so fast in fact, that I was often "pulled over" by the
Florida Marine Patrol
carabinieri
for fitting the drug smuggling profile. Once aboard, and realizing that I was an
unlikely candidate for drug running, they would measure whatever lobsters I had
harvested, count life jackets and flare guns, and make a general nuisance of
themselves by way of justifying their presence
aboard.
In flat water, there is an
almost evil satisfaction to going that fast in a boat.
It came to pass that the boat was out
of the water for a time, as one of the all-too-frequent maintenance intervals
for the big engine came due. When I finally got her back in the water, it had
been several weeks, and I thought the best thing for it was to take her out in
the bay of Florida and "open her up" a bit, you know, de-coke the carbs. There
was very light chop in the bay as she got on plane, and I was enjoying myself
immensely - the engine was pushing the boat so fast, that there was hardly
anything of her in the water but the prop, the skeg and a few feet of waterline.
She bounded from wavetop to wavetop in way that was thrillingly at the very
margin of control.
(Anyone who has read
any of my previous work here will be forgiven for asking themselves if Neptunus
Lex is an adrenaline junky. The answer, of course, is
"Yes.")
Just then something brushed my
face - my first presumption was that one of the downhauls for my outrigger had
somehow gotten adrift and whipped across my face. I was instantly disabused of
this notion by looking down my right forearm, firmly on the wheel, and seeing a
large and rather dubiously colored rat perched there, peering up at me
intently.
I found this very
exciting.
-------------------------------------
There
are moments in one's life, when one feels fully alive, every synapse firing.
This was one of those moments. The next closest example I could think of was
when I had an old Harley-Davidson Sportster as my daily ride, and the time once
when riding it that I caught a brace of bees between my open faced helmet and my
right ear at 55 mph in an "S" turn. It is a very energizing moment, for those of
you not fortunate enough to have experienced it. I would try to share it with
you, but it beggars full
description.
-------------------------------------
In
any case, I was equally energized to see a rat perched upon my forearm, so I
calmly and bravely screamed "WAGHH!" and quickly (oh, so quickly) threw him up
and off. He flew from my arm to the bimini top above, which trampolined him back
again at my face with equal velocity, and with much greater malice in his beady
little eyes than he had demonstrated
heretofore.
I consider myself as brave
as the next man, but this could not be borne. I unceremoniously dived out of the
captain's chair and to the deck, the wheel spinning as I left it unattended. The
boat, at 55 mph and on the plane, started a broad left turn, going I could not
say where.
Nor really, did I instantly
care, since my nemesis, having bounced off the captain's chair and fallen to the
now sloping deck, was scrabbling his claws as he slid towards my face, fighting
both gravity and centripetal force. Our eyes locked, and mutual distaste was
thick in the air between us.
Now this
was my boat, I had the title free and clear, and at this point, I've had all I
really want of this rat in my boat. I'm very highly motivated to bludgeon him to
death, once a suitable instrument could be found for the purpose. But the boat
itself is still blindly scribing enormous arcs at high speed and no one is
really at the wheel, which simply will not do, for so many
reasons.
The rat evaded down a rod
holder, which tunneled into the forward cabin. I pulled my way up the deck to
the captain's chair, chopped the throttle, made sure I wasn't about to drive
into anything unyielding and did a quick assessment of the tactical situation.
The nearest weapon to hand was a "tickle stick," a fiberglass rod used to back
lobsters out from overhanging ledges, to be netted for later dining.
I thrust the tickle stick down the rod
holder repeatedly, making no attempt, I must confess, to tickle. Not receiving
any feedback in the form of blood or pelt upon the bitter end, the only thing to
do at that point was to head down to Cuba Joe's Marine Hardware store and find
the biggest rat trap I could find. Twenty-four hours and a dollop of peanut
butter later (it works much better than cheese, Cuba Joe told me), I had my
revenge.
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." - John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Ceasar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friederich Nietzsche
