Angels in the room

My Mom's last day in her physical body here on Earth. Sounds better than, the day she died, right? I suppose it is all in how you look at things. It has been ten years since my Mom left her shell and I have faith, partly because she did, that she is in a better place. She should be, she deserved to be. In terms of her "last day" it is vivid in my mind in so many ways. It was really warm, it was sunny, she was lucid for a long time, we were able to actually have a few giggles. Mostly I remember her; how she looked, the feel of her hand in mine, the touch of her little bald head as I stroked it occasionally during the day, the sound of her breathing and how it changed as the day wore on. Perhaps most important, though, I remember what she said.

My mom had been ill again, when the oncologist said the cancer had returned, since about May. She had since made her decision to stop treatment and die at home, family by her side. Since May she gained a son-in-law who she adored and listened to me as I talked about the life David and I had started to build. But on this last day, a warm day in early August, I didn't do much talking. Not many of us did. What do you say? How do you say goodbye to a life who has been with you since the beginning? How do you tie everything up in a neat little package and store it in your heart as if it was just another day? My Mom actually helped us with this process; whether she knew she was doing so or not.

At one point during the day my aunt put on some lovely classical music and it played for a while and then when it seemed my mum was napping, it was turned off. Later when she woke up again, they asked if she liked the music. "Oh yes, it is lovely, I am enjoying it so much." So my aunt went to turn on the music again when my mom said, "Oh no, not that music." Moment number one. My aunt is not religious at all. In fact she is nearly anti-religious when it comes to her own beliefs. My grandmother, however, was deeply religious in a Presbyterian sort of way for her entire life. But when my mom said what she did, they both stopped and just looked at each other in amazement. I smiled to myself and held back the tears.

At this point I expect the science-or-nothing peeps out there to tell me how the brain reacts when the body is dying and how random electrical impulses can produce seemingly meaningful statements, gestures, etc., that in fact mean nothing except that the brain is in free-fall. Well, this is where the faith part of this situation comes in to play. I am not someone who subscribes to "organized" religion (which, now that I write it down, doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me anyway). In short, let me say that I am devout, but I do not believe one must go to "church" to demonstrate and experience faith. Rather, I look around and see the presence of God, Allah, the Goddess, a Higher Power, the Great Mystery, every single day. Whether I see that presence in the bloom of a flower coming up from asphalt, or the kindness of a man who pays for someone's groceries in front of him in line, or the incredible force of a storm like Hurricane Sandy, I see that presence everywhere, and in most everyone. I don't recognize a hierarchy of religious beliefs where one is somehow less than another. I see many "religions" as equally violent and also capable of facilitating great mercy. So of course on that terrible, awful and yet beautiful day when I said goodbye to my Mom, I truly believe the things she said were not random and even if her body was dying, her spirit was wholly alive.

My mom was also spiritually devout and leaned toward her upbringing as a Presbyterian. In South Pasadena she attended Calgary Pres. sporadically but religiously (sorry, the pun was there, I had to use it) at Christmas and Easter. She was also extremely open-minded and when I started questioning some of the basic tenets laid out in the bible at an early age, she supported me. Actually, I just asked "Why?" so much that I was encouraged not to return to Sunday school until I had a firmer foundation of faith (yup, I was kicked out of Sunday school before Kindergarten).

Anyway, as the day progressed, people came by, some to say goodbye to her and others to check on the family. Some couldn't bring themselves to even see her during the last few weeks of her life. At first I was hurt and angered by this apparent abandonment. As time went by, however, I decided that we all have our critical mass of pain. For some it is seeing death in the room, but for others it is seeing death in the corner of the eye. Each of us must decide how much we can take and how best to remember those we love when they die.

At one point mom asked my aunt and grandmother to recite Psalm 23, The Psalm of David. The two ladies gamely tried to do it from memory (remember my aunt's views on religion?), "The Lord is my shepherd.I shall not want." OK, good start. "He maketh me lie down in green pastures, he has me drink from still waters, He cleanses/restores? my soul." Umm, losing it here..."Even though I walk in the shadow of the...the valley of the shadow of...." and then, all tears broke loose. My mom took a deep breath and said "Close enough." I just laughed and held both women for a moment when Gramma broke away, went and got the bible and they then read it through to my mom. I honestly think she appreciated their first attempt better, because it came  from their hearts. Moment number two.

Very shortly after composure was regained, mom asked that she be allowed to speak with me in private.My grandmother, who, we would learn later, was succumbing to both fatigue and grief, left the room and my aunt followed. My mom then pointed straight up to the ceiling above her and said quite firmly and clearly, "You too!". She then waited a moment, and turned to talk to me. Moment number three. Her discussion with me remains private, but suffice it to say that even then, she was worried about me. Mostly, we just hugged.

One of the last things my mom said to me was that she wasn't afraid, that she "could see" her dad and grandparents and they were waiting for her. Moment number four.Then she said she loved me. One of the last things I said to her, was that it was "OK", that I was going to be fine and she didn't need to worry about me; that if she was ready, she should let go. Then I told her I loved her and she lightly squeezed my hand. She was, however, no longer verbally responsive and within two hours she was gone. IT was, in so many ways the most horrible of days. On the other hand, I felt deeply blessed that I could be with her after she had been there for me my entire life. How lucky I was to be able to say goodbye.

Was it her brain executing random electrical signals that made her see angels in her room? Could be, but I rather like the idea of her being greeted by those she loved (including every pet she ever had).

Besides, it also means that, if all goes well, she will be there to greet me when the time comes.

uncredited photo

Sea Stories: Flotsam and Jetsam

In Maritime Law, flotsam and jetsam have specific, legal meanings. To the lay sailor, however, those terms are generic for "stuff" (potential treasures) floating in the sea or washed up onshore. A day or so after our Cuban adventure, Ariel's screw started smoking and then stopped. Mac decided to take us in shallow and anchor off one of the little coral islets that was poking up out of the water. Under sail and with me as bow watch, we navigated through some reefs and dropped the hook. Mac suggested we check on the screw, then swim to the land mass and look for possible treasures brought ashore by Gilbert.

Mac and I dove off the swim platform at Ariel's stern to look at the screw. Apparently, when we left the Cuban ship we took some of her cheap plastic line with us and it wound itself around the screw shaft and hub. The longer the screw turned while motoring, the more friction built up and eventually melted the line and stopped the screw turning. The fix was simple enough; we would take turns swimming under and cutting at the plastic blob attached to the screw. Of course, nothing is as easy as you think it will be when it comes to a boat and being at sea. When we first jumped in the water we both came out saying "What the hell!?, Ouch, Dammit!" When I put my face mask half-way in the water I could see the forest. We had landed in what appeared to be a jelly bloom and were surrounded by thousands of tiny, almost clear, mildly stinging jellies (or some gelatinous critter). They were not dangerous, only annoying and, well, they were just, there. Trying to push the water away only brought others towards us. These little ones (juveniles?) were drifting on the current and we would just have to work around them. So, one at a time, Mac and I went into the water, got as low as we could to avoid the bloom and cut on the melted line. It took only a few tries for each of us and then Ariel's screw was free.

Now it was time to play. Mac and I started to don our snorkeling gear when Dean flat out said he wasn't going. When I said I didn't think anyone really needed to guard the boat, Mac just started laughing and said that Dean really didn't like getting in the water. Excuse me? You have worked as a merchant seaman most of your life and you don't like the water? Did I miss something? Dean patiently explained that he usually worked very large ships and that he had gone days without even seeing the ocean if he chose to do so; getting in it wasn't so much a priority. Ahh, but we were prepared for (most) eventuality and it turned out that the man who had traded Ariel to Dad left her with a...well...for lack of a better term...giant, inflatable banana. I guess this thing was meant to tow people behind a motor boat, sort of a kinder, gentler, jet ski? Anyway, we inflated it, threw it overboard, Dean climbed on top of it, Mac gave him a paddle and he was off. Unfortunately Dean didn't seem to quite be able to tame the ungainly thing and he kept drifting away from Ariel and the islet. Mac (between chortles) kept telling him to get it together and Dean answered him with creative curses. Finally, Mac decided that Dean just couldn't wrangle that giant, mutant floating banana so he decided to swim after him.

Great Barracuda-uncredited photo

As Mac was donning his face mask and fins we noticed a visitor lurking just off the end of the swim platform. The Great Barracuda is the largest of 20+ species in the world and can get up to six feet in length. While sometimes seen in groups, we only saw them on that trip as solitary visitors. Barracuda are bold and inquisitive and they can be unnerving in that they often follow divers and snorkelers. While they have a snaggle-toothed and fierce expression, they are mostly non-aggressive to humans, unless they are harassed. Well, harassment is in the eye of the beholder, so Mac asked me to put on my yellow-tipped swim fin, put my foot in the water near the 'cuda and distract him while Mac entered the water. For good measure, Mac took his Hawaiian sling spear with him just in case the 'cuda got too nosy. Mac then started swimming towards Dean.

The Caribbean is a strange place. So often, things are not as they seem and that being my first trip, it constantly surprised me. When I put my swim fin in the water and wiggled it a bit, the barracuda backed off and almost as suddenly a small bird landed on my shoulder (I can't make this stuff up). I don't know if it was because being so far away from people it didn't know any better or because being so far from anywhere it was taking what rest it could get, but this little thing landed on me and completely took my attention as it wandered around my arms, down to my hand and up again.

Something, however brought me back from my reverie. I looked down and the curious 'cuda was right at the tip of my flipper and when I looked out I could see Dean continue to drift out to sea. His banana was no longer giant, from my perspective. The question was, where the hell was Mac?! I jumped up and started to scan the water when I saw, in the completely opposite direction from Dean, Ariel and the islet, something desperately disturbing the water. It was Mac and I stood there for a moment not believing what I thought I was seeing. My father was a strong swimmer and very savvy of the sea. Could he be drowning? He went under and that was my answer. The current had proven to be much more then either men had thought. We hadn't noticed it while dealing with the screw because we held on to the boat the entire time.

Now, in an attempt to be really honest with myself and the reader, I will tell you that I hesitated. I have said before that my relationship with my father had darkness to it. Well, I thought for a nanosecond that I could probably get the boat back to Florida on my own. That thought, however, was immediately overpowered by my own voice saying, not in whisper, "Oh no you don't! You son-of-a-bitch, I just found you  and you are not leaving me again-not like this!" And then action took over. Remember how I mentioned earlier that Mac didn't show me how to deal with Ariel and all her idiosyncrasies and challenges? Well, I watched and listened anyway, so I knew that the electrical system was crap and so I needed to get down below and start the generator before I tried to start her engine or use the anchor windlass. I knew how to start the generator because I learned from my grandfather. I knew how to operate the anchor windlass because I had watched Mac and Dean do it (all I had ever used were not motorized) and I knew how to maneuver her because I have a cousin who sails often, I'd sailed the coast of Baja in winter and because-yup-I had watched Mac.

So, I pulled off the flipper, put the bird on a stanchion, went below, kicked on the gen, came back up, started the engine and the anchor windlass (I honestly don't remember if the windlass control was above deck or below). There was no finesse in how I raised her anchor. Mac had set her well in the coral but instead of easing Ariel and jimmying the hook loose, I just raised her up and moved Ariel forward. As soon as the hook cleared the water I swung the 52 ft boat around and went after Mac. By now I could barely see him; only the water he was trying to fight and his flailing arms. I went recklessly through the reefs (I heard some grinding a couple of times and hoped that was me damaging the coral instead of vice-versa) and came up beside Mac down current of him so he would drift right into the boat. I put the engine in neutral and went to the swim platform. Mac was under the water. He had dropped his spear early in his fight with the current. I knelt down, reached in and grabbed his arm. I pulled him up onto the platform and asked if he was ok. He couldn't answer as we was too busy throwing up seawater. I told him to stay put and I went to get Dean who had by now fallen (jumped?) off the banana and was frantically trying to swim to the boat. I missed moving Ariel down current of him so I put the engine in neutral, grabbed my one fin and a line and jumped over the side after him. He grabbed the line, said "I'm OK, I'm OK" so I grabbed the banana. We climbed aboard and found Mac had made his way to the deck and was still emptying the seawater from his lungs. We dropped the hook right there and I powered down Ariel. Both men needed some time to themselves. Dean went to the bow and Mac was towards the stern so I went down below and got Mac some fresh water to help ease the burning in his throat and then I made spaghetti. Hey! The adrenaline was pumping at this point! I thought about diving in to check on Ariel's hull but didn't think going in the water would go over well with the others at this point. I had to do something and it had originally been my dinner night anyway.

After the incident-birdie comes to dinner (see, the spaghetti?).

Mac hoarsely called me up to the cockpit before dinner was ready. He looked like himself again, if somewhat exhausted. He looked me dead in the eye and said "Thanks, Kid."  I know it sounds trite now, but it was pretty amazing for me. Then he said he thought he was a goner especially because I didn't know how to run the boat (ahem). I assured him that I had paid attention and that from now on I would like to be crew, not just passenger, on the trip. He readily agreed. I went down and brought up the pot of spaghetti. Dean came back and didn't say a word for the longest time. I just looked at Mac and started to dish up pasta when Dean finally said, "Thank you." Dean confessed that he had been up at the bow crying; he was sure he was lost that day too. The silence was suddenly very awkward. Thank goodness my little avian friend showed up and joined us for dinner! We decided to stay in that spot for the night and head out again the next morning.

The rest of the trip to the USVI was relatively uneventful. We had some interesting moments, for sure: stopped in Great Inaugua (Bahamanian island known for salt production and flamingos) for engine repairs,  and raced a hurricane past Puerto Rico. We had some moments in the USVI as well (did you know that the anchor will ONLY let go in the middle of the night when it is windy as hell and your only 100 yards from shore, that sea urchins will chase you and that giant cockroaches can swim?) but nothing would be as dramatic or affecting as that day near that tiny coral island.

We never did go to the islet looking for flotsam and jetsam. I figured I had brought my own on board anyway ;)

Post Script: I never knew my father to be at all sentimental and I was never sure he had really ever told this story to anyone. Last year, though, my brother told me that Mac had told the story over the years and had seemed outwardly proud whenever he did. That knowledge makes me happy.

Sea Stories: Come here, big buoy.

When we tell stories we like to show our clever, level-headed side. Nobody wants to look silly in our own stories! So typically, don't we choose to tell those stories that put us in our best light? Sometimes, though, the  best stories happen when the author is not the hero or savior of the moment. We all have moments where we make mistakes, misunderstand situations or make the wrong call; welcome to humanity. People are human, and even the best make mistakes. Mistakes allow us to learn, gain experience and, hopefully move forward knowing that we will do better next time. Besides, the ability to laugh at our foibles keeps us grounded, and if that is the case I am one of the most grounded people I know ;)

For example, on the trip with my father heading to the U.S Virgin Islands, I was on the first night watch (8p-12a) and Mac and Dean were down below sleeping. Looking out at the blanket of stars that covered the sky down to the horizon,  I saw in the distance a flickering orange light. Even with binoculars I couldn't tell what it was and I started to get quite nervous. Was there an oil rig this far south? Was there a ship afire? The light got bigger and I was a moment away from getting on the radio and waking the men below when the light suddenly started to take the familiar shape of the crescent moon. The tip rising "out of the sea" was so bright that I had mistaken it for fire. Within a few minutes the entire moon rose above the horizon line, the orange turned to a yellow-white and I, quite frankly, felt sheepish. Can you imagine if I had awakened Mac and called the Coast Guard? There would have been no living with him and I would have lost all radio privileges. He would have mocking rights for life!

I mentioned that I wondered if the light was coming from an oil rig. That question arose because while in the Gulf of Mexico we had sailed through cities of floating production system rigs. At this point (25 years ago) these rigs were connected to a stabilizing anchor. In the daytime, navigating through them was fairly straightforward, but at night perspective changes at sea just as it does on land; maybe more so  The lights from the rigs seem to be eerily floating above the water in which they drill. If your only vision of one of those monsters is from TV or photos, let me tell you they are quite the sight in person, especially when there are several within sight of each other, like alien ships hovering over the sea. These platforms are also guarded. There is a LOT of money tied up in these rigs (and their product) so the people running them are naturally suspicious and territorial when it comes to "visitors." On one particular night I was at the helm when I learned a couple of lessons about knowing one's environment and the importance of being a "good neighbor".

These rigs were anchored to the bottom of the sea, not by the towers themselves, but by impossibly huge cables that ran from the rigs out at an angle into the sea and down to the floor. The cables were marked by Volkswagon Beetle-sized buoys so that ships and sailors knew where they were and could avoid them. Riiiiiiight. Well, Mac went down to the galley to get some coffee and I sailed merrily along. The sea was pleasantly rolling, not glassy enough to mirror the stars but not a difficult sail, by any stretch of the imagination. When I saw the buoy I decided to stay well clear of it so I steered Ariel to port of the giant float, toward the massive oil platform. This course gave me a pretty good view of the rig; it's hundreds of lights and the giant structure against the night sky. I kept going and when I came to the next buoy, I did the same thing-steered to its port side, between it and the oil rig. Then two things happened at almost the same time: 1. Mac came up from below and took a look around and, 2. a motor boat came screaming (ok, moving fast but not screaming-it was the men on board who were screaming) up towards us. Things happened pretty quickly from then on. Mac looked around and got his bearings and then almost dropped his coffee cup. The men kept yelling, flashing their lights, blaring their horns and waving at us, and Mac told me to steer Ariel to starboard and get as close to the buoy as was safe. Turns out, on the rig-side of those buoys the cable gets more and more shallow until it comes out of the water and runs up to the rig. The buoys were there to let us know that anything inside their border was not safe for ships or boats because the cable could tear off the keel of a boat or damage the screws (propellers) of a ship and possibly, if the ship was big enough, snap the cable all together.

Yeah, well, when I screw up I do it all the way.

After I got Ariel to the outside of the buoy line, I heard some residual yelling from the crew of the motor boat as it moved to return to the rig and then I looked at my father, not knowing what to expect (I learned later that he could have quite a temper when he wanted). In this case, he just looked at me and did this under the breath laugh and said that he must not have told me about those-huh? Uhh, no Mac, you didn't. He also said I clearly inherited his luck and then proceeded to tell me more about the buoys, the rigs, how they work, who works on them, etc. Apparently the men in the boat could have detained us and called the Coast Guard to come and get us if we had been any more trouble --oops. More significantly, the cable could have damaged Ariel to the point that she would sink, thereby destroying my family's future home--ahem. I stored that info away in my head as I did everything I learned while on Ariel.

My father, though he initially invited me on as "crew" was really hoping that I would just be able to have fun on this trip and not worry about working. He wanted a chance for us to reconnect and he didn't want me to feel any pressure to do anything other than relax and enjoy the journey. What he had yet to learn was that working as crew was fun for me. Instead, during much of the early part of the trip he didn't "bother" me with the details of how Ariel functioned; her idiosyncrasies and her challenges.

That decision, to not show me, would prove to be a very serious mistake on his part later on in the voyage; one he would learn from and remember for a long time...

Sea Stories: Galveston to Fidel

I have said this before, I didn't know my Dad well. He and my Mom split before I was two and I rarely saw him. What I did know came partly from what others told me; my grandmother, my uncle, people who all had definite opinions about him. As for me, I have memories that are relatively few but quite clear (to me, at least). Once, when I was very young, he showed up at our house and I answered the door (door chain still in place) and this man asked to see my mother. I asked who he was and he said, "I'm your Dad." I closed the door and went in and told my Mom that some man who said he was my Dad was outside. I also remember spending a weekend on a boat he stayed on (co-owned?) with a doctor named Phil (how do we remember such stuff?). Mostly I imagined him based on the little I knew of his work at sea and a wooden frame he made for me with a fuzzy, black and white photo of Mac on the bridge of some giant ship on which he was, at that time I believe, a Bosun's Mate. Don't get me wrong, it was not all dolphins and sparkles. Some of my memories are benign and some are quite dark. My father was not a simple man.

One memory stands out in my mind, though, as TERRIFIC. It was something I completely expected (maybe even hoped for on some level) while being with my Dad; something adventurous, implausible, reckless and, well, fun. It was one of those cases where my description of him to friends seemed accurate: My Dad was a walking Jimmy Buffet song.

This is NOT Ariel, but an Irwin 52 that reminds me of her
 -uncredited photo

For context I will try and keep it short. In late summer of 1988, when I was 23, my father called and asked if I wanted to sail from Galveston, TX to the U.S virgin Islands. It turned out that he had traded his house in Maine for a 52 foot sailboat. Yes, yes he did. My stepmother and half-brother were already down in Charlotte-Amalie and were waiting for my Dad to bring Ariel, their new home, down to the warm waters of the Caribbean.

WELL OF COURSE I SAID YES and I met my father and his quirky friends in Texas. This bunch included one of his shipmates from his Merchant Marine days, Dean, and a "crewman" he brought on because the guy was an electrician and wanted a ride to the USVI. I was to learn not much later that he had never sailed and thus spent much of the first five days locked in his cabin with debilitating seasickness-which wasn't eased by the fact that his cabin was in direct line of the diesel fumes emanating from the engine...And yes, we all told him, to no avail, that he would feel better with some fresh air.

The one time the electrician did venture out was the day we left Galveston and we were still in the huge bay. Mac put him at the helm to get the guy used to it and it ended up a near-disaster. I was down below, unpacking, when I heard Dean and Mac yelling at this poor guy. I poked my head out of the hatch above my forward v-berth to see a huge black mass engulfing my view. Electrician man had sailed us into the path of an oncoming freight ship (you know, those really big ones that carry lots of those big containers that carry things like cars). I still have no idea why he thought IT would move for US-it probably didn't even know we were there. Mac heaved Ariel to starboard and we got out of the giant ship's way, but we took a beating from the wake the massive thing created as it went by. I didn't see much of the electrician after that, until we reached the Florida Keys and he left the boat, for good.

September, 1988 saw a massive hurricane hit the western Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. Gilbert killed hundreds of people during its trek across the sea, first making landfall on the Yucatan peninsula, then back into the Gulf before making its final landfall on mainland Mexico. At one point the monster storm was a Cat 5 and wreaked havoc on everything in its path and within hundreds of miles in every direction from its eye. We sailed after Gilbert had come and gone, but its destructive force would shape my father's decision making and add some definite spice to the trip.

After we bid adieu to the electrician and stocked upon provisions in Key West the sail was somewhat uneventful, in a gorgeous-I-can't-believe-I-am-here sort of way. Every morning we were greeted by dolphins playing in our bow wake, flying fish landing on the deck (and yes, the bunny hugger in me went and slipped them back into the water whenever they were alive), and huge manta rays leaping completely out of the water. We had left the deep azure blue of the Gulf behind and had entered the pale turquoise of the Caribbean with no fuss or muss.

In charting our course to the USVI, my father made the decision to go down the "back side" or west side of the Bahamas between them and Cuba. The sea in this region is quite shallow across the huge shoal that is the Great Bahama Bank and Gilbert's recent run had played with sea levels such that Mac was not so trusting of his charts. There are countless cays and islets in this area; small, uncharted masses that are not much more than old exposed coral heads surrounded by submerged, jagged reef structures that could rip through Ariel's hull. Thus, Mac made the decision to make the down run closer to Cuba than to the Bahamas. This was no big deal as long as we stayed at least the 12 nautical miles offshore that made up the international water border. The thing about sailing in the Caribbean is that between the sun, the animals, the drift and the beer, it is easy to let attention lapse. Suffice it to say that we got closer to Cuba than we should have; closer than they wanted us to be and they were about to let us know it.

One night, as I was reading in my bunk, I heard what sounded like a fairly large boat coming near us. This seemed odd as we hadn't seen any other boats since we had left the Keys; only far off freighters making their way north. I wandered back to the companionway and came out on deck. Not only was it a big boat, it was a small ship. It looked like some old, rejected Soviet gunship; something you'd see in a propaganda film from the 1950s. This ship, however, was shining its spotlight on us and moving ever closer, readying itself to come along side.  It was moving faster than we were and suddenly I figured I had better run up to the bow and throw a fender over the side so the damn metal boat wouldn't smash into our port side. The ship's deck was significantly higher than ours and any collision would have pitted our gunwales against a metal hull. Just as I threw the fender I was met with something I had never, ever seen before...From above Ariel I saw something jump over the side of the gunship and onto our deck. I was flabbergasted and my first thought was whether this guy was ok. I ran up to him and asked if he was fine at which time he raised himself up, pointed an automatic weapon at me and started speaking fiercely fast in Spanish.

Our "captor" was terrified. He was my age if not younger. I imagine he drew the short straw for who was going to jump from their ship to our boat. He was lucky he didn't break a limb, especially in his leather-soled shoes on a wet deck in the dark on a pitching sea. I had never had a gun pointed at me before and I put my hands up, asked him to please speak "mas despacio, por favor" (more slowly, please), and gathered from the gesturing with his weapon that we should move towards the cockpit where my Dad sat, slightly dumbfounded in an amused sort of way, and Dean was positively doe-eyed (no doubt thinking of stories he'd read of people getting thrown into Cuban  jails never to be seen again). At the sound of my Spanish, the "jumper" (I don't remember his name) relaxed a little and told us to follow the Cuban ship into the harbor.

Once inside the small protected bay, we tied up alongside the Cuban ship and then the Comandante and a couple of his officers came on board. They searched Ariel from bow to stern but not in any kind of destructive or invasive way. On the contrary, they were quite respectful and asked us to move things like seat cushions and to open drawers and cabinets. They confiscated our passports, our charts and then tried to take the radio mic, but it was not removable without breaking so the Comandante simply asked us not to use it (Ok!). As the only one who spoke a modicum of Spanish I was named translator and when they asked questions I would do my best to translate using my high school Spanish and lots of hand gestures. You can probably guess that this was a long and tedious process. Mac had thoughtfully dumped his stash of (for you innocents out there) "tobacco" when the Cubans first started moving closer to us, but he didn't throw his guns overboard. Early in the trip I asked why he had guns and he said that the Caribbean still had pirates but these drove cigarette boats, smuggled drugs and favored stealing sailboats (and killing the owners) as cover for their operations. When the Cubans asked about their purpose, I simply said the only word in Spanish that I remembered for "bird" and that was "paloma" (high school Spanish, remember!). The answer satisfied them as they all seemed to understand the need for hunting (whatever). I assume by now you are getting afraid for us, as these folks have clearly savage intentions for our little crew - not.  The men left the boat and got on their radio with someone further inland; a higher up, we presumed. It was obvious from our eavesdropping that someone wanted to know more about us and was making the Comandante go through the entire formal procedure. So, he and his officers came back on board and started asking us questions. The Comandante was a small, quiet, older man who Mac was convinced was given this gig as a reward for supporting El Jefe during the Revolucion. Could be, but he seemed kind and fatigued and not really that interested in keeping us or filling out the mountain of forms they brought with them.

Late into the night, after telling them every specification of the boat, everywhere we had been on this trip, where we were going and might stop on the way. After copying down passport info, serial numbers from every piece of technical equipment we carried. After looking at the engine, the anchor, the sails, the cabins and everything in between, the Cubans thought they finally had enough info to take back to their superiors. Frankly I was surprised at that point that they didn't know my shoe size, how many fillings I had and my 6th grade teacher's name. But that bit being done, now we just waited. We were tired. My Dad was nervous and I couldn't figure out why. Surely he had seen more nerve wracking situations than this in his decades at sea? I finally asked what was bugging him and he shook his head a couple of times and finally blurted out, "Your Mother is going to KILL ME."

As the night (morning) wore on we relaxed because it made no sense to do otherwise. I wandered to the bow and looked out over what little I could see of the bay. There were a few lights on the pier where the ship was tied and a light somewhere under the water that cast an eerily beautiful glow. I must have zoned out a little staring at the water when suddenly a shadow swam gracefully through the light. The unmistakable shape of a hammerhead shark slipped through the water and brought me back to my senses. Two crewman across from me on the ship saw the same sight and laughingly asked if I wanted to go swimming. That interaction started other crew members chatting with me and soon it seemed the entire crew was topside flirting with the Americana. They were all so young, like soldiers everywhere I suppose and the truth is, they were just like me. We clearly had much more in common than we had differences, even down to the music we listened to ("You like Tina Turner-so do we!"). After a while, Mac suggested I ask them for a newspaper to take as a souvenir. When I asked them, they suddenly got a bit suspicious, as if taking one day's worth of news would somehow shift the balance of power between Cuba and America...But when I explained that without something to show back home, NOBODY would believe this happened, they understood and one of the sailors got an idea, ran below and came back with a book that he presented to me as a gift. The book's title was "Fidel y la Religion" and was comprised of many interviews with the Cuban Leader by a Cuban academic. Frankly, it was fantastic! Where else could I find such a book? I thanked him and asked if he would sign his name, and they did one better, they listed the entire crew on the inside cover. It was, in a word, awesome.

Finally, at about 3am the Comandante asked to come aboard (as if he had to ask?). He told us we were free to go and he returned our belongings. He also said we were welcome to stay if we wanted to until daylight. Mac asked me to ask which would be better for them and he politely said it would be better if we left as soon as we could. It was a very anticlimactic ending to what should have been an international incident! Instead, we shook hands, wished them all well, hoped for a time we could visit legally, untied Ariel and raised the fenders. We motored out of the bay and I went to bed.

The next morning we were greeted by the same gunship coming up to us, but this time it was blaring its horn and the crew was waving enthusiastically in one last goodbye. In our own little way we felt we did wonders for Cuban-American relations that night. And we felt extremely privileged and special. We learned later that before us, the New Zealand, a challenger for the America's Cup that year was being carried by a ship that was intercepted by a gunboat and detained for a short time in the small Cuban port of Punto Cayo Malo. Coincidence? I think not.

My Father, Malcom, Arthur Bedell (Mac to everyone) would have turned 70 today. And although he and I didn't share many adventures together, we shared some really good ones (more on those later). Happy Birthday Mac. With love, always. oxo

Unfortunately, the only pic I have with Mac-1988, somewhere in the Caribbean

Tell me a story...

I have been wanting to blog; to write something, but I kept coming back to the season in which we find ourselves. No, not fall or Halloween, but ELECTION. Oh my, and this is an intense one, but I promised myself I would not go political because, let's face it, there is plenty of that to find on the web right now.

So, while talking to a friend today it occurred to me to simply start writing down stories. Not fiction, but memories of things that remain, for whatever reason, in my heart and mind. Not that they are in any way special or overly fascinating, but they are mine; some shared with others still around to read them  (and discount them :) and others in which I am the only player still alive to recount. That sole survivor thinking is why I am writing these memories down.

Stories shape us. Family stories provide links to the past  that help define who we are and how we perceive the world. My family used to tell a story every Thanksgiving about a relative who was returning to the States from Sweden with her young daughter but missed her connecting ship in Southampton because of a coal strike. That was in 1912 and the ship was the Titanic. We always got quiet (no matter how many times we had heard it before) because of the implied consequences had our great-grandmother (who was still four years from giving birth to my grandfather) actually made her passage. She was not wealthy and so would have ridden, at best, 3rd class and we all know what happened to most of them. Now, it should be said that I have looked over oodles of records for the doomed ocean liner and was unable to find any note of my great-grandmother being booked, so it is likely that it was another ship, with a much less dramatic fate, that she actually missed. Whether it was "factual" or not, over time, became moot. Instead, it was what that story represented; strong women traveling without their husbands (in 1912!), knowledge of our origins, gratitude for the life we have, a spirit of adventure -I am sure it meant different things to each of us, but it was still important to our family or it wouldn't have been repeated so often.

Personal stories also help us develop our bank of wisdom and experience. Stories define who we are as a society; what is of import to us and what we revile. So, I write these down hoping, at the very least, that my only child will one day find them interesting and useful to understanding who her mother was and is as an individual above and beyond being "Mom".

When I was really young, and I don't know exactly how young because little kids have an envious relationship with time; they don't really get it. Nora gets so frustrated because in her mind she has no real sense of what 6 weeks feels like yet. Time is unimportant to little kids, except when they wants something. Anyway, when I was quite young we lived in a town in California named Altadena. This city sits in Los Angeles County in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains. We lived near what was, at the time, the end of the road; to get higher, you hiked. I remember our house pretty well but it was in itself unremarkable. As the only child of a single mother, I had my own small room and we had a dog (Butterscotch) and a cat and a yard. My Mom worked a lot and she was not a "garden goddess" at all. In fact, she claimed she could kill ivy if she tried to nurture it. We also had neighbors.

Mr. and Mrs. Williams lived to the north(?) and though I remember them as nice, it was our neighbors to the south I will never forget. Howard and Ginger lived in another unremarkable house except that it was the stereotypical hippie pad of the late 1960s, early 1970s. There were beads hanging in the doorways, colorful rugs and posters and bright pillows and fringe. They had two enormous (remember, I was little) malamute/husky-type dogs named Dharma and Zeno. Ginger can only be described now as looking like Cher (during the "I Got You Babe" days), with long dark hair and bangs. Howard sits in my memory reminding me of Ringo Starr; scruffy hair, mustache and soul patch (in his Sgt.Pepper days). And, close your eyes kids of you wilt easily, they smoked a lot of pot. Additionally, they grew their own. The thing is, if the cops were to come down the street looking for the ganja growers, H&G would be their first stop; they just fit the image, especially to the police in those days.

Meanwhile, my poor mother had tried and failed miserably to grow a small vegetable garden in our backyard. Nothing extravagant; just some tomatoes, carrots and lettuce. Whether too much water or too little, crappy soil or too many pine needles from the tree behind us, or too much or too little sun, those plants didn't even come up and if they did, they suffered a wilty and sad death. My Mom was so disappointed. Her sister could grow hibiscus from a rock, her thumb was so green. One day, though, Mom went into the back yard and saw little plants coming up in the rows she had planted. Encouraged and assuming they were just late risers, she carefully put little fences around them to discourage wildlife (squirrels? rats? rabbits? peacocks?) and tended the plants faithfully.

TOMATO plant

You can see where this is heading, can't you?

Sure enough, one day a knock on the door found two policeman informing my Mom that there had been a report of someone in the neighborhood cultivating marijuana and would she mind if they had a look in our back yard. My Mom obligingly let them in figuring she had nothing to hide. What those officers found was a neat little pot garden complete with protective fencing and a hose sitting close by for easy watering. As the officers looked at her with skepticism, my mother nearly fainted away, she was so mortified. She desperately explained her situation and her heretofore inability to grow plants. The police just started to laugh. My mother was the least suspicious-looking person on the block (except the Williams'). Rather than hauling my Mom off to jail on drug charges (can you imagine the call to my grandparents?!), they pulled up the plants and suggested she learn what plants look like before she decided to help them grow.

NOT a tomato plant

Later that evening Howard and Ginger came to the back gate as Mom was cleaning up the last remnants of her garden. They were abjectly apologetic for getting her in any possible trouble. They figured (not all together incorrectly) that nobody would ever suspect my Mom of growing weed, so they used her as a "surrogate" to allow their small crop to thrive. They also assumed that their plants would blend in with Mom's veggies and it would be relatively danger-free. They didn't know about my Mom's destructive garden inabilities.

Years later we ran into Ginger. We had all long since left the neighborhood and she and Howard had divorced and gone their separate ways. She was a "respectable" career woman living on her own in Pasadena. However, we all laughed as she and my Mom recalled the short period when my Mom was a pot farmer.


My Mother died in 2002 of Inflammatory Breast Cancer. She could always laugh at herself and would be pleased to see I remember these "little moments" in our lives. XOX Love you Mom.

Mumsy 1961 HS Senior pic