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...
It's interesting how we can assume that people know the same things we do. Things that are so second-nature to us seem obvious, but when something like this happens, it reminds us that training is vital. Maybe that's why you became a trainer...lol sure.
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