“…I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
– Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), Casablanca
It was my first look. That moment – the culmination of dreams. In that instance, I first laid eyes on her, and she was mine. Sure there was some fine print and verbiage making the final sale contingent upon a sea trial, but the check was in my bag. For all intents and purposes, that little green ComPac 27 in slip B-5 at Gregg Neck Marina was, from that point on, reliant upon me for her care. Prior to that moment, I had only seen her through pictures. We met online and she was in a different state. Sure she looked good in the pictures provided in the listing, but how would the pictures compare to reality? My brother, who lived about an hour from her, checked her over after I initially started seriously considering her and confirmed that she was indeed worthy to pursue. My sister-in-law encouraged me to make a deposit contingent upon survey just to avoid losing the boat – quite a solid endorsement. In conversation with the surveyor, she described the boat as “lovely,” and reported her to be in “bristol” condition – stressing to me the rarity of that in the world of nearly 30 year old used sailboats. Though I had positive confirmation from my brother – who, better than anyone else understands the significance of ComPacs in my dreams, my plans for grand adventure with the boat, as well as my aversion to spending money; and a better survey than I could have expected, the question still lingered in the back of my mind, would she speak to me?
The weeks prior had been a logistics nightmare – between obtaining insurance coverage for a boat I had never seen, finding a surveyor willing to travel the distance necessary to view the boat, and figuring out if we wanted to tackle renting a truck to tow her home to Michigan ourselves or hire a trucking company – and all of this regarding a boat located 900 miles away. Without the help of my father and brother, I don’t know how the details would have fallen into place. The easy part then should have been the flight out to Maryland. However, severe weather along the Atlantic coast would add yet another logistics nightmare to the equation. Rather than take the direct flight to Baltimore at 16:00 on Friday, I opted for a later flight through Chicago so that I could get in a full day of work – that was my mistake. Thinking that, in the long run, those few extra hours at the office would make a difference. To make a long story short, rather than beating the storm caused chaos, I ended up stuck in O’hare and eventually claimed the last seat available on a Red Eye which finally carried me into Washington DC the following morning. The extra time stuck in airports and the late flight gave my anxiety even more time to permeate my thoughts – perhaps this flight experience was a bad omen on the start of this chapter in the adventure. As I sat on the plane headed to DC, under the dim overhead light on an otherwise dark plane, I couldn’t help but feel as though I was flying out to rendezvous with a mistress – the feeling of cheating on my family’s boat, a boat that has been a part of our family since I was three, was overwhelming – so much so, I wrote a letter trying to justify my actions. A fruitless effort, but it was the best I could do to try to communicate my guilt. Around 2:00 the morning after my scheduled departure, I finally arrived – though tired, at least I had made it out there and could still make our 8:00 appointment to meet the boat on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
That morning, it was dreary and rainy, the type of morning where nothing that is outdoors looks good. What better conditions to get a true picture of how my boat would look. The drive to Galina from Annapolis, only an hour and a half, seemed much longer – not helped by the many dead end turns resulting from our GPS’s inability to find the marina. Gregg Neck Boat Yard is a step back in time – full of broken dreams and lost hopes – a yard worthy of its own write-up. As my brother and I walked through the gravel yard past an old ferrocement slop to the long rickety wooden dock with the first slip occupied by an old steel hulled live aboard with a captain looking to have been cast for the part, the little mahogany bow pulpit and spoon bow of a ComPac caught my eye – it was my ComPac – there she was, the most beautiful girl on the dock, and I was walking to take her hand in this dance. There she was, and she was everything I could have hoped she would be. We met the seller, who had his new boat temperately tied to the end slip on the pier. After touring his new boat – a larger boat with similar aesthetics, we went back to explore the boat for which I had travelled so far. How would her helm feel? Would there be signs of moisture leaking through the brass portholes on this damp day? How would the teak look, would she smell like an old boat? As I stood at the helm, looking through the dodger down the length of her deck, with her proud little bow pulpit at the end, the realization of what this moment meant was palpitable. It wasn’t just the realization of the dream since childhood of owning a boat – this style boat specifically, the subsequent decline in my bank account, or the magnitude of the responsibility to maintain her to the condition she had been so lovingly kept thus far in her life — it was the fact that, with this boat, my life will be forever altered. With this boat, this boat whose helm was in my hands, I will take on an adventure – the next chapter of life now starting to be written.
The seller was kind enough to not only sea trial the boat with us, rather, he spent the whole day showing us how to rig the boat, gave a primer on the systems (some of his tricks would prove handy later in our travels), and sailed with us down to Rock Hall, MD. To be honest, that first day was overwhelming and surreal. I wrote in my log:
“July 15, 2017 Saturday
Complete rigging of boat at Gregg Neck Boat Yard Galina, MD
Depart apprx. 10:45 to Sassafras River
First Draw Bridge at Georgetown
Beautiful beam reach sail much of way to Rock Hall once on the Bay. Traveled most of the trip w/ a similar [sized] Pacific Seacraft – we proved to be faster. Arrived at Rock Hall and entered via “local” route aligning tower and light. Stayed @ Waterman’s Restaurant [arrived] 16:30…”
After docking at a slip along the boardwalk of Waterman’s Restaurant, we settled in down below. With a tub stocked with food for our week long “delivery” cruise to Annapolis serving as a table, the seller and I signed over the titles, and with the transfer of the cashier’s check, this little traditionally appointed boat, in whose cabin we were sitting, officially became my responsibility. My brother caught the moment on camera, and the look on my face in the picture says more than I could describe in words – the look of realizing the weight of the moment and what lies ahead.
That evening, my brother, the seller, his girlfriend (who joined us there), and I had dinner at Waterman’s – from our table on the deck around the corner from the slip in which the little boat sat snugly, you could barely see her short stout mast over the roofline of the restaurant. My first dinner with that view – and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. It was evident that the seller loved her too, as did his girlfriend who held back tears while she reflected on their times together, and when offered aboard one last time, she declined, understandably.
Later that night, my brother and I sat in her cockpit under the illumination of a little Weems & Plath oil lamp – the docks of the restaurant quiet for the evening save for a few onlookers – some of whom could be overheard commenting on the “cute” or “beautiful” little boat – those comments were directed at my boat. My brother gave me a little pirate flag, which we managed to hang from the shrouds with a little jerry-rigging. My first boat warming gift, and how appropriate to grace the little “pirate ship” that will carry Ziggy and me along our adventure ahead as we venture into this next decade of life.
As Bogey said, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.